YoungMoney

So pretty much out of the blue my 350 has developed a Tranny shifting issue. It’s worse when I first start the car up; however, it will still happen after 30-45 mins of diving. It happens in all gears, but is the worst when I’m accelerating from a stop…

Ie. This morning about 3-4 times when I hit the gas from a dead stop the car will rev up to 3.4-4.5k RPMS, but never go into drive (stick is obviously in drive). Then it will all of a sudden “catch” and shoot me off like I’m a first time stick driver. The tires actually let loose this morning… It’s like dropping the clutch on a stick.. and I'm not flooring it by any means. Just daily driving style acceleration.

This also occurs at higher speeds. If I floor it at say 30MPH, it will simply rev up to 2k,3k,4k RPM before actually getting in gear and going. Very very jerky as well.

If I had to guess I’d say it’s taking a full 3-4 seconds before the car will accelerate at all.

The issue is intermittent in that it won’t always happen when I floor it or from a dead stop. But it occurred 5-10 times today on a 20 minute city drive.

I also notice this when I slow down and the car tried to downshift itself. I’ll have come to a complete stop for 3-5 seconds before I can feel the car get into first gear. There seems to be a pronounced "bang / shake / noise when it finally gets into 1st at a stop.

Furthermore, I feel like when the car is at idle it’s at low RPMs; 500-700 or so. In fact, the car flat out died today while sitting at a light (first time that's ever happened). I had to try 5 times for about 30 seconds to get it to start again

I do have an appointment at Lexus; however, not until Saturday.

Sorry for the long read… but anyone have any ideas?
Safe to drive till Sat?


*Edit - Sorry if this should be in Performance Section, I assumed that's where I was posting.

Allen K

iTrader: (4)

I'd call a dealer and take it in ASAP. See if they will set you up with a loaner.

YoungMoney

Yeah, good advice Allen. That's the first thing I did.
They actually don't have any loaners in right now , hence the appointment on Saturday.

I'm just wondering if I can/should drive it whatsoever until then. Get's me where I need to go... just not very smoothly, lol.

What's should range should the RPMs at idle/dead stop?

bnizzle87

i know that feeling. ask lexus to look at it, and request a loaner. its odd that it did that. although when i had my first lexus (es300), it did the same thing. revving at high RPM's thinking it would just drive, but then it died at a red light that had just turned green, even though it was in drive. have you tried switching it to M and driving that way? of course my old es300 wasnt equipped with the manual part of the tranny, thus i had to trade it in. sad to see it go, but it was going on 18 years. needed a new ride anyway. best of luck to you!

YoungMoney

Thanks man. The car feels like it shifts better in Sport mode but since it doesn't occur 100% of the time I accelerate, it's hard to really tell.

Somethings up for sure though... it's definitely not getting into gear.
I have 47,500 miles on it as well... warranty ftw.

Anyone have any idea what it could be? Doesn't sound similar to other's post who got their tranny replaced due to metal shavings or whatever.

Until 1 week ago, I've never had any real issue with the tranny. Not much noise, not too many hard shifts.

lilbluu

iTrader: (2)

tranny going bad or something similar. my old car(v6 accord 2002) went through 2 transmissions and on its 3rd right before i traded it in. The car would slip and then catch causing the car to jerk really hard. or it will try to shift to another gear and rev for 5-10 seconds and catch the next gear. the way i found around that was to slowly accelerate(very slow under 2.5k) and hope it catches. its really bad during a cold start up.

windex

iTrader: (1)

My tranny started to slip a little bit at the top of 3rd gear cause of my excessive nitrous use O:-) but nothing ever like that good luck with resolving the problem

Sytfu_IS

iTrader: (4)

Did you get the dealer to replace a new tranny?

gc86

iTrader: (26)

definitely seems like a faulty unit, is your car salvaged? how many miles on it?

t0e

iTrader: (1)

You should figure out how to replicate the issue.

Because if you cant, and they don't know / see what is going on, they wont fix it...

So figure out what it's doing, make sure you can replicate it and they will probably replace it for you...

windex

iTrader: (1)

No I wanted to wait till it blew the hell up and nothing ever happened again but my boy that works at lexus told me he would have it replaced whenever I wanted

YoungMoney

All good advice, I appreciate it.

The car has 47,500 miles on is (2006)... so luckily still warrantied for a few months.
I've never had any problem at all with the tranny till this week...

I have printed out and written down a lot of info. I'm going to go in and politely talk to the Service Manager / request he will take a ride w/ me.
I just want to make sure this is fully documented since it's so close to having the warranty be up and I think though is a major problem as opposed to a minor tune-up/fix.

The problem happens often enough where I'm pretty sure it will occur when the Tech/Mnger is in the car. Although considering my luck... it will likely run like a gem when they are there.

Seems odd it happened out of the blue at 47.5k miles though huh?

Kurtz

iTrader: (1)

FYI, your transmission has a ton of warranty left.

Engine and transmission are warrantied for 6 yr/70k miles.

IS_Sunny

iTrader: (1)

Really? Engine and Tranny for 6yr, then normal interior, exterior and electrical / suspension / brakes stuff are 50k miles?

Phil888

iTrader: (1)

Dude seriously, report it to your insurance if you dont feel safe driving it. Have your insurance towed the car to the dealership to allow the insurance and the dealership see that you dont feel safe with the car right now. I think thats the best solution, cause your insurance might be able to get you a rental until the dealership decides what to do. GL