I’d like a clarification here. Has this happened only once or is it now the normal operation of the vehicle?
Also ask the dealer if they dropped the pan and flushed the filter out or did they just remove the drain plug to drain and then refill. If they did not drop the pan, then that procedure should be done.
Not engaging in reverse is sort of random, but has happened several times in the last week. I will call up the dealer and ask them if they drop the pan and flush the filter.
Oh well, it happened. Last night driving back from late night, I kept hearing high pitch sound. At the time I was about 120 miles from home and when I was about 5 miles (just got off highway) and there was no no pickup. Had to stop and turn off the engine. After couple minutes I could drive couple blocks and repeated the same till reached home. Called AAA and had it towed this morning to dealership.
Interestingly while chatting with the tow truck guy he mentioned in last couple years he has towed couple RX300 with transmission problem. One of them was during snow storm we had past winter and the guy with RX300 was stuck in snow and kept trying to get out and perhaps that did a job on the transmission.
As a side question, is transmission problem more common with all-wheel drives compared to others?
ok4450 had asked the question," just how was this fluid change done?". I asked the service guy at the dealership today this question after having transmission repaired. He said, they do NOT drop the pan". I wanted to know if they would it that way if I requested and his answer was yes, for an extra charge.
Any suggestions on how to handle this new transmission? Don’t go over 50-60 mph for a certain time/miles etc? Also I feel that at around 30-40 mph speed, it doesn’t feel like it has power like before. Is this expected?
Just drive it normally and change the fluid/filter every 30k miles or so. The lack of power could be an indication of a slipping transmission. (meaning it needs to be rebuilt)
There’s a very good reason why many dealers do not do pan drops anymore. They make more money doing a quick clean flush only whereas dropping the pan and filter is much more time consuming and messy. A guy could do 3, 4, or 5 flushes in the time it takes to do one flush with the pan drop/filter change.
In a nutshell, they’re sacrificing the proper way of doing things in the interest of flipping the cars over faster and flagging more flat rate time.
This is also NOT the correct way of doing it and this is where the derogatory term “Flush Kings” comes into play. Personally, I’m kind of disgusted with this practice because it’s not only shoddy but it reflects on the profession and tarnishes everybody.
A friend of mine here is a 40 years, transmission only guy much like Transman on this forum and he said he would never, ever dream of flushing a transmission without dropping the pan and changing the filter first.
Looking inside the pan also can provide a heads-up about potential transmission problems based on what may be in the bottom of the pan.
Hope some of that helps
“The lack of power could be an indication of a slipping transmission. (meaning it needs to be rebuilt)”
Well, the transmission was dead and thats why it was at the dealership in the first place. I just got out of the dealership and noticed that around 30-40 mph, the car “kinda just don’t have the ummphh in it”. Almost like instead of one gear it has slipped to one gear higher.