I'm here because my RX300 transmission has started demonstrating enough funkiness that even my wife notices it when it's cold. We've had the car for almost four years now- out of the extended warranty. I've used it to tow race cars numerous times, which it does quite well. She used it for sales - mostly city driving - over the first three. Then I used it for day care pickup over the last year, which it only saw 800 miles. I love the RX, but any time we have pending car trouble, she wants to trade for fear of me spending time working on the car (or pumping cash into it).

So I'm going to follow the procedures in this thread AND install (replace) an auxiliary oil cooler, a fan (from an atv) that will switch from a relay triggered by the OE coolant fan thermoswitch (if there is one, if not I have one I can use) and an inline filter (Ford truck filters on ebay run $5). That will be my attempt at extending the life of the trans.

I've also learned that the RX shares internal trans components with the Highlander, Camry and Sienna. I didn't find anything here on Club Lexus, but wondered if anybody had seen reference to doing the internals swap. With the price of used RX trans running over $2k, this would be a very viable alternative. Given the popularity of the camry, low mileage trans it are sub $1k. Just move the guts to the RX fwd case and you're good to go.

thanks- rob

 

TunedRX300, not sure where you live in CA but if you get to Santa Rosa, I would like to buy you a couple of beers for this DIY. Good combination of photos and text. I did the whole deal this afternoon in a few hours with no problems using your thread. Thanks.

 

Thanks, I am glad you enjoyed the DIY and saved major $. If I happen to stop by Santa Rose, I will PM you for sure

 

Yes, LexMex. Mobil is the out-source supplier of this fluid for Toyota/Lexus. Mobil sells this same fluid under its own label as "Mobil ATF 3309" Great DIY write-up. I think it may have already been mentioned elsewhere, the early model RX300's with AWD were prone to premature transmission failure. By 2002 this design flaw was remedied.

 

Is the AWD 18 bolt and the 2WD 17 bolt? for the pan....

 

First time here and finally found something worth reading on these oil changes. I scrambled through toyota nation site and couldn't dig anything up. My sign in name is 6.0PSD for the one's that are not familiar with the name, it is my toy 2006 F250 King Ranch diesel. I am a member of FTW since I bought my truck new in Sept 05 and also thedieselgarage and I get real good info on those sites and super fast replies for those in need, especially thedieselgarage. When I started looking for a highlander or rx300 I signed up at toyota nation and coming from the Ford/diesel sites I was not impressed with the info available there. This site seems to be better organized compared to the nation. Great job on the gear and trans description on changing oil.

I bought my wife a 99 RX on March 4, 2008 so she can drive around the kids and keep them out of my truck for a while. It has 83,300 miles and I don't have any service history on it so all lubes have to be changed very soon and now that I got some really good info I should get to it in the next few weeks.

Trans oil right now is nice and red and smells good but I don't know if it was just changed for a cover up to sell vehicle. It shifts fine. One thing I learned about this truck is that if it's cold out it will not shift from 2nd to 3 until about 3k rpm's, it still shifts smooth. Once oil temps go up it shifts smooth and at 2k rpms or less if I'm easy on the throttle. I have read many different horror stories on these transmissions breaking down and want to try and prevent it from happening.

Question, I have close to 100 qts of mercon III/V ATF, if I wanted to drain the trans and used the stuff in the RX trans for a few hundred miles then drain again do you think I will be doing more harm to the trans than good.

The toyota/mobil stuff is red and so is mercon and come to think of it so is my blood when I bleed, but I know I can't use that.

I really am planning on cleaning out the filter pan, magnets, cooler lines and then refill with the mercon. Then maybe go about 500 miles with it, then maybe do it again for another 500 miles. So after about 1000 miles on the mercon I will go into the toyota/mobil ATF as described then go 1k miles and finally change it again with a new filter and toyota ATF. Is this too much, I have no idea if the previous owner ever changed it so I want to do a super clean job and I have all those qt's sitting around.

Wow nearly wrote a book here. These BLEEP newbies don't know when to stop.

Again great job on both threads.

