Baby ///M3

You must have a stick shift onelasttry.

My 325is with a J. Conforti chip, ECIS intake, Dinan transmission chip and Race Marque System exhaust can't even slightly squeal my narrow 215/45/17 tires.

Jon

O. L. T.

iTrader: (17)

http://home.comcast.net/~bcrowder19/bimspin.AVI

Fred Smith

So let me get this straight. The PS fluid started leaking out of your car, and he let you drive off in it and said "yeah sure, come back tomorrow"..........????

That's just stupid AND DANGEROUS. That's like letting someone leave with leaky brakes. A PS pump running without fluid (and I would think you pumped it all out driving around) will most likely be dead within minutes. Is your steering still heavy? Does it still whine?

I just went through the whole PS pump nightmare myself. Blew mine up and had to change it.. what a pain. Where exactly was it leaking from.. above or below the pump?

Baby ///M3

Yes Fred,

He let me drive off the car with my PS fluid leaking and said it should be okay as long as I come back the next day.

The leak occurred from one of the black rubber hoses that run from the PS pump reservoir toward the engine components. The leak stopped after the mechanic had replaced that black rubber hose with a new one the next day I brought the car in.

My steering feels feather light again. However, my pump has been whining (not a high pitched whine, but a weird noise, sort of like a marine animal's howl) ever since.

Any suggestion?

Thanks again.

Jon

RSTSpeed

iTrader: (4)

I just had my alt. rebuit at about 147,000mi on my SC300. Total cost was $257.?? I believe... Wasn't to bad considering that that included labor and everything.

Baby ///M3

Holy cow. Even the alternator is that expensive?

Very fortunately, after a whole night of prayer plus a whole lot of luck, my car is okay again.

I took it to "another" shop this morning and had the guy check out the PS pump. Mysteriously, the whining noise simply went away. It's as if nothing had ever happened to the pump at all. The pump's now completely silent and my steering wheel's still feeling as light as feather.

I had the mechanic look at my alternator and he said it also looks fine.

Amen.

Jon

O. L. T.

iTrader: (17)

Baby ///M3

Fred Smith

You are very very lucky. The hose is about 6 inches long with a bend in it right? That's the one that always leaks, and destroys alternators. You're lucky on both the alternator and that your ps pump isn't fubar.

Baby ///M3

Indeed I was. And I am very thankful that it didn't escalate to a point where I have to change my PS pump and alternator.

It's the hose with two metal clamps. There are two of them. I believe the leaking one was the one on the bottom.

Regards,

Jon

Baby ///M3

Aftermath:

I thought I would give my car a good wash after all these torments it's gone through. The next day (yesterday) I happily strolled to the car and decided to go for a drive. Guess what? The car cranked but started up "very very slowly", as if either the starter, alternator, or battery had died.

"Don't tell me it's the alternator...." I remember what OLT and Fred Smith said in the threads. I crossed my fingers and limped to my local Auto Zone and had they tested my electrical system. Luckily, it turned out that I just had a dead battery. My starter and alternator were tested okay.

So much for my premature heart attack.

I took a picture of my PS pump and alternator and found all these greasy, black oil residue around it. Should I do anything about it? Or is it normal for a PS pump to look like this?

Here's the link:

https://www.clublexus.com/gallery/sh...cat=500&page=1

Please advise.

Thanks again, guys. I appreciate it.

Jon

ToyLexmods

Jon,

Sorry to hear about all the problems. Really, I think you should take a closer look at what happened. Why is this a transmission nightmare? Your transmission was shot and this shop replaced it with one you supplied.....500 labor seems fair for Ca prices. Ok, I will give you the kickdown cable...the mechanic most likely damaged it taking your old one out but your car has 175k miles and it could have been shot. Now, the PS problem...did this shop damage that hose? I doubt it, again your car has 175k. Should you have driven this car 1 mile with a leaking PS hose? No and all the damage happened when you drove this car with little or no PS fluid. Period. Should the shop have let you drive the car? donno but they should have given caution. In the end its your car and you made the choice to drive it with little or no fluid...no matter how long you were without the car...never drive anything with leaking fluid. Time and money spent down the road will overshadow the short time walking to get it fixed right the first time. Give this shop a break...it does sound as if they made the effort to flush and replace this hose after the fact.

Baby ///M3

Dave,

I am not an unreasonable person and therefore, I understand how you feel and think that I shouldn't have gotten upset at the shop for the amount of labor they charged and for me driving around without any PS fluid in my car.

If you read my posts carefully, I was actually more upset at the little things that happened to my car while it was in the shop. The PS pump incident was just a triggering event that caused me to be very mad.

