Need help. Got an oil change and had unfortunate turn of events. The oil filter loosened while driving the car and the car lost all of its oil. Unfortunately drove the car for about 1/4 mile with no oil. Since that incident my mechanic has been trying to figure out why my check engine and VSC lights keep coming on. Here's a detail of everything that has happened. We can not figure out why the lights continue to come on. The car runs smooth and doesn't seem to have any indications of a problem (other than the lights). Please help.

3/24/2011: oil change

3/25: oil filter loose& car lost oil

3/26: towed to Pilsbury, replaced oil filter

3/30: replaced cam shaft seal b/c oil still leaking

4/5: VSC & check engine light came on - recalibrated traction control system

4/21/2011: VSC & check engine light came on - code was misfire on #1 cylinder. Cleared code.

4/25: VSC & check engine light came on - code was misfire on #1 cylinder. Code can come on if belt timing is off.

4/26: reset timing belt

5/4: VSC & check engine light came on

5/5: - code was misfire on #1 cylinder. Just reset code.

5/19: VSC & check engine light came on

5/21: rear light failure indicator came on. Went off after 5 minutes of driving. Checked lights when indicator came on. No bulbs were out.

5/23: code was misfire on #1 cylinder. Swapped coil on cylinder 1 with coil on cylinder 2.

5/27: VSC & check engine light came on. code was misfire on #1 cylinder. Roger wants to pull the timing belt. Take car in next week.

6/13: VSC & check engine light came on

6/15: cleaned mass air flow sensor. "It didn't look to bad"

6/16: VSC & check engine light came on

6/22: found loose ground wire and reground

6/27: VSC & check engine light came on

 

What car do you have?

If I had to guess, I would say the mechanic screwed up something when doing the cam seals.

 

Looks like an 01 RX300 from your profile... You're continuing to have problems with Cyl#1 it seems. If they have swapped the coil and the misfire has returned to the same cylinder, then i would start looking at the fuel injector. It may be leaking, causing extra fuel in that cylinder and causing the misfire. Are there anything driveablity problems? Does it run rough? Need more info.. and all of the times you list VSC and check engine light coming on, what are the codes? P0301?

 

What I wonder about is:

4/26: reset timing belt

What is meant by this exactly? What the timing belt not on correctly? Is the valve timing correct now? Also, 6/22: found loose ground wire and reground. Mechanic did not assemble properly?

 

I'm not sure to a couple of your questions since the mechanic is passing the info to me. He hasn't given me the exact code just says the code is "cylinder 1 misfire". Yes the same code reappeared after the coil was switched with cylinder 2. still got a cylinder 1 misfire.

There did not appear to be any problems with the timing belt, the mechanic was just guessing at what might have been wrong. So he took the timing belt off and put it back on (if I understood correctly).

The car is running fine. It does not seem to have any rough running. The lights will stay off for a day to several weeks each time the mechanic works on the car.

For the ground wire, the mechanic told me that he found a loose ground wire and was hoping that was the problem.

Thanks for the help.

 

I myself have had a VSC failure and a check engine code. It always happens when I am away from our GSE shop; I guess I need to have the code puller with me. My problem started when I had a 1000 watt Kicker amp and two 15" kickers. First off the amp was clipping at idel. I replaced the 100 amp stock altenator for a 250 amp one from Ebay $345.00. It clearded the clipping problem but now I get a VSC fail light and a check engine light and the car goes dead while driving. I have to pull the pos batt cable conector off, re attach it then pull it off one more time for the car to run normaly. I suspect that the car audio place tied the remote turn on switch to the power side of the VSC circut. If I drive with the VSC off the car runs fine, so I will check to see where the remote turn on is tied to and post my results.