2005 Lexus es330 service history
September 14, 2019
1. The original owner was a retired judge in Ottawa who used his Subaru to go to the boat in summer and the Lexus for winter trips to Florida. After four years he took me to the Ottawa Lexus dealership with him to buy his trade-in while he paid cash for a 2009 es350. He and his wife repeated this process twice more for his son and daughter. His widow still claims that the 2005 was the best Lexus of all of them.
2. Ice fell off his roof in the Glebe and dented the hood on one occasion. A scrape in a parking lot caused the trunk to be repainted on another. Though he took it back to Tony Graham’s for the repairs, neither paint job was up to Lexus standards. My wife and I were about to trade the car in at Kingston Toyota a year ago when we went to a restaurant for lunch to talk it over. When we came out someone had sideswiped the right front fender, necessitating $1100 worth of paint, including a redo of the non-Lexus paint jobs on the hood and trunk and the left rocker panel moulding which I had partially stripped with a pressure washer. No new parts were needed for this rather fine local repair.
3. I did routine maintenance in our hoist-equipped hobby shop. The car uses Pennzoil synthetic and has never been late for an oil change. Kingston Lexus did the timing belt for the reasonable sum of $835, as I recall. I made appropriate mileage notations in the service manual for the oil changes and timing belt replacement and likely for the tune up.
4. Brian Madeley is a European car and bike specialist in Kingston. He took the top off the engine to change the spark plugs and tighten the head bolts as part of the scheduled tune-up. At the time he remarked upon the superb condition of the car. He also repaired a minor power steering leak about three years ago. I changed the battery at ten years, and the alternator at 14. This spring I replaced the hood latch and cable with Lexus parts. I replaced rear control arms because of worn bushings two summers ago, and brakes and front lower control arms for the safety check.
When I replaced the parking brake mechanism I had to gain access to the cables which hide above a stainless steel cover above the exhaust system. Three, 10 mm nuts on studs hold this baffle in place. In this location after long service, the nuts and studs should have degraded, but these little nuts backed off relatively easily to allow access to the cables, and then twisted back on. The quality of the components in the original build of this car is quite remarkable.
5. I keep a supply of oil spray cans (the pink stuff from CTC) on my bench. Whenever a car is up on the hoist I spray whatever looks as though it needs attention, regardless of the car’s age.
6. Our son hauled an 8.5X20 enclosed trailer home from Vancouver with a 2004 Porsche Cayenne S he bought for the purpose to tow his track BMW. The car impressed me, so I asked him to find me one the next time he was in Vancouver. He shipped another ’04 Cayenne S home by rail in the summer of 2016, and it quickly became my hobby and our daily driver, with the Lexus relegated to my wife’s bi-weekly grocery runs.
7. No one has smoked in the Lexus, but our spaniel has occasionally joined us for evening ice cream runs, and the previous owners had a schnauzer.
8. After three years with the thirsty Cayenne I wanted a Prius, but my wife wouldn’t consider the idea because of the name. She also hated the styling of the new Lexus models, but when I found a 2014 es300h on a private sale in Hamilton, she took to it rather well. The Cayenne is too useful a tow vehicle to liquidate, so the 2005 es330 and the 2002 Tacoma need to go.
the Walnut Diary 