Lexus Removes Trans TSIB and Calls Trans Slipping a Normal Characteristic
02-22-07, 09:58 AM
#16
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...uh, and I was being a bit sarcastic when referring to it being "normal". My point was that I find it hard to accept that Lexus can call it a normal problem when ALL of the cars don't have it, and my sarcasm continued when I suggested I complain that mine doesn't have the issue. It clearly is a major problem, but apparently my comment is not welcomed. I apologize.
02-22-07, 10:00 AM
#17
Lexus Champion
...uh, and I was being a bit sarcastic when referring to it being "normal". My point was that I find it hard to accept that Lexus can call it a normal problem when ALL of the cars don't have it, and my sarcasm continued when I suggested I complain that mine doesn't have the issue. It clearly is a major problem, but apparently my comment is not welcomed. I apologize.
02-22-07, 10:17 AM
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...uh, and I was being a bit sarcastic when referring to it being "normal". My point was that I find it hard to accept that Lexus can call it a normal problem when ALL of the cars don't have it, and my sarcasm continued when I suggested I complain that mine doesn't have the issue. It clearly is a major problem, but apparently my comment is not welcomed. I apologize.
02-22-07, 11:13 AM
#19
Like djr, I want my car to operate normally too. I'm going to go back to the dealer and demand that they install the flare which was somehow left out at the factory!
The lemon laws must still apply, even if Lexus claims this as normal. If you have a video of your rpms spiking between shifts, I don't see how they can possibly fight this and win in any legal venue.
Isn't it about time for someone with consumer news connections to take a video of the rpm spike public? If I were a consumer advocate or even an automotive magazine I'd sure be interested in airing/publishing such a demonstrable defect along with a Lexus statement that this was perfectly normal. It certainly sounds like a big bad luxury car company screwing the little guy story to me.
There are so many people in competing companies who want to take a shot at Lexus I'm suprised this isn't industry-wide knowledge already.
The lemon laws must still apply, even if Lexus claims this as normal. If you have a video of your rpms spiking between shifts, I don't see how they can possibly fight this and win in any legal venue.
Isn't it about time for someone with consumer news connections to take a video of the rpm spike public? If I were a consumer advocate or even an automotive magazine I'd sure be interested in airing/publishing such a demonstrable defect along with a Lexus statement that this was perfectly normal. It certainly sounds like a big bad luxury car company screwing the little guy story to me.
There are so many people in competing companies who want to take a shot at Lexus I'm suprised this isn't industry-wide knowledge already.
02-22-07, 12:02 PM
#20
Lexus Fanatic
with the massive amount of money toyota has, this is the most crooked decision toyota has taken so far. And I hope there is a huge anti-lexus crusade as a result of this, assuming it is true that they reneged on the TSIB.
the ES is the money maker, and if enough bad publicity gets out, that could screw lexus pretty good.
If anyone has any pull, get this shi* on 20/20, 60 minutes, or any other media outlets.
I won't continue to support a company that shirks responsibility.
Any retard knows that this is not how a normal transmission behaves. Show me another lexus, domestic, or import auto-trans that flares like this.
And if this is normal operation, show me how it benefits the car......
the ES is the money maker, and if enough bad publicity gets out, that could screw lexus pretty good.
If anyone has any pull, get this shi* on 20/20, 60 minutes, or any other media outlets.
I won't continue to support a company that shirks responsibility.
Any retard knows that this is not how a normal transmission behaves. Show me another lexus, domestic, or import auto-trans that flares like this.
And if this is normal operation, show me how it benefits the car......
02-22-07, 12:48 PM
#21
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From what I've been reading about Toyota lately, this does not surprise me... They are literally scrambling to keep whatever they have and the recent issues have been a huge disgrace... Coverups are definitely fair game, look at the recent financial troubles with payrolling as an example.
Getting rid of the TSB/TSIB is one way to meet that $9B in savings required over the next 3 years????
