onsknht

A little salt....

where'd all the racket and slipping go???

osokuko

A little pepper, when you went for your test drive I noticed the way your engine purrs it’s a bit bassey like my ES350 after 2500 miles. cool. Read that other site anyway you got a good home here, appreciated all your hard work.

dunnojack

oh man. that stings.

my diesel is nice and loud. i can hear it from 50 ft away

onsknht

Thanks for the kind wors osokuko, I'm going to follow the problem through and look forward to hearing more about your experiences.

cdale1984

Greetings all, I am an almost ES 350 owner and have enjoyed reading this thread for the past 2 months. Great info and great videos to boot. I just won a lemon law case for a 2006 Cadillac CTS, and am headed toward the ES 350.

1seeker1

WAIT FOR THE TRANSMISSION ISSUES TO BE WORKED OUT OR YOU MAY BE IN FOR ANOTHER LEMON LAW CASE

BillP

I had a new experience with the 3-4 flair other than the first shift of the day when we went on a trip this past weekend. After about 1 1/2 hours at 70+ mph we exited the interstate and I experienced the 3-4 shift flair as the tranny went through gears the first time as I drove away from the light at the bottom of the exit ramp. It probably jumped about 400 rpm. Then it seemed to shift normally. The same flair occurred a couple of times across the weekend after extended time on the interstate. I'm sure Lexus will just tell me the tranny is learning what to do after its first extended highway trip. Other than that the car was a pleasure to take on a trip. Has anyone else experienced the flair after extended highway speeds?

onsknht

Not on the highway as a normal 3rd to 4th shift flare after starting from a stop, as if you were in stop and go traffic... I did start to experience a "kickdown flare" which would happen on the highway when I stood on the foot feed... Basically what would happen is the trans would drop a gear or two and then go to like 5000 rpm and stay there (like a CVT trans) but the car wasn't accellerating.

I did get the 3rd to 4th shift flare after driving for some time and then stopping for 15-20 minutes, it would happen only on the first shift from 3rd to 4th after the stop.

Incidentally, in my case... The transmission was being "dumbed down" as I drove it, because if it was "learning," it was learning some bad habits.

ES350Bob

Bill,

Yes, that can happen, I used to say no rhyme or reason to it happening in describing my car transmission as it was clearly not limited to just an early am cold start though cold start is the most frequent and those when hot were what I would describe as a baby flare, about what you describe.

Given the federal report indicating a death and injury associated with the transmission slipping, I doubt too many with this issue will be told it's learning much longer.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=257589

garsarno

Now there are eight ES350 cars on e-bay motors that are buybacks from Lexus due to transmission issues and are being resold:

Ruby Red - 1,700 miles / Phoenix
Ruby Red - 1,400 miles / Houston
Silver - 2,000 miles / Cleveland
Silver - 2,600 miles / Houston
Silver - 4,897 miles / Chicago
White - 1,000 miles / Houston
Moon Shadow - 3,900 miles / Phoenix
Grey - 2,400 miles / Houston

No Ultras though.

djr

Hi,

I am supposed to be picking up my wife's Ruby Red ES sometime this week. It just came off the boat (East coast) last Thursday and I am concerned that it may have the 2nd generation transmission. Is there any way to tell by VIN number whether it has the 3rd gen transmission, or can the VIN determine build date?

Thanks
Jason

ES350Bob

I doubt there is any way to find out and I'm not aware that a third generation officially exists and as a permanent solution.

Best you can do is ask to test drive it from a cold start after it has sat overnight and see if you notice it flare before accepting delivery, you can check for wind noise too at that time and diesel engine noise from cold start as well.

The trans may not show itself on one cold start test drive, but the other issues will.

wanderer99

I've had the HOT condition flares on both my first and second trans. Both trans slipped when cold, but also had the hot flares as well. For me its usually 2-3 that exhibits the flare when hot, but its totally not repeatable... which makes it impossible to present to your service dept.

The learning stuff is just a joke. When you purchase your vehicle did it 'flare' or shift hard or anything like that? It probably worked just fine and gave you no problems. That's why you notice the flare when it happens as its not normal behaviour. Its not a learning condition at all, at least not in my experience.

garsarno

The dealer had to "reflash" my transmission a number of times under warranty in my '04 Lincoln LS as it would acquire a habit of shifting harsh and erratic.

djr

One suggestion for the poll on this thread is to add an option for "no noticeable transmission problems".

All of the questions assume every car has this issue & I'd be interested in how many don't have it (if any).

On my wife's '02 ES, we had the tranny re-flashed with a new program under a TSB that was sent to us when it was probably a year old. After the reflash, it shifted a bit rough (for a few months) and I started to regret it, but now it is smooth as silk at 114K.

Also, on my '03 Toyota Tacoma, the tranny used to thump hard when coming to a stop when the truck was new (< 12K), but that problem has long disappeared.