I found a 2 owner 2007 TL with 115k miles. The car is clean, the test drive was really nice (plenty of acceleration, no strange noises, etc) so I went ahead and bought it. Not being a big car guy, in retrospect I should have paid a mechanic to look at it. That said, I was playing around with the touch screen options tonight and came across "Messages". Low and behold there are multiple messages with error codes listed (see.attached image). I noticed at least one of these is from 2016. Is there any chance these are old messages that were dealt with but for some reason never deleted? Like I said the car drives fine, and no engine lights are on, just these messages. I have a knot in my stomach right now thinking I just spent my hard earned money on a lemon here. On a scale of 1-10 how screwed am I?

 

Lol i think youll be fine. As long as theres no check engine lights on right now. And as you said, the car drives fine. Jist keep up with the maintenance and you should be okay

 

I would throw an OBDII scanner on the car and see if anything pops up, will help you understand what is going on with the car currently.
Not sure how you got to that messages screen, but it might just be a US vehicle feature. In either case, those messages should have a data log, meaning time and date of their occurrence. Go through them and see if any are recent.

That along with the OBDII scan will tell you if there is any current issues with the car.

 

Atleast check to see what the problems are via OBD II scanner.


I'm sure if there is a problem, it won't be a huge. deal, and there may not be a problem at all, or one that requires assessment.

 

The messages you saw are stored messages, if you concern about those code then have a mechanic look at system readiness using a scan tools. if the system is in "ready" stage you have nothing to worry about.

 

Delete them, if they come back, then it's a true problem.

 

I have bought used cars and had messages stored and never deleted. The dates on some of them were like 5 years old. I think you're fine as I have seen those on vehicles in the past and the transmissions and engines were perfect

 

Thank you all for the responses, it's really appreciated. I've driven the car to work 2 days in a row now (50 miles round trip) and the car runs fine. The only active warnings I've gotten were to tighten the gas cap and put air in the front driver's side tire. Going to follow the advice given here and have the car scanned to make sure those messages aren't regarding anything current. Thanks again to everyone who replied!

 

Very much this

 

Tighten Fuel Cap... Ahhh... How well does your bluetooth work, or dash look?

 

perfectly fine for me

 

The first thing i do when I buy a 3g TL, unhook the HFL. People usually sell their TLs because of battery problems which usually leads back to HFL and cables.

 

 

I think you're fine. P0108 Manifold pressure, P2138 - pedal sensor, P1717 - transmission range switch, VSA. None of those messages are related, or caused by common historical failures with the TL. But all of them can be caused by low battery voltage. There's a fair chance the battery died or the previous owner let it drain too far then tried to start the car. Several systems freak out when that's done. The TL, and most modern cars, are especially sensitive to battery voltages. Sometimes they clear themselves after the battery is changed/charged. If not, someone will clear them and all will be well. But they'll still stick around in the history despite that.

Also, if those things were really going wrong you'd definitely know it, especially the pedal sensor or manifold pressure. The pedal sensor code can be caused by a faulty or unplugged throttle body cable. And the manifold pressure issue is usually caused by a bad MAP sensor. Both of those would cause the car to instantly go into limp mode and severely impact drivability.

 

There's an annoying way to delete these messages, most of these messages you can't delete if you don't go into the settings...


Follow that video for instructions to delete, after delete if they come back like everybody said then you have a problem, for tighten fuel cap replace Purge Control Valve..

 

Thank you for the video. I did manage to delete the messages this past Saturday and so far none have come back thankfully. So far so good. Car is running great. I will look into replacing the purge control valve as you suggested.

Outside of that the only issues I still need to deal with is the door unlocking when I make a sharp right turn while going over a bump (guessing that's a door sensor going bad) and the voice recognition isnt working. I get a "booting up" notice when I try to get into the hands free screen on the dash and the system isnt recognizing any voice commands. Any suggestions on where to start for troubleshooting that?

 

For the door check either the door sensor which has gone bad, very simple job. I bought mine from autozone for like 5 bucks and replaced it myself, sometimes also check your door striker that little silver thing the door locks onto. It becomes lose and will cause the door to have issues, it happens to me all the time I don't know why but I have to tighten it ever few months because it sounds like air is leaking in the door even if the door is locked or unlocked so get that tightened as well.

 

This works, thanks for the tip!

 

Is your Bluetooth/ HFL connected, i.e. does it pair with any cell phones?
If the HFL is not connected, there will be a "booting up" notice and voice control will not work because it operates with the HFL microphone.

The HFL is often disconnected in the 3G TL when it goes bad, as it can continue to draw power even when the car has been shit off longer than 30 minutes.