hausertreyen

So here's what ended up happening: I had some diagnostics run on the transmission, and the verdict was that the planetary gear would likely need to be replaced if the transmission was rebuilt. I spoke with the service manager at my local Lexus dealer (who himself had an RX300 and had to replace the transmission, ironically), and he went to Lexus corporate and got them to pay for half of the replacement cost. This brought the estimated cost to about $2200 including tax. The estimated costs on the overhaul were between $1500-$2000. The Lexus service manager had said that when his own transmission went out, he'd grilled the Lexus engineers on the remanufactured part. He said that the engineers admitted that there were some "improvements" made in that transmission post-2001 and that they'd rather have a remanufactured 2001+ tranny than a brand new 2000 transmission. They never admitted to an issue, only that the 2001+ part was definitely better. I consider myself to be pretty darn good at knowing when someone isn't telling the full truth, and this guy was, so I believe him. Anyway, I went with the new part. It wasn't that much more expensive ($2033 at the end of the day).

Sure, I can do that. Will let you know what ends up happening. As an aside: I was talking with my mom about this last night. She drives an 04 RX330 and had driven a 99 RX300 before that. I'd forgotten about this, but she'd ended up trading in her 99 RX300 back to the Lexus dealership at about 40k miles because the transmission failed on it, too. Her car had forgotten how to shift into reverse. Thanks.

Is it an AWD or FWD? It's AWD. I really like the car, actually, and had planned on driving it for a long time - figuring it would last a while. I've got the money to repair it, so it's nice to not be in that jam, but I'm not looking for a money pit, either. I just replaced the starter where it wasn't disengaging (and beating up my flywheel). I found an independent who has gotten a couple of good referrals who will rebuild it for me, cost dependent on what parts need replacing. Thanks for the responses so far.

Hey all - I bought my 1999 RX300 used with 23k miles. It now has 76k and the transmission decided over the weekend that it had had enough. 2nd gear, 3rd gear and OD are fine, but first gear has a "wind-up" sort of whine to it. Once the gar gets into 2nd gear it drives exactly like you'd expect. I haven't driven it much since I'm expecting total failure, soon. The onset was immediate. One moment I'm find, next time I try to accelerate, it makes a pretty big wind-up noise. My local Lexus dealer believes my transmission is failing, and while I suspect they're right, I know nothing about cars. I figure I have three options: 1) the dealer quoted me a price of $4.8k total to replace it with a "remanufactured" one (of course, I'm not going to try to negotiate/get concessions, but that's the quote) 2) AAMCO will overhaul it for $2200 - the guy I spoke to over there seemed really sharp, and had indicated he had personally done a bunch of RX300s in the past couple of years 3) I could just trade it in on something else/sell it and let someone else worry about it I was leaning toward AAMCO overhauling it, but if the RX300 really does have a design issue, that would seem to indicate that my particular transmission would just fail again. If I go with the remanufactured one, it would seem my odds aren't that much better, since it's still the same part (but at least it's not MY part). What I know for certain is that I don't want to do this again. Since you all actually know something about cars, can you answer a couple questions? This will help me out enormously. First, assuming I had a qualified AAMCO mechanic (big assumption, but let's assume it's true), how much better is the lexus-remanufactured part vs. my part being overhauled? If the AAMCO guy knew his stuff and had the right equipment, is the different white/black or is it a shade over gray? Second, if we know that this car has an issue, is it worth even keeping? That is, I'm considering selling it soon after I get the transmission replaced, just because I don't want to deal with it. Please let me know what you think of my 3 options, whether i'm missing any, and your opinion on the remanufactured vs. overhaul parts. Thanks ahead of time!