Bend Oregon RX300

Here in Bend, Oregon, the antenna drive cables take extra stress from activating in freezing conditions, where there may be snow or ice impacted around the telescoping parts or the external retraction "well". Figuring three extensions/retractions per day, that comes to nearly 1,000 annual cycles and there is likely a mean time between failures of 10-15,000+ cycles, more or less. Our antenna failed last winter, hence now must repair the unit. Online, there is an excellent step-by-step how -to affect this repair: http://antennamastsrus.com/Instructions%20Mast.htm Some of the eBay sources quote $12.95 including free shipping. Considering the company posting the link claims OEM quality and has a return policy, my thought is to pay the extra bucks and have the piece of mind that a parts return RMA is not on the horizon. It would be helpful if other DIY parts sources were referenced, so we could begin to see if any of the cheaper "OEM" are indeed OEM parts. stauchwall@gmail.com

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post my question, but I cannot get the floating caliper to swing back into position for !Removed! the long slider pin back into place. I pushed the piston back to where it is flush with the caliper face and I get a small dimple in the boot that prevents the swinging caliper to mate with its matching rotor part. How deep can I push the piston into the cylinder and is it better to try and push the boot down the neck of the piston as I move the piston back into the cylinder. When I get the piston flush with the caliper wall, the boot is dimpled and strikes the inner pad face. The other issue is that the old antisqueal shim (slotted shim) does not fit over the new Akebono pad. The outer SS shim snaps into place just fine, so I do not have the slotted antisqueal shim installed. There is already a shim built into the Akebono pad, so I figure two shims came off, one new shim comes with the Akebono pad and I place the outer shim and finish the process. Otherwise, even if the slotted shim did fit, there would be three shims over the pad were I to use the slotted antisqueal shim. Big issue now is the boot and how to get the caliper to close the gap and allow the slider pin to fit back where it belongs. Problem solved! Massaged the dust boot with my fingers and then got no wrinkles when pushing in the piston. Pushed inbound on the bottom slider assembly and it cleared the attachment mount quick nicely. Easy.

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post my question, but I cannot get the floating caliper to swing back into position for !Removed! the long slider pin back into place. I pushed the piston back to where it is flush with the caliper face and I get a small dimple in the boot that prevents the swinging caliper to mate with its matching rotor part. How deep can I push the piston into the cylinder and is it better to try and push the boot down the neck of the piston as I move the piston back into the cylinder. When I get the piston flush with the caliper wall, the boot is dimpled and strikes the inner pad face. The other issue is that the old antisqueal shim (slotted shim) does not fit over the new Akebono pad. The outer SS shim snaps into place just fine, so I do not have the slotted antisqueal shim installed. There is already a shim built into the Akebono pad, so I figure two shims came off, one new shim comes with the Akebono pad and I place the outer shim and finish the process. Otherwise, even if the slotted shim did fit, there would be three shims over the pad were I to use the slotted antisqueal shim. Big issue now is the boot and how to get the caliper to close the gap and allow the slider pin to fit back where it belongs.

You can change those parts without special tools. What is your level of mechanical experience? I would HIGHLY suggest that you go over one of the "how to" w/pictures on changing those parts though, unless you have a Lexus factory manual (not Haynes or Chilton (same thing)). You should be able to find a "how to" with a search on this or the other Lexus site. There's been plenty of discussion on the subject. Good Luck! I have the shop manual in pdf. I have been doing all the maintenance and repairs on all our cars since 1975. For example, I did the RX front pads a couple weeks ago in 30 minutes. Some of the "heavy hitters" here could probably do it in half that time. My wife's rx300 just rolled past 100k miles, so I am taking care of some maintenance I should have done a few miles back. It's been a great car with no problems what so ever. I thought I would at least need a gear puller for the crankshaft pulley. I don't have one, but I could rent one if necessary. Thanks again. Cheers to you for changing the timing belt and water pump. I had the job completed yesterday at Lexus in Eugene Oregon for 534.58, which also included $34.28 for antifreeze that should not have cost more than $20 including profit to them and the belt at $64.65 that goes for $28 at a local parts shop. Lexus replaced the water pump for $136.39, and I bet one can be purchased at the same parts shop for under $50. Where did you purchase the front pads (and rear pads) since I need to do that myself. RX Lexus in Bend Oregon

