blake918

We're all thankful she's ok...that's most important! Lets keep her in our prayers. Wow, very well said!! ;)

You're not kidding!! :D I should be getting some pics of the house soon, and I'll post them up for yall to see. It's great to hear from you Jason! My cell hasn't worked in over a week, but I'll definantly give you a call once it does start working again. 504 numbers are pretty much all out of service. I appreciate your generosity very much! ;) We didn't lose much, nothing that can't be replaced under our insurance policies. I'm just happy my parents still have their jobs....so many people aren't that lucky. The pic comment...

In my experience with the LS, the actual speed and a/c usage has very little to do with the fuel econ. I find that my biggest influence on my fuel mileage is how steady I keep the speed...crusie control is a savior. In a recent 700 mile trip, I had the air set below 70 and set the cruise on 78/79 and turned it off only a handful of times, and I got 27mpg. I can see the gas needle falling everytime I cancel the CC. On a trip like this (I've driven this course several times), I usually get 25.5-26 mpg, but I was on the road late at night, and there was hardly any traffic. I've never had the nerve to go over 520 miles on one tank. lol

Lookin great, Chris!

Thanks for the concern you guys!! Enjoy that wonderful new car Ralph!! Did you travel to the dealer or was it on a private lot? The feds are awake; this isn't something that's going to be done next month. All of the complaints about the time it took for the Military to get here is BS. We can't expect thousands of them to materialize in NO the following days of the hurricane; it's just unreasonable. Not to mention how are they supposed to help when the people needing their help are shooting at them. You're right about our oil prouction, and I think the mouth of the river is quite important too! Make sure your new car is safe, I would imagine as BR becomes more and more over populated, the evacuees with continue to head further west. ;)

Happy Birthday! Have a great time!

The '93, definantly! ;) The maintinance is done, so she's good to go for a long while. Not to mention two toned burgandy LSs are a little hard to look at. I completely agree. As a kid, I can't tell you the number of times, my mother's cars were in the shop getting new transmissions before 40k miles (Hondas, Toyota, Fords, Chevys, etc.), and wouldn't you know she drives a combined total of 5 minutes to go back and forth from work yeilding extremely low mileage on all of the cars she drives. All were well maintained and driven lightly. As a very small framed woman (5'4 and 110lbs), the upholstry hardly showed wear marks, so her cars were always quiet easy to sell. I really feel sorry for the people that have her cars now. I could imaging the engines are torn apart by now. I used to have the mileage=condition mentality because we are all taught that from a young age, and then, I got the ES300 which has regular service histroy, low mileage (driven less than 10k a year), and clean. What a disaster of a vehicle. The check engine light is on as we speak. I wonder where Craig is; he's got good commentray on all of this, I'm sure?? He's probably driven his '93 with low mileage, just driven back and forth from church and the grocery by a 75 y/o woman in to a lake already. lmao

Thanks! I think the pics came out decently for having taken them in the midst of driving the car! lol It's something I do to amusme myself when I'm in the car for a long time. lol Jeez, that's got to be a helluva a ride to the Redneck Riveria from St. Louis! We take a yearly trip to Destin which is right by Panama. I think NW Florida and Gulf Shores get pummeled by hurricanes almost every year! They have it worse than we do most of the time. Thanks, ED! If I wasn't so far away, I'd take you up on your bbq offer! I wonder if it's as good as good as ours in LA?!?! :D :P Thanks your prayers and concern!! It's great to hear from you too! I really appreciate your concern. We (as well as my grandparents that lived not too far away) were out in plenty enough time, so atleast it was a long 12 hours verses a long and stressful 12 hours. It was neat seeing all the dogs in the cars and at the gas stations we stopped at. It was the first time I saw a Pauli in person....very cool little dog! I could imagine it takes a dedicated owner for a dog with that kind of coat. I wasn't worried about my things since I had all of my favorite belongings with me in the car (LS400 first of all with the PC, garmin nav, my laptop (my picture collection in it), french horn, and plenty of clothes). The only thing I was worried about that had to be left behind was my power mac g4 cube since they don't make them any more and can't be replaced. My dad is actually on his way back from New Orleans now. With an amazing stroke of luck he made it to our neighborhood to check on the house. He figures that the white Suburban gave an official sort of look. All of the cops he passed just nodded and waved. lol What's so comical is that when I was listening to AM radio while evacuating, the Sheriff of Jefferson parish said that every car on the road headed in to the city is going to be challenged." lol My dad said our house is bone dry! The suburb we live in is Algiers which is one of the highest parts of the city. We have our own underground drainage system with multiple drains around the house with a pump that takes all of the water out to the street, so it helps keeps us really dry. The only damages he saw were a few shingles that flew off of the house, one of our fences blew down, and that's it! We were extrememely lucky!!! We even still have phone, gas, and water...so everything but electricity. My neighbors also had the same luck except for one who had a fence fall on his Q45-the roof is dented and scuffed, but nothing too, too bad. My dad had to park the car around the block and walk to the house since a downed pine tree was blocking our street. Before heading home, he checked out our closest friends homes, and they were all also dry. I want to thank everyone again for their prayers and support!

