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SUVs Toyota Highlander Toyota Highlander Maintenance and Repair
4699 messages, Last post on Dec 07, 2009 at 1:00 PM
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Replying to: mikefm58 (Oct 15, 2009 5:42 am) |
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Replying to: wwest (Oct 15, 2009 7:38 am) I'll play devil's advocate here, why would I want or need to change the transmission fluid when the owner's manual does not say so. Tranny fluid does not break down like engine oil does, and I have never heard of Toyotas having transmission issues.
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Replying to: mikefm58 (Oct 15, 2009 10:03 am) A bit of a long story... At about 40,000 miles the ATF in my '01 F/awd RX300 appeared dirty, brownish, and smelled burned, the smell of a 1/4 watt resistor just after it "encounters" 10 watts. I may or may not have contacted my dealer at that point but I have records indicating that I contacted Lexus via email. The response I got from corporate said that I should contact the dealer for further information/advice. Yeah, sure, my dealer even composed and published their own scheduled maintainance document. You can guess, I'm sure, just how much more extension was the requirement in the dealer's document vs the factory owners manual. My '01 RX300's owners manual made no mention of ATF scheduled maintainance one way or the other. But I went ahead an asked the dealer, who said... The ATF needed to be flushed and refilled at least every 15,000 miles. What, WHAT..??!! But then Lexus corporate confirmed the dealers statement. Why..?? A design change was made in the process of upgrading the Camry transaxle to make it robust enough for the RX300 SUV. As it turned out there was an unforeseen design flaw in the new transaxle design. Google for: wwest abolition hesitation -dfg Toyota and Lexus do not wish to acknowledge the design flaw. If the information to change the ATF as often as needed came from the corporate level that would be an implicit admission that the design is flawed. A form of the Japanese "heads-down" culture. So, you should at least check the condition of your ATF at each and every oil/filter change. The design flaw was introduced in about '98, had spread to the entire Toyota and Lexus FWD and F/awd fleet by 2003, and remains to be a significant problem even today. Not to say Toyota and Lexus have not tried several fixes in the interim. DBW adoption being the most successful of those, but then that "fix" brought with it yet another set of problems.
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Replying to: herzogtum71 (Oct 14, 2009 12:28 pm)  120,000 or 144 mos) under "Additonal Maintenance Items for Special Operating Conditions-TOWING"...'Replace transmission fluid or oil'. If I were you, I wouldn't mess with it. Regards, BGood
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Replying to: wwest (Oct 15, 2009 12:06 pm) I double checked the owner's manual and it does say to inspect the tranny fluid every 30K miles/36 mos, and if towing, to replace it every 60K miles/72 mos. I check all the fluids and tire pressure at least monthly so I should be good as long as I see the tranny fluid is bright pink. |
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| As it pertains to the steering column "clunk", does it tend to get worse or is just an annoying thing to deal with. I have an 04 with a subtle clunk that sounds and feels to be coming from the steering knuckle and I am out of warranty. I can deal with it as long as it doesn't get any worse...Thanks, Ryan | |
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Replying to: ryan99 (Oct 17, 2009 12:03 pm) noise may be the intermediate shaft- from column to rack |
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Replying to: lmacmil (Oct 06, 2009 10:52 am)
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| never had any colors from day one, died in oct 09 at 55000 miles | |
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Replying to: davidc4607 (Oct 18, 2009 6:43 am) |
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