RSupdate

Hello All, This my first post, I am not trolling... I need some sincere help from the IS community.

As the Title of this post says, my wifes 06 IS350 has suffered catastrophic engine failure....it suddenly stopped running while she was driving approx. 70mph on the freeway...engine just stopped...She is a service writer at an Independent Porsche shop so she had the car flat bed to her work, they pull all the codes, all relating to crankshaft and cam issues.

Then after contacting Jim Falk Lexus(where we bought and have serviced it) we flat bed to there. I am told they need a$1400.00 guarantee to tear it down, they can see the hole on the case where the rod went thru....so ok, I say yes.

Here's what you should know about this car:

Bought in Dec 2010 from Jim Falk Lexus as a Lexus CPO vehicle with almost exactly 30k miles on it. It was a lease return from a company.

We have religiously taken the car back to Jim Falk Lexus for every recall and Lexus recommended service. As the service writer told me a couple days ago "You guys have crossed all your T's and dotted all your I's as far as Lexus recommended service and care of this car"

Now, nearly 5 yrs later, we only have 52572 mi on it. So since I drove it off the lot as a Lexus CPO Vehicle with 30000k mi. on it, we have driven the car basically 22,500mi over almost 5 years ....that's about 4500 mi/yr ...like SUPER LOW milage, right? The service writer at Lexus even called it "an Uber low milage IS"

In fact we had the car up at Jim Falk Lexus in April of this year for a major service.....and we have only driven the car 1294mi. since we got it back, and a piston rod goes thru the case on July 28th.

This is my wifes 4th Lexus... 2nd one we bought from Jim Falk Lexus.... Both my wife and I are in a state of TOTAL SHOCK. Although we have not got the final word, Lexus is hinting that, sorry... out of warrantee...... not our problem new engine is on you.

My wife just called Lexus corporate and opened a case. I don't know what is next, will keep every one posted. And in case any one is wondering, no the car is not modded in any way, and we are both in our 50's.....so we are not drifting around corners etc...

Anyone ever heard of a low mileage, lightly used, factory serviced IS throwing a rod after 52k miles?

Any thought and opinions are welcome, again not being a troll....just in a state of shock....we thought we would be driving the grand kids around in this car......

Johnny Riz
2006 IS350
Smokey Granite
Factory Sport Package
Nav/Mark Levinson Sound
52.5k mi as of Aug '15

srt1

No I haven't but you will here of this, as well as other rare problems, from others. I'm interested in the whole out come of i .

Gville350

iTrader: (10)

Only thing I can think of is it was ran very low on oil. On that trip, did your wife hit something in the HWY? A nice hit to the oil pan might cause that epic failure after loosing all it's oil.

There have been ZERO internal BLOCK-related recalls; however, there had been two for the top end :

1) valve spring recall
2) cam gear (VVT gear) recall

Had you had both preformed?

I've only read of maybe 4 (counting yours) complete motor failures in 4yrs being on CL here.

RSupdate

To answer the questions, no wife did not hit anything (she is total car girl - has worked at same Porsche repair shop 31 yrs now...is a service writer...can listen to an engine and tell whats wrong with it...no lie....until we sold it to pay for sons collage she had her own Porsche 930 Turbo with headers and big intercooler!!)


So I discover that this car was a Lease return and the abuser who drove it basically abused the crap out of the engine.... I have the complete Lexus service history thanks to the website Lexus Driver


https://secure.drivers.lexus.com/lexusdrivers/home


...and upon returning the car to the dealership at the end of the Lease, it had been rolling on the same oil change for 12610 miles !!!!


...and before that, the car had been driven 9633 miles on the same oil !!!!




0 - 3181 mi - oil/filter chg
(what about a new engine break-in oil chg say at 1000-1500 mi? - never done)

3181mi - 8040 mi = 4859mi on oil/filter

8040mi - 17673mi = 9633mi driven on this oil/filter chg

17673mi - 30283mi = 12610mi driven on this oil/filter chg (Almost 2 years!!....20 months !!!)

30283mi - Vehicle offered for sale at Jim Falk Lexus as a Lexus CPO vehicle

I buy this car at that time in Dec 2010.


I bring the car back after 4600 (34906mi) miles for my complimentary CPO oil/filter change and it is discovered that #6 rocker arm is broken !!!


wtf??? a broken rocker at 34k miles??? Should have been a HUGE red flag for me...and LEXUS !!! That they offered the wrong car up as a CPO vehicle, obviously just because it had only 30k mi on it it was "assumed" that yeah, it's a CPO car...


Every recall issued has been done in a timely manner, our Lexus factory service record is stellar according the every service writer we have spoken with....we barely drive the car 4,500mi a year.....22,500mi over 55 mos (4yrs 7 mos) of ownership to be exact.


What really looks bad is we just had the car in at Lexus for a major service in May, or 1294 miles ago.... then a Piston rod goes thru the case........


We will be hearing back from Lexus corporate today regarding our "case" .......... I cant see how I will be held responsible for this....it was obviously abused from a maintainance standpoint prior to me ever buying it, and it should not have been put up foir sale as a CPO car.....Hell, like I said when it rolled up at lease end it was on a 12610mile oil change...per Lexus OWN service records!!!

