DKRC-2003

OK, took my 94 ES 300 into Lexus of Austin last week for its 90K service (has 97K on it now, bought it with 95K); got a loaner 2004 RX 330 (nice!) and took the wife and kiddo out xmas shopping in it... Anyways, total price with TTL and my 10% discount coupon was $262.55. I originally was going to also have them replace the timing belt (along with the water pump) but having a hard time parting with the $1,000 that they want from my wallet to do this (JPI-Jason, still considering your offer...) Here's what they found from the lengthy list of "inspect"s that the 90K entails (along with the estimate for them to repair): 1. One front engine mount needs to be replaced and a "dog-bone" is cracked. $346.54 (parts $150 and $50 respectively, 1.5 hrs labor) 2. both front lower control arms (L and R) need to be replaced. parts: 174.11*2 w/ 4 hours of labor + an alignment = $796.28 and of course my timing belt needs to be replaced....along with all of my drive belts (I was told that they were all cracked). Now, as I have stated in earlier posts...I am a moron when it comes to auto repair. However, I must not be seeing something here. Take a look at this drive belt and tell me where I'm supposed to see the cracks:

A friend of mine just bought a 1994 LS 400 with 98K miles, in great shape! Anyways, the only problem that he has noted on the car is that the speedometer needle has quit working on him twice, where it will drop to reading zero (the needle lights are fine). It will stay that way for 15-30 seconds and then go back to working normally again. All the other needles (tach, temp...) work fine when this occurs. Unknown if the cruise control is affected. Does this sound like a bad capacitor prob on the cluster circuit board, a bad sensor or some other issue?

My 94 has 7 bulbs in it...so 93 and 94s should be interchangable... Thanks!

any way that nav kit will fit in a 94?

my bad on calling this a 1st gen ES...should be 2nd gen

Somewhere I thought that I read that the 92-94 ES taillights were not interchangable with the 95-96 ES because of a size issue. Checked the archives and cannot find that statement now... I'm looking at purchasing 1993 Windom taillights for my 94 ES 300 (to lose the ES 300 emblem off the taillight...), this should be interchangable, correct?

OK, i replaced all of my taillights tonight! Thanks stevieJ for the parts list! Since I do not appear to be the only one with ??? on how to do this, I took pics and placed a thread in the tutorial section for future reference: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...showtopic=15005 Its a piece of cake once you do it, took me about an hour but I was taking pics and notes...can be done much quicker.

Step 9: That's it! Be sure to test all your bulbs before you bolt anything back together. Reverse this procedure to reinstall the lights. If you placed the lenscover back on the trunk light, you may have to remove it to place the trim cover back in. Hope that helps! Anyone with any shortcuts or ideas to improve this by all means jump in and let us know.

Step 7: Each of the taillight assemblies should slide straight back now. There is a plastic clip on the taillight assembly that is holding the wiring harness. Slide the wiring harness off this clip and it will let you have full access to the taillights. Step 8: Replace your bulbs. Everything is quarter-turn. I would wear gloves to keep from touching the bulbs directly but this is not as important as the headlight bulbs. Here is where the bulbs go: (this is the driver side taillight assembly) BTW, the 1157 bulbs (brakelights) have two posts on them to keep them secure in the socket, these posts are offset so that they can be installed only one way. If the bulb will not install into the socket, you probably have these posts reversed, just rotate the bulb 180 degrees and it should slide and twist right in. The 1156 bulbs (turn signal and reverse lights), the posts are not offset and they are reversible.

And here is the 3rd bolt for the Left Side (again, these are behind the panel). The 4th bolt is also back there, just did not get into the picture.

Here are the 3rd and 4th bolts for the Right side (you will have to gently pull the panel back to reach these):

Step 5: Remove rear panel carefully by sliding down and then out. If you are worried about burning your hand on the exposed lightbulb in the trunk, replace the cover at this time. Step 6: There are 4 nuts holding each taillight assembly on. All eight nuts are 8mm. Some are easily removed with an 8mm wrench, others are recessed in hard-to-reach areas on long screws; I used a socket wrench with an 8mm deep socket to remove these. Here are the locations:

Step 4: Remove 3 black plastic quarter-turn retainer screws on top of rear panel by with phillips screwdriver and pull out carefully Remove 2 black plastic nut caps on bottom of rear panel using small flat-head screwdriver to pry carefully if you cannot get them off with your fingers.

