Check VSC + engine light on

[Linas.P]

Yes, make sure you replace the Battery, but as for not shifting to 3rd, there are only 2 possible explanation - either solenoid or solenoids doing the shifting are faulty or there is faulty connection. Cleaning solenoids may not be enough, you may actually need to replace them. I am not sure what combination of solenoids does 3rd>4th shifting, but I am sure shop can figure it out. That said I probably would go with full new set - last thing you want to to get one solenoid and fluid replaced and realising that car now won't shift to 5th>6th... requiring the work all over again. 

[ikaruga24]

18 hours ago, Linas.P said:

Yes, make sure you replace the battery, but as for not shifting to 3rd, there are only 2 possible explanation - either solenoid or solenoids doing the shifting are faulty or there is faulty connection. Cleaning solenoids may not be enough, you may actually need to replace them. I am not sure what combination of solenoids does 3rd>4th shifting, but I am sure shop can figure it out. That said I probably would go with full new set - last thing you want to to get one solenoid and fluid replaced and realising that car now won't shift to 5th>6th... requiring the work all over again. 

The funny thing is that the codes regarding the solenoids cleared after the fluid change. Technical said he drove it for a while with no issues and parked it all fine. Then I went, turned the engine on to leave the place and there was the lights back on and into limp mode. 

Now as i said it feels a bit more powerful on the pull than before but it's still having traction control off, engine and triangle orange lights on and of course the Check VSC message on the dash. 

This Monday i have an appointment for this but i won't forget to tell them that Halfords found out that the Battery itself is at 40% health and any work to be done needs to be done with a healthy Battery. Maybe this is the only thing really needed or has needed since the start. 

 

[Linas.P]

31 minutes ago, ikaruga24 said:

This Monday i have an appointment for this but i won't forget to tell them that Halfords found out that the battery itself is at 40% health and any work to be done needs to be done with a healthy battery. Maybe this is the only thing really needed or has needed since the start. 

That maybe scam thought... it is halfrauds we talking about. If anyone else would tell me that, then I would not question it, but this is typical halfraud up-sale tactics - "Battery health is x%", but how they define "health".

Happened to me as well - they said my Battery health is "25% and 2 cells are short". When I said that it is their Battery under warranty, so they can indeed replace it for free. Then they said it was halfrauds retail who sold it, so they can't replace it, and halrauds retail said Battery is fine 😄 

They found as well that my side light was blown and wanted £22 to replace it. And when I told them I have replaced them with LED lights and they can't be blown, they have removed the charge as "good will", but refused to answer whenever they changed it or not. Sure enough it was still Philips LED bulb there when I checked, so they didn't.

So check the Battery for sure, but stay away from halfrauds.

[ikaruga24]

16 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

That maybe scam thought... it is halfrauds we talking about. If anyone else would tell me that, then I would not question it, but this is typical halfraud up-sale tactics - "battery health is x%", but how they define "health".

Happened to me as well - they said my battery health is "25% and 2 cells are short". When I said that it is their battery under warranty, so they can indeed replace it for free. Then they said it was halfrauds retail who sold it, so they can't replace it, and halrauds retail said battery is fine 😄 

They found as well that my side light was blown and wanted £22 to replace it. And when I told them I have replaced them with LED lights and they can't be blown, they have removed the charge as "good will", but refused to answer whenever they changed it or not. Sure enough it was still Philips LED bulb there when I checked, so they didn't.

So check the battery for sure, but stay away from halfrauds.

OK, i guess i have a lot to learn in this country on who to trust on things. Dealership-stealership, Halfords - Halfrauds...why do i think this is not the extent of it? It's so hard, especially when you are new to that country and try to wade through the bull****. 

Now you give me things to think about everyone i have visited so far and whether the money i paid were unneeded... 

 

[Linas.P]

Yes indeed. 

I would say Lexus dealerships are exception - I continued to use Lexus dealer even when my car was at 12 years old and nearly 200k miles. They are actually best value for money in UK when it comes to car service and they give you free, accurate and fair inspection most of the times. When you go with service plan and especially essential care, you could get 2 years of service done for ~£400 (1 Major and 1 Minor) - I have never managed to find any chain which would offer such a good deal, and certainly nobody I would trust.

