gio707

Hi All,

I wanted to post on the forum to help out my brother-in-law, and he owns a 2016 Lexus IS 200t and has about 72,000 miles on it. Essentially, the car overheated on him 3 times at freeway speeds. He took it to a Lexus dealership and the diagnosis was: "found head gasket leaking coolant" and quoted $8,000 for parts and labor. We took his car to a local shop for a second opinion and they found no issues. They performed a road test, leak test, compression test, and computer diagnostics. I also learned that this particular Lexus model has two thermostats. It's very RARE for a car this new and a Lexus vehicle to be exhibiting this issues as it's been maintained and nothing else has gone mechanically wrong with this car. Therefore, I am reaching out for help to determine if anyone else has experienced this problem or has information that this is something this Lexus model is plagued with this issue. I did come across a video on YouTube that appears to show it's a faulty water pump, so I am wondering if anyone thins this is the issue. I just don't want him to spend more money on trying to fix this car.

The independent shop said it could possibly be the other thermostat malfunctioning (as there's two on this model), but I'm wondering if it's actually the water pump, as shown in the video. I should add that they replaced one of the thermostats and it did overheat during the road test, but the car was fine afterwards. It's a mystery at this point. The car doesn't overheat within city driving. It's not leaking coolant at this time. The car also didn't overheat on the way back home, which requires driving on the freeway, so it's just odd as to why this is happening randomly.

InveredMP

Replace both thermostats and make sure the fan is turning on. Check trouble codes. If the car isn't running out of coolant (like leaking through the head gasket or leaking from the water pump). then it is because coolant either stops being cooled or isn't flowing.

I disagree with the video, and overheating is not a common issue on the 8AR-FTS.

jgscott

iTrader: (1)

Most 99% of the time the situation you described is air in the cooling system. Todays systems sometimes need bleeding 2 or 3 times if so.

mkuk

Did you figure out how to get this fixed? I have same exact problem on my 2016 200t. I just replaced the main thermostat but that did not solve it.

gio707

No, because my brother in law ended up trading in the car for a Honda Civic.

I would look at the video I posted as the guy in the video replaced the water pump and that fixed the issue.

Also, the IS 200t has two thermostats. The other one is more complicated to change as it requires you to take off more parts to get to it so I recommend replacing the water pump and report back to us - did it fix the problem?

Ethanol

This engine has not two but three thermostats
Toyota AR series engines


8AR-FTS cooling system

Lex_Giorgio

On my 2017 IS200T, when the water pump started to crap out, you can hear it. The lifespan on mine was 99,000 KM (61,000 miles).
Replaced under warranty, parts and labor = $2,000 CDN (parts from Lexus and labor covered by Lexus).

I did not have an overheating issue, but the noise was an obvious sign that something's wrong.
Once replaced, the noise went away.

Adyfall

hello was the noise like this ?