edarte

Ok, I have been living with a faulty transmission on my 2009 SWB AWD for seven months now. It has been at the dealer three times with no success. About a month ago the dealer was arranging to take it in a fourth time and, at that time, they said if necessary they would replace the whole transmission.

Well, they called me back last week and said, after talking to Lexus, they now believe the car is performing within design specs and the most they will do, “as a goodwill gesture” is replace the transmission fluid.

At 40MPH (65KPH) the car will have a constant, mild surge that feels as if the transmission is seeking gears. At 50MPH (80KPH), especially uphill, the car falters and feels as if it is in too high a gear and could almost stall.

The first service I had for this problem the mechanic who test drove it acknowledged the problem right away and said it was either transmission or torque converter related.

I have had the same symptoms on two different sets of tires and rims.

So, if any of you have had similar problems and have solved them – please help me.

If (but I can’t believe this is the case) many of you experience similar performance “flaws’ but just live with it, please tell me this too.

I have another service set for Feb 1st and I have insisted that the Lexus rep be present so they can experience this problem. Before then I would like to be prepared with enough feedback from fellow owners so I can say no-one has this severity of transmission problem.

This is my third Lexus and I have been a huge fan of Lexus up to now. I never thought I would have to fight this hard or this long over such a flawed vehicle from the company that claims it is in “the pursuit of Perfection”

TIA,
Ed

daryll40

I have the same car as you, bot Aug '09, now 16K miles...flawless.

joeyb

Here. At least you know that you are not alone. This has subsided for me, but you can still feel it once in a while.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls4...low-speed.html

But, read through the thread in sequence so that you can see Klim123123's final resolution.

edarte

Daryll40 &Joeyb

Thanks for taking time to respond. I hope I hear from other AWD owners, whether or not they have a tranny problem. I am hoping I can convince Lexus that my car's behavior is not normal.

Yes, I had seen that earlier post regarding the Russian LS. I don't want my car stolen and I wish my problem was fading but it is getting worse. I get the problem through most speed ranges now and it makes for a very poor driving experience. If it was rare or mild I suppose I could live with it but this car is way beyond that.

I suspect this problem only occurs in these early models and the frequency has not been enough for Lexus to bother to solve.

I bought the car CPO and the previous owner only put the equivalent of 6000 miles on the car in over 20 months so they might not have even noticed the problem.

MikeE12345

I'm expecting my 2011 LS460 AWD SWB in a couple of weeks and will keep an eye out and let you know if any symptoms. Sorry for your problems. It might be best if it continued to get a lot worse so no excuse of "normal operation" could be used.

edarte

I agree MikeE12345, but hope it does not come to that and after the Feb 1st Lexus agrees that the car is not performing "within spec".

So far, from the poll results, it certainly looks like my vehicle is not "normal". So far there is only one other transmission problem reported and that appears to be on an LS430.

edarte

Would really appreciate LS460 owners answering poll on transmission problems

patgilm

I just responded but I only have had my car for four days. I haven't noticed anything you are experiencing with my car.

edarte

patgilm: Appreciate the response, especially from a fellow 2009 AWD owner.

I did not become fully aware of my problem until after driving the car for a couple of weeks and now I am almost always aware of it. Hopefully for you my problem is not common. (and, so far, the poll results are showing that).

The worst symptom for me now is just above 50MPH (i.e., 51-54), uphill, under light acceleration. If your car had this problem it would obviously be felt as a shuddering/jerking sensation as if the car was slipping in and out of gear.

btexpress

I posted part of this in the same thread mentioned above (the "Hijacked Lexus") but thought i would put it here to.

"I have the same shuddering problem in my LS 460 AWD (2009) and have been told that it is "normal". I have a hard time believing that this would be engineered in - I guess Lexus is just getting sloppy. I will now raise the issue with Lexus corporate (my expectations are low) to see if they have any plans to resolve this issue. This is a significant problem for me because a good part of the time I am on surface streets with a speed limit between 35-40 which is exactly where the problem occurs. I have also noticed that it will shudder sometimes when it downshifts (like when giving a bit of gas on an on-ramp) - anyone esle seen this?"

The problem, according to the engineer at Lexus Corporate, is that the issue occurs because of the desire to maximize fuel economy and reduce emissions - hence the 8 speed transmission. In short, the AWD version of the car is heavier and has less HP so and the logic for the ECT is shifting too soon in some cases and can't make up its mind on whether to down shift or not. To change the shifting patterns would require Lexus to do some programming and push it out to the dealers but they do not intend to fix it - unless they get more calls on the same issue. SO PLEASE CALL THEM IF YOU HAVE THIS PROBLEM. He also said he was able to reliably duplicate the issue (avoided the word problem).

He also said that Lexus wants their customer to be happy - especially those that buy LS' and that he would start the buy-back process. That was a few days ago and I received a letter yesterday from Lexus. In short the "buy-back process" is the execution of the Lemon Law process. I submitted all the paperwork but don't know how it long it takes or precisely how it works.

Will post when I have more to report.

edarte

I have had the same problem since I purchased my CPO 2009 SWB AWD back in June 2010. After multiple service attempts I finally had a Lexus rep test drive the car back on Feb 1st and five days after that Lexus agreed to replace the transmission and torque converter. That work is scheduled for early March once parts arrive.

I would be very happy with the vehicle if the replacements work. Once the work is done (expect to pick up car March 11th) I will re-post on the success of this fix.

edarte

btexpress

Just curious; did you recently purchase this 2009 AWD, has the problem only recently shown itself, or have you just been living with it until now?

I ask to find out if this problem can suddenly appear in the AWD's after year(s) of good performance or if it is always present in certain vehicles but perhaps gets so bad over time an owner has to complain.

In my case I purchased a 2009 AWD in June 2010 with about 6000 miles on it. In the first week I noticed something mildly wrong with the transmission and the problem got worse over the next 10,000 miles so that now it is present on most uphill stretches.

btexpress

edarte

I got my LS 460 AWD in November 2010 as a certified pre-owned vehicle. I did not notice the problem on my way home because it was mostly freeway. I did notice when I went to work the next day but thought it was either my imagination or rough road. It became evedent that it was the transmission and I could duplicate the problem consistently. Mine had about 17k miles on it when I bought it.

As an aside, I was driving home from the airport last night on a hilly road and it was shuddering very badly. I will raise this with the dealer again even though I am in the buyback process.

daryll40

I don't think I have your problem, but I'd like to be sure as I have an '09 AWD bot new in August '09.

Can you clearly describe how you duplicate the problem and what I should look for?

btexpress

It can be duplicated in different ways but for me it is most reliably duplicated by travelling between 35-40MPH and around 1,000 RPMs. If you are on a very flat road it will be more difficult to notice and if you are going downhill it won't be there at all. It is most extreme on a slight incline in the speed/RPM range mentioned above. Have also noticed it at higher speeds as mentioned by edarte.

If you don't experience the problem it may be that either, yours does not have the problem, you don't have enough miles on the car yet or that, as edarte speculated, it may only show up on the earlier builds. What is the date of manufacture of yours? I will look at mine and post.