bcg02

Ive been reading up on the somewhat common transmission issues that plague the 99-00 models. Were there any design changes in the 01+ models that make the trans more robust? The reports of failed transmission in these years appear to be much more infrequent.-

hypervish

The planetary gear set was upgraded, and I believe the number of teeth has increased to 5. There are pictures floating around somewhere of the part that fails.

You have to remember people don't come online to talk about great their transmission is, so the number of complaints you see are just that. There are so many other people that have no problems.

Whenever I look at when and how the transmission failed. It usually fails before 100k miles. After 100,000 miles, not many people have had transmissions fail. So, if your past 100k miles your probably safe from failure (unless of course you abuse it). Some people might not change the transmission oil as frequently as they should, other's might change it at every 15k miles but use the wrong fluid which would also ruin the transmission. Another transmission killer, is when you don't come to a complete stop when switching from "P" to "D" or "R" to "D", etc. And, of course the leading transmission failure cause is HEAT, which applies to all transmissions of all cars.

sktn77a

iTrader: (2)

We know Toyota Type IV is the right fluid and many of us are using Mobil 1 full synthetic. What would constitute the "wrong" fluid that people might use?

Lexmex

Something that is not Type IV compatible.

This is not as a big an issue with the RX300, but sometimes in the past there was maybe something that used one thing one year and then the same exact car (but with perhaps nothing more than a new tranny or other slight modification the next year) used a different fluid. Dexron is the one that usually people have to figure out.

jbl-1985

Amen to that HV - though I only have 61k on my 99 it shows no evidence of burning fluid prematurely nor has it ever had metal particles in any of the drain and fills I have done. I have not done any kind of oil analysis on it but my thought on that is I don't feel like chasing down a potential problem to that degree. In the unlikely event that it ever fails, I'll get it replaced. To me, it would be worth the cost of a new trans...that's just how I feel about that car.

Happy New Year to all,