Is220D Head Gasket Gone

[pauls13]

Just to give you all an update, the Car is still with Lexus being repaired. They have had the car now for 6 weeks. Will hopefully find out tomorrow where they are in regards completing the repair

[mpls]

May I ask what is the symptom for blown gasket ?

1. Lift bonnet and take a good look at the coolant expansion tank. You DO NOT want to see any oily residue mixed in with the water coolant. You want to see just pinky coloured liquid.

2. Take the oil filler cap off and take a look inside. Oil residue should be oil ONLY. If you see a residue that resembles mayonnaise in there be very concerned. Take look underneath the cap you have just removed too!!

These are two very sure indicators of a blown Head Gasket.

Many Thanks !

[oisin]

Just an update on my car. I have been being told for the last 2 weeks that I should have my car next week every time I ring. My car is with Charles Hurst Lexus Belfast 5 weeks today. I was told on Friday that it was going in on Monday. I rang yesterday and was told its only stripped down and it will probably next week before I get it.

A warning to anyone who has left there car with Belfast you will have a long wait ahead and don't beleive the timescales given. I was told 2-3 weeks, more like 6 and I got mine in before the 10 others behind me.

[oisin]

So I got my car back 6 weeks later. It was sparkling clean until I found 2 marks on top of the rear bumper.

Can anyone else tell me if they paid any money towards the repair and if so how much cause I think I have been charged and shouldn't have been and before you ask no service stamp was issued.

[pauls13]

I got my car back a week ago from Poole Lexus having had half the engine replaced under warrenty and the only thing i paid for was for a new dip stick for £13

[steve2006]

I got my car back a week ago from Poole Lexus having had half the engine replaced under warrenty and the only thing i paid for was for a new dip stick for £13

Funny question I know but why did you have the dipstick replaced? It's a piece of metal with a grip at the top that measues the oil level so will never wear out.

[pauls13]

Apparently it was broken, which I dont ever recall seeing??

[White1D]

Just wanted to say sincere thanks for the info in this post (and thanks to my mate Jase for pointing me in the right direction to find it!)...

Symptoms were 1) the heaters were blowing cold air for the last few weeks even when they were set to hot and topping up the coolant seemed to have fixed it in the short-term, but after few days later the problem was back 2) fan would kick in randomly, even on short journeys and 3) on a motorway run the engine temperature went off the scale!

Mine is 2006 220d with 75k and I took it to Lexus Stoke for an intermediate service and asked them if they knew about this issue, they said they had never seen it before so I pointed out it might be a 'known' problem and they should contact Lexus UK to confirm, I asked them for confirmation the head gasket was OK if they couldn't find any issue and within a few hours they called me to say yep, Head Gasket has gone and they will fix under the extended warranty.

They said it would take upto 2 weeks, so fingers crossed it'll be sorted soon!!

[pauls13]

I dont think you will get it back in two weeks, because the dealer will need to get Lexus UK to authorise the repair which will take upto 6 weeks, mind took 8 weeks in total

[White1D]

Car is back, 2 & 1/2 weeks later...all good so far - no over heating and the Heaters are actually warm now! Even though the seat memory and seat belt hack was lost, I have no complaints yet!

[Ducatiman]

Im just curious how much would it cost to fix such problem???

My IS220D Was 115,000 miles old when it started to use coolant. Diagnosis was the cylinder head gasket ! I had an extended warrantee but they initially refused the claim, something to do with the head gasket not being a 'mechanical part' ? Anyhow Lexus Swindon made them see sense. The bill for the repair ?? Six thousand pounds, yes that's right £6,000 !

Needless to say I have traded the 220d in for something a little newer, namely a IS250C SE-L - Awesome car.

[Mr Pranks]

Hello,

I have owned my 220 since 2009 (57 plate), roughly doing 19K miles a year.

My recent dealings with lexus have encouraged me to sign up as amember of the owners club and feel I HAVE to tell members of my experience.

I usually get 58-62mpg, recently my MPG dropped to roughly 46-48MPG no matter how carefully I drove, I done a bit of research and realised it could be a faulty head gasket.

I have a lexus extended warranty which costs 1 arm, 2 legs and a half a teste. i.e it is extremely expensive. The dealer advised that the head gasket was failing and would repair everything under the extended warranty and even gave me a beautiful blue is200F as a run around.