Step 1: Clean out your trunk :) Step 2: Remove or fold back carpet (I took both of mine out and vacuumed them) Remove or set aside the cover to the spare tire and tools area. (good time to check the condition of your spare) Step 3: Remove trunk light lens (use small flat-head screwdriver to pry carefully if it will not come out in your hands easily)

You have to remove both taillight assemblies to get to any of you bulbs. While this is not entirely time-consuming (<1 hour the first time you do this), I would recommend replacing all of the bulbs at the same time and not worrying about it for a while... PARTS LIST: 14 total light bulbs (part numbers listed are Sylvania ( www.sylvania.com ) [QUANTITY 6] 1157 bulbs (I recommend 1157LL long life) (Brake Light bulbs) [QUANTITY 4] 1156 bulbs (I recommend 1156LL Long Life) (Reverse/Turn Signal bulbs) [QUANTITY 4] 168 bulbs (corner marker and license plate lights) TOOLS: 1 pair of latex (or latex free is your allergic) gloves small flat-head screwdriver Phillips screwdriver 8mm open end wrench (5/16" is good substitution if lacking metric) 8mm deep socket wrench Flashlight (optional)

I guess "Kia" has finally officially replaced "Yugo".... lol

any information (especially with pics!) on how you fix or do something is valuable info. Especially the mistakes that you made and how you fixed them. Had the same problem w/ my lights and I reviewed every post that I could find before I tried anything that was questionable in my mind...

Suburbs of Northwest Austin, near Lake Travis! Lived here most of my life except for a stint out of state/country when I was stationed in Norfolk (lived in Virginia Beach) while in the military...

Another firefighter, eh?... Welcome Brother!

Yes, to a certain extent...also the position of the router and how much interference between the antenna and your receiver. I live on a cul-de-sac on a oddly shaped lot that has 6 other lots touching mine. All of the houses around me (on the cul-de-sac) have windows facing my house at some point. I would be willing to bet that most of my neighbors have their routers upstairs and near windows, hence the ability to pick up their signals so easily... I can only imagine how crazy this must be in an apartment complex full of college students...

A friend of mine used to be an engineer for Exxon in Houston.... According to her, the mid-grade (i.e. Unleaded Plus) is nothing more than the low and high grade octane fuels blended together... It has been a while since we talked about all of this, but I remember it being fascinating, might have to shoot her an email and post the reply to everyone. Anybody got any questions that they would like to ask an Exxon Engineer about?

When I was young, my dad and I played this game when he was working on the myriad of cars that we owned: He would be underneath a car and ask me to hand him a tool (usually one that I had never heard of before)...when I brought him the wrong one, he usually chunked it at me... I tried to never mistake a claw hammer for a spark plug socket.... :whistles: Nevertheless, I quickly made it a point to never be around when he worked on cars...hence my ignorance today... As far as the timing belt goes, I definitely plan on changing it before it breaks...but if it looks to be in pretty good shape, now that I know that my engine is a non-interference design, I may wait a few more months till after the xmas bills are paid off... just updating my risk management plan...

So if I wanted to replace every light bulb in the rear taillights of my 94 ES 300: I count 3 brake lights per side (6 total 1157’s), two corner markers (lights up with my parking lights-does not light up with my brakes) (2x 168), two reverse lights (2x 1156) two turn signals (2x 1156) and two license plate lights (2x 168) Does anyone see anything that I missed (that may be burned out bilaterally)?

i'll trade ya my car for that one. :D i'm gonna search the archives and figure out how you did that nav setup...

Anybody have a list of lightbulbs that you would need to purchase if you wanted to replace every bulb in the taillight assembly for a 94 ES? Also, I've seen some LED lights that you can purchase for brake lights, etc... I put some into another car that I owned as was not impressed with the brightness. Anybody seen anything different that they would recommend? Both of my license plate lights are burned out so I will be pulling both of my taillights in the next week and replacing all of my bulbs at once while I am there...