Early ES 350 problems
 

I bought one of the first ES 350's. Very disappointed with problems. Getting new tranny next week due to transmission flare problem between gears. Windshield ticking, rear center speaker not working, rattly under rear window. Most reported as TSIB's. Hope to fix with tranny replacement appt. You'd think Lexus would want car back and replaced.

Welcome to the forum, and sorry to hear of your problems. You are not alone, if you look at previous threads. Good luck with your future repairs, I hope your new tranny solves your issues. Many on the forum are on their 2nd tranny and it still flares. As far as we know, Lexus has no fix on the 3rd/4th gear flare.

Sad to hear, I have an early ES350, check my sig no problems, I don't know how wide spread the problem is even with the Camry but the ES sales don't seem effected

ES350 Transmission
 

Amen. I thought that I was the only person experiencing the same transmission problems with the ES350. My dealership took three weeks to order and install a new transmission. Yesterday, with my wife and infant son in the car, the transmission slipped and the car skidded forward as I tried to give it gas and get out of low gear. Is anybody having issues with their second transmission ?

Probably the best place for you to start is here. There is no fix for the fault. You've just learnt that the trans replacement isn't a cure.

If your second transmission still slips and is problematic you basically have only three options:
1) Get Lexus to buyback your vehicle or trade into another Lexus vehicle. Do lots of reading here at CL on this - we've had many owners get buybacks now.
2) Lemon Law the car.
3) Sell the car. Not the best option as you'll lose money here, but you won't have to drive a car with a bad trans anymore.

Are the newer 350's still experiencing trans problems? My 350 was made on 3/07.

you'll have to drive it 2000 miles and find out.

not all have it. It's a crapshoot.

I must say, for all the issues that are being encountered by owners, Toyota marketing is doing one heck of a job hiding this big flaw in the transmission. If this were Ford or GM, they would have been exposed and hammered in the media. Guess reputation (good or bad) does carry a long way.

Well they avoid bad press by offering buybacks and giving back everything (i got tax, dmv fees, financing charges, and even the interest i paid on the loan over the year back) and signing a document that you limits their liability.

However, my ES experience left a bad taste of lexus in my mouth. That combined with the fact that the 07 GS owners still have tons of noise issues led me to buy a BMW. Hopefully this car will have less problems.

Sorry to hear about your problems...

Just to check, the rear center 'speaker' is a subwoofer, so it will not 'play the music' in an audible manner, only very low bass frequencies. I once thought that the back center 'spealer' wasn't working but once I realized it was a subwoofer I found it actually works fine. The ML Lexus site indicates which speaker is which.

Sorry to hear about your lexus experience. I hope the beamer works out better for you. Please keep in mind that BMWs have swept the bottom of lemon/problematic vehicle surveys in the past, so you are basically betting that they have made improvements. I must say beamers look and drive real sweet, but if i have to take it to the mechanics every few months, i'd be frustrated.

Don't get me wrong. I loved what the ES was supposed to be, but unfortunetly I didn't get it. I had rattles, wind noise and transmission issues. I would buy the car again in a heartbeat if lexus could gaurentee that they had fixed the issues, but sadly they couldn't. And while I was at the dealership getting my ES bought back, I met a guy who wanted to lemon law his 07 GS with all the rattles and issues he has had (and comming from the ES it felt a bit too cramped). The only Lexus that doesn't seem to be having quality problems right now is the LS, but unfortunetly its out of my price range (which is a shame because it is such a nice car).

The historically reliable car I bought turned out to be a lemon, so I figured the historically un-reliable car will turn out to be flawless. :rolleyes:

Seriously though, I know that the BMW will be more expensive to maintain (tires alone are double the cost) but after my ES experiene I figure it's a crap shoot no matter what car you buy, so I just hope that I'm luckier this time.

I've only had my car for a few days, so only time will tell.

P.S. The Lexus Nav and ML blow BMW's NAV and Logic 7 sound system away.

i'm gonna give lexus several years to work things out before i buy another again.

it seems toyota has really slipped these past 2-3 years in it's relentless pursuit of auto industry domination & profits

My 2003 ES was built solidly and is still solid at 70000 miles. The only rattle is the moonroof glass, because it is loose.

my 98 camry has 140000 miles on it, and not a single dashboard rattle!!