_________________________________________________________________
Despite being set to replace GM as No. 1 automaker, Toyota's breakneck growth has hobbled it with high recall rates, severe skills shortages, slowing efficiency and Third World competition
Feb 18, 2007 04:30 AM
David Olive
Toyota Motor Corp.'s list of growing pains just got longer. With its fabled attention to detail, Toyota Motor Corp. recruited two of America's most respected stock-car drivers for its debut in NASCAR last weekend. As the first non-U.S. competitor in America's most popular sport – commanding a fan base of about 90 million people – Toyota is hoping to project itself as a U.S. company that employs thousands of Americans at its seven U.S. plants, and to counter a potential backlash as it gains market share at the expense of Detroit automakers.
Toyota could hardly have done better, one would have thought, than in its selection of veteran NASCAR fan favourites Dale Jarrett and Michael Waltrip, drivers known for their integrity and sportsmanship. But last Thursday, two-time Daytona 500 winner Waltrip was caught trying to super-charge his Toyota Camry with a suspected jet-fuel additive ahead of last weekend's Nextel Cup Series in Dayton Beach, Fla.
NASCAR decided to let Waltrip compete in the race using a backup car. But it impounded his doctored Camry, docked him points, and banished his crew chief and manager from the contest. A Toyota official called it "Toyota's worst nightmare."
Obviously, there's much to admire about Toyota Motor Corp., poised this year or next to eclipse General Motors Corp. as the world's biggest automaker. While competitors GM, Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG are in retreat, Toyota is racing to achieve its goal of 15 per cent of global market share, up from 12 per cent.
In recent years, the Toyota juggernaut has been adding an average of two new factories annually to its network, including a $1.1 billion Woodstock, Ont. assembly plant scheduled to open next year that will turn out the RAV4 sport-utility vehicle. At its two plants in Woodstock and Cambridge, where it makes the Corolla, Matrix and Lexus RX350 vehicles, Toyota by next year will be building 455,000 vehicles in Ontario – an eight-fold increase since the company began manufacturing operations in Canada in 1988.
And Toyota's annual volume growth of 500,000 vehicles accounts for about a quarter of the worldwide industry's increase in production – roughly equal to the entire annual output of Ford's Volvo brand. Toyota posted record profits in its latest quarter, and its 6 per cent operating margins are the industry gold standard. The shareholder value of Toyota Motor exceeds the combined market cap of Detroit's Big Three automakers.
Trouble is, with only slight alteration, the same plaudits applied to GM in the 1950s, when it commanded about half of the North American market and was a force to be reckoned with in Western Europe and Australia, as well.
No one's accusing Toyota of harbouring the same complacency and institutional arrogance that has been gradually killing GM in the past three decades. But the world's most successful automaker is beginning to show signs of big-company disease.
As its manufacturing network has grown to 45 plants worldwide, and its managerial cadre stretched thin, Toyota now finds its vaunted efficiency gains are more difficult to achieve. In the late 1990s, Toyota was dazzling competitors with its ability to build a car in just 21.6 hours – more than 10 hours faster than GM. A decade later, Toyota's performance had barely improved, to 21.3 hours, while GM had almost caught up.
Contrary to public perception, Toyota is not a low-wage producer. A confidential company strategic plan that surfaced earlier this month warned that Toyota's heady growth – and accompanying hiring frenzy – is pushing up labour costs in North America faster than profit margins. "This condition is not sustainable in the long term," said the document, which Toyota acknowledges is authentic, and which calls on Toyota to curb a forecast $900 million (U.S.) increase in labour costs by 2011 by paying the going rate in each U.S. state in which it has a plant, and no longer tie its pay and benefits to the North American industry average.
The breakneck speed of Toyota's expansion has hobbled it with a severe skills shortage, in everything from design and R&D to quality inspection. This is a special problem for Toyota, with its hallowed culture of continuous improvement that relies heavily on a workforce tutored in the so-called "Toyota Way." As a company insider told the U.K. Financial Times, "It takes 15 years to absorb the Toyota Way. We don't have a fast-track system."
Now that some 200,000 employees, or two-thirds of Toyota's workforce, are located outside Japan, the company can no longer rely on word of mouth to convey the tenets of its widely envied manufacturing and managerial methods. Yet Toyota didn't get around to putting the Toyota Way on paper until 2002. The following year it set up a managerial training college, the Toyota Institute, an hour's drive from world headquarters in Toyota City, and is now scrambling to build similar facilities in Kentucky and Thailand.
