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Brake Pedal Locked


baskball72

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The brake pedal was depressed when putting the car into gear, and now is "stuck" in this down position, making driving impossible. The "brake light" on the instrument panel also remains "on" when putting the car into gear. Car is only 6 months old.

Anyone experience this problem?

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I had the same problem and the car was taken to the dealership. I am waiting to hear what the problem is.  I understand the RX330 has problems with the brake booster.

We had ours towed and serviced at Lexus yesterday. Seems this is a well-known defect. They replaced or fixed the "brake booster" and so far so good. Surprised Lexus hasn't done a recall on this dangerous condition - maybe waiting for someone to have an accident first.

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I had the same problem and the car was taken to the dealership. I am waiting to hear what the problem is.  I understand the RX330 has problems with the brake booster.

We had the same problem with ours only after 6000 miles. The sales manager of Meade Lexus of Southfield Michigan said he had not heard of the problem before, although the mecanic told us tha he has had a "couple". I was told that this part was on "National back order". The car was fixed and it seem to be ok, and even though I looked on this forum, this problem was not here before. I checked again today and see all this complaints. I am extremelly upset about this. What happens if your are driving at 70 miles on the highway? This is a serious problem and I am going to pursue better explanations. This is an extremelly dangerous situation.

My wife got so scared that she wanted a new car.Our experience with the Dealership on trying to replace this car has been the worst I have ever had in my life. Even though they agreed on exchanging the car for a 2005 model, we were cheated so much through the process that decided to keep the old car. It is a very long story.

I just hope they fixed this problem.

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I think it is only a problem with it losing vacume after sitting and the actuator inside not returning to fully open when the engine starts and creates the vacume again.

it should be no problem otherwise you wouldn;t be driving your lexus.

look for recalls and their are very few because at the slightest peep of a problem is repaired before it ever gets to a recall issue

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I think it is only a problem with it losing vacume after sitting and the actuator inside not returning to fully open when the engine starts and creates the vacume again.

it should be no problem otherwise you wouldn;t be driving your lexus.

look for recalls and their are very few because at the slightest peep of a problem is repaired before it ever gets to a recall issue

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I think it is only a problem with it losing vacume after sitting and the actuator inside not returning to fully open when the engine starts and creates the vacume again.

it should be no problem otherwise you wouldn;t be driving your lexus.

look for recalls and their are very few because at the slightest peep of a problem is repaired before it ever gets to a recall issue

It was not only the problem of losing vacum. They had to replace the brake booster and we were told that the master cylinder was also affected.

My wife could not stop the car after starting it. She had to put the gear on parking to stop the car.

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that is what i said

it is not getting vacume which is the brake booster which uses vacume to apply the force to the brakes

the master cylinder is attached to the brake booster which it applies the force to from the combined force of your pedal and the engine's vacume

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The brake pedal was depressed when putting the car into gear, and now is "stuck" in this down position, making driving impossible.  The "brake light" on the instrument panel also remains "on" when putting the car into gear.  Car is only 6 months old.

Anyone experience this problem?

My wife just called me from the top our our driveway, said the exact same thing happened to her. Brake pedal stuck, brake light on, tried to go forward and brakes screached at her. Just called the dealership, the tech said was familiar with the problem, and she should have it towed in.

Of course, now it's a PITA since while I was on the phone with Lexus she decided to drive on to the pediatrician's office since it released after she hung up with me, and now is there with our 4 week old and 2 year old. Lexus tech told me to tell her to not drive it, and have it towed in.

Anyway, will post what the techy says after they get it.

I'm *BLEEP*ed that I didn't know anything about this until it happend (and just did a search on this site - I usually stay on the SC forum as I have a SC400).

Guess I should have the radiator recall taken care of while it's there, and spend more time on this forum to figure out what else could happen. What kind of liability would they have if something would have happened to my wife and kids?

