jaseinatl

Hey all,

I was referred to these forums from another forum by someone who said the community here was much more responsive and I would be more likely to get some advice here. So here it goes:

I have a 1992 SC300. I am the third owner. The first owner was a little old lady who hardly ever drove it and the second was a Lexus Master Tech. While the second owner had it, he replaced just about everything with the best parts you can get from Lexus. Every drop of fluid, every bolt, every lightbulb replaced in the car is recorded and documented.We have had the car for 4 years now.

We had a problem with a leaky power steering pump that ruined our Rack and Pinion so we had it replaced by a local Atlanta Tech Shop. They replaced the power steering supply line and then the rack. It took them two full months to do this.

After we got it back, it ran fine for about 10 miles and then started to bog down and smoke really bad. The smoke was white (not blue-white) and it stunk (but not like gas so much) We returned the car and were told that there was a problem with the distributor. They wanted to charge us an outrageous price for the distributor, so we found one on-line for 1/3 the price and had them put it in.

When we got the car back it ran fine for the trip home and one trip to the grocery. But then the smoke returned and it was bogging down--almost stalling when idle. This time the smoke was outrageous so we had it towed.

Everyone thought it was going to be a blown head gasket so they did a compression test. They admitted that they accidentally left it running for 48 hours (a full 24 hours longer than they would normally run the test) and yet there were no leaks and no drop in pressure. So it's not the head gasket.

It was going on 5 months that they had possession of our car when we got it back to find it doing the same thing...a little bit less, but still not road-worthy. So, like the gullable idiots we are, we returned the car to them to have it fixed. That was two and a half months ago.

We have not received a call once from them since. We have called them a couple of times and once they lied to us about having the wrong phone number (they had called us previously a number of times when we had the distributor replaced). One time they read the notes on the ticket back to me as if they had discovered the information themselves...What the guy didn't know was that I had given them those notes--they haven't done anything.

In the note I gave them last time we took it in, I explained that I noticed a couple of streaks of liquid that had dropped on the corner of the V portion of the exhaust manifold. Even so, that would only mean that the engine would smoke under the hood. But really it is billowing out white smoke. The liquid didn't appear to be oil, but I couldn't see where it was coming from exactly. It appeared to be coming from the connection between the exhaust header and the block, but I am not sure.

I talked to one guy who indicated that a shop here in Atlanta put a cleaner additive in his gas that did the same thing so that he would return the car and they could charge him more. He said that he just ran it hard until the gas was gone and refilled it and it was fine. I'm too afraid that I am gonna damage the engine.

Anyways, I don't know what legal recourse I have or what I should do about this. It has never smoked like this before they replaced the rack. I have been without my car for going on 8 months and it is getting ridiculous. They promised it to me by this last Monday (three days ago), but never called.

If anyone has any advice about what could be causing the bogging and the white smoke, I would really love to hear it.

If anyone knows what I should do about the Tech shop and the fact that they have had my car for months without calling me and without fixing it, I would also be grateful.

I don't have the cash to send it to the dealership and I can't reach the guy who owned it before us. I just don't want to junk it either. Please help.

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read all of this.

I hope you are doing well and look forward to your replies.

Jase

O. L. T.

iTrader: (17)

First, why is your car not in your driveway right now instead of sitting in this hack shop?

Second, you can sue for damages of them not returning the car (a) in working fashion and (b) for loss off transportation of the period of 5 months. (ie- not returned in a timely fashion)

Third, the reason why you are getting white smoke and bogging is because the vacuum lines on the PS pump are reversed and it is blowing PS fluid into your intake.

Congratulations, I just fixed it for you in 3 minutes. 100% guaranteed that is what it is, no mistake. GO out and reverse the lines on your power steering flow switch. Hold on and I'll get you a picture.

O. L. T.

iTrader: (17)

Here are the two vacuum lines that are reversed https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...9&postcount=45 Reverse them BACK to where they should be at the pump. They are side by side and easy to confuse.

When they replaced the PS pump they reversed the lines and it blows power steering fluid into the intake and causes white smoke. (ask me how I know) Which causes very poor performance because your heads and intake are filling up with PS fluid.

So you can now sue them for incompetence also, because they are idiots. If you go to your car and pull the black intake tube off at the intake you'll likely find PS fluid in there.

PS- DO NOT let them do this to your car, go get it and do it yourself or they'll screw something else up and blame it on a different part.

Sorry to tell you this but you just went through ALL THIS because of two reversed vacuum lines at the very beginning when you had the initial work done on the power steering pump.