When it comes to actual repairs, yes sadly Lexus prices are astronomical - you need to remember that this was once Luxury car costing £40k equivalent today, so despite it now being £2000-£4000, parts still costs like on £40k car. 

So what I did with overall maintenance - I would go to Lexus dealership once in 10-14k miles for service (because I was driving ~12k+ a year), they would do service and give health report e.g. Rear pads wearing thin, front disks close to minimal thickness, Tyres 3.5mm etc. And then I would do the fixing either myself or at trusty local garage where I can monitor what they do, I would get the parts myself and just pay for fitting, or fit it myself. And I would do additional oil +filter change in between - so basically after 5-7k miles.

With this routine I had best of both worlds - trusty diagnostics and health report with reliable and good value service + book stamped. Cheap parts and repairs for major items. As result my car never had even a single advisory on it all the way to 193k miles * with one exception where chain network (similar to halfrauds) tried to scam me for £200 due to little hole in drop link rubber and as result failed MOT for me.

[ikaruga24]

😭😭 Then i already know that i paid for things i shouldn't have and just needed to go straight to Lexus because even if i paid 150 for the check (ridiculous price for an inspection) it would still be at least accurate and no fiddling about to find out what might be wrong with it. 

Obviously i wouldn't go with "get new gearbox" but i would immediately go for the gear work to some mechanic that can do this from the beginning. Instead i went through all stupid hoops (and paid for them) for a grand total of nothing. Time wasted, money wasted, no results and still not resolved. Hopefully this garage will be able to sort things out and not just beat about the bush trying to extract money for no existent or speculated issues. 

 

[Spark plug]

On 1/24/2022 at 3:07 PM, Linas.P said:

ATF was Toyota branded ATF-WS, filter and gasket were Toyota or OEM equivalent. I have not replaced solenoids so I don't know - I believe the cheap ones for £140 a set were Blueprint which is known generic brand of OE parts, I can't see the listing anymore and what is currently available are generic set made in China (to be honest they all are made there except of Toyota genuine ones). When it comes to solenoids I think more research is needed and I can't currently recommend any, but I guess it is too early to worry about it.

Try ATF change and see if that works first. In terms of persuading Lexus to do it - it is not nothing drastic, simply call them up and say that is what you want to do. At this point I am sure they will try to say that it is "unnecessary" and that "ATF is life-time fill", "sealed unit" and other crap to try to persuade you not to do it. Worst case scenario if they really don't want to do it they will quote some silly price - say £800 to get rid of you. Other thing they may say - the work will not be warranted and that it won't fix your issue, or they can't guarantee it will help. Which is kind of true - nobody can guarantee ATF change will fix solenoid issues, but this is known to fix issues quite often in experience of many members.

In short - you probably wouldn't have issue if it would have been done in time, but at this point it can't hurt. Chances of it solving an issue is probably 50/50. Depends on how long the issue existed and how bad it got.

But is it a sealed for life unit. Surely it has a breather of some sort to let the fluid expand when hot. And any kind of fluids like this go off after years of use 

[ikaruga24]

Quick update on the matter. One week in the shop now. Apparently the issue is not mechanical but electronic in nature. Some little computer, one of the ecus or other little electronic/electric maggafin. 

I am starting to suspect that it's something really easy to fix/replace but obviously they won't do it for that stupid little amount and will throw in labor hours. Again i can't be sure but here comes next week and see when i get a phone call. 

[ikaruga24]

One more update on the matter. The car is still in the mechanic. That's 3 weeks now fully closed in the shop. After trying stuff they came to one maybe possible solution, that the car needs a full Rebalancing as they can't seem to pinpoint what can possibly be the issue. Mechanically is sound, the solenoid valve issue is no more, Battery is fine though not at 100% health (it's at 85% according to them which is vastly different than what Halfords said being at 40%), measurements from the sensors seem to read correctly and the car seems to work fine for those five minutes without the check VSC comes on again. 