A troublesome by-product of Toyota's growth surge has been a decline in quality – the bedrock on which Toyota built its remarkable success in North America, where it derives the largest share of its profits. Since 2004, Toyota has recalled 9.3 million vehicles, up from 2.5 million in the previous three years. Last summer, the Japanese government censured Toyota and arrested three of its top executives for allegedly failing for eight years to disclose and act upon reports of a design flaw implicated in loss-of-control incidents.
By 2005, in tandem with the acceleration of Toyota's production rates, its rate of recalls as a percentage of vehicles in operation hit 10.1 per cent, compared with 6.8 per cent for GM and 2.5 per cent at Chrysler Group. The trend continued last year, as Toyota's recall rate remained among the highest in North America, affecting Prius, Echo, Lexus RX and Highlander models.
In the latest J.D. Power survey, the Toyota brand now scores below that of Hyundai Motor Co., a brand better known for low price than quality. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a risk-assessment arm of the U.S. insurance industry, withheld its "top pick" rating from Toyota's redesigned Camry and RAV4 sport-utility vehicle after they performed poorly in whiplash tests. And in January, Toyota's U.S. division agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by motorists who claimed that oil-sludge build-up had destroyed their engines despite compliance with the manufacturer's maintenance guidelines.
In its pursuit of efficiency, Toyota has long been an industry leader in using common parts across a wide range of models. The downside is that when a component turns out to be faulty, the resulting recall can be massive. For instance, the two suspect engines in the oil-sludge case – which auto mechanics complain were designed with oil passages that are too narrow – affects the Camry, Solara, Sienna, Avalon, Celica, Highlander, Lexus ES and Lexus RX models. This one settlement could end up covering 3.5 million vehicles.
CEO Katsuaki Watanabe, 64, describes the quality issue as "an emergency." He admitted to reporters: "We have received critical inquires from customers who are concerned whether our vehicles are safe. The world-class quality that we've built is our lifeline. Without improvements in quality, Toyota cannot grow."
Each of Toyota's North American plants is "paired" with a sister plant in Japan that tutors it in the "Toyota Way" of zero defects and continuous improvement (kaizen) of manufacturing methods. Watanabe has recently set up three quality-control centres, in North America and Europe, patterned on a venerable facility in Japan.
The challenges don't end there, however. Toyota is an also-ran in the most promising high-growth markets of the 21st century, including China, India, Russia and Brazil. And Watanabe lacks experience outside of Japan.
In the same way that the Volkswagen snuck into North America with the Beetle, followed by under-powered "econoboxes" from the Japanese and then Hyundai's debut with the Pony, Chinese and Indian automakers are expected to peddle their wares on these shores by decade's end with bare-bones models easily dismissed by the industry's entrenched players.
India's best-selling small car, the Maruti Alto, retails for $4,500, and Maruti and other leading Indian automakers, including Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) Hindustan Motors and Tata Motors, are engineering cars designed to sell at half that price. Chinese firms like Chery are also intent on sneaking into industrial markets under the radar of established rivals.
"GM was on top for three-quarters of a century, and that's impressive," writes veteran auto columnist Jerry Flint in Forbes. "Toyota won't do that. The world moves faster now. In 15 years maybe the Koreans (Hyundai) or the Chinese (Shanghai Auto) will overtake it."
If history serves as a guide, the new interlopers will gradually move up the "value chain," just as Toyota cracked the luxury market (Lexus) and Hyundai now makes full-size luxury sedans.
The twofold difference this time is that the Chinese and Indian automakers benefit from huge, government-protected home markets (a combined population of 2.3 billion) as a springboard in their offshore forays. With annual production now topping 1 million vehicles, the Indian automakers have barely tapped their domestic market. Automakers in the two quickly growing nations also boast exceedingly low labour costs (between $3 and $6 an hour U.S. in China, and as low as $1.50 U.S. in India).
