Good morning-I got the call late last night from my 15 year old that the engine is running bad so he left it on the side of the road. It wasn't very farm from a gas station so I started it and limped it to the gas station parking lot. I noticed the left side of the engine when running almost sounded like it wasn't running on all 6 cylinders, missing bad, and no power. It has 180k miles and the timing/water pump was done at 118k. I purchased it from the original owner 3 years ago and they gave me a folder full of receipts from all that they did to it over the years through a Lexus dealer so it has been taken care of. I was hoping to get 250k miles out of this motor for my son to get through school with it. Any words of wisdom or similar experiences with this motor from what I've described which I realize isn't much? I saw some threads on the throttle body sensors, etc. I've had the CEL on for some time now for the evap canister, but never seemed to give me trouble I am taking it to a friend that is a mechanic today to see what he thinks. I just don't have a good feeling after hearing it run like that.

 

Just curious, what's your 15 year old doing driving a car?
If there's a new code then you'll need to find out what it is with a code reader.

 

Well, here in Iowa they can drive on a school permit until 16. It was my commuter car, but his truck blew up a couple weeks ago so he's been driving the 300. Good news is that it was just a spark plug that was loose and popped out. Good time to replace the valve cover gasket.

 

Spark plug was loose and popped out?
Spark plugs are supposed to be tight to prevent compression leaks and therefore wouldn't work themselves loose if done properly.

 

I was thinking the plugs, ignition coil or the spark plug wires. Like the others have mentioned there should be a DTC code for this. Get the code and let us know.