Engine Shut Off While Driving

[luxobarge]

Hi I've recently purchased a LS400 and I've been lurking these forums for quite a while. I've only owned my car for four days and last night after sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on a motorway on-ramp for 30mins, i was driving in the merge lane when the steering went heavy; I looked down and noticed all the warning lights on my dash were on - the engine had stalled.

I pushed the car into an emergency stopping bay and had a look for anything obvious, after the car had been shut off for about 20 mins I thought I'd try start it, it started and ran fine but I had it towed home to be safe.

Has anyone had a similar experience and can offer some advice?

[LEX51S]

it could be a range of many different things from electrical (alternator, battery, computer glitch) or fuel line ie fuel filters etc. do you have it regularly serviced?

a lexus service centre could run a full diagnostic on it if you took it to them and probably tell you why it stalled.

[luxobarge]

Well I bought the car only a few days ago so I haven't serviced it myself, there was no service history with the car but it does seem to have been taken care of.

I had a mechanic use one of the diagnostic cables, he said there was no errors showing perhaps because when I restarted the car after it stalled initially the ecu would have cleared any error codes from the stall - the mechanic suggested the coils as being the problem his reasoning was:

*the car was sat in traffic for quite a while which would have raised under bonnet temperatures, which may have exacerbated any problem with the coils which just so happened to be due for replacing anyway.

*the coils also had some dark lines/faint cracks in the casing as well as some black soot which wiped off(?)

*the car restarted and ran with no problem once the engine(coils) had a change to cool down.

I will post here in a week or so if the car hasn't had any further troubles, hopefully this might help someone in a similar situation.

P.S: The coilpacks were surprisingly cheap, due to there only being two of them, and they are the same part as used on older model v6 camrys.

[steve2006]

Have you checked the idle speed,it should be around 650RPM when the engine has warmed up.

A common cause of stalling is a dirty throttle body or IACV.

[Premium]

Hi I've recently purchased a LS400 and I've been lurking these forums for quite a while. I've only owned my car for four days and last night after sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on a motorway on-ramp for 30mins, i was driving in the merge lane when the steering went heavy; I looked down and noticed all the warning lights on my dash were on - the engine had stalled.

I pushed the car into an emergency stopping bay and had a look for anything obvious, after the car had been shut off for about 20 mins I thought I'd try start it, it started and ran fine but I had it towed home to be safe.

Has anyone had a similar experience and can offer some advice?

I purchased my 2011 IS350 four days ago. The first day i took it out i got 300 km before the engine shut down while on the freeway. All of the idiot lights came on. I let the car rest for 20 minutes or so with just the engine light and the anti slip light on while I called the dealer. They said to go ahead and drive it so I was able to get where I was going 20 minutes at a time. After 20 minutes the car would again shut down. It is still at a dealership and they advise that at this time they have no idea what has happened.

[Greavett]

Cant recall wether it was a GS or an IS that I fixed a few years ago same problem. Ecu was in front of the battery normal driving ok when in traffic would cut out. 10-15mins later start up and all would be fine.

Nothing listed in diagnostic tester (genuine tester). Read the first pages of electrical manual and like they all do, they give you hints and tips of how to treat electrical components and wiring also a few normal tests which we always overlook.

One of the tests was using a heat gun to raise the temperature of the ECU. I had my doubts as i've never had an ECU cut out from heat. Any way did the test and before long you guessed it.....she cut out. I was in shock and waited for it to cool and it started. So ran the test again to be totally sure and kept the cold airline ready to cool it back down quickly again to try and restart. Bingo, it overheated, cooled it down and started up.

Finally had to replace the ECU to fix the problem. So get yourself a heatgun and gently warm it up and see if you get the same results.

Simon

LS400 may have same problem but I believe that ecu is interior mounted?!