georgie39

I am looking for information from any forum members who have experienced 300 RX transmission failures;
Did your transmission give you any advanced warning it was about to fail or did it just quit all at once?
Did you have the transmission serviced regularly?
How often in how many miles?
Were these services transmission fluid replacements (where the transmission itself was used to evacuate and flush the old fluid out) or did the services involve dropping the trans pan, cleaning or replacing the filter and adding back in new fluid?
I am the second owner of a 2002 RX AWD with 80,000 miles. According to the service records that came with the car, the original owner had at least one "transmission service" performed in 2006 at 44,000 miles (I don't know what it entailed) and I just had a fluid replacement (no trans pan dropped or filter cleaned) done at 79,700 miles.
Now based on all of the horror stories I have been reading on this and other Lexus forums I am considering having the trans pan dropped and the filter replaced cleaned / changed just as a kind of insurance against any potential problems the fluid replacement didn't catch.
At least if I do experience a trans failure I will know I did whatever I could reasonably do to prevent a failure.
Any input from forum members would be much appreciated.
Thank you.

thomas1

I would suggest the tranny pan dropped and magnets and fluid looked at. When mine failed there was no warning. I had done fluid changes every 30k miles. I was two states away, and lost overdrive. Flushing did nothing, and I drove home without overdrive, a very nerve racking ride home. I have now changed fluid every 15k miles or at least once a year. I will not do a flush. I have added an external tranny filter supplementing the internal one. My desire is to move the cooler to the front of the radiators versus in the wheel well.

mic111pb

A few years before my transmission went it started to shift 'funny'. It seemed to shift at the wrong points and roughly. One day I decelerated hard to turn left and then accelerated hard to make the turn the transmission didn't engage (waited) and then all of a sudden engaged with a thump.

So I thought, maybe its time to trade this car in. I took it down to the local Toyota dealer to look at some new cars and get the trade in value. The dealer came back and said it had a potential future transmission failure and they could demonstrate it. So we all got in the car and they braked hard, then accelerated hard. Had the same lack of engagement and then engaging with a hard thump (like being hit from behind). So my guess is if you can get your car to do this with a hard deceleration and then a hard acceleration you know your in for trouble.

sktn77a

iTrader: (2)

Hmmm..... So, the Toyota dealer knows about this defect in the RX300 transmission and how to check for it. But neither Toyota nor Lexus will admit theres a problem.

Is it just me or does this smell fishy???

thomas1

Of course, They will not admit any defect, however funny that the rebuilts have a newly designed planetary gear in the after market industry. Yup, Lexus stands by their fishy product.....

lexina

No dealer will ever admit any problem. Admiting problems is a recall. recalls means out of business. Lets hope Hyundai will have better quality, plus their 10yrs/100k warranty. Lexus means quality, but it doesn't look like their quality is any better than honda or even hyundai. Service First, does it sound familiar? Don't ask me, because it is balony.