1998 Lexus RX300 from North America - Comments

When starting my 1999 Lexus RX 300 after work, I noticed a "whining" sound coming from the engine. My commute home is about 15 miles. I noticed when driving that it would "jerk" when trying to change gears. It made me think back to a couple of months back when I was in a parking space and put the car into reverse and started to ease out of the parking space when it felt like someone has hit me or I had hit something. I got out, but nothing? I then got back into the car and started to leave and the car would go into reverse, but when applying the gas the car would not move. I tried again and the car finally "caught" into gear and made a terrible sound. I noticed in the weeks leading up to the day of failure that the car would have a hard time changing into second gear. It would "wind out" before catching.

Now, the day of the failure, I was leaving work and I noticed a "whining" sound in the engine and in my commute home it got worse. The car started jumping back and forth and the RPMs were randomly jumping. Even while coasting down a hill the RMPs would jump and accelerate and slow down the car making it jerk. At times it would act as if it was in neutral and I was traveling at 45 miles per hour. When this would happen, the RMPs wouldn't move? My car has approximately 78K miles on it. I immediately told my husband, we called Lexus and took it straight to them. I had to get a rental car. I got a call the next day to tell me that the pump failed and the transmission fluid was black and the transmission was gone. It's going to cost $4,600.00 to repair. There are many other cases exactly like mine. In doing personal research and internet research, I have found many other people with the same issues. This should be a recall!

This does need to be a recall! Lexus usually stands behind their products, but not this one. Its absolute BS having to shell out $5000 on a car that cost me close to $35000 new. I have replaced my transmission and have only driven 2000 miles since then because I'm keeping it at my mountain home. I have bought an RX400h to replace it because there have been no KNOWN transmission problems YET on this model. I thought that my transmission problems were from the stop and go traffic here in LA and OC, but now after reading the reviews on this site I know that was not the problem. I live up a very steep hill in the OC area and the old Lexus would use a ton of gas going up that hill. I could see the needle move. The RX400h makes it up the hill like its just a speed bump and without using any gas. I love the Lexus cars, but am just worried their not going to stand behind their products. Everyone knows Lexus won't recall the transmission because it will ruin their perfect reputation.