blake918

I just put BFG Traction TA tires on my '95 a week or two ago. I've put about 2,000 miles on them so far, and I am very, very pleased with them. They have a very conservative directional tread pattern, so I couldn't be more pleased with the wet traction. They are pretty quiet and very smooth (now that I have them aired properly.). They have a 620 tread rating, so I'm looking forward to that because drive a lot. I got mine for about $90/tire from WalMart since I was in a bit of a pickle, but tirerack sells them for much less. I had a great experience with my MXV4s; however, I am a little disappointed with the fact that they (3 of the 4 tires) developed massive, massive, massive tread separation after being repaired by a reputable tire shop. James, I hear a lot of great things about Craig and the gang Davenport! ;)

Oh yeah, the seats are waaaay too short for me too! I think the short seats are more of a problem than the lack of legroom. I took a 340 mile trip yesterday, and I put a little pillow under my right leg, and it made a huge difference. I was still stiff when I got out of the car, but my leg felt a lot better! Lexus finally decided to make the bottom seat cushion adjustable in the LS430. It took them a while, but they caught on! LOL The American cars from the '70's crack me up because the bottom seat cushion is like 3 feet long....that must be nice! Pokes? Those are all legit complaints to me...I guess that's because I hate all of the same things about my car too!! :D I don't think I'm going to be moving my seat since my insurance agent told me in not so many words that I would get screwed in the case of an accident.

Very true! This has been covered ad nauseam.... http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...showtopic=11775 I'd find a LS to sit in to see how you fit. Leg and head room seem quite minimal for a car this size. Especially, if you are comming from a German car, you might not find that extra headroom that you are looking for! ;)

I'd go for the '04 if you can for no other reason than the keyless entry and start. A relative of mine has a '05 with keyless, you wanna talk about COOL!! B) You can easily get aftermarket bluetooth if you can't find a car with it, and it won't be crippled by the Lexus legal department. ;) I forgot what year 430 had this problem, but there were recalls on the transmissions and I think the fuel pumps too.

Yeah, just about all of them do it as they age. :( http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...wtopic=9048&hl= I do think it's probably something either in the differential or transmission. I noticed that my car has a lot of slack...like when it's parked on an incline, it'll roll forward or backward more than what seems normal.

That sounds normal. I'm about 6'5 and 290lbs, and when I ride in the back seat, I can buckle up fine, but I can't move around without the belt locking up...exactly like what you said. What's strange is the front seat belts are like a mile long. LOL I guess the back is geared more for small people or children.

That sounds like the same car I bought two years ago...mine was a one owner '95, 223k miles, owner upgraded to a newer LS model, except I paid more and this car has no Lexus service history. The price sounds really good. Have a mechanic take a look at the car before you finalize things. In addition to the ECU and suspension problems, check for ps leaks (at the pump and rack), missing stereo LCD segments, cd changer is functional, and a cracked EGR pipe (it'll sound like an exhaust leak that goes about 97% away once the car is warm.). I think we're all taught to think miles=condition from a very young age, and while that may work for some, it's a very bad way to evaluate a LS. I'd take 220k hwy miles over 100k city miles any day of the week. I've had my '95 LS for almost 2 years and 50k miles (it has over 270k miles now), and the only real problem I've had is the battery (and that's not even the car's fault since the battery was 4 or 5 years old.). Good luck!

