AtWhatMileage
Engine · 11 owner reports

Other engine problem on the 2006 Lexus IS

1 fire 1 of the 11 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.

Only 3 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.

Reports of this failure 11
With an odometer reading 3
Reports per 1,000 built 0.1 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 33%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 1
Typical repair $300–$4,000
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 3rd

When other engine problem gets reported

There are 11 reports of other engine problem on the 2006 Lexus IS, 3 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 3 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 67,151 miles — —

Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.

What a percentile can and cannot tell you here

These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.

What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.

Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.

What happens, and what it costs

Of these reports, 1 a fire is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.

Putting it right typically runs $300–$4,000 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.

The same failure on other years

The same failure is reported on 4 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2007, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2008 at 95,000 miles.

By volume the 2006 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.

If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.

Median
  1. 2002 Lexus IS other engine problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  2. 2003 Lexus IS other engine problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  3. 2005 Lexus IS other engine problem 47k
  4. 2006 (this one) 67k
  5. 2007 Lexus IS other engine problem 12k
  6. 2008 Lexus IS other engine problem 93k
  7. 2009 Lexus IS other engine problem 40k
  8. 2010 Lexus IS other engine problem 81k
  9. 2011 Lexus IS other engine problem 115k
  10. 2012 Lexus IS other engine problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  11. 2013 Lexus IS other engine problem 64k
  12. 2014 Lexus IS other engine problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  13. 2018 Lexus IS other engine problem
    no odometer readings given
    —

Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

Vehicle randomly shakes, intermittently runs rough while braking. Dealer could not diagnose issue 3 times until recent check found engine pistons and valve springs need to be replaced. Lexus agreed to accommodate service and labor costs but parts are back ordered requiring a week or two wait time for repair. *tr

67,151 miles NHTSA complaint 971664 filed 2013-04-02

Tl* the contact owns a 2006 lexus is. While driving 50 MPH, the vehicle lost engine power and stalled. The vehicle was taken to an independent mechanic for diagnostic testing. The contact was informed that the bolt used to secure the housing and sprocket of the variable valve timing system failed. The vehicle was included in NHTSA campaign number: 13v395000 (engine). The contact stated that the vehicle was towed to the dealer for the recall repair. The contact was informed that the dealer would repair the vehicle according to the recall; however, any damage caused to the engine from the failure would not be covered under the recall. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 135,000.

135,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1215232 filed 2015-09-02

Also reported on the 2006 Lexus IS

Other body or interior problem

45 reports median 68k

Other visibility problem

27 reports median 72k

Wiring harness or short circuit

8 reports median 115k

Other powertrain problem

6 reports median 95k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 11 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.

Complaints are voluntary, so 11 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.

Questions this page answers

At what mileage does other engine problem happen on the 2006 Lexus IS?

Across 3 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 65,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other engine problem on the 2006 Lexus IS?

11 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.

What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars

Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed