ES350Bob

It appears he was helped in arriving at his current view of Lexus.

Dealer told him his circumstance was unacceptable, even went so far as to set up a noncompliance inspection, this implies to him his circumstance warrants a new vehicle, so for a time that is what he thinks.

Contrast this with what now seems hollow words for the other instance of this in separate thread on the subject, dealer will go to wall to get another guy a new car if that guy is not satisfied with a repair.

One took them up on their word and is now angry it meant nothing and the other seems not to have yet taken advantage of offer, yet taken them at their word on a replacement offer, but you have 2 instances of Lexus customers having it implied they are up for a new car if they want one.

I owned and operated a manufacturing company, I'd be very concerned some guy put faith in me to the tune of 70k plus and now feels so outraged he is moving on to another manufacturer, something happened to cause a guy who selects my brand model designation as his member name, then does a 180.

This could have been handled much better than it apparently was.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

and apparently we are all outsiders to the situation as well, right? you and i and everyone else has no exact insight of the story. to be fair we only hear story from OP

onepointon is a lexus tech and he posted his comments, if anything i would give his comments more credit than anyone's else. he explained the situation, potential damage, etc... and fwiw, he actually dealt with a car with the problem.

if i were to question OP today (which i never did coz' i know it will go nowhere), i would say why his dealership say it's unacceptable? what did they find? proof? why after replacing valve spring it's never be the same again? or they are doing that to please the customer thus bringing abroad lexus rep?

those are questions i have/had in mind, but i am never interested in finding out. because to me that's what warranty is for and no car out there is perfect, there bound to be chances for some problems happening. i hate it when someone say this is $xxxx car and i don't expect this problem. i don't give a damn coz' there are people paying more for cars much more expensive and they also have problems, whereas some people are paying less for economy cars and i don't think they "deserve" problems.

if he has had this problem for 2-3 times but lexus is not doing anything? i can understand. but this is the first time and using that (my car is not supposed to have problem) and say i will never own another lexus? it says something to me

above are my 2 cents, won't comment anymore

ES350Bob

He said he did not work on one with a broken valve spring, turned out to be something way less severe than a broken valve spring and I have not seen where he lists what all can also go wrong when one does break.

Maybe he feels it is not for the squeamish to read and better not to post what can.

My point was simply if it is not Lexus policy to replace cars with this issue, then telling people they are up for one or in any way implying they are just puts Lexus in the bad cop situation when they tell an owner no. Dealer looks great with a view it should be replaced, Lexus looks bad when they say no, when it was never their policy to replace them in the first place and the customer should never have been given any impression one was possible, a customer is lost as a result.

Mike_TX

Bob - not sure where you got the idea the dealer told him they were going to replace the car. I've re-read the thread and the OP never said that.

He simply said HE thought they should give him a new car, and I agree with Rominl that's nuts.

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rominl

iTrader: (4)

lol, i see it the other way. the dealership make themselves look stupid if they tell the customer before hand that lexus will give him a new car. they should never make such claims unless they already got the words from lexus. or they can always suck it up and give the customer a new car. lexus can never just listen to dealerships like that

ES350Bob

It's in the other thread where they told him this was unacceptable, and it seems they must have to have had an FTS compliance look at the car. That's how it works, been there done that myself. and you see for other person in that thread where they will "go to wall for him" to get a new one too if he felt unsatisfied. That just sets up the potential for a customer to get angry if it is not the policy.

ES350Bob

exactly. In that scenario the guy gets his new car for having been given the impression, now whether it is taken out of the dealer's financial hide is another question.

If it were me, I'd have given him another car under those circumstances.

Dave600hL

Ok ,here are a few hypotheticals
#1, he has been driving the the car for a month, who is to say he followed the manufactures proccedures for breaking the engine in?
#2, 1 month is reasonable time for a customer to do something that could have caused this problem.
#3, 1 month and one day are completely different sets of circumstances.

Just talking to myself here, but lets you have a car for a year then the valve spring decides to die ,should the customer demand a new car b/c someone else who drove a car out of the lot on the same day with the exact same problem got a replacment car? Like I said before, asking for a new car is the most ridiculus thing I have heard of.

I am also with rominl when someone says they paid $XXXXXX amount of dollars and I expect the car to run without a single problem. My brother in law had a mercedes CL600 from new and I think that car was in the shop more than it was on the road.

ES350Bob

I doubt the dealer would have set up a non-compliance inspection if the dealer thought it was something he did to the car in break in period or otherwise.

