Hey club lexus guys, I recently inherited a 2000 RX300, and the engine won't start & the car had set for over 2 yrs. I have thankfully found this site and performed a few pre/troubleshooting steps - clean iaic, tested starter, confirmed spark, (immobilizer does not seem to be the problem), battery recharged and engine will turn over. So I have now made it to getting to getting out the bad gas. So my RX300 had a drain plug on the gas tank which was great to find, and I have drained as much gas as will come out, and it was bad, and smelled terrible. SO my question is, the tank is U shaped and the part on the back right does not have a drain bolt. SO can you guys let me know if I need to siphon gas from that side, or would the drain bolt from driver's side have effectively drained the whole tank?
Thanks, Greg

Whoa, I hope your injector lines up front are gummed up...You may need a professional cleaning, but maybe unhooking a line on top of engine and see if fuel actually flows.

So to answer your concern, fuel is flowing up front and spark plugs were getting wet on prior test start. My next steps are 1) to try to run good fuel straight into fuel rails, and, once I can get car started again 2) put good gas and seafoam in tank. Any thoughts?

I am hoping to tackle this bad gas thing first try, and not have to redo. Also trying to avoid pulling the fuel pump. So any idea if drain plug really drains entire tank?

+1 on the seafoam. It will do wonders if you get it to the right places.

I haven't dealt with anything like this but my initial thought if you real think its fuel related is to let the old fuel drain out of the system as close to the injectors as much as possible. like disconnect a hose in the engine bay and let the fuel pump push the gas out into a container. Then also drain the rest from the fuel rail. I know hondas have a nut you can remove on the fuel rail not sure if toy/lex have this. Then add fuel stabilizer in the tank and fresh gas.

And since you mentioned the immobilizer, as far as I know the security light should be blinking if there's are problem and if you hook up a code reader it should throw a code. Talking about code readers, you might try to hook one up anyway to see if there are any codes. If you don't have one try autozone or one of those places that loan tools for free.

There's a lot of knowledgeable peeps on this forum, I'm sure they'll chime in soon. Good luck!

The key to running engine are, spark, timing, air and fuel.

Charge up the battery or get a new one installed.

Do the simple things ,,, check if the spark is there. take out plug#2 and lay it on the block. Have an assistant crank the engine while you look at the plug tip to see the spark. [keep in mind engine can run with 5 plugs so stand clear]
You should be able to smell gas once take plug 2 out.

Unless there was plenty of condensation due to tank not being full or water entered the tank or the gas was of not good quality ... imho gas in usa will last a year in a sealed tank.

Fuel pump can dry and rot out if the gas level was low.


Salim