Guys,
Need your help.
After selling my old LS 400 I've yearned for a new Lexus and I've been offered a 02 RX300SE at a price I can't really say no to, but before I go ahead and dive in head first I would appreciate some unbiased feedback that the car review websites don't tell you about, therefore I have a few questions.

What are they like to own / use as an every day car?
Servicing costs?
Cost of parts ?
Reliability?
Running costs?
Things that are bad ?
Things that are good ?
Common faults / known problems ?
What to look out for during the test drive ?
What to avoid ?
Cost of tyres and other consumable parts

etc etc etc

I know it's a lot of questions, but it's a lot of car if Iget it wrong, and there's no better people to ask then those that are in the know.

Thanks in advance
Paul

hi, cant help on the Q's but i would say it couldnt cost any more to keep than an LS

and the RX is great looking lex

take it for a test drive im sure an rx owner will be along soon

What are they like to own / use as an every day car? Wonderful, wish they had put parking distance front and rear as standard though....camera is all very well but you have to be looking at it. Ride is wonderful, very comfy and lovely to drive.

Servicing costs? Falls down here; if you take it to a main dealer the service costs are massive compared to value of the car (For that age anyway) they wanted nearly £400 for what was basically a glorified oil and filter change.

Cost of parts ? Again quite high.

Reliability? Very good, had trouble starting mine 1 morning (Doesn't seem to keen if cold and damp) but still sparked to life in the end, other than that no problems to report

Running costs? Depends on your milelage really but they aren't cheap to run....you will get about 18MPG Urban and 30 on a long run if careful. Depends on Mr Brown if he decides to be a total a hole and put the tax upto £400 even for cars bought years ago....

Things that are bad ? Depreciation; would prefer the engine to be more eager to spring to life like MB and BMW cars, paint is very delicate...picked up so many scratches and knocks on ours. Price of main dealer care.

Things that are good ? Ride, comfort, versatility, quality.

Common faults / known problems ? Wheel corrosion that's about all I can think of....

What to look out for during the test drive ? The normal I would imagine, check all electrics etc are working and check for details of servicing.

What to avoid ? Having to fix anything...they aren't going to be overly cheap to fix in fact someone was quoted some stupid amount for replacing broken audio unit which was getting on for 20% value of car.

Cost of tyres and other consumable parts. Not bad just shop around......have found these people exceptionally good value for tyres! Event Mobile Tyres

Thanks for the help, I've been informed that the only known problems are a suspect wheel bearing and an occasional squeeky / squealing belt. I'm test driving the car on Friday, but as long as that's all that is wrong I'm fairly sure it'll be a sale.

Assuming the wheel bearing is goosed, anyone know what the cost of these are (both front and rear as I'm not sure which one is suspect yet) and also I guess squealing belt is usually down to tensioner or excessive belt wear, again if anyone has a cost for these that would also be great.

spammer

"banned"

MODERATOR The Guy above needs taking off!

Ok here's the update.

Took the car out today, and to be honest she's tatty and has obviously lead a neglected life (reflected in the price) most of it's cosmetic, but there's 2 things that concern me one more than the otther.

There's quite a lot of noise coming from the rear end, I suspect a dodgy wheel bearing (or bearings)....relatively cheap to put right however, should it not be the bearings does the RX suffer from suspensions problems like the old LS used to ?? and if so am I looking at a high bill ?

But more importantly and the thing that is really concerning me is the fact that the expansion resovoir had almost no coolant in it, and with no obvious signs of external leaks this can only mean she's loosing water up the exhaust, does the Lexus suffer from head gasket problems ? or is it usual to loose coolant over a period of time for no real reason ?

Thanks in advance

TBH Mate you seem to have answered your own question - car sounds as if it has lacked TLC. If so, time to find another example.

If the cars were cheap to fix I would say it might be worth the risk but given the costs involved with repairs I would suggest leaving that one; if it has lacked TLC you could end up with some hefty bills.