Do Lexus dealers make less money doing warranty work being paid by Lexus/Toyota than they would by charging the car owner privately? Specifically, I'm referring to special warranty situations where Lexus creates a new warranty program for vehicles that may be out of the standard warranty due to a known problem that impacts a lot of cars. Example: the ZLZ warranty program on the LS460 where Lexus covers interior parts replacement for 2007-2012 cars.

The reason I'm asking is I just had my brake actuator fail on my LS460. When Lexus called me to let me know the exact diagnosis, they said it would be $3,400 in parts and labor. Thanks to this great forum, once he mentioned it was the brake actuator, I knew about the ZLG program which covers LS 460's 10 years after first use (production) or 150k miles, whichever comes first. After he told me the cost, I calmly said "Well, my car will be covered by the ZLG warranty program, so just charge that to Lexus." He seemed a little taken aback by my knowledge of the details and mentioned something like "that's weird, normally when I type in the VIN and the parts needed for repair it would show me any eligible warranty to cover it." I'm skeptical, especially with this dealer (but in fairness had never worked with this service advisor).

So- do the dealerships try to prey on customers who may not know about these special warranty situations? Or do they charge Lexus corporate $3,400 and so it all comes out even in the end?

 

Absolutely. More and more often seem to NOT know details about recalls and Toyota Service Bulletins. With my IS, they didn't know about the headlamp bubbling TSB but when they saw it, they replaced my headlamps free of charge but it was charged to Toyota for $2100!

With my current GS they didn't have a clue about the whining noise issue but because of the community here, I knew about it and brought a printed version of it.

At least with my dealership, they admitted NOT to hearing the whining noise and weren't going to charge me anything and let me leave...but immediately jumped on fixing it (even though they didn't intially hear anything!) as soon as I showed them the TSB covering it under the powertrain warranty. Kinda makes you wonder, right?

Also on the 4GS, they have a dashboard issue which was recognized as a common enough problem that it would be rectified for free for 10yrs after production date of your car - but you can bet that there will be some folks who are unaware and dealerships that will potentially exploit them.

In these cases that we are describing, its definitely possible that they charge corporate for the repair AND charge the customer for the repair if the customer is unaware it should be covered. The dealerships are in it to extract as much money as possible from all sources, and typically make the most of their money through service (not necessarily sales).

 

[QUOTE=AJLex19;10672990]

Also on the 4GS, they have a dashboard issue which was recognized as a common enough problem that it would be rectified for free for 10yrs after production date of your car - but you can bet that there will be some folks who are unaware and dealerships that will potentially exploit them.[QUOTE]

As a new owner of a 2015 GS, I'm curious about the dashboard issue you mention, can you bring me up to speed on this? Thanks!

 

In bold: Hadn't even thought of that. Seems incredibly risky for them to attempt that - I wonder what the repercussions would be if corporate ever found out. I'd think there has to be a legit paper trail left for all repairs, payment, etc.

Nonetheless, I remain skeptical about why my local dealership didn't tell me about the ZLG program I was eligible for - I think an advisor told me during a warranty repair on my LX they billed Lexus $2k but it would've been more if it weren't under CPO and I was paying. I didn't think much about it at the time, but now it makes me wonder.

 

Sure....current owners at the time received a letter informing them about the issue (possible damaged/cracked dash due to heat). Here are some helpful links:

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/20...45764-9999.pdf
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gs-...-cracking.html
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gs-...ification.html

 

Thanks for the info!

 

They do get paid less, but they have to do the recall work (they cannot refuse) and they have to do the proper warranty work.

​​​​​​I guess it all depends. Some dealers will prey on customers, some won't. I am done with the dealer for repairs, my other half thought this way decades ago.

 

Agree, but when you know something expensive is covered by warranty, it's foolish to not go to the dealer. This particular repair would've cost me $3,400 - even if an indy was 50% less, that's still a lot of money.

 

For sure. All my cars are no longer under warranty, so I was looking at it from that perspective. But, yes if under warranty, let Lexus pay for it.

 

They do get paid less for warranty work, and Lexus puts the dealer and the techs at risk when they do a warranty job, if Lexus decided the work wasnt warranted they will refuse to pay AFTER the work has already been done. This is why dealers are so tough on approving warranty work.

For instance, I find Chrysler much more willing to work with me to find solutions to issues than Lexus.

 

jrmckinley, if I remember correctly you also have a 2011 460L? Interesting to see that your brake actuator also went bad like mine did. When I was searching before I bought my 2011 it was not a known issue but I guess now it is popping up on the 10-12 model years as well. I hope they got it straightened out by the 13+ models as I am thinking about upgrading soon. By the way mine was also covered under the warranty enhancement program. My service advisor was the one who told me it would be no charge.

 

The brake actuator is nothing new, it happened to my 2008 600hL with only 35k miles on it. It seemed like a known issue to my service advisor at the time.

 

Close.... I have a very late production 2010 - my car is a July production so it's 2 months from being a 2011. But just like you, I did a lot of research and thought the brake actuator issue (and melting panels) was resolved by the 2010 models. I'm glad Lexus at least stepped up and did the right thing by adding these additional warranties for both things that ended up impacting both of us and so many others.