After a few days; the total cost of the repair was £5000 (whole new engine replacement), all covered under the warranty. I looked under the bonnet and nothing really looked any different but the car did feel slightly different in terms of more power but it was less economical (bear in mind it was a very short trip from the center to home), I will monitor the performance during the coming weeks and report back, hopefully im back up to my 60MPG!

I want to commend Lexus' customer service, they have been second to none here and highly recommend them, as previously stated i will monitor and report back - hopefully my view does not change.

Hope this post helps anyone that was in the same situation as me.

Aaron

[steve2006]

Hello Aaron, welcome to the LOC and many thanks for posting up your positive experience with Lexus and the 220D engine problems.

We have another member here at the moment who has also had an engine rebuild/replacement and is now suffering from other problems so your post may give some hope to others in the same position.

[Chuckie888]

I think the name says it all.

Hello,

I have owned my 220 since 2009 (57 plate), roughly doing 19K miles a year.

My recent dealings with lexus have encouraged me to sign up as amember of the owners club and feel I HAVE to tell members of my experience.

I usually get 58-62mpg, recently my MPG dropped to roughly 46-48MPG no matter how carefully I drove, I done a bit of research and realised it could be a faulty head gasket.

I have a lexus extended warranty which costs 1 arm, 2 legs and a half a teste. i.e it is extremely expensive. The dealer advised that the head gasket was failing and would repair everything under the extended warranty and even gave me a beautiful blue is200F as a run around.

After a few days; the total cost of the repair was £5000 (whole new engine replacement), all covered under the warranty. I looked under the bonnet and nothing really looked any different but the car did feel slightly different in terms of more power but it was less economical (bear in mind it was a very short trip from the center to home), I will monitor the performance during the coming weeks and report back, hopefully im back up to my 60MPG!

I want to commend Lexus' customer service, they have been second to none here and highly recommend them, as previously stated i will monitor and report back - hopefully my view does not change.

Hope this post helps anyone that was in the same situation as me.

Aaron

[Simon_D]

Just out of curiosity..... is there a fix for this problem or are Lexus just replacing with the same parts?

My wife's Saab 9-5 head gasket failed at about 5 years and 50k miles (the turbo was on its way out too but that is another story!) They just replaced the gasket and a few other bits and sent her on her way with a huge bill. It has always amazed me that main dealers see a new gasket as a fix for a blown one without ever considering what caused it to fail in the first place. It seems that the "they all do that sir/madam" is the service managers' panacea.

That Saab was the most unreliable vehicle we have ever owned. We traded it immediately after the head gasket had been "fixed" as unless the root cause had been addressed it would only have gone again in a few miles.

Why are Lexus being congratulated for covering these failures under a very expensive extended warranty? When the Vanos failed on my BMW MCoupe, BMW covered the cost even though it was almost two years out of the original warranty and I had never purchased an extension.

[Mr Pranks]

Hello all,

update as follows..

This is the email I have sent to Lexus today (please note I have hidden peoples names out of respect.

"Hi xxxx,

I called last week and spoke to xxx with concerns that my MPG were no better than when I handed my car in before all the work had been carried out. xxx advised that I had to break the engine in to around 1000 miles before I could get an accurate/reliable reading of my MPG and ensured it would return to normal.

Today I drove back from work and noticed very sluggish performance and very low MPG, I got home and noticed that the coolant level was just below the low level; when I picked my car up last week I checked before I drove it away and it was just under the top level. I am hugely concerned that I have lost so much coolant in less than a week.

I am extremely dissatisfied at the moment and am questioning whether any work was actually carried out, I dread to think that if I did not have the warranty and if Lexus UK did not honour the head gasket fault, would a bill of nearly £5000 be appropriate if the only difference being that the car goes through more coolant?

I will top up the coolant level tonight and monitor it during next week, if I see it go below a reasonable amount I will no doubt bring it straight in to be looked at.

I want to reiterate that I am hugely dissatisfied here, not only that the car has had a head gasket fault at this early stage of its life but a list of parts changed, spanning almost 2 pages, costing £5000 has not remedied the fault and has only made it worse.

