Buying a used 2017 Rav4 with a troubling history... I found a RAV4 with 160k miles that has this in its Toyota service record... "TRANSMISSION FLUID FLUSH COMPLETED PRIOR TO SERVICE, REFILL PLUG WAS LOOSE AND NOT PROPERLY TIGHTENED. TRANSMISSION FLUID LEVEL WAS 1QT LOW PRIOR TO FLUSH COMPLETED. TEST DROVE VEHICLE, TRANSMISSION DTC CODE P0776, P2714, P28, FLUSH AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION FLUID WITH WORLD STANDARD TRANSMISSION FLUID.
Is this a deal killer? It drives fine today but what about another 20,000 miles down the road? It was a Canadian made model, by the way.
What is the price?
So, I did run away from that one thanks to Scotty. It was $13,500. To be honest, I believe the dealership pulled it and sent it to auction after I asked my salesman about the transmission and asked if they could give me any sort of warranty on it as part of a negotiated price.
I ended up buying my second RAV4 in 2 months. One is a 2018 XLE made in Japan and I got a 2015 LE also made in Japan. The XLE had a few issues because of the previous owner. She changed the oil regularly but was rougher on the car. It is certified pre-owned and I only paid Bluebook as if it were a median-priced private party sale. I'm very content with the price.
The 2015 I just bought has just under 100,000 miles. It was very well taken care of. The owners appeared to never spare any expense as they paid the dealership for pretty much everything. On the freeway, coming home, and running around doing errands, I am getting 36 miles per gallon. I drive conservatively and can get my 2018 Prius regularly in the 60+ miles per gallon range.
With both of these RAV4s, and their U760E six-speed transmissions, I had the transmission control module memories reset. I did the relearn procedure after the XLE was doing some weird shifting. I decided to get the LE memory reset proactively. Night and day!
I learned about the procedure watching Ahmed and his "A Car Care Nut" YouTube channel.
Not a good sign.
Plenty of RAV4's out there that don't have stories. I'd go find one as I'm not much of a gambling man.
I would pass on it. You can do better.
Yes, those transmissions have problems if they aren't maintained properly. 60k mile drain+fill. No exceptions.