Gville350

iTrader: (10)

Well, 12k miles isn't any longer an obscene # with some 15k mile oils out there. Not saying I'd personally use them, but they've been on the market. Read of quite a few on here even swear by the 10k mile oil change with full syn oil.

Crossing fingers for you. Just sounds like the previous owner abused the car to no end and you're now left holding the bag. Guess I got lucky with my low-mileage off-lease 2IS from an old lady with a white dog.

srt1

Lol yeah you did get lucky. So far I lucked out myself with zero major issues. Guy took care of this IS. Man I trip that these cars go for days without oil changes, I was constantly changing oil in my civic and still change oils on all our other vehicles.

RSupdate

Got a call back from Lexus Corp and was informed that Lexus will pay for the complete removal of broken engine and installation of a new "Factory Rebuilt" engine using both undamaged parts from my engine and re-mfg parts from Lexus parts inventory.

All at ZERO cost to me.

Waiting for a call back now from My service writer at Jim Falk Lexus as to confirm warrantee period of this new engine, either 1 or 2 year with unlimited mileage.

So I am happy to report Lexus stepped up to the plate on this.....Seems to me that after a closer review of this IS350 maintainance history someone with authority realized that this car was an abused lease return and NOT a Lexus CPO car and if the customer wanted to push the issue, Lexus own maintainance records would look very bad to any Judge or officials at the Cal. Bureau of Automotive Repairs.

I'll post if any weird games start to be played......


Edit: with regard to the new 15k oils that are available, well noted here . But We must remember this was back in 2006-2010, the car was under full warrantee hence serviced at the dealership.... I would bet the factory oil was not a 15k premium synth oil, and very much likely just the Lexus spec grade 5k factory fill oil.


My guess: From new to 30k miles, Extremely dirty grit and grime filled sludge like oil, which was very possibly low for extended durations during these abusive long oil change intervals scarred and pitted the internal bearing surfaces of the cam lobes & bearings, rockers and crankshaft bearings and of course the rod bearings, which resulted our observation shortly after purchase that our IS350 engine from Idle on up thru the rpm range was louder and had a lot more internal mechanical noises apparent to the ear.


Even after a fresh oil change, when one can always notice a smooth tight engine sound (Like on my 911 Porsche or my Subaru STi for example!!!) Not on our IS350.... always had a lot of internal mechanical noises....like the engine was working hard to run....

Gville350

iTrader: (10)

Glad you're being taken care of by Lexus Corp! Always good to see.

RSupdate

Just got a call back from Lexus.... Instead of the previously agreed to rebuilt engine using a combo of both my old engine parts and parts off the Lexus dealer shelf and a yet to be determines warrantee period (1 or 2 years, unlmtd miles)

If I am willing to wait 2 weeks for delivery.... today they will order me a factory fresh complete Long Block from Lexus, re-using only my alternator, starter, a/c compressor and exhaust manifold and it comes with a fresh 3yr/36k mi warrantee !!!!.....and still at ZERO cost to me

Is that cool or what !!!!!

So since the engine is out, my wife (the Porsche girl...) tells me "how about we do a complete major service of both the transmission and torque converter?"

You bet honey !!!

Gville350

iTrader: (10)

Get the torque converter rebuilt with a 2400 stall.

RSupdate

We got our 2006 IS350 back .....with a brand new 3.5L engine.....at ZERO cost to US !!!

That is correct.... not a MISPRINT !!! I have to give a Huge shout out to Jim Falk Lexus, Beverly HIlls Ca. and to Lexus Corporate for stepping up to the plate on this.

Basically, It appears to us that after examining their own in-house service records, Lexus corporate realized that our continiuoe string of bringing our IS350 in for every required service and a few add'l give our car some TLC service calls, it was beyond obvious that whatever engine damage that was present could not have been cause by us, Lexus never even called us back with any questions after we opened up a case file with them and made our inititial (and only) explanation of what happened on the first and only phone call.

So moral of the story is, just because a lease return has low miles does NOT exclude it from possible severe abuse by the Leasee'....The jacka$$ the drove our IS350 from New to 30k miles abused the ***** out of it... driving 9,900k miles on an oil change, changing the oil/filter at Jim Falk Lexus and the proceeded to drive the car another 12,205 miles on that oil/ filter change then returning it at the end of their lease.....30k rough hot unlubricated miles.....

So, our 2006 IS350 has just 52k miles on it....it is 9 years old.... and Lexus Corporate paid Jim Falk Lexus $18,250.00 for a complete new engine to be installed.

Right now, How would you like to be the Used car mgr at Jim Falk Lexus who ok'd and approved our car as a Lexus CPO vehicle???

and then you get a call from corporate.....

pauls927

Glad it worked out well for you. You don't see too much of that these days.

MWIS350

Good new and thank for the updates.

nosurprise

iTrader: (1)

Cool story bro - I wrote that literally.

rxonmymind

Wow. Dodged a bullet on that one. Whoever this idiot is that leased that Lexus I'd blacklist him from any future leases that's for sure. Argh. What a headache for everyone. Glad it worked out for you. Lexus stepped up for me partially too. No complaints about their service.