Lex3486

Oh, and forgot to mention; today, when it did it, the engine was at normal operating temperature, and it happened while still in first gear. It's almost as if it hits a "dead spot" because it's like you stomp on it and it starts out strong, but then just hits this point (probably around 2500 or so) where it's almost like it's idling, because it has no throttle response, like you don't even have the pedal pressed at all! As I talk about it, it begins to sound more and more to me like another intake problem! I had my 92 do something similar once, but a lot worse; it wouldn't even move an inch before it died. Came to find that it had a HUGE crack in it.

Okay; today, it almost caused me to get run over! :o I wouldn't have thought that it has anything to do with the tranny; seems to me more like a potential air or fuel problem, but that is why I asked! I haven't taken a REALLY close look at the intake piping, so maybe I should do that before doing anything else. I know that even the slightest problem there can cause major problems overall. Oh, and about the fuel cleaner; I ran a bottle of, I believe it was STP, injector cleaner when I replaced spark plugs, and I always run 93 in it, even though I know that probably has nothing to do with this in particular. I would run fuel system cleaner, but my dad and I agree that those sort of things only cause problems in the long run, or else you'd hear more good things about them; In our opinions, they're mostly just a waste of money. How do you check and or clean the tranny filter? I'd like to know so I can do it when/if I replace tranny fluid. Thanx for the suggestions! Keep 'em comin'!

'Sup guys and gals? Lately I've noticed (as I used to with my 92) a slight hesitation when my car shifts into second gear. It's almost as if the engine floods out, because if you let off the gas, it corrects itself. This happens pretty much only when the engine has just been started and is still cold. Very rarely has it ever happened when the engine warms up, although I do seem to recall that it happened once when I was trying to race. (Needless to say, I lost that one!). I've checked the intake pipe, and it's good as new. Any suggestions? Perhaps that cold start sensor I've seen y'all talkin about?.

I don't know about the tweeters; never shopped for them. It would seem that they are sorta small though. Most of the ones I have seen are too big to fit in the factory housing. Anyhow, those 6x9's will sound good. The stock ones are actually 2 ways! But there are much better speakers out there.

SW03ES- I found in a recent Car and Driver, that an 02 goes 138. Is it 138, or 150?!? I suppose thtat could be for an older model, though.

I've hit 120, but was scared to go any faster, b/c at the time, I had tires that were completely worn out, terribly out of balance, and rated at 110 or so mph! So needless to say, I was already pushing my luck. Plus, my dad was a few miles back and I feared he might see me going so fast, but it felt like it maybe had a little more juice, but not much. These things love speeds of around 90, don't they? :D 93, by the way. I might try again, now that I have new V-rated tires.

Oh, and replacing the front woofers (6.5" speakers) with 2 or 3 ways is just a waste of money; they only recieve bass input, so 2 & 3 ways are useless for them. The only replacements I found that were comparable to the stock ones were all component speakers (basically 6.5" subwoofers) and most cost upwards of $80 apiece! Now the rear speakers are another story; replacing them with 3 ways is a good investment; I just did this weekend, and they sound GREAT!

I beg to differ! Those "little lame speakers" are what set these cars' stereos apart from Fords and GM's. They do so produce sound; just maybe not in-your-face sound. But take them away, and you'd definitely be able to tell the difference! Anyhow, I highly doubt that you could blow those speakers if you tried. I'm willing to bet that ryanprun is referring to the 6 1/2" woofers, as they are easily blown if you're not careful ( I blew one a few months ago). Accessing them is easy, but not obvious. You must remove the door panel to access them; remove the screw in the bottom of the handle, the screw on the inside front of the door (covered by a round plastic cover)and pull the two plastic plugs out of the end of the door. Pull outward on the bottom of the panel, then upward and the whole inside panel should come loose. from there on, its a sinch. Doesn't even need instructions to figure out. Good luck, and go with the stock speakers, if possible, b/c anything comprable will probably cost too much. ;)

Actually, what you should really look for is similar to what Steve said, only do it in drive. This is b/c it will tell whether or not the front mount is good. Being that you drive forward much more than backward, this is usually your trouble spot. That and the "dogbone" on the top of the engine. But if you had any real problem, you'd know by how klunky it is when you drive; trust me, I know from experience. Just replaced the two I speak of on my 93. Made a world of difference, but I needed them BAD!

