Trolling down the PA Turn Pike at 75mph, and need to pass a Tractor Trailer, I move to the left lane and give it the beans as cars are approaching from the rear. At about the halfway passed point car DIES I have NO power and am on a fair grade in the road, I have enough momentum to complete the pass, and pull over in front of the tractor and pull to the right side of the road, but JUST barely. Dam was the tractor driver pissed! At the side of the road I clear the debris from my now very full underwear, and I have NOTHING but slightly above idle speed, 1200 rpm's, EVERY warning light available is on. Lights on from least important to most were, Check VSC, (seems this light illuminates anytime the check engine light does) Track Off and VSC Off, RED triangle with exclamation point, and finally a flashing check engine light. I am well aware that a flashing check engine light indicates an active engine misfire. All gauges are normal readings including temps and fuel 1/2 tank. I shut it off and turn it back on and same thing, NOTHING but just above idle, I can hit the gas all I want and NADA! NOW I AM PISSED!! So I shut it off and figure who I am going to call to pick our sorry butts up and I figure i will give it another 5 to 10 min and try it again. Don't this SOB start up with NO lights on and run just fine!!!!!!!!!! I drive the proceeding 40 miles home without incident, NOT a single hiccup! This morning, same deal, no problems or lights at all. So, the suspense is killing me, so I take it to my shop and scan it, I have NO codes present, and only one code pending, that code being a random cylinder misfire (P0300). Having just taken two more trips down the east coast I have just turned 10k on the car so off to the dealer it goes on Monday! What a disappointment! I know all cars can break, and stuff happens, but when dealing with a flagship vehicle like the F, I expect a little more. Whom ever designed this "limp home" mode need a good azz whooping, because 1200 rpm's is NOT enough to get one to the side of the road, more less "limp home"!! 20% to 30% throttle would have even been sufficient, but this 1200rpm's is ridiculous!

 

damn! thats pretty scary. sorry that you had to go through that, but it was quite odd that the car just decided to cut power all together. not sure what it could be, but i hope it gets resolved soon.

 

Sorry to hear this...Glad you were able to pull on the side of the road, Keep us posted with what dealer has to say

 

Will do... Seams like an electronic throttle issue, or a fuel delivery issue, by the latter I do NOT mean a fuel pump, because I would have heard a bog when the throttle was depressed, I am more inclined to think a MAF sensor if it is fuel related. But my first guess is electronic throttle. When I say it shut down, I mean it shut down RIGHT NOW! And throttle application did NADA. Whats odd is there is NO code other than Random misfire....hhhmmmm

 

Sorry to hear that, glad you are ok.

What mods do you have?

 

All it ever had on it since new was a K&N, but it has been returned back stock for the last 3 months, ever since coming out of winter storage.

 

glad ur ok man... i would def get it checked...
good luck!

 

well I'm glad you are okay. hopefully this doesn't ruin Lexus for you:/

 

Have you had the ecu upgrade done for the gas pedal fix? Maybe you hit the gas and brake at the same time and that cause something?

 

Nope, no ECU update, and I will NOT have that update done. This was NOT a misapplication of pedals, this was a failure of some system. The fact that all of these warning lights engaged, and the engine light flashing indicates that there was a failure/misfire, the odd thing is that nothing is stored in the computer as a current fault, just a pending fault, for those of you whom are unaware, a "Pending fault" is a fault that "should it happen again" would cause the check engine light to engage. I have NEVER seen a pending code engage a CEL . This light was clearly flashing, and I could NOT accelerate, even when in neutral and or park, the engine would do nothing.

 

Whether or not there was a current code or not, the system obviously thought that engine damage could occur since there was a misfire, so it did not allow the vehicle to rev. At RPMs above 2500, the system is not fast enough to figure out which cylinder the misfire is coming from, so it probably set a pending P0300 since it was the first time the fault occured, but could not figure out which cylinder it was coming from, hence no other codes. I would lean more towards bad gas in the tank, or possibly if you had a K&N filter, some of that oil could have gotten onto the internal MAF wires.. sometimes it takes time for that oil to collect dirt and cause a bad signal. Obviously the only one who will be able to diagnose the car is a tech at the dealership, this is all speculation of course. I wouldnt be mad at the car though. There was a fault, and it prevented engine damage. The system worked perfectly. The situation you were in was something you created, passing a truck with cars coming the opposite direction. Scary, yes. Glad you made it though, but you cant blame the car for doing its job. As far as the system going back to normal, after a few key off, key on cycles, it resets the system because it doesnt see the fault anymore.

 

I am a tech, lol. What I did not explain clearly was I was in the number 2 lane aka the slow lane, I moved to the number 1 lane (the passing lane), and was halfway past the truck is when this took place. Bad fuel would have shown signs well before a half tank had been ingested, and would also cause current running problems, none are present. There would also have been en engine bog when I tried to accelerate, however, there was NOTHING, the rpm's would NOT change when the throttle was depressed. I have not seen an abundance of Toyota vehicles come into the shop with electronic throttle issues as of yet, I have seen many other makes with this similar type of problem, namely VW's, Nissan's on more than 10 occasions and a few GM's. Tomorrow will be a tale though when it takes a truck ride to the dealer.

 

What im telling you, is that it is not an electronic throttle failure. The system acted normally by not allowing the engine to be revved, hence pushing the pedal and getting nothing. I used to have a 98 GS400, that had a throttle position sensor go bad, and it killed the gas pedal (drive by wire, even though it had a cable running to the throttle body, there was no physical connection to the throttle blade). In my case, there was a code for the failed part. In your case, im willing to bet that the car was misfiring, as indicated by the flashing light, but the car was revving higher than 2500rpm since you were passing. In this case, the car was unable to determine which cylinder failed, and set a pending code for a random misfire. Bad fuel can cause a lot of irratic problems. The car could have pinged under high rpm load, causing a misfire to be detected and the ECU to cut power. There doesnt necessarily need to be a bog when accelerating in order to indicate fuel problems. There are a number of things that could have caused your car's condition. Hopefully the dealer will be able to determine the cause, and fix it.

 

Sorry, I have a hard time believing that one of the FOUR knock sensors on this engine was not able to pick up a "knock" and retard timing to prevent detonation. That said I will b there when the car goes in to see what the issue is. If the problem is fuel related I will be quite surprised, vehicle ALWAYS uses the same brand and when in town uses it from the same station.
I also digress, 1200rpm's is NOT adequate. I could give a rats azz if I pop a motor, but if I get T boned by a tractor trailer because I could not get out of the way in time, what good is a "safe" engine? I understand "fail safe' but this was and is ridiculous!

 

when the check engine light blinks i believe it has to do with emission in such that the car is damaging the catalytic converter...i.e a miss, a bad miss