yep my friends 2007 335i has been to the stealership more than enough times that he has cared to count and its only 37k miles good thing he had bought the warranty bc its done more than paid itself already with all the problems hes had. He's gonna trade it in next year if a for a 2012 IS if a new gen IS doesnt come out

As for the BMW problems - some of them still have sub-frame issues even thou they supposedly addressed it!

well explained and backed by fellow members,i'm not a pro lexus but compared to my previous cars,my IS is still the best so far and with that kind of mileage,i will not be surprised if my IS will encounter some issues.keep in mind that even the very expensive item,will encounter problems in the future,the only question is when? good luck with your issue.

There was a class action lawsuit against BMW, in which the judge agreed with the affected owners. But, in the end, the only thing BMW "addressed" regarding the subframe issue was that they offered, in case by case basis, to pay for the fix if the car actually was shown to have a subframe related damage.

The problem is, to thoroughly inspect for the evidence of subframe failure (hairline cracks etc), you have to drop the entire bottom of the car (read expensive). Of course, this is not what the BMW techs will do for free when you bring your car over to stealership. They'll typically say, "we don't see any cracks" after peeking between all the suspension parts for 30 seconds with a flash light. So basically unless the backend of the car is literally ripping apart, most likely you won't see a penny from BMW. One owner had to actually point to the crack to let the tech acknowledge that the crack was there.

Having said that, I have seen few reports where the owners were re-imbursed for the preventive measure they took (subframe reinforcement kit) but that was no walk in the park either.

One thing is for sure...I'd rather worry about window regulator going bad than the back end of my car ripping off

Lexus is becoming more 'German'. I wouldn't be surprised if Lexus start having their own diagnostic software like MB's. It doesn't take much to get $1000 in repair bill at stealerships. At least lexus extended warranty is relatively cheap. I've seen 100K mi coverage for about $1700 here but at MB they charge you almost $3-4000 for extended warranty for mere extra 3 years and maximum mileage of 100K..

$1500 worth of fixes on a 44k car with 100,000+ miles...whats the complaint?

I should have mentioned in my original post that the driver's door actuator failed at 65,000 miles which for me was a year and a half into car ownership. The rear driver's side failed at 90,000 miles.

Thanks for the responses everyone.

In case anyone needs it here is the expensive resolution:

Dealer Labor $195 per door
Parts through Club Lexus sponsor Sewell Lexus
69320 Left front door lock assembly $221
69060A Left rear door lock assembly $161

Shipping to CA $12

The motors which failed are about $5 each as I linked to in my original post so for $10 in motors I have a $800 repair and no guarantee that the other two doors won't fail. Definitely a concern since the front passenger door lock has started to fail and there is no long term fix.

Here's are two more Club Lexus members with the same problem with actuators on their IS350's:
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/is-...door-lock.html

I apologize that I was not more clear in my original post. The complaint is not with the reliability of Lexus vehicles. My complaint is that the required fix is unnecessarily expensive because the raw part cost of the motor that failed is $5. If Lexus has redesigned the actuators, as it appears they have since the older vehicles use a simpler actuator, my problem is that the redesign was poorly executed. This is a part which will fail in all doors, in all vehicles. We all will need to replace this part if we keep our cars long enough. For me the first actuator failed at 65k miles. For other people the time for failure will, of course vary.

The point of my post was to state that Lexus (Toyota) a company with very intelligent engineers should have designed (and redesigned) a better actuator which is a) easier to replace and b) more closely priced to what the motor costs to replace, not hundreds of dollars more.

The actuator could easily have been designed with a simple door on the casing which would allow for people like myself who are somewhat mechanically skilled, to replace the motor without having to crack open the case and reassemble multiple springs, gears, etc. inside of the actuator case.

Agreed, that you're not knocking reliability, but certain fixes should be more user-friendly. A similar situation is the failure of the led lights in our speed and tach needles. instead of simply replacing needles, the "dealer fix" is to replace the entire cluster, which carries a $1500 pricetag (parts & labor). Still, I will stand by the fact that I'll take our cars over their German counterparts - both in and out of warranty.

.....Lol fail

FYI, a car is NOT an investment.

I just had to replace my HID bulbs after only 22,000 miles. What's up with that.

You sound like you work at Lexus? He has a legitimate statement.

The OP does have a legit statement, but he also did a search himself and he could only find 2 other posts with the actuator problem on the IS. I agree that this is not a common problem.

OP, why get the doors fixed by the stealership? have you tried a well trained mechanic? I am sure you can save some of that $$$ for your 4th actuator... , just jk...

oh well....still not that bad!

They have very intelligent engineers who design things to reduce manufacturing costs.

It's the same reason you can't replace your wheel bearings on a 2IS, you need to replace the hub.

there's a myriad more examples of this... but overall the fewer discrete components the cheaper it is to manufacture (and to track in inventory and a number of other trickle-down cost reductions from having fewer part numbers)

Hence more and more you'll see examples of "one tiny component of a part fails but the fix is to replace the entire assembly because they don't sell/offer/replace JUST the little failed bit"

This is not unique to Toyota/Lexus either.