surflife5

Today I took my 1999 GS400 to a local mechanic to have my timing belt, tensioner/idler pulley, water pump, and spark plugs replaced. I bought the parts from AdvanceAutoParts.com for $375 and was charged $740 for the labor. The mechanic calls me in the middle of the day and says that everyting was replaced pretty easily except for the spark plugs. He told me that the spark plug boots were really bad on four of the spark plugs and that the valve cover gaskets needed to be repalced also. Oil was leaking from the bad gaskets onto the spark plugs. He said that they can try to install the plugs with the bad boots. They actually used some type of tape around the bad spark plug boots. Once they started my car they said it idled really rough and was misfiring crazy. The problem is the Lexus dealer only sells the spark plug boots with the ignition coil packs which run about $115 each. Advance Auto Parts has spark plug boots sold separately but there is some type of warning on top of the page about not being intended for direct OE replacement???? Everything I've bought from this site so far has been quality parts(Goodyear timing belt/NGK spark plugs). Any suggestions?
http://www.partsamerica.com/ProductL...26%20Terminals

BA_GS400

iTrader: (1)

Their whole story sounds just a little fishy to me.
They say the car is running bad and it really shouldn't be. The valve cover gasket needs to be replaced but it probably shouldn't have to be either. I'm guessing that they didn't SHOW you the issue, they just gave you a phone call? You should pay them a surprise visit and ask to see the oil leak they refer to......and the bad boots. Don't call before showing up.

The link just brings up a bunch of universal spark plug boot ends. It was impossible to be sure whether one would be identical to the GS400. I wouldn't buy one of them.
The boot is integrated into the coil pack and is probably a specific design to Toyota, something that the Parts America stuff would most likely NOT fit. (unlike an old chevy or ford engine from 10-20 years ago)

Regarding the mis-firing, I also have a 99 GS400 and I replaced my own plugs recently. No problems with the boots here and I'm at 125,000 miles. It *could* be a bad boot but I would never expect one to just "go bad".


If you have one that is actually bad, you could always try a junk yard/salvage yard for either a boot or coil and boot. Cheaper than new.

Also, on any cylinder that is mis-firing, that exhaust pipe will not heat up as quickly as an adjacent pipe. I'd also expect that there would also be an ERROR CODE from the ECU for that particular cylinder.

#1gs300

iTrader: (4)

Well i had a bad boot on my honda odyssee 2 weeks ago 1 morning driving to work i step on the gas and i heard a light thump and cel came on and the engine was running like sh65. well i got to work and when i got off work i drove to the zone they put the obd11 and it said misfire cylinder 1 pulled the boot and noticed about 2 inches up the boot it was a rupture almost all the way around the boot i brought new wires and every thing was cool, the Question is if the car wasnt running like that before the guy took it to the mechanic than he probably pulled the wires by the wire and some how the problem started there. Then the mech should be responsible. i beleive u can test each wire by testing the resistance with a fluke if im not mistaken the lower the resistance # the betterif ur high like in the double digits then replace them their is actually a rule of thumb when testing the resitance in the wire and honestly i forget what it is maybe someone will chime in on this hopefully this may help.

surflife5

A previous mechanic also mentioned a minor oil leak and thought it could have been the crankshaft seal or valve cover gaskets. I don't think he is trying to make extra cash off of me but you always have to be cautious of rip offs. I think I might just buy two of the coil packs from the Lexus dealer because the mechanic told me earlier that the error codes show two spark plugs misfiring. Thanks guys.

BA_GS400

iTrader: (1)

Good deal on the code checking.


#1GS300 (Kenny) - we dont' have spark plug wires on the GS400. It's a "coil on plug" design, so the boot isn't generally something you'd pull on like on engines with normal spark plug wires.

#1gs300

iTrader: (4)

I appoligize i wasnt trying to compare plugs from a odysse to a gs400, i only chimed because i do know that my 300 has 3 wires u can just take off after u remove the throttle body, and 3 coil packs that u have to unbolt and remove. I wasnt aware that the gs400 was a diff set up my bad.

TLW

My best advice to you is to get all the old parts. For you not to notice the car running poorly(or did you) and this guy tells you that you need 4 coils?

Ask for all the old parts, it may be running rough due to the timing belt not being put on properly.

how many miles on the GS400?

BA_GS400

iTrader: (1)

OOF!!! Wow, I'm such a sucker for expecting a shop to do it's job that I didn't even think of that! But you're RIGHT.


Do you think the cpu would kick out a specific error code if a timing belt was installed incorrectly? There's certainly been others on this site with the same question about whether the belt was installed correctly. Damn, I'd think the ECU would kick out a code!

surflife5

The reason he had to order the coil packs is because the Lexus dealer only sells spark plug boots with the coil packs. He tells me four of the boots were in bad shape which would cause misfiring.
I have over 250,000 miles on this GS400 - Still running strong

chuckb

unless they messed up the tb job like tlw said, they probably messed up the boots when pulling them off.

surflife5

Thats exactly what happen chuck. While they were pulling out the spark plugs they tore the boots. I have to mention that this cars timing belt and spark plugs have never been replaced before this job. When I bought this car from a friend at 150,000 miles he told me that none of the 90K services were done besides oil changes, air filters, etc. It drove so smooth I never thought in having any serious work done. At 250,000 miles I expect some of the parts in the engine to be worn out completely. I know I shouldnt have gambled with the timing belt though being GS400 have an interferecne engine.