Which means Toyota risks being priced out of the emerging markets where it must gain a substantial foothold in order to keep its plants running full-out. That explains Watanabe's urgency in trying to wring no less than $9 billion out of his cost structure over the next three or four years.
The trick is for Toyota to conceive new methods of cutting vehicle-manufacturing costs without continuing to jeopardize its high card of quality. And to recruit designers who can engineer a new generation of ultra-low-cost vehicles for emerging markets. And to pray that Beijing and Delhi don't impose suffocating quotas on Japanese imports – a tactic that Japan itself employed against Motown in the post-World War II era to nurture its homegrown automakers.
Watanabe is not to be counted out in the coming contest with ultra-low-cost producers. A confessed micromanager, he began his Toyota career 43 years ago as supervisor of the firm's cafeterias. He became obsessed with rice leftovers. Common practice in Japan at the time was to serve large portions of rice in a big bowl to everyone. Watanabe hit on the solution of letting employees serve themselves, and the wastage disappeared immediately.
"I am obsessed with details," Watanabe told The Wall Street Journal. "I will be an irritant, and I am persistent."
Toyota's persistence ultimately humbled the once-mighty GM. The question is whether persistence alone will enable Toyota to hold on to its long-coveted "No. 1" crown for more than a few years.
Getting rid of the TSB/TSIB is one way to meet that $9B in savings required over the next 3 years????
_________________________________________________________________
Despite being set to replace GM as No. 1 automaker, Toyota's breakneck growth has hobbled it with high recall rates, severe skills shortages, slowing efficiency and Third World competition
Feb 18, 2007 04:30 AM
David Olive
Toyota Motor Corp.'s list of growing pains just got longer. With its fabled attention to detail, Toyota Motor Corp. recruited two of America's most respected stock-car drivers for its debut in NASCAR last weekend. As the first non-U.S. competitor in America's most popular sport – commanding a fan base of about 90 million people – Toyota is hoping to project itself as a U.S. company that employs thousands of Americans at its seven U.S. plants, and to counter a potential backlash as it gains market share at the expense of Detroit automakers.
Toyota could hardly have done better, one would have thought, than in its selection of veteran NASCAR fan favourites Dale Jarrett and Michael Waltrip, drivers known for their integrity and sportsmanship. But last Thursday, two-time Daytona 500 winner Waltrip was caught trying to super-charge his Toyota Camry with a suspected jet-fuel additive ahead of last weekend's Nextel Cup Series in Dayton Beach, Fla.
NASCAR decided to let Waltrip compete in the race using a backup car. But it impounded his doctored Camry, docked him points, and banished his crew chief and manager from the contest. A Toyota official called it "Toyota's worst nightmare."
Obviously, there's much to admire about Toyota Motor Corp., poised this year or next to eclipse General Motors Corp. as the world's biggest automaker. While competitors GM, Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG are in retreat, Toyota is racing to achieve its goal of 15 per cent of global market share, up from 12 per cent.
In recent years, the Toyota juggernaut has been adding an average of two new factories annually to its network, including a $1.1 billion Woodstock, Ont. assembly plant scheduled to open next year that will turn out the RAV4 sport-utility vehicle. At its two plants in Woodstock and Cambridge, where it makes the Corolla, Matrix and Lexus RX350 vehicles, Toyota by next year will be building 455,000 vehicles in Ontario – an eight-fold increase since the company began manufacturing operations in Canada in 1988.
And Toyota's annual volume growth of 500,000 vehicles accounts for about a quarter of the worldwide industry's increase in production – roughly equal to the entire annual output of Ford's Volvo brand. Toyota posted record profits in its latest quarter, and its 6 per cent operating margins are the industry gold standard. The shareholder value of Toyota Motor exceeds the combined market cap of Detroit's Big Three automakers.
Trouble is, with only slight alteration, the same plaudits applied to GM in the 1950s, when it commanded about half of the North American market and was a force to be reckoned with in Western Europe and Australia, as well.
No one's accusing Toyota of harbouring the same complacency and institutional arrogance that has been gradually killing GM in the past three decades. But the world's most successful automaker is beginning to show signs of big-company disease.
