Jeffo

1995 SC400, 60.000 miles. dark green. $9000, bought at a used car dealer. CarFax says it has had two previous owners and was a leaser when new. It has good paint and hides, interior is exceptional for a car this age. I have had stainless glass packs and larger bore pipes installed back of the last catalytic converter and oval tips a little bigger than original. Nice exhaust note results. The car came with aftermaket 5-spoke Enkei 16" wheels with nice Nitto tires with at least 75% tread left. I have replaced the right headlight assembly with a nice used one I got on Ebay. The old one had a small crack near the bottom edge. It didn't interfere with function or appearance, but allowed dew to collect inside the unit. The keyless entry system didn't work, but I replaced the coin cell in the key unit and all is well. The car came with a bonus-- It's obvious that it has recently had a new power steering pump and alternator installed! I've had to replace the speakers front and rear. One of the front ones was burned out and the two rear ones were totally deteriorated, probably by heat and sunlight. The original Nakamichi speakers were nothing special that I could see.. I used after-market Pioneers which look very similar and sound great. They are standard 4 inch, 4 ohm speakers with a "whizzer cone", commonly called 2-way. The original tweeters in the doors work fine. I haven't yet checked the condition of the bass speaker in back, but there are plenty of nice ones available in that size. There is no reason to try finding Nakamichi speakers or exact Lexus replacements. it would be a waste of money. The speedo and tach needles were not lighting, so I re-wired things in the cluster and installed some red neon wire (EL wire) segments on the needles after clipping off the LED segments. I re-balanced them and wired in a neon wire power converter, hanging it on back of the cluster. It works quite well, but took a lot of time to isolate and connect the needle circuitry for the higher voltage EL wire. While I was in there I replaced the electrolytic capacitors in the cluster and re-lamped it. I replaced the spark plugs with Bosch platinum units. The old ones were plain Autolites and two were loose. Some plug connectors were not installed correctly. Obviously the work of an owner or very poor mechanic. While doing this, I checked the resistance of the wires. All looked good-- the wire should have about 10,000 ohms per foot. There is excessive ignition noise on AM radio. I suspected problems with the ignition wires, but now suspect a bad connection in the antenna wiring. The powered antenna is suspect here. The car has lots of power and seems none the worse for wear. I am very pleased with it and feel that I got a lot of car for the money. Tinkering with it to get it in top shape was expected and something I enjoy.

For those who want to service the instrument cluster illumination: There are LED equivalents available for the #74 bulbs. I haven't tried them yet, but have ordered some. They are available from www.superbrightleds.com (I have no affiliation or experience with this company) The "T1.5 Instrument LED bulb" comes with the twist-in socket attached. It's hopefully compatible with the holes in the panel.. don't know for sure yet, so I ordered some bare ones as well. Mine are burnt looking, so I am going to go that route. I'm guessing use white for the indicators and whatever you prefer for the backlighting. If you are electronically knowledgeable: Replace all the electrolytic caps on the board, check the power resistors and replace if needed, re-solder any bad looking joints, especially power resistor pads. I am going to install cold-cathode EL wire in my needles. This requires isolating the circuits by cutting traces on the circuit board. (Experience required.) Re-balancing the needles after this essential as well. Use a wrist strap and other standard precautions for ESD protection! These boards will fail if subjected to static discharge. Unless you really are confident and experienced and want to bother with it, I'd recommend sending the unit to Jim Walker at LexTech.com. His prices look really reasonable, considering the complexity of these units. I'm doing it because I enjoy that sort of thing and since the LS400 is my daily driver, I'd rather not have it down for 10 days. I tried to get a substitute unit on Ebay to use while mine's at LexTech, but they are scarce as hen's teeth and really in demand! I'll spend as much or more than Jim charges!

If anyone has the "SC 400" from the back of the car they'd like to sell, let me know. Mine got stolen just before I bought the car. (I know I can get it new, but don't need the whole kit of emblems) I'll be posting stereo/speaker/amp repair info as I recondition my Nak system. (I used to be in the stereo repair biz) It may be helpful. Thanks

Interesting about the wheels-- they are nice and I may keep them. Tire shops are recommending 18" wheels if I go bigger. They say I could go 19 or even 20, but might not enjoy the ride of the ultra-low profile tires I'd have to use. The color of the car is actually a very dark green. Touch-up paint isn't available at Checker/Autozone/Pep boys. Will probably have to get it on the net or at a Lexus dealer. I think the code is 6e2 on the paint. I've already had larger pipes (from the last cat rearward), stainless steel glass packs and nice tips put on the car. It sounds better to me! I've had the instrument cluster apart, relamped it and replaced a couple of electrolytic capacitors that looked suspicious. I investigated the needle lighting, concluding that it can't be fixed without mods. I am going to try replacing the LED strips in the needles with "EL wire" and isolating the circuits to the needles so i can drive the EL wire inserts with the appropriate voltage. (I feel brave enough to try this after having been an instrument repairman and electronic technician for a long time). I'll post about this if is works. I suspect that Lextech probably uses EL wire for their fancy repairs and mods to the instrument cluster! By the way-- I kind of enjoy telling people that the MSRP on my car was $50,000!

