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That is amazing Raidin! Congratulations! You will definitely hit 1 million miles very soon this year. I look forward to seeing you hit 1 million miles!
My step-daughter drives our CT 200h and occasionally my wife drives the CT as well. I do all the oil and oil filter changes, brakes and other maintenance items on our CT.
Congrats again. CT is one of my all time favorite Lexus cars. A true classic.
when you hit 1M miles, it would be nice to have a summary.
# of engine/cylinder heads - cost
# of battery rebuilds/replacements - cost
# of axles/bearings etc
# of anything else you changed, perhaps EGR system? it's been a while since i read your parts list.
Total operating costs
Wow this is nuts. You should definitely tweet this at Lexus and put it up on Reddit's Lexus subreddit! It'll be neat if they buy back your car and gave you an upgraded Lexus hybrid.
I've been so busy that I barely am able to log my own work these days. Running off memory and my logs...
I got into a wreck where I ended up having my entire passenger side scraped by a front loader that made a turn right in front of me. I wasn't able to completely avoid it.
I didn't use an insurance claim because I was advised by a few people that it will cost more than what my car is worth, and I don't want to total it except as a last resort. A friend who works in auto insurance recommended I find a donor car and buy the parts and have them replaced as it will cost as much as my deductible anyway. He found a donor car for me before I even started and so, a week later, I had both doors and front fender swapped from a blue 2012 CT. The color doesn't match perfectly since it was the first Ultrasonic Blue Mica on that car vs mine. The screen now will not display anything except the rearview camera.
A while back I replaced all 4 shocks and struts as they were wearing out. One of the new fronts was leaking and we replaced it under warranty.
The hybrid battery I got from Greentec Auto was replaced twice as defective post 800k miles. The 3rd one is still running well.
Two more studs on my wheel hub on the front wear close to snapping. Discount Tire paid for the replacements and work.
Got a P0101 CEL code showing an issue with the MAF. Had it cleaned and the code went away. The code eventually came back, only to disappear again and to never return. Friend and I felt that the sensor might be going bad. Turns out the labor is very high to change it so I'm holding off for now.
I had my first experience with a problem that caused my car to stall while driving. I was in Galveston and I got a whole bunch of warning lights. The car stopped responding to throttle inputs. I pulled over and discovered the car will no longer go into drive gear. The code read that something was wrong the the throttle body and that it was stuck open, preventing the car from safely operating.
I had it towed to my mechanic on Monday and we found out that some carbon deposit from the EGR system came loose and made it to the throttle body, only to get stuck there. Had it removed and cleaned the throttle body and the car started operating normally again.
We found some metal shavings on the oil drain plug. Decided to use a BG conditioner treatment and moved on.
I've so far replaced 3 of my 4 TPMS sensors this year.
Passenger-side high beam bulb went out.
At around 920k, I started to hear a humming noise coming from the front. It eventually got louder and increased with speed, and would disappear any time I turned the steering wheel to the right at any degree. Seems like another wheel bearing is wearing out.
Had it checked, and was told both are worn in the front! I was a little surprised because the driver's side wore out at around 620k, so I didn't think it would wear out again so soon. The interesting thing also is that the OEM was replaced it with was defective, which surprised my mechanic. We replaced both bearings, which ended up being much cheaper than aftermarket one (by $200 each!) and the labor is combined so it's cheaper to replace two instead of one at a time. The sad part is, it seems one or both is defective again just like last time. Going to the shop on Monday to take care of it under warranty.
To answer Jason, I use Mobil 1's new 20k mile high mileage/extended performance combination oil along with the 20k mile oil filter from them.
I got into a wreck where I ended up having my entire passenger side scraped by a front loader that made a turn right in front of me. I wasn't able to completely avoid it.
I didn't use an insurance claim because I was advised by a few people that it will cost more than what my car is worth, and I don't want to total it except as a last resort. A friend who works in auto insurance recommended I find a donor car and buy the parts and have them replaced as it will cost as much as my deductible anyway. He found a donor car for me before I even started and so, a week later, I had both doors and front fender swapped from a blue 2012 CT. The color doesn't match perfectly since it was the first Ultrasonic Blue Mica on that car vs mine. The screen now will not display anything except the rearview camera.
Good on you keeping the car alive after that nasty wreck! I can see why you'd want to keep such a reliable, nice car. And, of course, wanting to get it to 1 million miles. The same sort of wreck happened when I had the IS300, just that it was it was a huge right-turning city bus, and it also took out my mirror. Not as deeply crunchy as yours though, and the back quarter panel wasn't messed up as hard. Did you do anything about the rear quarter panel?
