Lexus CT200H MY2017: daylight led decay

[Overland]

A topic that seems to have never been touched upon.

LED headlights decay

My wife has a 2017 CT200H, the last version before it disappeared from the market, fortunately at the time of purchase, the seller offered interesting discounts and with the money saved we decided to get full LED headlights and the sunroof, in addition to the smart entry.

The car is exceptional, we have done 90,000 km, without a single day of downtime: the level of workmanship of the interior and the design still manage to excite me, and I am the owner of an RC300H, but I love the quality of CT200H indeed... we had an opportunity to drive a UX as a servic care for a couple of day... it feel so poor compared this old generation Lexus model.

Unfortunately, suddenly, without warning, a problem arose.

As you well know, the LED headlights of the CT200H MY2017 are composed of the classic "L" shape which is the daytime light plus the actual headlight.

Well, first the daytime running light on the driver's side (and a couple of days later, the passenger's) dimmed by 85% and are barely visible: only a small portion of the driver's side remained fully visible the pictures show the problem, in the truth, the light is very poor, here it seems more than than in reality, becasue the phone camera enhance the light, but you can even see the decay of the lightness.

In the daylight, they are barely visible.

We went to the new dealer today, which unfortunately is no longer exclusively Lexus (ours was an old historic dealer, emblematic of the original Lexus service and omotenashi - we have been Lexus customers for 25 years - we know the glorious old days) but the local Toyota dealership, that now includes Lexus services and without giving us any explanation they said that both headlights need to be replaced, with a current cost of around €4000.

I wanted to ask if any other member has had similar problems or has any idea if there is any other possible reason for this, very strange, fact, because I would have understood if only one headlight had a problem (burned LEDs) but this slow decay, which starts from one headlight and moves to the other, made me think of some problem with the electronic control unit or something else: is it possible that the workshop does not investigate before replacing?

Thanks for your opinion and hopefully some experience or technical knowledge to share.

[MartsCT200]

Hi, it's a known problem with that type of headlight I'm afraid. It actually is kind of a design flaw because the drl tube gets too hot, melts and stops working all together.

I did came across a Polish website where they offer repairs for this particular light for € 150,- per headlight but you have to ship the headlight to them.  

See also this post on US forum:    https://www.ct200hforum.com/threads/led-daytime-running-lights-left-headlight-not-working.150663/?post_id=1815637&nested_view=1&sortby=oldest#post-1815637

[Guest]

Quite a lot of the 2015 onwards Toyota models which had an LED light signature option I'm starting to see fail on the road now. I think it's a supplier design flaw...  If your CT is 2019 and you get your dealer servicing for the Relax warranty, perhaps it is covered?  After all... 5 years is unacceptable for a [safety feature - DRL??] to be no longer performing sufficiently.

Look on AutoTrader for similar models.. put together an index and show it to Lexus they might acknowledge and fix it 

[Overland]

Thank you all for your answers, and sorry for the late reply, unfortunately work has taken up all the little time I have.

So thanks for the information, I followed the links you posted and I discovered that many other CTs, in particular (I have not found other models with this problem, at the moment) even on Reddit, would result in at least one case, from Holland, with exactly the same pattern that appears on my wife's CT, I specify that the CT is a MY2017, bought January 2018

As mentioned, the dealership did not even investigate the problem, presenting an estimate of around €4000, ne explication at all, that they can check, but as "they know what is" the only solution is full change.

Given that the figure is unfortunately not within our means at the moment, the option of Poland is equally difficult, as I have absolutely no skills to remove the headlights.

In all these days I have tried dozens of times to speak with Lexyus Italy, but they have removed every telephone number from the site and it is only possible to reach with forms, of course even if you fill out the forms no one then writes or calls you back.

At the moment we are stuck against this brick wall, and that's sad.

In Italy there is a warranty program, to which we are both registered, me with my RC300H and my wife with the CT200 that should extend the warranty up to 10 years, but the dealer tells us that it does not cover these defects, because in his opinion, but without giving us explanations, they depend on us, not from a manufacturing problem.

