Awesome on the update! Let's hope this get resolved quick.

 

Car is 4 months old, and there's 55,000 km on it? So obviously it is used. Previous owner may have f***ed with it.

 

There is undoubtedly something broken, but speculation over the internet isn't worth much. There are a number of things Toyota does to detect and prevent this problem in the ECM, so it would seem the throttlebody isn't sending good information to it, or the throttlebody isn't responding correctly to the ECM controls.

I'd definitely ask for the transmission to be checked. The service manual is very specific about how long you can safely brake torque the converter, and it's not long at all.

 

TimboS,
We bought the car as a Certified Pre-Owned Lexus, someone else owned it from late 2008 until 2011.
To my knowledge the previous owner was a high profile businessman in the area who's name I can not mention; I sincerely doubt he would have had the knowhow to mess with the car. Also because we bought it Certified Pre-Owned it had to undergo the 131 point inspection before we could leave with it.

Thanks Lobuxracer,
I will definately make a point to ask them about the condition of the transmission directly however I feel as though the car is already in pieces in at the dealership...

Lexus of Canada engineers are coming to look at the car so they're keeping it for another day, looks like this is pretty serious.

I told you guys I wasn't stringing you a line of BS!

 

Oh come on now...really!?! LOL

 

Just cause they tore the car apart doesn't mean it's something serious. After all that bull crap "unintended acceleration" stuff last year they are not gonna let any claim of such matter, no matter how rediculous, go unchecked.

The government did an investigation... And guess what % of this "unintended acceleration" was toyota's/Lexus' fault? ZERO. All cases were driver error.

I'm not saying anythin about your specific situation - but I'm just saying that's why Lexus is not gonna play around when it come to this type of situation.

 

Same exact thing happened to me when I first purchased my car a few years back. It was the second day of ownership, and I was coming back from work. Instead of taking the highway, I decided to take Willow Rd and as I began to brake, off of a ramp, the car did not respond to braking and the rpm's stayed up there. I couldn't react fast enough, so I took the next turn speeding (45-50 mph). Scared the hell out of me! I eventually put the car in neutral and slowed down. Half way through slowing down, the rpm's dropped again and car was fine. Little did I know that there was a Northbrook Police officer following me since I got off the ramp. Gave me a ticket, and I even told him about the car not slowing down. He said, he would follow me for a few miles to make sure it was safe....gave me a speeding ticket regardless. Later that week, I took the car to the dealership, and they couldn't replicate the problem....however, they replaced the ETB (Electronic Throttle Body) and I have not had a problem since. Sure enough, a few months later, and the whole Toyota/Lexus debacle happened. Go figure! Told you I was telling the truth, dumb cop!

For the record, I still don't think there is anything wrong with these cars....may have been a coincidence.

 

^There was no "Toyota Debacle" .... Did you bother reading the findings of the government investigation?

 

Ill be eager to see what the dealer come back and say is wrong with it.

 

If I may offer a suggestion.
Any of you that are experiencing this issue or ANY issue(NAV, trim, ect) with your IS, I would suggest opening an account at http://www.mycarstats.com and reporting your complaints. I already see several people who have already reported this very issue. This is the site that was partially responsible for the powertrain extension (100k miles)on the Mazda RX8's due to the engine problems, as well as the clutch pedal snap issue.

 

So, we got the car back on Wednesday.
Upon picking the car up the service manager would not make eye contact and told us that "they found nothing" and "could not replicate the situation".

When asked about the red-lining "nothing".
When asked if it was pedal misidentification "nope".
When asked if the car did indeed have all the TSB's before "yep".

They weren't going to answer any in depth questions as to what they did/didn't do to the car.

However, the car accelerates and decelerates in a much smoother way now and the car is truly different.

They changed something but they sure as hell aren't going to publicly admit what it was.

I know what I saw and what happened and no matter what anyone says online here or how skeptical you may be, it happened. Lexus of Canada spent a lot of service time on this car and to come up with nothing is bizarre.

Thanks to everyone for your comments.

 

^
I believe as a consumer you have the right to find out the details of what happened and what was done to repair it. I would give them another push and possibly also get Lexus Canada to disclose and document what happened.

It is for your best interests.

 

Perhaps a reflash of the ECU? Does the car seem to have different shift-points than previously?

 

I'm thinking something in the throttlebody itself or the wiring to and from the ECM. No doubt your SA was told specifically not to tell you what they did to fix it, and unless there's something in Canadian law requiring them to tell you what they did, you're not going to find out.

I can think of a few things that could go wrong - the most likely seems the feedback from the throttle position sensor being corrupted. The throttlebody works by applying torque from a motor through a magnetic coupling to the throttleblade which has a return to closed spring pushing it closed all the time. The blade's position is reported by what we all know from the old school systems as a throttle position sensor. There is a whole set of tables providing positioning and control parameters with software doing comparisons between what the pedal says, what the throttleblade says, and the ideal results of these inputs with considerable redundancy to prevent single point failures from influencing what is going on.

Long shot is, there was carbon build up on the blade making it sticky, but it seems extremely unlikely carbon would cause this - possible - but very unlikely.

I did a lot of investigation into drive-by-wire when I got a Scion tC in 2004, and it seemed to suffer from throttle response problems, so I understand it a bit better than the average shadetree mechanic. My 30 years in electronics and electronic control systems also helps...

 

Glad your car was fix but very disappointed that the information was not disclosed.