tmastres

If you haven't bought yet, I'd personally not buy either vehicle. I'm not convinced that there is no problem with the 99/00 transmission but I know I haven't seen or heard of near the amount of problems in the 01-03 range. Also in 01-03's the sludge problem was addressed so you are lot less likely to have any sludge related issues with those years. Bottom line is if you keep looking for an 01-03 you can just bypass the melee of facts/opinions/BS regarding the trannys and the engine sludge. Might just be worth a few extra bucks :P

Well I personally agree that flushing is the way to go , I've had it done twice on my 00 and I'm at 105k mi. But your assertion that 99/00 and 01-later vehicles should have significantly different mileage is ludicrous, DUH!. Were already talking about 6,7,8 year old vehicles here and there's simply no way mileage is the reason the 99/00 have so many failures and the 01-03 have virtually none. Do you actually think that someone with an 00 has put on drastically more miles than someone with an 01? :o The drop-off is too steep for it to be age related. Did the 01 and beyond come with instructions to flush the tranny at regular intervals or something? Insults aside though It's possible that the tech you mention is right in-as-much as the drain and fill (or no maintenance)may not be enough for these trannys. Maybe flushing is required. I'm willing to accept that as a hypothesis worth considering since it seems to be working for me. However is thats the case I can't see how Lexus/Toyota can escape culpability since they don't include flushing or any kind of service on the maint . schedule. I'm curious as to how the tech you mentioned wold respond to that issue.

2001-2003's have not really been an issue in reference to the mysterious trans failure. While it may be true that yours has experienced a transmission failure, I'd be hesitant to lump them in with the 99/00 group. Those years (99/00) truly have a defect or some sort of flaw which IMHO isn't present on the 01-03 models or later.

I replaced mine at 90k, primarily because I had a 100k warranty and if I hadn't I was worried I might get screwed if it broke in the next 10k. Warranty notwithstanding I would have dome it at 100k just for the peace of mind. I know many people have gotten a lot more out of them.

I've got 105kMi on my 00 and aside from normal maintenance I've "only" had to replace 2 coils, replace the antenna shaft (cable broke) and do the IACV cleaning once. I live with the drivers door lock actuator that only works sporadically. Other than that all seems well.

Not offended, just a bit confused. Is there a car in the world that gives No trouble ever?? True, people come here when they have problems, thats the point of the forum! Does anyone have so much free time they'd come to a forum just to say " hey my Lexus runs perfectly , just wanted y'all to know" OK well, now you've got one. :D If you looked into them a bit (which I 'm sure you must have done) you'd have known that they weren't particularly good handling vehicles. In fact if you simply looked AT them you can tell, they're SUV/Crossovers, they're not meant to handle well. They're Luxury vehicles with soft cushy rides, thats what they're supposed to be like. I guess a fairer and more enlightening question would be to ask, all kidding aside, What exactly did you expect from your RX when you got it? Just curious. It seems like you're a bit disappointed and I'm wondering what your expectations were.

Not a bad choice, a 99 is a bit long in the tooth to be a primary family car even if it is a Lexus. By the by you could'nt have bought a Highlander back in 99, the didn't start making them until about 01, and if you'd bought an 01 RX you wouldn't have the tranny, sludge and some other small worries that come along with the 99 and 00 models. In any case, good luck, what do you plan to get as a replacement?? Just curious as I'm also going to be replacing my RX in the next couple of years, but I'm not sure with what.

I understand your point of view but I'd take an RX over an X5 any day. And if you're talking about 03 models, I don't see any failures from that year or the newer versions so basically your comparing apples and kumquats. I don't consider 165k mi to be spectacular mileage out of an AT. Good, but not special. Also as a company vehicle I'd be inclined to believe there was some type of maintenance schedule o keep warranty coverage..

It seems to me you've hit a time 90k mi where the service gets expensive. I went through that about a year ago with all th 90k mi services and such. In 07 however my 00RX has only cost me about $250 in service and even if I didn't do some of it myself it would have been less than $1k. A lot cheaper per month than any new car I'd be willing to drive. I too will need the motor mounts (although I've gotten used to the vibe) and another odd vibration that I'm sure will cost something to eradicate, but still a lot cheaper than a new car and especially anything comparable.

Aw Geez.. Not this Føøking thread again!!! And, Yeah if you feel the need to state the above in this forum, I'd say you are a bit insecure ;)

Thanks for the tip, it'll give me a place to start. The odd thing is that it just started up seemingly out of nowhere. Oh well whaddaya gonna do. Thanks!

I just noticed something else odd (other than the viration itself). I noticed that the vibration disappears if the wheels are turned to the right. I noticed this going through a bend in the road at about 45 mph and as soon as I turned the wheel right a few degrees the vibration stopped and then returned immediately upon straightening out. Go figure.

Hey Lenore, Did you ever solve this ? I've got something similar going on. between 40 and 60mph I get a vibration that seems like its coming from the front of the vehicle (hard to be sure though) IT actually sounds like someone replaced my regular tires with big mudders and I'm getting that brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr tire/road noise vibration. I've had all the wheels off, checked pressures and rotated the tires but its still there, exactly the same. Weird thing is that parked the RX for 3 weeks while on vacation and really dont remember the noise/viration before I parked it but as soon as I drove it for the first time when we got back I thought wow, what the heck is this? This sounds fairly similar to your problem and I was wondering if you ever found out what it was. Lenore or anyone=, I'd be interested in hearing some thoughts, Thanks!

