ec437

I have respect for people that take luxury SUVs offroading. ...that said, I've navigated worse trails in a hertz rental car. :D

What exactly do you mean by 'excellent high performance'? By definition there really is no 'high performance' all season tire. All season tires are not high performance in any category, no matter what the companies tell you. Summer tires will always perform better in the dry (a halfway decent street set will perform better in the wet too) and winter tires will always perform better in the snow/ice/freezing temperatures. All-season tires are never 'high performance' in anything, but rather a somewhat mediocre compromise in everything. They will never be able to offer the performance that season specialized tires will. As established already, I am the resident BMW auto-crosser :P ← Well as stated by Sport Cross earlier in his thread, he was having trouble with his car because of the snow & because it does not snow much where he is was wondering if it was necessary at all to put specific winter rubber on the car. I suggested a 'top shelf' high performance all season that should do the job. You haven't told us anything we did not know already with regards to actualy summer tires & winter tires & their specific functions.......some don't need 2 or more sets of wheels & tires, nor do they want them because of various reasons. Sport Cross did not mention anything about 'auto-crossing' either so I don't know exactly what point you were trying to make with that comment as it had nothing to do with the subject at hand. Also established already, I am one of the tire 'advisors' for both LOC & CL :whistles: :P There are many 'all season' tires in whatever category you want them to be classified as that will perform a more than admirable job to get one through winter driving conditions without much fuss. If the weather is that horrendous out....even with winter rubber & it's not an 'emergency', then why go out at all? :whistles: Exercising good common sense sometimes is better than any tire ever made no matter how good the traction is. :whistles: ;) ← I made the post 'cause one of my pet peeves is when people call all-seasons "high performance" ;)

AH HA! I was wondering why it was doing that!!! btw, what on earth would one use a pirate smiley for??

What exactly do you mean by 'excellent high performance'? By definition there really is no 'high performance' all season tire. All season tires are not high performance in any category, no matter what the companies tell you. Summer tires will always perform better in the dry (a halfway decent street set will perform better in the wet too) and winter tires will always perform better in the snow/ice/freezing temperatures. All-season tires are never 'high performance' in anything, but rather a somewhat mediocre compromise in everything. They will never be able to offer the performance that season specialized tires will. As established already, I am the resident BMW auto-crosser :P

<_< I'll see if I can figure something out. I'll get back to you with results. $3 says I do it! :D

ha, one time I had to give someone a ride someplace, they got in the car and said "new car, eh?" me: "yeah, we just bought it." them: "but it's brand new, right?" Even so, I don't think the exterior styling of the LS400 has aged as gracefully as the BMW 5-series of the same era. e34 5 series

I do occasionally stop by and check out the cars they have out front, they usually look awesome. I made sure to ask about their techniques and what products they used, and all his answers checked out.

Looks like they got some design cues from BMW's banglized 6 series. <_<

Really? I was wondering about that myself, what about with a heated, textured metal roller or something?

considering that they regularly detail bentleys, ferraris, porsches, and NSX's and still have return customers I'd think they probably would :D

Mine is beginning to develop similar symptoms. Do you have to take off the interior door panel to change the handle, or can it be done from the outside only? Outside would be sooo much easier than taking off the door panel.

I got an estimate to repaint the rear bumper, fix the door dings, touch up all the clear coat and paint chips/blemishes, and get a full detail (including removal of scratches and swirl marks) for the lexus today, and the cost came out to around $1000US. Does that sound like a lot or is that about right? PS here is the place I got the estimate from: http://www.losra.net

I wasn't thinking about enhancing the current key, instead I was wondering about building an entirely new device that functioned the same way, but had a much longer range. I know some electrical engineers that specialize in building radio frequency circuitry that might be able to help me. Does anybody have any idea what the transmitter codes are, or is this information still under lock and key by lexus? Even with a code grabber it would likely be very hard to figure out how the system works if it rotates codes every time you lock/unlock the doors. Does anyone know if the first gen keyless entry transmitters are each programmed with a single, unique, non-changing code, or do they have a dynamic system where the code changes every time the transmitter is used?

Would this be possible for a particularly skilled electrical engineer? How does the coding work on these keys? Anyone know?

wow, that engineering is completely useless. :chairshot: It took me 45 minutes to get the filter off; it was on waaaaaay too tight and my filter wrench was too big for the filter and wouldn't fit in the spot anyways. I had to pound a screwdriver through the thing to get it to budge, and then I had to crush it with vice grips to get it the rest of the way off.

