Following on the footsteps of earlier announcements, a clarifying announcement was made by Toyota regarding faulty engines in some of their Lexus vehicles. Today, Toyota officially notified the NHTSA of its intent to recall about 138,000 vehicles in the United States, for a problem which can cause the engine to stall while driving. The automaker said that most owners who are affected will notice a rough idle or louder than normal engine noise. Read on for my analysis and specific models being recalled.
Toyota says that “the likelihood of a customer vehicle experiencing this condition is two-tenths of one percent (0.2 %).” That means there are about 276 cars out there which will exhibit the symptoms of this issue. Toyota will be sending out recall notices to affected owners soon, and those who receive the letter should contact their local Lexus dealership to schedule an appointment where their car will undergo a diagnosis and repair free of charge.
If you do the math, that leaves approximately 276 cars that would exhibit any symptoms. With the worldwide recall reportedly including 270,000 vehicles, that’s got to be more than one bad batch of valve springs. I think that there was an entire production run of these springs that had the contaminants in them, and Toyota’s got to recall any car that used them to ensure that they don’t have another PedalGate.
The following table lists all of the affected models. Cars built during model years 2009 and 2010 are not affected by this issue, presumably because Toyota switched suppliers, or they’ve gotten a large enough sampling of data to narrow down the problem batch of faulty engine parts to only those used in 2006-2008 3.5-liter V6, 4.6 and 5.0-liter V8 engines.
| 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 |
by John Suit
Source: Toyota