RX in NC

If the RX300 you're considering is all-wheel-drive, spend some time on this forum searching the topic "transmission failure". Be aware that a number of us here believe that the all-wheel-drive transmission is the absolute weakest link in the RX300 series. This is primarily because our AWD transmissions have failed and have had to be replaced even with proper care and cautious driving habits. Our original transmission died at about 48,000 miles and was replaced under warranty. But unless you can obtain the true and accurate maintenance history of the particular vehicle you're looking at, I would not even consider purchasing it (and that goes for any make or model with that many miles on the odometer). No telling what type of abuse or neglect it has suffered from previous owners. I would especially be concerned with what fluids might have been poured into the transmission case. My daughter has a 2000 Grand Cherokee with about 79,000 miles on it and it's been a great vehicle. The only out-of-the-ordinary failure she's experienced with it was having to put a new crankcase position sensor on it last March (about $150 if I remember correctly). I maintain it for her and it's really been a piece of cake. We've had two previous Grand Cherokees in our household, both of which exceeded 130,000 miles with nothing but routine maintenance (and one rebuilt alternator). Be wary of that RX unless you can obtain the service history. Good luck to you.

You're already on the right track - this is usually caused by a clogged AC condensation drain tube. However, we used to own a 1989 Acura Legend. The only recurring problem I ever had with this vehicle in 13 years of ownership was that the rainfall drains built into the sunroof would periodically clog with debris and when that happened, rainwater wound up on the floorboard underneath the carpets of both the driver and front passenger positions. Blowing out these rainfall drains with compressed air was a trick that the Acura dealership recommended at least yearly in order to avoid this problem and they were always willing to do it at no charge in order to keep us happy with the vehicle. Once I learned that tip and began to take advantage of their offer, we never experienced that problem again.

The longest-lasting set of Michelins I ever had were a set of XZX's made in Spain in either 1977 or 1978 and mounted on my 1974 Datsun 260Z. They lasted about four years and went beyond 80,000 miles.

Changing your brake fluid is fine but I do not believe that it will resolve the problem you've described here and in your previous post. You indicated that your current brake fluid appears clean and is at proper fill levels, so it is far more likely that you have a mechanical problem within your braking system. I assume that your pads still have plenty of wear left and that you are not metal-to-metal on the rotors (or getting very close to metal-to-metal). Brake noise can sometimes be difficult to pinpoint once you've ruled out worn pads or rotors. Sometimes the pads change their seating, sometimes shims that should have been installed were not and it takes time and wear to make the brakes begin to get noisy, sometimes foreign substances get on the pads or rotors and cause noise, sometimes a warped rotor is the culprit, etc. etc. etc. Good luck with your analysis this weekend and here's hoping that you can pin down the problem and fix it.

First, determine whether you have any brake fluid leaks. If you're losing fluid, you look for the source of the leak and then go from there. From my own experience, an intermittent brake problem after a particular vehicle was 6 to 8 years old was traced back to the master cylinder beginning to fail. But it could be a number of other things instead. Check your brake fluid condition first and determine if you have a leak.

wwest, If your viscous coupling system has indeed failed, I assume you are planning to stand your ground and insist that Lexus cover all diagnostic and repair costs regardless of whether or not your original warranty has expired (I'm guessing that it has). Please keep us posted on the results as to what Lexus diagnoses and whether Lexus covers all repairs of any failures discovered.

Very simple if you're a stickler for financial details as I am - taking a severe bath on depreciation overrides the relatively decent resale value of an RX300. I plan all of our vehicle purchases from a tax standpoint down to the last minute detail. As long as my financial model doesn't change (and it hasn't thus far) I will not come out even or ahead until my wife's vehicle reaches 125,000 to 130,000 miles. Once that happens, you can bet that it will be evicted from our garage....

Once again monarch misses the point of the post. If you own an RX, DO NOT TOW. The transmission is the Achilles heel of this vehicle. If you tow, you are going to increase your chances of transmission failure.

Today's better motor oils do not need additives of any kind. Often, additives cause more problems than they resolve. Select a good quality oil and use that and only that in your crankcase.

Same here. I simply watch the condition of our pads and rotors and inevitably wind up just replacing pads at anywhere from 60,000 miles to close to 90,000 miles on our vehicles that do a lot of highway driving. I've found the RX300 semi-metallic OEM pads to be good quality and long lasting. No need to upgrade to ceramic from a performance standpoint - after all, the RX300 certainly isn't a hot rod. In fact, it usually can't get out of its own way....

You are describing the very same symptoms that my wife described to me in October 2003 with her 2000 RX300 at about 48,000 miles. The only difference is that her vehicle did not have to be cold - this "transmission brain freeze" could happen intermittently at any time, but it most often occured at speed on the highway when she would attempt to pull out into the left lane to pass a slower-moving vehicle. Scared the hell out of her, made her lose all trust and confidence in her RX, and led me into a one-month battle with Lexus to replace her transmission under warranty. They finally gave in to my pounding on them and replaced her transmission in mid-November 2003 and while we've never been happy with the rough shift points (on both the original and replacement transmissions, by the way), the vehicle is now approaching 102,000 miles, I change the Type T-IV fluid every 30,000 miles and check the fluid levels and condition every weekend, and all is relatively well from a transmission point of view with this vehicle. But she'll never completely trust her vehicle again and as a result it is our first and last RX....