They asked me if i had done anything to the car to which i replied i literally bought it some weeks ago and it was fine for the first ten days or so, then we changed tyres and 20 minutes after the change the check VSC came on and that's the story. 

Now the good news is that i don't owe anything for the work so far but i am starting to get both worried and desperate as i have spent a small fortune moving around with commute not to mention time wasted. 

How long would you allow a garage to keep your car for checks before you decided it is time to try another one here in the UK? 

[ikaruga24]

On 2/4/2022 at 11:13 AM, Linas.P said:

Yes indeed

After all this time i got myself into bull**** territory. Over three weeks in the shops only to be called today and come to collect it with the issue as they can't fix it. I am quoting "the car is exactly the same as you first brought it in". The electrician tried to fix it but it seems the gear problem persists after the oil change. 

I am now certain they did nothing but the bare minimum for it. Didn't pay anything other than 30 quid for the electrician, time wasted, no work done, still in square one. 

Second garage that has no clue... I have a few more options but i am angry... 

[ikaruga24]

On 2/4/2022 at 10:39 AM, Linas.P said:

That maybe scam thought... it is halfrauds we talking about. 

Sorry to quote you all the time Lina but i feel like we are friends now 😂. 

Update on the issue, i got it to some recommended auto gearbox specialists that also have very good general testimonials. From what they have found is that my cars fault codes should not be there as the car is flawless when it comes to the metrics and health checks they performed. One thing that seems peculiar that makes them think it's the cars computer at fault is the fact that the gear changes don't happen because there is no command from the computer to do so. It's not that the gears are stuck or anything, it's because the computer gives the command up until the third and back but then it just doesn't give any commands for upwards of the third gear. 

Their advice on the matter is to ask for a new computer from Lexus which now comes a question. What computer? Main computer? Specific ECU? The entire thing? What costs are we talking about if that's the case because it doesn't sound cheap though to be fair i was waiting to hear about a faulty gearbox and a piercing cost to replace it but thank God no. Still this does sound like another costly fix from the other direction, am i wrong? 

[madasahatter]

Have you tried changing the gears manually?? 

[ikaruga24]

12 minutes ago, madasahatter said:

Have you tried changing the gears manually?? 

Yes with the machine. Manual changes don't happen past 3rd gear. 

[ikaruga24]

And it's finished, the mechanic who can actually work on the problem quoted me a price 1200 quid for a new car computer and labor plus anything that might come across for parts during the gearbox work as well so the actual cost could well go double that. 

From his overall experience he would say that problems like this come out from excessive neglect due to being immobile for more than 12 months and this is a killer for any car no matter what and especially so for automatic cars. 

In light of that i have decided to give my vehicle for part exchange for something else and i haven't made this decision lightly. Second, and this is even more bothersome for me, i have been talking with a lot of people all this time and everyone tells me to never look anything else but the German brands for the UK market. Anything else and you risk bad support network, lack of knowledge on how to work on a car and other types of inconvenient crap you don't want to get caught in. 

I have no idea how true that is of course but as most said, get a BMW, audi, VW and you are all set with peace of mind even if something does go wrong. 

[Mr Vlad]

Yes that's why there's a shed load of videos showing how to fix Audi BMW Mercedes cars as they're always breaking down. You unfortunately bought a neglected car, shame on its previous owner. Your best bet is another is250. One with a service record preferably. 

[ikaruga24]

1 hour ago, Mr Vlad said:

Yes that's why there's a shed load of videos showing how to fix Audi BMW Mercedes cars as they're always breaking down. You unfortunately bought a neglected car, shame on its previous owner. Your best bet is another is250. One with a service record preferably. 

Not disputing that mate, in my country the Germans have a nasty reputation for reliability. However, i am not in my country and each country has a certain way of having their own quirks on those things. 

Believe me when i say that i would love to get the Japanese car but after the ordeal i went through trying to find someone to properly be able to fix the issue (even though in the end i chose against it due to cost) i am torn to have to go to the German side just so i can have a choice.