sound problem 96 LS400 Nakamichi Radio Sound only out of Left side - Passenger side not working

[Deen]

Hi LOC Community,

I have a 1996 LS400 with around 80K miles on it. I really lucked out with this car because as everyone would know that buying a used car can have its share of joy and pain. So far so good. Very happy with it.

It has the premium Nakamichi sound system in it. And I love the old school easy usability with minimum buttons and a tape player.

The 2 problems I am having with it are:

1. the CD changer doesn't work (I am not too concerned with that)

2. the stereo sound is only coming out of the driver side speakers. No sound from Passenger side speakers

I have replaced the head unit because the first one would switch from FM to tape on its own. Speakers would only sound from the driver side. Even after replacing the sound is still coming from the driver side only.

Then i thought that my amplifier was bad when I read on a thread that is usually the culprit. Replaced the amp, same problem. I thought that maybe the amp that I had put in was also bad so replaced again but still have the same issue.

So, 2 headunits and 3 amps later I still have no sound from the passenger side speakers.

Sometimes while driving with the stereo on, the right side speakers will "click" with some static but sound will not come. 

I like to keep my car stock so I don't want to replace the whole stereo with aftermarket stuff. Just putting that out there :)

I am hoping that someone on the forum can help me out find what I can look for.

[1990LS400]

Why is it always the right channel that stops working in 95-up LS400 Nakamichi systems?  I've seen a number of threads similar to yours.  The right channel of the Nak in the 2000 LS400 I drove for 10 years went out twice.  The first time a repair facility in Florida fixed it by resoldering the balance control - that was in around 2007 - but they were not certain that was the real cause of the problem.  The second time the right channel failed in 2013, I gave up and had an aftermarket Kenwood double-din headunit installed by Best Buy using the Nak amp to drive the speakers.

I remember that a person in one thread traced down the right channel problem to a corroded pin on a ribbon connector inside the Nak headunit but I don't remember which forum that was on ... might have been ClubLexus.

Nak amps rarely fail.  The problem from my experience on forums has always been the head unit.

Unlike what you may read on some Lexus forums, it is possible to install an aftermarket head unit using the Nak amp and have all the speakers work including the subwoofer.  The Kenwood I had installed worked great and made the car seem more modern.  It had lots of cool features including a Pandora interface, USB, aux-in, 18 station presets, backup camera support, excellent handsfree phone support - all for $500 including installation.

 

[sha4000]

Mines had a short in the wiring which should be easy for an installer to locate. Maybe not the exact location but close enough to bypass that particular section of wiring.

[Deen]

Sha4000 - can you tell me where the short in the wiring was? I would like to look for it today if possible. Thanks.

[sha4000]

The short was somewhere along the hump between the seats. The installer that was putting in my aftermarket head unit just bypassed that section of wiring since he was running new wiring for the new amp that I was also having installed.