I believe that it would be useful to find a data that could demonstrate that this defect is from the factory, but I would not know where to look.

In all honesty: I really miss the Lexus of 25 years ago, when for every birthday they sent you a greeting card, a personalized gift and when entering the dealers you were greeted with a glass of good wine, a coffee and a lot of professionalism

I have had five Lexus, I think I can speak as an "old customer".

I no longer recognize the Lexus today :-(

I hope there will be updates, if you also have news, write them here.

Thank you so much for your time.

[NewShockerGuy]

This is a known issue with the CT and the face lifted headlights.  It's actually one of two reasons why I didn't update to the newer headlights.  If you search the Facebook groups and other forums, you'll see that this happens.  It's a design flaw, manufacturing defect.  The LED doesn't have sufficient cooling and the LED light rod is too close to the LED so what ends up happening is the LED starts to melt the LED rod.  Thus making it dim or not a fully lit up DRL.

The fix seems to be cutting out the melted rod and using another material in it's place.

Good thing is our headlights are super easy to open up and address/retro fit stuff... so if you are good with DIY type stuff this shouldn't be bad.

 

-Nigel

[Overland]

55 minutes ago, NewShockerGuy said:

This is a known issue with the CT and the face lifted headlights.  It's actually one of two reasons why I didn't update to the newer headlights.  If you search the Facebook groups and other forums, you'll see that this happens.  It's a design flaw, manufacturing defect.  The LED doesn't have sufficient cooling and the LED light rod is too close to the LED so what ends up happening is the LED starts to melt the LED rod.  Thus making it dim or not a fully lit up DRL.

The fix seems to be cutting out the melted rod and using another material in it's place.

Good thing is our headlights are super easy to open up and address/retro fit stuff... so if you are good with DIY type stuff this shouldn't be bad.

 

-Nigel

Thanks Nigel,

Unfortunately I am not able to DIY, it's something impossible for me!

What I am really disappointed is is that why, if the Polish guy (just to name it the known) and maybe other can repair them, Lexus could not.

or maybe we should say: they WOULD not!


 

[NewShockerGuy]

Yep, this is popping up more and more in places.  Being in the USA we never got these headlights though we can retrofit them.  I suspect that had we gotten them in the USA we'd see a lot more people posting this same issue that's currently happening.

I've only read a couple cases where Lexus is actually covering the headlight land replacing them.  Otherwise, they pretty much say go pound salt.  I will note and have to look it up again, it does seem like there is a revised headlight number and from what I read it also stated that they did a little tweaking with the DRL spacing/heatsink so in theory IF you were to get new headlights and they are the updated part numbers this might not happen again.  But if you get the same ones, you have currently, eventually I would imagine it would happen again.

I love how the new headlights look.  They really do refresh the front end of the car.  Problem is I don't want to have to deal with the inevitable DRL issue, and the other reason (or two) for not swapping is where I live, we have yearly inspections.  In that inspection there has to be amber light coming from either the bumper or headlight.  Having no amber light I would fail yearly inspection.  I don't want to have to swap headlights back and for yearly as that would be a total PITA...lol.  Lastly the beam pattern would be for RHD streets so I'd have to swap out the shield, or in reality swap the entire projector out for the Morimoto bi-led projector which would add another $400+ on the cost of the headlights that would already be approaching $2k...  Just doesn't end.

I will note I am EXTREMELY happy that I retro fitted the updated taillights that ya'll got into mine, and it does completely change the back end of the car, but I've yet to see any issues with taillights.., only the updated headlights seem to be causing an issue due to the defect.

It is bothersome that Lexus/Toyota don't take care of this issue considering it's nothing the end user could have done to damage anything.  I would expect this level of service from a cheaper brand but Lexus should really stand behind and address/fix it as claims come up.

 

-Nigel

[Overland]

17 hours ago, NewShockerGuy said:

 

It is bothersome that Lexus/Toyota don't take care of this issue considering it's nothing the end user could have done to damage anything.  I would expect this level of service from a cheaper brand but Lexus should really stand behind and address/fix it as claims come up.

 

-Nigel

Absolutely agree