blake918

I read on the Lexus sight that "Lexus" is a combination of the words Luxury and Elegance. http://lexus.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/lexus.cf...jJFM1MwMDIwNTQx

My car has brown(probably coke stains) stains all over the inside which really bother me greatly. I've tried every possible product, and I've spent almost $100 on carpet cleaning machine rentals. I'm tired of looking at this nasty carpet. I don't want to change the color; I just want the carpet to all be the same OEM color. Is this a DYI or upholstry shop job? I've looked at a few dying kits online, and it looks like it's just a matter of spraying the dye into the carpet. Is this a bad idea? Anyone have experience with this?

Is it a myth? Yeah, but in a round about way there is some truth to it. Synthetic is much finer than regular dino oil, so the synthetic has a better chance of seeping out of a broken down seal/gasket. It doesn't cause leaks; it just runs through some that were being cloged by dino oil. I was in your same situation a few weeks ago of dino v. syn because I was afraid of oil leaks due to the high mileage of my car; I went ahead with Mobile 1 full synthetic. This is the first time my car has had synthetic-Mobile 1, and I have no leaks(knock on wood!) on my '95 LS with 225k miles. $50 for a Lexus dealer oil change is a pretty good price; my local dealer wants $85. The Toyota oil filter is about $5 and you'll need another $25 for the oil(5.4 quarts I think). BTW, I need to get my suspenion clunk taken care of too! I have a Toyota Dealer do services that I can't/don't want to do. I've never had any problems with their services(knock on wood again!) Plus, my neighbor is buddy-buddy with them due to all of the cars he buys, so I get considerable discounts! :D

Update: After studying the car some more, it turned out to be a leaky radiator. We replaced it, and all is well!!! She runs cool as a cucumber now.

Hehehe! :D

I'll have them real soon Secret Agent. ;) And, by all means, go for the 98+ if you have the monitary means to do so. I think many will agree with me when I say that it is the most beautiful Lexus in Lexus history! :D

Thanks! :D She's a work in progress; I still havent had time to really go out there and work the spots on the hood out(they're only visible up close...luckily!). I agree Black Onyx is an excellent color, but black cars bring a lot of baggage! It's not so much the extra up keep as I find the black stays just as clean as my beige ES, but it's the problem that they proudly show every single little nick, scratch, ding, etc. Comming from a beige ES that would hide everything, the black is a whole new thing for me. If I had the choice, would I get black again? Probably not-I'd go for beige(again!!!) or white...2 colors that hide everything! I don't mean to discourage you or insult any fellow Black Onyx folks out there, I just want you to know the 1 down fall of black. BTW, wouldn't the LS be an addition to your pre-existing Lexi stable?

Also expect to find(either now or later. Both of my Lexi[LS and ES] have these problems): bad suspension bushings=clunking sound over bumps, burnt LCD in the stereo or climate cntrl., and grinding antenna mast-easy DIY fix. Other than regular maintiance like fluid changes I think that's about it. Be warned, you will fall in love with these cars! :D They(LS's) are unlike any others...comfortable, stealthy, sporty, smooth, timlessly designed(heck, the 90's still look like new cars), and most of all rock solid reliability and quality which will be nice since you're comming from the BMW corp. :P I bought a '95 a few months ago with 225k on the clock, and after I spent $500 on a few upholstered items, the car looks brand new!

The plug is in the fuse box right beneath the mirror controls-in a very convient spot(the 1 in my LS is in a horrible location near the brake). Speaking from experience(cel saga last summer), just tell AutoZone that the car is a 97 because that's when all cars were switched over to OBDII codes...it will just make your life easier because they think that only cars that are 96 and newer are OBDII compatable! ;)

Floormats are very pricey for Lexi; heck I even sold my used mats on ebay for $35, and I think they were very worn. I paid my local dealer $115 for a new set of mats; newlexusparts.com sells them for $110. You might get lucky and find a set on ebay for a low price, but the dealer is pretty much the only way to go with the few exceptions of online OEM parts/accessories sellers. You might want to try irontoad.com along with newlexusparts.com. I'd say that the mats are worth the high price because they make the interior look and smell like new again. B)

It looks great Steve! Placing the controller in the console was extremely clever. ;) I always thought they had to be mounted to the dash...I guess not! Enjoy the stereo, and it looks very, very nice! :D

Will do. It's raining right now, so I'll report back later. ;)

I agree; was it the origional tranny? What kind of maintinance did you do?

"Are all hood struts crap?" YES!!! I've replaced them on both of my Lexi LS & ES. Maybe they aren't total crap, but the gas will definantly leak out at some point in time and make the strut worthless. I guess I'm the only one that let the dealer rob me for the real things.

SK, it's the front windshield defrost light.

I just checked for error codes...I have none. I held the Auto + Recirculate buttons while I turned the key. The climate controler blinked and beeped a few times, and then, it displayed "00." I hope it's not the compressor. The A/C works fine.

My front defroster light will blink sometimes when I first start the car in the morning. The light will blink for a few seconds, and the a/c will not work, but, after the light blinks for a few seconds, the a/c is perfectly fine. This is not a regular thing it's happened maybe 3 times in the past 2 months. Any ideas???

