Gronemus

2K, I got confused at first because I thought that this car had 193k miles on it but I guess that you are referring to the age of the timing belt instead.

As for the original question, I think you would be perfectly alright to wait a couple of years if you really wanted to before changing the belt. I challenge anyone that says to change it out to show me just one documented case where a 3UZ-FE motor grenaded due to a timing belt breaking due to time. You most certainly do not need to replace the cam seals at this point.

I did mine myself. It really isn't that difficult if you are mechanically inclined and you take your time...

2KHarrier

Yes, that belt was installed at 101K by the previous owner. I forgot to mention that when I did the belt on my 2001, the cam seals showed no signs of leaking, so I opted not to change them.. Maybe on the next timing belt...

Johnhav430

$579 labor imho is a no-brainer. If you think about it, we accept $750 to $900 at an indie with an Aisin kit. Grab the amazon price for it, add it to $579, you're not anywhere near $900, probably below $750. imho there is no way for your dealer then, to get to the $1800 that my dealer, and many others, would charge for a 180k timing belt job...my .02

p.s. I truly do not understand why any dealership accepts customer provided parts (try this at a BMW dealership). I never heard of that until this forum lol Although thinking back, a friend had a Toyota Matrix 6-spd and he would tell me he supplied jugs of synth oil--and that is Toyota. This was like 2005 or so. So maybe Toyota has always done that. We also used to joke how the jug goes into the tech's trunk, and the dino juice goes into his crankcase...

p.p.s.--something doesn't make sense in your dealership's logic I guess, they want $1600-$579=$1021 for the parts, that has to be way over list price...

edit: p.p.p.s.--Another thought. I don't want to swim upstream, and have lost a couple of times that way. Another example. I had paperwork that stated exhaust is warranted for life, muffler only, resonators, clamps, etc., are not included. Then, I had the mgr of the facility state "entire system warranted for life--lifetime warranty on all parts." He signed his name, and stapled his business card. Sure enough, this would not be honored. The corp. office stated no such warranty exists, and they would not honor it, AND, the mgr. had no authority to issue such a warranty.

This was the one time when the BBB failed me--and I say the HQ moved from Chicago to Palm Beach (everything sofla is shady lol). So in your scenario, I would make sure there's no mention of "customer provided parts." The invoice should look normal. Once something is an exception, it's subject to interpretation. In my case, I felt I was prudent, the mgr. stated lifetime via computer, and he signed it. I had no way of knowing that a place with 2,300+ locations across the country would be that cheesy, and would disavow a warranty they told me they were issuing.

Mbodall

Exactly. I jumped on it when I was quoted that via email.


Haha I would just about assume that's what happened.


My dealer clearly is making their money off of parts markup, and not labor. Their labor rate is very fair in my opinion. They only charge $67 for an oil change, and that includes the free exterior wash and vacuum, AND complementary loaner car. When I first bought my '01, I was going to an indie shop for oil changes and getting charged $35-$40, then I'd drive to a full service car wash and pay another $25 with tip. That's $60-$65 right there. If I needed to get around to run errands, or was dropping the car off on my way to work, add another $20-$30 total ($10-$15 each way) to take an Uber or Lyft, or $20-$25 total to rent a (cheap, crappy) car from enterprise - which takes a whole lot more time waiting to get picked up from the shop, doing the paperwork at their office, then add more time waiting for a ride back to the shop after dropping the car off. The free use of a nice and clean 2018-2019 Lexus NX, IS, RX, or ES as loaner car really tipped the scales for me. I love my local dealership. I remember when I was in high school and worked at Johnson Lexus in Raleigh NC back in 2003, they charged $110 for an oil change! Outrageous!


There is no mention of that in the invoices that I receive from them. Plus, I've been using the same service advisor for almost 4 years now, and he's worked there for over 15 years. If I ever had a problem, I'm confident that between the rapport him and I have in addition to his tenure at the dealer, there wouldn't be an issue coming up with an agreeable solution for both parties.


As an aside, I personally haven't had to have any interactions with Lexus Corporate, but I know that they can pull a heck of a lot of strings if you complain enough. On that topic... story time: A few years ago a supervisor of mine bought a used GS450h from a 'Joe Blow's' used car lot. Against my advice citing inevitable replacement of the very expensive hybrid battery very soon on a ~100k mile car, he opted to get a hybrid with a little over 100k miles, as dictated by his price range. He wasn't the brightest bulb and excitedly showed off his car after purchase, and tried to reassure me that he'd be fine since he paid a couple grand for an extended warranty at the time of purchase *facepalm*. I immediately told him to pull out the paperwork for said warranty so that I could tell him "You should have listened to me" lol. Sure enough, in the fine print of the extended warranty, it said very clearly "EXCLUDES ALL HYBRID COMPONENTS". Fast forward just a few weeks and he approaches me at work asking me to plug my little OBD II reader into his car because he has a check engine light. I pull the code and a quick google search reveals that the hybrid battery voltage was below acceptable limits... turns out he had a cell (or two or three) go bad on him. He called the local dealer, but not knowing him from Adam having never even serviced his car before, weren't immediately willing to be much help. He calls Lexus Corp to complain. I don't remember how many times he had to call and/or email them, but within a few days he received word from corporate that they had found a used hybrid battery which had something like 25k or 30k miles on it, and they'd be willing to give that to him if he agreed to pay the local dealership the labor to install it. Naturally, he agreed to pay the couple hundred dollars in labor to have this used battery installed instead of the roughly $7,000 for a new battery installation. What I took away from his experience, is that even though Lexus was absolutely under no obligation to do anything for him, they did. Lexus has always been praised for their world renowned customer service both at a dealer level as well as at a corporate level. This give me hope should I ever need to 'go up the ladder' for a solution to a problem I'm facing.