As its manufacturing network has grown to 45 plants worldwide, and its managerial cadre stretched thin, Toyota now finds its vaunted efficiency gains are more difficult to achieve. In the late 1990s, Toyota was dazzling competitors with its ability to build a car in just 21.6 hours – more than 10 hours faster than GM. A decade later, Toyota's performance had barely improved, to 21.3 hours, while GM had almost caught up.
Contrary to public perception, Toyota is not a low-wage producer. A confidential company strategic plan that surfaced earlier this month warned that Toyota's heady growth – and accompanying hiring frenzy – is pushing up labour costs in North America faster than profit margins. "This condition is not sustainable in the long term," said the document, which Toyota acknowledges is authentic, and which calls on Toyota to curb a forecast $900 million (U.S.) increase in labour costs by 2011 by paying the going rate in each U.S. state in which it has a plant, and no longer tie its pay and benefits to the North American industry average.
The breakneck speed of Toyota's expansion has hobbled it with a severe skills shortage, in everything from design and R&D to quality inspection. This is a special problem for Toyota, with its hallowed culture of continuous improvement that relies heavily on a workforce tutored in the so-called "Toyota Way." As a company insider told the U.K. Financial Times, "It takes 15 years to absorb the Toyota Way. We don't have a fast-track system."
Now that some 200,000 employees, or two-thirds of Toyota's workforce, are located outside Japan, the company can no longer rely on word of mouth to convey the tenets of its widely envied manufacturing and managerial methods. Yet Toyota didn't get around to putting the Toyota Way on paper until 2002. The following year it set up a managerial training college, the Toyota Institute, an hour's drive from world headquarters in Toyota City, and is now scrambling to build similar facilities in Kentucky and Thailand.
A troublesome by-product of Toyota's growth surge has been a decline in quality – the bedrock on which Toyota built its remarkable success in North America, where it derives the largest share of its profits. Since 2004, Toyota has recalled 9.3 million vehicles, up from 2.5 million in the previous three years. Last summer, the Japanese government censured Toyota and arrested three of its top executives for allegedly failing for eight years to disclose and act upon reports of a design flaw implicated in loss-of-control incidents.
By 2005, in tandem with the acceleration of Toyota's production rates, its rate of recalls as a percentage of vehicles in operation hit 10.1 per cent, compared with 6.8 per cent for GM and 2.5 per cent at Chrysler Group. The trend continued last year, as Toyota's recall rate remained among the highest in North America, affecting Prius, Echo, Lexus RX and Highlander models.
In the latest J.D. Power survey, the Toyota brand now scores below that of Hyundai Motor Co., a brand better known for low price than quality. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a risk-assessment arm of the U.S. insurance industry, withheld its "top pick" rating from Toyota's redesigned Camry and RAV4 sport-utility vehicle after they performed poorly in whiplash tests. And in January, Toyota's U.S. division agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by motorists who claimed that oil-sludge build-up had destroyed their engines despite compliance with the manufacturer's maintenance guidelines.
In its pursuit of efficiency, Toyota has long been an industry leader in using common parts across a wide range of models. The downside is that when a component turns out to be faulty, the resulting recall can be massive. For instance, the two suspect engines in the oil-sludge case – which auto mechanics complain were designed with oil passages that are too narrow – affects the Camry, Solara, Sienna, Avalon, Celica, Highlander, Lexus ES and Lexus RX models. This one settlement could end up covering 3.5 million vehicles.
CEO Katsuaki Watanabe, 64, describes the quality issue as "an emergency." He admitted to reporters: "We have received critical inquires from customers who are concerned whether our vehicles are safe. The world-class quality that we've built is our lifeline. Without improvements in quality, Toyota cannot grow."
Each of Toyota's North American plants is "paired" with a sister plant in Japan that tutors it in the "Toyota Way" of zero defects and continuous improvement (kaizen) of manufacturing methods. Watanabe has recently set up three quality-control centres, in North America and Europe, patterned on a venerable facility in Japan.
The challenges don't end there, however. Toyota is an also-ran in the most promising high-growth markets of the 21st century, including China, India, Russia and Brazil. And Watanabe lacks experience outside of Japan.
