martinb

Hi Alan, Unfortunately I purchased the RX300 secondhand from a non franchised dealer (November 2006 - with 22k on the clock). And despite the services having been carried out and Lexus honoring the remainder of the warranty, replacing corroded wheels and roof rails and replacing the battery when it failed , they did not want to know about this problem as the warranty period was up, stating that the purchase from a non franchised dealer as the reason. (When the fault occurred the car only had 31k on the clock.) Yep I would certainly encourage all RX300 owners to take a look and add additional protection to that connector, because as you point out it is rather a large chunk of change to fix a poor design fault. Although admittedly the connector does not look like a cheap under specked part. I don't suppose they (the dealer) intended me to walk off with it, but I have a photocopy of the "Strictly Private and Confidential" Technical document that describes the issue and has a picture of the connector on the pump. The picture shows a bad corrosion; well that is what it looks like to me from the black and white photo copy. My connector however does not show any corrosion that I would consider should cause a problem. Not wanting to shell out just short of a 1/4 of what I paid for the car 14 months on, I have ignored it and hoped it would go away. Obviously I have brake tested it and she still stops OK, but last week I did have a bit of a wakeup call when the car in front didn't stop in time to avoid flattening the bumper of the car in front of them. This caused me to really stand on the breaks, at which point I deduced from the subsequent tire squealing and smoke that was generated, that the warning light showing that the ABS is not working is telling the truth! Needless to say I had adapted my driving style accordingly. OK, so I can't ignore it forever, I understand that, and with the MOT due in September I will be forced to do something about it before then. My initial thought was to hardwire the loom to the pump - Cut the connector off the loom and solder “patch leads” between the loom and the pump. But that would be based the assumption that the problem is with the female part of the connector, as there is no significant corrosion on the male (pump) side. However if I do that and the problem persists, logically meaning that the problem is actually with a faulty pump rather than with the connection, I am stuffed and will face the prospect of having both replaced. So, what I am having to come to terms with is having the pump replaced, and if that fails to resolve it, then hard wiring the loom to the new pump. With that approach I am still looking at a bill for just over £2K. The dealers recommendation was to replace the loom first and then the pump if replacing the loom does not fix the problem. Seems like a more costly approach to me. Before I do anything though, I think I will first bag up the connector with some silica gel and leave it for a day or two to make sure it is bone dry and give your idea of WD40 a go. Then try and find a local garage who can test / reset the alarm - but I am just not sure if any local garage will have the tools to be able to do that. Until I had this problem my opinion of the Lexus Dealership I have been using was very high, but now I rank them (rightly or wrongly) along with the other main dealer who have tried to rip me off in the past (both Ford and Vauxhall). May be this is a bit unfair as the problem is with the car, but my natural distrust (based on experience) just makes the £5k quote hard to swallow. Perhaps I'll try the other local(ish but less convenient) Lexus dealer once I am ready to have the system tested / reset. As for the extended warranty, well hindsight is a wonderful thing. BUT, I was not offered it. Would I have taken it out if I had been?? To be honest I am not sure, as I have never had a major component like this fail on any of the cars I have had. Lesson learnt, the hard way. Reagrds - Martin BTW - just re reading my original post I should have added that shortly after the problem started the lights then remained on all the time.

Hi Bob, About a month ago my 2004 RX300 lit up the VSC and ABS lights on the dash. The next day each time I started the car the lights would be off but light up again after only a short distance (a couple of hundred yards). I took it to my Lexus dealer who after trying to reset the system produced a Lexus technical document (dated Dec 2005) that explains that the problem is probably due to "water / corrosion within the actuator connector" (the connector that joins the brake pump to the wiring loom). They said that they had found water in the connector, had tried to dry it out but the problem remained. Sure enough when I got the car home I took the connector apart and found that there was moisture still within it. I was quoted £5,128.52 to fix the problem. £2085 for the wiring loom and £1725 for the pump (add to that the labor and Tax). As the car has been serviced as required at Lexus dealerships and was only six months out of warranty you can imagine how I felt when the Dealer told me that Lexus were not interested in contributing towards what to me seems like a design fault. At the time I checked to forums and searched the rest of the web and could not find anyone else who has suffered the same sort of issue but it sound like you may be another victim. To be honest I am unlikely to buy another Lexus. Regards - Martin BTW - If Rob does help you out with his ODB cable, the diagnostic code for this problem is apparently C0274