dnewton3
Staff member
I traveled to KY recently. Arrived at my friend's farm on Thursday evening. Parked my Lexus and didn't start it again until Sunday morning for my return trip home.
When the car started, it immediately displayed 6 (six!) warning lights on the dash. (see attached photos).
The engine ran OK, and the car seemed fine other than the obvious display of malfunctions. No "red lights" were present; they were all just cautionary for system failures. But the brakes worked fine. Steering OK. Engine ran OK. Hmmmmmmm ......
Drove the car home; about 2.5 hours drive. I arranged with my neighbor to put the car up on the his lift and see if we could find any issues. I suspected that perhaps a rodent had perhaps chewed on some wiring, causing all the error codes. But we found nothing out of sorts; no obvious damage, no evidence of nesting, etc. Further, the error codes displayed indicated that several of the malfunction codes were based on the radar systems; pre-collision, secondary-collision, radar cruise control, etc. But when I had the neighbor's wife walk in front of and behind the car, the sensors worked perfectly fine (detecting her presence). And, though the EPB showed error, the electronic parking brake worked perfectly fine. So it was a real conundrum. Why all the error codes when the systems were actually working???
Took it to the dealer on Monday; dropped it off and got a loaner. The next day, I got a call from the service rep. He asked if I had got gas recently ...
I said "Yes - filled up when I arrived in KY, just before I parked." He then explained that the only failures they could find stored were multiple misfire codes in multiple cylinders. The knock sensor values were waaaayyy low, he said. He offered to drain the gas and refill it; I declined. I said I'd just drive it and burn out that load of gas and then refill from a known good source.
When I picked it up, there were no codes present on the dash. It drove fine, as it had before. I ran it down to 1/8th tank and refilled with premium, just to get the octane at a high value. (I normally run regular gas, and have never had problems using regular in that car). The codes never came back.
This is my assessment of the reality of what happened.
- purchased gas; filled from a local station in KY (about 14 gallons)
- the gas probably had a slug of water and/or poor quality gas (not the full volume of 14 gallons, but some small portion)
- the car was driven only a few miles (enough that the existing good gas in the fuel line was expended) and then parked for extended time
- when started, the bad stuff (water, or whatever) had been primed up towards the fuel rails by the short drive a few days prior
- after starting, the bad stuff continued to be consumed, and all manner of Hades broke loose and error codes aplenty were on display
- the long drive home ran out all that crap, whatever it was, and the stored codes were still present (car drove fine; had decent power and no sensible misfiring)
- there were only a couple of start cycles after the bad fuel, and so the system hadn't reset itself yet
- it's possible that if I had simply refilled with good gas on the way home, I could have avoided a trip to the Lexus dealer
I can certainly understand why bad fuel would set a CEL, but why all the other system error codes? It's like the whole car was freaking out just because the engine computer couldn't compensate for the slug of bad fuel.
When the car started, it immediately displayed 6 (six!) warning lights on the dash. (see attached photos).
The engine ran OK, and the car seemed fine other than the obvious display of malfunctions. No "red lights" were present; they were all just cautionary for system failures. But the brakes worked fine. Steering OK. Engine ran OK. Hmmmmmmm ......
Drove the car home; about 2.5 hours drive. I arranged with my neighbor to put the car up on the his lift and see if we could find any issues. I suspected that perhaps a rodent had perhaps chewed on some wiring, causing all the error codes. But we found nothing out of sorts; no obvious damage, no evidence of nesting, etc. Further, the error codes displayed indicated that several of the malfunction codes were based on the radar systems; pre-collision, secondary-collision, radar cruise control, etc. But when I had the neighbor's wife walk in front of and behind the car, the sensors worked perfectly fine (detecting her presence). And, though the EPB showed error, the electronic parking brake worked perfectly fine. So it was a real conundrum. Why all the error codes when the systems were actually working???
Took it to the dealer on Monday; dropped it off and got a loaner. The next day, I got a call from the service rep. He asked if I had got gas recently ...
I said "Yes - filled up when I arrived in KY, just before I parked." He then explained that the only failures they could find stored were multiple misfire codes in multiple cylinders. The knock sensor values were waaaayyy low, he said. He offered to drain the gas and refill it; I declined. I said I'd just drive it and burn out that load of gas and then refill from a known good source.
When I picked it up, there were no codes present on the dash. It drove fine, as it had before. I ran it down to 1/8th tank and refilled with premium, just to get the octane at a high value. (I normally run regular gas, and have never had problems using regular in that car). The codes never came back.
This is my assessment of the reality of what happened.
- purchased gas; filled from a local station in KY (about 14 gallons)
- the gas probably had a slug of water and/or poor quality gas (not the full volume of 14 gallons, but some small portion)
- the car was driven only a few miles (enough that the existing good gas in the fuel line was expended) and then parked for extended time
- when started, the bad stuff (water, or whatever) had been primed up towards the fuel rails by the short drive a few days prior
- after starting, the bad stuff continued to be consumed, and all manner of Hades broke loose and error codes aplenty were on display
- the long drive home ran out all that crap, whatever it was, and the stored codes were still present (car drove fine; had decent power and no sensible misfiring)
- there were only a couple of start cycles after the bad fuel, and so the system hadn't reset itself yet
- it's possible that if I had simply refilled with good gas on the way home, I could have avoided a trip to the Lexus dealer
I can certainly understand why bad fuel would set a CEL, but why all the other system error codes? It's like the whole car was freaking out just because the engine computer couldn't compensate for the slug of bad fuel.
