spoonfed Posted March 12, 2004 Posted March 12, 2004 Hi everyone, i posted a post yesterday but i dont know where it went, well i recently got a 91 Lexus LS400 pearl white for my dad and i barely wanted to hand him the keys after i drove it home. Lol but the problem with it is the "trac" light is constantly on and its not hte one where it tells you to turn it back on. I believe its the light that blinks when traction control is doing its thing. I guess my question is what should i do to diagnose this myself? I'm pretty mechnically inclined. Thanks Spoon
Mike523 Posted March 12, 2004 Posted March 12, 2004 Do a search with "Trac Light" and you'll be able to read alot about it. The search option is at the bottom of the screen. Sounds like mine, it was the accumilator.
wwest Posted March 12, 2004 Posted March 12, 2004 First, I would flush, completely, the brake fluid. A bit of debris blocking a check value could be your problem. You have two "extra" bleed valves, one near the ABS assembly and one at the Trac assembly. If none of that works and your father is an experienced driver, know how to "feather" the throttle for accelerating on the slippery stuff, I would simply ignore it or maybe even remove the failure bulb in the panel. My experience with my 92 is that it more often interferes with my driving style than is usefull, I often find myself turning it off in order to proceed. The only good it seems to do is act as an early advisory of slippery roadbed conditions.
Mike523 Posted March 12, 2004 Posted March 12, 2004 Whether or not to fix it really depends on where you live and what kind of conditions your Dad will be driving in. I live up north with lots of snow and ice. That option is a must. You can get yourself in alot of trouble without it on ice and snow. On just wet, dirty or gravel roads & your driving aggresivley, the traction control can be annoying.
UCF3 Posted March 12, 2004 Posted March 12, 2004 Spoon: Run the diagnostic and see what the error light it.
wwest Posted March 13, 2004 Posted March 13, 2004 Disagree with mike523, absolutely. Unless he's talking about a FWD vehicle, or an AWD vehicle that like the AWD RX3X0 is actually FWD. I would never take a FWD vehicle onto an icy roadbed absent Trac. But. The LS is RWD. In almost all cases with the 92 LS400 on slippery surfaces I have had to disable it in order to get the vehicle to move forward. If it weren't so quick to dethrottle the engine, and take so long to recover, "un-dethrottle", then it might be of same help. Turning it off on an icy surface allows me to feather the throttle and get the car moving along. Otherwise it is a series of slip, brakes, dethrottle, lift gas pedal, wait for un-dethrottle, apply gas lightly, spin, brakes, dethrottle,...etc, etc.
Mike523 Posted March 13, 2004 Posted March 13, 2004 wwest Maybe your traction control isn't working properly. In some very slick conditions, it's the only way to get the car moving. It's an assume option to have on ice and snow. You make a turn on icy roads in town, the car wont let the back end loose. Without it, it only takes a split second and the rear is loose and depending on your speed and how icey the road is, you can be totally out of control. Again, it depends on where you live and what kind of driver you are. From experience, I say let the car do the work of keeping the rear end planted.
jzz30 Posted March 13, 2004 Posted March 13, 2004 when that happened to me it was a fuse it went to lexus and i got charged $80 for diagnostics and $2.50 for parts( a fuse)
wwest Posted March 13, 2004 Posted March 13, 2004 By Lexus standards my LS'es Trac is operating properly. I guess too many years in central MT taught me better how to drive a car than Lexus engineers taught the Lexus Trac. Turning on icy roads... Are you thinking of VSC? Trac knows nothing about turns, just rear wheel rotation rate vs front.
99lsguy Posted March 13, 2004 Posted March 13, 2004 By Lexus standards my LS'es Trac is operating properly.I guess too many years in central MT taught me better how to drive a car than Lexus engineers taught the Lexus Trac. Turning on icy roads... Are you thinking of VSC? Trac knows nothing about turns, just rear wheel rotation rate vs front. Another vote in favor of WWest! Turn that puppy off, put in snow mode, and the LS will crawl along smoothly. Easy does it on the GAS! 99
VMF Posted March 13, 2004 Posted March 13, 2004 just get codes first and fix later. dont fix stuff that ain broken. to figure out what exactly is giving you the problem you need error codes. search forum how to get error codes for your year. once you will get the code some1 with the same year car and with the factory manual will tell you what exactly the code means and how to fix or troubleshoot it.
spoonfed Posted March 13, 2004 Author Posted March 13, 2004 thanks guys for all your feed back, i infact did do a search but didn't come up with nothing.. the site had a error that same day though so that might have been it. Anyhow the Trac is a must for my dad, he totaled his Acura Legend from sliding so this is his "upgrade" replacement. It does snow here and i dont think he's that great of a driver. As for the trac light, i've tried reseting the system but unhooking the battery and it didn't fix it and when i stick the key on the ON position.. theres a clicking noise coming from my engine near the traction control box. It eventually turns off after 10 seconds or so. I've tried loosing control and the traction control doesn't kick in because my brother has a 96 LS400 and i've felt it on there. I guess i'll try bleeding the brake system and checking the fuse first. I'll get pics up soon!. It was a 91 LS400 pearl white for $5,500 with 108k.
VMF Posted March 13, 2004 Posted March 13, 2004 cmon there are like 20 different reasons why this track might be on. just get codes first. this is why this light is there - to tell you that one of the sensors is giving an error code. if you will get this code you will narrow your search dramatically. the bleeding 80% will not help. it just might be an elctrical problem.
spoonfed Posted March 13, 2004 Author Posted March 13, 2004 ok let me do that but i can't plug a scanner into it because its OBD I, its a 1991. i'll do a search right now to see how to get the code.. i've done it on hondas/acuras where i jump the service connector and count the light blinking but thats for the check engine light.
wwest Posted March 14, 2004 Posted March 14, 2004 Geesh...... When he restarts the nengine the Trac failure light is off, car must be driven some distance, enough for ten speparate brake applications, and then the light comes on. That indicates, basically, that everything is working except the system cannot maintain brake fluid pressure between brake applications. That can only mean that the nitrogen charged accumulator has lost its charge or the system has an internal leak. Of two the most likely failure is debris (100k miles, brake fluid changed??) blocking one of the check valves. I gave my older brother, now 78, a 91 LS a few years ago. He has spent his entire life driving RWD vehicles so I wouldn't dare give him an extremely hazardous FWD vehicle. The recovery procedure for loss of control due to understeering is basically non-existent for a FWD, whereas a persons natural instincts, lift the gas pedal, is often all that is needed for recovering for oversteering in a RWD vehicle. And if lifting the gas pedal doesn't work you almost always have enough steering traction left to recover. Your father likely doesn't need Trac, his life's experience has likely told him what actions to take in a RWD vehicle and that action probably got him in trouble in the FWD accura. I'm only 63, and lucky for me FWD didn't become predminant in the market before I was old enough to figure out how hazardous they are on a slippery roadbed.
spoonfed Posted March 14, 2004 Author Posted March 14, 2004 LOL thanks for the comment.. somehow he'll find a way to lose control sadly... so i guess your saying brake fluid flush might do the job...?
wwest Posted March 15, 2004 Posted March 15, 2004 It worked for two 92 LSes that I know of, one at 150k and the other at 90k.
spoonfed Posted March 15, 2004 Author Posted March 15, 2004 light actually comes on a second after the car has been started.. is this still a brake fluid problem? Thanks
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