I bought a motor from a salvage yard out of a '00 Avalon to go into my recently purchased 99 ES300. The ES300 is a victim of sludge engine failure. I know the original owners personally and they ran royal purple since new. The only problem is that they thought royal purple allowed them to do 10k oil changes. I assume this is the reason that it sludged up. I think it may also be because the royal purple was a heavier viscosity oil than recommended by Lexus. Anyway, the donor motor has approx 38k miles on it. I took the rear valve cover off of it to inspect for oil sludge and it was clean, however all salvage yards I call say their computer system states the '00 Avalon is not a direct replacement motor. If they break it down to the heads only, or the block only, it DOES show the same. Does anyone know the difference? Possibly exhaust manifolds? Intake? It would be nice to have a difinitive answer before I swap.
Thanks,
Chad
