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Charcoal Canister Recall


bestcover
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Hi - a new member with a ct200h. Have just had the charcoal canister recall completed. Collected car Friday 22 Oct but had a strong smell of petrol in the car. Dealer said they may have spilled some petrol on the carpets as the tank was full. Lexus apparently should have told users to take the car in with a half tank at most but the letter did not mention it.

Long story short, they replaced the carpets and I collected the car on Wed 27 Oct BUT I still have a fuel smell. The dealer says it is normal for a few days but it is now 9 days since the original job was done. Has anyone else had this experience?

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Hi bestcover and welcome to the forurm

after 9 days i would be going back to the dealer and telling them there is still petrol fumes in the car and its affecting you i.e. feeling headache'y and you need them to sort it out once and for all

let them have your car in the workshop with the doors open to air the car and let the fumes out ,they may even find a seal hasnt been fitted properly and this could be the cause of the petrol smells still.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just had mine done a week ago. The smell did linger for about 3 days, but seems ok  now. 

Also had half a tank of fuel. Lexus Bradford topped it up to a full tank.:yahoo:

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Funnily enough, while I was in waiting for my puncture to be repaired last week, the lady on the service desk was ringing customers to book them in for recall work, she quite clearly stressed that the cars should have less than half a tank of petrol, one customer even commented that he had only just filled up and it would be January before he'd have half a tank, this made me laugh!

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Hmm.. I wonder why the Lexus technicians feel that it isn't possible to check the fuel level and  to pump out the tank to a suitable level prior to starting their task (where necessary) and pumping the fuel back in again on completion of the task.

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21 hours ago, colin79666 said:

Do they have to take the back seats out to get at the part?

Got mine booked in for the end of the month.

I believe they do need to take the back seat out to get to the tank. 

Mine had another recall done at the same time. This for a weakness in the side airbags mounting. This required taking out the roof lining.

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5 hours ago, kal said:

I believe they do need to take the back seat out to get to the tank. 

Mine had another recall done at the same time. This for a weakness in the side airbags mounting. This required taking out the roof lining.

Thanks. I know some cars have it in the engine bay but believe the CT has it near the tank. Must be from under the car then.

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Hi all

Yes they do have to take the back seats out and fold back the carpet. There is a plate under the back seat above the fuel tanks and they have to remove it to get to the charcoal canister. If you have more than 3/4 tank fuel, they may spill some - hence the smell.

In my case, they spilled petrol onto the carpet and so it was much worse. They ordered and fitted new carpet but the smell was still present 9 days after the canister replacement. My problem was that I was going on holiday for 3 weeks and needed to drive to the airport leaving my car there but couldn't drive 70 odd miles with that smell which could also affect my luggage. Upshot was that I told Lexus I needed a courtesy car which I would park at the airport and drive back after the holiday. Customer service is great because they agreed and promised to sort my car out while I'm away.  Hope they do.............

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I would add that I was told the letter from Lexus said about going in with 1/2 tank fuel but it does not!  My Lexus dealer is now sending a separate letter out when recalls are booked in. The workshop manager added that they always know when they have a recall job in because the workshop stinks of petrol all day!

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Thanks. Nothing in the letter but my dealer advised going in with 1/4-1/2 a tank. They said they couldn't do it if it had more than half a tankful. I'll be sure to completely empty the boot them if they are going to have to take apart the back seat area. As mine isn't until near the end of the month I'm hopeful they will have gained some experience from others before the tackle mine.

I know how bad fumes in the car can be. Has a Fiat a few years ago that had a split breather pipe twice. I did the best I could with duck tape but the fumes still got into the cabin through the heating system so had to drive to the dealer with all the windows down. Second time it happened I couldn't bare the smell again and as it was out of warranty then I just ordered and fitted it myself at home. Don't fancy doing the charcoal canister through, sounds like a much more involved job!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well had mine done this week and no issues to report. Had a nice run around in a NX courtesy car for the day while the dealer sorted out the recall work (loverly to drive but I couldn't live with sub 40 MPG). They also topped up the tank before I collected it :smile:

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Good to hear you had no issues.

Got my recall letter yesterday for both the charcoal canister and airbag issue. Letter advised less than 3/4 tank of fuel but i intend to get it down to less than half. I only filled the tank the same day as the letter arrived, so it'll be a while!

The MOT expires in January, just wondering if they could do the whole lot on the same day?

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Not sure how long the airbag issue takes to resolve. They had my charcoal canister job turned around in about 4 hours and it might well have been under that if they didn't start straight away. Allowing an hour for the MOT it would leave 2-3 hours probably for the airbag job and service if required.

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On 03/12/2016 at 0:25 PM, colin79666 said:

Not sure how long the airbag issue takes to resolve. They had my charcoal canister job turned around in about 4 hours and it might well have been under that if they didn't start straight away. Allowing an hour for the MOT it would leave 2-3 hours probably for the airbag job and service if required.

Have to agree with you.  My charcoal canister was done and ready to collect in about 2-3 hours.  So they might be able to do it all in one day.  It depends on their staff on the day and what other jobs they have booked.  

Just a thought regarding the 1/2-1/4 full tanks ... There's no reason they can't syphon a full tank to a more suitable level before commencing the job.   However, we all fill our cars with different brands of petrol.  Some are more costly than others.  Lexus would need separate storage for each fuel tank so they don't get mixed up when refilling the tank.  As for topping up the tank on return ... well they didn't take away any premium petrol so you won't have lost anything.  Just a thought ... 

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Hi all

Saga over - collected car having had courtesy for a month at the airport while I was away. They had cleaned it and apparently had employed a specialist contractor they use to remove tobacco and animal smells from 2nd hand cars - the car is sealed off, the bad air sucked out and clean air pumped in. Anyway it worked and I now have a clean car. It would seem the problem was that when syphoning the petrol out, they spilled some on the carpets and floor. Carpets replaced foc - alls well that ends well

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  • 1 month later...
Not sure how long the airbag issue takes to resolve. They had my charcoal canister job turned around in about 4 hours and it might well have been under that if they didn't start straight away. Allowing an hour for the MOT it would leave 2-3 hours probably for the airbag job and service if required.

Well I finally got around to booking the car in today as the MOT is due next week. I asked about the two recalls and was told they weren't doing them at the moment as the parts were on back order, so I'm booked in for just the MOT, they'll let me know when the parts are available.

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  • 5 months later...

I had the recall work done by Lexus Hatfield. They returned the car to me with more petrol in it than it had when they collected it. There was no smell of fuel. I assume that they had indeed pumped out the tank prior to commencing the work and had subsequently refilled with sufficient fuel to get the car home . The smell of fuel being apparent in some peoples vehicles after the recall tells me that their Lexus garages managed to spill fuel into their cars whilst my Lexus garage didn't. This endorses my opinion that Lexus outlets are as good as the people they employ. Some are good and some are not so good. If your car came back smelling of fuel whilst other peoples cars had the same work completed and didn't smell of fuel, you can draw the obvious conclusion. 

The subject of full Lexus service history came up again recently... I believe that some people are putting far too much faith in the words" Lexus full service history" It all depends on who has been doing the work( trained, qualified, experienced and able) and did they get out of the right side of bed that day.... and nothing much more than that. Or should we believe that  some ninja infiltrator broke into the Lexus garage to spray the insides of recalled cars with petrol because it couldn't have been  said trained , qualified and experienced Lexus operative?:wink3:

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