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More Details on the Lexus Valve Spring Recall

Lexus has issued the list of vehicles that will be covered by an upcoming valve spring recall on the company's 3.5-liter V6 (north-south version only) and 4.6-liter V8 engines. The 5.0-liter V8 is also included, but only the version in the LS 600h. Yamaha builds the 5.0-liter in the IS-F and so a different valve spring supplier is used, Toyota's Bill Kwong told us. Toyota says it has notified NHTSA of its intent to file a Defect Investigation Report on July 5.

The recall will cover 138,000 cars in the U.S. Lexus estimates there's a 0.2 percent chance that any of these vehicles will actually experience a problem. Yes. That statistic is in the press release.

Model Model Year
GS 350 2007
2008
GS 450h 2007
2008
GS 460 2008
IS 350 2006
2007
2008
LS 460 2007
2008
LS 460 L 2007
2008
LS 600h L 2008

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7 Comments

firstwagon says:

01:42 PM, 07/ 2/10

Toyota isn't taking any chances these days.

desmolicious says:

04:04 PM, 07/ 2/10

That .2% thing is a nice spin by Toyota. It still means, if you believe that it is only .2%, that 276 cars sold may have sudden engine failures while being driven.
Not a good time if you owned one of the 276 cars and were trying to merge onto a freeway.
Of course they needed to do a recall.
At least all these cars have properly functioning fuel tanks (unlike that other Lexus recall from a couple of days ago) so if you get hit from behind when your motor quits, gas stays in the gas tank.

cr_driver says:

04:26 PM, 07/ 2/10

Lesson learned?

haub says:

05:31 PM, 07/ 2/10

This is odd considering my friends IS250 had its valvesprings replaced due to a CEL and misfires - all under warranty and through a TSB from Toyota. Not a recall.

ne1butu2 says:

06:02 PM, 07/ 2/10

Toyota is dealing with a lot of different .02 percent problems lately. With all the various serious defect that they're experiencing, the odds are actually quite high that you'll experience one of them.

hondacura4 says:

10:31 AM, 07/ 5/10

At least Lexus/Toyota is doing a recall unlike Mercedes and it's 1.8L Kompressor I4 (C230#. My best friends 2005 C230 Kompressor Sport 6MT had to have all of its valve springs replaced #under warranty) and the tech stated that it was a known issue yet only involved 2004/2005 C230s.

desmolicious says:

08:51 AM, 07/ 6/10

In actuality it was a design flaw, not contamination that was the root of the problem.

http://www.startribune.com/business/97792289.html

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