mckellyb

This has been making me crazy for a couple of years, now, and I know eventually whatever it is rolling around is going to either come loose, break, or break something else. It makes noise only when accelerating or stopping from a very slow or standing start, and it's gotten louder in the past week or so. Seems to be moving more as well. It sounds like it is just to the right of the driver's middle right calf, but looking under there reveals a maze of ducting and a plethora of plastic I reallly do not want to dig into if I do not have to. I tried to remove the curved piece of plastic, the large one, below the shifter, but I cannot figure out where to remove fasteners after I take the part next to the accelerator pedal off, then the two bolts for the plastic panel under the steering wheel. This is only four fasteners, I know there must be another half-dozen, given how this car doesn't squeak or rattle. Well, there is one odd noise which comes from the RF lower windshield area, but only if the sun and temperature are just right. Happens about three times per year. Having been in situations like this in the past and I have learned not to pull on them until they come loose if I can ask someone who may have done it. Has anyone been here?

Will do. I think the difficult part will be finding the correctly sized fan which still blows a decent amount of air. Oh, and it likely will not be a breeze, pun intended, to figure out which direction the air flows, normally. You'd assume front-to-back, but y'never know....

So I've learned. I see a flat, waterproof cooling fan going in there, of the appropriate size, of course. With transmissions, cool is good.

This a an interesting thread, and not because I have just started to experience a split-second hesitation when moving the gearshift from P or N to either R or D, when the engine/transmission is cold. By cold, I mean parked for more than a couple of hours. If someone knows about this behavior, please let me know what I'm in for. I am going to 'schedule' a visit with the dealer this week, though being in Lost Wages, I'm leery to have pretty much anything done here. Highly transient populations will make you more than a bit paranoid about someone doing something correctly, as they may be gone in 10 days. Funny someone mentioned Mercedes torque converters having a drain plug, as more vehicles used to have these. I fully understand the logic of not 'flushing', as in reverse flushing, 'cause if you've seen an engine oil pump screen, you'll understand why. Keep the bad things trapped where they are, they're not going anywhere if you leave 'em alone. Back to the Mercedes. My wife had an '81 240D from new, and the odometer stopped working at around 170K miles. She drove it for another 8-10 years, and that transmission, the car in general, was pretty much indestructable. You could even push-start the diesel using the automatic, if you got it going fast enough, and the directions were given in the owner's manual. I'm actually happy the torque converter anti-drain back valve in our motorhome's Allison 4-speed trash truck transmission has failed. There was a recall on it, but this way, I can drain 90% of the 5W-30 engine oil which it uses. 16 quarts... Pffft. The Allison takes 4 *gallons*. Granted, I use synthetic diesel oil, but still, you ought to try finding a drain pan which will catch that much.

What surprises await me? This is an '02 AWD, and in the past 200 miles, or so, I've noticed the *slightest* hesitation going into gear. It feels like it goes into gear, this is only when the engine is cold, but a tenth of a second later, you feel it actually go into gear. It's the slightest delay, but it cannot be good. I have my 5 qts., I need only 4.1, I know, but I can see the three ounces not being in there causing a problem. At least Toyota put in a drain plug. Nice to know I'm not going to get a trans oil hair rinse by having to drain it by removing the entire pan. I HATE that. I purchased a new filter, too, as I'm being very cautious. I think ours just went out of warranty, timewise, so I am taking NO chances. I don't want to know what a replacement trans costs, honestly. It has only 46K miles on it, but the past year or so, it's been in Vegas, so heat is an issue, potentially. I know the AWD's have a trans cooler, but even on the car the RX replaced, a '95 Intrepid ES 3.5L, I put in a larger cooler. Probably 50% larger. That car is on transmission #1, and it has 120K on it. By now, most of those cars are on transmission 2 or 3. Thanks! Edit: I just checked the manual, duh, and the powertrain warranty is for 7 years/72K miles, so I guess it goes to the dealer next week. I'm returning the super-expensive filter and fluid while I'm at it (BTW the Toyota dealer was $3 less expensive on the fluid than the Lexus dealer, and they use the same bottle, labeling and everything), and I hope they either remedy the problem, or figure out what's wrong. I know it's not cold, as it started before it became chilly here in Vegas. Regardless, if someone has an idea as to what this might be, I'm all ears, as I'm an automotive information junkie.

