Bill's Lexus

Yeah, that was our "good friends" at Lexus of Orlando. Ken Martin said about $80 for the belt and an hour’s labor (didn’t know they charged $100/hr labor). None of this registered true with me, so I "respectively" declined. I guess we have to pay for their new service building, free snacks and car washes. They nailed me for about $600 for the 60k service, which consisted mostly of replacing fluids. It would have been more except I didn’t let them balance and rotate the tires. I am sure I could have had this done for a lot less somewhere else, but didn’t want just anybody messing with the transmission. Even with this, I am not too sure how competent their techs are. I had a 94 LS400 that they said had a bad mass air flow meter which wasn’t the case (they install one and it didn’t fix it). I suspected it was an oxygen sensor, they replaced one, but the other had seized and could not be removed without R&R the exhaust manifold. I ended up buying the 98 LS400 before they fixed it. I have a 1999 GMC Sonoma truck with 50k miles and the people at Valvoline Oil Change wanted to replace the serpentine belt on a few months ago. Today I inspected the belt and it looked fine to me. I would bet the Toyota belt on the Lexus looks just as good, but it is not as easy to check with out removing some things. I will probably replace the belt in a couple months after it cools down here in FL.

I just placed a post about changing the serpentine belt on my 1998 LS400, and asked several questions that were answered here. Since I probably will only change it once before trading cars, the Toyota belt is the way to go. I found an online dealer that sells them for about $50 delivered compared to after market belts for $30. This leads me to my main question about the difficulty changing it. Do I need a diagram or instructions (and where can I get them?), or is it rather obvious? Thanks, Bill

Is replacing the serpentine belt something I should tackle? The dealer wanted $180 + tax to do it. I checked around and found prices running from $23 at Auto Zone to a high of $50 delivered, for an original equipment from an online Lexus dealer. I also found a Bando brand online for $30 delivered, which the seller said was an OEM. I just had the car in for the 60k service and the dealer said the serpentine belt was glazed and cracked (maybe an exaggeration??). The car is about eight years old, but only has 60k miles, isn't this a little early to need replacing? Does anyone have any suggestions where I could get a diagram or instructions on replacing It.? Thanks. Bill