Battery Died Last Night

[TexasLexus94]

I bought a new battery today=the old one wouldn't hold a charge, and was found dead this AM. Lost the steering wheel and front seat settings-Memory gone, I guess. Car went "click, click".

But the radio still worked. The LS 400 owner's manual says that if we lose electrical power, the radio resets to the SEC code. Which is fine, unless you bought a used car, and don't know the SEC code-so you have to open your wallet, and go to the Lexus "code reader" monopoly. That's me.

So when I changed batteries today, after "jumping the dead battery", I connected a simple plug in device from the cig lighter to the pos/neg terminals of the new battery placed just outside of the battery compartment, removed the old battery, and placed the new one in position, carefully connecting the pos/neg terminals on the new ones while keeping the temp 12v connectors in place. Piece o' cake. Radio was running great.

But you know what? Since the radio didn't die overnight, I'd bet it would have stayed alive even if I had broken the connection from the old battery. This is because several LOC members have said they have disconnected their batteries to perform maintenance work, and their radios still worked fine. Others have said they have lost the radio, and needed the code doing the same thing. So my question is-Just when does the radio/cd go into SEC mode? Several dead days? A week? Lexus secret?

Thanks for your input.

[obergc]

You don't necessarily have to put in a security code with your radio, that's an option you can choose to do or not. I bought my LS used and have had the battery disconnected many times without affecting the radio except loss of presets. Of course I lost all of the seat, mirror, steering wheel presets as well but no big deal. I think that if a security code is set it will go into the Security mode as soon as the battery is disconnected.

[TexasLexus94]

I agree that if you buy a car new, you don't need to input a security code. The problem is when you buy a car used, and a security code was previously inputted. Then we have a problem....

[1UZ-FE]

exactly. i bought my 94 in january of this year and was flippin through the owners manual about 2 months ago and found the page explaining the security code. i had disconnected my battery before and didn't have any problems. apparantly, the previous owner never bothered (or knew) to put one in.

Texas: if you have an owners manual, it fully explains all this. If you dont, you can PM me or just say in this thread you need more info and i would have no problem explaining.

[99lsguy]

Dittos on the above posts......

I put a new battery in my 99 last fall - about 5 months after I got in in June 03 - lost the seat memory but radio was unaffected.......

[TexasLexus94]

I have the Owners Manual, and followed all the procedures involved to set a radio code. However, I stopped after 3 or 4 tries to enter a new code, as I kept receiving the "Err" code. To me, this means there is already another code installed. I know you only get about 9 tries, so I stopped.

I still think that something is missing here. Maybe the radio keeps the code when the battery goes dead-but loses it if the radio is removed / stolen from the console? This would make a lot of sense? Whatta' you think?