romidhaka

Thanks for your reply.

In west texas no reliable independent shop i can trust and just towing the car back and forth would be $$. Insurance claim ongoing by my hunch is they will say no since mechanical damage from previous repair. If I do get it fixed what are the chances of problem with electric issues or corrosion in the future? is this a situation i sould fix and trade it ?

Acrad

Water and electrical always make me uncomfortable but this isn't a flood vehicle either.

Did they give you anything itemized on what they would replace with ECU Part numbers? This would tell me more of where damage reportedly at. Engine ECU IIRC is on the passenger side of dash.

romidhaka

will post as soon as i get those. ty

Pfaily

I recently pressure washed my 2010 Lexus GX460 more thoroughly than usual cause I camped by the ocean. This included a pretty thorough spray down of the undercarriage. Immediately after, I drove it to a friend's house without any issue then drove it back to my place. When I got in to drive it again maybe another hour later, my interior lights never turned off after getting in. I can't figure out what's causing them to stay on. Things to note and things I've tried:

-my lights do not have a ON/OFF/DOOR functionality, they're all just push buttons. There's also 6 of them and I highly doubt they're somehow all stuck in the ON position. I've tried pressing all of them a bunch of times anyway.

-my backup camera and license plate light are relocated to a tire carrier on my hatch. The wiring for them is somewhat exposed, but they are functioning fine after the wash. Not sure why this would be relevant but these electronics are a mystery to me.

-I checked every fuse in the fuse boxes - all passed my visual inspection. Also not sure why this would even be fuse related, but I was pulling the interior light fuse anyway and they're easy to check. I checked the fuses in both fuse boxes.

-the door ajar indicators are working fine according to the display that shows each door. Is it possible that the indicators do not use the same signal as the interior lights or something?

-I also tried disconnecting and reconnecting the battery in case it resets something. No luck

-maybe some ECU/BCM thing? I don't even know where that's located and would be shocked that it's not protected from pressure washing

Thanks for any help!

CNorth

Good morning all-
On Friday my wife took our GX through an automatic carwash (which is about a bi monthly occurrence, although not typically @ this wash) She left the wash and noticed some water had trickled down to the drivers and passengers footwells (ugh oh.....sunroof drains?!) and about a block down the road, the car completely shut down in the middle of the road, stranding my very pregnant wife on a busy highway. She was able to partially pull off but was blocking traffic, etc. No good.

Anyway, I rushed out to get her, and we called AAA because I couldn't get the car to do ANYTHING. Totally DOA except for an unnerving clicking from starter but definitely no turnover. Tech claimed that battery was fine, noticed no water in the engine bay, and hooking it up to a charger he got the starter to turn but again, no spark.

Searching this morning, I see a similar issue with the previous gen GX (which we also owned for years) that remedied itself after a short time when things dried. Not much here other than blowing out drains with compressed air.

Any advice for not getting hosed on a repair bill this week? AAA towed to closest import shop but not one I have used before. Don't know how qualified they are to diagnose something like this. Wet fuse box? Blown alternator? This is definitely outside of my auto knowledge. Thanks for any advice or directing me to more info.

Chip

Romanova

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gx-...intenance.html

If the vehicle was running, I'm not sure if it would shut off due to water intrusion anywhere, that seems a bit odd. If it is water intrusion anywhere, after it dries out, it should restart without issue, though the drying time can take hours. Several people have had similar issues and a later restart has usually occurred for them. As for no spark, there should be a circuit that drives the coil packs, would want to see if they are getting power, either from a fused source or directly at the plug.

Let us know what the outcome is.

CNorth

Thanks much Tyler. I was very hopeful that would be the case, but ran by the garage where the car was sitting yesterday evening and again there was no power at all, not even enough to power keyless unlock etc, so that made me worry. AAA could have unhooked negative terminal?

Yes vehicle was definitely running for the length of carwash and for about 5 mins after. Car actually stalled out when she began going up a decent hill, if that offers any clues.

I had a coil pack fail last year and was replaced at Lexus - are those a maintenance item that need replacing (I'm at about 120k miles) or do you recommend replacing when they fail? Could one of them failed coincidentally with the water intrusion? Last time it failed the car just limped but I was able to get to dealer asap.

Romanova

Coil failures are almost unheard of with Denso brand (OEM) coils. Certainly , at that mileage, there should not be any failures.