In the same way that the Volkswagen snuck into North America with the Beetle, followed by under-powered "econoboxes" from the Japanese and then Hyundai's debut with the Pony, Chinese and Indian automakers are expected to peddle their wares on these shores by decade's end with bare-bones models easily dismissed by the industry's entrenched players.
India's best-selling small car, the Maruti Alto, retails for $4,500, and Maruti and other leading Indian automakers, including Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) Hindustan Motors and Tata Motors, are engineering cars designed to sell at half that price. Chinese firms like Chery are also intent on sneaking into industrial markets under the radar of established rivals.
"GM was on top for three-quarters of a century, and that's impressive," writes veteran auto columnist Jerry Flint in Forbes. "Toyota won't do that. The world moves faster now. In 15 years maybe the Koreans (Hyundai) or the Chinese (Shanghai Auto) will overtake it."
If history serves as a guide, the new interlopers will gradually move up the "value chain," just as Toyota cracked the luxury market (Lexus) and Hyundai now makes full-size luxury sedans.
The twofold difference this time is that the Chinese and Indian automakers benefit from huge, government-protected home markets (a combined population of 2.3 billion) as a springboard in their offshore forays. With annual production now topping 1 million vehicles, the Indian automakers have barely tapped their domestic market. Automakers in the two quickly growing nations also boast exceedingly low labour costs (between $3 and $6 an hour U.S. in China, and as low as $1.50 U.S. in India).
Which means Toyota risks being priced out of the emerging markets where it must gain a substantial foothold in order to keep its plants running full-out. That explains Watanabe's urgency in trying to wring no less than $9 billion out of his cost structure over the next three or four years.
The trick is for Toyota to conceive new methods of cutting vehicle-manufacturing costs without continuing to jeopardize its high card of quality. And to recruit designers who can engineer a new generation of ultra-low-cost vehicles for emerging markets. And to pray that Beijing and Delhi don't impose suffocating quotas on Japanese imports – a tactic that Japan itself employed against Motown in the post-World War II era to nurture its homegrown automakers.
Watanabe is not to be counted out in the coming contest with ultra-low-cost producers. A confessed micromanager, he began his Toyota career 43 years ago as supervisor of the firm's cafeterias. He became obsessed with rice leftovers. Common practice in Japan at the time was to serve large portions of rice in a big bowl to everyone. Watanabe hit on the solution of letting employees serve themselves, and the wastage disappeared immediately.
"I am obsessed with details," Watanabe told The Wall Street Journal. "I will be an irritant, and I am persistent."
Toyota's persistence ultimately humbled the once-mighty GM. The question is whether persistence alone will enable Toyota to hold on to its long-coveted "No. 1" crown for more than a few years.
02-22-07, 01:41 PM
#22
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This behavior is exactly why I was so fed up with Toyota Motor Company. They screwed me when I owned my 2002 ES300. Now if this information is true about the TSB's, it's a huge sucker punch to otherwise loyal customers, "Hey, look over there!"
02-22-07, 03:01 PM
#23
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Sorry, I'm going to come out on the wrong side of this one, since automotive history supports Lexus' position that the transaxle "flare" represents "normal" operation.
Assuming it only happens before the ATF is warmed to operating temperature.
Long ago Ford V8 engines with 4 barrel carburators had a thermostatic lockout to prevent the 2nd two, LARGER, barrels from operating until the engine had warmed to something close to normal operating temperature.
300HP at WOT but not until the engine has warmed to operating temperature.
WHY..?
To prevent premature failure of the engine.
Did I notice, care..?
Yes, No.
So, either learn to let the ATF warm for a few minutes before you drive off or do not be so lead-footed on the throttle until the ATF has a chance to warm up and expand to FULL volume.
Give me the design sheets and I would redesign the engine ECU firmware to detune the engine (prevent those two large carburator barrels from opening) until the ATF came up closer to full volume.
Assuming it only happens before the ATF is warmed to operating temperature.
Long ago Ford V8 engines with 4 barrel carburators had a thermostatic lockout to prevent the 2nd two, LARGER, barrels from operating until the engine had warmed to something close to normal operating temperature.
