MBrown1003

The Boston Chapter of the BMW Car Club of America will host a Concours d’Elegance and Show & Shine at Wagner BMW of Shrewsbury on Sunday, September 13, 2009. Click here for details.

This seems to be a fairly common failure. (A Google search on "Lexus LS430 AFS OFF" yields 2,500 results.) I recognize that most of these cars are beyond warranty, but this seems to me to be an inherent design defect, with a somewhat pricey fix. Has anyone attempted to address this via any consumer protection agencies?

Yes that’s the way it failed for me. It started as an intermittent problem and then became more frequent until it was failed all the time. You might be just earlier on in the same failure profile.

The part number for the rear axle sensor I replaced was part number 89408-50060. It’s called a Sensor Subassy. It cost $384.21 before taxes. As I said earlier it’s a potentiometer sensor with an actuator arm connected to the axle to sense the axle height.

Mine was obviously broken as the arm was bent and the bracket broken. Once removed the rotating arm wouldn’t rotate so diagnosis was pretty obvious. Yours may be more subtle. If you have a VOM meter (volt ohm meter) you can measure resistance to see if the sensor has continuity end to end of the potentiometer and then from the wiper to either of the potentiometer (pot). The key is that there are no dead spots where the resistance has worn away inside the pot. So you need to measure resistance from wiper to either end of the pot and turn sensor to be sure it has a reading all across the range of travel. Since the sensor spends 98% of its time in one position that area can get more worn and cause an intermittent break so you have to check to see this isn’t the case.

There is a similar sensor in the front left wheel well for the front axle height. Mine was ok but your failure could be the front one. It is a different looking part but serves the same purpose and is similar electrically.

Good luck

I concur with previous comments; having the Vaistech unit in my LS430 has been fantastic.

Usually the limitation with ipod integration is that on older systems the system can't handle a virtual CD changer with more than 6 or 10 disks. The Vaistech unit emulates an MD changer; which turns the first 100 playlists into 'virtual' MDs. You can also see the track and artist information on the nav screen; and I think the limit is about 1000 songs per playlist.

I know that Dicelink/Denison has a new AVgateway product that supposedly works with the Mercedes fiber system and others (including Lexus) but it's very expensive and I haven't heard of anybody installing it.

Ironically enough Toyota has announced it's own implementation of an ipod adaptor; from what I can tell it works almost exactly like the Vaistech system.

Do you have the BMW system? I've heard it's really slow with a large ipod. The Mercedes system isn't much better; it works with the driver's instrument cluster mini-display screen only and steering wheel controls only.

Honestly though having 100 playlists has always been enough for me. I'm a flipper; so putting the songs on the playlists is easier than trying to thumb through albums and artists and the like. It's not like I need another distraction on the road.

However if you have a passenger the Vaistech unit can also be put into 'simple' mode where you can then manually select content from the screen and clickwheel.

Thanks for the input, folks! I'll look into the VAISTech a little more closely now!

I have the BMW system, installed as a dealer option in January 2007. I've got about 2500 songs on my iPod. It's awesome to be able to see the artist & title info on the nav screen, and I like being able to access it using the iDrive controller.

(OBTW, getting used to iDrive takes all of about 30 seconds -- not sure why it takes such a beating in the press. And the positioning of the controller on the console beats the hell out of having to reach to a pad/panel/screen on the dash.)

On the BMW system, accessing the iPod by artist is SLOW and limited to about 250 entries. I have over 400, so it doesn't work well for me. Albums & songs are similar -- takes for-!Removed!-ever, and only gives you a partial list. The ways that work for me are playlists (including dynamic playlists I've created by artist name), and genre.

I'm doing some research for my father. He's getting a used 2005 LS430 -- Mark Levinson stereo + nav.

So far, I've read about the Scosche product at Crutchfield.com. Crutchfield also has the advantage of being able to pre-pay installation. I've also seen references to VAISTech here. The VAIStech unit is more expensive. Is it better? Does anybody know of pros and cons of the available units?

I have a factory iPod adapter in my (non-Lexus) car. I love the sound quality, the ability to display song info on the computer, and the ability to control it through the steering wheel controls. It impersonates a CD changer. I don't remember all the details, but it's something like CD1 for all songs, CD2 for playlists, CD3 for artists, CD4 for genres, CD5 for iPods, CD6 for albums. The one thing that's pretty maddening to me is the speed. It isn't too bad to load playlists, but it takes for-!Removed!-ever to load artists and albums. AND...it only loads a few hundred of them; I have hundreds more than that. (By artist, I think I only get to "L".)

I assume the Lexus implementations are similar -- true?

And the big question -- help me make a good choice here in terms of price, performance, and installation options. (I'm willing to part with some $$ to have somebody else do a first-rate install.)

What's the current best choice? Thanks, all.

=> MB

Funny enough , Lexus has a great website on the new vehicles for a virtual tour and explination that is pretty thorough.

Depends on what years you might be looking at.

BTW love your M5 ,only a dream if lexus gets off their ssa and makes a proper dynamic car ,after all it has ben 5 yeasr since the GS400 was toppled by the M5 hands down.

Thx.

Yeah, the M5 is a pretty serious car!

The current Lexus site has info about features and specs, but not a lot of techie stuff. For example, I know that my M5 uses oil jets in the bottom of the cylinders to cool the pistons, then circulates the oil thru a cooler before it goes back to the sump. Details like that aren't on the manufacturers' sites -- all they wanna do is sell you the car!

After several weeks of car-shopping with a dear friend, she bought an LS430 last weekend. The dealer promises to deliver it on Friday.

My friend originally asked me to shop with her because she claimed not to be at all into cars, and I'm a complete car nut. (My two cars are a 2003 VW GTI GLX and a 2002 BMW M5.)

My friend, however, has become a well-informed enthusiast after driving quite an array of cars: Volvo S80, SAAB 9-5, Maxima, Toyota Avalon, Cadillac CTS, Infiniti I35. Once she drove the LS430, there wasn't another car that was even close. (To be fair, the prices weren't even close, either.)

ANYWAY....she's getting ready to take delivery, and I'm starting to get curious about the car. I know all kinds of weird techie stuff about my own cars, but I don't know much about the LS. Any suggestions for places where I can find out these kinds of arcane details?