So last night my parents purchased a mercury metallic LS 460L, with the touring package, I have yet to see it in person since I am still in school for another week, but from what I hear it’s beautiful. Anyway, they take delivery at about 8:30pm last night; the dealership is only about five miles from the house. Three of those five miles went swimmingly, however, before the last two miles the car starts shaking.

From what my mom described she thought the car was having it’s own internal earthquake. Shortly after the shaking started the dash lights up like a Christmas tree and the car suffers a catastrophic failure. This occurs at 8:30pm, by 9:00pm the car is on a flat bed on its way back to the dealership. My family buy’s a lot of cars, and this LS marks our six Lexus total, never had anything like this happen on any of our delivery trips.

It’s fairly humorous, one of the most expensive Japanese luxury sedans, tops on the consumer reports reliability reports, and it dies this soon!
Of course the dealership is being extremely helpful/apologetic about the whole situation. I still think it’s pretty funny, still super curious as to what happened though.

 

Tell them they should insist on a brand new replacement. That's what they paid for, not a Friday anomaly...

 

That is the strangest Lexus delivery experience I've ever heard of!!!!

I hope your parents also find it funny, and they aren't too worried. I think this is probably a very anomalous situation, at least based on the experiences lots of others have had. Not to mention your other Lexus vehicles.

What would cause a massive amount of shaking? The cars are test driven at high speed after leaving Tahara, so it probably worked fine then...I think something might have happened during the shipping process.

 

i wanna know what happened as well too! that is so strange. looks like a computer glitch

 

maybe they accidently left the sidebrake on?

im saying this because i did this last night coming home in my aunt's camry, and everytime i went 35mph or just took my foot off the gas it would shudder like it was making love to the road.

then again, it was peeling out from every stop too......

 

wow talk about chances. good luck and definitely ask for another new car, not a fixed one

 

OK, so the dealership calls today and say's it's the 3rd cylinder, it's dead.

 

If I were your parents I'd tell them "Thanks for the info but why are you telling me?". "I expect a new car"

 

There is zero friggin way on this planet in this lifetime would I accept that car back.

 

WOW!!!

Get a new car. Don't even consider getting that old one.

Unfortunately, you just became the statistic. You're just the one in a thousand that got a lemon...

 

damn, what are the chances of that??
and dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree...dunno why but I laughed so hard.

 

So after a week of searching the dealership called and said they have identified the problem as a broken valve spring. Their solution is to completely replace the engine... The are also willing to knock off the first months payment or free service for the life of the car. What do you all think? Should we still push for a new one? Is a new engine not going to cut it? I need some input.

 

Hmmm. This is a tough one. How long is your parents planning to keep this car? If it is for a long time the new engine and free maintenance for life actually sounds like a good deal. Forget the first month free payment. That is like what? $800-$1200? Not worth it at all.

Now, if they only plan on keeping this car for maybe 5 years. I think I'd still opt for a new car.

My opinion would be if you are keeping the car for 6+ years, get the new engine and free life time maintenence. Be sure to get it in writing exactly what their "Fee Service for Life" includes though. If it is all scheduled maintenence intervals, that could be quite a bit of savings in the long run.

If you are keeping the car for 5 years or less, get a new car.

 

Too many mishaps can occur when replacing an engine. It's a Band-Aid solution in my opinion. Since this car is still so new, and the dealer will not suffer anything, it really is Lexus' responsibility to make this good. The only annoyance may be the time delay in getting a "new" replacement, but they could make that up with either a cash settlement, or some other worthwhile compensation. Your parents bought a new car with a top-shelf Lexus reliability backing it up. It's time to put that commitment to the test. They're selling 3,000 of these every month, so it's really a drop in the bucket for them as far as I'm concerned.

 

err yeah, i agree wtih what some people are saying, that replacing the engine is not a good idea. It just wont be the same again. Once they pull everything out, whose to say that the tech whose putting it back in is qualified. Something so important should not be tampered with. I would get a new car. sorry to hear about this btw.

on the other side, free lifetime maintenance on an LS460 has got to be in the 20K range. lol