m sorel

Up here in Canada, while they were doing my timing belt they (Lexus) said my valve cover gaskets needed replacing. Quote over the phone $550 (just for the gaskets and related work), no thanks.

I am due for a timing belt, I have been told my cam seals leak "badly" (in addition to other seals) seems pretty normal to me.

Go factory. I wouldn't buy a car that didn't at least come with a set of factory wheels. Hurts resale, if that's an issue.

look in the faq, do the ac self diagnostic described there, there is also a couple of threads that list the ac codes and what they mean. If your code is the pressure switch code then all your refridgerant is gone so the clutch does not engage to protect the compressor. Let us know what you find good luck

this answer may be too simplistic and obvious, but my money is on the A/C compressor mike

I have the stock size on the 15's that came with 92's they cranked the pressure when they installed them (something just above 40psi) felt every piece of tar on the ground <_< reduced it to the manual suggested 26psi, smooth ride but the edges of the front tires wore down way to fast after 15,000 km rotated front to back put the fronts up to 33 and the rear around 30

my compressor was whining a ton too, I think it was caused by low refrigerant/oil as my pressure switch has now turned off my ac permanently tough to say as a bearing can whine as well I suggest checking the low side pressure (easy to do), If it is in the right range I doubt your oil magically escaped out of the system. Does you compressor cycle quickly i.e. every 5 seconds, mine did that too.

got it rebuilt replacing every soft wearable part, torque converter needs doing as well if bearing junk goes through the system $2300 CDN told me if I wanted to reuse old parts I ie shift solenoids(these were contaminated with metal fillings)/oil pump housing(scarred)/clutches etc... then around $1500CDN

bad news the symptoms are nearly identical to when my tranny went car would not back up, and when going forward in 1st the rpm would be about double what they should be. Past that things seemed normal. turns out a bearing had come apart and lodged into one set of planetary gears when I went to the shop they turned off all the accessories and drove me around the block, you could hear a faint grinding of all the bearing bits floating around. Tranny went at 200,000 kms

Not likely your problem, but shortly after I bought my car it lurched gently then building up to violently after a month or two. Turns out it was the air intake hose running from the air filter to the intake had a crack in it thus letting in unmetered air. $110 CND part. mike

Ok, well it's Wednesday so my car is in the shop After an hour they called me and said the sensor itself was bad; guess I will be keeping the 05 es330 loaner overnight I might have to write a report on the 02-03 tranny problem thread. The Canadian 05 loaner I am driving shifts like cr@p! My 92 knows what it is doing, shifts fast and does it with conviction. Hopefully I will get my car back Thursday, fixed. (quoted 5 hours work, replace knock sensor on right bank)

Well that pretty much verifies what I thought, I figured somewhere between 5-10% at the most. The car still runs super smooth, maybe smoother. It just doesn't have every last bit of pep that it used to. It's really just the light thats cramping my style.

Thanks for your thoughts on the matter, I like the running one sensor technique. It's not the part cost I am all that worried about, it's definitely the Intake manifold re/re cost. I actually had two more questions 1. My timing belt is almost due and I am told by Midas that significant amounts of oil has leaked into the housing from the engine seals. Should I expect any break in price if this work is performed at the same time as the intake manifold coming off, or is there not much common re/re there? and 2. Anyone want to guess just how many HP's of my stock 188(?) have been gone while being in limp mode for the last 7 months? The diagnostic sheet that Midas uses (ALLDATA online) states ".... it (ECU) operates the fail safe function in which the corrective !Removed! angle value is set to the maximum value."

Looking for some opinions on my car since it going to the dealership on Wednesday (July 6/05). Check engine light started mid December, had code pulled by Midas with an hours worth of Diagnostic. (No Auto Zone in Canada) Code 55 was pulled and the Mech. wanted to check the wiring. These are his comments: Open circuit near harness connector behind left head. Shielded wire is broken; needs new connector & pigtail (12" long) to complete the circuit. If this does not repair complaint further diag time required. It turns out this pigtail and harness is not a part you can buy, they want me to hack one off a car at a wreker and then hack job it into my car. Personally I am not convinced there is anything wrong with the wire at all Basically the code only gets thrown after the car is fully heated up and the RPM's reach 2700. Doesn't matter if it is in gear under hard acceleration, sitting in the parking lot revving aggressively or just slowly bringing the RPM's up . If I unplug the said harness completely and start the car the code gets thrown faster than you can "Um... why's your check engine light on?" Also if the wire really was loose shouldn't it break contact under varying load conditions not varying RPM's? Needless to say I am looking for another opinion at the lexus dealership, but the first thing they said was usually rats/mice like to sleep up by the exhaust manifold against the fire wall and eat the wires I mentioned the harness at the dealership when I made the appointment, now their focused on it too. Why won't anyone believe that maybe, just maybe the knock sensor is in fact not working? Am I crazy? What do you think is going on?

Last fall my 92 stopped going backward due to a bearing that "exploded" in my tranny (jammed a planetary). $2200CDN later she goes both ways. (had every soft wearable part replaced, a planetary gear set, and the torque converter rebuilt) mike