LS400er Posted August 24, 2003 Posted August 24, 2003 Hi All, Any one has any info about Service / Repair Manual or CD for LS 400 ? I have seen some on Ebay. Any idea on how good they are and price information ? Thanks.
Bubbles Posted August 24, 2003 Posted August 24, 2003 Well I bought a cd for an sc300 on ebay. It's not very good. It doesn't have any step by step diagrams to service the car. It's good if all you need are the specifications for the car. It has all the wiring diagrams though. I ended up bidding on a genuine Lexus service repair manual on ebay for $126.01 . Yes it is expensive and one books was missing pages. But all I can say is that it is well worth the money for the big book.
laserron Posted August 24, 2003 Posted August 24, 2003 Hi, Just bought one on Ebay for $15.88. It is by Mitchell on demand, 2 cd's from 1998. Has an install CD and a Data CD. Mine was for a 1993 LS400. So far has everything I needed to do in it. Bought the LS400 3 weeks ago and love it
tansupplyman Posted August 25, 2003 Posted August 25, 2003 those CD's could be copied and you could sell for the same price you paid and both of you would come out ahead!!!!
oversteer Posted September 2, 2003 Posted September 2, 2003 The CD I got on ebay for my 90 LS400 was garbage. I own the electrical manual but wanted to get the engine manual so i thought the CD would be a bargain....wrong! The CD is nothing like a factory service manual and is less informative and useful than a Chilton's manual. Buyer beware. Chet
VBdenny Posted September 2, 2003 Posted September 2, 2003 I went to the local Lexus dealer to inquire. There are three manuals, $100, $100, & $50. To get all the stuff you need all three. Then as my B'klyn friend VMF suggested, I got alldata.com. For $25 it's worth it just for the reading. Factory shop manuals are really good except they always mention "USE TOOL J-1732f" and stuff like that. Bet you don't have that tool handy.
SRK Posted September 3, 2003 Posted September 3, 2003 I was very fortunate recently. A customer of mine's father is a Lexus dealer mechanic, and he GAVE me the three books, all in like new condition, because he got them at a factory seminar when the cars first came out. The dealership has all the info he needs. Needless to say the daughter's car got a free oil service and other work when it next came into my shop. I have seen Toyota factory manuals before, and they are very impressive, and the Lexus ones are even more impressive. Absolutely everything is in it (except whether the '92 is an interference engine....appears not to be from the description of how to remove and install the cams before a cylinder head removal) and when a factory tool (SST) is required, the drawing of the operation shows how others tools can do the same job. What I found recently was that the operating principal of the mass meter is a Karman Vortex generator moving a mirror in the path of an LED and photo transistor, and not the German type hot-wire system. No wonder these cars are so reliable. I had no idea the manuals cost that much! :o
VBdenny Posted September 3, 2003 Posted September 3, 2003 Sorry but you kind of lost me. Mass meter? vortex mirror? Maybe you could translate some of that for us please.
SRK Posted September 3, 2003 Posted September 3, 2003 Modern fuel injection systems measure the mass of the air entering the engine to determine how much fuel to spray in. I have spent most of my time working on German and Swedish cars which use a hot-wire sensor developed by Bosch. Ford and GM use the same thing. The wire is heated by the computer and the amount of extra current needed to hold it at a certain temperature tells the computer how much air (mass) is entering the engine. Very accurate indeed. While thumbing through the Lexus manual, the chapter on the fuel system describes how the 1UZ-FE engine gets its mass measurement. Simply put, it seems they use the turbulence created intentionally in the meter to wiggle a mirror, whose movement is measured optically. That movement then tells the computer how much air is entering the engine. I would think the advantage of this system is that no heating circuit is needed, and that the LED is very reliable. I was just surprised at this method of measuring air flow. Maybe other cars use it to, but this is the first I have heard of it. The Lexus brand continues to impress me. Of course I am the kind of person who considers a good shop manual bed time reading.....forgive me if I ramble on a bit about these kinds of things. "Did you know the outer hub nut on the rear axle is torqued to 258 foot pounds?" See - I remember all kinds of useless stuff.
jsweb Posted September 5, 2003 Posted September 5, 2003 I got some of the CDs off E-Bay for $10. I bid on some hard copy manuals too that ended up selling for $180. I think for the price difference, I'll stick with the CDs. They have had everything I needed so far, and I'm not an expert mechanic, so I'll leave the electrical diagrams to someone who is.
VBdenny Posted September 5, 2003 Posted September 5, 2003 SRK, I appreicate the explaination. I've had shop manuals for most of my cars and must admit, I have used them for leisure reading as well. Very nice to have the manuals. The alldata.com is good, but still hasn't helped me fix my AC problem.
03celsior Posted September 5, 2003 Posted September 5, 2003 Try going to http://techinfo.toyota.com You can download tons of information in PDF format including wiring diagrams, service bulletins, repair manuals, etc. for just about any model Toyota or Lexus. You have to subscribe for $10/day, or $50/mo, or $350/yr.
99lsguy Posted September 10, 2003 Posted September 10, 2003 03celsior, Looked at the website you reference and was very interested. I have 99ls400.. Does this mean you can download a complete service manual(S) and save it on your computer and print out any or all info at any time? Just use ACROBAT 6.O OR WORD? I have cable modem so I'm thinkin' - $10 for one day and I've got everthing PERMANENTLY saved. two service manuals (vol 1 & 2) electrical diagram manual transmission manual new model info manual and anything else they offer for the 99LS!! Is my logic correct? 99lsguy
03celsior Posted September 10, 2003 Posted September 10, 2003 99lsguy, You are correct. You can download and save the pdf files permanently. I burned a CD with all the data for my LS. However, I will warn you, the Repair Manual is broken into *many* small pdf files. It is very laborious to download the entire thing. If you think you will be able to download all of it in one evening think again. You will need an entire day and night in my opinion. Also, when I first started downloading, their web site was very busy and it was taking a long time to download. However, that had been the exception not the rule. I personally purchased a month's subscription so I wouldn't be rushed to get everything downloaded. In addition, I am downloading information from the '01 and '02 model years because I am finding that while those model years are almost identical to mine, their Repair Manuals have sections that are better written than mine. I find it a little odd but the '01 and '02 manuals are helpful to me with my '03. While I have never seen a Lexus Repair Manual in person, what is on this web site are sections definitly from a repair manual. I just don't know if it is intirely complete online. In any event, I can't imagine what could be left out since there is so much available online. BTW, you can download all the Technical Service Bulletins pertaining to your car in this site. Good Luck, 03celsior
99lsguy Posted September 10, 2003 Posted September 10, 2003 o3celsior, Thanks for the tip!! I will go with the 30 day. I did call the 800 # from the website and the gentleman was very helpful. I had him look up my 99 ls and the info was very complete. Smart move to get 2000, 01,02,03... while you have the service. My wife has 02 Sequoia so I'll get one for her car too! :) 99lsguy
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