Fern

Thrust washer #1 & #2 had worn causing abnormal function of direct clutch unit, ie: clunk when car put into drive from park or Reverse from park or from park to Drive, etc...

No other symptoms when driving and certainly no leaks at the time.. Why do you ask, are you having trani issues. Mine got partly paid by Lexus (out of warranty) as goodwill and due to brand loyalty and maintenance records.

Lexmex

God any my boss willing, I will do a drain and fill this weekend. I think last one we did was about 6 months ago? My father and uncle are anxious to see what is in the pan.

Carver

One of these days LexMex, Lexus is going to offer you big money for your poor car so they can take it on a world tour as living proof of how tough they are.

Lexmex

Maybe with a turbo, but definitely with warp drive. Would love to see the Vulcans show up at my track.

TunedRX300

Fern,
After Lexmex mentioned to me abotu Auto-RX, I researched on BITOG and found many have positive experience to restore the seal condition. Instead of surgically repair the seal, the ester based natural cleaner work slowly to disolve sludge and deposit. It is not a harsh additive, in fact, Redline engine oil uses similiar ester as its base stock.
I have a rear main seal leak, first one replaced at dealer under warranty, now one year later, the same leak came back.
As Lexmex mentioned, it won't work if your seal is physically damaged, but $62 (3 12oz bottles, good enough for two cars) delivered is much cheaper than the mechanical repair option.
I am >600 miles into the cleaning phase and should be in the rinsing phase in December. If you can wait, I will post pictures of oil filter cut open to verify whether the stuff works...for me.
If the stuff works, either in stopping the leak or getting hard sludge off the ring packs. I will use it in my Acura, which has 120K miles. If not, it is money back warranty time...

Fern

Thanks for the AutoRX suggestions... Lexmex and Tunedrx300,

I have gotten the vehicle repaired... I can't stand to have leaks. The longer it stayed the worse it would get... Besides, its embarassing being parked in someone's driveway with a friggin Lexus and when I pull away getting a phone call from a buddy saying, " hey when you coming over to power wash my driveway after the mess your Jap Scrap left ? ;-) "

I think both the dealership that did the trani overhaul and the Lexus Canada Rep are pretty embarrased. Not as embarassed as I have been tho, being the only Lexus on the street with a rental car at my door 2x in the last 2 months.

If you really take apart the engineering behind Toyota, you'll see that the car is really well engineered, but in MY OPINION, just well engineered to last as long as possible with as minimal cost as possible...

The thing that pisses me off is my vehicle when new was much more expensive than any comparable (if there were any) Toyota on the road at the time and at the end of the day, whether Lexus engineers accept it or not, its just a fancy Toyota. Don't be fooled by the badge. Both Toyota and Lexus have dissinterested Techs and very interested and competent Techs, I'm just glad I found a guy who is really competent and had a genuine interest in doing the job right this time...

Its just really upsetting that when the Trani was dissmantled the first time, I passed by the dealership and asked if it was best to do the rear main seal and at that point, the Techs response was, "its not leaking and the labour is much more since its further in." We both agreed to leave it alone. Now, a month later I have a $1100 bill for the rear main seal WHICH COULD HAVE BEEN DONE AT THE TIME (FOR $200) IF THE BONEHEAD WOULD HAVE TOLD ME THE PRICE. Yes, I'm yelling!

The dealership accepts no responsibility in not giving me the price for the rear main at the time the trani was out... Lexus Canada is not providing assistance this time saying its an independantly owned dealership and nothing they can do...

The fights not over.

Calling Lexus Canada again and putting in another Goodwill warranty claim and if they threaten to not pay.... small claims court...

At this point I'm not even going to use the arguement that they might loose a dedicated customer... I suspect they already know that.

salimshah

Lexus owners who think they drive some thing other than Toyota, they are wrong.

Engineers job is to design the most cost effective solution. Going beyond the specs with added expense is not proper engineering.

You got the wrong advice regarding the seal. It caught us on our blind spot and had you posted the question here, it would have generated the right answer.

I am inferring (maybe incorrectly) that the trans repair tech did suggest changing the seal. So the only person you can blame is the Lexus tech. You should not hold this against RX, RX design or Lexus. And maybe own up some for not being persistant in gethering the right information to make an informed decision.

Back to the tranmission issue ... maybe you are right in expecting 200k + miles of trouble free service on a well maintained vehicle. The contract you had with Lexus was a warrantee upto 60K miles. (which by the way is more than Toyota's toyota badged vehicles]. Lexus listned to you and absorbed part of the repairs.