300HP at WOT but not until the engine has warmed to operating temperature.
WHY..?
To prevent premature failure of the engine.
Did I notice, care..?
Yes, No.
So, either learn to let the ATF warm for a few minutes before you drive off or do not be so lead-footed on the throttle until the ATF has a chance to warm up and expand to FULL volume.
Give me the design sheets and I would redesign the engine ECU firmware to detune the engine (prevent those two large carburator barrels from opening) until the ATF came up closer to full volume.
Last edited by willard; 02-27-07 at 06:57 PM.
02-22-07, 07:07 PM
#24
Pole Position
Let's all take a step back, a deep breath, and calm down. Before we crucify Lexus, can one of the Lexus insiders who frequents this forum confirm whether or not this is true? Lexus has a pack of wolves, I mean lawyers, working for them, and there is no way the lawyers would allow the company to cancel a TSB and openly claim that a potentially dangerous operating condition is "normal." Until we confirm this information, I'll reserve judgment.
e
e
02-23-07, 04:27 AM
#25
Let's all take a step back, a deep breath, and calm down. Before we crucify Lexus, can one of the Lexus insiders who frequents this forum confirm whether or not this is true? Lexus has a pack of wolves, I mean lawyers, working for them, and there is no way the lawyers would allow the company to cancel a TSB and openly claim that a potentially dangerous operating condition is "normal." Until we confirm this information, I'll reserve judgment.
e
e
On a separate but related note: Interestingly, over the last month the 3rd-4th flair on my car has diminished significantly to probably about a 100 rpm jump on the first shift after sitting for 4 or more hours and after a road trip tues-weds I had no hot flair after exiting the Interstate. Not to sure what to think about this. We'll see.
02-23-07, 04:53 AM
#26
Lexus Champion
Let's all take a step back, a deep breath, and calm down. Before we crucify Lexus, can one of the Lexus insiders who frequents this forum confirm whether or not this is true? Lexus has a pack of wolves, I mean lawyers, working for them, and there is no way the lawyers would allow the company to cancel a TSB and openly claim that a potentially dangerous operating condition is "normal." Until we confirm this information, I'll reserve judgment.
e
e
Related: I'm sure the lawyers told them not to tell a bulk of owners that wind noise is normal and certainly not tell a bulk of owners that the diesel engine noise is normal in blatant contrast to vehicles produced absent these claimed "normal characteristics."
I am also sure the lawyers have said you cannot leave people in these cars once the trans is diagnosed with this issue; yet, people are left in them for 3 months or longer after the diagnosis. swobro is one example who will be in the car for several months after an official diagnosis by a Lexus certified repair center, wanderer, even 2007 has had to wait in his vehicle and numerous other members report the same.
I don't think 2007 cares that I expressed somewhat of an on the fence approach myself, e.g., me saying ...If this is true....or maybe this is one dealer's version of what the new rule is.....but i have to say given wind noise, engine noise, both claimed as normal, transmissions claimed learning, people stuck in them for months, it would not surprise me if there were claims this slipping is a normal characteristic.
Hesitation is and has for years been excused as normal on so many models and yet it too is dangerous with a laundry list of federally reported events including accidents with injuries on Avalon, Camry, and years of owner complaints on the ES. I'm certain lawyers have told them not to excuse hesitation and told them this YEARS ago, they seem not to have listened at all and instead have recently come up with a MPG loss if corrected excuse as though that makes it ok for this dangerous hesitation. Nobody will buy that excuse either where resultant injury is or may be concerned.
02-23-07, 06:17 AM
#27
Lexus Champion
Let's all take a step back, a deep breath, and calm down. Before we crucify Lexus, can one of the Lexus insiders who frequents this forum confirm whether or not this is true? Lexus has a pack of wolves, I mean lawyers, working for them, and there is no way the lawyers would allow the company to cancel a TSB and openly claim that a potentially dangerous operating condition is "normal." Until we confirm this information, I'll reserve judgment.
e
e
02-23-07, 06:45 AM
#28
Lexus Champion
This was not the case with the TSIB valve body getting yanked.
