Please Help

[mustangs]

My wife and I are looking at a RX 300 year 2000. Runs and looks great. it has 74k miles. The price is excellent but it has a salvage title. That does not scare me off due to the way the car runs. The person has had this car about a 1 year and stated no problems. Any ideas from anyway for what i need to look at? thanks inadvance for any help. ds

[wwest]

My wife and I are looking at a RX 300 year 2000. Runs and looks great. it has 74k miles. The price is excellent but it has a salvage title. That does not scare me off due to the way the car runs. The person has had this car about a 1 year and stated no problems. Any ideas from anyway for what i need to look at? thanks inadvance for any help. ds

It has become very clear that the '99 RX300 has some sort of serious transaxle design flaw that results in many (probably still a minority) of them failing "prematurely" in the range or 70-80,000 miles. Toyota/Lexus has made no admission of same other than oftentimes compensating, in some manner, owners of failed transaxles outside the warranty.

It appears to be indeterminant as to whether the '00 and later models of the RX300 series might or might not be subject to these failures. The fact that Toyota/Lexus adopted DBW with the RX330 probably addressed the failure issue since factory reps have said that DBW is used to "protect the drive train".

But I can tell you that the ATF in my 2001 AWD RX300 looked and smelled burned at only ~40,000 miles and I drained and refilled it. My 2001 had no requirement for ATF drain and refill but Bellevue Lexus insisted it needed to be done every 15,000 miles, EXTREME IMMHO. But the factory rep verified that yes, the 15,000 mile term was correct.

So here I am at ~65,000 miles, checking the ATF condition upon each oil change, awaiting the coming day (soon?) my transaxle will need to be replaced/repaired.

[mustangs]

My wife and I are looking at a RX 300 year 2000. Runs and looks great. it has 74k miles. The price is excellent but it has a salvage title. That does not scare me off due to the way the car runs. The person has had this car about a 1 year and stated no problems. Any ideas from anyway for what i need to look at? thanks inadvance for any help. ds

It has become very clear that the '99 RX300 has some sort of serious transaxle design flaw that results in many (probably still a minority) of them failing "prematurely" in the range or 70-80,000 miles. Toyota/Lexus has made no admission of same other than oftentimes compensating, in some manner, owners of failed transaxles outside the warranty.

It appears to be indeterminant as to whether the '00 and later models of the RX300 series might or might not be subject to these failures. The fact that Toyota/Lexus adopted DBW with the RX330 probably addressed the failure issue since factory reps have said that DBW is used to "protect the drive train".

But I can tell you that the ATF in my 2001 AWD RX300 looked and smelled burned at only ~40,000 miles and I drained and refilled it. My 2001 had no requirement for ATF drain and refill but Bellevue Lexus insisted it needed to be done every 15,000 miles, EXTREME IMMHO. But the factory rep verified that yes, the 15,000 mile term was correct.

So here I am at ~65,000 miles, checking the ATF condition upon each oil change, awaiting the coming day (soon?) my transaxle will need to be replaced/repaired.

I ran a car fax on it, and it appears that it has about 25000 miles on it since repaired. is this a good sign? d

[tmastres]

My wife and I are looking at a RX 300 year 2000. Runs and looks great. it has 74k miles. The price is excellent but it has a salvage title. That does not scare me off due to the way the car runs. The person has had this car about a 1 year and stated no problems. Any ideas from anyway for what i need to look at? thanks inadvance for any help. ds

Add $5000 to the price you're getting the vehicle for and then ask is it still a good deal? I have a 2000 RX with 104k mi. on the clock with no issues but after seeing the failures of other transmissions I would buy another RX only if it were at very good price (and they're usually the opposite because they retain so much more value than other brands). I like the vehicle a lot ,I only wish someone could solve the transmission failure problem.

Other than the trasmission failures (which seems to be completely uncontrollable) and the 99,00 engine sludging issue (which IS controllable) the RX 300 series seems to have no other major or even moderate issues with it.