CTLemon

My 2012 CT 200h experience. Where do I start? I bought this car for “LEXUS reliability “ and because I needed a fuel efficient vehicle for my commute. Shortly after buying my 2 year old CT I noticed a violent vibration after start up. This happened on and off for the next year. Sure enough a recall on the EGR was sent out to owners to address this issue. My car went into the shop and I was told the car should be fine now. One year later I went back with similar issues but now the vehicle was lacking power at times and sluggish when excellerating. They told me I needed a new Manifold and my car had approximately 200km on it. The fix cost $800 and again I was told that they had fixed it. One year later the vibration is back! Back to to the Lexus dealer and they suggested I needed my manifold cleaned because of carbon build up($700). A few months later and I am noticing the engine vibration again! Finally I am told after they kept my car for 2 weeks ($1100 including oil change)that they believe my head gasket is toast and I’m looking at $4900 to get it fixed! I dealt with Lexus Canada and was told they couldn’t do anything for me because of the age, mileage and the fact that I had not always serviced the vehicle with them. Very disappointed with my first Lexus experience . I’m getting the head gasket done privately for half the cost! I most definitely would not recommend this model. This CT 200h has been a costly mistake!

nacke

Such a sad story. How many miles on the odometer?

CTLemon

I have 185,000 miles on my CT. I have driven many cars and it seems premature to be dealing with this kind of maintenance. I really believe Lexus has a problem with this vehicle when you read all the other threads out there complaining about similar issues.

lexusrus

185K miles is a LOT of miles.

I'm curious. Just how many miles do you think is reasonable for a car to be "problem free"? I just don't think there is a single car out there that is "problem free" FOREVER. Maybe there is one. It's just I haven't found it yet?

CTLemon

I agree there will always be regular maintenance however this problem is derived from the original EGR recall. EGR, manifold and then head gasket! If you look at all the posted CT discussion forums there is this common theme.

nacke

Well make sure that EGR valve, cooler, pipes and manifold are clean after head gasket work. Otherwise the gasket will burn again.

CTLemon

Yes I most definitely will. I’m hoping once this is done that I can hopefully get another year or two out of this car.

RXGS

iTrader: (2)

Id look at the thread about the super high mileage CT on here whose owner is a courier. I know he had the same issues, but I also think he had a solution. That being said, it sounds like your dealership is far from "highly skilled" if they didn't suggest the correct repairs the first time

CTLemon

I agree with you on the fact my Lexus dealership could not find the right remedy initially. As I mentioned earlier it seems there is a common theme going on here with this model and I’m surprised that Lexus has not picked up on it.

spiral

I'm not gonna disagree the milage is high, the tough part is knowing that when one specific thing is directly leading to HG failures, it's a lot harder to stomach a huge repair bill when it could have been minimized/avoided. If the owner chooses not to clean that system, then sure there's no right to bellyache. Plus to have a company play it off like it's not that big of a deal is disheartening (despite the tech bulletin). And, as CTLemon mentioned, the dealer was being a "parts changer" instead of addressing the actual problem (i still fail to see how a dirty plastic intake manifold needs to be replaced instead of cleaned. there isn't anything special inside) . We just had to do an engine swap, did the first oil change since swap and I specifically asked about the EGR system. Their response was, "sure it helps on fuel economy, but the EGR isn't really all that important". Toyota/Lexus could easily avoid the negativity if they had just included a cleaning as a scheduled maintenance item. At their labor rates, they would prolly do quite well making more $$.

CTLemon, It's unfortunate that you caught wind of the issue after it was too late, but now that you know, the rest of the car has relatively low maintenance. I'm over 205k miles and have overall spent less on the CT compared to our 100k Ford Sport Trac.

CTLemon

Spiral, I talked with the Lexus technician when they were cleaning my manifold and he also said that maybe blocking off the EGR would minimize the carbon build up. I did not know much about this until I saw some comments from other owners online. Of course my question to him at the time was "Isn't that EGR there for a reason?". Now knowing what I know I'm tempted to disconnect it with a by pass. By the way I do share your thoughts regarding the cleaning solution to prevent this kind of situation from happening in the first place. Maybe down the road Lexus will consider doing the right thing and adopt this remedy to maintain customer loyalty.

spiral

Blocking off the EGR would, as you said, minimize the carbon build up because the oil particulates can't get to the cooler/valve/pipe/intake. A clogged EGR is a blocked/bypassed egr, so my only concern with by-passing the EGR is the sole reason the HGs are having the issues though. I believe the working theory is that with the engine not getting hot exhaust gases, the head will heat to a higher temp with fresh air. It's those few degrees of change that end up causing increased friction on the HG wearing it out. So i am in the camp that your two options to help alleviate the build up is to either do periodic cleaning or install an oil catch can (which can lead to a hot button debate with some folks).

