Nails

Hi All On the way to work this morning, my Lexus starting "jolting" into gear rather than the silky smooth changes it usually does. I think it was just doing it from 2nd to 3rd. Could this be something as simple as gearbox oil or is it time for my car to meet its maker? The car is only worth peanuts so I won't be spending hundreds getting the gearbox fixed. Thanks Mike

That is true, but my mechanic is friendly and will just turn the light off. It takes a while to come back on and certainly won't come back on during the MOT.

I really wouldn't bother. Mine does this and it still passes the MOT fine, the tester just turns the light off and emissions wise it is fine. If it starts to fail emissions tests you might have to get it changed. Just live with the light being on is my advice.

Well it isn't coming from the sunroof otherwise the car would be a swimming pool by now, I have had the car around 2 months and the carpets have only dried out in this time, not got wetter. Perhaps the drains were partially blocked, causing the problem. Either way, it appears to be sorted. The air vents on the passenger side will get looked at eventually but is not urgent.

I better check the expansion tank at some point, I checked the radiator cap and that was full. I have been driving it 50 miles a day for work for a couple of weeks now so I think if it was losing coolant I would have noticed by now. Plus, as I say, there is no water in the car now. I bought it with wet carpets, the person I bought it off blamed the people he used to valet the car. I seriously doubted this story but seeing as I cannot recreate water coming into the car now I am beginning to wonder. I thought it might be the sunroof but when it has rained I have checked and there is no more water getting in. I even had the carpets up for a few days and left it like that while it hammered it down and still nothing. The only thing I have done is clear the sunroof drains, yes some stuff came out but it didn't seem that bad. When it goes in for a service I will ask my mechanic to flush the matrix, thanks for the advice 🙂 The main thing is, there is no water getting into the car and the miss fire is fixed 🙂

Update: The remaining "problems" with this car are: I still am not 100% sure what caused the wet carpets in the car, they are pretty much dry now. Perhaps linked to the above, the passenger side air vents only blow cold air. Could the heater matrix have leaked all it's fluid causing the wet carpets? That is it really now. It could do with some tyres at some stage. MOT and Service not due until August. I am going to leave the heating issue for the moment as it doesn't really affect me. I have to admit, I am starting to like this car now. Without the miss fire it is a pleasure to drive and I actually look forward to driving it to work and back. Weird 🤨

@TigerFish Thank you I will take a look behind the kick panels at somepoint. I tested it out earlier and if I turn the air con off, it comes out warmer from the left side, like actually warm, but not has hot as drivers side. Does this indicate anything?

Thanks All. I am finding new problems daily. Next, the passenger side vents in the car only blow cold air regardless of the temp I set it too, drivers side is totalky fine. How do I go about sorting this?

Yes this is exactly what my mechanic did, hopefully that's the end of the miss fire issue. We will see. I can see how owning a code reader might be useful, anybody got any recommendations on which one to get? The cheaper the better.

UPDATE: The clip was missing on number 5 lead so this was not firing at all, and there was water in plugs 3,4,5 and 6. So as my mechanic was down there, it was worth replacing all plugs, coils and leads. It is now fine. We will see. My concern is why was there what appears to be rain water in there? Anyway I will monitor and see how it goes.

Comment deleted, wrong thread 😊

Thank you for the info re the VSC, this only came on soon after the miss fire started.

@kayble Thank you very much for that. I will discuss this with my mechanic when my cheapo pattern part coils arrive. If it turns out we don't need the coils, I can just send them back, but at least we will have them should we need them. Once it is all apart, if none of the obvious fixes it I will have no choice but to sell it for spares or repair because I am not throwing too much money at this, the car is simply not worth it.

Thank you very much for the offer Rick, however you are in Hampshire so I suspect a good distance from me and I wouldn't want to put you out. If I really want to keep the costs down it could be an option though...... I hear you and it is difficult repeating what the mechanic said word for word as I can't remember exactly. I do know it is miss firing from 4 cylinders. Actually I am the project type, I love cars, I have a Honda Prelude Type S freshly imported from Japan tucked away in the garage for show season. However, I don't tend to do anything but the simplest jobs myself. The lexus was supposed to be a reliable workhorse to get me to work and back, I wanted to run it in banger economics fashion, basically spend as little on it as possible, this was never going to be a restoration project. Also, to be clear it is not leaking from above, we have had several bouts of heavy rain since the drains were cleared and I had the rear carpets up and was checking daily for water ingress and nothing. The carpet is now dried out, I stuck some socks underneath it filled with cat litter which did the trick. Now all removed and carpet refitted. Compression is something I raised early on, my mechanic doesn't suspect it, but again, he still has to take everything apart in order to do that test and once he takes it all apart I am then into spending on it regardless of the diagnosis.

I wish I could but am not mechanically inclined at all, I have a desk job, and my weekends are mainly taken up with family life so time is also an issue. If someone was willing to help I might be able to 😁

I asked the same question. The mechanic can't be sure until he starts taking it apart. Once he starts doing that he is going to need to start charging me as he has already spent quite a few hours on it and not charged me anything. Like I said he is very honest and looks after his customer's. Most garages would have charged me 50 quid for just plugging in the code reader!!!

