rrjimenez

purchased it with a little over 200k miles on it.... right away i got an oil change at jiffy lube with a high mileage oil, checked fluids blah blah blah... it's supposed to be a 198hp v6 motor right? its sooooooo slow at accelerating its embarrassing every time i enter the highway, i could floor it and it wouldn't rev any higher/faster it would stay the same and gradually pick up speed... also the gas mileage sucks (i expect that with the high miles and the fact that the previous owner cared less about getting an oil change my god!!) half a tank ($20's worth/ 6.5 gallons) last 1 day (37 miles total traveled)

BoostedE21

I've always held that fuel gauges on cars are more of a general reminder than something that should be closely followed. If it's below 1/4, fill it up soon - rather than "omg exactly 12.5 miles left on this tank." If you're going through 6.5 gallons in 37 miles, you're either doing your math wrong or you're running very rich. running rich should get picked up by your O2 sensors, though....

As for the acceleration - running rich would inhibit that, but remember that the ES300 is NOT a performance car. Yes, it has around 200 hp at the crank - but it also comes with pretty crappy tires, and it weighs about 3,400 lbs. That's a lot of weight for a 200 hp engine to move around - especially now that it's getting on a bit in age.

rrjimenez

hmmmm.... my math is correct on how much gas is being put in the car but the distance traveled in a day is give or take... my wife drives to work in the morning, then home then school, then back home... i don't have a check engine light on and if it was running lean shouldn't i be able to smell the gas? don't want to leave it at a shop for a week and leave my wife on foot... i have a work van but that's it.. its a work van and i hate playing taxi with it.. it so big and slow and heavy... its like a tank

Lexucan

When I got my ES it was pretty sluggish too, but after cleaning the throttle body, it perked up considerably. Just a suggestion.

KGoph3rR

I had clean my throttle body, it still seem sluggish in a way for me, whenever I am on the ramp entering the freeway, it slowly gradual pick up speed, but when the motor running hot, it goes into the freeway like nothing, no problem at all, what should i do? any subjection? I have an 93es300 with like 250K but have like close to 50K on the motorswap

adreano17

it may have been rated around 200 HP when 1st built about 17 years ago, but with dirt, grime, wear and tear, performance deteriorates and loses performance. Run dry gas, seafoam. stuff like that. and an es300 isn't a slob at low speeds - it gets up from 0 mph, but the torque at high speeds is low. so going 40, and then flooring the gas, the car will climb slowly in speed. its is a v6. for high torque, they put v8s in cars. but this isn't a performance car either. v8s are in GS's. and you can tell the difference.

88Legend

It is rated at 185HP new I think. It is the old 3.0 v6 that is the iron block vs the aluminum for the 1994 and up. 200K later it will lose a lot of power. But you should be able to get on the highway fine. I would clean the throttle body and replace both O2 sensors. Also use a fuel injector cleaner and see what that does.

capnfred

does the tranny seem to be shifting right, sounds like you may be in limp home mode,, I have 93 ES and when you accelerate hard, it will got the the gears quickly, do all your error lights work, sometimes the previous owner will disable lights (break them, paint them etc to mask detected problems.... if you press it hard it should shift from 1-2 around forty mph or so... that will be close to redline when it does shift, and it will be brisk.....try manually shifting, start in Low, then 2 then drive.....see if that makes any difference....when you press the o/d switch on the side of the shift lever does the o/d light on the dash illuminate....just a few ideas that might help you figure it out good luck, the ES is not a sports car, but its not VW bug either.....

capn

GEORGE_JET

One other possibility is clogged cats. You can use a vacuum gauge on the intake manifold to give you a indication of cats that are starting to clog. These cars are not sports cars, but they are not that slow.

ES330MD05

Posting in old but relevant thread. Hope to get some responses. Today my wife took my 2005 ES330 (102k miles curruently) and I took her Highlander to office. She mentioned that my ES is very sluggish and takes long to get upto the speed after stop at the traffic light. I have always felt that way (from the day I bought it new in 2005). On highlander you just put your foot on the gas pedal and it gets going, not with ES. I remember getting loaner RX from the dealer within first year after I bought ES and felt RX was quick in acceleration. When I asked dealership about it they gave some round and round answer saying thats how the on board computer is designed and so on. I am very safe driver, never drive aggressively so I am cool with sluggish acceleration (car gives me decent mileage, 25 -26 mpg, some highway driving some local roads, not much stop and go). But sometimes I used to think that probably not all ES330s are like that, may be I got the defective one. Seems like that is not the case?

Anyway.... last week I bought 3M fuel system cleaner (that cleans throttle plate and has one bottle that goes in gas tank and one you run through the air intake while car is running). After watching the video on Amazon it (getting to the throttle body/plate) looked easy but when I looked under the hood on ES it looks bit difficult. Do members suggest doing this DIY? If so how do get to throttle body without messing something else up?

Hayk

iTrader: (1)

It's not too difficult to remove the intake hose, but can be challenging/intimidating if you've never done it before. You have to unbolt the clamps and man handle the hoses, they are often stuck on there. Keep in mind that you might have to start from the air filter and work yourself up to the throttle body.

Aside from cleaning the throttle body, I remember hearing that your generation of ES's had an issue with the transmission. There was some kind of an update that had to be done to reprogram the shifting pattern. I'm not too familiar with it, but I think it's in the sticky'ed thread at the top.

edit: here it is https://www.clublexus.com/forums/es3...ssion-fix.html