I was on my way to work this morning and suddenly I herad this grinding noise came from the engine bay and "BRAKE" light turned on in the dash. I then pulled over immediately, stoped the engine and re-started it. The noise continuted and became louder. I started heading to the Lexus dealer for some help. 2 minutes later, vsc/abs/brake lights were all on, my dash looked like a X'mas tree with a continuous beep sound plus the grinding noise. I went carzy with this situation. I started speeding up and rushed to the dealership. But right about 2 mile before I got to the dealership, everything suddenly quiet down and all warning signals were gone.

I remember someone has posted situation like this before, may be a bad ABS sensor or something. Can someone lighted me up? My car was out of warranty 7 days ago and now this sh*t happened

 

That was me. Braking system needs a looking at. Possible Master Cylinder / fluid issue? But the grinding says to me perhaps something got caught (road debris) near one of the ABS sensors, but then shook itself loose.

I'm just shooting in the dark, but my experience was very similar. How is the pedal feel?

 

Jacob,
I did a quick search on CL here and found an old post from Bit, his problem was the lights stayed on and it turned out to be the speed sensor in one of his wheels. He had no grinding noise though. Here is the link Since you heard a grinding noise is it possible the ABS is malfunctioning? I hope the link I provided sheds some light on your situation, keep us updated. I would definitely take it in or pull the codes to see what the cause of the lights was. Good luck.

 

Thanks for the inputs. Right now the whole situation is gone. Car drives like new again. I probably wait till it happens again to bring it in..

The most horrible thing was the grinding sound, it sounded like some mechanical parts were grinding together and it's loud inside the cabin. My car gas only 36k miles, let's see how much it's going cost me to fix

 

You will have pending codes in your cars abs/trac computer most likely. The "grinding" sound was the abs/trac motor running, sounds like it went haywire to say the least. It is not unheard of to replace the abs actuator, aka the brake booster assembly, several have gone bad in various ways. The skid control ECU could have "thought" the car was yawed out as well, or simply "thought" something was not right and told the abs/trac motor to activate. Have this checked out.


Hope that gives you some insight.
lextek.

 

Have it checked out. Seven days past warranty is not an issue at Lexus dealers. They will "comp" it to you.

 

Very cool info l/t. It's much appreciated.

 

Thanks for the info. I will get it checked out first thing Monday morning.

 

did the grinding increase with speed ?
if it did then you may have had debris caught in the abs sensor located in one of the 4 wheel hubs causing the sensors computer to activate the lights

yah lexus is real good with after warr problems they spent 2500 fixing all my motor mounts and every compontent in my windsheild system 8 months after for free( switches motors relays and others)
but i did have to contact lexus head office

 

OK. The dealer determined it's the master cylinder. So I'm getting on new master cylinder tomorrow. Sometimes this car is not quite bullet proof

Thanks for your help!

 

Yep, the Master Cylinder and the ABS actuator is all one unit, (patting myself on the back) lol, glad to see you got it handled so soon.

Good Luck
lextek

 

What, if anything, can be done to prevent such occurences? That's what I'd like to know. These parts just up and fail?

 

Yes. They are mass produced vehicles with lots and lots of computers. Things will go bad. Even on a Lexus. No, there is nothing you can do in this case. If you do your scheduled maintenance on time and are a good customer at a Lexus dealership, goodwill is always a possibility.

Lextek.

 

Yeah - maybe that came off a little harsh. I know these cars aren't bulletproof, but I'm of the mindset that if you take care of them (scheduled maintenance, like you said), and you don't abuse them (tracking the car), then major systems shouldn't fail. EDIT: at least not before 100k mi.

It caught my eye especially when another CL's brake system failed within the week.

Thanks for the feedback

 

Hmmm... I've noticed a couple of times after my car has been sitting overnight that the brakes grind REALLY bad for anywhere from the first 10 seconds to the first 2 minutes of driving... so bad that the entire car shakes so rapidly and so noisly... almost as though there's a huge train speeding right underneath me. Then it goes away.

Seems to happen more often if it has been raining the night before.