For those that are interested, I took my 2006 GS300 w/111000 miles to conduct an oil consumption test. In 1100 miles it consumed 2.4 quarts of oil. I contacted Lexus at (800)25-LEXUS and they will not cover the piston and ring rebuild as it only covers the repair in the time frame of 9 years. I did however, take my car to a Lexus dealership in 2012 when I received notification of the recall from Lexus and nothing was done. Since then, in the past 6 months alone, I've experienced oil consumption, rough idle at startup on about a dozen occasions, and most recently a rough idle at a red light that lasted for about 20 seconds which was more severe than the other occasions.

What is the source of the rough idle or the misfire that is on the recall?

If I continue to drive the car and simply add oil to the engine every 600 to 1200 miles, can I still get about 2 years life out of the car?

If this continues to get worse in the next few months, I'll trade it in and start looking at a 2008+ GS350 or 2014+ GS350. One thing I don't want to have is a car payment, but I also don't want to have a car that I need to add more money in repairs than a dealer trade in would provide.

Thanks.

 

There are things you can do yourself to help make it last longer. Most likely its carbon on the piston rings and carbon on the intake valves.

The easy thing you can do IMO is to clean it yourself. With the car hot, take out all the spark plugs, and fill each spark plug hole with berryman parts cleaner. Put the plugs in loosly (without electrical plugs) and let the fluid help dissolve the carbon over night. Take a turkey baster and remove as much fluid as you can.With the plugs out of the car, start the car to forcefully remove the remainder fluid. Next remove your throttle body, and clean the inside and outside. Run some new plugs! This should help the oil consumption part.

Next this is a bit more difficult, I would take off the intake manifold and see if you can see the valve stems in the head, if you are able to get you sprayer with a long nozzle and soak the carbon on the valve stems with the berrymans. If youre not able to reach the valves or not mechanically inclined to take off the intake manifold. You can take it to independent bmw mechanics where they do walnut blasting. Have them walnut blast your car!

Once you have fully cleaned your combustion chamber, I would invest in a oil catch can. This is a hose split from your valve cover oil fumes, that will reroute it into an aluminum tank instead of allowing the oil to get sucked into the intake manifold, because your engine is direct injection you dont have fuel spraying/washing your valves. So that oil from the valve covers enters your intake and sticks to the valves, pistons, and over time carbon builds up. Catch cans are pretty inexpensive 50-$350 depends on the quality but they all serve the same purpose.

 

Thanks for those tips.

Also, I've asked the dealer to appraise my car if I was to trade it in, they offered $3000 whereas a dealer down the road offered $8000. I think I'll drive it for a few more months and see how it goes.

EDIT- just found browsing here that an oil catch can might also help in the carbon build up. Time to do some reading and finding a DIY install guide on how to install one as that seems to be a much easier route to go.

 

I just wanted to add my thoughts to this thread, as it seems to be a hot topic. I started to notice excessive oil consumption in my 2008 GS350 with roughly 95,000 miles, triggered specifically by the "ENGINE OIL LEVEL LOW" indicator on the information center. When I checked the dipstick, there was barely any oil ... I was probably a few hundred miles away from total disaster, and was glad I checked it when I did.

Now, I purchased this car in January with a little over 88,000 miles on the clock. I took it to my local dealer to perform the 90,000-mile service right around 91,000 miles, where they did the usual oil change, tire rotation, fluid flushes, etc. and never gave the oil level a second thought (which is stupid, because my previous Lexus - a 2006 GS300 - had the now-infamous consumption problem). I called my service advisor a few days ago, and he stated that this is a known issue on my vehicle which can be covered out of warranty thru Lexus. All I needed to do was the oil consumption test. So, I did: I got my car's oil changed today, the engine labeled, and the oil filler cap sealed off. After 1,200 miles of driving, we'll come back and analyze the results.

I'll be sure to keep everyone here posted with the results of the test, and to see how my dealer - and Lexus - handles this situation. Good luck to everyone involved!

(If you're interested, here is the official-business looking inspection seal they put on your filler cap) --

Started the oil consumption test! Let's see what happens ....

 

The first 1200 miles after the oil change does not show.much oil consumption.
When the oil gets dirty, the consumption starts to kick in.

My 2007 GS350 used to consume about 2.5 QT in a 5k mile oil change interval.
Now after the spark plugs replaced the consumption is reduced to 1.0 QT.
I can live with that.

 

Interesting - thanks for the insight! I noticed approximately the same consumption, really, especially as the mileage ticked closer to my regular service interval. When replacing the plugs, was any other work performed?

 

Interested why they put it the seal on the filler cap and not the drain plug.
One could easily "fail" the oil consumption test by draining a quart of oil down at the bottom...

 

I think they did seal off the drain plug, as well. From what I understand, they taped off where the oil filter is and everything. There's also tape covering the dipstick.

 

So the GS350's also have oil consumption issues? That's not good since I'm considering trading the 2006 GS300 in for a 2011 GS350 with 70k miles. That or just going 2013+ GS350. Time to do further research on this topic I guess.

 

The GS350 doesnt have oil consumption issue, what my theory is that people run their synthetic oil too 5k miles. Allowing carbon to build up on the rings! Because theres a lot of GS350's and the people that do have oil issues is probably 10% of them.

Now the 2006 had a design flaw with the direct injection, that allowed carbon to build up. From 2006-2017 Lexus used the same piston rings parts.

2013 GS350 is basically the same engine, I would def go for that over an older 2010 imo

 

As an update to my previous post, my vehicle passed the consumption test. According to my service advisor, my GS consumed just under one quart in a 1,200-mile period (if it were over one quart, it would be considered unacceptable). They also checked for leaks and found none.

Because of this, I'm just going to get oil changes done on a more frequent interval. I also noticed that Lexus is running a "$15 off a Mobil 1 oil change" special, so maybe switching the type of oil will help? Not sure.

 

I would just sell the car and move on. That level of consumption is unacceptable regardless of what Lexus says.

 

Oh, I agree. I don't think that is acceptable at all ... I can't believe Toyota/Lexus really thinks that it is. Not to mention, you only have nine years since the vehicle's model year to get it fixed. That makes this year the last one for my 2008 ....

It might in fact be time for a new Lexus.

 

The irony is, if you trade your car in at the dealer who did the oil consumption test, they will use the oil issue as a way to low ball the offer.

You can can move on to a gs460. No oil consumption issue 😀

 

Haha, right? I actually did some car shopping last week, and was getting some low-end trade in offers (except from the Lexus dealer I get it serviced from). I thought to myself "they didn't know I had oil issues, did they?" ... Until I opened the hood. The dealer never took off the giant piece of green "OIL CONSUMPTION TEST STARTED" tape. Ugh.