 

Welcome to the Club.

As far as using the other fluid that you mentioned, I would recommend against it. Reason I say that is from experience down here with mechanics (and even one Toyota dealer (not the one that I know thankfully)) have used something other than Type-IV Toyota fluid and came out with some unfortunate results in at least 3 Camrys and 1 ES300 (of a friend many years ago).

TunedRX300 and others have used Amsoil ATF, which I plan to use when I get back to Florida in under a month and some have used Redline's ATF and I believe we have had a few use Royal Purple, but with those other synthetics I haven't heard of any horror story and in the case of Amsoil I have heard great things.

My respects to your F250, it is one of the more popular trucks that has shown up at my track here, always a pleasure to have them.

 

Thanks lexmex, I'm just trying to find a reason to use some of the mercon that I have plenty of(probably over 100qts). It's motorcraft brand type III and type V so I figured that toyota in in the middle with Type IV (T IV ATF). If I put in 50% of III and 50% of V I'll have the right mix

If you really don't think I should risk driving a few hundred miles with the other stuff then I'll clean out the trans as described here and flush with the mercon, refill trans with it, do a drive around town(small town of South River) for a couple miles to warm up the oil completely and then drain, clean trans pan again replace filter and flush adding then the toyota Type IV or the others mentioned here.

I'm still confused and wonder, if Toyota created that number IV to throw people off from buying other ATF's that are available for much less at local parts stores. I guess no one will really know for sure unless you work directly with the toyota plant and/or oil supplier. Does Toyota want their customers to keep buying their product???????????? I'm just wondering

Thanks again, Philip

 

To aid with that, I can tell you that experiences I mentioned above with the Camrys and especially the ES300, it took about 80 miles or so before things got REALLY noticeable in terms of a difference.

Well, Mobil makes that fluid for them. The Toyota Type IV is used on a set of the last generation of Toyota/Lexus products, but not newer Toyota/Lexus products are using WS (World Standard fluid), has slightly different characteristics.

I know that not all transmissions are so twitchy with other fluids, my uncle and his buddy work on trannies all the time, but these Toyota trannies aren't the cream of the crop in my personal opinion. However, based on experience, I know my uncle will attest to worse problems on Honda/Nissan transmissions. The buddy who helped fix my tranny last December sees an inordinate number of Honda transmissions in his place.

 

Did the filter/fluid change with Amsoil and it transformed the performance of the transmission. All of the odd shifting issues I had are gone except for the very first shift to third when the trans is stone cold. It will run up to about 2500 rpm with very little throttle load and then shift to third. I suspect this may be to warm the trans up since it doesn't do it again. Also found out that the tow kit includes a trans cooler (didn't see it mentioned in here) that would prolong life providing the car was never used to tow.

 

The problem with the cooler,is where they decided to put it.My thought was to add an rtv fan to it.Mostly for summer time traffic driving.

 

Agreed. I actually have a used ATV fan I picked up with that intention. I was going to run a relay triggered off the coolant fan. RX just doesn't see the use as before since we both work at home. Only 1800 miles in 4 months. Need to get an O2 sensor first.

 

Thank you TUNEDRX300 for this information. As a new RX owner, I was a little hesitant to change trans oil. I followed your instructions and oil change was just as you instructed. thank you for taking the time to help those who want to diy..I especially liked getting the extra 2 quarts out from the oil cooler line..your instructions gave me the confidence to do it and I appreciate it.

jon

 

Jon,
Thanks, I am glad it saved you money. It has been two years plus a summer since I changed 7 quarts and so far zero trouble. I will soon do a drain and fill and likely will send a used ATF sample for testing and post the result in another thread.

 

After doing a few simple drain & fill, I've decided to move on to taking down the pan and the oil strainer+filter.

I was wondering if there is a different part number for the metal version of the filter instead of the paper?

What size are the bolts holding the oil strainer? I couldn't find it in the 1st page.

My last question would be, what's the estimated fluid I need if I do all the above without the cooler line process?

4 qt(drain) + 1 qt(front diff) + ?? (pan + strainer)?