GS300Miami

Sirblinks... probably you already know by now...but what you have is most likely your CAM Gears going bad. They did mine twice until they got it sort of right...still will get the grinding sound every 3 months or so...I believe there is a service bulletin or recall on that.

sirblinks

iTrader: (2)

Yeah, i figured it was. I did tell the service guy and of course, they couldn't duplicate the sound. I hope there's a recall for it, so i can just bring it in and have em "try" to fix it. ha ha. but other than that, my car runs fine! HA HA.

ITWORKS

iTrader: (1)

Well, here's the story.
My car runs extra smooth.
No knock at start up.
No smoke
Nice power.
The only thing I find weird is that the mpg is noticeably lower. I'm thinking of having it looked at again.

BinaryJay

To those in Toronto... I am done with Ken Shaw Lexus for service, they are awful. I took my car in shaking and rumbling... they took it in and pulled the misfire codes.

But the tech first tried to blame it on a prior misdiagnosis they did for an after-the-cat O2 sensor problem I was having that they told me was due to exhaust leak before the sensor. Anyway, exhaust shop told me there was no leak there... and I later figured out on my own it was due to a broken windshield cowl that was allowing water to run down the firewall into the o2 sensor harness. Then the tech told me to put fuel additive in the car and drive fast on the highway... bleh.

Service manager was not in, they called me the next day...

Service manager tells me that they have to do a compression test and that will cost me nearly $600 (!). I later bring in the document that details that this issue is covered and of course, manager is not in again and they say they will call me back. A week goes by, nobody calls me. I call them yesterday, the service advisor was not in... the service manager was "in a meeting" and was told they would call me back this morning.

So they call me 2PM, and tell me that they won't do anything for me before I pay to have the "diagnosing" done - the $600 compression test. I can't believe it, my car has all of the symptoms it has the codes this is a covered situation and they won't help me until I pay them for a completely unnecessary and overpriced compression test diagnostic?

That is the last time I go to Ken Shaw for ANYTHING. First they seem incapable of doing a proper diagnosis instead they seem to just blame me or take a wild guess at problems that don't even exist. Now they are unwilling to help me with this warranty issue and are trying to force me into paying for diagnostics that have nothing to do with it claiming that all diagnosis of this problem are my responsibility.

I am going to contact other dealerships about this and hope that Ken Shaw at least has the codes they pulled on file or something (I doubt it). Ugh, why do I always feel like Lexus is always blowing me off? Not a satisfied customer...

ibidu1

iTrader: (1)

Ask them how much to swap out the spark plugs? Because doing a compression check is as easy as doing the spark plugs.

They are trying to take you for a ride, maybe you can have an independent shop do a compression check or maybe you even if you are able to do spark plugs.

ibidu1

iTrader: (1)

Or possibly see how much toyota will charge?

BinaryJay

I still don't see anywhere in the document about this issue where it says anything about needing the customer to pay for any kind of diagnostic or what a compression test is going to tell you anyway... if compression was bad then it would be stumbling constantly and what are the odds compression would be gone in nearly all cylinders?

I think they are just trying to get me to spend more money on useless stuff, it probably works for their other customers... like you said, take me for a ride. If I get a compression test done elsewhere they'll just make something up about how they can't trust somebody else's results... and who knows what results they're even looking for... good compression, bad compression? Will the compression test just lead to them saying I need other diagnostics and throwing more money away?

Originally I was told that I was going to need my service history showing my oil changes and stuff, since the last couple of years I started doing them at an independent shop which could give me full synthetic for less than what they charge for dino... after I said that was no problem I have all of my records then this compression test stuff came out of the blue.

Anyway, if Lexus doesn't actually help me with this then nobody I know is going to go car shopping without hearing about this whole mess. I seriously don't know what the problem is wouldn't a dealership love to do this job it's a whole lot of billable hours isn't it? I told them there is no way I'm paying for this diagnostic, maybe they will come back and suddenly offer to do the job... even so, I am pretty sure I will not trust my cars to ever go back into that shop.

Did I mention that the cost of the compression test included a cost for PARTS? What kind of parts does that need, really... I asked, they didn't have an answer for me... I was told "maybe oil or something". Seriously, I am not totally uninformed about the vehicles I drive and I know that pulling out spark plugs and pumping air into a cylinder does not require any parts to be replaced.

ibidu1

iTrader: (1)

Is there another Lexus dealership that you can go to? Have you filed formal complaints with this dealership to Lexus of Canada?