Below is the part you are looking for. It has two hoses on it, swap them, they are backwards. You'll see it on the side of the PS pump. It would be easier to remove the intake tube and air box to get to it, but it can be done without removing the intake tube and air box.

O. L. T.

iTrader: (17)

PPS- it'll take about 5 miles or so to blow it all out of the intake so switch the lines and go drive it. With some luck there is not any other damage as a result of this stupidity.

I am putting a 100% guarantee on this as the problem and I never do that. Worse news is that your rack was likely ok also, you just needed a pump. I know people who have ran these racks DRY for long periods of time to avoid damaging the alternator when they had a leak (not recommended) and still not killed the rack.

option0002

It appears that you found your answer.

Best,

Someone

O. L. T.

iTrader: (17)

Well looks like a post and run. Too bad,.... we gave him the correct answer.

Dx3

iTrader: (13)

Edited for accuracy

Jonny

jaseinatl

Hey all, I really appreciate the support and apologize that I didn't reply sooner.

The thing is that this forum, unlike any other forum I have posted to before, asks you if you want to subscribe to a thread upon posting. The default answer is do not subscribe. I have never heard of such a thing.

So the issue is that I never got any replies in my e-mail from this forum (because I didn't subscribe to the thread on accident).

I'm not complaining, just explaining.

I will post back in just a minute once I read the thread now that I know there are replies. I really do appreciate your time and input and apologize for having lost track of this thread.

Best wishes,

jase

jaseinatl

WOW are you kidding?

I just noticed that you posted your reply only 30 minutes after I posted my problem. And from the sounds of it, you were probably right.

I can't believe that I never got the update! I could have saved months of grief! Someone needs to adjust the default settings for the forum here, I won't make the mistake of "not subscribing" again!

Here is the latest update:

I called the shop on a Thursday and I was irate after being forced to walk in the rain from downtown Atlanta to midtown because they had my car. I told them that I wanted to pick the car up on Friday regardless of whether it worked. They put me on hold and never came back.

I called on Friday and was told that they had made some adjustments and that it was working fine but they wanted to keep it over the weekend to drive it...I could pick it up on Tuesday.

Tuesday rolled around and I never heard from them. So I called the following Friday and asked to speak to the owner. He said that he thought that I was abandoning the car and then said, "well, you're not gonna like this either: I took the computer out of your car and used it in another car since we thought you weren't coming to pick it up". I was so irate that I squeaked like I had my nuts in a vice (which proverbially I did).

I told him that I was going to contact my attorney and hung up.

In about an hour, I get a call that my car is all ready to be picked up and everything is working fine.

When I get there, they tell me the car is running like new and they even put a new battery in it for me. They charged me over $1000. I paid and left.

When I got in the car, the seat was laid way back, the ashtray was full, the radio was cranked on 96 Rock and the car was filthy. As I drove off, it sounded good, but different. It wasn't the quiet smooth ride that I was used to, it was louder and it kind of throbbed. It sounded like a muscle car, but more like something was wrong.

I drove it for about a week when the "throbbing" of the engine got to be too exaggerated and I felt like it was going to die on occasion. The white smoke was gone, but things just weren't right.

I finally got ahold of the Lexus Master Tech who owned the car before me and asked him to look at it. He agreed to on his free time (which was scarce). I left the car with him for two months and when I got it back he said it just needed some adjusting, but that he hadn't really done much but tune it up and replace a sparkplug cap or something.

The car ran great (though still a little throbbing).

I was working on the amp that I had installed in the trunk when I decided to trace some wires from the back of the factory-installed stereo. I was trying to determine if the rear speakers were line-level or speaker level output where I spliced in. That's when I noticed that they had replaced my computer with a different one. I know this to be a fact because it had their name on it.

So about three days ago, the ABS LIGHT and the Battery light came on when I started her. I thought it might be a problem with my amp, but the lights went off after a minute. About an hour later the car started revving by itself repeatedly. The battery light and ABS LIGHT were both on. I quickly removed the fuse from the power line to my amp thinking that maybe there was a problem with my wiring. No help.

Any suggestions now?

Again, I am sorry for appearing to have posted and run. I promise to be more dilligent about this post and I really do appreciate your help.

Thanks,

jase

jaseinatl

I did it again, I just posted without subscribing.

UGG. This time, I'll get it right!

jase

jaseinatl

Doh! I see how it goes.

Altruism is dead!

And the whirled keeps on spinnin'