kwsauto

Hi. New here, recently acquired a 2003 RX300 with 105K on the clock, now it's got 109K. I read on google that the V6 in these cars is prone to sludge, so I opened the filler cap and took a look. Not good, it's got the issue for sure. The forum search engine didn't pull up anything so I'm asking here. If there's a thread about this please point me to it.

Anyway...what to do? Should I try to have it cleaned by a shop? I read something about drilling out some drains in the windage baffles over the cam shafts, does that work? Would running an additive like Seafoam in the crankcase help things out?

I'll definitely treat it better than the previous owners did, and fortunately, there isn't a lot to fix on this one (yet). The timing belt was changed at 90K, and I put some new front control arms ball joints because it wouldn't track straight, and had a LOT of nasty torque steer. That solved that problem, it steers and tracks beautifully now, but I'm still getting some "pulsing" when I brake. The front pads are approaching their end of life and the rotors look fairly worn so I have parts for that coming. The shop that put the control arms in said the rest of the suspension appeared to be in good shape.

I do plan to keep this for a while, 1-3 years depending on how some other things go, and I •need• a reliable daily driver. I'm assuming that it needs pretty much everything at this point and I want to get ahead of it. I have all the glovebox manuals but no shop manual.

Thanks in advance. I'll see you all around as life with a old Lexus goes forward.

Nad1370

I'd pull off the valve cover (Bank 2) first to see if it's really sludged up.
If it is sludged, assess how bad is it.
For me, if you cant see the cam cap bolts, its bad. lol

FWIW, I purchased mine with 115k.
Oil cap was kinda nasty so i told them to opened up the valve cover prior to purchasing. (That was my deal with the dealer for me to purchase)
Luckily, it was just a nasty oil cap.
It was golden in there.
Now at 342,000 miles, still gets me from A-B-C.....lol

Hope yours turns out the same.

salimshah

Having a crust on the filler cap is not sludge. But if you saw tar like substance than it might be sludge.
Follow Nad's advice before embarking on any un-necessary step.

Salim

carguy07

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/rx-...st-bought.html

hypervish

Only real way to check for sludge is to pull off the front valve cover. These have a baffle in the oil fill hole with a coating that looks like sludge to the untrained eye.