VBdenny

When I bought the RAV4 for my wife, the guy warned me NOT to manually pull the liftgate or it would be damaged. I asked why did they put a handle? He shrugged. Luckily, we don't let relatives near the car.

Parts of the power steering fluid system operates under quite high pressure. Better check before using a flex hose. Not that I'm any good at posting pictures but one is worth a lot of typing. Stuff can make a mess so use care.

Not sounds expensive, IS expensive. I believe the OBD computer reader to reset sells for a little over $200 on Amazon. I borrow my friends when I need details for brakes, air bags and stuff like that. I will probably buy one at some point because I hate paying them to plug in theirs.

too windy? Been too hot to have windows down here. If I hear noise in the fall, I'll let you know. Guess our dealers excuse would be "too hot today to check"

Don't "stupid" yourself because YOU actually fixed it yourself. Oh how many times I've had to redo things over due to missing a step along the way. Stupid is people who give up and never try. Nice to have you here. Denny

This may sound terrible but I really don't pay much attention to the headlights. So many city lights where I drive that they don't do much except impress other drivers with their dazzling LED lights. I drove with T-5's in the past so anything is better for me. Don't know if my car has auto high beams but I certainly hope not. I'd still like to have something to do while I'm driving. All this automatic stuff makes it boring sometimes.

What can you do? I'll tell you what to do. Since the car rips, take it out on some back roads and see if you can make the traction control light come on. I'd even settle for a little tire squeal. Granted my 250 isn't as fast off the line but the suspension and brakes are all the same, except for the Sport+ mode which my car lacks. I figured diving into to 30 mph corners at 90 would be challenging but not so. I stabbed the brakes just before entry and laid into the corner expecting tire noise. Nope, not hardly even thrilling as I floored it through and felt the AWD as it pulled hard out of the corner rather comfortably. As you probably guessed, at this point I was kicking myself in the 180 for NOT getting the 350 f-sport. Turbos next year so who knows. The cornering ability is far, far beyond my expectations. Can't really see a need for fins or spoilers, just asks for more attention from the 5-0. Oh yeah, good luck with those tires. Yeah they grip but with as well as they grip, it is fun and that cause excessive wear.

In my experiences problems like Tommy described are of an electrical nature 90% of the time. Myself? I do a lot of electrical checking before I ever get into the fuel. Never had a fuel filter or fuel pump fail that the chunging was unrecognizable. Consider such things as the ground wire that grounds the engine (which is mounted on rubber mounts) to the frame. Oh man, I had them corrode and cause weird things even before the electronic age. Also, not sure if 94 was the same but there is a major bundle of wires in the drivers side trunk hinge that flex every time the trunk is open. I'm not exactly sure what wires are in there but when one broke on my 90 LS400, the car barely ran. There were maybe 8 wires in there so something for thought. Hopefully this may help some. Denny

Torque steer in much more prevalent in front wheel drive vehicles, especially those with more horsepower. Pulls the front of the car to the right. With rear wheel drive, the rear end kind of slides to the right and hopefully you see smoke out the back. AWD just pulls like a bad dog.

Sure the fan noise isn't from the seat fans? I heard a fan, couldn't find it until I found it was the seat fan. And yes, welcome to the Club, love having new people. Denny

Worst case scenario is that you actually have to go to the dealership and talk to their "tech expert." now you all know I am first to slam poor performance and customer service however the ONLY good thing at the dealership where I bought my last car was the tech guy. Unlike the rest of the drones inhabiting the showroom, the tech guy was extremely helpful on the one occasion I talked to him. There are things a few more things I would like to know but that would violate my promise to never set foot in their again. On a side note, the dealer group I bought from is slowly losing it franchises to other groups and just sold off the Infinity dealership. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the group I like, buys the Lexus dealership from the group I don't. Lexus management is pretty much useless in my no-so-humble opinion.

The calling is coming from the phone through the bluetooth. IF the stereo comes on to a Bluetooth connection, it will play songs off your device without doing anything. Not sure why the phone is dialing. All I can suggest is power off the phone and restart. Sometimes if your updates are out of date, weird things happen. Very strange.

Half of the dealers already expect you to walk in and pay MSRP. If they are going to do this, why not eliminate all the sales people and just sell online? Lexus dealers have a very long way to go before they earn any of my respect. Of course dealers would like to set their price and not negotiate. Luckily, many other people sell cars.

I have a Corolla and love it. Great cars.

Well Becki, of course your car looks better than the Mustang AND your iPhone takes way better pictures than whatever the Ford boys used.