RDX and X3 owners may be in the same boat or worse as the early RX owners who knows. Neither of these vehicles has a proven record of reliability or, for that matter, any record at all. Don't forget that no-one noticed any problems with 99 RX's until about 2001, and who would have thought of any reliability issues witha Toyota product? IMHO it'd be crazy to buy either one of those (RDX X3) at this point in time, give 'em another year of production or maybe one product upgrade cycle, then consider them. Why be their guineapig?

Its not that simple. I've tried on several occasions to discern a pattern form the failures and to conclude if the people who changed fluid every so-and-so miles had fewer failures or the people who did x , y or z had fewer falures and the bottom line is there doesnt seem to be a pattern linked to what the owners do that causes failure. I'm sure some will disagree but I know there are people here who changed their ATF regularly yet still had failures and then there are people like me who do it occasionally every (30k or so mi.) and hevent had a failure (knock wood). And there are even people who never service it and havent had a failure, so the only pattern that I can see is that it seems to be predominantly in the 99 models with a smaller but still still signifcant number happening in the 00's. From 01-03 there are a very few number of failures. Since the failures seem to happen between about 40k mi and about 110k mi there should be more than enough 01-03 models that have reached this mileage by this point to say that those years are virtually not affected by the tranmission malady. These are just my opinions but they've been gleaned from a lot of time reading and studying the reports on this board. We do know that Lexus changed the workings of RX AT's in 01 so thats one good indicator that this theory (such as it is) is correct. Of course for those of us with 99 and 00 models it does us not too much good to know this but it may help someone make the decision on what year to buy if tey're in the market.

My Toyota dealer (less than 5 miles from my house) has refused on 2 separae occasions to do any kind of service on my Lexus. They were very friendly about it but nonetheless wouldnt do the work even though its 33 miles to the nearest Lexus dealer. Point is I think its up to the individual dealers on whether they'll take on the work , warranty or not.

OK then , what qualifies as "success"/ I' ve got 106k mi. on an 2000 RX AWD and I've only changed the fluid 3 times, once being a flush (90k) at a reputable shop. This to me, from my experience seems lke a normal interval for changing/maintaning an AT. Currently I don't notice any trans problems (maybe tomorrow I will :-) so why do some fail and others dont?? I live in a moderate climate with little to no sub-freezing time and do about 50/50 hwy/city driving, very average, what is the common denominator for failures?

This topic (failed trannys)has got to be the most talked about, replied to, flamed, etc topic in the history of this board. I like your idea of an upgraded, aftermarket tranny though, I'd never heard of or thought about that and I'm glad you posted it. As for the swapping, I doubt it would work out since just about every model has its little idyocincracies so while similar I doubt they'd function perfectly. Personally I've got a 2000 Rx AWD with about 106k mi and I've only changed the fluid twice, last time was a flush and I've had no ill effects. I think the 15k mi. is too often and I see no reason to do it that frequently, but thats just me. I'd love to solve this issue but I'm afrad were no closer now than when I joined this board several years ago.

This debate has occurred on this forum a few times over the years, Interference non-interference, I thought I remembered that the consensus last time was the the RX motor (1mzfe) was non-interference but, hey don't take that to the bank. The gates doc. is the most often cited for proof that the motor IS interference and may very well be correct but there were several conflicting opinions. To me its a moot issue, simply change the damn belt and be done with it (which it looks like he has). Interference or not , if it breaks your'e stuck, why push it.

You may consider doing the maintnance for the IACV described in detail on the forum, it may clear up your "2 key-turn start" I used to get that as well but after I did the IACV service it seemed to clear up. I also had a bit of stumbling at idle when cold, that was the thing that tipped me off to the IACV

If you usearch the transmission posts you 'll find some excellent (wwest) descriptions of the changes made to the trans between the 99 the 00 and the 01-03 (three different designs). It seems (to me) that the 99 definitely has a problem (first model year of course) in 00 they tried a few small changes to mitigate and lessen rather than eliminate the problem (and it seemed to do so and the incidents of failure lessened but did not stop). In the 01-03 years the deign was changed fundamentally, those years show much fewer failures even though they should now have sufficient miles on them to get a good comparison. Yes the 01-03 group does have some failures in it , and the new design may make it necessary to give it a more frequent maintenance interval, but to me they are not outside the statistical norm, yet. Any car with an auto transmission will have some percentage of failures even if those trannys are generally considered "bulletproof". That said of course, it is a strike against the vehicle, I wont argue, it is a weaker component than it sohuld be. As I mentioned in another post I would only buy a 01-03 model if I were looking for an RX, and I would only buy if I got an exceptional deal.

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.

Lenore, Do you mean the NHTSA when you say NHTS? I'm curious can you post a link to the data there, I'd love to see the numbers for RX failure . perhaps we can cometo some conclusions with the data, Thanks!

Shake and jiggle it as you pull , you'll see how it goes in and out pretty quickly.

Question, what service did Lexus perform on your transmission during the 7 years leading up to the failure? Did they change ATF fluid , anything like that? A separate trend I notice is that the mileage-at-failure seems to be in the 60-80k mi range for a lot of the failures. I'll hav eto go back and see the numbers for sure but to my mind it seems to be the range. Thanks for your story and for posting.