Rx300 Awd Transmission Failures

[douglasmiami]

Interesting - so how would I find out this "in service" date for my car? Would I have to call Lexus? Or would it be located somewhere else? I don't have the original owner's manual. Would it be on the title for the car?

[RX in NC]

I doubt if your original in-service date is on your vehicle's title. However, Lexus Corporate maintains this information. Call them with your VIN and ask them for it.

The original selling dealership would also be able to supply you with your vehicle's in-service date. If it came from a local dealership, it may be easier and faster for you to obtain this information there rather than from the often-unhelpful staff at Lexus Corporate.

[jgr7]

Run a carfax report and it will tell you the in service date, the date the dealer sent registration to DMV.

[Jeffchs32]

I have '99 RX 300 AWD with 57,000 miles on it.  Two weeks ago, I noticed on way to work that transmission wouldn't shift into 3rd (?) gear and I would have to accelerate or decelerate to get it to shift after RPMs climb to 3,000.  This has only been happening after the car has sat for several hours (i.e. morning and on way home from work), and it will only happen after initial "takeoff."  Once I get it to shift the first time, I won't have any other problems until it sits again for hours. 

Does this sound consistent with initial problems that all of you have had?  And I'm assuming from these posts that that transmission is covered up to 6 years / 70,000 miles?  At what point would Lexus acknowledge that my transmission is malfunctioning (if it truly is) and fix?  I don't want to wait until it's too late? 

Incidentally, my transmission has always hesitated a bit, before this recent "sticking" occurred.  But from reading posts on here, I was told this is normal for the '99. 

Thanks for the advice in advance.

DS

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mine does this, especially when it is cold outside....i have found that if i let my car warm up about 10 minutes this does not happen. I am curious if this is a sign of tranny failure as well.....

[bluestu]

Yeah, my 99RX also does the same thing. Lexus told me that the engine has to reach a certain temp. before the transmission will shift into drive or overdrive. I usually let my car warm up before driving on a cold day. It doesn't seem to be as much of a problem in warmer weather. If you watch the temp. gauge, it always shifts into overdrive when the needle reaches the first line on the gauge. I find it to be an annoying engineering design but nothing to worry about.

[jbarhorst2]

They are trying to speed up the warming of the engine and catalytic converters for emission control. When it is cold outside, the tranny will hold the shift points until later to accomplish this quicker warm-up.

It was disconcerting to me as well the first winter we had ours.

Tom

[Ericok]

For what it's worth: My 1991 Toyta Previa works the same way. Transmission final upshift is held back until the engine starts warming up. Once warmed up, the transmission operates as expected. So it's nothing new for Toyota. (By the way the Previa has 216,000 miles on the original transmission, so service life is not affected).

[jgr7]

Ericok, I had a 93 previa with 216k also until a guy made an illegal u-turn in front of me on a 2 lane hwy and I center punched him and totaled it. That was 3 years ago. That van was bullit proof only changed the tranny fluid one time, at 90k miles. Other than brakes ,tires , one set of shocks and struts and one starter at 45k and 2 sets of plugs, cap rotar, one set of wires. I never had to fix anything else. I was going to drive it till it died, which I'm sure would have been many more thousands of miles. Great car.

[rbrown2769]

I had my transmissions replaced in denver in August 2004 and it was a remanufactured transmission from Phoenix Remanufactured Transmissions, The mileage at replacement was 78073 miles. On my cross country trip from Denver to Florida over these holidays, my remanufactured transmission failed at 84,500 miles. I was in Georgia for 5 days before starting to Florida early one morning after about an hour I noticed the transmissions doing some funny shifiting and I had the vehicle towed back to Lexus in Atlanta and they said the transmission is toasted...Oh course Lexus wants $4150 to repair it. Phoenix remanufactured Transmission wants the transmissions shipped back to them before they will honor any warranty. The vehicle ran excellent from 78073 miles to this remanufactured transmission failure, The weird part is that it happened so suddenly, lucky I was only about 60 miles out of Atlanta and I left on the 23rd or I would miss being home for Xmas. The extended warranty covered the first repair at $2898 . but I am not sure about this situation. How can a vehicle like have such a serious transmission failures like this? I can say this, having the transmission replaced by a local transmission shop and travel out of state can cause some problems with an RX300 transmission failure. Lexus really needs to address this transmission problems....