I cannot find the post I made this morning to this forum, so will repost to this discussion. Sorry for any duplication. Some of you may have read my post back in October in the Lexus Owners Club forum, where we first noticed a two "klunk" sequence on backing out of the home garage. Pulled forward and found that with the shift lever in Reverse, the transmission would not engage. Next morning, I gave the engine more throttle with the lever in reverse and something slipped into place in the transmission and reverse gear worked. The problem returned several time that day, and always after leaving the stuck vehicle for 30 minutes or so, reverse would work. Reported this issue to Kendall Lexus in Eugene, 125 miles away and had the ATF drained and refilled. RX had 66,000 miles at that time and was 1.5 years beyond the 6 year/70,000 mile drivetrain warranty. Problem went away until earlier in April 2008, when Drive Gear began having the same "klunk" noise. Last week, the wife managed to drive (cold ATF in the morning) 100 yards before another "klunk" was heard and grinding in the transmission. Fortunately, we had been documenting every heartbeat of the RX gear issue since October and communicating with Lexus Customer Care. We even filed a complaint at the NHTSA OIC. Let the vehicle sit 2 hrs and could still not get Reverse to engage when the shift lever was in Reverse position. In neutral, I could freewheel on the gentle slope, so thought of trying to limp home in Drive and use Neutral to reverse my direction on the hill. Straddling both lanes of my street, I slipped the RX into Neutral and could not freewheel. The gearbox seemed to be in Park. Drove forward one foot and tried Neutral and now could freewheel; slipped the lever into Reverse and heard something engage in the transmission and Reverse did function. Drove home the 100 yards and backed into the garage. Lexus Customer Care in Torrance (1-800-255-3987) and they insisted that the local Toyota of Bend dealer could not conduct any good will warranty inspection and we would need to drive over the snowy mountain pass to Eugene and the Lexus dealer. Emailed all the history to the Torrance CC folks at Lexus Customer Satisfaction [Customer_Satisfaction_Inquiries@lexus.com] My wife (with broken leg and crutches) and I began the journey to Eugene on Monday this week and got 0.7 mile and at 20 mph the transmission began making a low frequency rumble and vibration similar to a manual clutch slipping, ie. clutch chattering. Pulled to the side of the roadway and cycled the shifter through the gear selections. Gently moved out in forward gear and had no more problems enroute to Kendall Lexus of Eugene. The excellent service staff had an RX350 ready for us and took our RX300 into evaluation. The service manager called yesterday to say that they too had observed the chatter and upon pulling the pan down, noticed numerous metal fragments, as the transmission was trying to digest itself. The deal that came back from Torrance was they would provide a good will service at 50% and the dealer helped reduce our expense down to a total out-of-pocket of $1,700.00 We thanked the Torrance folks for their offer and accepted the deal. Meanwhile, we have free use of the 350 loaner. My personal non-mechanic thoughts are that the TSB 00504 relating to the five solenoid switches may bear on the eventual failure. Once the solenoids de-energize over a couple of hours of roadside rest, things work properly...for awhile. The U140E/F (Camry or RAV4?) transmission in the RX300 is extremely complicated, relying on firmware and solenoid switches to get some fuel economy from the vehicle. All of the 10K - 15K ATF changes/drains/flushes could be addressing contamination associated with these switches or the things (are there really 6 clutches in this U140? Wow) they operate. I have asked the service manager to confirm that a 2001+ replacement transmission will be used in my repair, so we hope that any improvements will have been included in that transmission. Your description of problems with reverse gear are very similar to ours. Maybe you can save the transmission by changing the screen/gasket and draining on the accelerated 10K-15K schedule, using the ATF already specified in this forum. Good luck and drop at line sometime baileybc2007@gmail.com

2nd update: After an additional 6 calls to customer service and the dealer the original $4200 transmission cost was reduced to $1100. I told them I thought they needed to put out a recall and pay 100% but would settle since they were paying about 75%. I started every day for over 2 weeks calling the dealer and calling customer service until I got an answer. The car runs great and shifts smooth. I'm just not confident it will make it to 230,000 like our Previa. Neuf150 Were you the original owner of the RX and did your have your vehicle serviced only by Lexus for the scheduled maintenance? Lexus quoted my transmission good will at $1,700 from my pocket, and I was second owner and Toyota, not Lexus, handled the maintannce.