This problem has been in progress for a year, now, though before now, it happened only when the car had been sitting a while, and after 2.5 gallons, or so, it'd be fine. I think the vent hose is kinked, and beforehand, if enough fuel reached the kink, it loosened up enough to let air out. However it's now gotten to the point I dread getting gasoline. We just got back from a weekend RT from Vegas to Denver, and man, I'd forgotten how cold 20F is...especially when it takes ten minutes to put 15 gallons in. Grrrrr. Anyone know how to access this vent line? It looks like the LR fenderwell needs to come out, which I'm not thrilled about, as I know it's not going back in the same way. I see a fenderwell laying on a freeway in the future.... I'm hoping I can access it from beneath and blow some compressed air into the line, but I fear that may not fix the root problem. So, if you've been down this road, tell me what I'm in for.

Y'know, having never had a timing belt valvetrain, only chain-driven valvetrains, when the '95 Intrepid we have approached 90K miles, I started to dread replacing the belt. We, no, I decided to take it on one last trip before tearing it down. The car had about 83K on it, so I had plenty of room for excess wear...or so I thought. Between Colorado Springs and Pueblo, at about 85 MPH, the engine quietly stopped running. I slapped it into neutral and tried to restart the motor to no avail. After coasting to the shoulder, and noticing the starting sound was now 'lopey', not sounding remotely like it should, I pulled a spark plug wire and had my wife key the motor...sure enough, no spark. I figured the belt had let go, although I couldn't be certain until I dug further. I had -0- tools, no cellular service, and no repair manual with me. As luck would have it, there was a ranch about a 1/2 mile down the freeway, and after calling a cab to take us to get a rental car to drive back home, get the other car/tools/manual/tow rope, we pulled it to the rest area about two miles away. Sure, it took me 7 hours, but I replaced said belt in the rest area, being entertainment to folks passing through. Lesson learned, in the case of timing belts, don't push it far, if at all. Looking at the timing belt cavity showed the water pump had been seeping for a while, though it never dripped coolant on the ground, only on the belt, which is likely why it failed early. Knowing this car has a non-interference engine, I wasn't ever concerned about internal damage, just with walking home. With the RX, I'll be all over that thing at 90K. If the belt looks just fine, it'll have an emergency spare. I never plan to replace this car in our personal fleet, so it is my best interest to keep it as healthy as possible. I've told my wife this is her vehicle for the next 40 years, so she'd better like it. :D

Thanks! In Park, idling, engine warm. As an owner of one of the cursed-transmission mid-90's Chrysler LH cars, a 1995 Dodge Intrepid ES 3.5L, I am all too familiar with not only how sensitive transmissions can be to pretty much all environmental aspects of use, but also how insanely important following the exact procedures can be. I don't want to ever have to put a tranny in the Lexus. Well, if it has over 150K miles on it, I'd be okay with that, but otherwise...

I've looked in the manual, but for some reason, I don't see it in there. This is a procedure which differs between vehicles, some running in "P", some "N", sometimes the fluid needs to be up to operating temp, sometimes not, and of course you have combinations of the above. What is the proper level checking procedure for the '02 AWD 300???? Thanks!!!!

At 34K miles, I've noticed the insides of the front tires are wearing excessively. I have run across this before, on another car, and it turned out the factory specs were, stupidly, -0- toe. So, as soon as the front-end parts develop some wear, you wind up with toe-out when moving. Does anyone have the alignment specs on the 2002 AWD? I am going to measure it now, to see how off it is, but I suspect there is a hair of toe-out. The LF is worse than the RF, but I think this is due to road camber and isn't helped by snow tire ruts. Shockingly, it seems there is a bit of negative camber on the *rear* wheels, moreso on the right side than the left, but I'm unsure if this is a trick being played on the eye or if it is real. I might have to break down, admit I don't have the right tools to do it, and take it to a real alignment shop to have a proper 4-wheel alignment done. The RR is not wearing unevenly, but I am still suprised to see the top of the wheel slightly closer in than the bottom. I was hoping to see a few RX's around to check and see if this is 'normal', but since I'm looking, they've gone into hiding. The RX isn't that popular of a vehicle in Vegas, though, so it might just be a dry spell. I've done full-on front-end modifications on one car which allowed me to tweak camber, as it was necessary after a very mild suspension lift, and I'm surprised at how good you can get a car to track by using your eye and a feel for it, which is why I'm even considering doing it myself. Keeping an eye on tire wear is crucial, of course. I'm not sad the Headstone tires are wearing strangely, as I hate them, though I've yet to pick replacements.... Thanks!

