MikeNL

"You don't take these cars to Sears. Hell, you don't take any car to Sears if you ask me, but that's just my opinion. " Normally I would agree...but you just never know... This balancing problem is one I have had many times. This past week was the weirdest. Problem always with the back tires (seats doing a cheek-massage and headrests dancing). Latest nightmare was "seat vibration" which started at 80 and was shaking the headrests by 85. Thought I threw a weight. Took to old-reliable personal mechanic for rebalancing. Moved the weights around 1/4" on one rear wheel. Now vibration starts at 85 and is shaking headrests by 90. Off to Lexus Dealer. Get car back and weights on other rear tire moved about 1/8" with assurance it will be "perfect" now. Headrests now shaking at 82...worse to unbearable over 90. Took to "commercial tire brand retailer"...quote: "one rear tire is out of round but you didn't buy it here". Bought them on sale at SEARS 4 months and 10k ago (do a lot of travelling). SOOOOO...Took car to Sears. Wait 30 minutes. Spy apparent recent Jamaican emigree trailing strange aroma of ganja slowly creep My Car into bay. Wait one hour. Keep hearing that song in my head "...I smoke two joints in time of peace and two in time of war. I smoke two joints before I smoke two joints, and then I smoke two more!". This guy has the wheels off my LS. Save me. Finally. Get car back no charge. Problem per service writer? "He rebalanced the rear tires. Not out of round". Now fuming...let's go see Spliff-Mon and ask what he did. If I drive off and the car still shakes I am going to hunt down his hydroponic farmer and cap him. Spliff-Mon looks up, cigarette smoke wafting mystically around his head invoking images of the late Bob Marley, and in response to my extensive questions simply replies "I spun dem up good, mon'. No, noboby outta da round mon, they spin up real good. I watch dem watch real close". I'm dead. So go out and jump on I-95 and put the hammer DOWN...damn I love this car it is instant-80...nothing...85...smooth...90...smoother...95....eyebrows going up...100....cars just whizzing by, can hear the sirens but not even a hum....110...like glass and outta room (now in Riviera Beach: chickened out)...FHP probably getting frantic calls from local blue-hairs about "idiot in a Lexus flew by 3" off the ground". Sears. Ya just never know. Maybe you just need to check for da smoke, 'mon.

I also now am running Falken ZX 512's on Stock Wheels. Ride almost as good as my prior Michelin MXV4 at half the cost, handle better (sidewall seems stiffer, not so much rollover), good hydroplaning resistance here in hurricane-swept Florida

:o A 50k 99 for $15,000? Check the title for the words REBUILT...if not there and carfax shows mileage trail accurate...you may have the steal of the year! Find out if the sucker, er, seller has any more cars to sell!

My 2000 has been bulletproof since new. NOTHING zip zero except normal maintenance. OH but with one odd exception. At about 50,000 miles as I recall the front brakes started clicking and clacking when I would first move the car "cold". Every time I wouls start up in the morning and back up, then step in the brakes, CLACK!. Then go forward and the first time only that I stepped on the brakes again CLACK! Then nothing until I parked the car again for awhile...then CLICK CLACK. LOUD! And you could feel the metallic vibration in the steering wheel. The service dept. went over them brakes (3) times...(3) trips trying to get it fixed "under warranty"... pulling the pads, checking all parts, lubricating everything, making mystical incantations, etc etc and assuring me there was nothing wrong with the brakes they "work just fine". yeah. Click clack. Click clack. Finally, I got a whiff of something called "reality" when, frustrated, I confronted the service manager with my conundrum....an LS400 with 50K miles should not be clicking and clacking every time I started up from being parked. Certainly the car was not designed to remain silent until 50K and then notify me daily that it had reached that milestone. His response "Mike we have gone over the system and there is surely 'no safety related issue to be concerned about' with the brakes." WHO is talking safety? I am talking NOISE! I became direct: "Is there NOTHING you can do under warrenty to correct this problem?" No..we cannot find anything. "SO WHAT can we do?" Well, A complete brake job might take care of it. Now there's a surprise. I got the picture now. OK SO DO A COMPLETE BRAKE JOB. You think I care about scrimping over a brake job as much as you are on a car like this? :chairshot: next day, brake job done....money changed hands....silence. That was about 22,000 miles ago and blessed silence remains. Other than that...she still looks new, drives new, sounds new. Adieu.

"For a small amount of $$ you can do discreet upgrades to the Pioneer unit so it will sound just as good, or better, than the Nak. " Agreed. I pulled that weak subwoofer from the prem system (2000 LS400). ...nice paperweight... and replaced it with a 10" JL AUDIO "free-air" mounted subwoofer (made a template/spacer to mount it to the 7.5" woofer mount) and powered it with a 275 watt Pioneer amp. mounted in the trunk Sounds mighty mighty fine...really enhances the entire system which I felt was a very natural clean sounding system which was just totally lacking in mid to deep bass capacity. Bass very solid and tight now, and NO resonance from anything inside the car right up to the pain threshold. Very cost effective upgrade.