My IS 250 SE petrol Automatic needs a new engine after only 70,000 miles , as it has lost coolant and overheated to such a point that the engine is beyond repair. The dealer (and Lexus UK) blame the engine failure on the fact that the car had not been serviced for 15,000 miles, though it had a complete service record up to 55,000 miles, but every time I enquired about how often the car should be serviced, I was told that the onboard computer would show me when it was due for service – it never did. In the end, I booked it in for service with the dealer, but too late - the engine packed up 48 hours before the day I had it booked in for.
The dealer also accuses me of having ignored warning lights – but there was no warning till a few minutes before it finally packed up, and even then it was only the VSC light which came on.
On the basis of the electronic log, the dealer tells me the engine reached a very high temperature, but the AA man who worked on it on the spot (it broke down on the M5) mentioned nothing about the engine being especially hot, even though he arrived too promptly for the engine to have had much time to cool down (it was also a warm sunny day). In fact, he mentioned nothing about coolant loss, and his tentative diagnosis was a problem with the cam chain.
