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Sedans Lexus ES Transmission problems with Lexus ES?
1381 messages, Last post on Nov 26, 2009 at 12:56 PM
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Be sure and file complaints with the NTHSA. I wrote U.S. Texas Senator John Cornyn, and he forwarded my letter and documentation to the NTHSA. They wrote him back and said there have been only 37 complaints filed with them. Frankly, I find that a shocking few, with how many people are on this board complaining. There should be a lot more. The 37 are complaints on the '02 and '03 and they noted me as one of the parties complaining. The complaints relate to a surging problem, but they say they have no complaints on hesitation, or flat out failure to deliver power to the drive train. I would urge you to file if you want anything done about this. http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/ |
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| I was getting my oil changed at a dealership in Houston. Killing time, I walked around and looked at new cars. The sales manager came up and asked if I wanted a new one. He asked if I liked my car and I told him about the bad transmission, and how everything else was fine with the car. He looked down at his feet a bit, then looked up at me and said "It probably wouldn't surprise you to hear you aren't the first person to complain about that." He said "He didn't understand why nothing had been done." I told him that I spoke with the Atlanta Lexus Rep. and that the Rep. said that the dealers were all mistaken about telling customers that tranny problem would be fixed. The Rep. said that "There is no problem with the car and the dealerships are misinformed." He just shook his head and said "I'd sell the car if I were you. You can still get a good resale." Frankly, I was really taken off guard by his honesty. I really appreciated it. That same Atlanta Rep. has since acknowledged there is a problem, but that the Japanese are happy with the vehicle and they aren't going to do anything about it. | |
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Texas83, if you're in touch with your senator, please provide him with the real numbers. You can do your own research on NHTSA's site. I counted over 100 complaints for 02 alone. Something like 60 last year and 10 already on the '04 models. The problem is that NHTSA only looks at the description. If the descriptions don't match properly, they don't count them. For example, they count 'power train:automatic transmission:torque converter' as a different complaint than 'power train: automatic transmission:shifting' even if they both describe exactly the same symptoms. It's even worse in this case because many people listed the problem under 'accelerator'. If you go to the NHTSA web site and review the complaints for 02, 03, and 04 Lexus ES300/330 individually, you can see pretty quickly which ones cover this specific problem. The numbers are much higher than NHTSA is willing to admit. Close to 200 complaints on a car that only sells a few thousand units per year is huge.
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Replying to: jragosta1 (Jun 21, 2004 12:56 pm) I am just wondering: Are you a Lexus ES owner? What year is your ES? Do you have any tranny problem? Seems like all your 3 posts are asking people to file complaints to NHSTA. BTW I think Lexus are selling more than a few thousands ES a year more like over 60,000. If you include V6 Camry wih A5 then that's more.  NHTSA site for ES330 I could only find out 8 complaints in POWER AUTO TRAN and 1 for POWER TRANS.
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Yes, I have an ES330. You can't count the Camry in with the ES330 since they have different drive trains. The transmission problem doesn't seem to appear on the Camry. Your numbers on the complaints are incomplete. First, you're only looking at the 04 - which is less than a year old. Second, as I've pointed out, many of the complaints are probably listed elsewhere. For example, Lexus keeps telling me that the problem is the drive by wire and not the transmission. So there are also some complaints listed under that category. You want to look at the complaints for unexplained hesitation on acceleration. THAT was my point - people should be consistent in their complaint so they all get tracked together. If you have 100 complaints and they're all assigned to a different category, it won't be noticed. As I said, there are many, many more complaints on the 02 and 03 ES300 cars. My gripe is that everyone I've talked to at Lexus is aware of the problem - and many, many dealers reported by readers here have also admitted to being aware of the problem. But Lexus refuses to acknowledge it. If they refer to it at all, it's a 'concern', not a 'problem'. When every Lexus employee I know is aware of the problem but they refuse to fix it, they need to be forced to fix it. |
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The 2004 Camry SE shares the same 3.3L 225 Hp, and 240lb-ft of torque engine with the Lexus ES330. The Solara V6 also has the same 3.3L engine and 5 speed ECT-i (adaptive transmission) as the 330. The Camry, Solara, and the ES are based on the same platform and hence the same powertrain. All major companies share powertrain among multiple cars to save costs. The V6 versions of the LE and XLE Camrys still have the 3.0 engine as the outgoing Lexus ES300. The Avalon still has the same powertrain as the pre 2002 Lexus ES. The only reason NHTSA has not issued a recall is because the number of complaints is very small in proportion to the number of cars sold. But if this car has fallen short of your expectation, the next ES is coming out in less than a year with a 3.5L 275 hp engine.
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Replying to: motownusa (Jun 22, 2004 5:38 am) |
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Careful about your title - I didn't claim that they'd release a 3.5 next year - that was motownusa. I'm with you. I can't believe that they'd release a new one just a year after the old one. Not to mention that it's irrelevant for me. I just bought an 04. Even if I could afford to replace the car after a year, there's no way Lexus is getting any more of my money the way they're handling this issue. |
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You can't read too much into the fact that the specs on the Toyota and Lexus engines are the same. For example, Lexus uses a drive by wire system that is at least part of the problem. Also, the transmission programming is apparently different. As evidence, consider the fact that it's been reported that Canadian 330s don't have the problem - because they're not certified as ULEV vehicles and have different transmission programming. I read that one person had demonstrated that they could fix the problem on a US 330 by installing the Canadian transmission logic - but this voids your warranty. There's more to the drive train than just the specs. |
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Replying to: jragosta1 (Jun 21, 2004 12:56 pm) |
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