I happened to be impacted by…
I happened to be impacted by the same issue. But if the dealer did tell me that I had to swap the gear box (about $7K including labor), the reality was very different. The real issue was the ECU controlling the gear box. I shipped the ECU to a shop in NY and they reprogrammed it. I reinstalled everything and yes - it worked as no need to change the gear box. I still have the RAV4 today (bought brand new in 2001) and this was really the only major issue I had with this car which is close to the 200K miles threshold. Yes there is oil consumption but I just replaced the oil and the filter every 3K miles (city driven) at the cost of $35 (go to Walmart... ) knowing that the complete oil change takes less than 30 minutes. I do not plan to sell it anytime soon as there is nothing in the market today close to this...