I need help BADLY!

Before my last oil change, the oil light came briefly so i checked the oil level and saw that stick didnt show any oil whatsoever. I of course paniced and added more oil to level it out as it needs to be. I also checked some of the areas of where oil might leak and didnt see any areas (seals, gaskets, drain plug, oil filter) of leakage. In addtion, i havent even noticed any spills anywhere at home or at work since i park in the same place.

I ended up taking the car in for an oil change and they did pretty much everything that an oil change entails and of course i kept an eye on levels thereafter. At one thousand miles , i checked the oil again and the oil sticks shows that it is half empty. it is in between the two dots ont he stick which clearly shows that oil is missing.

Could my car be burning oil? How? How can i fix this? What the heck do i need to do to correct this problem. The car is a 2008 and only has 79k in miles.

FYI- i did notice that in the mufflers, the resdiue that usually collects in from the exhuast system- that the residue is way darker and silkie instead of dry.

Please help!!!!!!

 

is your car still under warranty? bring it lexus dealer to asses,it might be a piston rings problem or you could be losing oil through the head gasket into the cooling system. but to make it sure bring it to lexus dealer-good luck and hope it,s minor problem

 

look to see if your coolant has any oil in it....that'll indicate a blown head gasket.

 

Took it in and from what they could see, it might be the piston rings. According to the advisor, she said that if indeed it is the piston rings, there are no replacement rings for that model year (for some apparent reason) and that the replacements ones they have (new and improved) dont fit. As a result, they have to replace the whole the whole thing for it to work (not leak). Does this sound right? I have gone to this dealership for years so i hope it is not a scam. What are you thoughts?

 

I checked the coolant and didnt see any signs of oil in the coolant. Dealership said the same thing.

 

as far as I know, the IS250 and IS350 engines have remained untouched since their inception in 2006. Unless the bore size changed, (which it didnt) there shouldnt be any reason why they cant get replacement rings for any year.

 

any other nearest lexus dealer to ask for second opinion?if its cover under warranty and no cost to you go ahead but if involves money coming from your pocket,try to consult another dealer-

 

Sounds like dealership BS to me.

 

Way to much oil usage. Get a second opinion and push it up to managment levels if you are not satisfied.

 

Sewell site with P/Ns :

http://is.sewellparts.com/oem-catalo...S250-2008.html



Looks like P/N 1301131120 (RING SET, PISTON STD = $326.83) is your item there.

 

yeah, buy em from sewell and then go back. Tell them you didnt have a problem getting the parts you need at all. How odd?

 

the lexus dealer was right. i am lexus tech and what i been told is the new impoved pistons and rings are in the works so they are not releasing the pervioius rings to the dealers.

 

hmmm.....improved how? I didnt know that it was a common enough problem to warrant a complete redesign of the pistons and rings.

You should send your old ones off to a reputable piston manufacturer for a custom compression ratio.......mmMMMMmm....boost.

 

Rumor has it this is the intended "new" fix for the carbon buildup issue... bit more info in that thread.

 

L-SB-0068-11 is complete as far as I know, it consists of the newly rebuilt pistons, piston rings, etc.

Some dealers don't have the parts in yet and it will be a while till they do. I myself have had the "Low Engine Oil" message in the HUD come on at around 45,000mi and several times after, just recently again as well and I'm close to the 100k mark. This happens right after 7k on synthetic oil, if I'm not mistaken Lexus's new oil change interval is 10k. So apparently on the older model 250's the engine hardware along with the increased carbon build up is causing more oil to be burned.

I've contacted Lexus about this and their "case handlers" are difficult to work with. They're excuse is, "if you're vehicle is experiencing this bring it to a dealer so they can replicate the issue, this is the only way we will warrant a service repair" I don't know if Lexus knows this but replicating how the car half stalls and acts up is like finding a needle in a hay stack. It's very random and it doesn't happen right away it could go weeks before it happens again.

I've brought this up to a dealer before as well as the low engine oil and they don't really have any procedure they follow to check this. All they did was "top off" my oil only to have the light turn on 500mi later.

I might just try to push this up higher, also just a note for those interested in having Lexus take their issue seriously, the next time your car acts like it's about to stall and shakes like crazy. Drop the car into neutral and rev up the engine to redline for like one or two seconds in most cases that I've tried the car will miss fire and give you a check engine light. Then proceed to get the dealer to load up the code and do the job.