Had the two accessory belts replaced by a decent third party a few weeks ago and he told me that I should look to replace my radiator because it had a "greenish" color of the top plastic part of the radiator. Need a BS meter here. Has anyone heard of this? Otherwise, my radiator is in good shape.,.a few battle scars from several unfortunate bugs but in good shape.

 

Lexus does not use all metal radiators. Not too long ago, I had to replace radiator on my son's 95 SC. It starts out by a slow leak and eventually developed a large gash. Visually I was unable to see the gash or the leak as it was not directly visible.

Salim

 

I get that - but the guy is telling me specifically to replace it because the top of the radiator (the plastic crown) is turning a bit green in color. I've heard a lot of reasons to replace a lot of things but never this one.

 

Do a as best a visual you can and if possible cold pressure test. If both pass, then I would not do anything more than that.

Salim

 

I haven't heard of that before, but then again I'm not a mechanic.

I'm thinking of replacing my radiator as preventative maintenance, living in the northeast my radiator gets hit with a lot salt and I know it can't hurt to replace it because sooner or later it is going to leak. The last thing I want is for my radiator to spring a leak on a road trip some 2000 miles away from home.

 

Thanks for the insight guys.

One last thing. He also told me that if my radiator started a leak, that I would have to replace the head gasket as well. I supposed if I didn't notice the thing was leaking and also didn't notice the temperature gauge peaking and ran the thing to the point that it caught on fire, then maybe. He came highly recommended, but none of this make sense to me what he is telling me...

 

Overheating leads to warp head.

Usually there is enough time to react between springing a leak to overheating. Enough time to pull over. Time and location of breakdown is not in anybody's control.

My advice to young men in the family is you pull over and get help. My advice to young women, drive on to first safe place and we will deal with warped head.

Salim

 

It honestly sounds like he is trying to sell you a bag of goods. If I recall correctly, you can't physically see the RX's radiator unless you remove the black shielding. Not sure what his reasoning would be to do that when he was focused on the accessory belts... Also, an RX with 70k miles is far from due for this type of service. I haven't heard of any RX's personally having radiator issues as far as replacing goes. The SC's, they run a little hotter IMO and with some being 22 years old at this point, they are expected to begin replacing radiators.

 

That's what I expect is happening...and yes you can see the RX's rad if you do peel back the black shielding. Told the guy to give it a once over, and I know this car so well that I kinda wanted to see what he said. This was pretty disappointing as again, the guy comes pretty highly recommended in the area.

P.S. By the way, my 2k ES's Radiator looks the same. Guess I should replace that one too.

 

I can only hope I'm sensing your sarcasm on that last bit...
But as far as the mechanic, yes, find another. Use him for easy jobs, as you did, if he is reasonable on the price. Otherwise, I would find someone with a little bit more knowledge for larger repairs. I don't foresee you needing to do any of these in the near future, but just in case, vet someone and have them ready to go!

 

First green? Most of our cars are supposed to use Toyota RED or Toyota pink premix. No green there. However maybe somebody put the old green coolant in the car. I just replaced my radiator and unless you have coolant on the driveway, don't worry.

 

I tend to be very sarcastic - so, yes I was layin' it on pretty thick with that statement