lenore

I agree the clutch probably is bad. By the way access through the right wheel well by removing the cosmetic dirt panel and right wheel. Access is great then.

Well Some will have good luck, but statistics still show a high failure rate of the AWD transmission in comparison to other vehicles. So be it.

Ok, What is DBW? By the way I have asked my wife to use the overdrive button selected while driving in heavy traffic, stop and go. What is your opinion?

By the way, the 12 volts is there all the time with the car ignition turned off.

If you have a voltmeter you can check which line is hot (12v) all the time. The other line is the line you want to hook the controller to. By the way that is a excellent brake controller. I am using the same on my Ford Truck and it is truely the best I have ever used.

Took my 1968 Jaguar XKE to 152 miles per hour on highway 680 in the San Jose area. I had just finished breaking in the 4.2 liter engine which I rebuilt. Incredibley smooth and very stable at that speed. For a car engineered in the late 50's I was really impressed.

Sorry I can't help you in the bay area, but Maita Toyota in Sacramento changed my timing belt and water pump per my request for $504.00 This was less than half the price at Lexus, and they did a great job. Some times you can work your way into the toyota dealerships by promissing future service when needed. Any good toyota shop won't turn away good business. After all they want to make a profit too. The timing belt and water pump only cost under $200 bucks so the remainder would be profit for the dealership. ← Thanks, Lenore. I called a Toyota dealer in Hayward and they said they could service my RX so I bet I am not the only one that take a Lexus to them for repair. $504 sounds very resonable for a belt and water pump change. I spent close this amount when I did it for my Honda Accord awhile back. ← By the way I had them change the water pump since it is driven by the timing belt. It was a good choice as the bearing in the pump started to show some noise. Ask for all old parts to inspect.

I do not have the manual, But ALL DATA has the procedure online and available on CD for a years subscription. I have personally rebuilt a transmission ( ford A4ld with electronic overdrive ) and have also removed the valve body assembly from the Lexus RX300. But I can tell you that if your tranny went, probably the gears and spacers, or clutch packs died. It does require a great deal of mechanical ability and with AWD dropping the tranny is not as easy as dropping the tranny on a rear wheel drive auto. For your info before I got ripped by Lexus, I was quoted 2500 dollars from a local tranny shop, much cheaper than the 4400 dollars by Lexus. Take everything in consideration and good luck with the tranny rebuild, If you could find a distributor of rebuilt tranny's and did the labor yourself you would probably save a lot of loot. :( ← Dont forget to flush the cooler and aux cooler.

I do not have the manual, But ALL DATA has the procedure online and available on CD for a years subscription. I have personally rebuilt a transmission ( ford A4ld with electronic overdrive ) and have also removed the valve body assembly from the Lexus RX300. But I can tell you that if your tranny went, probably the gears and spacers, or clutch packs died. It does require a great deal of mechanical ability and with AWD dropping the tranny is not as easy as dropping the tranny on a rear wheel drive auto. For your info before I got ripped by Lexus, I was quoted 2500 dollars from a local tranny shop, much cheaper than the 4400 dollars by Lexus. Take everything in consideration and good luck with the tranny rebuild, If you could find a distributor of rebuilt tranny's and did the labor yourself you would probably save a lot of loot. :(

You have a bad motor (solenoid) for the drivers door, Cost is about $280 for the part but includes all new linkage and solenoid. The door is pretty much the same as on all cars except for the wood power button panel which has to be lifted very carefully to access one screw, Masking tape around the vinyl edges would be good protection and the use of a very small screw driver ( flat blade) to lift the panel, a very nerve racking job. I was worried about breaking the wood facia or ripping the vinyl around the wood. start at the top (front of the vehicle and pry carefully. The rest of the fasteners are popped with phillips heads screws and a putty knife to lift the push fasteners. If you have never done this go to a body shop and ask for tips or maybe the Lexus dealership if you have a good relationship. good luck ← the panel by the way has those little plastic clips that grab outward under the vinyl edges. Pry very carefully and be patient.

