Car Surgeon Birmingham - Review

[YTL2000]

Before I start, I am in no way affiliated with the company other than being a customer.....

Car Surgeon details:

Imran - 07853 355 415

Booking by appointment only - located in Digbeth, Birmingham B5.

Car Details:

2009 Lexus IS220d Facelift

60K (bought on 35K)

Ventura tuning box

K&N Panel filter

Always run on branded diesel and only ever used 1 full bottle of Millers Diesel Power Ecomax in 25K miles

Car Symptoms:

P2002 DPF error code

Engine light and VSC light

Limp home mode

Car would take forever through each gear to get any movement to the point that it is not safe to drive and try manual DPF regeneration

Type of driving I do:

Average of 1500 miles a month

Journey lengths on a long run vary between 100 - 250 miles

Short journeys to the office no more than 2 miles and shopping trips are half that.

What happened:

Half way through a 120mile run on a Saturday night, with cruise control on sitting at 75, the car suddenly felt as if it hit a wall. Cruise control turned itself off, warning lights came on and the car started to lose power. You could press the accelerator but car was hesitant but would pick up although a little slower than normal. After a short period, the car lost all power and pressing your foot to the floor did nothing. I had to pull over and restart the car, however, the warning lights were still on. Limp home mode was still engaged but the car would let me drive in a relatively normal manner for 5 minutes, at which point it would lose all power and another restart was required. Using the stop start method was how I got the car home.

I spent most of Sunday early afternoon trying numerous manual DPF regen tests to no effect. This included multiple attempts of sitting on the drive for a long period of time holding the accelerator at 3k revs and driving the car in limp home mode using high revs. Nothing worked.

At around 5pm, I called Lexus Roadside Assistance who sent the AA round. The ADD discovered the P2002 fault code and suggested not to drive the car unless it was to a garage. As the Lexus Roadside Assistance includes a courtesy car, they arranged this for me on the spot with Enterprise and I was able to pick up a brand new Mercedes Benz E250 with 3K ish on the clock.

On Monday, I limped the car to Lexus next day who charged £75 for them to do their own checks. A day later, they said I needed to the following work doing: new EGR vavle, inlet manifold cleanse, dpf cleanse and 4 hours labour totally £900 with no option of discount or good will gesture.

What Car Surgeon did:

Knowing of Car Surgeon through this forum, I gave Imran a call on the Tuesday. He is very knowledgeable, friendly and to the point. He arranged for my car to be picked up on a low loader from Lexus Erdington and taken to his workshop within an hour or so of speaking to him; where he started work on it right away. The work he did included a dry cleanse of the EGR valve, DPF rejuvenation and cleared all error codes. This came to £339 including recovery.

Once the car was done, he did a 42.6 mile test drive in the evening including some form of live data testing. The car was ready to pick up the following day (I do believe he does offer a same day service if you need it).

Typically, the EGR valve is covered in dry soot and at work, can be caked on in hard crusty layers. Mine happened to be pure sludge, almost lava like. Due to how the tuning box works, I have since removed it to see the effect on the car but may put this back on at a later date.

How the car feels now:

Based on doing approximately 350miles since getting the car back, the car has been a joy to drive. It is very smooth and feels like it breathes better with no hesitation through the rev range. The car also pulls from around 1500rpm in all gears including 6th; which, like most, was previously un-useable until getting to approx 80 and above. General pick up is much better and the car sounds and feels better. Driving around town, I can now use 4th gear doing 30 if I chose to where previously I would sit in 3rd until 40mph.

Summary:

Overall, I am amazingly grateful to Imran for all of his help. He offers a first class, honest and trusting service which is rare to find. He is knowledgeable about the IS220d, cars in general and would therefore definitely use his services again.