SRK

For what it is worth, the Audi problem was finally determined to be pedal mis-application, which was more prominent in Audi vehicles due to the locations of the brake and gas pedals. In all cases, the brakes were found to be in serviceable condition post accident, and the mechanism by which the throttle was to have opened by itself was never explained mechanically. The installation of the shift interlock on the transmission reduced the accident rate to nearly zero. Left foot braking was the root cause, and statistics showed that "unintended acceleration" was not limited to Audis alone, only that their rate of occcurence was leading the industry. Two years ago I watched a woman drive her Taurus through a store front from about twenty feet away. She hit the gas, not the brake, when startled as the trans went into drive. I got her out of the car, and then checked the store - fortunately the person who would have been crushed at her desk was at lunch. No question that she hit the gas rather than the brake. The car was idling quietly afterwards. Brakes were fine. The only method the Lexus could accelerate is by the Idle Air Control Valve, and its limited opening could not produce much power. Still, it needs investigating. Most cars have brakes which are between four and five times more powerful than the engine, so stopping, even with a wide open throttle, is still possible. I'm not trying to stir anything up here, but in an automatic car, left foot braking is a bad habit. Of course, you can always hit the kill switch and "turn off the fire".

I find the engine will rev to 6000 at full throttle with the trans switch in the performance mode. After the wife drives the car all week at low speed, I wind it up when I get the chance on the weekends. How much it will go past that is determined by the rev limiter built into the ECM. I don't know at what RPM it is invoked, but probably around 6500. Sounds great at 6k, that's for sure.

Don't fool around with the brakes on these cars. Buy the Lexus (Toyota) original part. That way you get the best pedal feel, quiet, relatively dust free, and they last very well. Japanese street car brake technology is among the best there is. I have used Raybestos carbon metallic brake pads in my other car. They are very impressive. The Raybestos name is "Brute Stop". The red painted base Raybestos pads are less than impressive. I cannot understand how a pad could warp a rotor, regardless of brand. They can wear the rotor at different rates depending on the material they are made from, but warping is caused by other variables in my experience.

I forgot about that book - and I read it and have a copy - The Lexus and the Olive Tree, by Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. Worth reading, although it won't shed much light on this topic, other than he chose the Lexus as a metaphor for the state of technological advancement in Western cultures.

Well if you meet a BMW V-8 owner, ask him how many kilometres he has on the new factory shortblock, or how far the first one went. Around 80k is when they wear out. If you meet a Mercedes owner, ask him how much he has spent on climate control and electrical work. They still won't look at your car with anything approaching envy, (it's just a Toyota they will say or think), but you can make them think about how their car has cost them so much. The most important thing is how much you like your car. Mine makes me smile everytime I drive it. I changed the oil when I returned from Alberta last August. Since then I have done nothing to it, except check levels and pressures, and put gas in it. It just runs.

Completely normal. The car has an "open" differential, and the one that turns, is the one that turns first. The traction control has to see front wheel rotation to work, and some throttle opening.

Well, I have both in stock in my repair shop, and they don't look, smell, or feel the same to me. One is orange and one is red. And the Toyota coolant is cheaper. When Dexcool is exposed to the atmosphere it turns a muddy brown colour. Even old Toyota coolant remains red.

Dexron-Mercon fluid will not hurt the trans, but it will change the shift performance. The gears and bearings will all be fine. What is NOT good is running the trans low on fluid. Top it off until it can be treated to a change with Toyota IV fluid, but don't run it while it is low.

My understanding is that the orange Dex-cool is a Texaco and GM long life coolant. It is a far different colour from the Toyota red long-life coolant. Personally, I don't like Dex-cool, which is not to be used in any system that permits air to contact it while hot and under pressure. The Toyota coolant is superior in my mind.

The Lexus transmission can select torque converter lockup and de-select it as it sees fit. During decel on cruise control it can lock-up to use engine braking when needed. If you touch the brake pedal, the convertor unlocks, and the trans will then coast on the sprag or over-running clutch. Watch the tach needle to see this change. An automatic which is overunning on coast allows the engine to return to idle, or near idle, where a manual trans will continue to use the engine as a brake, unless the clutch is released.

Calm down Todd - and back off on the satanic crap. Our new member ccf913 obviously cares for her car very well, and what she pays for that service is none of your business unless you are asked. I fix cars for a living. Your lumping of all mechanics and service writers, and parts suppliers as rip-off artists is becoming tiresome. One day, even with a Lexus, you may require some major surgery to your car, and your attitude will be front and center to the people who will fix your car when you can't. I am on this site to exchange information, to help and find help, and not to see fellow owners get slagged.

It is not that disconnecting the battery lowers voltage, or eliminates it, it is that disconnecting the battery removes a huge resistance in the circuit and causes a voltage spike, in that the regulator in the alternator cannot respond quickly enough. The admonition against disconnecting the battery on a running engine has been around long before computer controls simply to protect the diodes in the alternator. With computers the advice is even more important. The owner's manual, and the shop manual both specifically mention this, as does every service manual I have ever read. A simple voltage test of the battery will not prove much. An alternator is quite capable of producing a reasonable voltage with one or even more blown diodes. A load test is required. A battery can be quickly tested with a carbon pile load tester. Simply "hanging parts" is not diagnosis. Find out what the problem is and fix that. I fix automobiles for a very long list of customers. They expect I will diagnose correctly the first time. Not all repair shops are rip-offs. To imply otherwise is simply not being fair.

DO NOT remove the battery terminal with the engine running. That will destroy the alternator for sure. This isn't rocket science, it is an automotive charging system. The battery can be load tested to prove its output capacity. Have that done. The alternator can be quickly tested for voltage and current output. Have that done. That's it. One or the other. Maybe both. Diagnose it properly. Just don't disconnect the battery with the engine running.

