kimmy42083

After 235k miles, my car broke down on 1/2, and I finally got it back from the dealer yesterday. Apparently mine was the worst they had seen and required the most repairs. The dealer let me look at the parts estimate, which was about $8,000! They replaced pistons and rings, the valves, valve springs, something having to do with the injectors, a fuel pump housing, gaskets and seals. They also found that I had a worn cam gear, so I had that repaired which cost me about $900. On the invoice it also states that a belt was replaced along with the two gam gears, was that the timing belt? I thought I had a timing chain?

Anyway, today I am noticing a rather strong burning rubber smell. I can't tell where its coming from. I smell it very strongly inside the vehicle when stopped, it is more mild when I'm driving. I drove the car 100 miles home last night and did not notice a smell. Today I've driven about 300 miles, and the smell is pretty consistent. What could this be? Is it just lube or excess sealant burning off the moter? There are no lights on the dash and my guages look fine. Never had this smell before in the 4 years I've owned my car.

iRyan

iTrader: (7)

time out you have 235,000 miles on the car...nice...

The smell could be so many different things....could be piece of rubber from the tear down touching or on the exhaust manifold or something...best case scenario....or it could be all the new parts breaking in but even so it shouldn't be consistent for 300 miles...I would say contact the dealer make them aware as well

davyjordi

yeah, i think the main point here is that your car ran 235k miles before you had to take it in for major servicing.

NQR89

Damn you put in a lot of miles in the times you have owned the car haha, you must do a lot of commuting between places. Glad to see people putting these cars to good use

kimmy42083

She's been great. 235k and the only thing to ever go bad was a thermostat around 190k, and shocks at 215k. It has a few things starting to go. I have a minor leak in my rear differential which I will have repaired by my local mechanic to save $$. And my airbag light is on. The dealer says its a 4k repair though! Ouch!

I do regular synthetic oil changes and run premium fuel. The mechanic at the dealership showed me pics he took on his phone of my engine block. Said it looked brand new. They couldn't find a thing wrong with it. Needless to say, they were pretty impressed. I am a home health nurse. I drive about 500 or more miles per week. I can't complain!

I will call the dealer in the morning. Maybe they'll be able to tell me what's up over the phone. Closest dealer is 100 miles away. =/

kimmy42083

P.S. - I bought the car in 2009 with 70k on it! I'm kinda proud I put that many miles on it myself!

NQR89

Glad you've been treating it well, i'm sure it will bring you many more miles. Those problems you mentioned aren't really too many compared to other cars that experience double that amount within the same year lol. I'd say check what's going on with your airbag though, as that can be a safety issue. If the light is on, the airbags might not deploy in the case of an accident. Good luck and keep us posted

Token1

With that amount of engine work, I would suspect the two most likely things, the possibility of a plastic/rubber part touching a hot spot that it did not before (not put back into a bracket or mount, and now resting on a hot surface), or its very probably they used a lot of cleaning chemicals, WD40 etc to get that motor out and apart, and its just those chemicals burning off now and will eventually go away.

I would take all the engine panels off and inspect it, and turn the engine on with the panels off and try to source the smell.

BTW nice to see these cars handle the miles, except the carbon build-up bummer and the cams. I put in a TS catch can for the carbon buildup, shouldn't be an issue now (the TSB fix is more a band-aid on a arterial bleed than a fix), but it sucks to know there was also a cam gear TSB on these cars and that they develop a noisy cam. Maybe some performance cam gears will come out in time for when I have to get this done (2006), like the ones the 4.0 Tacoma guys have.

1sWt2GS

iTrader: (6)

wait lets take it back a step or two, you let STealership do all this services?!

how much did it cost!

kimmy42083

Only took it to the dealer because the repairs were covered under the CSP. I had them do the cam gears because they already had the motor torn apart. They didn't charge me labor. I think 900 is pretty fair for the cam gears. Although I do think the good people at Lexus are smoking crack if they think I'm going to pay $24 for a spark plug. I will have that done elsewhere.

Btw, the smell seems to have gone away. Drove about 50 miles so far and nothing. Fingers crossed!

kimmy42083

I was unaware that this rebuild would not fix the problem. The service guy said they installed an upgraded type of piston that would keep it from happening again. I've been reading more and it sounds like you are right, token1. What is it that I need to have done to kep this from happening? I plan on putting another 235k on this motor.

Jeff Lange

iTrader: (1)

The new pistons and rings should help with the issue recurring, though it could (and may) still happen later.

Jeff

KillaIS250

iTrader: (1)

If they were going to do the labor for free, even paying $24 per spark plug would be cheaper then going somewhere else and having to pay parts + labor again.

But glad you have put so many miles on your IS and its treated you well. Looks like your coming up quickly on the other member who has the most miles so far (Around 260k last i heard, I believe). I have the new pistons and everything installed in mine too, unfortunately I still get the carbon build up shake every once in a while. Driving the car hard usually keeps the issue away for a while before it comes back again. Guess its just something to live with at this point!

NQR89

I don't want to go off topic but I guess it's somewhat relevant. Since you've gotten the CSP done, would you might consider installing an oil catch can to further minimize the problem?

kimmy42083

I would definitely consider it if it will prevent more problems. I don't really know much about cars and have no idea what an oil catch can is. Can my local mechanic do it?