RexusNoobi

Bought a 2001 RX300 a month ago with 285k miles on it. Folks selling it said "No leaks! Works great!"
And I made the idiot mistake of believing them. Paid 3k for it.
I really do like the car. I like it a lot. I thought I got an absolute steal for 3k, and they had just replaced the tires, battery, timing belt, water pump... They just wanted their money back.

WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
A week after I buy it, CEL comes on. Thermostat. I get that replaced.
Then I go to refill the windshield wiper fluid. Notice all my damn coolant is gone and my radiator has a crack in it.
Bring it up to the mechanic, pay them $100 to install a $170 part.
The mechanic then finds my steering rack is mega-loose. Surprise $450.
Then my coolant dumps itself again two nights later.
Bring it back to the mechanic, who couldn't find a leak
Then it sat overnight, and dumped more coolant.
They figure it's coming out of... the water pump... which the guy before me replaced... But the mechanic says it doesn't look new at all....
OH JOY OH JOY OH DAMN JOY.
So guess who's ordered a $180 OEM water pump/timing belt kit, and will be paying $85/hr for 5-6 hours labor + misc.
The worst part is, if I had brought this to the mechanic for a PPI, they probably wouldn't have caught that and I'd have bought it anyways.
Lyin'-*** sonsa*****es.
Private sale, so I can't do much about it other than chalk it up to never ever trust anyone ever.

salimshah

Sorry to hear your story. Too late to recommend should have .....

On the positive side, welcome to Club Lexus. We will lend our shoulders to listen to your story. If you need advise, we will give it for free.

Salim

maxSteel

Sorry. These are old cars and things can go at any time. It sounds like you are unable to do your own repairs.
Your costs could shoot up in a hurry.

The previous owners may not have known the rack was loose. I'm guessing you drove it and didn't feel anything amiss either.

Are they sure it's coming out of the water pump?
It seems suspect to me that the thermostat would fail AND there's a crack in the radiator AND there's a water pump leak.
That's a lot of problems in the cooling system at the same time. Maybe the thermostat was fine? Did they do a pressure test?

I've had good service from my 99 RX300 and I can do my own repairs but I limit my used car purchases to under 10 years old and 120k miles max.

Most recent one I bought was a couple of years ago, I picked up a 2011 Forester for my daughter for $7500. It has been a good first car for a teen and she can easily get 10 years out of it.
The only thing I had to do so far was change the brakes and the oil. I was surprised to find dual piston brakes, and the oil filter is right on top of the engine.

RexusNoobi

Well, on the positive side, I really do like this RX300. The climate control screen/dash/media thing looks really nice and it drives really nicely despite having problems.

It's quite hot where I am, and I'm definitely a novice when it comes to mechanics. I need this for a daily driver so I can't just sit and curse at it for a week as I bumble through a repair. I've done the replacement actuator locks and motors for my windows for what it's worth.
The initial pressure test revealed absolutely nothing. It's super strange. It's only if it sits overnight and then gets cold. That's when it'll dump coolant. But if you've got coolant and have run the car, absolutely zero coolant leak. It's very weird. And the coolant will stay in, until sometime in the middle of the night where it says it's tired of it's coolant.
And I felt the steering was a little loose, but it felt "20-year old car" loose and not "might kill me in the next 3 months" loose.
And it won't do it every night, either. I discovered if I drive it at night, before going to bed, I'll not leak a bit of coolant overnight. But if it's a weekend and I don't go anywhere that day, I'll wake up to find coolant dumped out. For a while I thought someone was stealing my coolant, but I couldn't make myself crazy enough to believe it.
But it's one big mystery of "Well what ELSE is just going to pop up that the sellers lied about?"
But in the end it's gonna be a really nice car and I'll have some peace of mind.

salimshah

If it is peeing out the coolant then it is not so bad as an internal leak would imply coolant in oil or coolant in exhaust. Clean and tryout the bottom portion and remove the bottom shield. Park indoors and line the floor with paper towel. Next morning check for the coolant leak source.

Water pump usually seeps before the leak gets bigger and it drip down the main pulley.

Interesting fact is leak when the coolant is not pressurized. I would look more carefully around the overflow reservoir and piping [just a hunch].

There is hidden passage way between the two banks under the air intake. But that gets stressed when the engine is hot.

Salim

maxSteel

When you say "coolant dumped out" how much coolant are we talking about?

I read somewhere that a coolant leak when cold could also be caused by loose hose clamps. Has to do with thermal expansion.

Margate330

Raising some eyebrows, hmmm, this is guesswork and not a legit diagnosis if no leak was found at the water pump.
Did he take a pic of the "not new" water pump when he had the timing cover off so you can see and make an educated decision or are you taking his word??

Just some thoughts.

slothman

well, at least when you are done with it, you will know EXACTLY what has been done to maintain it. I bought one for 7500, and still fixing all this **** LOL. So yeah ....unless it's brand new, you are going to be fixing stuff and doing maintenance. Just apart of the game. Most people don't care for their cars. They just take it in when it breaks. Good news is you only paid 3k for it.

ellocovg

iTrader: (1)

Hopefully you can iron out the coolant issue and be done with major repairs for a while. It’s a Lexus but it has allot of mileage and unfortunately stuff like this will happen. Lexus usually get taken care of well my previous owners, but by now that’s long gone. My rough estimate when car shopping is that the first owner is usually a lease so 3 year 36k is always dealer serviced and all warranty work will be done. The second owner is usually a CPO purchase that will keep it around 5 years and will normally baby it and mostly service it by the book at the dealer. The end usually comes when the service bills start to get expensive and the owner decides it’s time to get a new one. Now the third owner will come in at about 100k and will usually no longer use the dealer or he recommended schedule. Unfortunately usually at this point the owner are usually purchasing a more expensive vehicle than they should and preventative maintenance will be just oil changes. From this point forward it’s tricky to buy a high mileage vehicle because it will be treated like a beater and will usually have some sort of bandaid job done just to unload it to the next guy since the repair bills will be roughly the cost of the vehicle.

Not every car has this same pattern but most do. I searched for a long time for a 2010 RX and looked at many service records online and this s ended to be the norm. I eventually bought one with 95000 miles and an awesome track record but even this two owner vehicle by the end of the dealer seevice records it was mostly sevices declined, followed by quick lube oil changes the last two years which I suspect is the only money they dumped into the RX.

Margate330

I'm looking at a Lexus 2004 GX470 and this is exactly what I'm worried about.
Already had 3 owners so I would be the 4th at 195K miles.

I think many people buy Lexus because they expect reliability and they run them into the ground until they need a full front end suspension rebuild, struts all the ways around, t-belt, water pump, fuel pump, steering rack, engine mounts, etc, etc, etc to make the car run and drive like new again- so they trade it in.

I've spent the last year doing all these repairs on mine.

sktn77a

iTrader: (2)

An old car is an old car. The older they are the more failures there are - Lexus, Mercedes, Ford, Chevrolet - some worse than others, but they all fail!