None of the Lexus insiders alerted us to it being a reality it was yanked, we finally saw it made official by the eventual posting of the Jan 19 TSIB but at no time did any insiders give us a heads up on it and they had at least a month to do so after Wanderer first reported it was yanked.
Wanderer told us this more than a month before the paperwork of TSIB was released learining it in similar fashion to 2007 sharing this info with us, and ons also offered input on it.
While I'm not ready to totally believe it is official, we have come to know our members are a very good and reliable source of what is going on.
02-23-07, 06:48 AM
#29
Lexus Champion
This was not the case with the TSIB valve body getting yanked.
None of the Lexus insiders alerted us to it being a reality it was yanked, we finally saw it made official by the eventual posting of the Jan 19 TSIB but at no time did any insiders give us a heads up on it and they had at least a month to do so after Wanderer first reported it was yanked.
Wanderer told us this more than a month before the paperwork of TSIB was released learining it in similar fashion to 2007 sharing this info with us, and ons also offered input on it.
While I'm not ready to totally believe it is official, we have come to know our members are a very good and reliable source of what is going on.
None of the Lexus insiders alerted us to it being a reality it was yanked, we finally saw it made official by the eventual posting of the Jan 19 TSIB but at no time did any insiders give us a heads up on it and they had at least a month to do so after Wanderer first reported it was yanked.
Wanderer told us this more than a month before the paperwork of TSIB was released learining it in similar fashion to 2007 sharing this info with us, and ons also offered input on it.
While I'm not ready to totally believe it is official, we have come to know our members are a very good and reliable source of what is going on.
02-23-07, 07:52 AM
#30
I think they're going to have to do something here.
The first valve body TSIB poll showed around 90% failure. I was advised by Lexus that this would be pulled as it did not work, as well as their reasons behind that. Lexus advised me that the follow up TSIB would be for complete trans replacement. That's exactly what has happened.
We now have the new trans replacement TSIB and another poll. We're at around a 90% fail rate again. I can't see this turning around all of a sudden, so Lexus will probably have to take some action again.... and cancel or revise that TSIB.
What will happen after that? I guess that is what this thread is about as apparently some information is 'out' already. That information may not be correct, but then again it may very well be 100% accurate. We will certainly see in the coming weeks!
After I was advised the valve body TSIB was being pulled by Lexus themselves, members here continued to have this TSIB failure pushed upon them by Lexus. In fairness to the Dealerships they were doing this because this is what Lexus advised them to do - continue to push the TSIB even though it was a known failure. Some dealers did not co-operate with this as they knew this TSIB was a failure, and instead went directly for a trans replacement.
But then again, Lexus has continued to sell cars that are potentially problematic as they are commited to maintaining sales. At least they are commited to that.
ES350Bob is also correct - none of the Lexus insiders on this board called the fact that the original valve body TSIB was being pulled. That in itself is interesting.
ES350 Trans Problems at Lexus = Hot Potato.
The first valve body TSIB poll showed around 90% failure. I was advised by Lexus that this would be pulled as it did not work, as well as their reasons behind that. Lexus advised me that the follow up TSIB would be for complete trans replacement. That's exactly what has happened.
We now have the new trans replacement TSIB and another poll. We're at around a 90% fail rate again. I can't see this turning around all of a sudden, so Lexus will probably have to take some action again.... and cancel or revise that TSIB.
What will happen after that? I guess that is what this thread is about as apparently some information is 'out' already. That information may not be correct, but then again it may very well be 100% accurate. We will certainly see in the coming weeks!
After I was advised the valve body TSIB was being pulled by Lexus themselves, members here continued to have this TSIB failure pushed upon them by Lexus. In fairness to the Dealerships they were doing this because this is what Lexus advised them to do - continue to push the TSIB even though it was a known failure. Some dealers did not co-operate with this as they knew this TSIB was a failure, and instead went directly for a trans replacement.
But then again, Lexus has continued to sell cars that are potentially problematic as they are commited to maintaining sales. At least they are commited to that.
ES350Bob is also correct - none of the Lexus insiders on this board called the fact that the original valve body TSIB was being pulled. That in itself is interesting.
ES350 Trans Problems at Lexus = Hot Potato.