Lexus IS aircon diagnosis charge

[Dave2P]

Having had good service from Lexus up to now, we booked our IS300 in for an aircon regas, for which we were quoted £109 in advance. Seems a little steep but gets it done by Lexus, so ok...

My better half arrives with the car; "oh, we need to diagnose the fault first, which will be £200 on top"...

Is this normal, or do we need to find ourselves an independent garage?

[Tabs]

Can't comment on the costs, but if your's is an IS300h, be aware that it uses special fluid if using an independent.

[tr7v8]

Tabs said:

Can't comment on the costs, but if your's is an IS300h, be aware that it uses special fluid if using an independent.

I assume you mean because its a hybrid. Yes it will the gas will be the same but the PAG oil will be none conductive as it cools the battery as well.
It needs a purged machine as you must not contaminant the gas & oil with conventional stuff.

[Dave2P]

Thanks both - that's useful info (and, yes, it's an IS300H), so we'll stick with Lexus.

Anyway... more than one of us was confused today...

Having told my wife they'd need to "diagnose" it before re-gassing; when she later collected it, they told her they'd gassed it first anyway (and topped up the super-duper magical fluid), and found everything working perfectly so didn't need to do the diagnosis!

So all's well that end's well, and we'll get on with the rest of our lives...