Received a letter from Lexus regarding the Customer Support program 20LE01. This program provides coverage for a malfunctioning AC servo motor(s) that causes issues with the proper delivery of air when using the AC. The letter states that it will be corrected FREE of CHARGE.

What the letter and the Lexus staff fails to mention, when you call to set up an appointment, is that the $271.00 diagnosis fee, required to determine if the AC servo motor(s) are functioning properly, will have to be paid by you if the dealer determines that the servo motors are not the cause of the problem.

In my opinion, this is a cheap way to support your customers LEXUS!

If you installed faulty parts in the vehicle, you should do what it takes to fix it. If you must run tests on the vehicle to find the problem, that is part of YOUR process.

Finally, if you determine that the AC problems are not caused by the servo motors, then it will be up to me to have it fixed or not at my expenses.

I can’t help to think that this:

is one way to get-me-in-the-door marketing scheme

Lexus policy to cover the cost of the “recall”

Dealer’s own scheme to make money - since this item was not mentioned in the letter from Lexus – (Torrance Lexus)

In any case, I waisted 1.5 hours at the dealer going through the good old fashion “talking to the manager” routine which left me with the awful feeling expected from a used car lot experience.

Long time Toyota/Lexus owner…thinking of trying Honda/Acura now

 

Welcome to the forum!

Unfortunately it wasn't a great experience that brought you here.

I'm not sure how much experience you've had with warranty repairs, but the process is always the same.
Your car has an issue, you bring it into the dealer and they provide you a diagnostic quote to look at the vehicle...in this case the $271.
If the issue is a fault covered under warranty, then the vehicle is repaired free of charge...including any diagnostic fees.
If the issue is not a fault covered by warranty, then you pay the diagnostic fee. Usually if you do the repair at the dealer they will waive most if not all of the diagnostic fee...but not in every situation, depending on what the fault is.

Even with the letter it doesn't mean that the issue with your vehicle is caused by the fault indicated in the letter.
In fact you never actually stated that there was an issue with your vehicle...only you got the letter.
The dealer at least needs to check the vehicle to determine if it has an issue, and what the issue is. If the fault is covered by the letter, then they will not charge you any fees.
If the fault is not covered by the letter, then you pay the diagnostic fee, which they have to let you know about up front before beginning work on your vehicle.
If they didn't tell you about the diagnostic fee up front, and then they checked the vehicle and determined the fault was not covered by the letter, then they would be asking for their $271 after the fact.
Now you concern would be they are charging you a diagnostic fee that you didn't agree to up front.
Either way it's a lose lose situation for the dealer...you either upset about the fee up front or after the fact (if the fault was not covered by the letter).

The dealer doesn't have a crystal ball to see what is wrong with your vehicle before you bring it in for service...they still need to check it.
Because they don't know what's wrong with it until they check it, they also can't tell you if the letter will cover the repair.
I'm not sure what your reasonable expectation of the dealer was in this situation...and I'm sure everything above was probably told to you by the service manager already.

 

I am glad that your experiences with dealerships has been so positive but in my case they have always, always, overcharge on their estimates. so I do not trust them one bit.
All the AC issues listed in the letter match the reality with my car and I am pretty sure that if diagnosed it would show that it is caused by faulty parts, so I would not have to pay anyway.
The point is that this is LEXUS fault. That they have to run a test or not it is not my problem and the burden is on them. OK, so the cost of running the diagnose is their loss...big deal, $15?...silly.
As I said, if they determined that the issue is not caused by faulty parts, they do not have to fix it and if they do if would be at my expenses. Actually, this would be a good way to earn more business for them.
Anyway, you are probably right and thank you for taking the time to explain to me how the system works. I hope that trust is never broken.
Cheers!

 

I have had this problem servo motor issue since way before my car was under warranty all the dealership used to do was trick me by resetting the servos and not replacing them now they want around $1,000 to change them saying 3 motors need to be change !!! Total scam from Lexus UAE / Alfuttaim ​​​​​​

 

can t you go back to your original services and claim they didn t fix it properly ?? I know, Good luck. But I be saying that you never fixed it right the first time while it was under warranty.

 

If it's been a documented problem you may want to call Lexus customer care and open a case.

 

Is this campaign still active? My friend has a 2017 IS 200T that has close to 70k miles and she's got this issue where the A/C barely blows out of the front/face facing vents. I found this TSB and was looking to fix it for her but searched on here and found this thread.

 

So I took my 2017 IS 350 into the dealership due to the passenger side vents throwing out warm air. They confirmed it was covered under that paperwork they sent me and ordered up the parts. While driving away, the driver side began to throw a warm air out and it appeared as though all of them were shot now, which I advise the advisor. He said they would take a look at it again when I took it in to get the passenger side fixed as he took note of it.

 

Quick update: I was advised by the service rep that since they ran the code once they one had one shot at determining which ones were bad hence most likely since driver side was good at the time of diagnostic, I’d be out of luck and have to pay out of pocket for the driver side! Made absolutely no sense since as soon as they hand me the keys and I turned the car back on the driver side was shooting hot air out the vents. So a few days later, I got with Lexus and opened a claim and advised them of the situation. They gave me a case number and told me that if Lexus dealership was gonna charge me for the driver side to immediately call them they would elevate it to a case manager and get the driver side AC repaired done free of charge, under the same situation without out-of-pocket fees. I believe the dealership wants to cash in on me for the driver side.

 

My 2017 Lexus IS350 F Sport started blowing out hot air on the drivers side recently, I took it down a slightly bumpy road a few times and it's been blowing cold ever since....mine wasn't covered under warranty....

 

why isn’t it covered?

 

Well my passenger side once again went out. SMH! Unfortunately it’s no longer under warranty.

 

It's doable yourself if you've got some basic mechanic skills. Mine went out (passenger side) shortly after buying my '15 last year and it was a debate between paying my $200 deductible with my extended warranty or DIY. Given my busy schedule at the time I opted to pay the dealer. BUT....if you go on Youtube, there's some really good tutorials that will walk you through it. Just listen to the parts about disconnecting the battery, handling the airbag, all that "important" stuff haha! If you look up the part(s), IIRC the servos are less than $100. Good luck!