Yep, I had the magazine subscription for years and it missed the most recent fall-off in RX300 transmission reliability. I recently subscribed to the online service and they go back 10 years. Now I can see the failures. It's still a relatively small proportion (greater than 3% - I'm guessing about 5%) but the odds have just gotten worse!

 

5% is real wishful thinking. CR puts the failure rate between 9.3% and 14.8%.

 

Is the concensus to buy a 2wd version over the awd if one is considering an older RX300? My wife has decided it is an RX that she wants over the competetion. We have found a 2WD 99 with 63K miles for a decent price. Any comments?

 

Look for a 2002 or 2003. That way you have less chance of tranny failure and the sludge issue for the engine will still be covered on the 2002.....

 

Where did you find that? All I could find on CR was that the average rates for transmission failures were 3%, implying a "worse than average" rating would be greater than 3% (but I couldn't find an actual number anywhere).

 

Scan from CR mag:

 

Sorry to hear about the tranny failures, but that's just the way this vehicle is made. I changed my tranny fluid every year and still could not make it to 100,000 miles. It seems the RX transmissions are underdesigned. Everybody I know with this vehicle has to put about $5,000 into the transmission. If you like the wagon, just start a savings account and keep it. If you are looking for a used car, don't buy this one unless you want to plan on a new transmission, becuase most people try to get rid of this vehicle before the transmission goes bad. Sad comment for the most popular model in the Lexus line.

 

Hmm..... couldn't find that. Was this for all systems or just transmissions (major)? Check this out (2009 web site):

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/c...-406/index.htm

Suggests that the failure rate is lower than this older magazine scan (2004/5?)

 

We seemed to have figure out most of the problem with the U140F. A modified planetary gear set that goes from 4 gears to 6. Plus a steel shaft vs. an aluminum shaft.

 

You shouldnt have any problems. Just make sure the fluid looks good,and take to a mechanic (before you buy) to check for sludge. Pay a little before you buy,you might be glad you did. Hopefully the previous owner kept good service record`s.

 

You won't find the chart I posted online. It was scanned from CR mag. The purpose was just to give readers an idea about failure rates for their various ratings. I think CR really tries to avoid getting pinned down to specific numbers. The point they try to get across is that if any particular area is rated with a half black circle or black circle it is progressively worse than average and leave the rest to your interpretation. Remember Lexus is a high end car; so even being rated average in any area is not good. New numbers should be out in the next few weeks. It will be interesting to see what direction they go.

 

Again here is what fails. This is an aluminum carrier for 4 planetary gears which is replaced with a Steel carrier and 6 gears....

 

Thanks for posting these pics. Is this problem at all heat-related, or is it simply poor/defective design?

I have a 99 RX300 AWD with 147,500 miles. I bought the car used 3 years and 27,000 miles ago.

So far I have serviced the trans twice. The first time, I had my local shop do a flush, and I used the correct Toyota fluid. They also replaced the filter. The second time, I was at the dealer for an unrelated repair, and they told me "NEVER" do a flush on these transmissions... only "drain and fill".. So the second time, I did just that.

Today the trans works perfectly.. We just got back from a 3,500 mile road trip across the country for the holidays.. no problems.. I'm trying to decide how much further to gamble.. My wife and I really like the car, and over the past year, we've sunk ~$3,000 in various maintenance and repairs (timing belt job, 2 air/fuel sensors, MAF, brakes, tires, etc..)

So I want to know what, if anything, I can do (besides keeping the fluid clean) to preserve the life of this trans.

And if this thing ever does fail, is there anyone on the forum that knows of a good place in the Dallas area to have it repaired/rebuilt?

Many thanks.

 

So am I to understand the scan you posted shows how to interpret the colored circles of CR.

Now help me relate these circles to RX300 ratings. After 10yrs or 120k+ miles of service, one should expect some problems due to normal wear. I think we should be looking at '04-'07 CR rating of RX300 of model yr '99-'01.

The gear discovery is great, but no one wants to share the date the new parts were introduced.

Salim

 

Mikey00:

Just trying to figure out what the 10-15% rate from the magazine scan actually is. If I understand it correctly, it's all major faults in all cars from 2003-2004. Given that the average of all these was 7.5 (5.0%-9.3%) in 2003-2004, that's more than twice the 3% average major transmission failure rate in the 2009 CR online listing. At the end of the day, we think we know what's causing this (as Tomas1 points out) but what we're REALLY interested in is "How likely is this to happen to MY car"?