About 2 weeks ago I received a letter from Lexus stating there was a recall of the V V T System bolts coming lose on the housing and sprocket of the intake side V V T gear assembly. I was going to wait about a month or so to bring it in so I would hope my local dealer would get a couple of these fixes under their belt before I brought my car in. Then this past Sunday my car after about 10 minutes of driving started to hesitate and the idle at stop got ruff. Shortly after that the Check VSC warning appeared in the middle info. screen and the check engine light started to flash a the yellow explanation point light lite up and also the slip control light.
So on Monday, am I brought the car to my dealer and he witnessed my concern first hand. He wrote in his report the customer stated that the cars idle was ruff witch he concurred when he sat in the car to take the mileage of the vehicle and that the check engine light was on. I said to him what about the check VSC warning light that went on…he said that was all related but never put that in the paper work.
In the early afternoon he said that they had the parts for the recall so they would be able to take care of that and that my other problem was due to a fowled spark plug that would have to be replaced. He said the car would be ready for pick-up any time after 3:30p. I currently have the platinum extended warranty on the car, which extends the warranty for an additional 2 years and 25k miles past the 4 year 50K manufacture warranty. When I purchased the warranty the person who sold it to me said that in a nut shell that this warranty would extend the original bumper to bumper warranty by 2 years and 25K.
That being said when he called to tell me the problem I assumed that everything was covered. Also he didn’t say it would cost anything, would you like to proceed?? When I go to pick the car up that night I’m hit with close to a $300 bill for 1 spark plug. $18 for the part and over $200 in labor for diagnostics and labor plus tax. So I was infuriated at this point. When I got to the service dept. all the advisors had left for the day so the lady there couldn’t really help me and said she won’t take any payment and that someone would call me in the morning.
I know what everyone is thinking…spark plugs are a maintenance item and won’t be covered. I totally agree along with breaks, etc. But my though is every part has a specified or non-specified life span. Coolant should last a certain period of time, Tires, brakes, plugs, etc. So if I only get 10% life out of a part, then I feel it is no longer is a maintenance item there is a defect with the part. I get all of that, but here’s the rub…I purchased my car brand new in mid 2009 with 60 miles on it and currently it has only 10k on it. (It’s my weekend car…as you can tell I don’t have that much leisure time on the weekends)
My point here is has anyone ever experienced a problem like
this at such low mileage?? Are the re-call and this related in anyway…also what about the VSC warning light is there something more to that, that the dealer did not really want to acknowledge?? Any thoughts on any of this would be great.