I don't know when it would or would not be appropriate to replace a car for a guy with this mechanical problem. I do know though, if given him the impression he was up for one, it should be honored, otherwise what results is one PO'd customer who may go elsewhere for being inconvenienced by waiting for an inspection that was pointless to set up in the first place and pointless to subject him to.

onepointon

Buy backs are always hard for a dealer/company to swallow. A.) it looks bad in general. B.) you now how a vehicle on your hands with a tarnished history (buy backs show up on carfaxes and so on, there actually may be a law that you have to tell the future buyer of the situation). So not only are you out a new car, you have one on your hands thats significantly lower in value. I know theres customer satisfaction issues here, but on the whole picture, its just hard to swallow sometimes. Now if the car broke a valve spring, the repair wasnt made correctly, or there were other issues as a result, I think a buy back is definitely warranted. Its just a iffy situation for anyone involved.

I remember when the ES350 first came out. We bought atleast 10 cars back due to transmission issues. Some customers simply said "put a transmission in it, I am ok with keeping the car", which is great. Sadly, 5,000 miles later a timing cover leak would develop and they would catch wind of the engine needing to be pulled out. There were buy backs as a result of this. After a while though, we stopped giving buy backs because its just hard to swallow. There were special cases were we would to keep the customers happy, but a lot less.


Its just no fun for the customer, nor the dealer, nor the company as a whole.

I would say that if my car was still under warranty, I would just let it fly.

Just my 2 cents.

2007es350

On the subject of buybacks, my prior ES350 was bought back by Lexus Corp. When my transmission started spiking between shifts, my dealer told me that a new transmission would be needed and that Lexus Corp had a exchange program for the affected cars where Lexus Corp would get you an identical car in exchange for your defective one. I thought this was a generous offer that instilled confidence that if after the repairs (and I wasn't satisfied) I could opt for a new car.

Well after my new transmission was installed, the transmission kept spiking between shifts within 100 miles of the repair. I informed my dealer I wanted the exchange option and didn't want to deal with another transmission replacement. My dealer got my paperwork in the pipeline just before Lexus Corp discontinued the exchange program, because too many cars were being bought back by Lexus Corp. My dealer told me that hundreds of cars were bought back on the West Coast alone. My dealer kept me informed and I waited several months for Lexus Corp to contact me. Unfortunately, there wasn't much that my local dealer could do except calling Lexus Corp on a daily basis since this was a Lexus Corp issue. After getting no return calls from Lexus Corp for 4 weeks, I submitted Lemon Law paperwork. What a coincidence... I got a return call the next day asking me to return my car for a full refund! I asked about an exchange, but was told Lexus is call this spike during shifting a "normal characterstic" of the ES350 and that all new ES350 would have the same issue.

My dealings with Lexus Corp were not great. Even though Lexus Corp made verbal promises to buy back my ES350, they didn't return my calls for almost a month. It wasn't until I started the Lemon Law process did they take notice. After this ordeal with Lexus Corp, I would have walked over to Acura or Infiniti but my local dealer has been great to deal with. In fact, my local dealer gave me the LS at invoice in April 2007 which was a great deal at the time....which is how I ended up with the LS.

I have no regrets with buying the LS, and I like my local dealer. However, I don't think Lexus Corp is different from other car manufacturers.

I8ABMR

That is surprising and upsetting to me. It sounds like a problem that a chryler 300 would have not a lexus LS

onepointon

Like it was said above. Along with new technology, comes unseen issues. All manufactures do extensive product testing before something is released into the real world. Not only to cut down on high warranty costs for a failing product, but to keep customer's happy and keep their repution up.

Its unfortunate, but every manufacturer has problems. Im sure Ferrari, Mclaren, Bently, and Porche all have issues here and there also.

vollandt

What are the odds of having a major failure on a new LS460? I suspect they’re fairly low, or at least inline with new model cars from other manufactures with similar complexity. It’s impossible to have the rate at zero rate of failure though. You basically hit “LS460 failure” lotto. It happens. Someone had to hit it. If the dealer took good care of you and managed to get you back out on the road in good time, you didn’t do too badly.

LSGuyPA

After reading through all the opinions posted here, and the incorrect reading of the facts of my original post, I would like to set the record straight.

First, the idea of replacing the car was not started by me, it was recommended to me by the dealer. They insisted that such a situation should be unacceptable and to be persistent with Lexus. Even with this Lexus had no interest in discussing this further.

Second, in addition to other posts on this site about broken valve springs I was told by the service manager of my dealer that they had another instance of a broken valve spring on a vehicle with 12K miles and the car was replaced.

Third, after talking to a trusted mechanic he confirmed that the fact that the spark plugs were coated in oil when pulled and the confirmation of the broken valve spring that the could suggest a variety of side effects with respect to other damage that could be done to both the head and cylinder.

While I agree that warranties exist to cover failures of equipment, I don't believe that I should be forced to absorb the loss of value assoicated with a vehicle that may be compromised as a result of an inferior part that failed long before any normal life expectancy.

As to the critical remark of not knowing if the car was broken in according to manufacturer recommendations this is absurd. Lexus does not actually have a break-in policy - they claim their cars are fully ready to drive without limitation. Having said this, I babied this vehicle for the entirely short life of 4 weeks leading up to the failure.