Lewis-1

Charles: I doubt that you will get any satisfaction from Lexus. Everyone in the company knows how the transmission operates and they consider our issues to be irrelevant. They told me that the transmission operates exactly as designed, including all of the characteristics to which we object. I actually think you are quite lucky because you seem to be bothered by what I consider to be the least troublesome of my transmission issues. I mostly worry about the "stalling" action when the car accelerated from a stand still. I am really bothered by the hesitation when I try to accelerate quickly from a very low speed. And I am concerned with the self acceleration at 23 mph, when slowing down while coasting. I have gone as far as I can tolerate with Lexus. They've taken up a great deal of my time and I have received nothing but insults, and intimidation. I hope you have better results than I've had.

I have had all of the transmission problems that have been described by other members and have continued to try to have my problems addressed by various Lexus personnel. Not satisfied with the visit to the dealer’s service department, I phoned Lexus’ main office and asked to speak with customer service. I spoke with Vaughn Wendlestadt, who scheduled an appointment for me to meet a main office service representative, when he would be at my dealer’s service department. I met with John Loira and Prestige Lexus’ service manager on August 4. After explaining all of my issues, I was told that there is nothing wrong with the car. I was told that the stalling action when accelerating from stand still or slow speeds had intentionally been built into the car for safety reasons. I was told that I must be operating the car with two feet and the car is designed so that if one foot is on the accelerator before the other foot leaves the brake, the accelerator is neutered by the car’s computer. I was told that this action was designed into the car for my own safety because accelerating while a foot is on the brake will cause premature wear of the brakes, and driving with worn brakes is not safe. I was told that the ES 350 is "designed to be driven only by one foot drivers." Pertaining to the breaking and self acceleration of the transmission between 45mph and 20 mph, I was told that this action was intentionally designed into the transmission for various reasons such as fuel economy and cost. I was told that I should never be coasting with my foot off both the accelerator and the brake. Rather, Mr. Loira said, this car is designed to be driven with the driver’s foot always on either the accelerator or the brake. I was told to relearn how to drive so that my driving habits will conform to the car’s design. At the end of this meeting it was decided that a test drive was not warranted since none of my issues indicated any defect in the car. So far it appears that the company is determined to deny that there are any problems and to avoid the issues with pre-packaged replies that are so stupid that they are insulting.

Karen, based on my experience and all of the above experiences it does not seem that we will get any help from Lexus or from the dealers, unless there is some dramatic change, such as someone getting killed because of the unexpected acceleration (hopefully not,) or unless there is a bigger uproar from Lexus owners. Lexus obviously knew about the issues in 2013 and continued to use the same transmission in 2014. My dealer has a prearranged set up to deal with these complaints and his strategy is to wear out the customers and to tell them that the car is behaving properly. I was even told that a big part of the problem is that I am not driving the car properly and that I should learn how to drive. And I was also told that the deceleration is intended to address a problem of premature wear in the breaks. Can you believe that? The only strategy that I can think of right now is to keep writing about these issues on as many appropriate web sites as possible. There must be many more unhappy Lexus owners and they need to be encouraged to make their feelings known in public.

After owning and loving an ES300 for many years, I purchased a 2014 ES350 and immediately was bothered by the same transmission problems that all of you have noticed. My one additional problem that none of you have described is that after the transmission down shifts, if I continue to coast, the car will upshift, giving a slight surge in speed on its own. I phoned to make a service appointment and after I told my problems to the telephone receptionist, she immediately replied that there is nothing wrong with the car and it is operating the way it is designed to operate. She then connected me to someone who appeared to have been chosen specifically to deal with this exact complaint. This person told me that the ES350 is different from an ES300 and that the ES350 has a computer controlled transmission that is designed to operate exactly as I described. I brought the car in for service and went for a test drive with a repair person who appeared to have been specially selected for this problem. He already knew the issues. The problems did occur during the test drive. Although the Lexus service person minimized the problems, he did admit that all my problems were occurring. He said that the car was operating exactly the way it was designed to operate and if I didn't like the way is was driving I shouldn't have purchased it. He suggested that if I don’t like the way it drives, I should purchase another brand (not a Lexus), and trade in my two month old car. A computer check was done on the car, probably because Lexus pays the dealer to perform the check, and the computer verified what I had been previously told, that the car was performing exactly as designed. Up until two months ago, I would not have expected that I would ever purchase any car but a Lexus. I wonder what some other Lexus owners think of my experience.