m4rkw

This is an approach that's been suggested to me before - work out how much you've spent in total on repairs, divide it by the number of months you've owned the car. If that figure is say, £150/month, then this repair is about 15.3 months worth. Given the condition of the rest of the car, if you think you can reasonably expect not to have to do anything else for 15 months then it's worth it. IMO though, if £2300 is going to fix it properly.. what else are you going to buy for £2300?

I don't know how much these things usually cost but £2300 seems cheap for a gearbox rebuild. What kind of guarantee does that come with? If it was my car and everything else was in good shape I'd be very tempted by that, but I'd want to make sure it was going to be done well and wouldn't just fail again within a year.

What's the condition of the rest of the car? If everything else is in good shape then it would seem like it's a question of comparing the cost of the rebuild/replacement vs whatever you would buy to replace it. If you're not sure of the condition of everything else it may be worth having an inspection carried out, just to see where you stand. Black sludgy fluid after 2000 miles seems strange though. Are you sure it was serviced correctly?

They are who the second non-matching mat came from unfortunately!

Sigh, I'm now 0 for 2 on boot mats. The one from bootliners-uk didn't fit either, it was actually worse than the ebay one - couldn't close the boot with it in! Not sure what to do now, either carry on using the ebay one with the gaps, or buy the official one for a princely £92 from lexuspartsdirect.

I think the two important things a garage needs to be are 1) Honest and 2) Technically competent. In my opinion Russell is definitely both. On several occasions I have enquired about having work done and he's told me things aren't necessary when it would have been very easy to just take the work. I had an MOT done elsewhere with a long list of advisories and after having looked under the car he advised that several of them weren't actually necessary at all. Once while doing some servicing he diagnosed a very annoying rattle from the engine bay for me, at no charge, which I was subsequently able to fix myself. The only reason I don't use them for everything is due to the distance from me but for anything I care about that's where I go.

Russell Birch at Toyotec in Redhill.

Whilst I certainly agree with you here, I personally would rather see a trusted independent stamp over a Lexus stamp. But then I tend to buy much older cars than yours.

I'm still waiting to hear from Lexus about whether those Thule bars can be safely fitted to a car with a panoramic roof

Unfortunately prices of parts don't tend to decrease with the depreciation of the car. Would be lovely if this were the case 🙂

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Genuine-Lexus-Rx-Roof-Rails-Silver-2012/264192934459

https://www.lexuspartsdirect.co.uk/parts/lexus-rx/lexus-rx-phase-iii-2009-2015/lexus-rx-3-exterior-interior/lexus-rx-phase-3-rear-under-run/

Fair enough, you probably know a lot more about this than I do. Wouldn't low fluid cause the unit to slip or give other noticeable signs though?

Appreciated, but in the initial post the OP said that the car drives and shifts fine, other than the error codes he apparently had no symptom of a transmission issue. That's why my first inkling was electrical rather than a transmission problem. But it can't hurt to check such things for sure.

Sounds like we’re talking past eachother, the document you linked seems to be describing a normal transmission service rather than a flush. If that’s what you’re advocating then it seems to be very a different procedure from what is commonly referred to as a “flush”, it seems to describe re-filling the unit to the correct level after a service. That’s very different from the “flushes” described elsewhere. Perhaps this is a loaded term with more than one interpretation and we should avoid using it without clarification?

Information here on transmission flushes from an experienced tech working on Toyota/Lexus for 30+ years: http://www.agcoauto.com/content/news/p2_articleid/238 Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but I’ve seen enough credible people say don’t do it.

In any case it's not entirely clear that OP's problem is actually an internal gearbox issue, it sounds more likely to be electrical.

Experienced technicians advise against flushing unless as a last resort. If you only get 1L out by draining from the pan then I'd just repeat the process a few times.

Good luck

On my wife's rav-4 the seatbelt buzzer can be disabled with Techstream. Might be useful as a temporary solution.

It’s worth having a jump-starter in the glovebox for situations like this.

Don't flush it. That won't help and can even cause damage. The correct way to service the transmission is to drop the pan, drain the fluid out, replace the filter assembly and refill with the correct fluid. If you have no history and the fluid looks black then you definitely want to do this at some point if you plan on keeping the car, ideally as soon as possible once you've made sure that whatever the current issues are aren't terminal. If it drives ok it may just be electrical glitches as Colin suggested. I'd start with the battery, if that checks out, take it to a Lexus specialist and ask them to diagnose it. Or perhaps an auto electrician since the issues point more towards electrical if the transmission is shifting ok.

If you've used it before then it sounds like Colin is probably on the right track and it's just a bit stiff.

Aha. Got some WD40 handy?

Hmm, don't know then. Are you sure it's the right key? Do you have another one? Is it possible that a previous owner bought a second hand smart key from ebay and reprogrammed it for the car?