I stumbled upon the best way to carry loose change about 15 or 20 years ago. Store clerks and cashiers still make comments such as "what a great idea" or "my husband does that too". For those of you who have 35mm cameras, you may be used to buying your Kodak film in the small black plastic cannisters with the grey plastic tops. Those empty cannisters make perfect loose change containers. You can pop the cannister into your glove compartment, your hopefully unused ash tray, your door tray, your console tray, or anywhere else you choose to put it. It's the absolute best way to keep all of your loose change in one small, tightly-contained place. If you don't own a 35mm camera, ask a friend that does to give you a couple of his/her empty film cannisters. They may already understand why you would like to have a couple of them.

Like any other manufacturer, Lexus dealership service quality varies from one location to another. As a rule, informed and savvy owners will always negotiate their way to better service, but you sometimes need to exhibit a "refuse to cave in" mentality to make that happen. You're giving up too easily in your particular case. If the manufacturer of the window deflector as well as another Volvo dealership acknowledge that your deflectors didn't cause your problem, why are you letting your current dealership push you around? Use this information vigorously to get your faulty regulator replaced under warranty. If your only reason for considering selling your Volvo is a negative service experience you had with a dealership, then your most practical and common-sense solution is to find another dealership. You will take a financial bath on depreciation if you elect to sell or trade your Volvo at this time. And depending upon how much warranty you have left, it may soon be time to start thinking about finding a local service shop that specializes in Volvos. You'll typically find as good or better service expertise as well as far better pricing at these specialty shops. There are two here in the Raleigh area that have outstanding reputations. One of them has been in business almost 30 years. Hopefully you'll encounter a similar situation in your neck of the woods.

The crux of the matter is that "monarch" dispenses (some would say preaches) more incorrect and sometimes blatantly moronic advice on this forum than all of the other members combined. That's fine (and can actually be quite entertaining) with folks who are experienced and knowledgeable about general vehicle maintenance and repair, but it is very misleading and sometimes dangerous to deliver incorrect and stupid advice to first-time neophytes who are finding their way to these forums asking for help with a particular problem or issue and have no way of recognizing valuable information vs. potentially dangerous information. I have no desire to "flame" monarch, but whenever my bull*BLEEP* detector goes off after reading another one of his idiotic posts, I'm going to warn folks about it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions but dispensing blatantly wrong maintenance or repair advice to defenseless car-care rookies should not be tolerated by any of these forums.

Another bull*BLEEP* post from "monarch". Hopefully nobody's paying any attention to this guy anymore. Hoses from ANY manufacturer can fail within 3 to 4 years, particularly if the vehicle operates in extremely hot or extremely cold climates. You should inspect your hoses every time you do an oil-and-filter change. Look for tiny surface cracks and put your hands on the hoses you can reach. If you can rub off the outer surface of the hose on your fingers as you're flexing it, that hose is in the early stages of breakdown. But don't confuse surface dirt or grease with a hose's rubber compound. Clean that hose before you perform the flex test. Also, body and chassis nuts and bolts can begin to work themselves loose after just a year or two depending upon their design and quality, whether they were properly torqued at the factory, and also depending upon the condition of the roads you frequent and how many miles you drive. If you take your vehicle off-road, this issue can be one that must be dealt with on a routine basis. SITE MANAGEMENT: This guy "monarch" delivers so much incorrect information on this site it's not even funny. Experienced owners and long-time LOC members probably see right through most of this crap, but very inexperienced owners may take his advice without questioning it since he posts so much. That's a real shame, and unfortunately a disservice to your membership.

Read the title of his post. I would interpret that to mean the engine was sludged and had to be dealt with. Hopefully he'll respond and clarify.

I've been mounting our various vehicle tires blackwall-side-out for years and years. As long as the tire you've selected is not unidirectional, you're fine. The vast majority of SUV and truck tires can be mounted either way. Regardless of the vehicle, I believe that a tire always looks better blackwall-side-out. The white raised-letter look is just way too NASCARish for me....

Glad you're happy with your results. Judging from your subject line, you experienced a sludged or gelled engine in your RX. What approach was taken to resolve this problem? Was the engine simply cleaned or was it replaced?

