ihg777

Thanks to everyone for these excellent advise. I did register at the Lexus owner site and was ASTOUNDED by detailed result of what was done to my car! I had lengthy discussion with one of their senior mechanic at the Lindsay Lexus. He was very exhaustive in his explanation, including pointing out the "official IS 350 manual" has documentation of acceptable level of oil consumption and my loss of 0.5 quarts at 1000 miles is well within the acceptable level. He also gave me a detail explanation of difference of "direct injected" engine and how it's common for "high performance vehicle, including BM* and *udi has similar oil consumption with their high end cars. All in all, this has been one enlightening encounter. I did tell them that if low engine oil warning comes up again, I will bring it back for their attention. It seems kinda tedious to have to check the engine oil every 1K miles, but I guess that's the price you pay for having 306 ponies under the hood? Thanks once again to everyone!

Thanks for your kind advise. I bought this IS 350 used. I noticed the "low engine oil" couple of month after I drove the car. I will ask the dealer today whether this IS 350 had oil consumption issue with the prior owner. The concern with oil burning was initially noted by my expert mechanic friend who has his own shop and deals/repairs Japanese made car, including Lexus. He went through the after purchase evaluation and noted that my exhaust pipes had inordinate amount of "black soot" on the exposed out let of the pipes and told me "better keep an eye on this, it may mean the car is burning oil." He told me the adverse effect of oil "burning" at the wrong place in the engine. I am going to try to convince the dealers to "tear down my engine" and rebuild them. How? I am open for your suggestion, if I don't succeed by speaking with the service manger. I don't think Lexus wants to have reputation of having it's owners pour oil every 2000 miles. That seems kinda ridiculous to me. Especially when we pay up to ying yang for car with reputation like Lexus.

Thank you kindly for taking time to respond to my inquiry. I am still trying to figure out , before my IS reaches the 100,000, how "burning oil" in an engine will decrease the life expectancy of my car. My hope, in a weird sort of way, is to have another round of "low engine oil," warning lights to go off, so it will be a THIRD time that I will have the lexus re evaluate my concern. I am hoping to drop a line to the media, about how Lexus, the manufacture who "relentlessly pursue perfection," will tolerate it's engine burning half amount of oil before it's factory recommendation time!

I just had my IS 350 at 70,000 miles, evaluated at the dealer for "low engine oil" warning lights, This is a second visit to this dealer for the same warning light popping up. This dealership has been changing my oil and has also been documenting all of my visits. With the latest episode, the dealership had to call the "Lexus engineers" located in California to see if it was "normal/acceptable" to have 0.5 quarts of oil burn/loss at 1100 miles. After first time it happened, the dealers seems to have increased their evaluation metrics. The response I got was " it is normal and acceptable to have IS 350 burn 0.5 quarts of oil for every 1000 miles. If I have to, I can always put 1 quart of oil every 2000 miles." I have done as much research as I can about "what is acceptable amount of oil being consumed in between the oil change," and I am quite confused. The service consultant told me that as "long as there is no black smoke coming out," I should not have to worry too much about oil burning. W.T.F??? If that statement is extrapolated, that means "It's acceptable to have 2.5 quarts of oil burned (0.5 quarts burned at rate of every 1000 miles and factory recommendation of oil change at 5000 miles.) between the normal frequency of oil changes? That's almost half of the 6.7 quarts of oil that is poured into the engine with every oil change. THIS IS NORMAL???? A good friend of mine is a mechanic and he shared some horror story about the long term effect of "oil leaking" into the combustion area. I appreciate any and all advise I can have about what I should do. I do love my IS 350 and I would love to get some direction as to what I should to next??? Thanks