judd986S

Long time no post! which is a good thing I guess. 2008 ES350 with 170k miles.
My wife drives the car almost exclusively but we went on a road trip and I had the opportunity to drive it for a few hours.
I noticed at idle there is a chirping sounds from the belt area like it could be a waterpump or another pulley going out.
Other data points:
at speeds over 80mph I feed a vibration in the steering wheel. we are 1k over getting the tires rotated so that may clear this issue up.

low speed in a parking lot I had the wheel at full lock turning and it felt like it "slipped" and it made a noise. This made me think the power steering pump could be what is going out.

I need to check the fluid levels tonight and see if either is leaking ( there is nothing on the garage floor)

Are there any good DIY's for a waterpump or power steering pump replacement? Once I diagnose the problem I would like to fix it myself.

Are these common issues with the ES350?

nevernu

this is a tsb on the water pump, inspection, when to replace or not, etc. may be useful

judd986S

Thanks for the document! I will refer to that and check out the water pump this weekend

Blueshark

170k miles and haven't replace the waterpump, wow ! i'm replacing mine at 125k miles soon. If you have to buy a oem waterpump, look at AISIN outside the toyota/Lexus network, much cheaper for oem brand. Ordered mine at Rockauto

mlacomb

Mine was replaced at 66k miles. They also flushed the power steering fluid, helped a bit but I sometimes still get noise from the pump which I'll have replaced under my warranty. Steering issues should be resolved with either a pump replacement or full fluid replacement; any other noises will indicate a bad pulley or water pump (growling from the engine compartment is probably a bearing going bad in the water pump.)

judd986S

more of a high pitch chirp than a growl. The car will be up on a lift tonight.

Lexi66

What year is your ES350?

Lexi66

Are the water pumps on all ES350 defective? Just this generation? What's the
deal? Can't Lexus get it right? I don't get it.

judd986S

not sure I would call it defective if I got 170k out of it!

We had a 745i BMW prior to this car and at ~170k I replaced the waterpump as a preventive measure because everyone on that board was shocked it was still the original one. Drove that car to 208k miles. hoping for 250k+ out of the Lexus before selling it.

mlacomb

Mine's an 08