I agree minty.

 

I take what these guys say with a grain of salt, he did not come clean on the fact that they have repaired so many trannies until I told him that I had heard of another dealership having repaired @ 23 in a year, then he fessed up and said, oh yeah, we have done probably 20 this year but mostly on the early model RXs and then went on about the service of said units when I asked if this was a design flaw and that a "Lexus" was supposed to be better than this.

 

Well since I work there I can do my own "research" like I did and the conclusion I came to is the trans is crap...

 

Neither one of those is the transmission.

Also note that dealer is not recommending a transmission flush at 45K, but a transmission fluid replacement. Lots of dealers will not do a transmission flush, believing that a simple drain and fill is preferable.

 

If the RX300 transmission is so bad, why are there no problem reports on Toyota Highlander forums? It's the same unit. Additionally, Consumer Reports consistantly shows the transmission at above average to excellent ratings accross the board.

 

I have 2000 Rx300 and have 63500 miles on it.
Just had Check Engine light came on and now Engine is Missfiring and gears does not seem to shift after 2nd shift.
Do you think it is a Transmission problem or Engine?

Also What is the Powertrain Warranty (6yrs/72000) or not?

Regards

 

This is very likely an ignition coil and not something with your transmission. I had this happen to me on one of my coils and my RX also would not shift up. Once another coil was in there...my RX ran just fine.

 

Mine died at about 120,000 miles. Replaced with remanufactured unit. Cost about $3,000 as I recall. You will find that this is a common problem; explanation, in my opinion, is that the maintenance guidelines did not require fluid replacement at any suggested interval. I think that this has been changed.

 

My 2000 RX300 has a different issue. There is a 3 to 5 second delay before the tranny will shift into Reverse. This delay only occurs when the engine/tranny is warm. When cold, there is no delay in shifting into Reverse. No clunking or wierd sounds at all. Also, ithe tranny upshifts perfectly into all forward gears. Tranny fluid is pink and clean (don't know when it was changed last...we got the vehicle 6 months ago with 102K). Anyone have any ideas? Could it be a tranny filter, or maybe the fluid viscosity has broken down?