Check engine light on

[kcty]

Originally Posted by Thirty-Nine

The Scions with the 1NZ-FE get this code quite often. I believe it's a VVT-i thing. I had mine come on, brought it in had the code read, and it hasn't come on again, and that was more than a month ago.

More info on Scionlife.com: here

My light came on the weekend before last during a long drive, but it went off on its own. I had another fairly long drive this weekend with a full car (I love that I can get 5 people in this little thing) and it came on again, but it has stayed on.

The service department said something about it being an idler gear problem with a known TSB and that the car wasn't currently experiencing the problem. They turned the light off and it is still off. I guess the problem will be fixed tomorrow when I take the car back.

[07typeS]

Originally Posted by kcty

My light came on the weekend before last during a long drive, but it went off on its own. I had another fairly long drive this weekend with a full car (I love that I can get 5 people in this little thing) and it came on again, but it has stayed on.

The service department said something about it being an idler gear problem with a known TSB and that the car wasn't currently experiencing the problem. They turned the light off and it is still off. I guess the problem will be fixed tomorrow when I take the car back.

They said your car is not experiencing the problem, but your car set off the cel light? that seems like the dealer is trying to push you around...

if your car does something, doesnt like it enough to throw a code, something created by toyota to let them know when theres a problem, and they say oh you dont have the issue, your light basically just came on just because??

I want to know what you guys think about the dealer telling you its ok to drive your car, even with the problem. I dont know about you guys but if I knew my car had a problem the dealer was required to fix, I wouldnt drive the car until the fix was performed, "its ok to drive til then" wouldnt work for me, what do you guys think?

[kcty]

Okay, I tried to get more info out of the Asst. Service Manager this morning when I dropped the car off, but it didn't sound like he fully understood the problem so he couldn't explain it very well.

He said that he thought it was an idler/tensioner cam gear that was the problem and was throwing the timing off every now and then. He said the last timing problem probably occurred during one of the engine starts and that I probably didn't notice (which I did not). I think if the timing had be off for very long, I would have noticed it.

He said the cars timing was currently correct (which is why it was safe to drive), but I could have the same problem again if they did not replace the gear. He said something about the gear possibly being slightly the wrong size, but that doesn't make sense to me. If the gear was the wrong size (even just slightly) it would not temporarily throw the engine out of time. I think it would be off for long periods of time if not always off. Right?

Anyway, they have the car now and it will take most of the day for them to fix it. The parts list isn't too bad. Just the gear and the valve cover gasket. It doesn't sound like they will have to break the engine down too far to get it fixed. I just hope we don't start seeing more people with the same problem.