YoungMoney

Uggg... OK so I was feeling ambitious and decided that I would change the oil on my IS350 and SC300 last Friday.

I had a buddy helping me out to save time, which turned out to be a mistake in hindsight. We did the SC first.
As I was adding the oil to the SC my buddy was jacking up my IS and went underneath to pull the oil drain plug. Pretty straight forward deal here... All good?

The next thing I hear is "dude, your oil is hella red looking". Uh-oh.
I quickly get under my car to find that he has pulled the transmission fluid drain plug!!!

I showed him the correct plug beforehand (I've changed my oil 3-4 times on this car), but for some reason we were both stupidly under the impression that since it was a "sealed" system that fluid could not be so easily drained from below and obviously not as much care was taken in making sure he was on the correct plug bolt.

So now I'm sitting there with my car jacked up, all the old oil still in it and about 2 quarts of tranny fluid in my drain pan. The real ***** of it all is that the tranny on my IS350 was just fully replaced by Lexus as my original one failed. This tranny (And thus the fluid in it) was less then 3,000 miles old.

Being that I don't have the tools or the smarts to add the correct amount of fluid back into the vehicle I had to have it freaking towed out to the dealership where they had to measure what came out and pump it full to the proper level. $200 job :\

Yes, I know it's expensive, but I'm without good local shops and being that the tranny was brand new... I just wanted it done right. My local dealer has been amazing with helping me out and even gave me $1,100 of brake repair work for free even though I was 2.5k miles over the warranty. While it's something I'd normally avoid like the plague, I figured I'd give them the work.

I tried to save myself $75 on an oil change and cost myself $200+ between the darn tow and repair work.

Don't be like me. Check that drain plug, lol.

IXI187IXI

iTrader: (3)

id make your friend pay for it. its not hard to figure out which one is for the oil considering its on the oil pan

Bodz123

iTrader: (2)

That sucks, for about $6 you could have went to checker/autozone and got a cheap plastic pump + whatever the tranny fluid costs and done it yourself. Oh well lesson learned.

Micaiah

Mistakes are mistakes and the thing is, he didn't do it intentionally. But rather than beat yourself up for it or be mad at your friend, I'd look at it as a $900 savings!! Otherwise, you'd be paying full price for that brake job!

YoungMoney

Yep yep, it was an accident indeed. My buddy is broke and of course he didn't mean to do it... so I'll eat the $200. More then the money just the hassle of having to get it towed, then wait the whole weekend without my car was a pita.

You live and learn I suppose, lol.

As for pumping it in myself... I thought about it. I like to do my own work on my car whenever possible; however, after reading about adding tranny fluid I decided I'd let the pro's do it.

There is not easy way for me to tell exactly how much I would have needed to add ( I suppose I could have weighed the fluid that came out, etc). And from what I read you need to have it at different temperatures to check it and whatnot. Not as straightforward as I would have imagined.

On my SC, there is a dipstick and location to add tranny fluid in the engine easily. Had it been on that car I could have simply bought a $10 of new fluid and added it in.

Damn you IS and your sealed tranny.

Anyway... let this be a PSA. The oil drain plug is in front of the tranny drain plug, lol. Duhhh

Kurtz

iTrader: (1)

For anyone finding this thread later, the method to refill the transmission (it won't take much, since you can't actually drain that much, which is why you can't "change" the fluid) is here:

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/2446051-post44.html

YoungMoney

A glass is half full kinda guy. That's how I'm trying to take it

I had two calipers seize up and need to be replaced at almost 53,000 miles and I had just declined to get the extended warranty. My SM is beyond a nice/cool guy and he got them replaced and taken care of under warranty. So that did work out.

I almost felt bad about how well they treated me and how many times they hooked me up and I've never spent $1 there, lol. I bought the car used and only did warranty work. I also drank a lot of diet coke's for free in their waiting room, haha.

Going to pick her up now

iRock

iTrader: (12)

Wow crazy story man. I'm pretty sure the dealership gets paid for warranty work though so maybe that's why they were so eager to help ya out. I could be wrong though.

willfxp

If the friend was charging the OP in the first place, then yeah. But if the friend was just helping out, there's no way he should have to pay for his mistake. If he offered to pay for his mistake, that's one thing. Otherwise, you'd lose a friend over $100+.

ShaunBhere

iTrader: (2)

Yes, they do get paid for the warranty work. I'm not sure if it the same for all dealerships but I just asked a family member who is a tech about warranty work. He said most service techs don't like to do the warranty work because they only get paid for the actual time it takes to do the work. So if they would bill a customer 2 hours but it only takes 20 minutes then they get paid for 20 minutes of work. So they would rather have customers who they can charge for the full time instead of doing warranty work. Hope that makes sense.

Perhaps the dealership's service area is not really busy or they were happy to just make some money.

Sffd103

iTrader: (16)

This is a great lesson for all. I will never do work on 2 cars at once or have both people do 1 car at a time. Sorry to hear about your problem.

tardorange

The real concern I see is why did your transmission fail so early? How many miles on the car and any warranty??

92sc300nj

iTrader: (1)

yea good thing you went to the dealer and had it put in.. because the trans fluid is a special type, you probally would have been more ticked if it didnt work. but im glad your accident turns out good sucks it happened but i guess its a live and learn type thing.

92sc300nj

iTrader: (1)

yea btw what was wrong with the transmission it had to be replaced and how many miles were on it at the time.

IS25Heaven

iTrader: (8)

words of a wise man.