Okay; I can give you instructions on how to remove the ashtray, but I can't help with the rest of the console. Below the radio, you'll notice there's a piece of molding; remove this by opening the cupholder and pulling straight out on it. There are two screws behind it that hold the top part of the assembly in. By the way, in case you didn't know, the cupholders and ashtray are all one unit; you can't remove just the ashtray. Anyhow, now what you'll need to do is to remove the wood shroud around the shift lever. You can do this by sliding a flathead screwdriver under the bottom edge (near the parking brake) and gently prying it upwards. Once the bottom edge is up, hold it and pull backwards and it should come loose on the front side. Now you must remove the two screws that hold the bottom of the unit in. Once you've removed these, you should be able to pull the top of the unit down. Treat it as if it were hinged at the bottom. Once you have the top of it in view, there should be an electrical connector attached to it somewhere. Disconnect this, and the whole thing should come out. You may find once you've removed it that there's just a spring loose or something that's causing it not to work. Anyhow, hope it works out for ya.

Welcome to the forum! Don't know exactly how to remove the console, but I can give you another option. I put my cd changer in the glovebox. It's an Alpine 6 disc, and it fit perfectly, with room to spare for the owners manual. It's really easy to wire up too; just bore out the hole for the light in the glovebox a little and run your wires straight to the radio. This also cuts on time, b/c you have to remove the radio to connect the changer anyhow. Then if you're feelin really frisky, you could remove the cigarette lighter and ashtray and put your CD changer control in their place (providing that you're not a smoker). All your friends will think it's cool how you can pop it in or out, thanks to the cool design of the ashtray. :P Good luck, whatever you do! ;)

I LOVE the front end of these cars. Especially on the 92-96's, with the projectors. I think it's amazing how they look similar to a Camry, but yet so much different! And much more edgy, too. There's a perfect balance between sporty and classy.

:o I can't believe y'all, spending $1000+ to have your cars worked on by the dealer! If anything so major as to cost that much ever happened to mine, I'd be tempted just to throw in the towel! <_< I mean, I know (from personal experience) that the dealer may be the best place to take these cars to have them fixed, being that they obviously know them well and use genuine Lexus parts, but DAMN! Seems like some of you are gettin screwed into fixing things that either don't need to be fixed or don't take a certified mechanic to fix; especially not for $80/hour! Or, do you do it for the peace of mind that that part isn't gonna break, b/c you just let none other than Lexus replace it? Guess I'm just lucky that between mine and my fathers' expertise, we've been able to do anything to our ES's that really needs to be done. :)

I have the same setup; stock deck and speakers with subs in the trunk. I set the bass all the way up, mid a little below half, treble all the way, and fader mostly rear (line on knob is horizontal). Volume up a little past halfway, and enjoy the ride! I know it's not the BEST and most balanced sound quality you can get, but I've chosen to live with it, because my wallet hasn't given me any more options! Has anyone else noticed how the different levels (bass, mid, treble) are amplified in different amounts at certain volumes? Like the most bass I can seem to squeeze out is just a little before halfway on the volume, but beyond that spot, it is drowned out by the others, until you hit about 2/3 volume, and then it is once again the loudest of the three. Am I just going insane?

Sorry to confuse you piggy; I was just tryin to be funny about the fact that we drive these luxury cars and buy parts for them at Wal-Mart. ;) By the way, what part of NC do you live in?