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Finally got to the dealership with wife and 2 kids, all packed in my SC (two car seats crammed in the back seat). Gave us a Deville until the RX is fixed, said it may take awhile, as the brake booster is on national backorder, whatever that means. I know one thing it means: they know full well this is a problem and didn't tell me, and made me blow an entire day the week of Christmas trying to get it taken care of. Tow truck took forever, then they didn't have a loaner, then they did, then they didn't, then had to wait on Enterprise, my month old started screaming . . . all because they wouldn't tell me up front the car has a problem that needs to be taken care of.

We told them to take care of the radiator recall while they were at it.

Ours was built in Canada, by the way, for whoever was talking about that earlier in this series of posts.

The caddy's a real land barge.

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Lexus said two weeks to get the part in and fix the brakes, will do the radiator "campaign" (recall) as well. :censored:

Little ticked we don't have our car for that long, if we didn't have the new Deville for our rental (on Lexus' ticket, of course) I'd really be mad. They tried to put us in a PT Cruiser, and I said "I don't think so, we'll take the Caddy."

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Yes, my family experienced the brake booster problem with our Canadian monster (2004 Rx330) as well. We got stuck in Rolla, MO on the way to St Louis for X-mas. Of course when it happened before in Fort Worth, the guy had no idea what the problem was from our explanation. We will now work on a way to get Lexus to ship our car back to us in Texas. Should be fun. They should also give me a free DVD update to the Nav!!!

Drew

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just informed that the dealership is going to have our 04 RX till the end of the month, at least. They have had it for over two weeks already. Ridiculous. Anyone else having to wait that long for the brake problem? Also got another recall notice in the mail last week, they are going to go ahead and fix that problem too.

Still driving a 05 Caddy on their dime, didn't have to drive our new Lex through all the messy weather we had, but still annoying that it's taking that long.

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Yes, my family experienced the brake booster problem with our Canadian monster (2004 Rx330) as well.  We got stuck in Rolla, MO on the way to St Louis for X-mas.  Of course when it happened before in Fort Worth, the guy had no idea what the problem was from our explanation.  We will now work on a way to get Lexus to ship our car back to us in Texas.  Should be fun.  They should also give me a free DVD update to the Nav!!!

Drew

What dealership did you take it to in Ft. Worth? Sewell? If so, we have had issues with them as well. There were multiple TSBs out on our car about some problems we were having and they acted as though I was the only one having the issue. Won't go back to them again. I am now a Park Place Grapevine fan. Their dealership is like a resort!!

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Yep-- Sewell. Do you think they read the bullitens. I htink it is dangerous for them to have no idea what problems people are mentioning, especially for a brake problem for which there are reports about. We should do something about Sewel. One doesnt pay this kind of money for their kind of service. Contact me if you have any more dirt on Sewel.

Thanks.

zerdecki@hotmail.com

Yes, my family experienced the brake booster problem with our Canadian monster (2004 Rx330) as well.  We got stuck in Rolla, MO on the way to St Louis for X-mas.  Of course when it happened before in Fort Worth, the guy had no idea what the problem was from our explanation.  We will now work on a way to get Lexus to ship our car back to us in Texas.  Should be fun.  They should also give me a free DVD update to the Nav!!!

Drew

What dealership did you take it to in Ft. Worth? Sewell? If so, we have had issues with them as well. There were multiple TSBs out on our car about some problems we were having and they acted as though I was the only one having the issue. Won't go back to them again. I am now a Park Place Grapevine fan. Their dealership is like a resort!!

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By the way, the dealer just told me they would write us a check for the amount our lease payment would have been for the time they had the car in the shop. It's going to be almost two months by the time we get it back.

I prepaid the lease for 3 years (one-pay special, get a better rate for the time value of money), so he said they would calculate what it would have been and pay us for that period of time.

Also promised to shower us with Lexus stuff.

