I joined the GX Forum because I have long been a fan of the Prados(the overseas GX). My son has two GX's and one LS and I have 3 older Toyotas, a Camry, a Corolla and a 98 4 Runner and I love them all. We sometimes have a big snowpack here in Wyoming and my 2 FWD sedans do struggle at times with the snowpacked and icy roads even with Blizzak tires. The 4 runner sometimes jumps around in 4wd with its stiff suspension in 2 or 4WD. It is not AWD. My wifes AWD subaru does not and I wondered why and decided it might be the AWD feature. So it was natural to look at the AWD 470's which have possibly Toyotas best engine, the 2UZ.. The pre 2005 versions without VVTI are not interference engines. I try never to buy Timing belt/chain cars that are interference. I also wanted a bit more tow capacity than my 4R which is 3500 lbs so I started the search for the perfect 470. The first thing I noticed was enormous price variation. KBB gives PP for the 2003-2004 as about $6 to $8000. with most around 9-12K in our area with the usual outliers up to 20K. decided 8-10K was my budget. The next feature I found disturbing was Toyota/Lexus going to sealed automatic transmissions in 2004 calling the A750F a "lifetime" transmission. I am a mechanic and there is no such thing. Periodic fluid exchanges every 30 to 60000 miles might give you a lifetime transmission especially if Toyota made it. I also found virtually no sellers who had ever serviced their transmissions by themselves or by their dealer and not one who even knew how to check the fluid level. Many had even towed with them. Not good with their marginal cooling capacity on some models. and lack of Transmission temp gauges.. I decided to stick with the 2003 models which had a dipstick and amazingly ran into owners who had never checked their ATF level. They said it was a sealed transmission and didn't need maintenance. Not good. . A750 series trannys are excellent if they are serviced. So I decided to try to stick with pre 2005 GX470s with low miles say less than 150 K and plan on checking the ATF before purchase if possible. And if not, look for a garaged one owner of advanced age and hope for the best. The next issue was there are no new A750 transmissions. Lexus does have remans which run from $4000 to $5000 in the box. Labor extra, a lot extra of course. I can install transmissions in my shop but that is a steep price to pay for a reman and I would never EVER try to find a reman off Ebay or consider a junkyard unit unless I had it tested which is rarely done. I could get lucky and find one with a recent Lexus reman that was wrecked but I had no luck with that venue. The last straw was the crappy gas mileage, teens only.. The 2UZ is easy to service unless it happens to need a starter!!! A 4 hour job even for me. So reluctantly I quit my search . I decided to find a cheaper option and ended up with a low mile garaged 98 Tahoe with a 3/4 ton transmission and the durable 5.7 V8 with 255 hp and excellent tow capacity..........for 2500 bucks. Burns no oil with under 150 K miles and no rust and no dents and no air shocks! The late 90's early 2000 Chevy trucks were good vehicles well before GM ran off the rails and started making junk. The only negative is gas mileage in the GX range but I did get 18 on a recent trip.Comfortable leather seats, a fantastic stereo and almost as quiet as a Lexus. I haven't given up on a first gen GX but the Tahoe with new Bridgestone Blizzaks seems to be a better bet getting about the same mileage as a GX despite weighing 500 lbs more and you can swap out the starter in 15 minutes! I still have my other 3 Toyotas to comfort me. Good luck out there with your GX470's. I do hate going over to the dark side but 20 year old and expensive GX's may never come to live at our farm.

 

Hopefully you will find a GX in the future.
(and the Enter key... lol)

Chip H.

 

Seriously...
But I'm mistified as all the reasons (heck, all the sentences) typed in as to why not buy a GX and then post in here about it!