joe250

I understand many transmission threads are made daily but wanted to see if mine is any different and what should I do. I bought my 2000 Lexus RX 300 for $6600 from a private party. Its in overall great shape. Everything ran smoothly and I still feel like it does besides so brake squeak-age. The person that sold it has no maintenance records so we wanted to bring it up to maintenance so we changed oil, rear dif, trasfer case oil, and got to the transmission fluid. We took it down the plate and looked like someone replaced the transmission filter before. There was alot of metal shavings and we dumped the old transmission fluid and put a new filter and new transmission fluid. Theres of course still 5 or more quarts of old since I only could manually replace 5 quarts out of the total 10 quarts. Im pretty scared transmission might fail. The RX 300 has 127,000 miles on it. What do you guys think. Should I drive it til it dies, sell it to a dealer , sell it to a private party while it is still running

carguy07

Would need to see a picture of the shavings. It's totally normal to find some junk in there.

hypervish

Welcome to Club Lexus.

LIke carguy07 said, there's ought to be some shavings in there.

Only time will tell if the transmission is going to fail. From the sounds of it, you changed the oil before anything major occurred.

You used Toyota Type-IV atf correct, or at least something compatible with it?

code58

Hyper,
I question your statement "there ought to be some shavings in there". I changed my DIL's '99 RX trans. fluid (I always do a complete change by pump circulation) for the 1st. time at 97K mi. (I got after my son for neglecting it. Their cars look beautiful but he doesn't have my mechanical DNA) The fluid looked nasty but didn't smell. There was the typical (for the RX trans's anyway) gray sludge but NO shavings. I reminded him at 150K+ mi. that I needed to do a complete change again. Once again, pretty dirty but NO sign of shavings. It now has 165+K mi. on it with absolutely no sign of problem of any kind. Since they tend to run their vehicles at least 165-180K mi. before getting rid of them, I'm hoping they have no trouble. They sold their '97 Suburban in '08 with 178K mi. and no trans. problems except the lock-up converter getting a touch weak. Truck looked new but when I changed the fluid at about 150K mi. it looked like old engine oil. He juggles a lot of things in life and is a great son, but I do kinda get on him about maintenance.

hypervish

I should have worded that better, I meant to say small particles, such as sludge. I agree, there shouldn't be any real shavings from any planetary gear's or anything. lol Sorry, about the confusion.

My uncle hasn't ever found any shaving's in his 99' RX AWD with ~380k miles. I haven't dropped my pan ever, only drain and fills so I can't say how it is down there. But, the fluid always comes out cherry red, the same way it went in.

LA4Mead

If you like the car, it is in otherwise good condition, you don't have a large investment in it, and it drives fine now, what do you have to lose?
It sounds like you have the luxury of time to shop for a good deal from a reputable shop for a rebuild. Be sure they will specify including updated components including the correct software (is it called firmware?) and steel planetary gearset (rather than the original aluminum design?), so you are ready for the worst-case scenario in the event you need it sooner than later. What do you other contributors think?

salimshah

When I read words "scared" and "might fail" they make me think the owner has no-confidence in the ride. Every bump or lurch seem like ,,,, this is it.

My advice would be do the necessary maintenance and drive with confidence. In life anything can happen and we can not let the fear take the enjoyment out. If not then sell the vehicle and get yourself something that would bring you joy ... and if it can not bring you pleasure, it should at least not bring worries.

Salim

joe250

I took it to the shop to rebuild the transmission and gonna see what they say but here are the pictures. What do you think

Lexmex

On the magnet on the bottom left, it looks like I see larger bits but I can't quite tell. Everything should be sludgy on the magnets no metal bits.

salimshah

Did I miss something? There is giant leap between check-up and rebuild.

Salim

code58

Yea, it does look like there are "shavings" (small "bits) that I have never seen in my DIL's. If the planetary housing (carrier for the gears) is aluminum it would not be attracted to the magnets. I can't help but wonder if there was a problem with the heat treating of the aluminum (is it actually heat treated as steel is or is it only the alloy that it's made of that produces the strength) or if there was a problem with the composition of the alloy in some of them (inconsistence) because some failed so early because of the planetary housing and some last so long. Just doesn't make sense. Hypervish's uncle's with 380K mi.? That's incredible. Extrtemely rare for a trans with top reputation to go that far much less the RX w/AWD.

hypervish

Yup, he does a drain and fill every 15k miles, and after 75k miles he drops the pan, and cleans the filter (mesh screen). He uses Castrol Transmax Multi-Vehicle ATF, which is why I started using it. If he's got 380,000 miles out and still running of the RX's transmission then he must do something right.

My uncle owns a repair shop, and he has seen a ton of RX's with over 200k on the original transmission come in for an oil change. He doesn't seem to think the RX's have a transmission problem, but he does notice how bad the fluid gets which is why he changed the fluid every 15k miles. At 15k miles the fluid still looks like it came out of the bottle.

code58

I'm not sure whether it makes a lot of differebce or not but my DIL's RX still has the mesh screen also. I wouldn't think of changing to the paper filter because when I do the pan pull and clean and then the "pump through" to change ALL the fluid, the RX (and probably anything else in the T/L line that uses that basic trans.) has less pressure (volumn of flow) than anything else I've ever done. I have been concerned about it but it seems to be how T/L engineered it and with the miles your uncle sees on them it must work. I wonder if the "sludge" is from wear that wouldn't be if they ran higher pressure. They get "murkier" than anything else I've seen with the same miles. The flow (pressure) is REALLY quite low.

joe250

We decided to go get the transmission rebuild at a place that lexus reconmended. While there they will replace spark plugs aswell. The whole process takes around 5-6 business days so by monday. The transmission has a warranty of 1 year or 50,000 miles and If I want an exended up to 3 years would cost hundreds more. Right now its estimated that the cost will be around $4000

hypervish

Your transmission hasn't failed yet, right? So, why are you replacing it?
Also, $4000 is very high for a transmission. I suggest you shop around.