BinaryJay

I'm not going to file a formal complaint because Lexus Canada does not care, trust me. At LEAST they never ended up charging me the diagnostic fee (which they nicely originally were going to only charge me half hour labor to do rather than what seems most automatically charge minimum one hour) for plugging the car into their PC to read the damnable codes. They were good in that sense, so at least it was just wasted time and not wasted money there.

At any rate, I have been speaking to another dealership which seems to be completely aware of this warranty issue - they do seem to be willing to play ball with me on this problem but they have said I still need to take the car to them when the foreman is present and I will have to submit to a ~$120 hour of labor for diagnostics for them to.. well, basically plug the car in and hope they find misfire codes I guess.

The thing still won't actually light the check engine light even when the car is shaking like a crack addict in withdrawal... like, seriously... what does it take for this car to have a CEL when it's misfiring like crazy it's almost like it's designed to ignore it on purpose even though to the driver you're sitting there thinking the car is going to stall at any second.

Also... it still has more good days/periods where it behaves normally than it doesn't... so if anybody needs to actually get the misfires to take place in real time while it's at the shop I feel like it's going to of course not go my way and it'll be perfect for them (particularly since by the time I drive it there the engine will be nice and hot and it seems to happen more when it's started from stone cold). It'll be like the singing and dancing dead frog. I'm not sure if the CEL being set would streamline the process or not -- I still have about a year before this warranty is done time-wise, I think, but obviously I'd love to stop living with the problem sooner than later... but I also don't want getting the fix to be a gamble with diagnostic fees.

GS300Miami

I had the same dilemma: to pay or not to pay the diagnostics fee..so I decided to take control of my own destiny and bought a cheap code reader that works with my Iphone. I'll keep checking the car once in a while until I feel the hated tremors...if the misfire codes are there then I'll take the car to Lexus with the smoking gun in hand. My mechanic confessed to me that he cleared all the trouble codes in the last oil change...so there is no point to take it until the misfire comes back and it is properly recorded in the computer.

ELM 327 Wi-Fi code reader ($19):

Iphone App to access ELM 327 ($3.99):
Engine Link

P.S .. if anyone decide to go this way...you'll need to contact the engine link app team to get an specific file in order to make it work with the GS300. At least that was my case.

BinaryJay

They gave me the impression that it needed the check engine light ON, that having the codes but not MIL wasn't going to be good enough. Also don't they need to reproduce the misfiring in real time or something - such that even if the car is brought in with misfire errors from some previous drive that if they don't coax it into misfiring on the spot then that's no good - wasted diagnostic fee?

vaLency

The way my dealer is handling it, all diagnostics/troubleshooting for this issue is free. They rev the stationary car to a specific RPM and over a few minutes they measure the number of misfires. If the misfire count is over what they deem acceptable, all required work is free. All I told them was that car was burning oil, they pursued these tests and offered the engine rebuild; I didn't have to press for anything.

I just got the call this morning that my car failed the test, YIPPIE!

They will have the car for about a week and I get to continue driving a 2013 GS350

They will also be installing a new drive belt for no labor while the motor is out, belt cost is $65.

BinaryJay

Nobody here is offering to do any kind of test "risk free" for me... and if there is some kind of specific "real time" test for it, then why even bother telling me to bring it in with the check engine light on - they even stressed to not let anybody clear the codes beforehand because "they are used for the diagnosis".

Maybe there are two ways of going about it, those who complain about symptoms but have no check engine light and those with a check engine light/codes for which they send off the stored data to the lexus master eggheads to give a thumbs up or thumbs down over. They told me the repair, if approved, would take 3 days.

I don't know, but I'll be damned if I am going to let this car squeak by this gracious eligibility period without getting fixed up. I joked when I bought the thing that I would drive it until I give it to my son (y'know, I bought the car when Toyota and particularly Lexus brands were still considered bulletproof)... now I'm well determined to make good on that threat.

I wish I could say if mine burned oil or not, I probably only put like 1000 miles on it between oil changes. It definitely got clogged with enough carbon to warrant that top engine clean in the past for the same symptoms.

krava

any possible way to take it to the US? go to closest dealership outside of Canada to try to get it worked on?

BinaryJay

'Canadian' vehicles can only have warranty work done by Canadian dealers - never mind that all of the GS are made in the same factories in Japan... it's bureaucracy.