29th Mar 2019, 21:53
And chains are usually good for the life of the engine, as opposed to coughing up massive amounts of money every 60 thousand miles for the labor cost on belt replacements. Especially the vehicle on topic.
31st Mar 2019, 03:51
Excellent commentary - especially regarding the root cause of the transmission issue :)
1st Apr 2019, 23:14
Very true, but again the point was chains will outlast belts. If you plan on keeping a brand new car that has a belt for 200,000 miles, chances are depending on the maintenance schedule you will be replacing a belt 3, maybe 4 times. The only problem with chains that I remember was GM engines throughout the '80s that had nylon teeth on the gears to reduce noise. The replacements were steel.
4th Apr 2019, 13:14
"80k max"? Had many vehicles where I never touched a water pump. Did replace the original on one of my Lincolns at 225k.
5th Apr 2019, 01:07
A water pump is only "routine maintenance" IF it operates off the timing belt, in which case it would make sense to replace it at the timing belt change.
Otherwise, it should not require replacement if it is continuing to function normally.
5th Apr 2019, 09:39
Doesn’t make sense to not change a water pump at the same time at little extra cost. Would you want to take it apart twice? Our timing belts on our cars have been replaced under 80,000 miles on our Hondas. A actual timing chain could also need replaced much earlier than your comment. You could have bought a car with low oil levels, dirty oil rarely changed, and it could require early replacement.
6th Apr 2019, 21:44
Not clear which comment you are responding to. 1:07 has already stated that a water pump should be replaced when the timing belt is replaced.
7th Apr 2019, 01:08
Exactly which is why I also get the pump changed at 80k max! You never know if the coolant has not been changed regularly enough.
7th Apr 2019, 18:59
It's your money, waste it wisely if you wish, if it's not driven off a timing belt.
8th Apr 2019, 17:20
No what I meant was do the water pump coinciding with 80k mileage. And do the timing belt. It’s a lot cheaper than destroying an engine with a shredded belt. Plus you've got the pump out, why not? You are right it’s my money. Belt vs engine, you want to roll the dice, go ahead. Beats being broken down at night; could be on an interstate or in an area you don’t want to stand around waiting for a tow. If you see filthy or very low oil on a car close to 100,000 miles with a timing chain, it’s wise to do with the neglect factor.
9th Apr 2019, 21:22
Guess we got our comments crossed. I was talking about external water pumps driven off V or serpentine belts. No need to change the pump unless it starts growling or seeping coolant. We have both made our points. Case closed.
10th Apr 2019, 21:11
21:22. If you reply to any post, please only say that your case is closed. This forum is a free exchange of ideas on here. Otherwise you are only replying to yourself. Would be easier to not reply at all. You validated an individualized comment in your mind already. Would be simpler to recognize that and simply cease reading any other comment that directly follows.
12th Apr 2019, 02:55
21:11. Yeah, my case is closed after making my points. You made yours too. No need to go on with this. If you want to keep making suggestions about changing a water pump every 80k, feel free.
If you want to talk about "replying to yourself", believe it or not there are others on this forum who DO reply to their own comments trying to make it look as though others agree with them. You'll see the obvious here and there.
28th Mar 2019, 20:39
Bought a well used RX300 a year ago, have done about 20K km in it, but then the transmission failed (slipping in O/D, then 3). Have done a couple of fixes to it previously, and I'm replacing the transmission myself. AFAIK the transmission has 2 problems; one is the bearings on one of the sun gears wears out prematurely and can cause complete havoc; this appears to be fixed in the -02 version. The other is bad seals/weak pressure in the control box causing it to hesitate on shifts and apply to low pressure on some of the clutches (causes stuttering and more shift lag). This will eventually kill some of the clutches, and this is what happened to mine. It's a bit of a pain replacing the AWD transmission as they've "misplaced" some bolts so you have to take out the entire engine to take it out. There's some other small issues as well, but nothing major. Timing belt is a plus, and Toyota has always been good at this (though they could have made the swap easier on this one), chains just falls into the same category as leaf springs, carburetors and pushrods.