Hey guys!! It's good to finally get on here! :D I'm doing fine. We are soooo lucky to have another house in Ruston. The worst part is our cell phones aren't working. Our Cingular phones can get through every now and then, but VZW has absolutely no service. We brought walkie-talkies in the cars, so keeping in contact was a breeze. So far, we have no idea what our house is looking like. We had a little meeting with 4 or 5 of our closest neighbors before we left to agree to keep each other updated. So far, everyone knows nothing about our neighborhood. We are keeping our hopes high, but should the worst happen, we are heavily insured with flood and homeowners policies. We do know that 2 resturants that my dad co-owns are gone. One was in Biloxi (maybe 200 yards from the gulf) and the other was in Slidell. We are pretty worried about our timberland in Columbia since it's not all that far from Biloxi, and we have some great looking hardwoods that are ready to be harvested. Hopefully, we didn't lose too many of them. The LS and ES are both fine. The amazing thing is I averaged just under 22mpg in my LS eventhough it took us over 12 hours to travel 325 miles. The first half of the trip we averaged 15mph; with an overall average of under 30mph. This trip usually takes under 5 hours. It was weird to pull in to the gas stations and have them turn everyone away since they had no gas. I took a few pics along the car ride (on Sunday): Here are a few pitures of some cool military vehicles comming to help... You can see the bumper to bumper line of traffic.... I want to thank yall for everything-nice words, wishful thoughts, etc. This group is really phenomenal!

The transmission fluid should still look very good to nearly perfect. I doubt they flushed it.

Take it back! The idler pullies are deep in there. The time they took is reasonable. Someone who has changed the timing belt before on a LS can easily do it in under 5 hours. The easiest way to check the timing belt cover is to remove the cover on the driver's side that says 4 cam 32 valves. You'll see the belt right there. It should look perfect still.

Newlexusparts.com shows that it's a non led light in the RX330: http://www.trademotion.com/partlocator/ind...t=9&catalogid=2

Great to see you around, '90!! I'm sorry to hear about all of your losses in your family. Sheesh, your cat too; losing a longtime pet is nearly as hard as losing a person (we had a 14y/o dog die, and it was just a horrible expereince.). I hope things look up for you in the future, and I'm sure they will! ;) That's something about your old '90. Engine failure is a rare happening for a LS! All is well with my '95. I did a pretty big project back in June and have been enjoying the improvements ever since. 262,1xx miles, and she still runs like she only has a fourth of that!

You're right it's not a LSV...it's an ER33! My fault, I should know what it is by now since I seem to get a tire patched on a regular basis!

That's a good question! My spare is a Bridge Tauranza LSV; I'd bet those came on my car originally. I have Michelin MXV4+ Energy tires, and I can't begin to say enough great things about them other than their price of entry! They're always in balance and wear evenly. I have roughly 50k on mine with 7/16 of tread left. What more can I ask for! :)

I don't think there are any 98-00 timing belt tutorials floating around out there. Maybe someone with the pdfs can post them for you, or you can download them from alldata.com.

Don't be worried, she has no right to comment....what you and your wife do in the bedroom is totally none of her business. The way I see it, she won't be the one changing diapers and feeding the child at 3 o' clock in the morning, so that relinquishes her right to comment on the matter! lol ;)

Are you guys talking about the rattle you can hear when you rev the engine in park?

Start with the strut rods. Before I had mine replaced, I would get a loud bang/clunk when I would slam on the brakes or hit a pot hole. The wheels feeling like they are getting ahead of the car is a sign of bad strut rod bushings. It's not your imagination because the wheels are actually still moving some. Pull next to a car that has decently reflective paint, and creep along at like 2mph. Slam on the brakes, and you will see some play in your wheels. I would start with the strut rods, and then, take it from there. I had the aces at JP Importz replace mine for a very reasonable price...I want to say about $600+/-...it's a small price to pay for silence! :D

What's wrong with a FM modulator? iTrips suck (I bought one, and it was terrible.), so don't get that one, but a friend of mine has a DLO Transpod and the sound quality is amazing! I would suspect that it would be tough to find something to hard wire to the stereo or cd changer.

Marty, don't pay the dealer to do the inspection. It's very easy to do since you are mainly looking for cracked bushings. Drive your car up on the ramps, crawl under there with a bright flashlight, and you'll be able to inspect just about all of the most troublesome suspension componets. ;)

I put mine in the lower pass side of the windshield...my tint is too dark in the back to be able to see it.

For a simple conversion factor, divide the speed in KPH by 1.6, and it'll give you an idea in MPH.

Speak for yourself! :chairshot: Chris, my '95 has 262k miles, and all of my front and rear suspension pieces are original except for my front 2 strut rods which I had replaced at 245k. My front end is nice and tight, and my ride quality is excellent!

This seems to be a somewhat common issue with 95-00's. $100 is great for the repair cost (I spent over $200 having mine fixed). I don't know where to find just the LCD; I think most people who had this problem sent their stereos to Mikado. Maybe they would be willing to sell you a lcd?