The invoice does not indicate how many hours charged. However when I took it in, they said they would check it out and let me know what they found. Around 11AM they called to say it was the starter, and it was a labor intensive job, that it was in the valley, whatever that is, and they had to remove things. They said it would take their tech all day to replace the starter, so to take their loaner car home, which we did.

From looking at the parts list, it says intake manifold gaskets, so I am assuming they had to remove the intake manifolds to get to the starter. I bought this car new, and usually keep my cars 10 years, but this has been such a good car, with very low out of pocket expenses, that I thought I would keep this one until 200K miles, or roughly 20 years. So in this last year, I had Lexus replace the timing belt, water pump, anti-freeze and I told them all the moving pulley's while in there. Hopefully they did.

I had new brakes put on, spark plugs installed, and the fluid in the tranny and differentlal changed, all of which I consider to be normal maintenance. The starter is the first failure of a part.

 

I guess that would mean 8 hours? For $1,104, that works out to $138 per hour, which sounds about right for Lexus dealer rate.

 

Thanks for the clarification. Looks like the starter failure was simply a fluke!

Yes---the brakes have an electronic 'wear indicator' on the passenger front and passenger rear side only. If/when it gets to that point and shows up on the dashboard the brakes need replacing, the electronic sensor has to be replaced too. Tack on another ~$25, lol.

 

Congratulations on being the original owner! Not to make light of it, but $1,000 is not a lot when you have had the car since day one. On my Maxima, I prided myself on not having a major repair, and then it happened, in year 12, the exhaust failed and was almost $600. Yes, a lot of money, but considering it was 12 y.o., not the end of the world, same thing here....

Good luck and roll on 4EVER!!

 

Here's an idea "if" a person had another LS430 etc.....pay the $30 core and keep the original....a Lexus tech told me it's always better to rebuild your own, than to get a remanuf, because of the quality...now I have never rebuilt my own starter, but I had to replace my Maxima's DIY 3X because of the quality of the replacements...note they were "NOT" the OEM equivalent, they were AC Delco new, not remanuf (for about $100) because they came with lifetime warranties at the time....much easier job in the Maxima from what I've read here...