Originally Posted by Har

Interestingly enough, my wife came home tonight with a loaner ES 350 MSM because she got tired of me complaiing about her ES 350 Tungsten Pearl having the loud engine noise "valve clacking" upon cold starts and continuing to have the similar but faint sound when warmed up after about 5-10 minutes. Our ES 350 is at the Lexus dealer so they can hear the problem after sitting all night. I took the loaner out as I wanted to see how quite the cabin was compared to ours which by the way was a louder version of what I hear when driving our car and after backing out of the driveway I put it into D and stepped on the gas and experienced first hand the transmission slippage and jerking shifting.

Once I got up to 45 or so it smoothed out but after stopping and turning on to a main road, it happenned again (same feeling as poping a clutch on a four speed), screached the tiires and the check engine light came on with the VSC icon lit. The manufacture date on this MSM was 04/06. I can't wait to see what my mfg date is on our ES 350.
The Lexus service manager did tell me last week that he replaced his first tranny on an ES 350, he will now have a second ..

I'll check in the morning if this MSM has the same "valve clacking" that ours has but hoefully be fxed to the point where is quiter after warmup like the rest of your ES 350s. My 2005 RX 330 engine is much quieter with no cold start issue.

We both love our new Lexus-i just have to get past the wind noise and engine noise. My wife's solution is to turn up the music.

BTW, my son came home from work and said Dad why does your new car look pink?

Originally Posted by Har

My wife returned the loaner MSM ES350 this morning to Lexus and sure enough it needs a new transmission. I am so gald it was the loaner (I didn't catch the mileage) and not our Tungsten Pearl ES 350. The service manager said that this was the 3rd one he has seen from this deealership. Lexus is still trying to get a handle on mfg dates and vin numbers which may be suspect. He said that there is a c-clip plastic in the transmission that either wasn't installed correctly or just breaks causeing the slippage and transmission failure. Claims that Lexus is taking this problem very seriously and will offer to buy back the car or replace the ttransmission and extend warranties for the trouble to the customer. Botom line is that Lexus will stick with you during this process and make you satisfied.

The transmission issue that I experienced with this loaner vehicle was very obvious. It is similar to riding in a manual shift car with a new driver who doesn't know how to shift correctly. Giving too much gas and not letting out the clutch and then "popping the clutch" burning some rubber. It was that obvious. Then when slowing down from 45 mph the downshift was strange. Again, similar to a new driver dounshifting for the first time and not getting the clutch and gas sinchronized. I didn't notice the tach but it must have been bouncing around the dial.

For those interested in my "cold start" valve clacking noise, I am going to start a new thread and leave this tranny topic "pure"-no recall from Lexus...yet?