I just had my motor mounts replaced in my '02 with 135k miles and now I have a puddle of red oily fluid, likely power steering fluid, on the floor right inside the front right wheel. I'm taking it back to the shop Wednesday morning for a look, but in the meantime what could be leaking? Possibly something was damaged by the tech when he did the motor mounts? Both power steering fluid and transmission fluid levels are normal. I changed the PS fluid about 6 months ago with Mobil 1 ATF.

 

If it wasn't leaking when you took it in and now it is. Well, they made a boo-boo and should fix it on their dime.

 

Yeah engine mounts , jacking up the engine a bit, it all puts a bit of a strain on some hosings.

 

And to maneuver the old ones out and new ones in is pretty tricky job. Requires trained hands. But some ppl just bruteforce it. And puddles happen.
Really hope they'll replace whatever they managed to damage.
Keep us posted

 

Possibly you got hosed!!

 

Like others said - likely transmission fluid leak. Maybe hose clamp strained and put a tear in hose would be my guess - check AT fluid - add some fluid if necessary and take it back and have them check and replace/repair any loose fittings or hoses. Could have been lack of care or maybe just jacking the car and moving engine around strained the connectors - it happens.

 

It is Miami... nobody can ever give you 100% here... you get 80-90% at best... and then they screw something else up in the process.

 

The leak was from a cracked power steering fluid reservoir. The larger of the two hose barbs on the base of the reservoir had cracked a bit from the stress of the hose pushing up on it when the motor was raised a bit. The hose is short, it goes straight down to the pump and is kinda stiff so it didn't give at all, resulting in a lot of stress on the reservoir. The shop replaced it at no charge but I did have to pay for the new part, $180. I can understand how it's not completely their fault so I'm comfortable with sharing the cost with them.

 

The shop should have paid every penny of the repair, the part included. A tech clearly screwed up and caused the damage, they even admitted it or they wouldn't have made the offer to pay for the labor.

 

I don't know, the car is old, maybe the part was stressed from being in use for ten years/132k miles and countless miles of driving with broken motor mounts. It wasn't a clear case of negligence. Yes the shop owner knew it broke during the repair but who's not to say the part would not have broken regardless of who worked on it? They've been nice to me and spent several hours doing diagnositics at no charge in the past so I wasn't gonna push the issue.

 

Why do you Yanks have this mentality constantly ?

It would have happened to whoever changed the engine mounts, have you ever changed engine mounts in a car?

Wait, this is the internet, you're a full time Lexus engineer who used to be a Lexus dealer mechanic whos worked on over 1000 Lexis.

 

Changing engine mounts doesn't mean you automatically break the power steering reservoir. That must be a UK thing.

Please give me the list of parts the technician is allowed to break and the customer has to pay for out of his own pocket when motor mounts are replaced.

The fact that the shop knew they broke it during the repair, but didn't say anything and let the customer take it home means they were trying to pull a fast one.

 

Sounds like they jacked up the engine too high without disconnecting the hoses and it snapped at the connectors. There could be other connectors that are damaged that you don't know about yet.

My LS has almost the same mileage and as far as I know the original engine mounts. There's no stress cracks anywhere on the power steering resevoir, it's not something that just "breaks" with age.

If you're happy with some previous favors they've done and want to just look the other way, that's up to you, but the fact that they knew at the time they broke it and let you discover the issue yourself on your garage floor when it dumped out the power steering (and could have cost you thousands more in damage, the lack of fluid could have taken out the pump and rack) makes them look really shady.

They should be paying for the entire thing and apologizing profusely.

 

There's no proof they knew they broke it and sent me on my way with it like that. The hose is very short and vertically oriented so its entirely possible that if it was stiffened with age that it could crack the reservoir, even with only raising the motor slightly. The crack wasn't that big, some fluid was still in the reservoir even after 5 days. It's a Lexus/Toyota specialist shop with several LS430's there at the same time so it's not like they've never worked on one before. The owner knows I'm a car guy too so it's not like I'm easy prey to try and pull a fast one with. I've done my fair share of wrenching on old cars and similar things have happened to me. I could have complained and maybe gotten my way but then I'd burn that bridge and be relegated to taking my car to the Lexus dealer which would be even worse. The dealers here in S FL have given me nothing but massively expensive misdiagnoses and ripoffs. The hose is 44348F in the pic:

 

I was just going off what you said earlier: