Exhaust Changes

sean_co · January 13, 2015

so as i pull in to my driveway at home i hear what sounds like tappets clicking. shutdown the engine and let it sit for about 30 min. i find the worst.... a dry drip stick, WTF really. after a service at the dealership. in a rage i call everyone in the way of the dealer principal, luckily i could not get hold of him. anyway they sent a technician at 7.30 pm to my house to check, he agrees, there is oil but way too little, as in 1 droplet at the bottom of the dipstick. he scans for errors and finds a lean code now. apparently could be due to incorrect installation of the intake manifold while they did the "fuel pressure recall job". they will be collecting the car tomorrow and i let him know i dont want it back until all the error codes are sorted. he admitted that he drove the car earlier today and there were no errors at that point.

i will be calling the DP tomorrow to get an incident report so its on record incase any damage was caused by low oil. and yes, oil as a line item was specified on the invoice. i paid for it, where is it?

disappointed...

Stuno1 · January 13, 2015

Feck!! Not good at all, keep us updated matey.

Peter P18 · January 13, 2015

Not having a good time of it are you chap. :(

Sorry to hear this.

Hope they get it sorted for you. :)

sean_co · January 14, 2015

Not having a good time of it are you chap. :(

Sorry to hear this.

Hope they get it sorted for you. :)

indeed, fun when it runs though :). but the technician came out at 6.30 this morning to collect that car, so im getting service at least. i was not there, he apparently says the oil has now run down and its showing correct level on the dipstick. strange, iv never had to leave a car overnight to check oil levels and last night he agreed there was not enough.

anyway the dealer says they busy with it now and they going to fix the lean code issue and check for anything that could be an issue down the line. the DP wants me to do a test for him to make sure his tech is not giving him stories. so i will check the oil level when i get the car, leave it overnight and recheck. if i get a full dipstick then we know, if not it sounds to me like the tech is going to have a hard time explaining how it magically got extra oil this morning.

Peter P18 · January 14, 2015

Glad they are finally giving you the service you deserve mate. :)

May be worth asking what grade of oil they used? Not sure if your location would require a different weight to compensate for the altitude??

Let us know how you get on chap. :)

sean_co · January 14, 2015

Glad they are finally giving you the service you deserve mate. :)

May be worth asking what grade of oil they used? Not sure if your location would require a different weight to compensate for the altitude??

Let us know how you get on chap. :)

i don't have the service invoice with me but i think i was 15w - 40 oil. im also not sure about oil weights vs altitude. soon as i hear anything more i will be posting it.

is there a way to change my topic title since its moved from exhaust changes to random error codes?

sean_co · January 14, 2015

update - Dealer called me now and they say they fixed the lean code. was cause by a leaking gasket on the intake side. intake was removed yesterday for the recall repair. they say that has now being fixed and currently there is no error code and its running fine. though they did mention that they think the error will come back for the O2 sensors, they keep on insisting i must do the full exhaust system and sensors. but we proved that it will run fine because it was after the mini cat removal. so they say crank angle was caused by a low Battery and lean code by leaking gasket. the whole oil level issue i will check again tonight and tomorrow morning, i want to see that for myself.

actually thinking about getting an ODB2 reader so if it comes back i can scan it myself. are there any readers you guys are using or can i use any generic ODB2 readers?

Stuno1 · January 14, 2015

You may be best places asking on the American forum buddy. Glad it is sorted. Guess we all make mistakes. It's how the dealer rectify a the mistake that makes the difference.

Stu

sean_co · January 14, 2015

You may be best places asking on the American forum buddy. Glad it is sorted. Guess we all make mistakes. It's how the dealer rectify a the mistake that makes the difference.

Stu

they made their come back by coming out to my house and collecting the car early this morning, follow up with me today. and here i am back at work (just collect the car from them) and seems to be happy again. i do hope that was the last trip for an OBD scan / service for a long time, haha. any further updates i will post for you guys.

sean_co · January 14, 2015

so far so good. need to make a 40 odd km trip in the next hour or so and i think all might be ok now. lets hope so. i did get an email from the service manager when i got back to my office this afternoon. i will post it here, let me know what you guys think of what they saying? based on your replies in the first 2 pages i believe the agent is not correct.

--Original email removed--

Peter P18 · January 14, 2015

I'm not convinced mate. :(

Check out this thread from the US side: http://www.lexusfforum.com/archive/index.php/t-3136.html

For the money they are charging you, I'd personally buy a proper exhaust system from the manifolds back, along with new O2 sensors (all 4).

I would ignore the comments about needing to refit the secondary cats (not necessary), and I would question the need to remove the engine to change the AFR sensors?

Couldn't find any threads on the process to check this?

I'd be inclined to find a half decent tuning shop to tackle things (cheaper than Lexus)? Maybe you don't have any nearby?!

Stuno1 · January 14, 2015

Be careful with this. You don't want any potential issues to be void under warranty and this correspondence provided as evidence.

I would ask why they believe having the cats removed makes the car run lean. Be interesting to see what they say. You need to bottom this out so it does not come back to haunt you in the future.

Stu

sean_co · January 14, 2015

I'm not convinced mate. :(

Check out this thread from the US side: http://www.lexusfforum.com/archive/index.php/t-3136.html

For the money they are charging you, I'd personally buy a proper exhaust system from the manifolds back, along with new O2 sensors (all 4).

I would ignore the comments about needing to refit the secondary cats (not necessary), and I would question the need to remove the engine to change the AFR sensors?

Couldn't find any threads on the process to check this?

I'd be inclined to find a half decent tuning shop to tackle things (cheaper than Lexus)? Maybe you don't have any nearby?!

we do have a couple tuning shops here and indeed if i decide to replace the whole exhaust it defiantly will not be at the quoted agent print. i have paid less for whole cars that were just as fast, haha. :) i have no idea why they seem to think the engine needs to be removed to replace the 2 primary O2's. looks like a tight fits but makes not sense to have a whole engine removed to 2 sensors.

Thanks Stuno1 for the advice, the email was removed on my post. although the vehicle maintenance plan is expired already so any repairs is up to the owner to pay. i did infact ask the tech why he says it will run lean (when i started poking around 8 days ago he mentioned it would run rich) and his answer was that my secondary O2's readings jump around between a lean reading and a rich reading, he says that "confuses" the ECU and it runs lean. at that point i didnt ask anything further because that is how an O2 sensor reads data, it flaps between its high and low readings. so to me it sounds like they working just fine. logically it makes no sense that an O2 sensor would give a nice stable reading as your exhaust gasses pulse, its not a constant exhaust stream.

MKT222 · January 15, 2015

i had my 2nd cats removed last week,reseted the ecu.....was surprised how much different this little mod did,have'nt dynoed the car but feels and pulls like a real sports car now

sean_co · January 17, 2015

i had my 2nd cats removed last week,reseted the ecu.....was surprised how much different this little mod did,have'nt dynoed the car but feels and pulls like a real sports car now

Any CEL and VSC lights on your side?

mine have come back unfortunately, but i have ordered an OBD2 adaptor so that should arrive on monday then at least i can see whats causing the issue. probably a faulty O2 sensor somewhere.