hey there i read some of your story and for the sake of the rattle in your car, i have some idea.

i used to work at a car shop, doing all kinds of repairing.

the rattle your talking about sounds something like an unbalanced drive shaft, when they changed your starter they might have taken the shaft apart and put it the wrong way in.

my 2 cents hope it helps

 

That may have been the case with the Torque Converter.

I recently put it in the shop for the bushings and I had them put the stock converter in. 80% of the vibration is gone from the new rims and tires and stock converter. I think the remaining might be the carrier bearing on the shaft.

Car runs great, The shop found out the trans downshift cable was broken that's why it didn't shift. The new one will be here today. After that, I think the car is 98% restored. Hopefully I don't have to put any more money in it from now on...

Buffed her out last night, damn she looks fine. Cleaned the interior and exterior, I'll post pics tomorrow.

 

glad to hear your cars doing better, back when my sc was undrivable was one of the worst times of my life

 

There is a national 800 number to Lexus USA. Call them and report the issue you had with the local dealer. They will contact the dealer to help work out the issue. Have your facts straight. Aas for the rest of your challenges...Unbelievable!! I hope you can get it sorted out...You can get high quality used parts from Gazi...

Ryan

 

you can call the bbb and have them open a case. u might and might not get some money back. but yea i would of been in jail for woopin a$$ lol.

 

On a SC400, the starter is on top of the engine underneath the intake manifold, no way would they be messing with the drive shaft to fix a starter on a SC400.

 

I had a local Lexus dealer trying to pin point a noise on my car back when I bought it. They took apart the rear end. When I got it back it had a bad vibration at speeds over 45mph. Turned out the put the drive shaft bolts in wrong. There are three bolts that are a different length that the other three so three matched go on the shaft and three matched on the pinion. They were not aware of the difference and got them mixed up. Made a bad vibration.

 

damn 10k is alot! i always get paranoid when shops have my car. luckily my uncle owns a shop and does all my repairs now

 

I know for a fact one shop did that! He even put in the driveshaft coupler backwards so the screws wouldn't clearance- guess what he did! He ADDED WASHERS to get it to clear! Idiot could't fix a hole in a baloon. The driveshaft has to be balanced and he is adding washers to the bolts at random...

 

Here's how she looks today...had a nice photoshoot yesterday...

 

So do you have any other issues left with your car like the vibration and it running bad? You mentioned something about no communication with the ECU? Do you still have that issue? What year is your SC? It sounds like you just picked the wrong places to have your car worked on. As mentioned before there is a Lexus # you can contact to report any issues or foul play with the dealer. For the independent shops you can call the Better Business Buereau and report them ,but have documents to prove it. Also mentioned before try to look for shops that have decent cars that are being worked on. Along with going in and asking them of the techs some in depth questions to see if they know what there talking about. Not all shops are the same they seem to suck in your area lol. Aliga has parts that I buy from him worked everytime. Get back to me with the issue(s) that you have left then I could help ya out or hit me up on AIM.

 

yeah, the only ones left are:1. MAF doesn't read correctly throws code 33 and makes engine run at half power. If I convert to speed density that will fix it.2. Vibration in the drivetrain. Most of it is gone because the rims were bent and the aftermarket torque converter was installed incorrectly, and tech put washers on the flex coupler on the driveshaft. I got new rims and tires and put the stock converter back on. Had the washers taken out. 80-90% of the vibration is gone.
That's it but it took me over a year to get it fixed and a lot of work doing it myself and diagnosing every part of the car... The good thing is I know just about every system of the car and know how to diagnose almost anything wrong with the V8 or the I6. It is running like a top and I just recorded 20mpg in the city this week.

I called the 1800 number and reported the dealership and right after they dropped the case because the owner of the dealer sold the dealership to a new owner.

You probably don't believe me but I actually asked not only people but talked to the techs and to other shops what are the reputable "lexus specalist" shops in town. Those shops were all the "reccommended" shops believe it or not.

This all started because my "usual" shop was closed when the car first broke down.

There really is no way to keep yourself from getting screwed here and even when there are high end bentleys and mercedes in the bays doesn't mean there are any good on your rare lexus. Not too often these cars wind up in a shop for repairs.

 

This is the EXACT reason why I learned to work on cars myself and trust next to no one working on my car...

Mechanics break bolts all the time and don't tell u, cause they don't wanna seem like an A Hole that doesn't know what they are doing...

And the other reason they don't wanna fix stuff is because when it comes down to soemthing say like the torque converter, it is ALOT of work to go back in there and try and fix the problem... SO they tell u to go somewhere else.. That is jsut Terrible Customer service IMO..

I suggest u get a shop manual for ur car, and start reading alot, which is what I would hope u started doing already... If u dont plan on doing any work to the car urself I suggest u cut your loses and sell it to someone that does...

Don't trust mechanics... Do It Yourself!

 

good time to learn how to fix youre on *****!

 

the only mechanic I trust is myself