[lenore]

I agree whole heartedly. Lexus does need to address this problem. Wake up Lexus owners and be heard. Enough is enough. The RX300 is a great vehicle, but it should not be having tranny failures like a Dodge Caravan. I expect much better. Even Mercedes does better, and their reliablility has gone down the toilet. Lenore, (On my third transmission)

[ArnoldsLex]

I tell you guys that I am from now on going to go online and join a Forum about the car I am interested in buying to find out it s problems before buying it!! I just assumed being a "LEXUS/Toyota" I did not have to worry about American Car shiot type of engineering. I guess we are all becoming global and the Japanese are now no better. They have been westernized!!

I LOST MY TRANS at 99K!!!! Just yesterday on my 2001. This is Friggin unbelievable! Supposedly the best SUV and I read here that they have been failing everywhere at as low as 50000 miles! Of course since I am the second owner I am screwed! One thing that has always scared me buying elite high dollar cars is the parts cost. Just friggin double it! Damn, I am afraid to go buy a use one if they fail at that low miles. Rebuild the one I got? Get a huge trans cooler and the new fiber filter, use Amsoil or this Scwepco or whatever from Mercedes dealers? Friggin High tech Bull Shiot. This is what happens when you want luxo shifts in heavy car!!!!

Any help? Suggestions where to buy one? Local bone yard as good as any?

[ArnoldsLex]

view this as a lesson learned and move on to something other than Lexus.

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There's no other car maker in the world that can match the overall reliability / durability of Toyota / Lexus. From time to time over it's 40 year history in the USA, Toyota has underengineered a model here and there, but overall a large majority of its vehicles have had a steller record of reliablity and durability compared to European or American makes. If you stray

from Lexus, I would suggest you look at another Asian car maker like Acura or Infiniti if reliability and durability is a top priority. Hyundai is a rising star in this field as well.

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Hey Monarch,

I think their 40 year record has just gone down the Shioter! I just lost mine at 99k!

I have owned 2 Mazdas at about half the price of this rig and drove them both to 180k with no major crap. In fact I just purchased a lower mile 95 MX6 LS 5 spd for my son with a 3rd gear synchro out of it. I new though and bought it cheap this way. Fixed it for 1200.00 installed. There is another big difference. It is just a Toyota trans so price it so not 4000.00.

[lenore]

Yes it is sad, great car, but self destructing transmission. I just went to Los Angelos this weekend from Sacramento, was going to take Lexus but ended up taking my Ford F150 Supercrew. Didn't want any tranny failures on my trip like last time. It is working fine, but I have lost my confidence in the long trips away from home. $43500. auto with 119k miles and third transmission, should have gone an easy 200k without tranny failures. Sorry ArnoldsLex in MO. Write a letter to Lexus of America and tell them how happy you are with their product. See what kind of response you get, keep us posted.

[RX in NC]

ArnoldsLex,

Sorry about your experiences. You've read enough threads on this site by now to understand that the RX300 transmission is quite weak and probably flawed, particularly the all-wheel-drive version. If you fix it and keep it, you must change the fluid at least every 30,000 miles and many here do so every 15,000 miles regardless of what your owners manual says. I continue to run Toyota Type T-IV fluid in ours because I intend to make Lexus put another transmission in place if ours fails again (the original transmission failed in November 2003 at about 48,000 miles). If you've read enough of my posts, you know by now that I despise this vehicle moreso than any other I've owned in 36 years of driving because of its numerous inherent problems and the only reason we've kept it is because our local Lexus service manager keeps fixing it through the Lexus goodwill program, knowing better than to attempt to charge me for known failures and I'm not yet willing to swallow the depreciation by getting rid of it. It's my wife's primary vehicle and is now approaching 97,000 miles. It's at Lexus this morning being inspected for the well-known engine gelling problem. A tendency towards slight oil consumption between oil changes has recently begun and I want to find out why before I decide what action to take.

