lenore

thats Lexus new safety feature, when cold and you step on it, the other drivers can plow into you when you don't move. I noticed that on the loaners that we had when my RX300 was getting its second and third transmission. My wife said no way in h ll would she own a RX330.

I agree sounds like the cover for the filter assembly is missing. Better go to Lexus and see if they can get the part or find one in a junk yard.

Hey my daughter through was considering a Chevrolet Tahoe 2001 but I felt it is not a good realiable car. Today she is considering a Toyota Sequoia 2001, 2002. Does anybody have any input good or bad?

No, the transaxle output drives the center diff'l directly. The center diff'l then drives the front diff'l and the PTO. The PTO is driven via a hollow shaft surrounding the right front half shaft. At least that's the "case" according to the Lexus shop manuals for the 2000, 2001, and 2004 Rx AWD systems. Don't have the manuals for others. I use the ECT switch a couple of times. After each use I could smell hot trany fluid. I stopped using it. If you use ECT and accelerate aggressively you're asking more of the transaxle's 2nd gear clutches than they can provide without slipping and overheating. The transfer case drives the left drive shaft, it also drives the front differential directly which has the right drive shaft and the PTO drive shaft coming out of it. The PTO drives the rear differential through the drive shaft.

The transfer case shares the tranny fluid, this provides drive to the front differential that provides drive to the rear differential through the drive shafts. I do not have trac lock, the 1999 RX300 only has ECT and another position which holds each gear longer on shifts.

Wow that baby looks great. Did you buy from a private party or a dealership?

Well just changed the rear differential fluid (second time) Made my own tool for easy access by cutting a 10mm allen off to fit inside a 10mm socket so I could use a socket wrachet wrench. This made it real easy to manuever the allen into the plugs on the differential with extensions. Put in 75-90 GL5 synthetic. the rear fluid looked much better than the front differential. Held 1.9 pints (1 quart approximately) by the way I drove in the snow up at Lake Tahoe today, could have sworn I smelled burning bands. Good God I just change the fluid with filters for the third time in less than 15K total miles on the new tranny which was installed just a little over a year ago. Boy I love the AWD. Lexus sucks bigtime not fixing this weakness or at least reprogramming the shift points for the over drive. I Drove on the ice and snow with the Snow ECT position on. IS this not good? Anybody else use that switch. Car seemed to do fine without it switched on. I guess I will change the fluid again this week. ARGGGGGGG. Just no excuse for this. Should have bought a Honda.

I removed a crank pulley bolt on a Dodge Caravan by jamming a wooden handle behind the pulley. But the bolt was a bas%^%$ and it took me 3 hours to get it off. The next pulley I removed on a Mercedes took less than 1 minute with the use of an air wrench and air compressor. Sorry but being an old mechanic myself the investment at Harbor frieght tools for a air wrench and cheap $169 dollar compressor will save not only your time but a tremendous amount of swearing. Plus look at it this way you will have a compressor and air wrench for the future, and air your tires up. The other way to look at it is that the dealership will charge you 10 times that amount.

I don't believe so as Dexron II is no longer produced, I have been told III replaces the old II.

A lot of times you can trace the trace (printed copper strip) on the board to the end and sometimes there is a plus or Minus marking. The other way is see if there is a common trace to all bulbs, this can sometimes be the negative. But the voltmeter is the final say.

Oh by the way if you read the threads, you will have less pain and heartache if it is a two wheel drive vehicle. The AWD has an inheret weak point in the tranny. It can cost big bucks, $$$4300 or more.

If 18.5k is the suggested price, give them a bottom line price of 20.5 k out the door with all of the existing offers, then don't visit them, tell them to call you when they can meet that offer, otherwise sit tight. Believe me they are making too much, I have been burned many times by my own anxiety. I have used this method the last four vehicles, and succeeded everytime. I just wish I had learned these lessons years ago. They probably got the car for 16 or 17k. Good luck

I told my wife about your fall, and she said is he looking for a girl friend, I said no since I saw your post the other day. She was trying to find our daughter a new recruit. Anyway take care of that leg, and be very thankful for your fellow soldier saving you. I hate accidents, but I am very glad to hear you are OK.

glad your ok

Note: I would not suggest a tranny flush other than the means of flushing by hand through the cooler. You may dislodge particles into your valve body assembly otherwise. Drain and fill every 5k for three changes and hopefully you will have bright red fluid.

Yes the front differential and rear differential use GL5 standard gear oil. I switched to synthetic myself. the transmission has a transfer case which gives drive to the front differential which provides power to the rear drive shaft. both the front and rear differential uses 1.9 pints fluid ( about a little less than a quart) So you would need two quarts to do both front and rear.

Also look on the firewall where the vacuum booster is, the master may be leaking through to the booster.

Probably you will have to access the right rear panel in the trunk and disconnect the power lead to the motor.

You are correct, I didn't read the 30k service, I only saw the fluid flush. that $151 was for a tranny flush.

I believe there is a rubber drain plug under the spare tire. look carefully, maybe it is missing.

Your idler sounds bad to me, should be smooth, and not wobbling.

I agree either one of the idlers is failed or one of the components driven by the drive belt froze up or has a great deal of drag.

I don't know if the dealership ever even looks for the failure, they said they do not rebuild transmissions but instead use rebuilts from their sources. So unless we could dial in on their transmission rebuilder for LExus and find out the failure points in the RX300 tranny we the John Que Public customer will never know. My transmissions both came from back east, so who knows? It would be interesting to know the failures, I know when I dropped the valve body assembly, it was contaminated with metal debris, from where I don't know. I could not see visually any fretted gears from the bottom. So goes the mystery of early failure of a tranny that was serviced every 30k miles.

The Tekonsha Prodigy is the best constroller I have ever used, it automatically senses level and adjust for the load by the slope. great controller can be mounted at vertually any angle. Obtained it on Ebay from some gentleman in Ohio brand new in the box for $50 less retail price, I think It was around $75.00

If the 2004 and later vehicles changed firmware to fix the problem, then why in the &*($# doesn't Lexus do a firmware solution for the old RX models and gain some faith from their customers of past. I would love to have a solution to my 1999 RX tranny early failures. I Love the car but hate the pain of having to pay again for the transmission. ($4300). Firmware cannot be that expensive compared to the tranny cost.