Brake job is high, resurfacing rotors is cheap. Pads are $70 apiece for front and rear axle ($140) Did they do a tranny change of fluid or a FLush???? I am real curious, because I believe a flush could have caused your problem if they did that.

 

Does Lexus (the company not a dealer) even acknowledge the flush as an acceptable way to service the transmission? I would think many dealers are using different brands of equipment even if they did. Just seems strange that they would allow brand x transmission flush equipment to be used on their warrantied transmissions.

 

Heck, they dont even know there is a problem with their early transmissions. You want them to know about a flush machine??? I doubt if they care or want to care about the warranty.

 

I'll ask more info re: flush vs change as the story evolves. Regarding double charge for 90k service, that I don't know. $800 in labor for a fluid change seems a BIT high to me, but I do know they charge a premium for their labor over joe garage.

If it turns out that they did a tranny flush that prompted a catastrophic failure, I'm definately going to take them to task. I'll also see if I can find out any more about previous transmission fluid changes.

Re: the other charges (brakes, etc) being high, I've come to accept that their prices tend high compared to other shops, but they offset that with the quality of service and loaner. I've never been denied a loaner car (that is a late model lexus) even for the most trivial of service (less than 2 hours).

I may know more about the car tomorrow, or it may be tuesday when the service team that did the previous service can evaluate the car.

 

The 90k service includes timing belt change and it ranges from 800-1200 (depending upon idler etc).

This is my suggestion:

1. Let them evaluate what is wrong.
2. Innocently start asking them to explain the invoice and the procedure done.
2b. Ask for the print out of recommended 90k service items published by Lexus.
3. Ask your sales person (if you bought your RX there) or service adviser for all service rate chart. I remember seeing a computer card reader [yes, long time back the computer programing was done with one line on a card] with printed info of rate for each service.

I am hoping for the best outcome for you ... money back for double charging and a working RX.

Salim

 

boykster, I'm going to guess that you took it to Lexus of Bellevue, because never in my life have I been to a dealership that would rip me off as much as them. Yes the service and quality of work is great, however you really shouldn't have paid more then $1500 for the service at any other Lexux dealer. Anyway, I'm interested in finding out what this ends up being.

 

Is there a Lexus dealership that would do a full brake job for $450? Cheapest dealership I found was $1350 for pads and rotors.

 

It was Lexus of Seattle actually; I bought my IS250 at Lexus of Bellevue vs Seattle because Seattle wouldn't place a factory order for me; Bellevue would. I took the IS there for it's first service and have not gone back. I found the service at that dealership no where NEAR as good as at Lexus of Seattle, even with my current issues.

 

ugh, just found and skimmed the transmission thread over at the us.lexusownersclub.com forum....

 

Sorry, I am one of the culprits on that thread at LOC forum. Lot of info though, Read RX in NC as he has great tips on how to deal with the dealership. Yep 29 pages and growing.

 

Well, I just got off the phone with the dealership. It IS the transmission.

He says it still has fluid that looks clean with no metal debris and the filter was clear. They're going to continue doing diagnostics to make sure it's not an auxiliary system (pump, etc) but his tech is pretty sure that it's the tranny. It is exhibiting the tell-tale "neutralizing".

We didn't talk $$, in fact he wanted to stress that he's trying to sort out and figure out on his end how they're going to take care of this, and me as the customer, and try to keep me happy. I haven't breached the subject of the suspect overcharge for the 90k / timing belt service; I'm keeping that one in my back pocket along with the fact that I'm well aware that this seems to be a problem that is well known by Lexus/Toyota. I have a feeling he's going to offer a 'goodwill' replacement package of some sort.

I did ask if the transmission service just performed was a "drain and refill" or a "flush" and he stated it was a "drain and refill". I also probed if transmission fluid service was performed on previous service intervals (30-60) and he verified that their dealership performs the fluid replacement at 30/60k for this model year, and that it WAS performed on my RX at 60k.

 

I'd be interested to know (and it might be impossible to find out based on what I have seen in this forum) to know what failed in your case.

In my recent experience with my tranny I had a cracked pump due to a collision but the pump still worked even after I added some fluid, of course if I had let it keep running as such it would have run out of fluid. However, the pump according to the guy who worked on my tranny was a rather weak point with him and he saw an issue with a Rav4 tranny (same type as mine) where the pump looked worse for wear.

 

Well, 2 days since last contact with the service center - I'm leaving the ball in their court for right now while I drive THEIR 2008 RX350 in place of my 2000 RX300.

I figure I'll follow up tomorrow afternoon if no contact by lunch. I'm real curious whats going on 'behind the scenes'. Its not just that my RX is taking up space on their service lot, but I have one of their newest loaners tied up and out of service.

I'll do what I can to find out what I can about the transmission condition/failure and if I can find out what specifically failed, but I figure you're right and I won't find out too much.

 

Since your trouble started right after a major service, the dealership's skin is in there too.

In a typical case, dealership's seldom open up the transmission to fix or overhaul the beast. They simply swap it out.

From the posts, we have never been able to net anything as to what fails in the failing transmissions.

If any thing, your particular failure does not seem to be age of fluid related issue.

Salim

 

I have gotten some, but very little feedback, that the main gears have been trashed in the transmission. Probably due to bearing failure and heat. I have about 60 emails from folks with failed trannys. Some are more tuned in to what happened. Almost all of them said there was major metal debris in the transmissions. That tells me bearings and gear failure. The few that asked said they were told the planetary gears were trashed.