I thought that, initially, but it didn't do it when we were in Oregon, which is the land of you-can't-pump-your-own-gasoline, and I know the pump jockeys didn't have to stand and hold it at any odd angles. Plus, this happens at all pumps, regardless of state or type of station. Also, more than once, I filled our other car, a '99 Suzuki GV with the same nozzle. I'd fill them both at the same pump if I could have one on each side of the pump. Never even returned the nozzle to the pump until topping them both off, unless the pump shut off at some predetermined $ point. Like $75. Annoying 'feature' that is...even more so when I'm filling the 90 gallon diesel tank on our motorhome. At least now, having escaped Oregon, I can pump my own fuel, again. I'll have to dig around by the tank and see if there is a way to pull one end of the vent hose off the tank and then blow air through it to make sure it's clear.

This might seem like a good thing, given fuel prices of late, however, I've found I have to hold the gas nozzle in just the right way to put gasoline into the tank. The tip is near the outer edge and is touching the bottom of the tube. This is new since we removed the car from storage a week ago. Made for some interesting fuel stops in the middle of the night while returning to Vegas from Dallas. This is a 2002 AWD RX, FWIW, 34K miles on it. It smacks of a clogged vent tube, or maybe a pinched one, but I don't want to go digging into it if someone else has already figured it out. I've seen fuel come out of the vent tube holes near the tank opening, right as it shuts off because it's being filled 'too quickly', so I don't think they're 100% clogged, but I'd believe 80%. To put it another way, with the gas nozzle in the fill tube as you'd normally do it, I can't hold the handle at the slowest setting for more than a few seconds before it clicks off. Ideas? What kills me is, this is a nearly identical problem to one I had on a postitively evil 1980 Ford F-100, not F-150, pickemup. That truck all by itself put Ford on the short list of manufacturers from which I'll never, ever own another vehicle. Suzuki is also on that short list, thanks to the '99 Grand Vitara I'm still working bugs out of.

Hey, now...watch it with the Chrysler cracks!!! :P Plus, Chryslers are luxury cars. Plymouth was the entry-level, Dodge is for workin' folk, Chryslers are for the executive set who didn't like Cadillac or Lincoln. I have a '95 Dodge Intrepid ES w/the 3.5L motor which was well known for premature transmission failures, yet even with me abusing it, I'm still on the original at 120K miles. In this car's case, regular transmission oil changing seems to be the key, as do having a cooler on it. Mine has one OEM, which means Mopar was figuring it out on-the-fly. Shockingly, there are some of these rolling around with 200K on their admittedly underbuilt transaxles. I inherited the 'Trep from my wife when she got the '02 AWD RX. I'm happy, though periodically driving her car spoils the hell outta me. I'm going to have to keep a very close eye on the transmission fluid on the RX, as I don't want to have any transmission problems, ever, if possible. As it is, I went with Mobil 1 gear oil in both the PTO and rear diff at 30K miles, which is shortly after she bought it. Insurance is cheap, sometimes. I dislike the idea the front diff shares common fluid with the transmission, but hey, that's the way it is.

...I want to keep the engine from starting for a couple-dozen turns of the starter motor, in order to get oil everywhere under pressure. Y'know, get all the oil passages primed and get the slop out of the hydraulic valves as well as get oil all over the movin' parts and whatnot. I use Mobil 1 in it for good measure, and after 6 months, I was near the storage 'lot', my mother's garage, so I fired both it and the '95 Intrepid we have up. The 'Trep I know I can prevent from starting by holding the accelerator pedal to the floor. I can crank it until the oil pressure light goes out, back off the pedal, and vrooom, it fires off perfectly. Keeping the acclerator down turns the fuel pump off. Conveinent in this case. Well, the RX doesn't behave the way the Dodge does with the acclerator to the floor. Besides unplugging stuff, is there an easy way to trick the computer into not giving the engine any fuel? I mean, sure I could take out all the spark plugs, squirt some oil in, spin the engine, and then I'd just have a dry valvetrain to worry about, but I'd rather use the starter to get oil pressure up high *then* start it. Easier, that's for certain. What's kinda frightening, to me, is both cars started immediately. I mean I stored them correctly, stabilized gasoline, battery trickle chargers, fresh gas, etc., but still, I fully expected to have to turn the key at least twice, or something. Nope, they both fired right up as if they'd been driven the day before. Gotta love modern engines. Ideas? Thanks!

