intermec

Have been reading this forum for many months and noticed there are many owners have trouble with leak. I mean all kind of leak from the ES.

rear main seal is leaking...
front crank seal and cam seals are leaking,,,
valve cover gaskets are leaking...
oil pan is leaking...
power steering pump is leaking...

is it really that bad for most 97-01? even 02+ members have issue like those.
wonder how bad it is.
if so did you DIY to fix it or take it to dealer?

llcoolpass

it's normal for cars to start leaking, and they tend to do it sooner if the car is mistreated, for example: infrequent power steering fluod replacement, oil changes, and high loads, also, the car being parked [or driven] at a really steep angle could help the front and rear seals leak form, but often [related in concept] its from over-filled oil in the crankcase.

you might consider doing the timing belt at the time since a lot of the work is the same, so if you're close or overdue for tmiing belt, I'd rec doing that at the same time as the front main seal. the rear main seal is a seperate thing, so you can do that from that perspective. it's normal that a car is supposed to work for 5 years without many problems. your car is probably old and has many miles.

lexus owners, while nice people, don't tend to be as car savy, but they do know to take the car to the dealer for maintenance, but unfortunately, things can still go wrong, but after a few years, they tend to get owned by those that dont know the maintenance needed nor regularly visit the dealer, instead go to local repair people when someonething has really gone wrong. that's what I think.

also, the valve cover gaskets due tend to leak a lot more than other v6s, mostly the rear one, because the engine is tilted such that the oil tends to sit on the gasket too much. probably helps the oil pan gasket leak a little bit easier too.

but the front and rear seal are usually from over fill, bad oil, time / age/ use, abuse

hardly anyone seems to know they have to change [some of/through fractional dilution] the power steering fluid every two years or 30K miles], but it's never too late to learn that lesson.

BadViper22

Truthfully, 90% of our new members join the forum to complain about whatever they have that broke and create threads that already exist, and most of the time their parts break because of user error (Not knowing when to change fluids/ take it to the shop). It really varies from car to car, besides the sludge recall in the 1mz, they are really great engines. If you're unsure about a purchase just ask for a carfawks report.

llcoolpass

i agree and i overreacted in my resposen to the problem by being a bit nasty with some of them , but i changed my attitude mostly and shared the cause of my nastiness with the forum moderator [dave] who seems to understand