I bought a 2003 Lexus ES300 back in April after I was rear-ended in my old Camry. I bought it with 163,000 miles for $3,600 on it knowing that it had a couple of problems because it had a full-service history. For example, I knew that it needed new valve cover gaskets since there was a pretty big oil leak, new tires all around, an alignment, and ALL the engine and transmission mounts. Despite this, I was a young stupid teenager who thought I could just ducktape and zip tie this entire thing together like I did to my Camry (RIP). I have a decent amount of experience with cars and therefore I've replaced 2/4 engine mounts, all the filters, and the valve cover gaskets on my own but every time I finish something I always discover something new that needs to be replaced. So far I've put about $700 into the car and it now has 168,000 miles.

I've now disocvered I'm going to need to replace the inner and outer tire rods in the front (and therefore another alignment), front brakes and rotors, 3 ignition coils, a catalytic converter, a couple brittle power steering lines, the rear struts, radiator, and replace the transmission fluid. Doing these on my own, I estimate that it's going to probably cost me an additional $800-1000 to get the car into near-perfect condition.
Since I drive almost 15,000 miles a year, I also guess I'm probably going to have to pay someone to do the timing belt sometime in the next year before I go to college (it was last done at 92k).

The exterior of the car is in great condition and if I keep it, I'm going to be driving it back and forth from Atlanta to Nashville about twice a month for college. The majority of the work besides a timing belt and tranny fluid, I'm able to tackle myself and therefore I save a lot on labor (even though it takes me twice as long to get anything done). Given that I've already put in about $600, after purchasing it for $3600, is it worth it to spend the money to keep it running?

 

How do you know that catalytic converter is done for?

 

I’m not 100% sure it’s completely done for however the service history shows that one of them has been replaced along with 2 other O2 sensors. This led me to assume that the catalytic converter that hasn’t yet been replaced could be the problem causing the P0420 code. However, since emissions isn’t due until May, I haven't looked into it very much.

 

Car needed a lot of work from the jump- did you try to bring the price down at all? $3600 was a bit steep considering all the issues you listed.

Parts are not expensive- ebay/rockauto has all the parts you listed for very cheap. Tie rods are like $10 each, ATF is $6 a quart (need 4 of them) , struts are $50 each, radiator was like $50 on ebay, front brakes and rotors I saw for $60 total on ebay

If you can replace these items on your own, keep the car. If not I would get rid of it or run it to the ground. Labor will run you high at a indy unless you know someone

 

The car was originally posted for $4,300 which was a fair value according to KellyBlueBook and I got the price down to $3,600. Is purchasing ebay parts trustworthy? For example, I calculated the majority of my future costs by using Denso or other known brand parts but do they really make a difference on a car this old? I heard that things such as transmission fluid and coolant should be original but I don't know how big of a difference they would really make.

 

You can use aftermarket for certain items- for coolant and ATF you want to stick with genuine. I've been buying parts online from ebay and other vendors for years. No issues at all.

Get the part number you need and google it- find a vendor. Rockauto, amazon and ebay are my go to places

 

Yes! Mine has 200k on it and I am about to drive it on a 3500 mile road trip. If you take care of it they are great cars! Might be the most reliable cars ever made (on average).

Think of it from this perspective. That car, new, was $36,000ish, in its cheapest form. It is a V6 Camry underneath all of that luxury dressing. 95% of the parts carryover, and the ones that don't can be had aftermarket for reasonable prices.

Mine has bad cats too, I used 90 deg elbow fittings and spark plug de-foulers to remove the o2 sensors from the exhaust stream and ensure they only get a little bit of the gases from the exhaust. Replacement OEM cats are $3000 installed and most aftermarkets are garbage (except for good brands like PaceSetter, Monza, Magnaflow, etc-but most of those aren't going to be CARB legal).

I am in no way suggesting you do what I did to trick the ECM into not throwing a code. But it worked for me.

 

I bought and installed engine mounts from ebay and saved around $600, so far they've been working fine. Thanks for your advice I'll stick OEM for fluids and buy parts online.

 

Thank you for your advice. Honestly, the cats are not my biggest concern and I can probably figure that out later on. I'm more concerned about the car lasting me the next 5 years or so when I drive it so many more miles to and from college. Given that yours have 200k miles, how did you deal with your transmission fluid? Mine is at 168k right now and I am not sure if the fluid has ever been changed. It doesn't smell burnt or anything but it is a light brown color. How should I go about changing the fluid without harming the transmission?

 

I just changed mine at 189k miles. Drain, fill, drive, drain, fill, drive and repeat. Change filter too.

 

I thin it is worth it IF the transmission and engine are solid. You don't want to spend all that time and money and have the the engine or transmission go out. If they run good, then I think it's probably worth it.
When you are done, you'll have a car that should run reliably for many more years. The alternative would be to sell it and buy something else, which takes time as well, and the new car will likely have issues that need addressing too, as most cars in this age/ price range do.
I'd recommend giving the whole car a good look over and see everything that needs addressing and then type up the list and organize it from most urgent to least and price it out. Rockauto and Amazon are good sources to get affordable parts, which for this car the parts are very affordable which is nice. I still recommend quality aftermarket parts instead of the cheapest option you can find though.
If you're going to do the transmission fluid, do that first and go from there. Remember to make sure the level is right, disconnect the battery for a bit, and then warm the car up to temp before going for a gentle 30 min. test drive to relearn the computer. There was a thread recently with instructions on how to accurately check the level which is important. I found the fluid and drainplug washers on Amazon.
Good luck! Pretty much doing the same thing right now with my recent purchase.
Oh, and I should add that you need an honest, fairly priced mechanic or else the repairs you have to bring it in for will add up very quickly and make it not worth it.

 

So I shouldn't bother with all the seals and stuff on the transmission plan if it isn't leaking?

 

Thank you, I think I'll keep the car and just fix all the important things first and then deal with everything else over time.

 

If your not changing the filter than no, but if your in there than should def do it.

 

You're welcome, hope it works out for you.
I would keep things simple for now and just do a drain fill on the transmission every oil change. That will slowly refresh the fluid and clean the transmission. If you want, you can always change the filter later, but that's of course a bigger project. The drain/fills are quick and easy.
I need some exhaust work on mine too. The flex pipe is torn, which is a very common problem on these. I've looked into it and instead of replacing the entire section of pipe with the cat and everything, you can just cut the flex pipe out and weld in a new one, which is a lot cheaper.
Just got my windshield replaced with a pilkington for $280. Came out good.
Replaced the struts with Monroe quickstruts. Hard to compare to the originals as they were shot, but no funny noises or anything, and I got all 4 off Amazon for about $350 which is nice. I have to give it some time before I can really recommend them or not, but the quick-strut route is always an affordable option. I saved my original set for now just in case so I have the option of swapping the old springs in on the quickstruts if things don't work out.
Firestone has lifetime allignments if you think you might do more suspension work in the future, like control arms/ ball joints, which I may do in addition to those tie rods too. But I'm trying not to get carried away. It's a balance on older cars. You gotta decide what needs attention right away and what you can let go. It's definitely nice to have time to think and evaluate as you go.
Despite what a lot of people say, I saw a video on YouTube of a guy demonstrating that the 1mzfe is not an interference engine. So that made me feel better about putting the timing belt job lower on my to-do list.
That's a lot of the little things I've learned so far. Feel free to message me or just post and I'll tell you if I've tacked that particular job yet and anything I've learned doing/ researching it. I'm no expert, but it seems these cars at this mileage all have the same areas that need addressing so I'll be doing a lot of the same jobs.