Anyone have tranny failure in gen 3? Car has been thoroughly maintained its entire life. Bought used at 100k now has 171k.I was 2nd owner. I never changed the tranny fluid which I probably should have. Only towed a very small 6x4 trailer two times since I have owned car 5.5 years ago. Tranny started acting funny 2 weeks ago as it woudnt move from a stop and few seconds later would bang into gear. Anything after first gear was fine. Planned on bringing to mechanic to change fluid but it got worse a few days later and started jerking and losing power at highway speeds. Towed to Toyota dealer and they said solenoid code valve body code showed up. That would have been an 1800 dollar fix but once they dropped the pan to check they found metal shavings in the fluid assuming from a bearing(s). Only option now is to replace tranny with a used or remanned unit. Remanned unit only slighly more so dealer quoted me 4500-5k to fix. Needless to say I am quite disappointed the tranny failed this early. I read of tranny issues with the previous generation but not the 3rd gen.

 

That is sadly not unusual for this transmission if the fluid was never changed. You may want to get prices on install of a reman unit from some independent transmission shops as they may be cheaper than the dealer.
There are several transmission threads on this forum if you use the search box and type in transmission.

 

This is actually pretty bad as the manual says its a lifetime fluid. Well, live and learn. The Yota dealer said its a remanned unit from Toyota factory and said it comes with an unlimited mile 1 year warranty. This is the only thing preventing me from going to an indy since I doubt even if they got the remanned unit from Toyota that they would offer the warranty if not installed by Toyota service.

 

The manual has in small print that in severe service conditions the transmission fluid should be changed at 60,000 miles. Consider normal driving to be a severe service condition anytime a maintenance schedule has such a disclaimer.

 

No such animal as "lifetime fluid" of any type in any vehicle. Change your ATF at least every 50,000 to 60,000 miles in these vehicles. And I certainly would not argue with owners preferring a 40,000-mile ATF change interval.

 

My mechanic wants to do a tranny flush and fill on my 12 Rdx with a disclaimer that it may not work properly after I’ve had o issues with it at all and I’m temped to ride it out and leave well enuf alone 108 k on it never been changed or flushed ….

 

​​​​​​​I've done very little research about this, but I've heard from somewhere that the fluid should be changed little by little on older used vehicles with an unknown maintenance history instead of a full flush, but hopefully, someone can fact-check me on this.

 

A series of ATF drain-and-fills instead of a flush is indeed safer. The problem with flushing is that you can pull long-settled debris up from the pan and drag it through the valve bodies, potentially creating operational problems which you did not previously have. I do only drain-and-fills and I do them myself to ensure they are done correctly with the proper fluid.

 

1st gear?

Wonder if caused by habit of not coming to a complete stop between Reverse and Drive.

 

Jksm just have your mechanic do a couple of cold drain and fills a couple of weeks apart instead of a flush or as it should be called a fluid exchange. He probably has a BG machine.
At 100,000 a drain and fill is a safe way to introduce some new clean fluid, remove some old dirty fluid without distrubing the embedded dirt. You only replace 2.25 quarts at a time. Do that again in a few weeks and you will notice an improvement in shift quality and smoothness.

 

Well, to be honest I am not surprised that your transmission failed at 170k miles.

As you stated, the transmission fluid was never changed in 170k miles of use and you also towed with the RX350. Not ever changing your transmission fluid and towing are two of the main reasons a transmission would fail after 100k miles; if not before. The RX350 does not have an heavy duty transmission like a truck or full sized SUV, and even with those heavy duty transmissions you must change the transmission fluid or they will fail as well.

You should be praising the RX350 transmission for working that long without any servicing and that you even towed with it. If you would have done that with most other car maker crossover SUV models; the transmission would have failed much sooner than 170k miles under the same conditions.

Yeah it sucks when a drive-train breaks, but you got think that if you never service it what is going to happen and be prepared for it to fail. Please service your new transmission.

 

True.

Most automaker service charts consider stop-and-go traffic and driving up hilly roads severe driving conditions that calls for transmission servicing; which make nearly all transmissions fall under severe service conditions in the real world.

 

IMO going to the dealer for a trans is overkill and not financially sound for most used cars. Car-part has sub 100k trans for less than 2 grand. Shop around and change the fluid and filter every 60K or LESS.

 

I have used that site many time. I saw a few highlander trannys for about 1800 within 50 miles of me and anything out of the 350 was 2500 and above. The dealer is offering a 12 month unlimited mile warranty on the remanned unit so another 1500 or so cost on top of a used unit is worth it to me.