lex pilot Posted August 5, 2006 Share Posted August 5, 2006 I was in Orlando 10 days ago for some pilot simulator training and was looking at cars to buy. I am an aircraft mechanic and pilot. I live in Wisconsin so I was amazed at the shape some of the 10-15 year old cars were in. Here they salt the roads to melt the snow and ice so cars rot away fast. I go to look at a 98 ES300 with 75K on it for $9500 on the day I am scheduled to fly home. The guy buys ‘em at auction and lists them on Autotrader.com as a “private seller”. It’s got some scratches on it and seems to run and drive ok. He says he’d take $9K for it. I look under the oil fill cap and notice some carbon but not real bad. On the way back to the hotel I go past a Lexus dealer and think I’ll look at some used ones to get an idea of how much carbon is under the caps of some there. I had read all about the sludging and was scared as heck of the MZ1 engine. I spy a car identical to the one I just looked at but it has plates on it and is parked in a parking area. I figure it’s an employee’s and I go in and ask. The greeter dude says a couple is trading it in and it won’t be ready for a day or two. As I look around I see the couple and it doesn’t look like the deal is going real good. The salesman goes to talk to the manager and I ask the owner if he’s trading in the ES300 outside. He says no because they won’t give him anything for it. I tell him I’m interested and will wait till he finishes the deal on the new one. The car is a 97 and real clean no scratches or blemishes at all but it has 170,000 miles on it. I bought from him for $3800.00 and drove it home 1350 miles the next day. It ran sweet, used no oil and got 30 MPG with the cruise at 85. Turns out he got it in 2001 at the same dealer as a CPO with 40K miles on it. That’s right he put 130K on it in 5 years. He’s in sales and obviously spends allot of time on the highway. He has been using Mobil 1 synthetic and changed every 4k +/- miles. I verified the last 7 changes by calling the shop on the reminder sticker and the guy there knows the car. I was an auto tech for 10 years and an aircraft tech for 20 so I can repair most anything. My first question to the experts (toysrme), is what would be the first thing you would look at? Do the front ends wear out much? Ball joints tie rod ends etc. Do you think I’m out of my mind to buy a car with this many miles? The Bonneville I’m replacing has 235K miles and still runs great. (Castrol 20W50 every 3000 miles forever) I read a bunch of posts on this site before I bought it and every one here seems to be knowledgeable so I joined and hope to give some insight as well. I figured out a 10 min relay mod to run the fog lights that is easier than any I’ve seen yet. PM me if you want it. Maybe I’ll post it if there is interest. Below are a couple of pics one is with one of the planes I fly for a living. (beats working!) Regards, Lex Pilot Sorry for the long story. A couple more shots. Lex Pilot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKperformance Posted August 5, 2006 Share Posted August 5, 2006 Very nice car at an amazing deal. It is perfectly fine ,just clean the throttle body and check the dogbone engine mount periodically and keep on top of tranny changes as well and you should get to 300 000 like the rest of us. Enjoy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
94LexusES Posted August 6, 2006 Share Posted August 6, 2006 im interested in the easier fog light mod, tho i have a 94, i dunno if it will be that much different. I tried to PM you but it wouldn't let me. :whistles: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lex pilot Posted August 7, 2006 Author Share Posted August 7, 2006 im interested in the easier fog light mod, tho i have a 94, i dunno if it will be that much different. I tried to PM you but it wouldn't let me.:whistles: Sorry about that I guess the default is hide e-mail. I turned it on now. After reading the other methods, I kinda went the easy way. On the 97 the relay is just forward of the flasher in a panel by the drivers left foot. If you study the wiring diagram from the FSM (thanks for the link Toys) you will see that the power to fire the fog light relay coming from the headlight circuit goes into terminal 1 of the fog light relay while the ground is provided by the switch on the stalk. Instead of making a bunch of jumpers, I removed the relay and took the number 1 terminal on the relay and bent it over and back around the case. On mine it is the top aft (toward rear of car) terminal. There is plenty of spade there to slide a female spade connector on it and it will still go back in. I then reinstalled the relay with a 4 inch wire attached to the bent #1 with a female spade connector. There is a small bundle of wires that runs right next to the relay, I poked the big blue one and found it is hot with the ignition and without cutting it I stripped a small section with a razor blade and connected the jumper there. I suppose you could use a scotch lock trailer light splice connector there if you’re real lazy. I'm not sure what this wire does but blue usually indicates an actuator circuit. Since it runs down under the door sill plate my guess is seat motor or trunk release. The relay coil circuit uses a hair size wire inside so it can't draw any current. I don't know what the relay costs but I think if we try to bend the #1 terminal back to its original position, it will break. Anyway now I can run the fogs any time I want and they shut off with the ignition so if you forget them you won't kill the battery. Something cool I did notice was when you pull the stalk to flash the high beams, the fogs go out. The switch does this by removing the ground to the fogs when pulling the stalk. It really gets your attention when they flip back and forth. Let me know if you need more info, Lex Pilot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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