wildcat767

Did they ever try the PCV valve?

alfreema

Well I was told that Lexus makes them go through a quite extensive set of diagnostics procedures before they can make the determination that it's a head gasket issue. Whether PCV valve diagnostic is part of that, I have no idea. I wish I could talk to a certified Lexus tech on here to ask these types of questions though.

alfreema

Update! They were unable to get a P0305 like I did and said they think my reader was reading a code prior to the warrantied head gasket repair (it's a super cheapy reader so I'd believe it). The roughness this go around was due to rusty bolts on the exhaust manifold that was leaking and causing the pre and post cat O2 sensors to get wonky. They swapped those bolts with new ones and tightened it back up and it's running great. He said they should have probably replaced those when it was in last time so no charge and I am good to go. He also had a few techs drive it quite a bit to make sure it never fired a P030X code and it didn't so he's comfortable the warrantied head gasket job is solid still.

I know it's not good news that you might need a head gasket job, but at least if you do the certified Lexus service center does seem to stand by their work.

wildcat767

Thank you for the update! That's good news for you at least! Any idea what a head gasket job costs?

alfreema

I paid just under $6500 for mine at my Lexus service center. I would imagine you can get it done less expensively at an indy, but I really don't know. For a job that big I wanted a certified center to do it in case something went wrong (and it did -- the first gasket was bad so they had to redo it and they didn't blink).

wildcat767

Thank you!

alfreema

You're welcome, good luck!