Pretty cool, if you ask me. Thinking about getting my dad into a CPO, and would feel a lot better knowing they were treating him as well as they do.

Oh yeah - said the booster was big problem, blah blah, but also affirmed that he is only seeing it on Canadian built, not Japanese built. Says he doesn't know why, as Canad says they are using the same parts, but that's the way the problem is showing itself.

Maybe I can use the $6-800 for a new exhaust on my SC . . .

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi,

I've had the same problem with my 6 months old 2004 RX330, took it to the dealership just before christmas. I was told it would take at least 3 weeks to get the part replaced. It has been 4 weeks already, and I didn't hear a thing yet. I'm not too worried since I got an identical (although 2005 model) RX330 to drive. sometimes I even forget it's not realy my car...

as you said, at least I don't have to drive mine on this messy weather, and the miles are adding up on the loaner instead.

I didn't get any recall notice, what is it about?

Just informed that the dealership is going to have our 04 RX till the end of the month, at least.  They have had it for over two weeks already.  Ridiculous.  Anyone else having to wait that long for the brake problem?  Also got another recall notice in the mail last week, they are going to go ahead and fix that problem too.

Still driving a 05 Caddy on their dime, didn't have to drive our new Lex through all the messy weather we had, but still annoying that it's taking that long.

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The brake pedal was depressed when putting the car into gear, and now is "stuck" in this down position, making driving impossible.  The "brake light" on the instrument panel also remains "on" when putting the car into gear.  Car is only 6 months old.

Anyone experience this problem?

I just got my 2004 RX330 back today after replacement of the brake booster. During Christmas holiday,the brakes locked in Vermont, causing a dangerous situation, and the car had to be towed 150 miles to nearest service, where it sat waiting for the unavailable part! My dealership picked it up for me and brought it back -- another 150 miles! They paid the car rental (over $800) and then gave me a new loaner '05 for the past week. Understand the '05 is having the same problem! The problem they "never heard of" before -- seems rampant, and more are coming in all the time. The company refuses to terminate our lease, so far. They offered a month free, but I've heard that the problem is not isolated to the brakes. I don't know why they're waiting for a fatality before they admit they have a problem. I have only had the car for seven months -- and feel a total lack of confidence in it. This is my fourth Lexus -- and I got it for safety! What a joke!

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There is no recall or campaign on this only a tsib.  By the way this is only a problem on the North American production rx's.

We got recalls on two other issues, not on the break booster. One is on the break light, and the other is about the radiator.

It is only the Canadians, there was something about TOY not wanting to ship certain parts under pressure overseas, so got the "same" part elsewhere on the continent, and apparently there is some rubber part therein that is failing. Or so says our service manager.

I wonder what other parts are different than the Japanese built.

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There is no recall or campaign on this only a tsib.  By the way this is only a problem on the North American production rx's.

We got recalls on two other issues, not on the break booster. One is on the break light, and the other is about the radiator.

It is only the Canadians, there was something about TOY not wanting to ship certain parts under pressure overseas, so got the "same" part elsewhere on the continent, and apparently there is some rubber part therein that is failing. Or so says our service manager.

I wonder what other parts are different than the Japanese built.

I got my RX330 back this week too, after replacing the brake booster, they also did the LH4 campaign (brake lights). Although I specifcly asked if there any other issues with this model (radiator ?), the answer was that there are none known as of today.

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I got my RX330 back this week too, after replacing the brake booster, they also did the LH4 campaign (brake lights). Although I specifcly asked if there any other issues with this model (radiator ?), the answer was that there are none known as of today.

We have a notice from Lexus about the radiator. I don't know why you wouldn't have gotten it or why they wouldn't know anything about it. It had to do with a part breaking in cold weather.

I don't have it with me, it's at home, but I just called my wife to verify that's what it said, and she confirmed. Since it was in the shop anyway and they knew all about it, I didn't bother looking too closely at it, but it is certainly a "campaign." <_<

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