rickpark

I inherited a 2002 RX300 (Coach Edition - woo-hoo!) that spent its existence in Honolulu - mild weather, low mileage (30K).

It was finally delivered via ocean freight to Los Angeles. I picked it up this Wednesday and drove it home after stopping to get it smog inspected.

I went to check under the hood as I knew it had not had any attention for about a year. All the fluids looked fine; over the next few months I'll be changing the oil, coolant, brake fluid and tx fluid.

I lifted up the red plastic hood over the battery (+) terminal to find it thickly encrusted with blue and white corrosion. So I got some baking soda and warm water and proceeded to neutralize the gunk.

As I was wiping and sponging the residue off the battery case, I lifted up on the positive cables - which came off in my hand.



The copper post clamp to which the starter and main power cables bolt to had essentially disintegrated to the point where the remaining metal was about the thickness of an aluminum soda can.



At this point, (6pm in the evening) with daylight rapidly retreating, I had to figure out how to fix this problem. The nearest Lexus dealer is 12 miles away. However, there is a Toyota dealer about 1/2 mile away so I took the two remaining pieces of the clamp to the parts dept.

They were able to find an acceptable substitute for $15 so back home I went - only to find they had given me a negative terminal clamp (too small to fit on positive post). Back to the dealer for the right part.

The new part looks much more robust and hopefully I won't have to change it again.



It bugs me that the Lexus dealership never inspected and cleaned the terminal all the times that it was brought in for the recommended service. This had to be going on for years.

What I can't figure out is how enough current to turn the starter over was able to be provided through such a thin and fragile connection. Maybe the corrosion around the terminal provided a conductive pathway?

salimshah

The clamp is under a cover. Unless some one takes the cover off to inspect, one would never know ,,,, although the crud on the battery should have been a give away sign.

The starter is the heaviest load, but the engine is not high compression. The starter is puny. I grew up with a diesel car and boy, the starter was almost as heavy as the battery.

There is a special grease for the battery terminal but any grease will work (do not put the ordinary grease on the clamp-post contact area, but you can smear it over the clamp after you tighten the post. The grease will keep the moist air away from the metal.

Salim

rickpark

I used some Permatex battery protector spray on the terminals

It smells like lacquer and is purple. I use it on the batteries of my other cars and don't have this problem.

I also put a new battery in just to make sure there are no other issues with this part of the car.

Dadikins

On another topic... 30k miles! Man, you got yourself one heck of a gem! My 2002 Coach has 145k on it -- what I wouldn't give for it to have 30k.

Since it was a HI car, is it strictly FWD, or was the coach only available in AWD? Willing to sell it?

sktn77a

iTrader: (2)

First order of business - change all the fluids! (Don't flush the tranny - drain and fill only).

rickpark

It is a FWD. Really no need for AWD in Hawaii's climate. And really no place to go on the roads; hence the low mileage.

The car belonged to my dad who recently passed away so I will be keeping it. My mom then retired from driving since she is pushing 90 and while she actually is an excellent driver, she was showing signs of inattention on the road. They had only been using it to go on short errands or to the doctor.

rickpark

Yes - oil this week, coolant to follow and probably take it to an independent to do the brakes and ATX. The coolant is long overdue as even though the recommendation is at 30K miles, in the case of this low mileage car, it should have been done at the 2-3 year anniversary.

The ATX was done at the 15K service check in 2006 so I will make this the last service to be done.