I did exactly what bbsal said; run the amp off the rear speakers. Only difference is, I didn't convert the wires to RCA's; just simply ran standard speaker wires from the speakers down to the amp and hooked those wires up to the high level input of my amplifier (mine came with this nifty little connector that enables you to use standard wires rather than RCA's). Works great! ;)

My intentions aren't to try and make my ES a sports car. I know that would never happen. I was just wondering if anyone had ever used or heard anything about the Tornado. Now that I've heard, I'm not gonna get one. You're definitely right about the amount of expertise involved in the making of these cars, and you're right that some $75 part from Napa won't make some amazing difference in performance. Good idea on the down payment on an IS too! But if I get a scholarship to college, my dad said he just may buy me one! That'd be nice! B)

Wow! This car's really messed up! I think the rear end's been hit and replaced with that of a 92-94. Plus, look at the muffler and tell me if it looks new or aftermarket to anyone else. Also the interior definitely doesn't look like Coach; but I love that black/tan! I want to do that to mine so bad! It looks badass!

Y'all crack me up! I seriously thought before I found this website that I was the only disrespectful punk who ever raced people in a car such as a Lexus ES300! Wow, was I ever wrong! While everyone's on the topic though, I was wondering what is the quickest, easiest, and as always with me, cheapest engine mod to better that miserable 0-60 in 8.6 B.S.? <_< (I'm not saying that stat's not true, just pathetic is all). I was thinking custom cold air intake (mostly for the aggressive sound, not for tremendous performance benefits) and maybe one of those Tornado things for my intake. Anyone ever tried one of those?

piggy- did you go with the Wal-Mart fake burlwood cover? I did! But its not the one with the little nubbins all around it, rather perforated fake leather. B) But hey, it looks good with my black interior, b/c the fake leather is black! My steering wheel is rubber though, b/c my car doesn't have leather appointments. Same with the shift lever and brake lever; rubber. <_< This is good though, b/c it doesn't wear like the leather does.

Chris; I'm goin with you on this one. Chrome definitely looks good with black, and it matches the windows, pinstriping and door handles on mine. Oh, and the grille. But best of all, it's free, b/c I already have them!!! Haha, anyhow, I like gold on the white, purpley-gray, plum and champagne colors, but not on black; too ghetto, I think. But hey, to each his own! :P

Yes, well, the frequency response is low enough to provide a good input for my subwoofers, i.e., they have no "dead spots" in the frequency range. I just wonder if the frequency range for the 6x9's is limited because of the speakers themselves, or the actual input they recieve from the head unit...<_< Also, I wonder if you were to find a way to feed an amplifier the signal that the front woofers recieve from the stock amplifier, if the sound would be better than with the signal for the rear speakers....AND, would my 10" subs be able to reproduce sound at frequencies that low, b/c I hear that certain sizes have different frequency responses, as far as subwoofers go. I would imagine that they could though, b/c I doubt that the stock amp would put out anything the stock speakers can't reproduce, so I'm sure it'd work just dandy. Better quality too, perhaps....Wow, I feel like a stereo geek now!.

Well, I wasn't lookin to make them black; just that gray chrome color. I thought maybe there's a type of clearcoat that would make them look that way.

Does anyone know where I could find a set of those "smoked" chrome emblems? Ya' know, the ones that are sorta gray, rather than chrome. Or is there some way that I could do it to my chrome ones myself? A kit maybe? Either way, it'd have to be cheap! :D

About those three-way speakers; I blew one of the front speakers once and replaced them both with a set of nice Pioneer 6.5" 2 way speakers. It sounded like s@&t! This was because, as I found out, the front speakers (or the ones I replaced anyway) only recieve bass input, and so the speakers that I bought were basically useless for this application, because they weren't intended for the amt. of bass and lack of treble that the car was providing them. Since I installed my subs, I've been experiencing a major lack of treble, and was thinkin that replacing the stock 6x9's with 3-way Pioneers or Infinty's might fix my problem because of the built-in tweeters, but was wondering if it'd even be worth the extra cost for 3-ways if the rear speakers were set up the same way. Does anybody know about this???