Hey guys,

hopefully someone has an idea of what is going on.

Had my buddy who works on cars replace the rotors and pads on my 2011 LS460 L AWD. Pulsation went away but the brakes still didn’t feel right. Took it to a local shop to have them look at it. They recommended bleeding the brake fluid and getting new fluid in there.

They called me this morning and said they have spent 4 hours on the car and the brake pedal isn’t working and there are multiple lights on in the car that they can’t get off.

I know the LS has issues with a brake actuator but I specifically bought the 2011 to help avoid that. From what I’ve read about the actuator and the tell tale signs, this isn’t that.

Do any of you experts have an idea what is going on or what they messed up? I thought a simple brake fluid flush would be something any shop could do but this has gone very wrong.

 

Update.

Just got off the phone with the shop and they said the front brakes are fine when they went to bleed them. When they tried to bleed the rear brakes the car wouldn’t it let their scan tool do it. which lead to the abs lights and other lights being on.

I’m going to call my Lexus and Toyota dealership and see what they can do. Hopefully it just requires a oem scanner.

 

Brake bleeding must be done only in combination with Techstream. The manual specifically states that.

 

Sounds like your mechanic isn't really a mechanic.

Only techstream software can bleed the brakes.

 

first time I’ve used them and the last. They told me one of the guys there has an LS and knew what they were doing. Tried saving some money by not going to the dealership but would have been better just to go.

 

Just buy Techstream and clear the brake code, should be fine. Do your own brakes next time, they're easy and you won't have to deal with this!

 

That probably isn’t a bad idea.

 

I think it is a better idea to bleed the brakes with techstream, especially if the brakes were acting up to begin with. I would do the "replaced brake actuator" procedure. This will clear the air out and reset the codes. It's quite possible the shop introduced air into the system if they did it incorrectly.