rejean

I just bought a 2001 es300. What type of problems if any should I have with this year and model

LexDiamond

None presuming its been well taken care of

lexusk8

I have owned a '01 ES for 3 months so far, just surpassed 70K miles the other day. Absolutely no mechanical or internal problems with the car, it feels smoother and quieter than my '96 ES

WILB3

None. These are damn good cars. Lexus also recently won an award for most reliable/dependable- not sure what publication or outfit compiled the data, but I remember hearing it.

Threxx

Didn't lexus have some issues with sludge building up in the 3.0L V6? I know they got it fixed, finally... but wasn't the last year of the problem right around 00 or 01?

JPI Racing

Problems with ES300
-Valve cover gaskets tend to leak at 40k miles
-Rear main seal tend to leak around 40k
-Engine gel will develop if you don't change your oil every 5k. CHANGE YOUR OIL!!!!!!
Other than these ES300 is a good car.
JPI

Toysrme

WILB3

JD Power, and nearly everyone else's, but they're the most respected and reported on so...

Starting in '93 Lexus has fo all intencive purposes dominated:
reliability, major/minor problems per 100 vehicles

Customer satisfaction -> All JDPower surveys, and nearly anything else you want to bring in not too heavily biased towards domestic cars. [don't laff]

And by dominated I MEAN dominated. Do some googlage on "lexus industry report reliability customer satisfaction".

*edit*
Gaskets and starters are the only two Toyota/Lexus grips you are more than likely to find if anything else.
Just like rusted out mufflers on every Honda ever built that's sat outside in the rain =D

So everything has a quirk or two LoL!

FYI Sludge is no fault of Toyota. When end users go off and don't change oil in their cars for one, two THREE years and the OEM synthetic oil finally kicks the bucket and the engine lets go; you really have to ask yourself, "Who's fault was the sludge?".

Threxx

I have to disagree with you here. Most people that have experienced the sludge build-up issue have changed their oil at least every 6k miles if not sooner.

Furthermore, this problem seems 50x more common on V6 Camrys and ES300s than it is on any other car out there, foreign or domestics.

Toysrme

I worded that wrongly, sorry.

What I meant to say was that while the sludge problem is a design fault from toyota, the simple fact that it's easily preventable puts it completely in the hands of the end user.

njes300

the valve cover issue is a common problem but is covered under the 70k power train warranty . Lexus took care of it for me no questions asked.