MD350

Thanks for the update. Might have a chat with the service manager at my 15K service

rlj4246

had mine flashed monday. Flare 200rpm between 3rd and 4th. Has not flared yet but I am still watching closely

rlj4246

spoke too soon. Flared twice today. Called dealership and waiting for next move. I don't want to mess with a new tranny. Just Buy-back to a GS.

MD350

Thank you, I am going to leave well enough alone. Good luck!

robob2

LexusGuy - Do you have any updates on your situation?
Since my transmission replacement and re-re-flash on my Camry I no longer have the cold flare, but do have intermittent 2nd-3rd and 3rd-4th and 4th-5th flares of varying degrees after the vehicle is fully warmed up. Some upwards of 500 RPM.

Although the severe cold flare is gone I consider this worse as it's unpredictable, alarming when it does occur, and next to impossible to reproduce at the dealer. I do have videos though.

Any of this sound familiar?

meadoel

Your experience and frustration match mine exactly. The sole difference is that I haven't been able to film it as it's so unpredictable.

robob2

I do have an idea of what types of driving situations the problem occurs in and this helps some what with the video. However, I'm certain I'm endangering my well being by consantly having the video camera between me and the dash. It's not the kind of thing they teach in driving school. I have had to film many scenarios to capture a few of the problems.

meadoel

Can you PM me with your thoughts on that so I can do the same?

robob2

PM sent. I hope it helps.

07LexusGuy

Sorry, I haven't been posting in a while

Yes, I totally agree with you that this could be worst than before. You are right on with what you're experiencing - I have the same issue on my end. It doesn't flare on the cold start but will do so at random during normal driving and can sometimes cause some very harsh shifts. My flares are usually in the 200rpm range so they're not as high as before. Nonetheless, any flaring at all in a 45K car is not acceptable to me.

I've yet to get any videos of this because its so random. My service manger has been calling me weekly to get updates from me, so I do feel that they are truly wanting to help out - its just that I can reproduce it very well for them.

robob2

Thanks for the update. Hopefully they get to the bottom of this problem. It just seems as though it is a system problem rather then specfic to the transmission. Why else would the fixes put in place so often not fix the problem and why are there so many without the problem to begin with?

dreyfus

I expect it's a mechanical issue with the transmission's design that is right on the edge of problem/no problem, that is, too narrow a tolerance being designed into the transmission somewhere. This is why most vehicles don't have the problem but a significant number do. Just a little tweak in the manufacturing or assembly process and a line is crossed, a tolerance exceeded, and then you have the faulty behavior. From the nature of the problem and the AT itself, I'd say it was a fluid pressure error arising from two or more tolerances being exceeded at once and combining to produce the flare.

With many possible contributing factors involved there would be many approaches to fixing the problem. The trick is to do this without breaking the finely-tuned design of the rest of the transmission. Unfortunately, it looks like this reflash perhaps causes more problems than it fixes. This is to be expected as it appears to be a software patch to a hardware problem. All software is identical, so if it was only a software problem every ES350 would have it. But not all hardware is identical, not even in a quality car like the Lexus. If the tolerances aren't designed properly, a couple of small manufacturing defects can add up to a big problem.

I am very surprised that Toyota hasn't adequately addressed this yet. They've had over a year to diagnose the problem and with their resources should have identified and corrected this issue long ago.

robob2

The tolerance theroy is a good one and I'm sure has a lot to do with the problem. I still wonder why a car that gets two transmission ends up with the problem. What are the chances of both transmissions having the same out of tolerance problem considering the small number of failures being reported?


This is a very good question. Perhaps the cost of the cure exceeds the cost of dealing with the number of failures being reported. Although this cannot take into account the impact on percieved quality that potential buyers are left with if they are aware of the unsolved problem.

theredkid

so what is the verdict of the latest fix? problem solved? I don't seem to see many posts about transmission complaints as it used to be here in the old days... lol

mrshyvley

I agree that this could be a tolerance issue.
One possible reason why replacing the transaxle doesn't fix the problem in some cars, is that the out of tolerance hardware isn't in the transaxle itself.