Recall Experience Lexus Edgeware Road London & Safety Check

[mk_lon]

Hi Guys, 

I thought I would share my experience with you all as feel it would help those who are going for recalls. I usually get my 07 plate IS250 sel auto serviced independently so first time experiencing Lexus dealership (minus the trauma of Lexus Woodford where I almost bought a car).  I should have put this up 2 weeks ago but been crazy busy.

I called both Woodford and Edgeware Road as I am located bang in the middle. Woodford didnt have a clue about how long it would take and refused a courtesy car (I think he mentioned something about a charge for it), Edgeware Road gave me a date, courtesy car and were polite thus the booking. 

They gave me a IS300h which I was really impressed with, but I couldn't live with the tacky 1990's Alba stereo inspired interior, infact the service manager agreed the previous generation had a nicer interior. 

The car was with them for a day and came back clean with £20 worth of fuel. Service was pleasant and all in all a nice experience.   

They did a safety check and found the following;

1. Brake peddle slipping thus calipers may need replacing ..... (i have an invoice from 2013 when the previous owners replaced them, so how?)

2. Engine oil level very low  

3. Brake fluid dirty

4. Pollen filter needs changing as its dirty

5. Corrosion underside serious

I rang up my local independent who was very suspicious about these claims as it was serviced in Jan and said his guys would look at it tomorrow. He did mentioned the corrosion when I first bought it but he said nothing to worry about as its an 9 year old car.   

Since then I noticed a weird and load scraping noise from under the car when I was on the A406, but it has never come back so I didn't think much of it - Any thoughts?   

 

 

 

 

[madasahatter]

Brake fluid may need a change. Costs about £40.00 engine oil may have been low after last change, takes just over 6 litres. Pollen filter is an easy change

If caliper was changed at a dealer, they should then replace it. My own view dealer is scare mongering, and after some work.

At the end of the day you can check most of the items. 

[mk_lon]

Thanks madasahatter, I have feeling the dealer is too. 

I did read somewhere that the engine oil needs topping up between services 

[madasahatter]

I have not noticed any oil consumption, since i changed my oil and filters. Its an odd dipstick, when you dip the oil its half way up the stick.

I thnk they may of under filled the oil. Put 5 litres in and thought that was it. Have you checked your pollen filter, make sure you watch utube video.

Does the brake fluid not look clean. Dealer rung me last week saying mot was due, when i pointed out i just had it done, and they had just done

the recall work said i must be the wrong person. Bit strange dont you think. I do most of my own work, then i know its done properly.

A stamp in a book is just that, i do oil and filters every 4 - 5000 miles and dont care if its over kill. For about £70.00 peace of mind.

Brakes i do the pins twice a year, when i change to winter then back to summer tyres. Check pads and discs and replace if needed.

 

[C Mclean]

1 hour ago, mk_lon said:

Thanks madasahatter, I have feeling the dealer is too. 

I did read somewhere that the engine oil needs topping up between services 

Usual "upselling" tactic..

[true blue]

Hi some engines burn a bit of oil -some don't it depends on their usage history ,just check on a regular basis as although there is plenty of oil in this engine ,you don't want to let it run for too long on low oil .Good advice from madasahatter ,I do all my own work and have found some shoddy work from main dealers on 2nd hand cars I have bought .If you lack the ability or confidence find a good independent who does the work himself is my advice .

Dave

[Linas.P]

17 hours ago, mk_lon said:

Thanks madasahatter, I have feeling the dealer is too. 

I did read somewhere that the engine oil needs topping up between services 

Engine oil always needs to be fully replaced during each service including oil filter, either every 10k miles or 1 year internals whichever comes first. As my one is quite high miles it does burn some oil, but not enough so that I would need top-up between services, as well I replace oil bit more often .. maybe 7-8k miles intervals. I would say bit less than 1l oil burn over 10k miles, but bearing in mind engine needs bit less than 6 liters + residual old oil which doesn't fully leak, means that after filling engine with 6 liters I have little bit more than needed and by the time I need to change it, it becomes just below the middle of the scale.

As for Lexus dealerships I feel like they randomly trying make some money for extra work. Considering car is 9 years old is really just depends on technician to say whenever something needs replacing or not. In reality it depends on you at what level you want to keep your car as I am sure very picky person would say that almost every part needs replacing.

Before going for annual service with Lexus I usually take car to Halfords free check and some minor job, like aircon cleaning (not to look too suspicious), so they list all issues with car, which I usually fix in independent garages or myself before going to Lexus.. and pretty much what Lexus does for me is just oil change and stamp in the book.

as for your particular faults:

- brakes are weak link on these cars, especially calipers so it is possible.

- I always monitoring oil level so generally I would know myself if oil is low - are you sure independent replaced oil last time?

- it is recommended to replace brake fluid every 2 years or after major brake job.. so might be possible, you can check yourself.

- pollen filter costs £6 and takes 30 seconds to replace, equally after 3 weeks it looks same as old... and that is good - because otherwise all that pollution would be in your lungs.

- corrosion is serious... and what, are they suggesting to replace the car or this only related to exhaust? After all it is 9 years old.. so it is expected. As well this is their personal opinion - what is serious for one, for other is light.

 

[mk_lon]

Hi Guys, 

Thanks for all your feedback and advice. My local indie garage took a look at it today and showed me the car on the ramp too;

1. Front calipers need replacing (+ disc is lipped and pads as its squealing)..... just waiting for warranty wise to approve calipers... they have already tried to get out of it, worst case scenario eurocarparts sell recon for £130 a caliper.