This is new to our '02 RX. When the passenger's seat seatbelt is fastened, when you turn the ignition off, there is a hint of some kind of retraction device engaging/disengaging. The driver's side doesn't do this, and it happens only if you pull a bit of the belt out before you turn the ignition off, i.e., if you repeatedly turn the ignition on/off, the belt doesn't move a little bit every time, just the first time, unless you pull on it a bit while the ignition is 'on'. Is there something other than the explosive gas method of tightening seatbelts pre-impact on these machines? If so, kudos to Toyota for doing it, but I'm guessing I should have it looked at before warranty expires, though I'm pretty sure this car has 7 years on it, so there's no hurry. Thanks! Kelly '02 RX300 AWD, has everything but the trailer hitch, wife's ride, 32K miles

Mobil 1, all my vehicles are on 10K mile changes. That's not a typo. I'll tire of looking at/driving them long before the engine has oil-related problems.

wwest, *EXCELLENT* suggestion.... LED's are your friend. Still way too expensive for what they are, but they're coming down in price...slowly.

I have OEM struts on the '95 Intrepid I abuse, daily, and it does need new struts, has needed them since about 105K miles. KYB's are good, they're my pick for both shocks and struts, if for shocks you're not going down the rather expensive Koni road. You'll feel a difference when the strust are toast. You'll notice 'porpoising' over gentle road undulations, or instead of a bounce or two after slowly going over a speed bump, you get a bunch, and they never seem to end. Then, it's time.

Decent deal. It's great they don't depreciate horribly. I'm there with one car, have lost over 50% in the first 3 years. Hurts. Not soft/smooth. Well, not really, but it *is* well-controlled. Remember, this is a Camry in different duds. You don't want creamy/cushy, as that means the struts are toast...big $'s. 20 MPG is fine. Don't worry about it. Pulling to the right means you *might* need an alignment, but the tires will tell you the story, if you look at them closely. All cars pull to the right, as our roads are cambered that way, for drainage.... Find what looks to be a big, flat parking lot, and drive slowly, hands-off the wheel, and see if it pulls the same way.... Go in all directions, too, in case there is a grade you can't see, but the car can. Wind noise. Check all the door gaskets and make sure none are torn/falling off. Trust me, it happens. Reminds me, I need to fix one of my own... The glove-box rattle might be easily fixed by making sure the little rubber 'cushions' aren't missing. Have someone drive while you push stuff to find which panels are rattling... Good call on the Mobil 1, IMNSHO. Engine will last forever. Noisy tires. Yeah, different tires can be loud, but that's a tradeoff, sometimes, with capabililties. Plus, road surface has a **TON** to do with it. You think it's loud where you are?! Come to Oregon where every paranoid idiot drives around, in-town, with studs. The Intrepid I have has urethane bushings in the suspension, and you can't hear yourself think, sometimes. Also, it depends a lot on what you came from...if your last ride was a '94 Town Car, yeah, the RX is gonna seem loud and rough. If your last ride was a '77 Pinto, there's a problem with the RX. I've changed the axle fluids, but the tranny is shipped with synthetic, so you shouldn't *need* to change it. You can, but knowing it's synthetic, I'm not touching it. I had to use a vacuum pump to get the front diff oil out, as I could *not* get a wrench on the drain plug. So it goes. Wasn't hard at all, but you have to have the $25 hand-held Mity-Vac.

