So I'm driving down the road today and a chime sound goes off followed by the check engine light and message saying check VSC. I drive over to the Lexus of Seattle dealership and the service advisor looks it over and asks me if I've gotten gas lately.

He checks the gas cap and it's loose and tells me that's probably the problem.

Now for me, it's a long stretch between a loose gas cap and a check VSC message and a red exclamation point on the dashboard. Turns out that the loose gas cap shows engine trouble codes relating to exhaust gas recirculation leaks, which prompts the check engine light coming on, and the check engine light results in an orderly shutdown of traction control, for fear of somehow harming that system. I'm a little fuzzy on his explanation of this.

So the service tech erased the display, and everything checked out fine. The LS 430 diagnostics are really top notch, so make sure you tighten your gas cap securely.

 

Same thing happened to me a few months ago when I purchased my LS. The dealership I purchased the car from didn't tighten the cap tightly. 100 miles later chime sound goes off followed by the check engine light and message saying check VSC. I got the code reset and everything was fine. Now I know how important it is to tighten your gas cap.

 

Yes, I've had the same issue before, but without the VSC msg, but that was on my previous '98 LS400.

First time it happend, it was due to a loose cap gasket, so i had to replace the cap. The second time was when my brother filled her up, and forgot to tighten the cap.

 

I have a 2008 ES350. I pulled into a gas station to fill it up with 93 octane gas, a national brand. When I left and about two miles later the dash panel lights up. To make a long story short, I bought gas that was 20% something other then gas. It cost me a nice chunk of vacation money to get the gas removed from the system. So it's not only a loose gas cap that can cause the VSC system to activate.