I'm replacing the thermostat on our 2009 Lexus RX350, yes, I have two Lexus SUVs, a 2000 RX300 and a 2009 RX350, got both of them from my Dad. Anyway, this is a bit of pain in the butt. You have to remove the serpentine belt, then remove the idler pulley to gain access to a bolt hidden by the idler pulley, (hence the removal of said "spawn of satan" pulley) and then hey, there it is, the thermostat!!! I haven't got that far. Got a late start on the project, drained the radiator and started to remove the serpentine belt and quickly realized that I wasn't going to get a breaker bar and 14mm socket in that narrow space, needed a specialty tool. So I got a loaner serpentine belt removal tool from Advanced Autoparts and was able to finnese the belt off of the idler pulley. Now my focus was on the removal of the dreaded idler pulley, idler as in, it does nothing at all except give the belt something to rotate around and somewhat guide the belt toward pulleys of components that actually do something. Anyway I had to stop there, ran out of daylight and also took some time in researching if this blasted pulley is held on by a bolt with left handed or right handed threads as I do not want to shear off a bolt head, that would cause me to just accept defeat, pour gasoline on this vehicle and watch it go up in flames, Lol.
But seriously it is ridiculous. Remove serpentine belt, remove idler pulley, then remove 2 10mm bolts to expose the thermostat, replace thermostat and put it all back together, sounds simple enough.
Not much room to work!!!
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