Scary Lexus Dealer Stories

[kingjack133]

Briefly share you re worst or best expeience at a Lexus dealer......

[03whiteLS430]

My first trip to a Lexus dealership for service. My 03 LS430 just turned 35,000 miles so I knew it was going to be a relatively painless experience, if you think $140 is painless for an oil change and tire rototation. While waiting I was told I needed front and rear brake pads. $325 per axle but thanks to this site I already knew I was going to do it myself so I ordered Lexus front and rear brake pads and caliper bolts today from irontoad.com

So first thing this morning I thought I'd take a look at the car to see what I would be getting into. Imagine my surprise when I could hardly remove the wheel lug nuts. The service manual says 76 ft lbs and they had to be 90-100 ft lbs, although the wheel locking nut seemed to be around 80 ft lbs. I called the service advisor and asked what they set them to and he said he would check and call me back.

On the call back, he first told me he never heard of anything like this in his 7 years as an advisor. He went on to tell me I had the senior mechanic who had 10 years experience and won lots of awards. He then told me that some of the info in the service manual was not correct and the factory reps told them that 80 ft lbs was better and they used a 80 ft lb torque stick (Whatever that is???). He asked me how I knew it was 90-100 ft lbs and I said I had a torque wrench and he said it was probably out of calibration.

I checked the tire pressure and found all 4 tires to be different, 32.5, 33, 34 and 35 psi. The front tires were the most different, 32.5 on the drivers front and 35 on the passenger front.

Since I was re-torqueing all the wheels I decided to remove them and clean the inside of the tires and wheels since I'll be removing them again next week when the brake pads arrive. The chrome wheels went from black to shiney and everything is back together again at 76 ft lbs of torque and 34 PSI.

I guess all dealerships are alike, these guys are no better than the Chrysler techs that worked on my 300 SRT8 who stripped the covers off the lugnuts on that car. Doesn't anyone know how to put wheels on correctly?