When they did my engine swap, i didn't know about the cooler and have been concerned about it, so at the oil change I specifically asked will a blocked EGR cause a head gasket issue. They himmmed-hawwwed, said it was important for the engine but "doubtful" it would cause any serious harm, but then proceeded to tell me that they did take the time to clean my "new" egr system before installing the engine. Since I kept the old engine, and thus cleaned the cooler, I'm just gonna swap the parts in intervals so I can keep driving and clean the dirty one in my spare time.

E46CT

Sorry you had problems but "this car" has an excellent reputation overall despite some of the exceptions out there. It's one of the most durable and long lasting and nearly infinitely reliable powertrains out there. I've owned, worked on, and serviced many.

Yes there's some cars with these engines where catastrophic engine damage can happen when certain parts get clogged, but it's not the norm. Plenty of these cars are straight up 400k-600k+ bruisers seeing taxi duty. So long story short is the exceptions do not change the rule here that this drivetrain is one of the most bulletproof automotive drivelines mankind has ever conceived. You just got unlucky.

Also as that Lexus dealer pointed out, we really have no idea of the service history (or lack thereof) on your car.

We also do not know that any of the diagnoses even up to the bad HG were correct and not just a mechanic trying to scam you.

We don't know who "the shop" is or what parts they replaced or didn't replace, and what parts were used specifically. We don't know the actual specific confirmed cause for repeat failures you experienced. Quality of mechanics and shops can vary. They could've used the same parts or aftermarket parts.

I think the best thing here, particularly for 11-13 models (but for all models really) is to clean and/or replace the intake manifold, egr pipe, and egr cooler and associated gaskets. That way you can be sure the chain of events doesn't lead to a catastrophic overheating event.

No you wouldn't deal with this with a traditional car such as a Corolla or Accord, but you also wouldn't be saving the gas you do, and you'd have an equally expensive replacement transmission to ultimately deal with. Not to mention all the other typical-traditional car needs such as belt changes, timing belt changes, fuel filter changes, brake pad changes that your CT200h saves you a ton on, if not completely eliminates.

At least with the CT200h, you're armed with the information and knowledge to make sure your EGR stuff is cleaned just once or twice during the lifetime of your car. And that's literally the only worry with this model.

I'll take that.

CTLemon

FYI,
I bought my car from Toyota which was 3 years old at the time and had only been serviced with Toyota. In the first year of ownership the shuddering started and shortly thereafter a recall was launched for the EGR. I brought it into Lexus and the EGR was replaced. Moving forward the utility battery went and I replaced that at the same dealership. One year later I went back to that same Lexus dealership and had the manifold replaced for $800! The next year I was went back to the same dealership because my manifold had carbon buildup which they cleaned for 700$ with a diagnostic of course. So I think you can see that I have done the major services at this dealership. I later went went back and that’s when they did a deep dive at the same dealership where they finally determined my head gasket needed to be replaced. I left at that point with an $1100 bill and decided to use a private mechanic to do the head because Lexus quoted just under $5000 to do all of the work! I think I’ve clearly demonstrated loyalty at this point with the money I’ve spent at this dealership.

E46CT

Going to the dealership is the first mistake. Should find a mechanic that specializes in Hybrids, particularly priuses. There's plenty of Prius shops. I imagine there's even more in Washington. They deal all day with Prius-specific issues. Dealers like to give general blanket diagnoses so they can present a warranty claim to lexus and profit off the labor. Whereas small shops gain their customers trust (usually) by being honest and giving more targeted diagnoses. Worst case scenario i don't see how a manifold gums to the point it requires replacement after 5 years of service (according to your summary above)

There's early 3rd gen priuses running around with 200k on original everything. about the norm. at that point that's when it seems cars start exhbiting HG issues/rough running issues if at all.

Not disputing you spent money, just disputing the diagnoses you received that led to you spending money.

I don't think anywhere in your post did you state how many miles your car had, you just state years.

How many miles when you got it? What year is it?

And how many miles when you replaced the manifold and right now?