heyhowyado

could it be your starter contacts?
i had an intermittent starting problem and my mechanic replaced them and my car is fine now....parts were $69 ($9 for the contacts and $60 for the replacement intake gasket kit).

i'm pretty lucky to have found my mechanic....he's worked on toyota/lexus for about 12 years and he just hired a guy from one of the local lexus dealers in my area....they did my 60,000 mile service for $80 (the dealer wanted $425!)

for what it's worth, i don't see a problem with you going to pep boys....it was a inexpensive place for you to go to at least start to try and diagnose the problem....i have a friend who works there and he's not a total moron as some here are of the opinion....

sonyman

$80 for the 60k? They either didn't charge labor, or they didn't do everything your car needs.

heyhowyado

well lets see...

he changed the oil and filter
replaced engine coolant
replaced air filter
replaced brake fluid
rotated the tires

he said air cond. filter was fine as well as trans. fluid. (these are to be inspected at 60k not necessarily replaced)

then he did the inspection on valves, drive belts, fuel lines, tank, etc, fuel cap gasket, exhaust, brakes, steering, suspension....

i think that about covers it, no???

jtc3200

Thanks heyhowyado
The dealers are still working on it. Still haven't heard the verdict yet this morning. Well, I thought at least Pepboys were honest when they couldn't diagnose and didn't charge me anything.

Hey, when you said your starter had problem intermittently before you changed the starter contact, did it crank when it's not working? Would a bad contact make it not crank at all or just not firing up the engine while cranking?

Thanks.

heyhowyado

there ya go....didn't cost ya a dime, right??

in my case, it didn't crank at all........and it didn't happen all the time, just periodically......he said the contact was pretty bad.....

that's why i posed the question on here....would a bad contact cause the problem you are having??

no one really answered yet, so i dunno........

hope they get your problem fixed.....i know how frustrating this must be for you.

jtc3200

I know man. Apparently it's frustrating the dealer too. They were only able to get it to act up a couple of times today. But they have eliminated the possilility of starter, plugs, etc. Basically they think the problem is in the fuel system: pump, pressure regulator. They said it would have been a lot faster if my problem is constant. But if only happen twice for them today and very unpredictable. Told me to be patient and they will isolate the problem. I am driving the loaner car (ES340) but I do miss my car.

I will keep you guys posted in case some of you are experiencing the same problem.

rsg

ES340? Is that like a factory reject that gets sent to be a loaner car?

jtc3200

LoL, Sorry about the typo. It's ES350.

Still waiting for the verdict.

jtc3200

Still waiting for the verdict. The dealer is still having problem duplicating the hard start problem. They will keep my car for the weekend to figure out. Said they are having trouble duplicating the problem still.

I do have a thought and I am not sure it's valid. The service man did mention that my LS400 has a power steering pump leak. But did say it's very slow drip and we can address it later. After reading lots of threads and stickies here (this is by far the best forum by the way), I do think there is a leak with the Air Control Valve since my car does have quite a bit of white smoke in the morning or when started cold with no visible stain on the ground after parked overnight.

My thought is this: Can the slow power steering leak that gets sucked into the engine during cranking prevent the engine from starting and firing up during cranking? I am just kind of putting pieces together here, white smoke, minor power steering leak told by dealer, and my car's erratic unpredictable starts.

Just thinking out loud.

Any opinions are welcome.

psilosin

My power steering is also apparently somewhat leaky if that gives some fuel for your new theory.

jtc3200

I just got my car back from the dealer because I need to use it for out of town trip during Thanksgiving. The dealer still can't get it to act up. They told me that they were only able to get it to act up once during the one week period they had my car. Narrowed it down to: Fuel Pump, Fuel relay or Main relay. Didn't charge me anything because they didn't fix anything. That was very good service with the loaner car.

I did just have my friend replace the Air Control Valve (part cost $104 from the dealer) for my Power Steering Pump today. We'll see how that works out. If it still acts up and being hard to start erratically, the dealer told me to bring it in after Thanksgiving and have them continue working on it to figure out what the problem is. I will do that if the Air Control Valve doesn't solve the problem.

Like I said, I will continue to keep you guys posted as I know other people have this problem too. It is a toughy.

heyhowyado

hope the new valve takes care of the problem for ya.....and yes, that was pretty cool they didn't charge you anything.....

jtc3200

Just got back from San Francisco this morning. Driving to SF from Seattle is about 780 miles each way. I did an oil change with Fuel injector and Fuel line cleaning before I left on Wednesday. That seemed to help. I only had to crank more than once in one occasion when I was in SF.

However, the car did die once on the highway when I was going 80mph on cruise control around 2am somewhere in Oregon. First the TRAC light appeared and then engine light appeared before it shut down. I was able to pulled it to the shoulder and was able to fire it up right away and then drove back to Seattle (another 5 hours). The trip back and forth was otherwise smooth and uneventful.

Right before the car died, I did refuel at one gas station (premium Chevron) that took almost 25 minutes to fuel my car. Because it was fueling so slowly, that made me wonder if the gas was bad or it was near the bottom of the Gas station tank and there were sediments at the bottom of the tank at the Gas Station that got into my fuel tank.

Changing of the Air Control Valve did eliminate white smoke and reduce idle speed (around 400-500 rpm when warm). Is that normal?

Like I said, the hard start problem has improved but not cured. I am still reading lots of threads here and wondering if I should just change my fuel pump ECU. Where is the Fuel Pump ECU located in my car? Because I am kind of worrying about my car dying on me again in the middle of driving and next time I may not be able to fire it back up.

Sorry this turned out to be a long thread and still limited solution. I will keep working on this mystery. Of course, helps are much welcome.

psilosin

Just wondering if you had any more updates.

jtc3200

Actually Psilosin, the hard-start problem has gotten a lot better now after the trip to San Francisco. I wonder if it's the new Idle-up power steering valve or Fuel line and fuel injector cleaning right before the trip that helped. But I only had to crank the engine more than once in a couple occassions for two weeks now. Maybe the combination of the two things. I did drive on a full tank continuously right after Fuel injection and Fuel line cleaning agents added for hours on highway and consumed most of the fuel in the tank before I refuel. Maybe that cleaned out whatever was clogging the lines or injectors pretty good.

The idle speed is down to about 450-500 rpm when I stop at the red light. I hope that's no cause for concern for stalling. The car is still very smooth even at low rpm idle.

Next time I do an oil change, I will do a fuel injector and fuel line cleaning again. I think that helps quite a bit.

I am not taking the car back to the dealer since I am sure they will not be able to make it act up too easily. I will do so only if I have trouble starting it on a consistent basis.

So to sum it up, what I've done to the car for my hard start problem:


Two bottles of Techron and two bottles of Heet within 1 month.
Changed Idle-up air control Valve.
Oil Change (10W-30 syntec) once with Fuel injector and fuel line cleaning service.

That's it. I will wait on the new fuel pumps or ECUs changes only if the problem surface again or gets worse. So far, not bad. Whatever was causing the hard-start seems to respond fairly well the whatever it's been done so far to the car.

I will still keep you guys posted if anything changes. This is a great forum and I want to contribute.