2. Engine oil level very low ... not a problem they'll top it up  

3. Brake fluid dirty... they will change anyway with the work above but according to the dip test no really needed.

4. Pollen filter needs changing as its dirty - they laughed and said dealers always try to do this, Lexus wanted £50 to change it, as Linas said £6 and 30 second job.

5. Corrosion underside serious - Surface level rust, nothing to fear, it is 9 years old at the end of the day.

 

[Linas.P]

1 hour ago, mk_lon said:

2. Engine oil level very low ... not a problem they'll top it up  

When was last full change? There is nothing bad with topping-up, but if it is over 10k miles that that is simply not enough.

[Shahpor]

10 hours ago, mk_lon said:

Hi Guys, 

Thanks for all your feedback and advice. My local indie garage took a look at it today and showed me the car on the ramp too;

1. Front calipers need replacing (+ disc is lipped and pads as its squealing)..... just waiting for warranty wise to approve calipers... they have already tried to get out of it, worst case scenario eurocarparts sell recon for £130 a caliper.

2. Engine oil level very low ... not a problem they'll top it up  

3. Brake fluid dirty... they will change anyway with the work above but according to the dip test no really needed.

4. Pollen filter needs changing as its dirty - they laughed and said dealers always try to do this, Lexus wanted £50 to change it, as Linas said £6 and 30 second job.

5. Corrosion underside serious - Surface level rust, nothing to fear, it is 9 years old at the end of the day.

 

So the dealer was right with the exception of calling surface rust serious?

[madasahatter]

Europarts have 20% off all service parts on line. Do your brakes not work at all ? Have they seized up ?

[steve2006]

Amusing how Lexus determine if brake fluid needs changing by looking at the colour of it, brake fluid should be replaced at intervals as specified by the manufacturer,it should be checked between those periods by measuring the water content and boiling point.

Saying it is dirty is not the correct method of doing the above.

[Linas.P]

1 hour ago, steve2006 said:

Amusing how Lexus determine if brake fluid needs changing by looking at the colour of it, brake fluid should be replaced at intervals as specified by the manufacturer,it should be checked between those periods by measuring the water content and boiling point.

Saying it is dirty is not the correct method of doing the above.

But we don't know how they determined that, do we? The independents said that they checked it by colour, not Lexus. Equally, because car was not serviced by Lexus there in no way for them to know when brake fluid was changed.

[mk_lon]

Hi Guys, 

Thanks for all the feedback, ill reply in order;

@Shahpor dealer was only right about the calipers, but the car was making a a loud squealing sound when breaking. The rest of the stuff is not necessary but minor things the indy will do for me. (No need for pollen filter)

@madasahatter Brakes are slipping, other than a noise I noticed breaking distance increase a little. They have ordered new pads and discs for me, from memory £35 and £40 brembo - the indy swears by them. There is usually a eurocarparts van pulling up there all the time. 

@steve2006 Indy said the same thing, they said as new pads, discs and calipers going in, it makes sense to do new fluid, but not the end of the world if I dont. I told them to go for it as I trust them. Worth mentioning they have 29 reviews on google all 5 Stars.... wonder how many Lexus Woodford would get LOL

@Linas.P my bad i should have explained a bit better, the Indy said they have a machine which measures water content and boiling point. 

 

 

[Linas.P]

36 minutes ago, mk_lon said:

wonder how many Lexus Woodford would get LOL

Nobody would vote for them to begin with  I would give them 1/5 (as 0 is not an option) for service and 3/5 for recall... making average of 2/5

[madasahatter]

Are Lexus Woodford so bad? Lexus Bradford were great, i could not fault them. Having said that i called Lexus Leeds first, but a member on here talked me out

of going there. I thought Lexus dealers were suposed to be the best. Have you notified Lexus Uk about them, i am sure they would like to know.

[Linas.P]

7 minutes ago, madasahatter said:

Are Lexus Woodford so bad? Lexus Bradford were great, i could not fault them. Having said that i called Lexus Leeds first, but a member on here talked me out

of going there. I thought Lexus dealers were suposed to be the best. Have you notified Lexus Uk about them, i am sure they would like to know.

I did - they don't care.

Woodford has some bad reputation here, I am not alone complaining about them. I must mention that my recall with Woodford was OK... hence 3/5.. they gave me new CT200h F-Sport (260 miles on odometer) and were reasonable, thought carwash they are using did poor job. The reason I am unhappy was my service in May, first of all they tried to charge me more than advertised by Lexus website, missed my courtesy car booking, charged me £35 for taxi, returned car dirty and 3,5 miles from service my air-con died even after they marked it "green". When I complained about all this, they said no can do for taxi reimbursement, a/c is not our problem, but said they will book me in for repairs, but I never received promised callback to get booked-in, so just did it with independent garage near me. 

[madasahatter]

Yes seems an odd one about the service. As charge for taxi i would of been livid to say the least. Air con is a mind field mate iv been there with 

different car costs stupid money. As of a poor job on car, only one person cleans mine and that is me. I have an airbag recall pending, it will go to Bradford

again. Faultless work done, got a good deal on spark plugs doing as were soon on a to do list. I had bought the rubber gaskets from Usa to start the work.

Then got the fuel pressure gasket recall so a no brainer really.

[Linas.P]

I have airbag pending as well. 

That is true about car cleaning, I just mentioned it because they meant to valet the car, but Hungarians near be does it 10 times better for £6. Not as good as myself, but I don't have other options to do it in underground communal parking.