KevinM

iTrader: (2)

I have an 07 GS350 (108k) - 2nd owner, all service done by Lexus. Have owned both previous generations and plan to own a 4th whenever I feel like upgrading. I still love my 07 and don't plan to change very soon.

I would like to say that the oil consumption is getting a little frustrating.

I've had Lexus monitor it for the last 5 months and the consumption is definitely higher than what I would consider normal or "within spec". Got off the phone today with the service manager and was given a new spec that I hadn't read before:

Unacceptable is when the consumption is greater than 1.1 qt /600 miles.

As of my last two checks, it was 1 qt at around 1000 miles and 1.5 qt around a little over 1000 miles.

Seems a little excessive to have to wait until 1.1 qt /600 miles to get the seals replaced doesn't it??

alchemist

iTrader: (1)

Have you done all of the recalls - cams, etc.?

chuckGS350

I noticed my 07GS350 consumes more oil in the summer than in the winter.
Currently, 1/2 QT/1500 miles in winter, ~3/4 QT/1500 miles in summer.

Lexus is not going to replace the seals for free. So I just top it up every 1500 miles.

warandcar

wow i better start checking my oil… so far 3500 miles since my last oil change and it hasn't moved?

BinaryJay

Next up, new piston rings for the 350 too. They should start sellig new cars with spare piston rings next to your spare tire it seems.

bayer

How can Lexus or Toyota consider that amount of oil consumption acceptable.For what a gs 350 cost and supposedly their reputation for quality.I recently contacted the Lexus service Mgr,and was told they have to do a 6 month survey whereas I get the oil changed which was done in Oct.,bring it back every 1000 kms they will check oil and top up over the 6 months.I purchased this car in early Nov. with 136000 kms ,now a little over 137 and had to add a litre last week.Just a note we also have a 1995 Corolla which never needs oil added.They know they have a design problem,don,t skirt the issue.

LoveThatV8

iTrader: (1)

I was a previous owner of a G35 cpe 6MT and I thought they had it so bad that a guy homemade a oil catch can to resolve their issue. Now that I switched over to a GS430, haven't noticed any oil missing in my ride. Sucks to hear that there's many new threads popping up for the oil consumption 300/350 owners and along with vibration issues for the AWD go-lowered crowd.

I've driven nearly 10k miles total since I've bought it at 94k miles and driving it like a maniac ever since. It's rock solid for a 9 year old car, man love every minute of it. Hope there's a solution for you guys.

i8thesun

I'm new to Lexus, is this a known and common problem? Is it leaking/dripping, or blue-smoke on startup, or steady consumption of oil? For my leaking Land Cruisers, Audis, and BMW, switching to Shell Rotella synthetic stopped the leaking. I actually epoxied my garage floor because my older Land Cruisers leaked so much it made it easier to wipe up after them. I'm not sure why this works, but a lot of us on the Land Cruiser site reported it works. Rotella is very highly thought of on Bobistheoilguy, better than regular Mobil1, about as good as Mobil1 EP.

When PCV valves go bad they can cause oil consumption issues, I'm not sure yet where this valve is on my GS350, but they are usually not that hard to replace. On Land Cruisers we had trouble with the PCV grommet hardening, breaking, and falling into the valve cover when replacing the valve.

LexusLive

Yep, this is what I was trying to tell Gotcha350, who insists that only the 300s have this issue. I doubt Lexus was aware of the oil consumption issue in 2005-6 as the 3rd gen GS made its debut, so why would they have bothered to fix it for the 07 2GR-FSE 3.5 engine? Or, worse, what if they did see oil consumption issues with the new 3GR-FSE V6 when they did early endurance testing (I certainly hope they do this for a $50,000 luxury car), and their answer for '07 was to just make it .5 liters bigger and bury their collective head in the sand about the oil consumption issue?

LexusLive

You have the last "old school" 4.3 V8 engines. Probably the best engine Lexus ever made, possibly one of the best engines in the world. You'll guzzle a fair bit more gas than any of us Direct Injection guys, but the $6300 bucks we have to spend to have our engines rebuilt at 100K miles probably more than makes up for it. Plus you have a V8. Now, I have no idea if the Direct Injection 4.6 V8 has any issue with oil burning.

LexusLive

LOL, small world. This is almost exactly our situation. Except I bought my GS with only 20K on the odo, 7 years ago. And we had an early 2000s Corolla that had wife-style maintenance (oil changed once per year, whether it needed it or not ) and I finally sold it for damn good money. And I pissed an moaned to Lexus Corporate, and they basically told me to **** up a rope, as politely as possible. My car was just a few months outside their 9 year window, ergo, If I want the new pistons / rings, I get to pay $6,300 bucks. I even crafted a reasoned, logical explanation of why they should honor the CSP on my car, (after getting rejected once officially), and they politely told me to **** up a rope once more. Ok, technically they said "We have raised your concerns to the highest level here at headquarters, blah blah". Dead letter file. They only care about new customers coming in the door to lease the latest expensive, shiny bauble that will self destruct before your average Corolla. I want the days of the immortal Lexus to return, but sadly it seems they have chosen to go the way of the Germans, and make beautiful, expensive, short lived junk. Higher profits in the short term, but if they don't correct this problem, it will come back to haunt them.

I just want to be able to buy a car for the long term. I'm talking like 20 years, the way people used to buy and hold Mercedes-Benzes. I can and will pay $50K for that, which is an astronomical amount of money for a car, by any standard. Especially if the thing can't make it past 100K without requiring $6 grand worth of engine work.

Gotcha350

Yep....the G35 issue was bad...it actually stopped me from getting one. My 08 350 doesn't burn a drop of oil. I wonder if this could be attributed to the oil not getting up to temp or circulating well before some may go flying down the road. I'm just saying that because now days I see people driving off before all the warning lights on the dash go out and in some cases on the highway in less than 1/4 of a mile.

I'm saying this because I had a friend that had a BMW x5 w/4.8 and it would lower the redline and warn you when cold if you went above 2000 rpm. I could be way off...IDK but it seem plausible to me.

LoveThatV8

iTrader: (1)

Trust me and you're right, back in 2004... Mom and pops bought me a new 2004 tundra quad cab as a high school grad gift and from ZERO to 200k on the 2UZFE motors was like a tank for me, didn't give me any sh-it whatsoever which is why it lead me to buy the 4.3. Only downside was to drop 700 bucks for timing belt. Haha

But damn right, I won't upgrade anytime soon... I'll stick to my 430 until I buy a house and have more room for more toys. Like a pre-owned GS-F in the future? Used F250 crew cab diesel LIFTED to mess around with? Safe in the corner to store guns for my AR, glock 17, & my Remington 870 marine mag? Ok ok... I got side tracked.

Back to the OP, yeah man hope the upper heads of lex gets this oil issues... Then again it's a 10 year old, it was super worse in a G35/350Z, you'd have to carry oil in the trunk cause one time the OIL light lit and I was like WTF I just did an oil change 4K miles ago and turns out there's NO oil in it. So for us lex guys... It could be worse.

chuckGS350

My 07GS350 doesn't consume oil when the oil is new.
1500 miles after the oil change (oil turning dark), it starts consuming about 1/2 QT every 1K miles.
What does it tell you?

More oil consumption when I drive faster 70 mph or over 2500 RPM.

LexusLive

Here's another question: How can the GS continue to pass emissions when it's blowing a quart of oil out the tailpipe every 1000 miles?