Scott R

Hey all, long time no post. I still have my '02 SC430 (for now) and I recently had my check engine light and both VSC lights go on when I was out of town on business (doh!). I hadn't been to a Lexus stealership in forever, but I reluctantly brought it to one so that they could diagnose the issue. I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that: a) they offered me some helpful free advice over the phone - basically telling me that I probably didn't need to panic over it and could probably drive it back home (from PA to CT) and have it checked there, and b) when I did bring it in to the dealer in PA, they were agreeable to just diagnosing the issue and didn't try to sell me on fixing the issue with them or telling me about a million other issues I should have fixed.

Anyway, the issue turned out to be that the cam sensor was incorrectly firing off an error code, and the reason it was doing so was because the wire which is attached to this sensor had gotten a bit frayed and was shorting out, and that was due, according to the dealer's service department, because it was rubbing up against the timing belt (or something like that - I'm working off of memory here).

So some background: I got my timing belt service done by a local service shop (that is highly respected) about 6 months or more ago. Saved a couple of hundred dollars or so vs a Lexus or Toyota dealer.

Back to the issue at hand...the Lexus dealer charged me about $120 to diagnose the issue, clear the code, and get the wire out of the way (they may have taped it up as well). They supposedly also marked something up somewhere to make it easy for the next repair shop to see where the issue was. The day they did all of this, the guy told me that the other two options were to have them try to repair the wire (he estimated about $200 or so) or to replace the cam sensor entirely (his recommendation - since the wire was built into the cam sensor part and a repair attempt may not be perfect - but this would be $400-500 or so). My thought at the time was that the local repair shop that did my timing belt should hopefully repair this for free if it was the result of them screwing something up during the timing belt service, so I had the Lexus guys just do the minimum.

So a couple of questions:
1) Does this story make sense? I'm not mechanically-inclined, so I have no idea what the cam sensor does, where it's located, etc.
2) Any recommendations for how I should approach the local service station to get them to correct the issue free of charge? I'm not expecting them to replace my cam sensor with a new part, so I'm honestly just hoping to get them to do some sort of repair job on it for free. I probably won't use them again in the future, since I was also unhappy that my last oil change I had them do seemed awfully expensive.

kjcole

Yes, sounds plausible. If my memory is correct, the connector in line with the cam sensor wire is extremely hard to open. When I changed my timing belt I gave up and removed the sensor (so you can remove a cover), and then replaced it. If they had the same problem who knows how they tackled it.

Slingshot1

I would tell them just what you told us here and see what they say, they could tell you it was not something they hadn't touched. From your explanation you write and explain things well. Good luck and how much was the oil change?