Pay no attention to "monarch". I believe he's on Toyota's payroll somehow but he stays silent on that subject. He continually spouts that everything on the vehicle should remain Toyota OEM without even bothering to consider better options. Those of us who have been here awhile have learned to take him with a grain of salt. Even one of the site moderators has made comments to him about being duped by Toyota into believing that every component Toyota makes is automatically better than anything else out there on the market. His credibility is shot on this site so don't let him get to you. Your best bet is to just ignore him.

Keep us posted on how you decide to resolve your transmission issue. Good luck with it, and keep in mind that you're not alone.

[wwest]

Not so sure about ATF drain and refill.

Not saying that it isn't a good idea, at least if you check the ATF on a regular basis and change it out only when it starts to look and smell burnt.

The Lexus RX series has an ATF overtemp diagnostic indication light in the instrument cluster. My AWD RX300 has the tow package, including an external ATF cooler, has NEVER towed anything, and yet the ATF was smelling and looking burnt at only 40,000 miles.

It is my opinion that nothing you do will prevent these transaxles from failing "prematurely". Other than some internal preventative maintainance. Like replaceing all the clutch friction surfaces every 50,000 miles.

Replacing the ATF when needed will only delay the premature failures.

[rlin78]

My 99 Rx300 AWD has 97k miles. Even though I only got it 6 months ago, but as far as I know, the transmission is original. The previous owner had all maintenance documents from 56k miles, no mention of replacing transmission. Fluid was a little dark, but didn't smell burnt. I flushed it with Amsoil ATF about a month ago. No change in shifting, but it is still very smooth and feels new(knocking on wood). I probably wouldn't have gotten the RX if I knew the all the transmission problems, but so far it's been ok. I think I saw a few people with over 120K miles on their AWD RX300, I know I am not the only one with a higher mileage RX300 without any transmission problems.

[douglasmiami]

I'm not sure if any of you have read SK Performance's post on external transmission filters, but I did purchase one and installed it this weekend. As of this morning, my longstanding transmission hesitation issues had disappeared. That's not to say it will last, but it was a noticeable improvement. Also, when I took my car to local mechanic, I had them flush the system again and replace the mesh filter. Funny thing was, Lexus had just flushed the system ~3,000 miles ago, and already the mechanic said the ATF smelled burnt and was dark. That's really unbelievable. I don't think Lexus replaced the mesh filter, or even if it was recommended. I'm trying my luck on this external filter for the moment.

[RX in NC]

Glad to learn that you perceive an improvement in your shift hesitation issue. It will be interesting to see if this continues for you. Keep us posted.

If we were going to keep my wife's 2000 RX300 for another five years or so, I would consider adding an external filter as SKPerformance suggests. But we'll probably keep it another year or two and then it's gone as soon as the depreciation hit becomes acceptable. Also, I don't want to do anything to the vehicle that would make it difficult to require Lexus to replace our transmission again if it happens to fail as the original one did. Unfortunately, installing an obviously non-Lexus external transmission filter would provide them with the perfect opportunity to turn me down. So I'll just keep doing drain-and-fills with T-IV fluid every 30,000 miles as our local service manager suggested to me a couple of years ago. As long as I can document that I'm following her advice, I know that another new transmission in this vehicle is only one slippage failure away.

[lenore]

Hey RX I have also instructed my wife to de select overdrive while in city commute driving. Hey good luck, but I suggest 15k fluid changes.

[RX in NC]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'll stick with my 30,000-mile drain-and-fill schedule. That's what has been recommended to me and if our current transmission fails under that schedule, then I'll simply require that Lexus install another one for us. By the way, our T-IV fluid has remained clean, red, and normal-smelling with the 30,000-mile change interval. I hope that our current second transmission will be our final one in this vehicle.