Oy! A pat on the back? Not really a prize though, is it? More of a congratulatory gesture. Now a prize, that would be something tangible, like say a set of wheels, or a nice body kit, maybe even some tires.......that would be a prize...... False advertising I say. Yes, here in Canada one must always be carefull about leaving things around the house that can be mistaken for small animals - that's what attracts the grizz. It's like that film Jeremiah Johnson every day here, except the weather is worse.

I believe it is hanging on the right hand post on the porch. That will keep it out of the dirt, and away from grizzly bears.... And I win........?

Modern fuel injection systems measure the mass of the air entering the engine to determine how much fuel to spray in. I have spent most of my time working on German and Swedish cars which use a hot-wire sensor developed by Bosch. Ford and GM use the same thing. The wire is heated by the computer and the amount of extra current needed to hold it at a certain temperature tells the computer how much air (mass) is entering the engine. Very accurate indeed. While thumbing through the Lexus manual, the chapter on the fuel system describes how the 1UZ-FE engine gets its mass measurement. Simply put, it seems they use the turbulence created intentionally in the meter to wiggle a mirror, whose movement is measured optically. That movement then tells the computer how much air is entering the engine. I would think the advantage of this system is that no heating circuit is needed, and that the LED is very reliable. I was just surprised at this method of measuring air flow. Maybe other cars use it to, but this is the first I have heard of it. The Lexus brand continues to impress me. Of course I am the kind of person who considers a good shop manual bed time reading.....forgive me if I ramble on a bit about these kinds of things. "Did you know the outer hub nut on the rear axle is torqued to 258 foot pounds?" See - I remember all kinds of useless stuff.

What concerns me about the Gates site is that it lists all Volvo engines as interference. The early SOHC engines are definitely NOT interference engines, and this is well known among those that fix them. I have seen lots with busted belts, and no damage. So this inaccuracy makes me question the other comments Gates makes.

I was very fortunate recently. A customer of mine's father is a Lexus dealer mechanic, and he GAVE me the three books, all in like new condition, because he got them at a factory seminar when the cars first came out. The dealership has all the info he needs. Needless to say the daughter's car got a free oil service and other work when it next came into my shop. I have seen Toyota factory manuals before, and they are very impressive, and the Lexus ones are even more impressive. Absolutely everything is in it (except whether the '92 is an interference engine....appears not to be from the description of how to remove and install the cams before a cylinder head removal) and when a factory tool (SST) is required, the drawing of the operation shows how others tools can do the same job. What I found recently was that the operating principal of the mass meter is a Karman Vortex generator moving a mirror in the path of an LED and photo transistor, and not the German type hot-wire system. No wonder these cars are so reliable. I had no idea the manuals cost that much! :o

It is an old article for sure. It has been linked on many other automotive boards. I am sure the info is good, but then why bother? Use the Toyota/Lexus filter and be done with it. That's the best filter for sure.

My 92 does exactly the same thing Paul, although it is very slight. I think it is the transmission shifting. When I select third, it is much better or completely eliminated. I too have checked the throttle body and I found it as clean as new. No deposits at all. An O2 sensor will produce a code if it fails - a pal of mine had that happen, and the diagnosis is quite simple at that point.

I had another look in the manual, and it states 96k kilometers, or 60k miles. It is not a climatic thing, and besides I live on the west coast and it ain't that cold here. Sort of like Seattle.

OEM stands for "original equipment manufacturer". ;)

I now have a full set of 92 shop manuals and even they don't mention the engine is or is not interference. From the timing belt replacement procedure it appears it is not, but I can't be sure. In Canada the t-belt is replaced at 96k kilometers.

I do agree Denny - one of the things that always bothered me was how the Mercedes dealers got all snotty and less than helpful when you brought an older model in. They only want to talk to owners with new cars. On the other hand the Lexus dealer here always finds some way to work the phrase "That's a beautiful car" into a conversation when talking about my '92. They may be trained to say it, but it still means something about their service and parts departments. I am certainly looking for another Lexus to add to the driveway. My Camaro will eventually go and be replaced with an SC400......one '94 model year for another '94 model year I hope.

I am not defending the dealers here. I am merely stating that just because an expensive car loses its value (capital) over time, does not mean that its maintenance costs are reduced as well. Certainly the cost of maintenance does remove many cars from the road each year, and many cars end up after fifteen years having cost more in maintenance than they are worth by that time. I have owned a couple of Mercedes autos, and after buying the Lexus I will never have another. One of the reasons is that Mercedes V-8's of the 80's have some fairly big problems at higher mileages. A valve grind on a 420SEL is about $5000.00 Canadian. If the car is only worth $9000.00 on a good day, that's a problem. Aircraft are much the same. Used aircraft, even airliners, and quite cheap compared to new, and one of the reasons is the cost of maintenance. And the costs go up as they age, just like cars. Routine maintenance is predictable. Those costs are known when we buy these cars. That's why I have purchased a full set of manuals. I work on other people's cars, I am going to work on my own, even though I have almost no experience with Lexus. I am going to learn. But I was never under the impression that the Lexus would be cheap as far as maintenance is concerned. Major repairs should be few and far between, and that's what impresses me about them. Pal of mine has a Subaru. His 96k service will cost over $800.00. And after the service, it will still be a Subaru. If he is willing to pay that, why aren't we on these cars? When a car is more than a few years old, the manufacturer is done with them. Their task is to convince people to buy a new one. The old one is out of the picture for them, except as a service opportunity. That loaner car you get when the dealer services yours? It ain't free. You pay for it, just in the column that says "parts" and the one that says "labor" that's all.