From an article in a Fleet News Supplement Lexus gained the heady heights of 8th place in a relaibilty poll.

The poll was taken from multi marque leasing companies.

Results were.

1. BMW
2. Honda
3. Toyota
4. Ford
5. Volkswagen
6. Mercedes Benz
7. Audi
8. Lexus
9. Mazda
10. Vauxhall

As this is down to reliability only not how the garages perform I would give it more credence than a JD Power survey..

Obviously problems with the diesel have brought Lexus down..

hello ....and goodbye !

Don't see any reason why...........


Surprised to see BMW at the top though, from what I've heard their reliability hasn't improved much............

I thought honda would be number 1 tbh. Bit surprised about bmw being number 1, thought they have quite a few issues with the diesel engines dont they?

QUOTE (AntiStasiCrusader @ Nov 21 2008, 03:09 PM)
Beware. Topics like this have a habit of degenerating into a moderator infested/pulled thread.

QED

he will have more regenerations than doctor who soon. :lol:take a look at the twenty page thread about the engine problems with the320iat e90posts.com,the ultimate driving machine.

Blimey, well that's put me off ever going anywhere near a 320i or 320d as they both seem to be having serious problems, far worse than anything I've heard on here about the IS220d!

Diesel is hurting Lexus, an the way UK fleets are configured, Lexus will need a diesel to be competitive. Not sure how well their Hybrid can compete though. Not at all surprised by BMW, fantastic [diesel] engines - which are now being licenced to Mercedes Shame to see Lexus come so low in the table, but the lack of diesel will hurt them in this country.

Mercedes aren't collaborating with BMW because they're such good engines, they need to work together to survive through the current crisis - I'm sure they're not entirely happy about it because as good as BMW engines are, they're relatively brittle and comparatively Merc engines are bulletproof.

In this ridiculous current CO2 driven society, yes Lexus are in trouble without any diesels but more recently the problem is less about emissions and more about just buying any car at all - of which all prestige manufacturers are being hit quite hard by. Lexus's problem now is their lack of smaller cheaper models but they don't have real problems due to the strength of Toyota.

It isn't collaboration it is out and out BMW supplying [diesel] engines to MB to use. Perhaps it has to do with the market circumstances or it is BMW being ahead of the curve making money out of licencing their technology (like IBM w/their PCs) where they cannot through their cars - and sorry, there is no way Merc. engines are 'better' than BMW engines. if they were, doubt Merc. would be using them!

...Ofcourse given the quality control issues Merc. have had with electrics and build quality of late - it is hardly surprising.

I don't want to go too far off topic on this, but not quite, the rumoured deal is supposed to bring together the items that neither manufacturer has. Mercedes wants BMWs small engines, and BMW in return wants Mercs stonking V12 to use in the 760 and Phantom. It's very much a collaboration to prevent neither company wasting money developing new engines when perfectly good ones already exist. I'm sure the diesels will also come into it, but it's not purely a deal of BMW supplying Mercedes.

In addition, I'm pretty sure BMW wouldn't give up all the technological gadgetry that makes their diesel engines so great, they'd merely give them the block so Mercedes still has to do the important bits themselves to truly "make" the engine - I'd be very surprised if BMW just gives them a ready to go engine that will just drop into their cars.

I didn't say Merc engines are better than BMW engines, I said BMW engines were more brittle. In any case, some Merc engines (AMG ones in particular) are fantastic, so it does go both ways a bit.

Don't want to add fuel to the fire, the account manager of our leasing company had been offered some IS250 auto's no mm at 30% discount... In other words Lexus will pay for the depreciation,

Also what I don't understand is that Toyota came in 3rd and Lexus 8th when in reality we are talking about the same engine / company

I don't know if it's down to weight, gearing or what, but the IS220 engine works far better in the Toyota models it was designed for. Even the RAV 4 D runs better. I can't see the survey result being blighted by the IS250 so I would agree the IS220 has done a lot of damage for Lexus. That and the shoddy dealerships attitudes towards customers.

I think you're right, as this is a lease survey the majority of cars in their books must have been diesels and these are bearing the brunt of all the reliability issues. Haven't heard of many problems on the 250 except for rattles so I think that one must be ok.

Also isn't the 220 engine in the Lexus different to the Toyota one in that it has modifications to make it much cleaner? Isn't that the source of all the problems? And similarly why BMW seem to be having the same (or even worse) problems with their 320d?

@ Lex Bhoy: That is quite a discount, are they brand new cars? I guess it's not that unreasonable as I'd expect you could probably easily get 15-20% off by just walking into a dealer nowadays............