LOL Sounds like you are having a little too much fun with that spray! haha How perfect is this.... :snoooorrrtttt: LOL That's great news that the new bj's and sway bushings helped out so much! I can't wait to do mine! PP usually only gives out part numbers on the invoices. :( I believe Lexus actually does sell a strut rod bushing; I know k9crew changed just the bush on his '99 strut rods. ;)

Marty, you are right, there is only one bushing on the rod. Here are the ones that came out of my car: The $110 price is for the whole assembly (rod and bushing)...that's what I paid when mine were done. The $35 price sounds about right for the bushing itself. I just looked at Park Place's site, and I could find just the bushing on there. Maybe Carey can be of better assistance! ;)

Have you cleaned out the drains? I used to have that problem when it rained really, really hard, but since cleaning the drains, it seems to have helped a lot. ;)

I think you are probably right, Josh. ;) I got to try it again today-the trooper was parked in the same spot, and this time my X50 went off big time and wrote LASER across the screen. I guess the other day he didn't have it on. Either way, anyone who's drving I20 (east or west) in LA don't speed from mile markers 120 through about 50 since they are all over the place. It's pretty hilly, and radar detectors don't like that. Not to mention, you're pretty much screwed any way Laser is concerned! lol LOL What's VASCAR?

You can find them on ebay for very reasonable prices. The differences in wood finishes between 2 and 2.5 would drive me crazy though! I'm glad your friend made it through ok! ;) Yep! The LS has them from 1997 on....

Cool, I never knew that! That's a good question, and I don't know the answer! The X50 can detect laser. I've gotten shot twice (with laser), and the sound this thing makes will send you through the sunroof when you aren't expecting it to happen! Oh yeah, I forgot to add that on my way back the Trooper was still in the same spot shooting. I came up on him head on, and I still got nothing. <_<

I was cruising down the interstate the other day with my Passport 8500 X50 locked and loaded. I came up a hill only to see a State Policeman outside of his cruiser shooting radar at traffic going the oposite direction to me (thank goodness). My radar detector didn't make a single peep. In the past, it has been able to sniff out radar shooters on the side of the road. Other than this, I get excellent notification from the X50. Do they have undectable radar guns now?

Thanks for all of the great suggestions, guys! I think I'm just going to hold out a bit longer and look for something more spacious due to what my insurance agent told me. I'll be looking at a big American barge, a MB, or VW (all of the tall drivers in the Passat B5 and B6 forums I looked at love their cars because of the comfort. They said VW should change their slogan to " 'Tall' drivers wanted. LOL). Until then, I've been playing around with sitting on different pillows to give my right leg more support so that it doesn't go numb after 30minutes. It seems to be doing some good! Thanks yall!

You said early 80's. 1980 is early '80's. Disregard this if that BMW is actually older. That's your own opinion. Any clock that is in a car's dash is ornimental. So, who cares? That's not what this spiel is about. It's about whether or not the Q45 is the first post 1980 car to have an analog clock in dash. The precise location of the clock in the Infinit is most irrelevant since it changes depending on the year and model. This is a lot like the Hemi. Did the Mopar guys invent it? No. Do a lot of people think that they did? Yes. Infiniti was not the first to put it in the dash. Did they make it popular so to speak through widespread usage? I can go there. Give up? I don't think so. I've found all the pictures and information that I need to see and read, so this is done with from where I'm sitting, and convincing you is really not all that important to me. Now that spring is around the corner, I feel that my spare time would be better spent watching my grass grow than rumaging through Google to find any more pictures that are not going to convince you one way or the other. LOL :) I'm done; I'll hang up and listen....

My local Lexus dealer pointed me in the direction of a wonderful upholsterer. Your dealer might be able to do the same. Any competent upholstry shop will be able to install the covers from leatherseats (they run groupbuys with nice discounts on another Lexus forum that will save you a hundred or two....if you are looking to buy when they have them in effect.) I too wanted to have my guy replace my carpet. He said that he has never really seen an aftermarket carpet for a Lexus that was worth a damn. He said OE carpet will run about $1,000+installation. I ended up taking the carpet out of the car to clean it, and it looks pretty good now. I had Americanstitches do the wheel in my old ES300. I am the only person that I know of that got such poor workmanship and quality from them. Most people love their work. I suppose no one is perfect. Expect to pay about $300 just to have them recover the wheel in leather, and I think $400-$500 if you want them to do leather and wood trim. When I got my LS, I decided to go a different route and get one out of a salvage car. I paid $100, and the wheel is in spectacular shape. Taking the wheel off is simple, but you'll need a torx set and a steering wheel puller. The airbag is held in with two torx bolts, and there is a plug in for the air bag that you'll unplug once the bag is free from the wheel. Before you remove the wheel itself, make some sort of markings on it, so that you put it back on in as close to as it was before. Then, you remove the one nut, and let the steering wheel puller do the rest. It shouldn't take you anymore than 10 minutes or so. Take this with a grain of salt, I've removed two of my Lexus steering wheels without unplugging the battery, and I'm still here to talk about it. By all means, unplug it if it will make you more comfortable! One last thing, don't turn on the key while the airbag is unpluged because it will set off the malfunction light. ;) Welcome aboard!

