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I've been buying cars since 1957, new vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles) since 1962. I've never bought an extended warranty, or any other kind of warranty. As far as $ are concerned, I'm way ahead. Remember that insurance companies are in business to make money, not to help you
Is that CPO 2 year Optional warranty a Lexus warranty? I would make sure, any 3rd party wannabe warranty is garbage though the dealer makes Much better comission on those. I have had Toyota dealers basically tell me they did not sell factory extended warranties.
Paperwork needs to have Lexus financial services somewhere on it.
Bruce in Fl.
Lexus Certified vehicles 2yr Warranty is not an extra charge and is a Lexus Warranty; "The L/Certified Limited Warranty* includes coverage for a complimentary loaner car,* Roadside Assistance* and Trip Interruption Service.* Warranty is valid for a minimum of two years/unlimited mileage after the expiration of 4-year/50,000-mile new-vehicle Basic Warranty, or two years from your L/Certified purchase or lease date, whichever occurs later. Mileage is unlimited. There is no deductible: Repairs made under this warranty will be made at no cost to you. Except for excluded components (see below), this warranty covers any repair or replacement of components that fail under normal use due to a defect in materials or workmanship, such as: engine, transmission, steering, brakes (excluding rotors and pads), fuel system, cooling, A/C and heating systems, electrical, and restraint systems." "Your L/Certified Limited Warranty is provided by Lexus, a division of Toyota Motor Sales, Inc., U.S.A., and Toyota Motor Insurance Services, Inc."
At my Dealers Website, out of 67 used vehicles for sale only 25 qualified for Lexus Certified. Usually they seem to be couple of years old and lower mileage, but not always (they have a 2019 LX570 listed with 68K miles). Here's the website address about the L/CPO; https://www.lexus.com/lcertified/cer...#certification
It is the "The L/Certified Limited Warranty". Sorry, I didn't mean to turn this into a warranty thread, I was mainly hoping to get some more background on what the door handle failure is actually a failure of, and if it can be avoided/prolonged. I have not seen a definitive statement from Lexus or a Lexus tech, unless I missed it.
I would think that nearly 99.44% of ALL the reported recall situations have ZERO to do with the operator. Either it's gonna happen to you or it won't. Sacraficing small animals to please the parts gods won't help. We are also talking about a maybe, Maybe, MAYBE happening. I've seen what, lets Exaggerate and say 10 instances out of THOUSANDS of LCs.
Yeah, I don't think you're gonna see much prevantive wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth on ths one.
Now after all that, I WILL say that if Im parked on say an incline making the passenger door much lower than the drivers. I don't fully open the drivers door with the handle. To put Even More stress on that handle seems to me to be tempting the Parts Gods. It clearly says in the Owners manual Thou Shalt not do that.
Bruce in Fl
Well the drivers door handle on my 2020 gave up the ghost today. Has anyone done the replacement, may just dig into the job myself.
The CF cover and glass has to be removed. This is the only video I have seen for replacement. Closed captioning in YT settings gets most of what he is saying.
Individual cases vary, but my final outcome with the dealership turned out much better than I expected. I wanted to follow up and share my experience in case it helps someone else along the way.
The first signs of failure (handle failing to pop out when unlocked) started in 2020 with the previous owner. It was diagnosed by the Lexus dealership service center in October 2020 while still within the 4 year/50,000 mile warranty. The car was delivered in July 2017, and the only reason I mention it is because this happened very early on in the lifecycle of this new model. I expect it takes time for service centers to become familiar with frequent failures that are obvious warranty repairs (through recalls and service bulletins).
Maybe the service team thought "we've never seen this, this owner broke his door handle", but for whatever reason, they didn't consider it eligible for warranty repair. The service center estimated the repair as a ~$2000 line item, and the previous owner refused to pay. Fortunately, the previous owner also left the service center paperwork with this diagnosis and line item in the glove box.
Fast forward to July 2024 (just a few weeks ago at the time of this post). I contacted the dealership and walked through things now that I had documentation that they had diagnosed this problem within the warranty period. I also mentioned the occurrences of this issue that I'd seen on the ClubLexus forum and even a recent Cars and Bids auction. I intended to establish that there is a pattern, even if it hadn't been officially noticed or acknowledged.
The dealership contacted Lexus/Toyota corporate and the repair was approved completely under warranty. The service center scheduled and completed the repair within a week of my bringing it to their attention, no cost. In my case it was certainly worth challenging the dealership.
A Cars and Bids auction from someone else that also encountered this issue.
The CF cover and glass has to be removed. This is the only video I have seen for replacement. Closed captioning in YT settings gets most of what he is saying.
Individual cases vary, but my final outcome with the dealership turned out much better than I expected. I wanted to follow up and share my experience in case it helps someone else along the way.
Great outcome for you indeed!! I suspect you having documentation that it was reported by previous owner within warranty period and warranty repair was denied at that time made your case. If someone else with a 2018 came up and simply said "hey I first noticed it in 2020 but never said anything, now it's broke, please fix for free" pretty sure the dealer would tell customer to go pound sand
UPDATE: Lexus has agreed to replace the actuator on thier dime. Car is out of warrenty but only has 20K miles on it.
So I got a look at the door handle mechanism. It's a large complex assembly but the one thing that cought my eye was the actuator motor itself was very very similar to the HVAC blend/sector motor. May be the reason for the falures as these motors were designed for interior use and water intrusion may be the main culprit. I'm just guessing - i tried to let me take home the defective part so I can do an failure anaylsis on it but they wouldnt let me have it as it needed to go back to the mother ship for the anayisis.
In my research while shopping for this car, this door handle issue I've seen pop up is my main concern with the LC based on the relative frequency of the failure and the high cost.
Relative frequency because, like most Toyota products, they are very reliable overall. To be fair, I've checked countless LC's vehicle histories in the Lexus driver website, based on my price range they were mostly 2018's with a couple 2019 & 2020 thrown in. I can only think of three that had the actuator problem. One had both actuators fail (2018, don't remember mileage), one passenger side failed (2018, 70k miles, highest mileage of any car I looked at), the third I can't remember which side (2018, unk miles).
I should've taken better notes if there's a way to narrow down the problem. I don't think it's operator error, otherwise the driver side would always fail first. Cars parked outside? Specific regions with too hot or too cold weather?
The other issue as mentioned above, is there a way to take apart the unit and fix it? For example, the Toyota Venza has had many complaints of the steering column having an awful rattle. Many owners had their steering columns replaced under warranty for about $1800 parts and labor if I recall. Well mine happened after my warranty was up. After doing a bunch of searching online, I bought a $4 part from the dealer that is listed to fit several Toyota models but not the Venza. A little plastic gear inside the electric power steering module that is connected to the steering column. The gear crumbles into pieces, causing a lot of play and the rattling noise. Solved the problem.
04-19-24, 03:57 PM