You have a bad motor (solenoid) for the drivers door, Cost is about $280 for the part but includes all new linkage and solenoid. The door is pretty much the same as on all cars except for the wood power button panel which has to be lifted very carefully to access one screw, Masking tape around the vinyl edges would be good protection and the use of a very small screw driver ( flat blade) to lift the panel, a very nerve racking job. I was worried about breaking the wood facia or ripping the vinyl around the wood. start at the top (front of the vehicle and pry carefully. The rest of the fasteners are popped with phillips heads screws and a putty knife to lift the push fasteners. If you have never done this go to a body shop and ask for tips or maybe the Lexus dealership if you have a good relationship. good luck

I am experienceing poor accelleration when the weather is real hot. I get no codes or lights. Then the next morning the car runs fine. I have 116k on the vehicle and have never changed the fuel filter or cleaned the map sensor. Any suggestions?

Maybe because its a girlie car as Arnold would say. :D :D

Sorry I can't help you in the bay area, but Maita Toyota in Sacramento changed my timing belt and water pump per my request for $504.00 This was less than half the price at Lexus, and they did a great job. Some times you can work your way into the toyota dealerships by promissing future service when needed. Any good toyota shop won't turn away good business. After all they want to make a profit too. The timing belt and water pump only cost under $200 bucks so the remainder would be profit for the dealership.

Its to protect your car from the Lexus mechanics. A must have option.

I did test drive it - last night. I felt the lag and asked the sales person about it- before I had ever looked for info on it - who replied it had a "smart transmission" that would learn my driving habits- then she went into how cute my 2 year old son was and how the airbags would keep him safe- she knew nothing about cars- like sitting next to a talking brochure. I am now learning about the brake booster issue. Not sure which direction to go- ← Do yourself a favor, my wife drove three loaner RX330 vehicles while her RX300 was getting its 2nd and 3rd trashmission ( oh sorry) She hated the shifting in the RX330 and found the hesistation very alarming in heavy traffic. Visability was poor in the rear the rest of the vehicle was ok. You would be much happier in a Toyota 4runner with a lot more reliablity as well as something that would perform as well as your jeep or better. That my 2 cents worth. ← visbility is poor, i wont lie to you, but i have the backup camera which is a lot of help. the visibility is just like the rx300 tho. also, i dont think everyone is talking about the same thing in hesitation. My definition of it is when u first accelerate and theres just this 1 second moment where the car lags and then tries to make up for the loss of time so it jolts forward a little. also, it does learn your driving habits so during the break in period, drive like a grandma. that is if you get it. ← That hesitation is the fly by wire computer control on the transmission. The learning mode is an example to cover up for the poor performance of the transmission and quite frankly, it probably will not improve after you supposedly teach it to shift. What happened to the smooth shift of the old trannys?

Raul was one of the customer service managers in LA La land at Lexus of America. By the way my local Toyota dealership does much better service than the Lexus dealership. That loaner car is a cover-up to allow the Lexus mechanics more time to destroy your car.

The factor is according to my specs compensates for those factors. Remember their are also degrees of tolerance on the torque wrenches and since you are only loading to 70% of the torgque load it is not necessary to go further. Factors which also could affect the torque are the number of threads per inch, and the washers and bolt head size. Frankly most mechanics out there probably never even have their torque wrenches calibrated. But the consistancy of the same torque on all bolts in a specific area such as the head, or wheel hub is the most important factor. I know most bolts used in the modern engines are supposedly throw away after one use because of the tensil stretch factor after the initial tightening. Mercedes absolutely uses this as a guage of performance. Now the old Bristish cars that I used to work on, well who cares. The bolts were fine, and just required inspection for damage. However that was when you retorqued the heads after running the engine for a few hundred miles. The modern head gaskets and stretch design of the new bolts made this obsolete. Mercedes manuals tell you to apply a light lube of wd40 so that the bolts move freely to reach their torque. That formula is supposed to compensate for all factors. When I see failure of bolts or nuts at dealerships, it is probably because of some knucklehead too much in a rush, with the air wratchet, or gun and doesn't bring the nut up snug, then use a torque wrench. Watch them sometimes, its amusing to watch Lexus mechanics take the short cut to get the car back out the door for the hourly flat rate and meet his service supervisors statistics. ← By the way I too have seen that torque technique of bringing the bolts to 22 ft lbs and then 180 degrees, then another 180 degrees. Those are the sequences on the newer style of head bolts and I am sure the engineers have found that the head gasket seats better under that set of operations.