I will be in contact with you at some point next week.

Aaron"

Thanks,

Aaron

[Mr Pranks]

Head gasket gone is220

[Chick155]

Have got my car back now, after quite a wait, which I must say I was warned of.

Engine removed, head off, gasket out. Head twisted, so new one fitted with new gasket. New EGR valve and 5th injector and quite a few other parts replaced too. All of this work covered by the extended warranty offered by Lexus (mentioned earlier).

First decent run this weekend doing 260 miles. All went well, car feeling good again. Drove at various styles to see how the engine responded. All was good and despite the periodic heavy throttle use I was getting 44mpg.

Personally, I have nothing but praise for the way Lexus have resolved this problem. Well done Lexus..... for listening and responding in the right way.

The Dashboard 'crack sound' was sorted too.

I am very happy to read your comments here today Normski - I too live in Wimborne and have this morning dropped off my IS220D Sport to Lexus in Poole for this problem to be fixed by them as they told us when I called them to order the parts (we were going to fix ourselves) that they have indeed extended the warranty on this model because it's a known fault. I have been paranoid about what to expect and whether I will get a massive bill if they try and get out of it so I can't thank you enough, reading your comments has really put my mind at rest.

I am also now looking forward to getting my car back next week and driving it again once it's all fixed :-)

[normski2]

Have got my car back now, after quite a wait, which I must say I was warned of.

Engine removed, head off, gasket out. Head twisted, so new one fitted with new gasket. New EGR valve and 5th injector and quite a few other parts replaced too. All of this work covered by the extended warranty offered by Lexus (mentioned earlier).

First decent run this weekend doing 260 miles. All went well, car feeling good again. Drove at various styles to see how the engine responded. All was good and despite the periodic heavy throttle use I was getting 44mpg.

Personally, I have nothing but praise for the way Lexus have resolved this problem. Well done Lexus..... for listening and responding in the right way.

The Dashboard 'crack sound' was sorted too.

I am very happy to read your comments here today Normski - I too live in Wimborne and have this morning dropped off my IS220D Sport to Lexus in Poole for this problem to be fixed by them as they told us when I called them to order the parts (we were going to fix ourselves) that they have indeed extended the warranty on this model because it's a known fault. I have been paranoid about what to expect and whether I will get a massive bill if they try and get out of it so I can't thank you enough, reading your comments has really put my mind at rest.

I am also now looking forward to getting my car back next week and driving it again once it's all fixed :-)

Glad that what you have read here helps. Let us know how you get on with all the remedial work and what needed to be done.

I'm very intrigued to know you have a garage in Wimborne!!

[Graham_NI]

Hi all, firstly thanks to all who posted info about this problem.I accidently came accross this post,i am dyslexic so tend to be reluctant to read unless it is relevant too me. I was having problems turbo lag etc, but no more due to a new engin and a new cam belt kit all suplyed by Lexus :-) so thanks to you all, i have posted all details, under - header tank overflowing.

[normski2]

Good to hear that Graham.

Once it is all I would consider using BG244 once every 8k miles, or so. Also try AR6200 fuel additive,I find it works really rather well.

Check your EGR valve every 5k miles if you only do short journeys. It will only take you 40 mins once you have done it a couple of times.

[BB1000]

I'm confused lol

will Lexus repair the head gasket on a 2007 car 65000 miles or will only repair if you have taken out the extra warranty ... only had mine a week and am now worried about head gasket problems :(

[normski2]

My understanding is that they will cover to 7 yrs or 110,000 miles with the addition of having a Lexus service history stamped up in your service book(legally questionable and challengable I would think).

If you can take out the warranty I think you would be quite wise. Mine went at 106,000 on a 2007 plated car. I had a FLSH with 6 service stamps.

However this is apparently a design flaw/manufacturing fault so I fail to see why a FLSH is mandatory. I think that in European Law that is illegal as it represents a restrictive practice. The very fact of having a FLSH does not prevent the problem happening and neither does the use of an independant servicer promote the likelyhood of it happening.

[BB1000]

ok thanks for the info ... have been looking for warranties tbh ... Lexus on being the most expensive :s

[jason61c]

its the most expensive but if you get 2 years with the AA cover included for you and your other half it works out better value.....