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I am the proud owner of a GS 450h, built 12.2007, 230000 kilometers, and I must say I absolutely love this car. I researched this model for almost two years for possible issues before I went and bought one, as I absolutely fell in love with it when I learned of it.
I will be detailing my findings below, because, as is my luck with cars, things are not right with it:
The footwell has flooded, all of it. I parked on an incline after a 6 hour drive and I must of drained 2 liters of water from it, easily. Removed the rear sponges bellow as they were easiest to remove and held the most water and had it dry out over two days. Still smells like a wet dog though.
The window drain works, the sunroof drain works, which as far as i've been able to gather on forums means it's the ac evap drain. I'll be taking it this week to the mechanic to have him find and remove the bloody thing, as I've learned it's a time consuming job on the 450h. I also hope he'll be able to find it from beneath the car and not have to remove the interior.
Moving on, the shocks are busted. No surprise here, knew it as I bought it. Might go the simple shocks replacement from the regular GS until I solve the important stuff.
Weird noise from the engine, sounds like cam followers, but deeper(might be me, had only small displacent engines before and cam followers on those sounded higher pitched). Might be the water pump. I'm preparing to change it either way after I solve the flooding problem, as it still seems to be an original part.
One small ding on the rear bumper, with some nice scratches. It's last on my list, along with some paint correction.
The battery is in good shape, I'm not sure what to do about the invertor to prolong its life. I've read about changing the thermal paste though. Might do that.
Oil change is due, ATF as well. Gonna get to them along with the coolant once I change the water pump.
Other than what I wrote above, I'm planning to follow these two threads for things to change/maintain, to keep it running smoothly:
Absolutely love it. I've had a petrol and a diesel before, as in Europe there is some sort of epidemic with diesels, everyone wants one, but wasn't my thing. Petrol is the place to be, before we get swallowed by the electric frenzy. Hybrids are the best choice imo right now, and the 450h is a truly special car.
If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, feel free to post them in this thread. I'm planning to post updates here. I'm not a mechanic, though I would love to be, just to be able to work on this car.
Can't do squat about the inverter, pretty much. Swap in a 3.769 diff (or at least a 3.6whatever from a GS430) if you don't mind the top speed dropping to... 230-ish(?) KPH. Look at dragy times & some more detailed threads on the inverter (not here, but linked in discussions here) to see why. IMO vmax is overrated.
Wheels don't look OEM, but sure look easier to clean than OEM (though I've grown fond of the OEMs... damn it).
The high pitched engine noise (like straight cut gears or something) is something that, afaik, all gs450h have from the get-go. If it's only during startup - that's another story.
It is bad. I discovered the engine did not have it's valve springs recall, so I took it to Lexus to have it done. They called me 3 hours later to let me know that they found that one of the guides fell into the oil pan and that the chain is stretched.
Genius that I am, the check engine error did say that the chain is stretched but I kept on blaming it on the faulty springs.
It will take two weeks to fix because they're waiting on a tensioner to be delivered.
I'm not a mechanic, so my question right now is what could cause this to go so wrong? Why would a guide break off on this engine? Is it possible that I'm not wrong and the springs are at fault for this misfortune? Glorious 2GR-FSE
11-01-22, 07:13 AM
One month owner of a GS 450h
