toyo

After I replaced the knock sensors last week twice....My fault for not using OEM parts...

This 3rd car of ours for my son is taking too much of my time lately. I really needed to replace the timing belt since it was replaced at 92K. This belt had 261K miles on it and I knew I was pushing my luck. I also had developed a vibration that I just could not figure out where it was coming from. I have a great relationship with the driveability/lead tech at my local Lexus dealer. He and I are the only 2 people that have touched this car. I had him replace the T/Belt at 92K. Can you tell I hate doing timing belts??

I dropped the car off too him on Wednesday and asked him to replace the belt, water pump and such. I also asked him to find the freaking vibration. The vibration would not occur every time and was much worse when the car was cold.

He diagnosed it for awhile and determined that part of the drive shaft was defective. Since it is a 3 piece unit he could not tell me exactly which part was defective. At a cost of $1500.00 for a new complete unit I told him hell no! I found one at a local salvage yard with 120K miles on it for $100.00. I picked the car up and went to my shop and installed it. After close inspection of the old unit I discovered that both the u-joints were pretty rough and the carrier bearings had very little left of them. Test drove and now it feels like new again.

As I pulled in to pick my car up at the dealer there were 2 men standing at my car with the hood up in the service bay. I'm like uh ho, what's going on??? It was the service manager and GM. They were in awe of the condition of the car at 353K miles on it. They told me to keep driving her and see what I could get out of her.

This just might turn into a test to see how long she will go.

Here is a pic I took last week when I replaced the rear valve cover. Yep, her internals are damn clean.

Baetke

Well Done! I imagine you have one of the highest mileage RX300's on the road.

What is your oil change interval?

toyo

I bought this car at Tom Williams Lexus in Birmingham, AL and drove it from the dealer to visit my dad in AZ. I stopped in Albuquerque,NM at the 1000K mark for my free oil change. Ever since then I have changed the oil and filter every 5K miles. The only oil I have used in M1 10/30. I use either a M1, Toyota or Purolator Pure One oil filter.

Some may question why I took it to a Lexus dealer instead of say a Toyota dealer. Cost wise I have spent next to nothing to keep it running. I figured what the hell, let them do it. They also fixed a couple of minor things that I have not had time to get around to such as the center console rattled a little, steering wheel squeaked when cold. I didn't even ask them to look at these items and they fixed them without a charge.

Heck, the only bulbs I have changed so far are 2 of the corner lamps in the rear bumper.

salimshah

Toyo:

Good job in taking care of your vehicle and you have a good machine too. We all know that at times you get a machine that irrespective of how good a care you take, it keeps having issues.

You have earned the right to call your RX Lexus. Folks who take their RX to Toyota, should call theirs Toyota.

Salim

toyo

Salimshah, You are a good man!

kalali

Toyo, just out of curiosity, what did the timing belt look like after that many miles? Thanks.

hypervish

These car's are incredible! You wouldn't believe how many times I've nearly bought another one, only thing that stops me is MPG. lol

maxSteel

I found the lexus dealer service just too expensive, even with the free espresso. I have 230,000 miles on my 1999, so I must be doing ok.

salimshah

No one drives Lexus, we all drive Toyotas

Salim

toyo

Sorry for the delay.

I looked at all the parts after he was finished. The belt was in pretty darn good shape. It is hard to tell the condition of a belt with the human eye. I always will turn the belt inside out and put a sharp bend in it when I am looking at it for any cracks or being brittle. I did not see anything that would cause me worry.

The water pump had no seepage, the bearing felt normal as well.

I started working for Toyota in 1988. I was trained by the top Toyota tech in the Southeast at the time. Among many other things that I use from his advice almost daily is to work smart and not hard. He taught me the huge advantage of using leverage while working on a car and to always use Toyota coolant. He has since passed on and I really do miss him. He was a great person and Technician!

To this day whenever I am having to use leverage I never fail to stop and think about him. I have always used Toyota coolant in my personal cars. The radiator in my RX is still spotless and the coolant passages are as well.

Some of you may recall the problem that some GM cars had with the DexCool they used. It was the miracle coolant from GM.... It would sludge up and eat away the intake manifold gaskets, heater cores and etc. I bought a 2004 Chevy Express 3500 van with the 6.0L new. It had the Dexcool from the factory and was smack in the middle of the Dexcool time frame. The day I got it home I drained and flushed that cooling system out for several hours to make sure it was all gone. I put the Toyota coolant in it at that time. I have 289K miles on that van now and have never replaced the water pump, radiator or anything related to the cooling system. That is unheard of on these vans. Especially the radiator and water pump.

Sorry for rambling on

toyo

I am too **** to buy a used car and feel good about it. I have only purchased 1 used car and so far it has worked out great. My wife wanted to make a change in her car last year. She had been driving an RX since 1999. Her 1st one was a 1999 RX AWD in pearl. It was a nice RX until the porter at the Lexus dealer decided to take it home one weekend and go four wheeling and damaged the undercarriage! The Lexus dealer took very good care to make sure I was happy and compensated for the fiasco. A few months after that I traded it in and on the 2001. I found it to be a huge difference in the 1999. The 1999 was the 1st year for the Rx and they had some minor bugs to work out in which they definitely did. The 2001 has every option you could get at that time, my wife loved the Nav system.

I have always wanted a Lexus LS for my wife. I did not want to spend the money for a new one last year as I had just bought a new Toyota Tacoma double cab, 4WD. It's my baby.... I started looking at the used car market for a 2006 LS430. It was the last year before they changed the body style. I found one that had just been traded in for a RX of all things. The older couple wanted something smaller. It had 53K miles on it and had perfect service records from the Lexus dealer. This car was a cream puff to say the least. The only blemish it had was it looked like someone had closed the hood and something had got caught where the front of the hood meets the bumper. Part of the deal was for them to fix it. She just turned 100K on it and of course nothing has gone wrong. I am going to do the timing belt on it myself in a few weeks.

We live on the north side of Atlanta up on Lake Lanier. My wife used to drive down into Atlanta for work. Round trip was over 100 miles. With work, errands, vacations and me driving out to AZ 3 times a year to visit my dad for several weeks you can see how she ended up with so many miles! She changed jobs in November of last year and now she is only 15 minutes to the hospital where she works. What a difference in maintenance on my end!

If any of you ever get interested in a sedan and want to stay with the Lexus brand I would look at the LS430. That car is so perfect in so many ways. Yes, it has the stigma of it being an old person's car but don't let it fool you. That car will get up and boogy when you need to. The quality and craftsmanship that they built into that car is amazing. It is so freaking silent it is almost eery. You absolutely cannot feel or hear the engine running at idle.

In 1989 when they came out with the LS400 it was a pretty big deal to Toyota and Lexus. They did everything they could to make it a perfect launch. They were aiming straight at BMW, Mercedes and Cadillac. Lexus had invited some Toyota employees to get a sneak peek at the new car even before the press was able to. They were straight from Japan and sitting in a warehouse at Road Atlanta. We were able to drive them and look them over pretty well. It was something that I will never forget, being one of the 1st group of people to drive a Lexus. I guess I will always have a soft spot for Lexus and the LS in me!