Jeff-- 54 years old, previous car was a 97 Pontiac Firebird. 1995 SC400 purchased three days ago. 60,000 miles, $10.000 from TW Auto Sales in Murray, UT. Carfax says it's had two owners and was a leaser when new. It came out clean with no accidents. It spent a lot of time on the East coast. Now it's staying in Utah. Very few flaws in finish, no dents! Runs great. The only problem is the instrument needle LED lighting. Solution is: send the cluster to LexTech. Today I took it into my fave exhaust guy and had 2 1/2" straight pipes brought back from the common tube after the last cat and run through polished stainless Flowmaster glass-packs with nice oval tips which are a bit larger than stock and extended about 1 inch farther out. Nice sound and look! Also got rid of some weight by eliminating the little resonators and using lighter finals. Next will be 18" 10 spoke wheels and low pro Nitto tires.

It's me again.. I need to add that if you aren't really sure of your skills with car electrical/electronics, refer this work to someone who is! It's so easy to screw up a car this complicated! I don't take any responsibility for what happens if you try this, it's just my personal observations on my car. Good Luck ;)

I just went through my instrument cluster, mainly to replace all the lamp bulbs. It requires removal of the first circuit board to get to the lamps. I noticed that the connections to the meter movements for all the gauges including the speedo and tach are made by screws which contact metal pads on the outer circuit board. If someone has replaced bulbs before, they may have left these screws loose, or worse--stripped the threads. If you can get the instrument cluster out of the car (see a service manual for how to get it out) You can remove the rear protective cover from the back of it and see the screws. They are all silver in color. The screws for the speedo would be left of center as you look at it from the back. Be sure not to tighten these very much, just enough to compress the split lock washer under the head. The washer supplies the contact pressure, not the torque. Just barely snug is the right way. After lots of experience with electronics, I have to say this "screws carrying signals from circuit boards" design is really poor. It's given trouble in all kinds of equipment besides Lexuses (Lexii?) Anyway, it is one possible cause for the problem, probably the most likely. Hope this helps.

Excellent condition too! (Autofax says no wrecks or anything else). I bought this yesterday from a dealer in Salt Lake City. To fix list is: Repaint spoiler -Fix LED instrument pointers -Find an SC400 emblem for the back. somone prised it off between the time I first saw it and when I bought it or maybe just shave that one. -Get the dew drops out of the right headlamp housing -Get 17" wheels and LP tires!!! :D Get a large dia. exhaust system with just the right V8 rumble!

Red '97 Pontiac Firebird base model with 3800 V6. Engine was still perfect at 136,000 but the automatic tranny had started to slip a little when cold. I got $3000 for it in trade against a '95 dark green SC400 with 60,000 on it. Price on the SC was right! $10,000. This all happened yesterday.

I bought a '95 SC400 for 10K today. It has around 60,000 on it. They are reputed to last up to 250,000 miles if properly cared for. (It costs more to care for a car like this though.) The durability factor and absolute knockout style and power of this car were the big factors in deciding to buy it. I actually traded in a '97 base Firebird coupe (140,000 miles) for it and only got $3000 for the 'bird, which is a high trade-in value for that car. High-end cars with a rep for durability just hold up better pricewise.

I just bought a 1995 SC400 with 60,000 miles for under $10,000 US, and it appears to have three problems. I've seen all three mentioned in this forum and other places. 1) A non-illuminated tach needle. 2) Dew inside the right headlight. 3) The traction light comes on at random times. I'm used to fixing my own cars and am an electronic tech and instrument repairman, so I'm going to tackle at least the first two myself. I can repair the instrument needles if I can get parts. BTW, www.lexusdash.com is now a dead link. I may have to get creative to fix it. (fluorescent paint and black light??) I've made a cursory search here for hints. If anyone else has any, let me know! I'll post my results and findings as I approach these problems and solve them! This car looks very dependable from what research I've done, but the complexity of the beast makes me a little nervous.... It needs high octane fuel too, apparently! (A thing I missed in my research) Oh well....