It will be replaced as a 2007 model. 2002-2006 is a typical run, unlike what you are saying the G series will see. I'm aware of what you wrote, and I was commenting on your point of Infiniti catering towards a niche market and how much good it does for them. I found a car with an analog clock in the center of the dash. It's a BMW 320 (looks like a '79 or '80 model)..... I look forward to hearing how it doesn't fit your specs. LOL There are more BMWs with analog clocks in the center stack for numerous differnet years according to a few parts web sites that I found; I'm not doing anymore searching, I've seen all that I need to

We're talking about a car that came out in 2003. Two years in is the end of the design cycle? Of course sales go down at the end... Fair enough. However, when you are selling 52 Q45s in NA in one month, it's time to compromise the "niche." I commend their wanting to be different, but when something is not selling, it's time to go back to the drawing board. They should have canned that car a long time ago. I never said they don't make good cars. I'm just saying their sales, across the board, have never been stellar. This is a 79 or 80 Continential I believe: I'll entertain the arguement that the above pic isn't too strong of a focal point, but neither is this early '90's Infiniti: 1998 Town Car Cartier (this is an awesome pic! B) )...very much a focal point: There are more too. I'm not sure what you mean. 1990 isn't very modern to me.

Watch them for what, continued sales declines? Their sales are down across the board except for two of their models (the QX and M). The Q45 has never really sold in NA. In December, they sold a staggering 52 of them. With hot, new 3 series and IS sedans, the G35 is slowly falling between the cracks and will soon be a thing of the past which is why their sales were down by almost 10% in 2005. I think I've maybe seen 5 FXs in person; the FX sales numbers are dismal when compared to the RX. I don't doubt that Infiniti makes a great car, but they just don't seem to be any competition to other luxury brands. There are many Lincolns with analog clocks built after 1980...

Look at the Infiniti line-up. How can you say that the very location is original to them when the clock in each model is in a different spot? If it was truely their trademark, they would make damn sure it was in the same spot in every car. I'm doubtful that Infiniti was the first manufacture to put the clock in the same spot as the new S class (I research it some more later.). At any rate, Infiniti doesen't sell enough cars/suvs for anything of theirs to be considered mainstream. Infiniti's one-hit-wonder G35 doesn't even have the clock in that same location-it's jumbled in with climate control readouts at the top of the dash. No arguement as far as the 7 series influence is concerned.

Infiniti? Analog clocks in the dash have been around almost as long as the ice. lol I'd have a hard time considering this a fad since MB has used the analog clock many times before. LOL That's great!

I see it too! I like the Camry's interior a lot more eventhough the ES's color scheme is 10x better. The navi//stereo/ac area is a step in the wrong direction; it's both strange and unappealing. It sort of reminds me of the mid-late 90's Taurus interior with the oval theme. lol I've never been fond of the "T" shaped steering wheel either.

I like the analog clock. I think it makes for a good focal point and dresses up the center stack nicely. B)

The previous owner of my car put green coolant in there for one reason or another. I never had any trouble with it for 120,000 miles when we flushed it out (during the tb change) and put the overpriced red, Toyota coolant in there. I'm not sure I'm up to spending what I did on the Toyota coolant again.