Welp, this happened to me. Took the car to Longo this morning and they confirmed I have a leak at the valley plate. My car is MY2011, but it sounds like this problem can happen to any car, and isn't isolated to a specific model year.

From my observations my coolant has always been slightly under the "Low" line in the reservoir. But this past weekend I had taken my car for a drive in the morning. Nothing odd, the water temp bar was at normal operating temps during the drive. I got home, let it sit for like 3 hours, and then went out to drive again. I noticed that while the oil temp bar was all the way down, the water temp bar was still at 75% of the normal operating temp (even after the car sat for a few hours). This triggered an alarm so I decided to check the radiator, water pump, etc. for leakage but didn't see any. I then decided to let the car sit overnight and add distilled water just to see what would happen. After a test drive I checked the reservoir and noticed that the coolant temp dropped even lower subsequent to the drive. Luckily I'm only at @67.5k miles and it'll be repaired under warranty.

I suggest everyone monitor your coolant levels (and water temp gauge) and check for leakage when you go for routine maintenance, especially if your powertrain warranty is close too expiration. I couldn't see any leakage based on the instructions that Joe mentioned, but apparently it was there.

Cheers to the great info provided in this thread.

 

Hey gang,

Just bought a beautiful 2008 IS-F 11 days ago that had been serviced it's entire life at the Lexus Dealer and lady driven (51k miles) and I took in for a routine oil change this weekend and found out the water pump was leaking - pink buildup similar to the other folks' pics). How can this happen at such low miles? Anyways, I have an appointment at the Lexus Service Department on Monday and hopefully they will work with me. I called Lexus Corp and they couldn't do anything until I had it inspected by Lexus.

Anyone else have this experience with Lexus and have advice? I'd hate to pay $700 for this with such low miles and after just purchasing it.

Thanks in advance.

 

2008 ISF are known for water pump issue.

 

@MWIS350 - so what do you do?

 

My '08 had 36k miles on it when I bought it back in October and it was already leaking. Luckily I purchased an aftermarket warranty when I bought the car so I was only responsible for the deductible when my local Lexus dealership did the work. Like others stated it's a common issue on the '08's and there's no rhyme or reason to when it'll start leaking.

 

My 08 started leaking and my aftermarket Carchex extended warranty covered the replacement with an aftermarket part, I spent the 80$ extra to have them upgrade to the fixed OEM part, my total cost was 180$.

 

Well my story now comes with a happy ending. I logged a complaint at Lexus Corp and my awesome service advisor was able to bet approval to replace the water pump free of charge! I highly recommend calling Lexus directly and logging a complaint and then work with your Lexus Service Advisor to get approval for a free fix. Job well done, Lexus!

 

Anyone know equivalent coolant to the OEM "Lexus super ultra long life coolant" that dealerships sell?

 

Buy SLLC at Toyota. It's cheaper and it works. There are some who claim to be equivalent, but I haven't seen one that truly is at a significant price difference.

 

Thank you for this