I am no mechanic but there are a few reasons. Firstly in this instance, when the garage took the plastic cover off he found loads of damp debris in the area, and when I say loads he said he had not seen anything like it. The previous owner did have the car laid up for long period of time. Perhaps it was sat under a tree? Anyway I think his theory is that this debris has in someway damaged the plugs/leads/coils as he cannot find any other cause. His code reader says it is a coil miss fire. He has cleared the codes several times and they come back each time on the same 4 cylinders. I could take the car off him now and sell it for spares or repairs and he wouldn't charge me a bean. Or I can go with the theory that clearing out all the debris and changing the plugs, leads and coils will solve the issue. What would you do? I have sourced coils which would now bring the total cost of this work to more like 300 quid? Worth a punt or good money after bad?

Have you ordered from rock auto? It all seems to come from America so shipping will take a while and it will cost a bit. Thanks for the advice though as I have managed to source pattern coils much cheaper from a UK website so perhaps the car is not dead after all!

Ok, looks like I am going to sell the car for spares/repair or take it to the scrap yard. It needs all 3 ignition coils, these are about 200 quid each. Plus labour, plus potentially leads and plugs as well. I am going to be looking at upwards of £800. The code reader is reading misfires across 4 of the 6 cylinders, the 4 cylinders affected are not across 2 coils but all 3. The code reader says it is the coils, but the garage said it might end up needing leads and plugs as well. The bloke I use is very honest and he said if it were him he would just run it until it dies, scrap it, sell it for spares etc. His advice is it is not worth spending this amount of money on and I am inclined to agree with him. If it was really easy to take it all apart and inspect all the coils to see what is going on I would get him to, but it sounds like it is quite a bit of labour to get to all this stuff and I don't want to throw any money at this car unless there is a guaranteed fix. If anybody wants a cheap Lexus GS300 for spares give me a shout, or if anyone knows where I can get coils for this car much cheaper let me know! The garage said he tried everywhere and the only place he could get the right ones was Lexus, hence the cost. His parts people sent him two lots of pattern coils but they are not the same.

I am in Crawley, The car is currently with a local garage to look into the EML and miss fire.

It seems now that the drains are clear not enough water gets passed the sunroof seal to cause a problem, what water does goes down the drain hole and not into the car. At least undernatural rain conditions, I certainly wont be power hosing around the sunroof anytime soon. The EML light is flashing along with a miss fire, then the blinking vsc lights came on. Not impressed.

Hi all. Leak sorted, it was the sunroof drains. New problem, EML light flashing and engine mis firing. Also, the VSC light came on after these problems started as well. Any ideas?

Update. Drains cleared, they were not blocked anyway. When you pour water down the rear of the sunroof some water goes down the holes, the water that doesn't go straight down the holes appears to get into the car somehow. The garage I took it to reckons the cage that holds the sunroof is rotten. Big job, not worth doing. He said if it was him he would just pull the drain plugs in the rear footwells and always drive with air con in to help dry stuff out. My other option is to seal the sunroof up. The engine management light is off now, it was the cat flagging it up. The garage will just clear the light for me and put it through the mot if it comes back on again before mot in august. Assuming I still have it then. I might just sell it, haven't decided yet.

Thanks for the response Lee. Anybody close by? I started to pull up all the carpets, just on the edges, and it seems the entire car is wet, so all the carpet will have to come out to dry I suspect? While the rear left was and is by far the worst, it seems to have either spread round the whole car, or, it is leaking from multiple places. Either way, it's not good. I am seriously considering passing this lemon onto the next person to deal with, but I will wait until after Christmas as cars always fetch more after Christmas and I haven't got the V5 through yet anyway. I have provisionally booked it in with the garage my family have been using over the years, but they can't take it in until next Wednesday. What I don't want to do is throw good money after bad. If it is leaking in multiple places, it is going to be a lot of hours labor to take all the carpet out, source all the leaks, fix them, and then put it all back together again once it has dried out.

Update, so it is the sunroof drains. I pulled the carpet up partially on the rear passenger side and when I pour water down the drain hole, it does come out at the bottom of the car, but it also starts coming out from behind the rear seat and then making it's way to the floor of the car. The insulation under the carpet is soaked through. Question, how is it that water is still making it's way out of the car but some of it is ending up inside the car? A partial blockage? Or is it likely the hose that carries the water is split? Either way I don't have the tools to attempt to clear the blockage, or the knowledge or time to tear out the headlining to get to the problem area. Although it is certainly worse on the passenger side rear, it feels damp on the passenger side front and drivers side rear. I guess this could just be water moving about or it is leaking from several places. Serious buyers remorse has set in with this car. My options as it stands are 1) sell the car on, take the hit, and draw a line under it or 2) pay a garage to fix it Thoughts?