l3m0naida

My mechanic/toyota shop today told me that My right lower arm is "staring to tear" I don't know what that means and I didn't get a chance to discuss it with him because he's left when I went to pick up my car. The "estimated" cost which usually is more is very scary :(. Please let us/me know how yours went if you do decide to have it replaced.

I have a 2000 RX300 @164,300. Today I went to a Toyota dealership to get my transmission fluid changed and apparently my p/steering and brake fluid were dirty as well so they changed those too. Then since its a used car when it was bought we don't know if the timing belt has been changed. The service/mechanic called and said I should have the timing belt replaced as well because it could be long overdue. I felt so stupid afterwards when I realized how stupid it sounded when I asked "how bad is the belt"? - anyway I got the timing belt changed and the water pump changed as well eventhough it wasn't leaking for a total of $1255 and it took them about 3-3.5 hrs to do all those. Were they supposed to give me my old timing belt and whatever parts they replaced? Or am I to assume they did what they said they did ? No offense to any mechanics but I''m regretting today. Any thoughts or advice? I'm also a new driver :| and this is my first car.

what does this mean, I guess in the simplest terms

Hello. I'm a new (?) driver- 9 months now :) I have a 2000 RX300 for my first car and I really don't know much about it except that it's used, bought a dealership. My concern is that I feel I'm not driving the car properly- as a new driver, at 60KM/h I don't know what a normal rpm would look like for example. I just learned recently about "O/D", I drive mainly around the city/Toronto, and my O/Dis always on( light is off, right?). Lately I noticed, I've been gassing a LOT more frequently. On the dashboard it says 24 mpg ( not entirely sure what that means. Sometimes when I'm low on gas- but before the "get gas now" light comes on- the car won't go for eventhough I'm stepping on the gas, then it's just shoot up a bit. It doesn't happen often, but it happens. Also, when I turn on the A/C, I feel the car becomes slightly heavy to drive. I got the car just this December 2011.