Difficult park to reverse, just moving out of park, really, is generally an indication that the electric solenoid (Audi) safety shiftlock is beginning to stick/fail or the brake light switch on the brake pedal is intermittent. Check your owners manual, they is a manual over-ride procedure for this. Thx wwest. BTW - seems to occur only when car is cold. Difficult park to reverse, just moving out of park, really, is generally an indication that the electric solenoid (Audi) safety shiftlock is beginning to stick/fail or the brake light switch on the brake pedal is intermittent. Check your owners manual, they is a manual over-ride procedure for this. Thx wwest. BTW - seems to occur only when car is cold. Some of you may have read my post back in October in the Lexus Owners Club forum, where we first noticed a two "klunk" sequence on backing out of the home garage. Pulled forward and found that with the shift lever in Reverse, the transmission would not engage. Next morning, I gave the engine more throttle with the lever in reverse and something slipped into place in the transmission and reverse gear worked. The problem returned several time that day, and always after leaving the stuck vehicle for 30 minutes or so, reverse would work. Reported this issue to Kendall Lexus in Eugene, 125 miles away and had the ATF drained and refilled. RX had 66,000 miles at that time and was 1.5 years beyond the 6 year/70,000 mile drivetrain warranty. Problem went away until earlier in April 2008, when Drive Gear began having the same "klunk" noise. Last week, the wife managed to drive (cold ATF in the morning) 100 yards before another "klunk" was heard and grinding in the transmission. Fortunately, we had been documenting every heartbeat of the RX gear issue since October and communicating with Lexus Customer Care. We even filed a complaint at the NHTSA OIC. Let the vehicle sit 2 hrs and could still not get Reverse to engage when the shift lever was in Reverse position. In neutral, I could freewheel on the gentle slope, so thought of trying to limp home in Drive and use Neutral to reverse my direction on the hill. Straddling both lanes of my street, I slipped the RX into Neutral and could not freewheel. The gearbox seemed to be in Park. Drove forward one foot and tried Neutral and now could freewheel; slipped the lever into Reverse and heard something engage in the transmission and Reverse did function. Drove home the 100 yards and backed into the garage. Lexus Customer Care in Torrance (1-800-255-3987) and they insisted that the local Toyota of Bend dealer could not conduct any good will warranty inspection and we would need to drive over the snowy mountain pass to Eugene and the Lexus dealer. Emailed all the history to the Torrance CC folks at Lexus Customer Satisfaction [Customer_Satisfaction_Inquiries@lexus.com] My wife (with broken leg and crutches) and I began the journey to Eugene on Monday this week and got 0.7 mile and at 20 mph the transmission began making a low frequency rumble and vibration similar to a manual clutch slipping, ie. clutch chattering. Pulled to the side of the roadway and cycled the shifter through the gear selections. Gently moved out in forward gear and had no more problems enroute to Kendall Lexus of Eugene. The excellent service staff had an RX350 ready for us and took our RX300 into evaluation. The service manager called yesterday to say that they too had observed the chatter and upon pulling the pan down, noticed numerous metal fragments, as the transmission was trying to digest itself. The deal that came back from Torrance was they would provide a good will service at 50% and the dealer helped reduce our expense down to a total out-of-pocket of $1,700.00 We thanked the Torrance folks for their offer and accepted the deal. Meanwhile, we have free use of the 350 loaner. My personal non-mechanic thoughts are that the TSB 00504 relating to the five solenoid switches may bear on the eventual failure. Once the solenoids de-energize over a couple of hours of roadside rest, things work properly...for awhile. The U140E/F (Camry or RAV4?) transmission in the RX300 is extremely complicated, relying on firmware and solenoid switches to get some fuel economy from the vehicle. All of the 10K - 15K ATF changes/drains/flushes could be addressing contamination associated with these switches or the things (are there really 6 clutches in this U140? Wow) they operate. Your description of problems with reverse gear are very similar to ours. Maybe you can save the transmission by changing the screen/gasket and draining on the accelerated 10K-15K schedule, using the ATF already specified in this forum. Good luck and drop at line sometime baileybc2007@gmail.com