Salim

Edit addition:
Fern: I posted the above last night and some of it may sound harsh ... specially when you have had to spend upto $5000 (unexpectedly). I can sympathize with you, but honestly I can not feel the hurt [neither can anyone on my poor finacial decsions in the past. which by the way were solely mine .. so there is a difference].

dzell81

Sorry for being so late on this post - haven't been on in a while. But, I have the same leak in my 2000 AWD and have just been dealing with the small leak. It does not apear to be getting any worse and it is not affecting my oil level at all. Tell me more about his seal restorer? Where do you get it and how does it work. Has any one else had luck with this?

TunedRX300

You can buy it at www.auto-rx.com. Even though the web has a lot of sales pitch but owners have posted independent feedback such as this one
http://theoildrop.server101.com/foru...rue#Post750854

ARX restores seal to its the original pliable soft condition, slowly liquifies sludge or deposit that have built up on the seal to cause a leak. Is it effective on your RX300, I don't know, but ARX is not a magic snake oil that repairs seal that is already damaged, it may work on seals that are bent. ARX has a money back guarantee, that is why I am giving it a try.

You have to use dino engine oil for one cycle of treatment, which includes a cleaning cycle (2 oz of ARX added for one quarter of engine oil) for 1500 miles and a rinsing cycle for 2000 miles (just dino engine oil). Repeat the cycle if your car is >100K.
It is interesting to see what is trapped in the oil filter media, this is a great picture of what is trapped inside of 4 oil filter media after 2 cycles of treatment. Again that is someone else's car, may or may not apply to us.

toy4two

No problems here, AWD 80k, Fluid changed every 25,000 miles, most recently dropped the pan, cleaned the magnets, and did the pump out fluid change procedure posted here.

I would be devestated if my tranny failed with how **** I am about maintence. I'm so **** I just paid $8 to replace my burned out "D" light LOL.

dzell81

Thanks! I had no idea such a product was out there. It will be great to get this thing taken care of!

toy4two

Just be happy it only cost $5000. If you bought a same year Range Rover, Mecedes ML, or Lincoln Navigator you would have spent that much to keep it on the road much sooner. Now that its fixed I think you'll easily see 200k out of the car. We have a Toyota Previa at 220,000 miles abused badly by 2 teenage drivers, towing sailboats up and down the CA coast, at 150k it needed a tranny swap from the junkyard ($1000 installed) and then new struts all around, new key cylinder, and a new catalytic convertor, I consider these wear items at that milage, but its still going. If you make it to 200k you should expect the same items needing replacing. Never any engine problems or headgaskets etc.

We have had equal life out of a 90 Accord, 91 MR2 NA, 2 Toyota pickups, 91 MR2 Turbo. All The above except the 91 MR2 NA were totalled before making it to 200k. Only sold the MR2 NA because the cost of doing maintence on a midengine car is unbelievable (gotta remove the entire dirve train to change the clutch for example). Currently have a 1999 Camary V6, 2000 Lexus RX300, and a 1993 Del Sol, none show any signs of problems.

toy4two

You can go cheap and use Valvoline MaxLife Oil (NOT SYNTHETIC version) for about 3 oil changes and that will swell the seals. It worked for us on a 5SFE Toyota engine with worn valve stem seals.

Lexmex

My uncle loves Auto-RX. Before he fidgeted and fussed when doing doing seal leaks, but Auto-RX has helped him fix up some vehicles that previously would just waste his time for more productive and bigger paying $$$ work. Again, it does not work in every case. It is becoming harder and harder for us to get this stuff down here due to very strict hazardous materials law (just another excuse for Mexico to make some $$$). However, he guards the stuff and will charge a bundle to the customer to use it. Since hardly any of the vehicles that have this problem use synthetic, dino oil is no issue.

Fern

NOT SO FAST!

Found a trani fluid leak on the garage floor this morning and called the dealership who said bring it in right away.

Leak appears to be coming from an area behind the oil pan?
Pink in Colour and definitely not coolant.

Problem is wife needs it for work and I'm busy all this week... If she keeps driving car and trani blows up.. LITIGATION!

Called Lexus Canada today and left message for case manager to let me know when the district REP would be available as soon as possible as I don't want car being touched by anyone until a Lexus or Toyota Head office rep is present.

At this point I think I deserve at least that.
I realize my frustration is now shifting from the car to the dealership!

The reality is the car is only as good as the service the individual dealerships provide.