I know how you feel. I get a good bit of flack about my car because I'm 17 with a '95 LS4, and I'm on my second Lexus(My ES was too small, so I had to move to a larger car...after I saved for a while). Right now I'm really getting it bad because I haven't sold my ES yet, so I have 2 Lexi. I could really give a crap about what all of the kids at school tell me about being a "rich boy" or "what Lexus did you drive today?"-I just chuckle and keep on walking! People will always be jealous of nice things even if they are used. The joke is on them because their brand new microscopic Honda Civic costed more my LS! There's no need to feel bad about your choice. Think of it like Agent 99 put it...new 4 banger Accord/Camry...or why not sit in the lap of luxury with V8 power at your toe tip with a little mileage on the odometer. IMO, it's simply buying SMART! :D ...rather than buying a brand new econo car. Just do what your screen name says(I'll paraphrase here!) and Love your '98!!!! B) Take care of the '98, and she'll do the same for you with hundreds of thousands of miles of reliable service...I'm at 225k miles, and the car is perfect other than a bad suspension bushing up front. I spent $500 on a seat, console, and steering wheel which made all of the interior look brand new, so I'm ready to roll on to 500k miles in a car that looks brand new! :)

I don't think the TRAC feature is that rare-I see it all the time on ebay; however, I'd love to see a 95-00 with air suspension because I've never seen this!

No offense taken here, but why waste money if you don't have to?? Those same people that would laugh about us would laugh about every other thing we do here on LOC. We all own expensive V8 Lexi valued @approx. 60k(I know they were $35k in '90, but in current money it's all the same) , so why don't we all go to the dealer to have everything done and stop whining about their $100/hour service costs after you let them diagnose the problem for $100? Your climate control LCD is dead...screw Jim Walker or Mikado; go let your dealer put a new one in for $1,000. BS, huh? It's the same principle as conserving gas. I'm confused. The logic just doesn't add up to me...money is money rather you save it on gas or diy maintinance. Oil companies must love you!!! I do what Steve said-spend money on something makes you happy. Regularly racing my LS doesn't give me $300 of satisfaction...maybe it does to you, but I'd bet most of us would say no! Here are the figures I came up with @ 21mpg vs. 18mpg using 20 gallons per tank(just to be safe!): 420 vs. 360 miles per tank= 60 extra miles per tank=60miles/21 mpg=2.85 gallons free just for going easy on the gas which then equates to 2.85gal x $1.80(what I pay per gallon here in N.O.)= $5.16 saved per tank. Then we can look at this in a year, and we're talking $5.16 x 52 weeks= $268.32. So at a minimum you are putting $268.32 in your pocket. I'm a Motor Trend subscriber; some guy in the letter or mail(whatever it is) worked out the math on a regular 4cyl Civc(that already gets something like 40mpg) vs. the Hybrid Civic, and he found out that you'd have to drive the Hybrid something like 50 years before it would pay for itself-the Hybrid is almost $5k more than a regualr Civc. I never thought that a fuel saving tip would raise such a fuss! :o

I don't think you need to worry about losing the codes as long as you don't unplug your battery or lose power some other way. In my experience with check engine lights I've learned that if there really is a problem with the car, the computer will sense it over and over again even if you turn the light off some kind of way. I tried to get rid of my check engine light by pulling the battery. It would go off for a few days, and then, it would come right back to grace me with its presence! I finally figured out that a Vacuum Switch Valve was bad...it's some little gizmo that works with the egr valve. Replaced the VSV, and I haven't seen the cel since.

1UZFE, what year is your rig? Mileage? Any service history that you know of?? That is awful weird that you get specified mpg on the highway but not in the city!

Same here...my LS ran better, but no fuel mileage increase. My car was so used to the old, origional plugs and wires that when I started the car for the first time after I put the new wires, rotors, caps, and plugs in the check engine light came on for a few days...it went out as it adjusted to the new igniton componets. I was still getting about 18-18.5 mpg in the city on the orgional wires(they had 1995 stamped on them! 225k miles they still worked pretty decently...pretty darn good!) and from the looks of things the origional plugs too. What are your driving habits around town? Agressive, relaxed, etc??? I changed my gas pedal habits and picked up 3 mpg in the city!

I don't go minimum speed, but I do take my time getting there! ;) You're right, Silver, you really don't need it to rev any higher than 2k around town unless somebody wants to race you! In that case you pin it!!!! B) Before I started this driving style, the car would shift around 3k or more, so I guess that's why I saw the mpg jump! I think it incredible that a V8 powered car can get 21mpg in pure city driving! For those of us that are getting low mpg, this might be something to try. 93, my '94 ES gets the 17.5-18.5 mpg bracket. The gearing is quite different in the ES as it needs to rev high to get power(0-3k rpms the car is a snooze; then, all of a sudden the power comes in like a Mack truck hits you from the rear. The ES has a top end powerband which is one of things I disliked about the car.)-on the highway the ES runs well over the 3k rpm marking to get 70-80 mph while the LS only needs like 2500rpms to get those same speeds. I think the ES gets remarkable mileage for the amount of rpms the engine turns. What kind of mileage do you get in your '93, 93? You made the right choice by getting the LS! The most noteable difference is the lack of weight in the ES, so you feel a lot of bumps. Don't get me wrong the ES is an excellent car, but it can't keep up with it's $60k big brother!!!

Just thought I'd share my little experiment I've been doing to try to get better gas mileage. It's really quite simple actually. I lightly press the gas instead of pinning it. Lightly is being gentle enough so that the car revs no higher than 2k rpms. 2k rpms sounds rediculously low, but believe me at stop lights it's plenty enough power to keep up with traffic. The best part is my intellegent tranny caught on to what I was doing and automatically adjusted the shift points to the lower range to accomadate my new habbits. Oh yeah, all of this is in a 1995 LS400 with 225, 6xx miles, no mods whatsoever-100% stock, Shell 93 octane, and Mobile-1 full synthetic 5w-30. What kind of results did I get?? Great results....my city mileage leaped from 18.4mpg to 21mpg. :D IMO that's excellent mileage for a V8 powering a 2ton luxury yacht! My ES300 doesn't even get that kind of mileage! I think it's pretty incredible that a car with this mileage still consumes gas like the day it left the factory. What's there not to like about Lexus??? :D