Difficult park to reverse, just moving out of park, really, is generally an indication that the electric solenoid (Audi) safety shiftlock is beginning to stick/fail or the brake light switch on the brake pedal is intermittent. Check your owners manual, they is a manual over-ride procedure for this. Thx wwest. BTW - seems to occur only when car is cold. Some of you may have read my post back in October in the Lexus Owners Club forum, where we first noticed a two "klunk" sequence on backing out of the home garage. Pulled forward and found that with the shift lever in Reverse, the transmission would not engage. Next morning, I gave the engine more throttle with the lever in reverse and something slipped into place in the transmission and reverse gear worked. The problem returned several time that day, and always after leaving the stuck vehicle for 30 minutes or so, reverse would work. Reported this issue to Kendall Lexus in Eugene, 125 miles away and had the ATF drained and refilled. RX had 66,000 miles at that time and was 1.5 years beyond the 6 year/70,000 mile drivetrain warranty. Problem went away until earlier in April 2008, when Drive Gear began having the same "klunk" noise. Last week, the wife managed to drive (cold ATF in the morning) 100 yards before another "klunk" was heard and grinding in the transmission. Fortunately, we had been documenting every heartbeat of the RX gear issue since October and communicating with Lexus Customer Care. We even filed a complaint at the NHTSA OIC. Let the vehicle sit 2 hrs and could still not get Reverse to engage when the shift lever was in Reverse position. In neutral, I could freewheel on the gentle slope, so thought of trying to limp home in Drive and use Neutral to reverse my direction on the hill. Straddling both lanes of my street, I slipped the RX into Neutral and could not freewheel. The gearbox seemed to be in Park. Drove forward one foot and tried Neutral and now could freewheel; slipped the lever into Reverse and heard something engage in the transmission and Reverse did function. Drove home the 100 yards and backed into the garage. Lexus Customer Care in Torrance (1-800-255-3987) and they insisted that the local Toyota of Bend dealer could not conduct any good will warranty inspection and we would need to drive over the snowy mountain pass to Eugene and the Lexus dealer. Emailed all the history to the Torrance CC folks at Lexus Customer Satisfaction [Customer_Satisfaction_Inquiries@lexus.com] My wife (with broken leg and crutches) and I began the journey to Eugene on Monday this week and got 0.7 mile and at 20 mph the transmission began making a low frequency rumble and vibration similar to a manual clutch slipping, ie. clutch chattering. Pulled to the side of the roadway and cycled the shifter through the gear selections. Gently moved out in forward gear and had no more problems enroute to Kendall Lexus of Eugene. The excellent service staff had an RX350 ready for us and took our RX300 into evaluation. The service manager called yesterday to say that they too had observed the chatter and upon pulling the pan down, noticed numerous metal fragments, as the transmission was trying to digest itself. The deal that came back from Torrance was they would provide a good will service at 50% and the dealer helped reduce our expense down to a total out-of-pocket of $1,700.00 We thanked the Torrance folks for their offer and accepted the deal. Meanwhile, we have free use of the 350 loaner. My personal non-mechanic thoughts are that the TSB 00504 relating to the five solenoid switches may bear on the eventual failure. Once the solenoids de-energize over a couple of hours of roadside rest, things work properly...for awhile. The U140E/F (Camry or RAV4?) transmission in the RX300 is extremely complicated, relying on firmware and solenoid switches to get some fuel economy from the vehicle. All of the 10K - 15K ATF changes/drains/flushes could be addressing contamination associated with these switches or the things (are there really 6 clutches in this U140? Wow) they operate. Your description of problems with reverse gear are very similar to ours. Maybe you can save the transmission by changing the screen/gasket and draining on the accelerated 10K-15K schedule, using the ATF already specified in this forum. Good luck and drop at line sometime baileybc2007@gmail.com