I bought my ES350 in Sep '07. I have about 12K miles on it and interestingly the car lost alignment within 500 miles on 3 occasions (between 10K and 11.5K). The dealer blamed it on me saying I hit a pothole. I asked him to explain to me how a car and me that did not have any problems for the first 10K suddenly started hitting potholes very consistently and that within 500 miles each time. After the second alignment, the car started exhibiting weird patterns. It would pull the left on certain days and right on other days on the same roads. The service manager gave me a "technical" explanation to this which the diagnostic expert did not agree with (wish they communicate between themselves first!). After the third alignment, the steering was crooked and even with mild acceleration, the car pulled to the right (which the field tech from Lexus explained as Torque steer which I did not experience when I first bought this car). The car consistently pulls to the left when on the left lane (have a RAV4 and have driven multiple cars on these same roads and have never experienced issues).
Please let me know if anyone else is experiencing similar issues (Torque steer that was apparently muffled when we bought the car and severe pulling issues).
If you are interested in what happened, read-on.
The field tech originally agreed with the problem regarding the pull and finally determined that the car had "no apparent drift" and everything was normal but adjusted the preload on the steering regardless and claimed that I asked them to! I spoke to Lexus HQ and told them about how I'd driven a 2008 ES350 which showed no torque steer no pulling to one side. They agreed to have another dealership to check the car (I was given a specific person's name to speak to Don O' Connor from Woodfield Lexus in IL). I called up and setup an appointment. On the D-day, I went and explained all the problems and told them I would like to take the car for a test drive. I was asked to wait until Don was in the office (turns out that he is the General Service Manager). I went in to speak to him in his room. He asked me why I was there when the field rep had "determined" that there was nothing wrong with my car. I told him the whole story about why I disagreed and the Lexus HQ had asked me to come to them for a second opinion. Don refuted the fact that I had called for an appointment (it was his associate that called me to setup the appointment and said Don was very busy when I asked to talk to him). Don even refuted the fact that Lexus HQ had told him about this (I was told my the HQ person that they would speak to Don about it before I went for my appointment because of my previous experience reg. the same issue there which I explain later). I spoke to the HQ again and they were "very sorry" about the whole issue and said that hey had left him a voicemail. He also said he speaks to Don on a daily-basis. This whole story does not corroborate at all. In my opinion, there is something wrong with the car that they refuse to admit. I have been asked by them to go to arbitration now after having wasted my time.
I had also previously gone to Woodfield Lexus to get a second opinion (this was before the field tech even inspected my car). I was told that I would have to pay for the diagnosis out of my pocket because Lexus would not pay them. The reason I was given was the fact that Lexus only permits 1 alignment during the first 12mos of 20,000 miles (He initially told me it was a wear-n-tear item and was not covered under warranty!). I told him that my warranty booklet did not have a numerical limit on it. To this the service manager told me that there are a number of items not listed but are not covered under warranty such as light bulbs. This is a VIOLATION per Magnuson-Moss act. The written warranty is required to be unambiguous. Service not performed under the written warranty is a violation as well.
I have since read enough literature on Torque Steer and vehicle pull and the issue seems to not be connected with alignment but rather with certain other internal issues that they are not willing to advertise. Every review of the ES350 clearly states that torque steer is muffled even at high-acceleration from slow speeds. I understand Torque steer is a issue with FWD cars but technology has also come a long way with fixing it. I test drove a Accord V6 and a Maxima (2009, not the earlier model) and i did not experience any Torque steer. Plus the Lexus also has a lot of electronic controls to fix all these issues.
Lets see how this issue goes. Please let me know if anyone else experiences the same problem as I do.