What is your 20?

Seems on most older RX300's that the VSC and CEL lights on is pretty typical. Having the lights illuminated is somewhat annoying but something we all must get accustom to in the future. I do know the CEL in my Nissan Frontier has been on for about 10 years since I had the Flowmaster exhaust installed. It was annoying for the first few years, now it doesn't bother me. I figure after 80,000 miles with it on, nothing is being hurt by my "catalytic below threshold" reading. Seems the Flowmaster improved the exhaust flow which now exceeded the rather tight parameters set. Upon reading I found that Nissan didn't leave enough distance between the settings BUT for a fee would reset them. Yeah, right. Keep glowing little light.

I do understand this problem. I almost gave up trying to program my garage doors but then, in spite of my impatience with such things, After reading the "simple" directions a few times, I was able to figure the sequence and it works great. I DO know that you must HOLD the button on the mirror in for at least a second for it to activate the door opener. If you just push it once quickly, it does nothing. Kind of confusing but once you know, you will know.

I do know there is a separate volume control for the phone in the settings on the car but it is fairly high by default.. Mine works easily with my car system. Almost sounds like a phone setting like maybe her iPhone Bluetooth is turned off?

The receiver balls are made in different sizes. There are some that have multiple balls that can be rotated in the receiver to fit what you need.

Ah, not good. Can't offer much help except that on my old LS400 when the light blinked it means the compressor is having issues. Of course I ignored it and it send debris throughout the system and ruined it. I just hate AC problems because they are not very common and yet I seem to get them.

At 15,000 miles I replaced all 4 of the Bridgestones on my wife's '13 RAV4 Limited after one shredded. 235-50-18W Went to GoodYear tires and they ride very smooth, much better than factory tires. BUT, several things about tires are incorporated into the ride quality. Pretty much ride, performance and handling is determined by the tires. H rated tires are rated to sustained speeds of 130MPH and that is one of the reasons they chip they vehicles at a certain speed. V rated tires are certified to 149mph while W and Z are way up there. Next is size, the larger the wheel, the lower the tire profile (aspect ratio) is reduced. Back in the old days, 78 series tires on 14" and 15" rims were standard. Many smaller vehicles came with 13" rims. Tire were skinny with huge sidewalls, bias ply or belted and really terrible. Around the early 70's the transition to radial ply tires came to be and they rode smooth since the belts were placed in a diagonal pattern as opposed the the straight across method of bias ply. Handling on cars way increased but along with that came the expansion of rim sizes. as rim sizes grew, the aspect ratio dropped meaning less sidewall to cushion the ride. Your car had some pretty aggressive tires but I would certainly assume that the engineers that designed the vehicle considered the tires in the suspension and handling. You might get a slightly better ride but I'd sure look at tires long before I considered dropping a size. Look online at discount and tirerack and the like and read the reviews on the tires. Pretty pathetic to admit but I usually spend 10 times more looking at tires than buying them. Hope this helps Denny

Kidding me? That is certainly the best choice you could have made Randall. I had a Miata and tortured it and it took it but my wife hated it so she made me buy the IS. Of course that is even better than the Miata on the curves so... The SC must be as good or better. Drop tops are sweet but not great in the summer at lights and such. I loved driving my Miata in the winter (without snow of course) when I'd bundle up in my ski gear, crank the heater and ride around. Got a lot of looks but I was well covered so nobody could really see what idiot would drive around in a convertible at New Years when it's 23F outside. Me. Great choice Denny

I know in my pickup there is an off switch which requires the key to shut off but never seen that in any passenger car. If the passenger is a child they might not weigh enough to activate the sensor. I do know that I have placed a lot of heavy groceries and stuff on my passenger seat and it stays off which kind of surprized me. If the passenger is an adult then you should have your computer connected to an advanced OBD2 reader to determine the problem. The advanced (and expensive) units can read the airbag sensors and mnay other things that regular (cheaper) OBD2 readers won't read. You are very correct in being concerned. Not sure if Autozone or Advance readers will do it but you can ask. They are generally very knowledgable and also helpful. Something that seems to be a rare commodity today. Do it soon and drive carefully in the meantime. Denny

Not sure how things are in Penna. but my neighbors 2001 RX300 has had those lights on for over 12 years and nothing detrimental has come of it. I coded it and it said the same things you replaced. If you are in a non-plug in state, it apparently doesn't mean much. In Virginia you can pass inspection with a CEL illuminated assuming all else is well of course. Denny