For example, let's go back to the day when I first brought my car in. The mechanic did nothing but test drove my car for a couple of miles and checked my transmission fluid. Afterward, he simply said my transmission needed replacement without even advising me that perhaps it was my dirty transmission fluid that was causing the problem. I know it's too late for me to mention this but I was nervous and worried about my car at that point. Now when I think of it, I wish I had thought of this before they convinced me to get a replacement transmission.

In addition, referring to the kickdown cable situation. You know as well as I do that the mechanic most likely damaged it while trying to install my transmission. There's no way that he did not find out about the damage on the cable 3 days after he's installed the replacement transmission on my car. And because of this mishap, I had to pay an extra $82.00 for a lousy cable. To top it off, he actually charged me an additional $75.00 for another hour worth of labor to install the cable. If he was at fault to start with, why should I pay for his mistake? Fine, I let that slide since my car's still in the shop with him.

As for the PS fluid, the shop did cause all the damages. If you refer to my posts again, my car was "NOT LEAKING" at all when I saw it sitting by the shop's office all ready to go when I went to pick it up. It was the shop that had forgotten to perform an oil change on my car (they charged me for the oil change as well) and it was the shop that caused the leak of PS fluid after the oil change.

When they lifted up my car again to inspect the leak, I found a dime sized door ding on my driver's side door. I know for a fact that it was NOT there before. I could even see the fresh white powder that's on the ding. I tried to be nice by asking them what had gone wrong and all they could do was giving me a bunch of BS about "Sorry...com'on, it's not even that big. blah blah.. and how could my car have a ding when in fact, it's up the the air all the time?" BS. Someone must have purposely caused the door ding. I know this because my car was on the lift against the left wall inside the garage and there was no way that a car parked to the left of my car could've caused this ding. It's okay, I still managed to forget about the ding since I wanted them to fix my PS pump situation asap.

After they refilled my PS reservoir and lowered my car from the lift, I asked the mechanic whether it's okay for me to drive my car for a few miles just to go to work and come back. Despite that my car was already leaking PS fluid at that point, it was also him who said it's okay for me to do so.

When I came back the next day to replace the PS pump hose, they even dared to charge me $13 for a piece of little rubber hose that I could've gotten for $0.65 at my local Kragen's.

To finish it off, after they replaced the hose, my PS pump started making that odd noise. And guess what? When I asked for any possible recourse/remedy, the mechanic simply told me that he's not responsible for anything that happened to it, just as he was not responsible for giving me any warranty that I brought in a replacement transmission on my own for this job. What kind of pathetic excuse was that? What does my PS pump's misfortune have to do with my transmission? I thought I did him and me a favor by finding a replacement unit as soon as possible so he wouldn't have to go look for one himself.

Either way, had it been an honest/courteous shop that simply made mistakes throughout the course of this repair, I understand. However, it's their dishonesty about the kick down cable, door ding and their attitudes as irreponsible people that angered me the most. Finally, the fee that I paid them out the door was slightly over $700 not including the cost of the transmission itself. This figure's far from their original estimate of $425 when I first inquired about a transmission swap. I am particularly dissatisfied how they charged me $200 more for MISC parts such as engine/transmission seals, fluids, etc. without attempting to let me know the extra expenses until I went to pick up my car.

I appreciate your comments Dave. But please understand that in my humble opinion, I was neither over reacting nor not giving the shop a break.

Regards,

Jon

PS: As Frankinaustin indicated in the next thread, the SC400's supposed to have Dextron II or III fluid for
the PS pump. Again, I wish I had known this or had read Frankinaustin's post in my other threads
more carefully. I was being too trustworthy and totally let my guard down on the mechanic. The
mechanic had used regular PS fluid on my car instead.

Frankinaustin

Hey Jon - it's kinda early and I haven't read all the trhead posts. Bummer about your mechanic. Texas law gives mechanics a lot of strength in arbitration so usually they can screw you over and get away with it. don't know about cali.

Lexas SC400 doesn't use power steering fluid in the p/s unit - it uses dextron II or Dextron III - which is tranny fluid. Take a look at the cap on the resivour or peek in your owners manual.

I once tried to replace the p/s fluid with synthetic amsoil tranny fluid and it was a mistake. the p/s pump went siko! it made so much dang noise. I drained all the amsoil and went back to dextron needless to say. the loud sound went away.

bummer about the dragon not getting installed. i really wanted to hear about you roasting your wheels.

email me if you have some specific q's. f

Fred Smith

Here is my understanding of the leak....

There is a big socket thing on the pump that the hose pushes onto. This thing bolts on with 2 bolts onto the pump. This is the suction port junction. When you undo the bolts and pull it off, there is an o-ring just inside there. Apparently that is what causes the leak. I'd get the o-ring replaced. Should take about 15 minutes and the o-ring should be worth very very little. If necessary, buy the whole PS seal kit from Toyota/Lexus for about $25, to get the o-ring.