I am thinking of buying this car, it runs great but it makes a whining noise that is consistant with the engine rpm. It makes the noise in drive and reverse, but it goes away when it is in park or neutral. Fluid level looks ok. The car has 144000 miles. Any ideas?

Does the fluid smell burnt? I'm afraid I'd have to assume the transmission is not well and plan on a replacement, I'm sure Toyota didn't plan on their being a whine in the transmission so I'd make an offer on the car assuming a transmission replacement was needed. If you get it and discover it was something less severe then you are ahead of the game, if you get it and the trans goes south at least you weren't surprised. If you get the car, the first thing I would do is a trans fluid and filter change and see if that makes any difference. My 91 is very sensitive to the fluid level, I also changed over to Mobil 1 ATF and noticed a significant improvement (much smoother shifts).

I am thinking of buying this car, it runs great but it makes a whining noise that is consistant with the engine rpm. It makes the noise in drive and reverse, but it goes away when it is in park or neutral. Fluid level looks ok. The car has 144000 miles. Any ideas?

Same here, DJPsystems... Only at stop lights is when I get the whinning noise. RPMs slighty go up and down. Happenes about 50% of the time while on the road. I should do a transmision flush, see if that helps... but other than that, the car runs amazing....

Change the differential fluid.
Flush the transmission.

Excellent advice. Not all who read this may know that the differential and transmission are part of the same assembly but have separate fluid reservoirs and will require separate drain/fills. I have heard of instances where the transmission was religiously maintained but the differential was not leading to failure.

I flushed the trans and I threw in a bottle of lucas but the noise is still there. The trans appears to be shifting normal. Also in the manual that I have it says that the 92-93 have the same reservoir for the trans and differental. Is this correct?

Don't use lucas. It's horrible.
Addatives in a transmission are a huge no-no. Transmission fluid is suppose to have a certain friction for the clutches to work. Addatives change this friction.
Lucas also introduces ungodly amounts of air into oils.

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/images/lucas/lucas.htm

Normal oil
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/images/lucas/runningnolucas.jpg

Oil with air
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/images/lucas/lucasfroth.jpg

Yikes. A torque convertor would own lucas hardcore.









Now flush the fluid.
Have you changed the differential oil yet? it uses the same Dexron III ATF.