Hello,

This is my first post on this forum, thank you guys in advance for your help/advise.

I have a 2007 Lexus GS350, it has been just sitting in the drive way for about 2 1/2 months and has only been turned on once or twice in that time without any error messages. I have turned it on recently and the "Check VSC" message came up along with the check engine, anti-lock & skid lights. Is there a common issue that can be causing this since I have not used my car in over 2 months?

Thank You,
Samit Patel

 

Sounds like the battery needs to be charged or it may need replacing. Take it to most auto parts stores as they offer free testing of the battery and your cars alternator.

 

Welcome to Club Lexus!

It sounds like the car is starting OK. As ibidu1 suggested, take it to the auto parts store. They can scan it for codes too to help you out.

Good luck!

 

Thanks guys!

Yeah, the car is turning on fine and there is no difference in the drive. I live in California and I guess all the auto shops charge $100+ just to diagnose the issue and pull the code. I am going to get the battery tested in a few hours, hopefully that is the case since it's been sitting in the drive way for quite some time.

I will give an update after checking the battery.

 

Unfortunately, it's not my battery as its in good shape.

I'm going to get it tested to see what code is causing the problem.

 

My car sat for a couple weeks when I was in San Francisco on business. I came back and had the "check VSC" only to find out it was my gas cap seal. Went to the local auto parts store and got a gas cap... swapped the gasket.... job done.

 

I actually went out and replaced my gas cap, the lights were still on when I drove with it, but I then disconnected the negative side of my battery for about 10min and that fixed it, no more "Check VSC"

I've been reading that resetting by disconnecting the battery will only temporarily turn off the "Check VSC" and other lights but they will turn on again. Is this true? I have a feeling that the lights would have gone away even if I did not change my gas cap.

I just hope that I didn't cover up the real problem with the "Check VSC" with the battery reset...

 

its your gas cap. it takes a while for the car to cycle through to check that there is no error. you'll be fine though if its off now.

 

my vsc and cel came on last week, end up replacing a new ecm and 2 o2 sensors

 

low brake fluid does this as well

 

exactly!!

Thus why all these "answers", though meant to help, are just guesses. One could solve your issue or not. The only thing certain is you could spend lots of $ if you start replacing parts hoping someone else's guess is right until you find the issue (i.e. O2 codes only mean the value they are reporting to ECU is outside of norm... The O2 COULD be bad but more than one erring at a time means the issue is upstream from them. O2 sensors rarely go bad simultaneously - unless fouled by another issue).

So, the simplest and most effective solution...

Go to any national parts store and they will use an OBDII scanner to read and give you the diagnostic codes for free which are causing the CEL and other lights to come on. Some will even clear / reset them if you ask nicely (as it could have been just a temp issue like forgetting to secure the gas cap) to see if it comes on again.

Start there and post back here (or search) the codes you receive for more help. They will be Pxxxx (xxxx = some numeric value).

Good luck

 

Thanks you all!

Replacing gas cap & battery reset has fixed the issue for me...guess I just have to play the waiting game to see if the VSC/CEL lights come back on.

 

Hope it doesn't come back on. Good luck and keep us updated.

 

I just had this exact same thing happen to me on the drive home. Car just hit 60K Who says there is no such thing as product lifecycle engineering?

 

After scanning the GS i found it to have code P0158 related to my O2 sensor (Bank1-Sensor2) I guess I'm about due to change one of those things.