Stalling/Rough Idle. 1993 LS400

[Stupot]

17 hours ago, Stupot said:

Lastly, I'm amazed it would only take an hour to do the job of replacing all eight Caps, bearing in mind the complexity of sandwich pcb and possible leakage from originals

Just to add... you are right in as far as the chap that replaced the capacitors in my ECU told me I was lucky because there was no leakage or damage to the board. He said if there had been damage, then things get very time consuming and thus can get very expensive. So worth doing the ECU preemptively!

Edit: Copy n paste error...that quote above is not from me, but from runsgrateasanut 

Edited January 18, 2019 by Stupot

[AndyCheltenham1]

I took the car to the mechanic yesterday and it was driving perfectly. I was speaking to two mechanics there for some time and they were both saying the same thing that if the fault is intermittent then it can be very difficult to find the fault and they would struggle to find the fault unless it happens while they are testing it. I said about the ECUs failing and they are not confident that is the problem but maybe this would be the first thing to get done. They are wary about trusting anyone to repair it who isn't an ecu specialist as they have seen a lot of problems in the past.So no testing was done of the car.

I received the caps this morning from eBay (same supplier as you Stupot ) and they come in a small Static Shielding Bag and are stamped  as Made In America so are not the fake Chinese ones.

Thanks for the link to dieselecurepairs.co.uk where you had yours done, they look very reputable and I think this is the place I would use.

I wont even try to take the unit out myself as my diy skills are very very bad and I know it would cause ME problems-I'll leave that to a mechanic to do.

[runsgrateasanut]

With my own ECU Stu,  I had my bench lined up to do the job. Must have been six Soldering irons and all sorts of fluxes etc. Having removed the obvious corner screws and the thing not coming apart I bottled it and just put the srews back and sent it to America for a rather expensive repair.  Took four weeks to return and in between I bought the one on t/bay.  Both arrived by Postman on the same day so reinstalled my original. 

There had only been one issue (and members advice on the subject) that made me think it could need Caps replacement.  The Car behve fine in idle, started first time but when I got up to speed and say 80mph in France instead of the O/D seeming to come into play, the car jerked and I instinctively throttled back with a feeling of anxiety.  So, never taken the Car above this speed,  

Has the replacmeent Caps sorted this?  No  so must be a gearbox solenoid  issue, but still not checked the OBD port to confirm. Laziness and too cold to venture out.

If nobody buys the ECU I'm selling I may invest in sending it to your linked repairer to have the Caps replaced.I've no knowledge of its history but for the price you paid I'd keep it just in case I ever felt inclined (not likely, I suspect) to install it and see what results with my O/D situation.  The Car drives much the same as berore I spent the money on the ECU. Sharp enough but under load uphills say the Amberzacs it struggles.  Mond you I will now turn off O/D to get up those hills so it could be my driving it wrongly that causes it to struggle. Perhaps you'll let me know the name of the guy?

 

(will cut off here as Andy message coming through)

[Malc]

1 hour ago, AndyCheltenham1 said:

I wont even try to take the unit out myself

for heavens sake, just take a short break down to Devon and have them do the whole job for you there and then ...........  relaxing in the knowledge it's being done properly while you're supping a few beers in a nice hotel 

Malc

[Stupot]

Stuart, like you I was planning on trying the soldering myself... but I bottled it before I even removed the ECU, mainly because I found that local repair chap and knew he was going to do a MUCH better job than me and I hoped he would not be too expensive. The name of the chap at dieselecurepairs.co.uk  is Neville. I should stress to both you Stuart and Andy, if you use his services, that Neville did not want to give me a quote until he had the ECU open and could assess damage/time required to replace the caps. So I would not necessarily bank on it being £40.

Sad to hear that the replacement caps have not resolved your problem Stuart. I had a couple of incidents where the 'Check engine' light came on and car went in limp mode. Stopping and restarting car cleared it, so it seemed a bit random. So far, since the caps replacement, I have not had that problem again, but it's too early to really say for sure considering the infrequency of the problem.

 

[runsgrateasanut]

Is this deja vu Andy

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lexus-LS400-1993-Intermittent-Fault/223340611165?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D20160323102634%26meid%3Dc617bc9148154d58a43108bc1fc342e2%26pid%3D100623%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D223341047978%26itm%3D223340611165&_trksid=p2047675.c100623.m-1

[AndyCheltenham1]

Stuart, yes this was me, I did put the car up for sale on eBay and it has now sold-for £700.

I have had the problem on the car for about 2 months now and I could no longer trust its' reliability. I did contact a few ecu specialists (including the one in Devon) and was quoted from £60 to test ecu and maybe £150 to repair it. With the cost of paying to remove/re install and then postage both ways I could be looking close on £300 on "a guess" which probably wouldn't solve my problem. I was not prepared to go chasing repairs by repairing/replacing several items in the hope of finding the problem. Looking on the USA forum many people have replaced the ecu and then several more components and still not solved the problem.

My car had done 100000 miles and I am aware that sooner or later the starter motor will go as it is still the original (big job), the water pump etc are all original (big job) and also possibly the power steering pump will leak and take out the alternator, so I didn't really want to pump potentially a large amount of money into the car.

I've had it for 11 years and it has been brilliant and very very reliable but is now time to move on.

I had a good response on eBay and very quickly (did I price it too cheap, not sure). The bloke who bought it has got another LS400 exactly same year as mine and he seems confident that his mechanic will plug it into the computer and find the problem easily (not sure about that ), but I know it has gone to a good home. Interestingly I had a message from "lexuslegend" on eBay saying he was interested in buying it- I wonder how he would have tried to screw me over had I met him and answered his message?

I bought a Rover 75 about a year ago as a runaround incase the lexus had problems so at the moment that is my only car ( and it is a totally horrible car) so now have to decide what to buy next as my main car??

 

 

[The-Acre]

How about a GS300?  Apart from the dash rattles, which are silence-able, I did quite enjoy mine.  What I like about the GS is the way it still looks modern, even though they go back to 05. Just not an LS though, and once your bitten it's hard to satisfy the itch. 

[runsgrateasanut]

My GS300 is likely up for sale from tomorrow depending on the MOT of my returned Lexus LS400.  PM me if you would like the honest details which I have prepared but yet to advertise.  Don't need two Cars.   (Just done a 1200 miles journey in it as you may jhave read alsewhere.