Gisetta

Hi there. Firstly thanks for the response, I appreciate it. The tinkering was an overall inspection of the car and the radio was left off I believe. Can you confirm there is no fuse in the car for the backlight of the LCD? Had a bit of a look around on these and similar forums and it seems I'll need to pry apart the trim, access and remove the radio than open it up to confirm which part of the backlight is broken.

Greetings, Sadly whilst driving at night I noticed the backlight for the radio has failed. The actual display of the numbers still works but the illumination lighting does not so I am unable to see any numbers at night. The lighting for the Climate Control still works but I'm curious if any of you have had a similar failure and what you have done to repair it. It's weird because I just had the car looked at am concerned someone tinkered with the car. If a surge was caused, it couldn't have killed just the backlight, but rather the radio itself as well as the number/display as opposed to just the lighting. Any issues or ideas on how to resolve. Apparently I may require a soldering iron.

By switch set do you mean just the switch itself. I haven't been able to remove the switch for fear of damaging the trim. I am also unable to source spare trim.

I'll definitely look into that but I did manage to scrape a fair amount of crud out. I think given that the belt is dirty it might be wise for me to clean the belt too.

What do you mean both sides? I've only cleaned one side in which there was some junk built up. Is it possible you can find an image. I'll give your idea a shot and post results so the community can benefit.

Has anyone had a remedy for unretentive belts. Basically all my belts suffer from this and I know it's common in older cars but I was hoping there would be a simple fix. I know there has been some gunk on the top holder of my belts which I have removed and that has helped, slightly. Any other ideas? Is it possible to clean the belt?

Removing the trim has been quite hard but it appears someone has already tried to do the same before and probably with little success. The window switch does work going down but is intermitant going up. Perhaps when the switch is raised there is an issue or there is no contact being made in some cases?

Thank you so much. This was just the information I was hoping for. I'm going to take some pictures and give it a try as you suggested. I hope you all stay tuned :)

Yeah I can imagine so, it's a very popular model and represents great reliability, features and value for money (especially second hand) :)

That is exactly what I plan on doing. I've got some cleaning solution and plan to pry the switch open so I can obtain more access to it. Do you know how to remove the switch without damaging the trim though, that's the question. I'm pretty sure all the switches are universal so I can pinch one from a wreckers.

Thanks for the welcome. Love the picture, LS400 was something I'd buy but fuel prices were a bit of a factor for me :/ I intend to get to work on my window switch issue. So stay tuned as there are a few issues I'm going to solve which may help others.

Greetings all, I'm a new member here and you can see my maiden post here. Basically I've got a lovely ES300 97 in which the right rear window switch has trouble working. It will move the window up and down but requires some jiggling. I have done some troubleshooting to confirm it's the switch by testing the drivers side switch for the right rear window in which it works flawlessly. It's my opinion that the switch is at fault. Perhaps the previous owner got some juice or dust in the switch. What I aim to do is to replace or remove the switch, but is there any way I can do so safely without damaging the interior trim? Has anyone done this before. Any suggestions or help is greatly appreciated and will then in turn benefit future users. I plan to document my adventures but I do not want to damage to trim in any way. Can I also confirm the switches are universal (basically any switch will work regardless of where it came from, right, left, front etc). Hope to contribute whatever knowledge I can give or from my experiences given so that other users can benefit.

Howdy there, I've just purchased an Lexus ES300 '97 and thought I would join your forum as it seems to be the most comprehensive around. I came across the car in a private ad as I was basically looking for a comfortable reliable car that offered great value and was well featured and this ticked all the boxes (though it wasn't my first choice). During the day I work with electronics. My hobbies are fairly normal, I like to watch movies and television, listen to music and play guitar, play video games and surf the net. As a part of this forum I hope I can contribute to the forum which will benefit the whole community. My car currently has a few issues (minor), but with the help of the community it shouldn't be too hard to resolve and provide a guide for other owners/members. Gisetta