For some reason I can't find it.... help?

I got stuck in the mud last night. While I was off calling a tow truck, my boneheaded friends decided to try to get me out on their own. They opened both doors and pushed there while someone else redlined it in reverse. As if that wasn't bad enough, mud splattered ALL OVER the inside of both doors, AND they almost wrecked the damn car. Anyways, whats the best way to clean it off?

HA, if you don't I do. The brakes (especially the front) on the '91 are terrible. I really don't know who signed off on them during the development; the car feels like its about 1000 lbs heavier than they were designed to stop. The handling is also terrible. This is with the standard suspension, although I'm not sure how improved it would be with the air option. For casual city driving though, this car rocks. It does what it was made to do (assuming as how it was probably targeted to the demographic of high income white collar middle to later age men, who would be doing mostly casual city driving, and occasionally long highspeed highway trips) and does it well. Mountain roads, however, are a no go. Here is my overall evaluation of the car: Going: 8 engine: 9.5 I love this engine. Tight mechanical tolerances=long mechanical life, very quiet, mechanically effecient. I like that it has 32 valves and 4 cams. Its got some good power to it. other drivetrain: 7 Transmission is awesome. The car is DESPERATELY in need of a limited slip differential. Steering: 5 Does not provide a very intuitive feel to the driver. Power steering assist curve seems odd, although I really like the speed adjustment feature. More easily manuvered in parking lots that most land yachts. Pleasant at low speeds and highway cruising. Stopping: 3 pedal feel:5 stopping distance and ability: 2.5 Simply not enough braking capability for a car of this size and weight. Brake fade is noticeable after continuously on them for a while. Driving types Mountain Roads: 4 suspension sucks for performance driving. 70+ mph highway cruising: 8 I am deathly afraid of having to pull off a 60-0 panic stop or 80+ mph emergency manuvers in this car. Where my BMW would have been even a little controlable, I really don't know what this car would do. The limit is very hard to sense, again because it is a luxury vehicle. However it is very very quiet at high speeds, and Mind you I'm a performace minded BMW track driver at heart. The LS400 is simply my temp car to hold me over to my 535 :D *EDIT* Terribly sorry for the half finished post, something came up and I had to go but didn't want to lose everything I had written. I'll finish it up ASAP when I have time.

I'll make one of those by molding a hockey puck to the lifting surface of the jack.

meh... too late. I didn't have to jack it all the way off of the ground though, and put jackstands under the stock jack locations as soon as it got high enough. Car still handles like a friggin' 40 foot schooner in the twisties, but high speed braking performance has been much improved. Some nimrod at a tire shop had torqued my lugs to about 250 lb/ft while under charge of the previous owner. And he didn't even torque them wrong consistently! varied about 40 lb/ft each way... damn fools with their impact wrenches...:chairshot: Oh by the way, I won't have my jacking point problem when I have a garage of my own. I'll be putting a lift in :D And wouldn't jacking on the crossmember stress mostly the motor mounts? That can't be good for them.

I'm assuming so, this has been the way it has been with my BMW's. Actually the BMW's had a flat crossmember so I could jack there as well, not so with this car... I'm aware that I have to place the jack on part of the frame, henceforth why I'm assuming the framerails to be fine :D Thanks.

woodgrained plastic? I didn't know that some ls400's had plastic there. Mine has real veneer. Whoa dude, you don't have to actually take apart the middle console to remove that woodgrain around the shifter and stuff. Also, the actual part that has the "P", "R", and everything else is almost non-removable. I've tried it. However, I still think it's possible, but be careful. Anyways, go here and you'll see how to remove everything: http://www.lexls.com/head_unit.html ← yes, I figured that out, and I did get the trim around the shifter out too. Unfortunately now I need a new overdrive on/off switch, new screws to hold the knob on, and new trim pieces to cover the screws that hold the knob on, among other things. All those pieces dropped into the abyss right above the transmission oh, and I need it all back together by friday too

GAH! I want to take apart the center console so I can recondition all the wood and plastic pieces, but I can't figure out how to take it apart! I can only find 2 screws inside the storage compartment. The part I want to take out of the car is the plastic pieces surrounding the shifter and that piece of wood veneer. Help?

adjusting your seat properly may solve your problem; many people actually don't know how to do this. Use this tutorial. http://web.archive.org/web/20031209094025/...g_seating.lasso

I know all the BMW e codes for their cars, what is my lexus' internal company code?