A couple of weeks ago we (me, wife, daughter, Grandma in law) all took my 2003 Lexus LS430 to the next town over for my niece’s piano recital. The starter had been making some suspicious noises for a few week but my car has terrific AC (it was stifling hot) and it’s easy for GiL to get in and out of. Well after the recital - you guessed it - no crank, starter dead. We sent GiL home with some relatives. Then we called AAA, turns out we have a three mile tow limit. So I called a few relatives from the area and they recommended a shop right at the three limit run by a “honest, Christian man”. The next day I dropped the keys off, talked to the shop manager and was off. He said it might take him a day or two because he was “really backed up”. The shop was full with a rat rod being built, a beat up 4x4 covered in mud, and an old, dusty Mustang partially covered with a car cover all taking up the repair bays. These appeared to be the mechanics personal toys not customers.

Two days later I called and got the “Well here’s the thing.....” turns out while removing the rear coolant crossover tube it broke. He said he’d eat the cost of it but it was on order. A week passes, “still waiting on the part”. Not a big deal I had to go out of town the next week week and wouldn’t need the car. The day before I leave to get back into town I get the call “Your car is ready. It’s $756”. They’d had the car for two solid weeks. So the next day I get a ride up to the shop. I tell the guy sitting at the computer at the front desk I’m here to pick up my car. He then proceeds to tell me what a monstrous headache my LS430 is to work on. That all the electrical connectors are brittle and “just fell apart in his hands” and he had “rewire everything on and near the intake manifold” (the starter for our cars are conveniently placed under the intake manifold). Oh boy. Then the kicker he says “How long have your check engine, VSC Off lights been on?”. I told him they weren’t on. He looked at me said “Our code reader says it’s the Camshaft sensor” and if I bought a new one from him he’d put it in for free. A bargain.

I paid, drove the car home, and hooked up my own OBD II reader. Code P0020 - VVT Control Solenoid bank 2 open circuit. Not the camshaft sensor. On a hunch I removed the engine cover, and the air box on the passengers side. They lifted right out, no bolts. Sure enough, the VVT is unplugged, clip broken. Then I get a look at his wiring.....it looks like it was done by your drunk uncle around 8 beers in on a Friday night. I plug the VVT Solenoid in and put a wire tie on it until I can get a new connector. I put some electrical tape around the now open push pins on the throttle body and sigh. Hopefully that works until I can get yet another correct connector. The car was starting a little slow so I checked the battery terminals. They were loose and the battery appeared to have been just thrown back into the car. The battery hold down wasn’t even bolted down and the nuts were missing. I hit my bolt stash hard and replaced all the missing hardware. A quick test drive revealed the P0020 code was gone but now I had a “VSC Off” warning. I reset that using the paper clip method. Another test drive, no codes, car appears to be running perfectly. But I have nightmares what these shop monkeys did in the places I can’t see or haven’t found yet.

Did I mention the greasy front fenders, greasy hand prints on the door handles/ cards and around the key,and the car that had 3/4 of a tank of gas in it returned to me with a 1/4 tank? Sorry this is so long but I needed to vent.

 

This about sounds like the contractors that have that has been working on my bathroom. Five months have went by and still not finished on a 6 x 5 ft small bathroom. Nasty hand prints all over the house. More damage to fix after they leave. When they come over to work i move my car waaaaay faaaaar away from them.

 

I think a full refund is in order but that wouldn't make things whole. At least file a complaint with DMV. It's one thing when drunk uncles work on stuff because they aren't charging for the work. Mine offered to clear up a sewage pipe and because they were all hammered, they cut open the pipe with the snake still in it and lost the end of the snake. Can't make it up--they are relatives so what can you do. Sounds like the OP encounted incompetence--if they are not relatives then they must make things right.

AAA is such a racket (so says the guy with AAA Plus which includes 100 miles, and never used it in 6 years--money down the drain, although I do always take the AAA hotel discount which only once was I asked for the card).

 

Sorry to hear of the problems dealing with a shade tree independent mechanic... I hope nothing more shows up down the road. There's no worse feeling than not being able to trust a formerly trust worthy car..

 

Sorry about the hassle... retrospective for the rest of us.... may not be worth the free towing if you don't have reputable work done.

 

I'm so sorry you had to go through this. It makes me nervous - I've always been taking my car to a Lexus certified master tech, who was a service manager at one of Toronto's biggest Lexus dealers for 20 years. He's now an independent and knows his stuff, and is also fairly cheap. He also claims the LS 430 is one of his favourite cars to work on.

That said, he doesn't do air conditioning recharges, and I need to take my car into a place tomorrow that was recommended to me in a similar manner as your "honest, Christian man" was. Let's hope for the best...

 

yikes, thanks for sharing and sorry that happened. you can source and buy replacement toyota connectors pretty easily. It is true the the heat of the engine does make the connectors brittle, especially the fuel injectors and anything that sits over the exhaust manifolds.

 

had a guy remodel my bathroom. he finished up the drywall work and was vacuming up the dust in the bathroom with the shop vac sitting in the hallway. before he started vacuuming he emptied the vac outside, and didn't secure the filter, when he started vacuuming the filter fell down and he blew everything from the bathroom into the house...

 

Vredniykot..... that is horrible... can't believe some people some time. I hope he made this situation right for you.

 

yeah no, not really, he offered to vacuum it up with that same shop vac... i told him to continue on the bathroom. got the kids and we got it wiped down in a couple of hours. i was getting a huge discount from my buddy who employs this guy so i couldn't complain a whole lot
still waiting since mid-january for them to come back and touch up the small holes in the tile grout and whatnot...

 

Looks like you have a big dog

 

Yelp is a great resource to find reputable independent mechanic's.

 

Aye! Lol

 

Saw the big footprints in the dust haha

 

I used it once when I needed a tow that worked out to be 99.6 miles away.