91LS400LEX

Going back a couple of days, I took my LS400 to a local Toyota dealer (9 miles away, vs. 20 miles to the local Lexus dealer and about $25 cheaper) to have the oil changed. They foolishly left the plastic bag type covering that they had originally placed on the seat down in the floor board which I found out this morning.

To back up more, this morning, my car was iced over. I had washed my aunts Nissan Altima last night (Tuesday night) - it was not that cold, as it was in the upper 40s around 4:30pm. The Lexus got soaking wet in the process and temperatures fell into the mid 20s this morning, making my car like it had been in an ice berg. Door lock was frozen on the driver side, so I went in through the passenger side, started it, made sure temp was on 85°/defrost and went back in. Came out and it was 30° outside at this poing this morning, so I had to pull and pull to get the door open, so much so I thought I was going to break the door handle (which we all know is a potential issue on these), but thankfully I didnt and it opened.

SO.... I get into the car and and position myself in the seat and look down at the instrument panel and see something disturbing - the engine is turning at nearly 5000 RPMS! We all know how quiet these cars engines are, so I did not know it until it was already that high and instantly picked up my foot. Foolish - what had happened was that dang plastic had evidently blown out from under the seat and had got wound up around the accelerator pedal and when I press my foot to the floor, it went against the plastic, taking the accelerator down with it!

It may be partly my fault, but I feel the dealer should have not left this in the car, because when I was coming in, I saw them removing this from a car that was going out, but not my car. It scares me to think what may have happened had this got in the brake pedal or something.

Now I was very concerned that I had damaged or weakened the engine, but I went onto work and the engine sounds like it always has (no knocking, smoking, etc), so I do not think it hurt the engine initially, but wondering if it may have weakened it somehow. The car seemed to have blown out some soot though/smoke though. I had personally never had it above 3000 rpms (never any need), so I guess it was blowing out some stuff that had not been blown out before.

I am thinking these cars have a rev limiter that will shut the engine off before it "blows up"? Also when that happened I had a flashback from about a month ago when I was in a Bojangles drive-thru and a girl came out and got in a SC400 and for some reason started the car and raced her engine to what seemed like even more than my car and it put out some smoke. I do not know why she did it... maybe she had been to that dealer and had plastic wrapped around her pedal too....

So, since my engine seems fine, am I over concerned for nothing?

Thanks.

cation

I can see your cause for concern, but if you hear no audible knocking sound like that of a connecting rod I think you're ok. Just don't make a habit out of revving your engine to 5k rpms when cold.

PureDrifter

iTrader: (10)

yea, could lead to oil starvation problems in the head.

but in general, revving to 5000rpm is fine (when motor is warm) and if you do it once or twice on accident on a cold motor it won't significantly shorten your engine's life.

91LS400LEX

Thanks guys. Yeah, there is absolutely no difference in engine sound. Also, I forgot to mention that the engine had warmed up to the 2nd line up.

Also, the RPMS may be been more like 4500-4900 range. It was just when I looked down it was going down in the upper 4K range. I about flipped out, because like I said, I dont recall ever taking it up past 3000 rpms.

Its unbelievable how quiet these engines are at nearly 5K RPM.

ryanSC300lover

iTrader: (1)

As they have said, probably fine.

I didn't know the LS had problems with breaking door handles. First I heard of this. Anything to be careful of? It was 25 degrees here, and door lock was fine.

91LS400LEX

Well, its not a big problem, but I have seen some gen 1 LS400s with broken exterior door handles - same thing with the Camrys of that era, as they are made of the same thing. They sometimes break. I guess the metal sometimes becomes fatigued.

There is really nothing to prevent it- just to be careful if its iced up. Mine would have been fine had I not got the side of the car soaking wet the evening before while washing my aunts car for her.

ryanSC300lover

iTrader: (1)

Ah ok, thanks for the heads up!

PureDrifter

iTrader: (10)

the actual mechanisms are mostly fine, its the handle part on the outside that tends to die from stress/fatigue since the lock is only on one side.
i have pictures from when i replaced mine a few weeks back but haven't had a chance to put them together yet

it's a relatively simple job, albeit devilishly annoying if you have hands larger than those of a small 18year old oriental girl.

19psi

of course it's fine. it's engineered to safely run up to redline all day long. obvioiusly when cold you dont want to do it. but that one time didnt' hurt anything. you could drive at 5000 rpm all day long if you wanted to.

JBrewster

Sounds like it was your carelessness...

91LS400LEX

Thanks.. Yeah, that the dealer left a piece of plastic in my car that had went partially between/under the seat, blown out and got around my gas pedal that morning? Oh, OK.

Obviously you did not read the overview. They are supposed to remove these from the car - not wedge them under the seat. Why else where they removing them from one of the cars that was leaving as I was coming in?

91LS400LEX

Thanks 19PSI... yeah, all seems fine. Thanks for the reassurance.

JBrewster

If you had paid more attention to what you were doing then maybe it wouldn't have gotten wrapped around the accelerator.

91LS400LEX

It was very early in the morning and obviously when I opened the door, the wind pulled it near the pedal and when I got in and pressed my foot near it, the pedal came down. I was already running late anyway due to the door being froze shut. I had no idea there was a piece of plastic left by the dealer in the floor.

PureDrifter

iTrader: (10)

honestly, what difference does it make?