Thats bull****. He took the transmission out and pit a new one and couldnt tell when he took it out that it needs a flywheel? That is visiable once the transmission is out. I think they b.s-ing you man. Smh

 

I also think this is not right. Especially this is something that has never been heard before on any lexus with this type of gearbox .
Here is a link that explains how your type of gearbox is working : Also i have found one for sale that you can either buy it or use it as a comparison between yours and this : http://www.ebay.com/itm/FLYWHEEL-FLE...5/391770530737

 

I told you man, these fkn guys don't know anything

The chances of blowing a tranny on the LS is like winning the lottery , I also doubt its your flywheel .....this is going to go on and on I bet

 

 

Don't hold your breath. He had about 12 posts on this forum and most of them on this thread.

 

 

 

Thanks for the update and glad everything sorted out at the end.

Looks like a major mess-up/failure on Lexus dealer side. Since you had mentioned 'factory', I assume Lexus Japan got involved. Which is a good thing as they are keep tracking on such catastrophic failure as I mentioned in my earlier post.

Did factory or dealership give reason for flywheel failure?. Any transmission service done in the past?.

 

This is basically a Necropost, but then again, I don't see a reason to open a new topic as I've found this thread by googling ls600h failed transmission.
I too have, sadly, one of those unicorns. My transmission had a massive failure on my way home two days ago, as I was driving back home from Germany with my wife and kid. Just cruising at 150kph, I started smelling something burned, the climate control was in recycling air mode, switched to outside air. After that, I stated hearing a high pitched whine, releasing the accelerator made the car brake significantly more than usual, I decided to exit the Autobahn and stop asap, ended up on the side of the road right after the exit as the sound was getting a lot worse. Came to a stop, changed to P, and there you basically heard everything break down (clank). The left underside was smoking, we exited the car as the air was unbreathable and got the car towed. I tried putting the car in gear (it still started perfectly fine, absolutely no error message during the whole thing) but other than a clanking noise, no traction, the car was dead. I was told that the transmission is dead, though a more detailed analysis would require to take it apart, the car is deemed as totaled since repair costs far outweigh the value of the car. I am guessing from what I've read here that the flywheel is dead since I had absolutely no error displayed. Before this incident, I did feel a sort of hiccup twice several weeks apart, couldn't find anything wrong with it as it drove fine after that but I did have an uneasy feeling. If you have hiccups, get rid of the car before it dies, basically.

It is a European Lexus LS600h, sold in Switzerland in August 2007, I bought it used with around 80k km in 2014, today the car has 162k km, which to me feels like a really bad joke. I have had nothing but trouble with this car tbh, first the AC compressor died and the Lexus technician were completely ignorant in finding the fault, costing me around 10 trips to the dealer with a reoccurring problem which could only be reproduced after 2-3h of driving and a needless replacement of the hybrid control box (because it's the same that controls the AC, go figure) and now this. I bought it thinking I would have a reliable car that I could easily drive 500k km with proper care, figures I would have been cheaper off with just about anything else. After an LS430 and LS600h, I think I'm done with Lexus, when something breaks the "professional" Lexus technicians are incompetent fools (at least in Switzerland, I had to remove an error code from a computer myself with a cracked version of their software to not have to replace another 3k+ computer), the parts price are just insane and it breaks down just as any other brand out there, I had less trouble with a Subaru than I did with this clunker. Doing things yourself requires actually getting the right part and asking for the part number mostly ends up in them showing you the door.
If I'm lucky I'll get 5k from an export sale, might be stripped down for parts since just about everything else is in good shape, but I'm done breaking my wallet over this. Not even sure if it's worth it wasting time contacting Lexus about that, they would never fix this one for free.
No more Hybrids and certainly no more CVTs, wish I'd heard about Scotty before buying this one.

 

Damnn that sucks man. I have a 600 as well in the US and yes they do have issues but they are really good cars. Surprised another transmission went out on a 600. Did u ever have your transmission serviced? Fluid changed or flushed?

 

Up to about a year or two ago, only regular service at a Lexus dealership. Haven't touched the transmission fluid, only the engine oil as they cheaped out last time they changed it and had buy the 0w20 myself.
So unless they did something to it, not that I know of.

 

yea mines was flushed at 100,000 miles. I try to change fluids every 30,000 and engine oil every 3-4months. I dont do 2,000 in 3-4 months so its always clean. Parts for the 600 is dropping in the US. Transmissions is available in salvage yard less then 2k. I tend to not drive mines as much to save life on it. But think a 14-17 next but 460L with all the 600 options.

 

From what I've heard, flushing the transmission isn't such a good thing on modern cars and tends to break more things than if you just changed the oil. In the past 2 years, I've probably not driven more than 20k km, so that's around 12k miles or 6k a year, I think the last big service was done 2 years ago. Keep in mind I wrote down everything in km, the car only has 100k miles on it and it's mostly highway outside of rush hour so pretty chill driving.
I did notice a slight burn smell since a few years ago every time I went to my parent's place, the road there is pretty steep even for our standards.
Again, I'm completely lost as not a single code was tripped. I found a used transmission for around 1300 euros but honestly I don't see myself spending 5k or more on it to get it to run again, especially since I have absolutely no idea what is actually broken. https://www.ebay.de/itm/LEXUS-LS-F4-...8/392651955568

 

A bit of an update on my part, I decided to contact Lexus Switzerland yesterday and see how they would respond, at this point it's not like I got anything to lose except my time (annoying but I can live with it). They would like to have a look at the car itself, I am only waiting for them to confirm that I will not be charged for the diagnostic of the failure as the car already cost me way too much since I acquired it and I don't want to lose even more money for nothing, we will see how it goes. The towing won't cost me anything as it's covered by my insurance, however I'm not keen about the dealer, as last time the car war towed there (unrelated incident about a hole in the muffler melting cables above it, long story that) they completely failed to diagnose the problem and needed to wait 2 weeks for a "specialist" to come take a look...... yeah.

Their response to the form I filled on the Lexus Switzerland website:


 

Well, they didn't answer on my last mail so I just called them instead, they would not cover the cost of the diagnostic and they pretty much confirmed that they wouldn't pay for anything, they just hoped that it could be something else that doesn't cost as much, figures.
The cost of a new transmission is 10k without the labor, the part alone is worth as much as the car, so yeah, not going to bother bringing them the car, it will be sold for export and probably gutted for parts. Sad, but honestly at this point even a Fiat has been more reliable than this car, that will be my last Lexus for a while as I'm seeing more and more recalls in the news, I'm done.