Have the spark plugs been changed at all? The plugs on the COPs can be difficult to remove unless the right technique is used and sometimes people will pull on the plug itself and unseat the wires. You could have a wire that just eventually worked itself out. This would be a failure though at the specific coil and wouldn't effect the rest. Hmmm....

If it cranks but doesn't start (right?), make sure it has fuel. What year is your GX460? Fuel pumps are another item that seldom fail, but if you tend to run the GX down till the fuel light comes on all the time (my wife) then that can force the pump to work harder sometimes. Also, some GX460s were subject to a fuel pump replacement recall.

The shop should be able to quickly verify if the vehicle has spark and if it has fuel and then go from there. Again, good luck and keep us apprised of the situation.

CNorth

I'm not sure actually, but we're scheduled for upcoming 120k service which at that cost, hopefully includes plugs!?

To clarify, when my wife initially stalled, she said it cranked back up and actually started exactly 2 times but stalled immediately. It cranked but didn't start for AAA when hooked to rapid charger. As of yesterday evening (after sitting for 2 days) it wouldn't do anything, not even a click. Yes my wife tends to run it to E. It was full at the time, but pump could have eaten it. Was the 2010 pump recalled to your knowledge?

Thanks for all the advice.

Romanova

2010 was not covered by the fuel pump recall.

120k service should include plugs because that is the replacement mileage as recommended by Lexus. My thread when I did my plugs; https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gx-...ug-change.html

If it won't do anything now, first verify battery voltage and age. Make sure the cables and clean and tight (and protected!).

Verify that the GX has fuel. Then verify that it has fuel pressure at the rail. I'm not sure if the rail on our cars has a test port, I'm sure that they do though. I'll try and look in the service manual to verify later on. A test port can accept a fuel pressure tester to verify that the pump is supplying sufficient pressure.

Then check and make sure you have spark. Would have to look in the owners manual to see, but there should be a fuse for the coil on plugs. Make sure that the fuse is good, no corrosion or anything. There might be a bigger fuse for the battery, but that should not have gotten damaged initially, but you never know if the shop did something inadvertently when trying to diagnosis the issue.

Once you have all that, make sure you have air. HIGHLY UNLIKELY that this is a problem, since the car ran for a bit afterwards, but you never know until it's properly been trouble shot.

And for what it's worth, AAA is a good service, but they are only as good as their service providers. The ones we have here in Houston usually leave a lot to be desired. Could be that they did something that made the issue worse.

These vehicles are VERY reliable and your failure is pretty uncommon. As you've described it, I think it's going to be a pretty simple fix for the shop if they run through the proper trouble shooting steps. Give this forum a few more hours and I'm sure a few of our other knowledgeable guys will chime in with some further suggestions. Stay positive, you'll be back on the road soon enough!

bambam2

Check crank and camshaft position sensors. I had a Ford once that had very similar symptoms as this and it ended up being a crank sensor that was shorting out. Sometimes it would start and run, other times not, and it would intermittently die while driving. Water splashing up on it would cause it to stall and kill the engine. The check engine light would not come on but plugging it into a code reader indicated a sensor error.

Romanova

I wonder if a high pressure undercarriage sprayer at these tunnel washes is to blame? Most of the engine should be protected by the undercarriage protectors, but maybe other parts are vulnerable? Just thinking out loud here...

CFAI

Not sure if this is related. But with my ;07 IS250, I had issues starting the car, and with various systems failing (power windows, directionals etc). Turns out the passenger compartment fuse box kept getting wet from drainage clog (as did the passenger side footwell). Once the dealer thoroughly dried it out (and cleared clog) I have had no problems since (about 18 months, and includes a 2,000 mile road trip). Perhaps something similar with your GX?

CNorth

Sincere thanks to all for taking the time to respond. Just got a call from the mechanic that they dropped a new battery in and car came back to life with nary an issue. No codes were thrown or saved apparently. Will monitor for future troubles as you all mentioned with various sensors and avoid that carwash like the plague!

Unfortunately, as Romanova said, AAA proved completely wrong in this case. Luckily they could handle the tow without screwing anything up.

Further note, has anyone had success using compressed air to clean sunroof drains? Or if water was coming in both footwells and dripping down face/side of dashboard, is there another place that could be clogged up?

Thanks again all

Romanova

Start with weedeater line and fish it down from the top. If the drain is clear, you'll see it pop out behind the front tires. You can try compressed air if you have any blockage, provided you have enough air pressure and a tip small enough to seal up the hole to really make it work.