Funny enough it has received less work than the LSs, it just is very very densely packaged by comparison and requires a bit more care for certain steps.

This car totally outclasses anything Lexus has ever made, it's not fair to compare it to the 430 or 460 lol! Easily the best car I've ever owned in every way

 

Everything is done now but I do have something broken, the passenger side transmission active mount is torn nearly entirely though lol!

This sucks, there goes $1000 for the pair.....

Also really sucks since I'm just going to do all 5 now since one has died.

 

Since you are doing it yourself, the cost won't be too bad. It was $1400 to do all the mounts in the Camry (3.3L V6), which included labor. I probably have to do the same in our Sienna soon...you can feel engine vibration when going full throttle

 

Holy $#!% $1400!?!?? For the Camry!

I'm not charging enough money....I just did a RX (harder) for $850 parts included lol!

My mounts are $1000 in parts for the two engine units and the pair of active trans mounts, the trans tail mount is somehow still perfect. I don't think it is subject to much/any stress really, it's probably mostly the trans side mounts that get the beating based on the layout. The moment of failure was hilarious though, I was working on the exhaust pipes and the mount just "dropped" as I was zoning out operating a tool. Just blank staring at the mount and it failed in real time lol!

If it makes you feel any better about the Camry though the dealer price for the trans service, diffs, t-case, and TVD was $1300+300+300+450+300 and I know front brakes are $4500 with parts included on all of them. Utterly insane IMO, but makes sense with a 200k car and all.....there is no way I would own anything like this if I couldn't just fix whatever I needed!

 

The dealership is even worse, they would be a few hundred dollars more. I never took my cars to the dealership unless it was warranty related. As far as trans service, he did ours for $150.

Most of the cost was labor for the mounts, I believe 3 altogether. Stuff is just more expensive here in the Bay area. He probably pays twice the rent on his shop than you do. Also the cost of labor is more expensive...he told me he pays his mechanic almost $40 an hour

 

The days of finding a good mechanic for a good price may be long gone.

The good ones are not cheap and the cheaper ones seem to only want to do bread and butter easy jobs like suspension and brakes.

Have a real issue and they will bounce you from shop to shop because unless it has a code to read, forget it. Lol

Yeah, they charge a lot and only seem to want the easy jobs. Lol

Those engine mounts on a Toyota is GRAVY money, cha ching. Lol

 

The mechanic I use, I've been using since 2009. Most honest mechanic I've ever met. He won't even charge me if I bring my car in and it turns out to be something that came loose. Once my brakes were squeaking pretty bad, he took them apart and found that the last guy who did brakes used heavy duty brakes that make a lot of noise. There was about 6 months left on them, so he put everything back together and refused to charge me for the labor! He could have just put in new brakes and I would have never known. I trust him to the point where I tell him if he finds an issue (other than the one he is working on), just fix it and bill me.

 

That's awesome Amirza!

And, I'm sure he appreciates your repeat business too.

The biggest compliment you can do for someone who does honest service is a referral to others.

I appreciate my regular customers and they send me so much referral business.

Honestly, my regular customers and their referals IS my bread and butter.

So much harder to earn someone's business than to just treat them right and they return again.

Now that's a WIN WIN!
Shazam! Rite On!

PS-I would say Striker is quite a few notches above the average tech ability out there after seeing his work.

 

A lot of mechanics look for short term gains and use the lack of knowledge to take advantage of their customers. It's unfortunate

 

What's the mileage again? Seems a bit too early for mounts to start uhh... disintegrating like that.

 

I have one of these and it's such a great situation to be in. A few years ago I had him replace my trans pan and all the internal seals as preventative maintenance, which was already a relatively expensive service (just under $800). But I told him to go ahead and replace the solenoids while he was in there if anything looked funky. He actually called mid-job to let me know that not only was the mechatronic unit in great shape, but the seals weren't hardened to the point they were problematic, and I could put the service off for another 20k miles or so without issue. I had him finish the job.

Now that my E90 is going to my son, it's good to know he has a trustworthy place to take it for work that exceeds his or my ability or desire to do.

 

You are, we've talked about this lol. I paid $800 just to replace the dogbone mount on my ES300 at my independent mechanic and that was 15 years ago. You are way underpriced.

 

There's nothing like having a trustworthy mechanic. It does give you peace of mind, and I know I can send my wife and kids to him without worrying about being gouged

 

My shop rent is comedy due to my location actually lol! I probably pay less than his power bill......that's a main reason why I'm out in the middle of nowhere basically.

Still. Damn that's expensive!

 

Just under 100k, this isn't particularly abnormal for a luxo barge though and both my LSs needed mounts as well. I couldn't really tell it was an issue driving the car, the speakers cause more vibration than the driveline....

Yeah I probably could charge more by my overhead is so low I would feel odd doing so, I simply don't need to charge more. I may do a small increase though since oddly enough people appear to want to pay more?

Glad to hear your guy has done well for you though! That's really rare these days