kirbysc

Hey guys, first post on Club Lexus.

I've been reading a lot on here and around the net about the A/T issues with 1996-2001 Lexus ES300's and just wanted to let anyone who's interested know that my car WAS having similar issues:

Like turning the car on, pressing the brake, changing gear to reverse or park, and the car just sits there, doesn't engage. Or i'd be driving somewhere and all of a sudden the car loses momentum and wont accelerate. Or I'd get to a red light, slow down, light turns green, accelerate and the car would rev to a high rpm then finally kick into gear mashing the gears together. Obviously not a good sign, and every mechanic I talked to said I needed to get my tranny rebuilt. HA.

So, first thing I did was check oil level. It was fine, except pretty brown colored. A few months ago I had the oil drained and replaced. I'd say only about 40% was replaced. Of course, being the lazy mechanic that my friend is, he didn't drop the A/T pan and replace the filter. So the other day, I myself, drained the oil, dropped the pan, replaced the filter, carefully readded the drained oil (yes i know not the safest idea but it was just a test to see if the filter would be the issue) and added a few quarts of needed oil. The filter must have never been changed in the 13.5 years its been alive (I was not the first or second owner) seeing as how the thin filter was covered in pieces of metal.

So I took the car for a drive and everything seems to be working well, as far as I can tell in the past two days, the tranny did not need a rebuild and the oil filter seems to have fixed my problem. Quite the lucky fix. Now, it's only been a couple days, I'm gonna try to put about 100 miles on it this week just to confirm there is no other transmission issues, then I'm gonna change the oil again a couple more times to get that nice red tranny oil color back.

Again, just a heads up for anyone having the same issues and for others like me who thought there was no way a filter could have been the issue.

01LEXPL

iTrader: (10)

Honestly, a trans filter shouldn't be the cause of those issues. Take it to a real shop with a nice expensive scanner as they can read what each solenoid is doing in each gear while driving.

Mine went without reason, and I always had the oil changed and filters once in a while. 140k and she died, the solenoids stopped working "just because". Prior to that the car was making a faint whine, which was a song of the trans going out.

Just stay on top of it, and if there's a faint whine while driving, it's a matter of time....

kirbysc

01LEXPL, thanks good to know. I'll definitely keep an eye on it.

The filter that I replaced was so badly covered with metal shavings and slightly bigger pieces of metal that I assumed it wasn't allowing the fluid to pass through thereby preventing fluid from circulating. I agree that it doesn't seem to be the root of the issue, but it is working fine currently.

No faint whines and I've got 131k miles on my Lexus.

Thanks for the reply.

yzin55

how long tock the gear to engage the D or R is the engagement is smooth ...
if the engagement taking immediate without latency there is no issue and if the the latency in the engagement there may several issue
1- oil felter may chocked. it is not allowing the oli to pass smoth.
2- electrical solenoids need to be checked.
3- controll valve system body some pathe been blocked need to be serviced.
4- tork converter pump need to be serviced.

LeX2K

The filter on these transmissions is not a metal screen but a close woven fiber of some kind. So when they clog, they clog really badly. Another reason to regularity drop the pan and change the filter.

kirbysc

@Lexus2000, Thanks that is interesting, and good to know.

mitmaks

I would change out fluid after another ~500 miles or so, that way you make sure most of it gets changed, not just 1/3 of it that was in pan.