There's a lot of information on this forum concerning premature transmission failure in the RX300 all-wheel-drive version. A number of us have suffered from it. Search this forum using "transmission failure" as your key words and you'll learn more than you'll ever want to know. In a nutshell, you should change your transmission fluid immediately. No telling what kind of fluid has been put in there to this point, and that's something that is now beyond your control and may wind up biting you big-time. If I were you, I'd spend some time reading about how to change the fluid here on the forum, and then go to my closest Toyota dealer and purchase five quarts of Toyota Type T-IV transmission fluid and then go home and change it. Be sure to pull both drain plugs on your transaxle pan in order to drain as much as whatever fluid is in there now as you can. You'll need a 10-millimeter Allen wrench (hex wrench) in order to pull both plugs. Close to five quarts should drain out of your pan. Be sure to clean the magnet on the tip of the drain plug with a clean rag before you reset it. Look for metal filings or shavings on the magnet tip - if you see quite a bit of that, you may be faced with a transmission that has been running around with incorrect fluid and may therefore be preparing to give up the ghost. I change the transmission fluid in my wife's 2000 RX300 AWD every 30,000 miles, but it's never run anything but Toyota Type T-IV fluid. In your case, not knowing what's been poured into your transmission case over the years, I would change your fluid every 15,000 miles as some folks on this forum do. Good luck to you. Let us know how your situation turns out. These RX transmissions are the weakest component in the vehicle, and you really have to baby them to keep them in as decent a shape as possible.

My personal favorite would be "Baby, don't wear your golf shoes when you walk all over me...."

I recommend that you spend some time looking at various tire ratings at www.tirerack.com. The BF Goodrich tires are not rated very highly in terms of treadwear as well as some other important factors. You'll need to decide what factors are important to you - cost, treadlife, road noise, road comfort, wet traction, etc. After doing so, you'll probably be able to narrow down your tire choices to two or three models. By the way, the OEM Bridgestone Dueler and Goodyear Integrity are two of the lousiest tires you could possibly choose. It's really a shame that Lexus slapped these tires on the RX series at that time. Over the past 18 months or so, a lot of small SUV owners have chosen either the Yokohama Geolander HT-S G051 or Firestone Destination LE as solid all-weather tires at a great price point. After years of thinking that I would never buy a Firestone tire again, I researched the Destination LE tire based upon the strong reviews it was constantly receiving (especially for wet traction which is extremely important to my wife) and made the decision to order a set (225/70/16) for my wife's 2000 RX300 AWD in December 2004. That set of tires now has about 24,000 miles on them and they have held up beautifully while delivering great traction in the rain and snow. Be aware that you have to pump them up a bit more than I was used to in order to get them to perform at maximum efficiency - I run them at about 36 psi. But they hold their pressures well and they really have delivered great treadwear and performance for the money - I ordered them from tirerack.com for about $280 plus shipping although I'm sure they have increased in price since then. They carry a 60,000-mile warranty and it appears that my wife will get at least 50,000 miles out of these tires if they continue to wear and handle as they have thus far. For the money, that's a great deal in my opinion. Our experiences with this set of Destination LE tires caused me to put a new set on my daughter's 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee back in November when she needed new tires. She's been just as happy with the new set on her Jeep as my wife has been with the current set on her RX300. I rotate all of my tires at each oil and filter change and always advise that others do the same. I also check all tire pressures WEEKLY, not monthly. That is critical for finding slow leaks or imbedded nails in time to repair the tire before it is ruined. Good luck to you and let us know what tires you decide to go with.

I've had multiple senior Lexus technicians on separate occasions confirm that our 3-litre 2000 RX300 engine is indeed non-interference. Keep in mind that the source of the above-referenced quote is "monarch". As far as I'm concerned, his credibility on this site has eroded to the category of "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"....

It would not surprise me if Toyota purchases its transmission fluid from multiple suppliers using a low-bid process and then simply repackages it to give the appearance that it is exclusive to Toyota. I've always stated on this forum that I'm sure there are many other options out there that are chemically better than Toyota's Type T-IV fluid from a lubrication perspective. But I always advise that you stay with Type T-IV fluid until you no longer expect Lexus to provide a replacement transmission for you in the event that yours fails. From a legal standpoint, that's your absolute best option since all owners are advised through their owners manuals to run Type T-IV fluid in their transmissions. If you opt to use something else, you are essentially letting Lexus off the hook for early transmission failure. And that is simply not worth the risk as far as I'm concerned. I've already forced Lexus to replace our transmission once, and if this one fails you can bet that I'll be forcing them to replace it again. Keeping Type T-IV fluid in our transmission, as required, was the silver bullet I used to demand that Lexus step up to the plate. If I had been running Amsoil or something else other than Type T-IV, Lexus could have told me to sit down and shut up....

I can perform all of the requirements specified in the 30,000 mile service interval for about $50 to $55 in parts and fluids and less than 90 minutes of my time. When I read posts like this one, it infuriates me how badly uninformed or catatonic owners get ripped by their dealers over and over again....

Gotta love those Aussie Cattle Dogs. Enjoy, and I hope you're stocked up on Gatorade, bananas, and citrus because she is going to wear your !Removed! out.... She'll be herding the squirrels, geese, and maybe even the neighborhood kids by the time she's six months old....