The factor is according to my specs compensates for those factors. Remember their are also degrees of tolerance on the torque wrenches and since you are only loading to 70% of the torgque load it is not necessary to go further. Factors which also could affect the torque are the number of threads per inch, and the washers and bolt head size. Frankly most mechanics out there probably never even have their torque wrenches calibrated. But the consistancy of the same torque on all bolts in a specific area such as the head, or wheel hub is the most important factor. I know most bolts used in the modern engines are supposedly throw away after one use because of the tensil stretch factor after the initial tightening. Mercedes absolutely uses this as a guage of performance. Now the old Bristish cars that I used to work on, well who cares. The bolts were fine, and just required inspection for damage. However that was when you retorqued the heads after running the engine for a few hundred miles. The modern head gaskets and stretch design of the new bolts made this obsolete. Mercedes manuals tell you to apply a light lube of wd40 so that the bolts move freely to reach their torque. That formula is supposed to compensate for all factors. When I see failure of bolts or nuts at dealerships, it is probably because of some knucklehead too much in a rush, with the air wratchet, or gun and doesn't bring the nut up snug, then use a torque wrench. Watch them sometimes, its amusing to watch Lexus mechanics take the short cut to get the car back out the door for the hourly flat rate and meet his service supervisors statistics.

Sorry about all your wonderful flaws. Seems nobody has any pride in their work or parts qualiy, welcome to the world economy. It was a great society once.

To achieve the proper torque with never seize you would multiply the foot lbs force by 1.17 x 0.80 giving the proper torque. The bad thing about dry threads besides coatings, rust, etc is that the torque can be very inaccurate from one fastener to another. Cleaning and lubing gives consistancey. So if the specified torque were 106 ft lbs. a lubed fastener would be torque at 99 ft lbs.The proper torque on a fastener is to put enough stress in the bolt to be 70% of the minimum tensile stress after you tighten the nut.

Just as I have said a thousand times, Lexus cares only about Lexus, not the customer, by the way Raul whom you spoke with is absolutely the most rude SOB that I have ever spoken to. When I tried in vain to get resolution on my Trashmission problems, he did the same thing and said he would call back, then he finally contacted me (many days later) and basically said suck it up, you are past warranty too bad. I hope you all read this and see the true side of this supposedly luxuary car company with such great support. You will only join the ranks of dissatisfied customers that will go to another vendor for their next vehicle. good luck

I did test drive it - last night. I felt the lag and asked the sales person about it- before I had ever looked for info on it - who replied it had a "smart transmission" that would learn my driving habits- then she went into how cute my 2 year old son was and how the airbags would keep him safe- she knew nothing about cars- like sitting next to a talking brochure. I am now learning about the brake booster issue. Not sure which direction to go- ← Do yourself a favor, my wife drove three loaner RX330 vehicles while her RX300 was getting its 2nd and 3rd trashmission ( oh sorry) She hated the shifting in the RX330 and found the hesistation very alarming in heavy traffic. Visability was poor in the rear the rest of the vehicle was ok. You would be much happier in a Toyota 4runner with a lot more reliablity as well as something that would perform as well as your jeep or better. That my 2 cents worth.

The use of antiseize is okay, but I prefer polymolybodium disulfide grease, just a little jab will do. The proper torque applied with a torque wrench is an absolute necessity. Lexus probably used a air wrench to tighten the bolts then used a torque wrench, but the nuts were aready too tight and the wrench clicked and gave a false reading. Typical idiot grease monkeys at most dealerships. Antiseize is used properly where high temps lock metals together. I found no problem in its use on the studs when used sparingly. Just keep it away from the disk pads and rotor.

Complaint would be filed with the Bureau of Automotive Repair for the STate of California. They have a web site for doing this.