ESDragon

Thanks 2007es350. I do have a garage and it doesn't always flare when I drive to work everyday. The flare does come on randomly. But you know the feeling when you accelerate to a constant speed and then have to slow down due to traffic ahead and while you are slowing down, you give it a light tap on the gas pedal to stay with the flow of traffic. This is when sometimes the flare happens. It is a hestitation between the gears when the car don't know when to shift and all of a sudden a spike occurs. I tried multiple times to replicate the flare with the tech today, but was unsuccessful.

On a side note, I have tried holding the digital camcorder to film this while I am driving and there is a bit of a challenge here. It is quite difficult to get a steady shot while I am too occupied watching to road. Simply ridiculous!!!

2007es350

If your car doesn't flare/slip when cold, then you may have a different problem. It sounds like from your description, that maybe your transmission gets confused when a downshift is needed which is different from the 3rd to 4th upshift flare.

garsarno

My neighbor has the LS460 in Silver / Black too (just picked up last Saturday). Not a fan of silver until I saw his. WOW. Better luck with the LS460.

MD350

I don't think your flare description is that of many others on the forum. The flares on my loaners were during normal acceleration. I did not take my foot off the gas. It is like driving, keeping your foot on the gas, and pushing the clutch in (if it was manual). The car revs and the momentum stops.

2007es350

I really like the responsiveness and comfort of the LS. The best feature on the LS is the transmission; it is responsive without any slipping or flaring.

ES350Bob

ES...,

Are you saying that sometimes under normal acceleration after start of the day it flares/slips spiking RPM but also there are other times when as if you let up slight in traffic, add gas and it does it then too?

For me the most VIOLENT slipping happened in the scenario you described after first start of the day as if letting up slight (but not as in braking at all or slowing down to any noticeable degree) and then adding on the gas as though you were going to get ahead and change lanes etc. and then MAJOR slip 2k RPM spike with surging/jerking, but it also and most often slipped under normal acceleration as it was otherwise routinely upshifting.

ESDragon

Exactly, the flares for my vehicle could happen within the first 5 minutes into driving or it could be later through my commute. Because of this, I feel very unsecure when driving the freeway especially when I need to change lanes that quick second.

Sure enough, today when I was coming home probably 20 minutes through the commute iit flared again. I was driving around 35mph and had to slow down to 25mph and had to pick up a bit of speed and it spike from 2k - 4k rpm. I took out the camcorder, but was not able to duplicate the flare the whole way home.

ES350Bob

I can totally relate and appreciate your concern for your family and your persistence toward resolution. I adjusted my driving style completely with 2nd one keeping throttle no greater than 20 percent when picking up and taking my elderly mother for her errands, 2nd one frightened her and was painful to her when 2k plus slipping-resultant surging when engaging at that higher RPM so I do worry for the elderly and the tiny ones experiencing this and past posted about it. Keeping your accel to 20 should be ok when you are taking family with in the car until you can get this resolved.

ons...may read your video plans and post a few pointers for you to set up to record as he has experience and talent in setting up for it, wait and see what he suggests beyond your plans to keep trying to record it in the meantime.

ESDragon

After 3 days and 2 phone calls with Lexus Corp, I never received a call back from the assigned specialist who was going handle my case. I finally call again and demanded to speak to the specialist. She finally got on the phone and told me that she is aware of my transmission flare, but could NOT do anything since the dealership can't duplicate the problem. I tried to make her understand my frustration and the grief that I am going to right now with brand new car. She basically couldn't do anything for me, but will talk to my dealership and see if there are any other alternatives. She said she will contact me next week. HA! I am not a bit surprise with the poor service that I am getting from Lexus.

love_lexus

My personal experience is try to figure out how to reproduce by yourself first, then ask Lexus dealer to fix. If you did service at other dealers, you'll know Lexus service is one of the best in the market so far.

I had the same issue on my GS300 before, I was very upset when the technician couldn't reproduce the problem. I complain again and again to dealer and Lexus Corp. Lexus just pushed the dealer to do something and made me happy, the dealer finally resembled my left front door and window even they couldn't find anything wrong. But this couldn't help anything, because the rattle was still there and both sides were still frustrated.

I decided to do something in another way. I paid more attention on when the rattle came again with the combination of my driving style, road condition, and speed, etc, and I figure out how to reproduce the problem finally.

Lexus of Stevens Creek was very happy to fix my problem after that, so am I.

just FYI and good luck.

ES350Bob

Almost verbatim matching my experience and my attempts, except when I made the demand to speak to the assigned person phone call the guy was said to be off that day and would be back the next day and call me, 11 days later he did, longer story than that but very similar so far.

MD350

Sounds like they are pretty busy in that office....wonder why??

ES350Bob

I wondered/concluded the same thing, very busy in that office, and with what seems may be the latest normal characteristic push, there must be quite a few folks for quite some time who view normal as something else and not accepting this in a vehicle.

osokuko

I read this post and your flare makes no since. A normal flare (lol) is first drive off in the morning and that is it till the next day. You have a first drive off flare but your big flare seems to happen while in stop and go traffic. Here in Calf. Rush hour stop and go traffic on the freeway is 10-20 MPH. I’m wondering if your stop and go traffic is a faster speed like between 25-40 MPH. If so, it just may be that you have two problems going on. 1st problem the normal flare – first drive off in the morning, 2nd problem a defective torque converter, or low ATF. Everyone these days assume if there is a rise in RPM it’s the flare, but a bad slipping torque converter can do the same a rise in RPM between 35 & 40 during the lock up – unlock sequence. If so you may have a genuine defective transmission. Anyone comments?

wanderer99

ESDragon - my trans had (has) both the cold 3-4 flare, as well as a 'hot' flare... particularly when doing stop\start driving in traffic OR when coming off a freeway after driving at high speed for a while. The 'hot' flare usually was 1-2 or 2-3 or 4-5 slipping and once spiked well over 2000rpm before it caught the next gear. That large spike was kind of scary as it was 1-2 and it just slammed the car into gear which lurched forward... in close contact stop\go traffic. Not good. That day I drove straight to the dealer, who couldn't replicate anything.

This is all driving normally and not trying to trick the trans. From a stop I would just accelerate normally and bam - big spike in random gears but not 3-4th. Totally not repeatable in any shape or form, but happens at random and only when 'hot'. This was\is not the 3-4 flare condition, but basically has the same effect in the gears listed above when HOT.

When I say driving normally I mean just allowing the gear changes around 2000rpm while driving fairly sedately I guess. I'm never really in a rush to get anywhere, which explains my driving style.