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I took the car back to the garage yesterday and the owner sat in the car with me and I showed him the noise and he said it’s normal and that swapping to OEM brakes would not make any meaningful difference. He also said that all of the stuff that @Delphius1 mentioned is part of their normal brake servicing procedure. He was still happy to go through the warranty process if I wanted, but it would mean first making a warranty claim with Brembo, getting a new set of pads, if they were still the same then *maybe* we might have an argument to return them and go OEM, but he assured me that the noise would still be there at the end. I decided to just accept it and drive the car as the noise was fairly minimal anyway and it seemed like it would be a massive waste of everyones time. Also on the drive down I went down a couple of steep hills and had to brake a fair bit, I noticed after doing so that the noise had diminished significantly. So there might be something to the suggestions about the bedding in process.

I don’t know what the fine is these days but last time I checked it was something like £45. Not much of a deterrent imo!

Could be a buckled rim. I had this on a beemer some years ago now, both nearside rims were bent from hitting potholes and caused wobble/vibration at certain speeds. Had them straightened and it was much better.

@Delphius1 that was a really useful reply, thankyou. I will bring this up with the garage and hopefully they can stop the groaning.

Well that settles it, halogens it is, thanks!

Anyone tried putting LED high beam bulbs in an RX? I wouldn’t do it for the dipped beams but for high beams it would probably be ok. Just don’t want anything with a fan or that is going to overheat and melt stuff around it.

You’re right that the centre brake light is LED but the brake lights on the sides (of mine anyway) are filament bulbs. Got them changed at Halfords today, he was as confused as I was initially but removed the light cluster to figure it out - turns out they were just very stiff so no danger of breaking something by turning too hard. Managed to do the other side without removing the light cluster. He didn’t seem to care about using gloves to handle the bulbs though, luckily I managed to convince him to put some on that I had in the car before he touched the new bulbs. That’s halfords for you though 😛 at least it’s sorted now, the rest I can change myself.

it’s booked in to get the brakes looked at on monday so i might just be cheeky and ask the garage to do it

The bulbs still work, I’m just going on a couple of very long road trips across europe soon so wanted to change all the bulbs for peace of mind, these two are being very stubborn though. Attached a photo - why does it look like there’s a wire under the connector? it seems like when i try to turn it it’s tugging against the wire

I can’t get them out, tried really hard. All the other bulbs came out easy. Both sides are stuck!

Hello I can’t get my brake light bulbs out, the socket does not seem to want to turn in either direction and I’m a bit nervous to use too much force without knowing which way it’s supposed to turn. Do they always turn counter-clockwise to come out? Thanks, Mark

I just drove to the park to walk my dog and it made a terrible creaking groan as I came to a stop in the car park. I think I'm going to give them a call in the morning as I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be like this.

Any suggestions on a good place to source one?

The only trouble with that is we're driving to Brittany next month and I'm not sure if I'll do 100 miles between now and then, even if I do it might not leave enough time to get the problem resolved. I'll give them a call tomorrow and let them come up with suggestions. I don't know how much more expensive the Lexus brakes are but given how minimal the noise is I'm tempted to just leave it, most of the time it's barely noticeable.

I am surprised I have issues with Brembos though as they seem to be a very well established brand.

The fact that it's possible to not have the groaning noise as you stop makes me think I should go back to the garage and ask for OEM parts.

So when it's not cold you don't get any noise at all when stopping even if you gradually ease off the braking pressure and slow down as slowly as possible?

If this is just how they are even with OEM brakes then there's no point in complaining, I'm really curious to hear from other RX-300 owners to see if it's actually wrong or not. The noise is dramatically better than my old worn out brakes which used to groan like hell coming to a stop, now it's usually just a tiny blip unless there's a slope involved.

Hey welcome to the forum! I think it depends what's included, I would want to check exactly what they're doing for the money and how often they're doing those things. I'm also a bit wary of trusting main dealers to do servicing, this kind of work is typically given to junior techs and jobs tend to get rushed. If prices were the same I would definitely choose a trusted independent over a main dealer. That said, most of the time their work is probably good enough and a full main dealer service history is often a selling point when you come to get rid of the car. Also if you plan to keep the car a long time you'll probably want to change the oil a bit more frequently than the service schedule recommends, particularly if you don't do a lot of miles or do a lot of short trips. Transmission fluid should be changed at 50k intervals (ignore anything you're told about it being "sealed for life"). Never flush the transmission, just a drain/fill and replace the filter assembly if it's replaceable. If anyone uses the word "flush" - run. HTH Mark

Pads and discs, all Brembos. And yes I see what you mean about the forward motion - it's noticeably worse if I'm going up an incline when I move off, or down when I stop. You don't think it's worth taking the car back and insisting on OEM parts then? I'm pretty sure I've driven other automatics that don't make this noise.

If you have a gen2 RX-300 with OEM brakes, when stopping if you ease off the brake pedal as you're coming to a stop and apply just enough pressure at the last moment to stop the wheels, do you hear a very brief (less than a second) faint groaning sound from the pads against the discs? Asking because my old brakes were knackered and this groaning sound was very loud and pronounced when I came to a stop, over several seconds. I had the brakes changed and the garage put Brembos on it, which I understand are very good brakes. The tech told me a story about another harrier they'd had in that had the same groaning brake issue as mine had, and they put pagid pads on it and even though they were brand new he still had the groaning. Eventually they had to take them off and put lexus brakes on to keep the customer happy. The brembos do still make a noise in that last tiny moment of friction when stopping (or when moving off slowly), but it's dramatically better than my worn out old brakes. I'm just curious of other users see this with OEM brakes though - the tech told me that Lexus brakes do it too a tiny bit. But i've driven many cars that don't do this so I'm wondering why my car does. Could it just be the sheer weight of the thing coming to a stop?

Miles don't kill a car anywhere near as much as years do. I would much prefer a newer high-mileage car than an older low-mileage car. Cruising on the motorway is ideal operating conditions for any car, it will be in good shape.

Haha my car doesn't have a VIN! It's a JDM import, just has a frame number not a vin with encoded information. The V5 has no details beyond the bare minimum (model, colour and the emissions numbers which mattered at the time).

I'm guessing this is a bad idea but just want to ask people who know better. The car is already underpowered (2.4L engine) and if its official specifications are to be believed the gross weight doesn't even allow for four average weight human passengers. Reason I'm asking is my wife has her eye on the folding caravan trailers which are around 650-700kg. I think the engine would be ok, it's the transmission I'm worried about.

63 is a code for a solenoid I think, so it may not be an internal problem. Take it to a trusted specialist, it sounds like whoever told you it needs a new transmission might not be trustworthy.