Hello Everyone, New to the forum has owned a few Lexus but first Rx. Longtime listener, first time caller. I have a 2001 RX300 2WD that doesn't not shift easily into OD. The car has 112K miles. When started I hear a whining sound in the transmission area that seem to completely disappear when I move the lever out of P-park and as the engine warms up. It starts and drives fine including smooth shifts up until OD/higher speeds. If I accelerate it will eventually jump into OD about 55-65mph. Then the RPM fluctuates while in OD. I have not driven the car anymore in fear of damaging it. The fluid is milkly and has probably never been changed. I am planning on doing the filter and fluid change to see if things improve. I am pretty mechanical and can do some troubleshooting to figure out what is wrong.

Can anyone give me some insight to what might be happening?
And any advise on how to correct it?
Or is a new transmission in order?

Most of the post on here refer to the CEL light being ON. I don't have that but it appears the previous owners just replaced the Oxygen sensor in the front of the manifold by the dealer. I just got the car as my latest project.

 

Fluid and filter change would certainly be in order. A great How-to is the first sticky in this forum. I just did mine yesterday because I was also having some problems. Messy job! I also elected to go with Amsoil as a lot of people have praised it. I am not going to change all the fluid out for the Amsoil, just what was replaced when I dropped the pan and drained the transfer case. But, my fluid wasn't too bad to begin with. You might want to do a simple drain and fill with fresh fluid a few days before actually dropping the pan and adding Amsoil.

I also cleaned off the speed sensors. Not that big of a job. https://www.clublexus.com/forums/rx3...nsmission.html

 

milky fluid? its not overfilled is it? But as edbro mentioned,could be your filter is getting clogged.

 

I was not overfilled. I will try the fluid change then filter.

 

Milky fluid could be bits of the tranny filter itself (assuming they have the paper one). I did an experiment a few years back where I ran some water over a paper one to clear it out and bits of the cellulose material that it is made out of came out of the filter.

The only other thing that it could be, and fluid would have to be pinkish-silvery, would be the metal sludge we see on the pan magnets has overaccumulated (had that happen to me 5 years ago).

 

Hi Lemex after taking a second look it does appear pinkish silvery color.

 

I'll tell you the only time I ever flushed my RX was about 5 years ago at a Lexus dealer. Vehicle felt really good after getting its guts flushed out, but it was still a relatively young vehicle then (under 100K) and had been getting a workout (this was actually before I started racing it) from about 2 years in Mexico City. I'd still recommend draining it out as opposed to flushing given the mileage that you are at.

I generally recommend doing 3 drain and fills over the course of 3 weeks of normal driving. However, in your case, it is possible given that you can see the silvery-pinkish fluid to do the drain and fill sooner by seeing the color that is on the transmission dipstick after you start your vehicle after the first drain and fill.

A key point of consideration here is to see how much accumulation you will have on your existing transmission filter. You may actually find yourself changing out the filter again after the 3rd of 3 drain and fills because there still be near 5 liters of fluid in there even after doing a drain and fill.

 

Hi Guys, I drained and filled the trans today 3 qts. The car runs shifts now into OD. Although it I feel it can be a little smoother on the OD shift maybe after I change the fluid and filter in a few weeks. I am also looking into replacing the engine mounts. I used the Toyota T-IV fluid. I will keep you updated.

 

you might want to check that fluid level,it should take almost 4 Qts.

 

I am wondering if the front differential was drained, too.

 

Good point lex,mine takes exactly 4.25 qts. with the diff. change. 3.75 qts. with just the pan drain. (According to the dipstick anyway)

 

Is there a front differential on the 2WD? I just did a pan drain. I will look into it.

 

You should be good with the 3 qts. There is about a 1 qt difference between AWD and FWD. I think the Lexus spec is FWD 3.3 qts., AWD 4.1 qts. You may want to read through the entire sticky on changing trans fluid at the beginning of this forum. Lots of info w/pics.