We are considering buying my brother-in-law's 2000 RX300 FWD but I'm a little concerned about the transmission issue after reading through this forum.

Some background on the car, they have been the only owner and it has been a family car for them, primarily putting highway miles on it in rural Oklahoma. They have regularly taken it in for maintenance and it has never been in an accident. It currently has $145k miles on it and they recently took it in to the mechanic and he said it should run for a very long time. He said there are a couple of minor things wrong with it such as the antennae no longer retracts and something is wrong with the gas vapor sensor that they were going to have fixed when they took it in for the next oil change. When I mentioned the talk about transmissions he just said they had never had a problem and he wondered if that was more of a problem for the AWD vehicles.

They will probably trade it in for another car if we don't buy it. He originally said the KBB on the car was $6700 but he wouldn't charge us that. We told him just to let us know what the lowest price was reasonably that he would sell it to us that would be fair for everyone and if we could swing it we would (I'm in school so money is a little tight).

My questions are: what price do you think is reasonable and should we be concerned about the transmission in this vehicle? Anything else we should be thinking about?

Thanks so much!

 

Welcome to Club Lexus!

I say go for it and welcome to the forum. I think there is a big difference between taking the Lexus to Jiffy Lube for regular maintenance and taking it somwhere that uses quality motor oil and a quality oil filter. I would hope it was getting a reasonable level of maintenance care through it's life.

I just bought a 5-quart container of Castrol GTX motor oil at Walmart today and it was $18.50! This past winter it was $13.50. This should give you an indication of the quality of oil and filter you get with a $17.99 or $19.99 oil change.

If it wasn't a relative, I'd be concerned about the care the car received if they didn't bother to fix the radio antenna when it failed. But you know your brother-in-law.

 

I think under book value for a car with a known history would be a good deal. I have a '99 AWD for my daughter, and we've had no transmission problems. I really like that she has this vehicle. I trust Toyota/Lexus, and it's easy to work on. In Oklahoma, you'll never need AWD, so your mileage will be a little better than ours, I suppose. I would be unlikely to buy any vehicle (even a Lexus) with this many miles without knowing the history, but I wouldn't hesitate to buy it from a relative. You'll really, really like the vehicle. Good luck, and let us know what you decide!

 

Get it! It's a Toyota no worries! The transmission problems really aren't that bad, especially on the FWD models. I know many people myself that have gone way past 300k on the original trans on awd rx's with normal maintenance.

 

I wish you the best. They make a fantstic driving car and I think they look great. But, just don't say no one warned you. 20001 FWD transmission failure at 131,000.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/rx-...131-000-a.html

Russ

 

I would not buy/sell things from close relatives. Although there is a upside to the deal but there are more potential reasons to strain relationships .. starting with both or one party feeling that the price is/was not fair and problems that may show up later in time (you already are apprehensive about transmission). Only go ahead, if both parties are willing to live with extreme worst outcome without impacting the relationship. Relationships are more precious!

Salim

 

*** They may have been one of the lucky (VERY FEW) who has been blessed with no major issues as many of us who have been or currently experiencing major (big ticket item repairs). ask them about excessive oil burning. this is a common issue with these models and the condition is called a "gelled engine" this condition will eventually send that car into a tail spin and you may never recover... Have the transmission checked prior as well.. Dont forget there is NOTHING inexpensive on a lexus, NOTHING !!

 

I think the trans. issues were mostly all AWD`s. The transmission was to light duty for the added stress of the AWD.

 

Each person has their own perspective and is often tainted by personal experience [how else can it be?]. A while back 100k of trouble free ownership was considered to be outstanding ownership experience. I always remind people that Lexus only warrants 50 or 60k miles of trouble free (or at Lexus' expense fix).

If one counts the number of old Rxs on the road, that at least points out that a number of people either have no problems or after repairing still thought it was good enough vehicle to keep.

I do agree that the cost of repairs is high, but cost of repairs on non-luxury cars is not cheap either. $500 repair bill us not so uncommon. European Luxury vehicles are even higher to repair.

Salim

 

I see at least 10 rx300's on the road here everyday... that surely means something. I know many RX300 owners (friends and family) they have all had a pleasant experience with the RX300. I know many RX's with more than 200k, and 3 RX's (I know them personally, and have seen these 3 rx's; all original trans.) with 320k +.