Um, you left out the only information which would actually help us...how far do you go between fillups? 200 miles? 300 miles? 120 miles? Using anything other than 87 octane is likely a waste of money. I've found -0- difference in using regular unleaded in both the RX300 and a car which says to use 89 octane. You're lilkely going to get about 20 MPG, less in the winter due to 'oxygenated' gasoline, which just adds air to the gas, giving you less, literally. Fuel leakage is rare, and trust me, you'd *smell* it...big time. Usually it's from either a filter or a fuel line connection. Modern tanks are plastic so they don't rot...not like that was common, anyway. Fuel economy is so variable, without riding with someone, you can't say if their lack of proper MPG is car-related, or driving-habit-related. Look at it this way, if you meet the EPA figures, you're winning the game. If you beat them, you're the man. I can't quite get to EPA figures on the RX, can't get even close with the Intrepid I have, but beat the EPA numbers on the Suzuki Grand Vitara without trying hard.... I don't drive the Lexus enough to 'learn' it, the Intrepid I just beat the crap out of, 'cause it's fun, and the Suzuki gets short-shifted, as I'm lazy....

I went through the same pain with my wife's new-to-her 2002 AWD. Turns out, the transmission oil is synthetic, so you probably don't really *have* to change it. I seem to recall the front differential shares the transmission fluid. I found two drain plugs, but only one filler, so I know one of them is connected. :P Also, I don't know what special tool is necessary to get the drain loose for what appears to be the front diff, but I wound up sucking the juice out the fill hole. The handheld vacuum pump comes in handy, again. I changed the T-case oil, as the fluid looked/smelled like regular ol' heavy weight gear oil, so Mobil 1 gear oil went back in. It was the same stuff as what came out of the rear diff, and nothing has blown up, yet, so I figure all is good. It's been a while since I've been under there, so.... Do a search for "front diff and T-case" and you'll see where a fellow lister bailed me out when I looked at it and went, "huh?!"

When my wife and I go somewhere, we take her RX, as it's way nicer than the '95 Intrepid I inherited as a hand-me-down. Nicest hand-me-down I've ever gotten, but still... Us motorcycle-crippled folks have a tough time with getting in/out of cars low to the ground. The driver's seat on the RX has what, 10-way power seats, not including the lumbar aspect, but the passenger's seat has only 4-way seats, maybe 6-way, which hacks her off when she's over there, as she'd *really* like to be able to tweak the bottom cushion, and truly misses the lumbar support the driver's seat gives. What makes it worse is, the Intrepid, being both a Dodge *and* 7 years older, has a passenger seat which is identical to the driver's, save for the lumbar adjustment. Has anyone considered, or even looked into, 'adding' the same functionality the driver's seat has to the passenger's side? I think it might involve a complete seat-ectomy and replacement with a driver's side, then moving some parts over so the controls are actually usable. Plus, and now I'm running with it, which is typically dangerous, but I'm thinking the memory might also be something you could keep, if you had to change all of it over, anyway. I just can't leave well enough alone with vehicles, of course, so this car, good as it is, will likely get tweaked, pretty much constantly, before it wears out, as I can't see selling it...it's as perfect a car as we've ever had, so there's not much sense in planning to do anything other than keep it indefinitely.

Good place to ask, though we're all likely to be a bit biased..... When we were shopping "SUV's", thanks to a motorcycle wreck which left both me and my wife with broken bones in the double-digits, she looked at an ML, as an '81 240D she had was essentially indestructible. The ML was harder to get in/out of, the interior was kinda cramped feeling, and while it *is* a Merc, it seems to have a bunch of reliablility issues...especially for a Mercedes. I think of Lexus as being built to compete with Mercedes, for less $, so they had to be better in every way. The VSC and AWD in my wife's 2002, which was bought for $30K even, over Thanksgiving week, I've *tried* to get adverse road manners out of in the ice/snow we had week before last, and nothing. Kinda bummed me out, as it would have been fun...in theory... :P

Yeah, the glass is coated with a substance as it goes from a gel to a solid, though, I contend glass is just a *really* viscous liquid. :P In old buildings, like in Europe, windows are thicker at the bottom than the top, as gravity never lets up.

According to the Lexus customer service folks, the 2002 RX300, while normally having only the front doors equipped with this water-shedding, ultra-bitchin' glass, *could* be equipped with all the glass being treated with this glazing. However, they need the VIN, which I don't have handy. I suggest if you have a 2001 or later RX, check the front door glass as compared to the rear door glass. You should see a difference in the way water behaves on it, but if not, you have lucked out, it seems, as the person who ordered it went whole hog on the glazing stuff. I've found the moonroof and outside mirrors appear to have this glazing on them, too, but I'll have to experiment to be 100% certain.