Yes. Basically when I first got the car, I started sending oil samples to a lab to get an idea of how long I can go without an oil change to reduce my costs. At 28,000 miles between oil changes, the lab said the oil is still good and I can keep going. (Each time they sent back their report, they would tell me to try two more thousand miles on top of the last mileage number and send in another sample.)
At that point, my mechanic noticed a tiny bit of sludge starting to form, so I decided to scale back to 20,000 miles and just keep it there. At this point, going any longer on oil changes will not make that much of a difference in cost over time.
Originally Posted by TobiasSing
Good on you keeping the car alive after that nasty wreck! I can see why you'd want to keep such a reliable, nice car. And, of course, wanting to get it to 1 million miles. The same sort of wreck happened when I had the IS300, just that it was it was a huge right-turning city bus, and it also took out my mirror. Not as deeply crunchy as yours though, and the back quarter panel wasn't messed up as hard. Did you do anything about the rear quarter panel?
Thank you very much! I was really worried that I was going to have to buy another car, and was even researching what to get next. If it were not for my friend, I would have never known this was even possible.
I'm sorry to hear about your IS. I love that car and I hope to get one soon. I saw the picture, I see what you mean.
I left the rear quarter panel alone because it will take a lot more work and money to fix that one. I'll eventually get it taken care of but for right now, it's just a blemish that I'm not that worried about.
I've been so busy that I barely am able to log my own work these days. Running off memory and my logs...
I got into a wreck where I ended up having my entire passenger side scraped by a front loader that made a turn right in front of me. I wasn't able to completely avoid it.
I didn't use an insurance claim because I was advised by a few people that it will cost more than what my car is worth, and I don't want to total it except as a last resort. A friend who works in auto insurance recommended I find a donor car and buy the parts and have them replaced as it will cost as much as my deductible anyway. He found a donor car for me before I even started and so, a week later, I had both doors and front fender swapped from a blue 2012 CT. The color doesn't match perfectly since it was the first Ultrasonic Blue Mica on that car vs mine. The screen now will not display anything except the rearview camera.
A while back I replaced all 4 shocks and struts as they were wearing out. One of the new fronts was leaking and we replaced it under warranty.
The hybrid battery I got from Greentec Auto was replaced twice as defective post 800k miles. The 3rd one is still running well.
Two more studs on my wheel hub on the front wear close to snapping. Discount Tire paid for the replacements and work.
Got a P0101 CEL code showing an issue with the MAF. Had it cleaned and the code went away. The code eventually came back, only to disappear again and to never return. Friend and I felt that the sensor might be going bad. Turns out the labor is very high to change it so I'm holding off for now.
I had my first experience with a problem that caused my car to stall while driving. I was in Galveston and I got a whole bunch of warning lights. The car stopped responding to throttle inputs. I pulled over and discovered the car will no longer go into drive gear. The code read that something was wrong the the throttle body and that it was stuck open, preventing the car from safely operating.
I had it towed to my mechanic on Monday and we found out that some carbon deposit from the EGR system came loose and made it to the throttle body, only to get stuck there. Had it removed and cleaned the throttle body and the car started operating normally again.
We found some metal shavings on the oil drain plug. Decided to use a BG conditioner treatment and moved on.
I've so far replaced 3 of my 4 TPMS sensors this year.
Passenger-side high beam bulb went out.
At around 920k, I started to hear a humming noise coming from the front. It eventually got louder and increased with speed, and would disappear any time I turned the steering wheel to the right at any degree. Seems like another wheel bearing is wearing out.
Had it checked, and was told both are worn in the front! I was a little surprised because the driver's side wore out at around 620k, so I didn't think it would wear out again so soon. The interesting thing also is that the OEM was replaced it with was defective, which surprised my mechanic. We replaced both bearings, which ended up being much cheaper than aftermarket one (by $200 each!) and the labor is combined so it's cheaper to replace two instead of one at a time. The sad part is, it seems one or both is defective again just like last time. Going to the shop on Monday to take care of it under warranty.
To answer Jason, I use Mobil 1's new 20k mile high mileage/extended performance combination oil along with the 20k mile oil filter from them.
Just so Im not missing anything. You have used this oil and filter combination for the life of the car and pretty much figured out 20,000 miles is the sweet spot, and my main question is you have never replaced the engine or have yet to do any engine work? Like timing chain or head gasket etc?
Due to the oil consumption issues that these engines can develop in their higher miles during typical driving, 20,000 seems way too long. It probably works for this member because they're pounding the miles on very differently from the rest of us. If I'm not mistaken, this isn't the original engine that's made it 900,000.
