1990LS400

The Lexus brand cell phone that was a dealer installed option lowered the HVAC fan speed and muted the audio system while a call was in progress. I even connected an aftermarket Nokia CARK-91 phone system I installed in my second (2000) LS400 to mute the audio system but I didn't bother to connect it to lower the HVAC fan speed. Even when a Lexus phone system was never installed, corrosion of the factory installed cell phone harness in the trunk can cause HVAC and audio system issues.

It sounds like the only keys you have are valet keys. You need a master key to open the trunk with a key. I think you can get a master key if you have a valet key although it might be a little pricey. IIRC, the two LS400's I bought each came with two master keys, one valet key and one wallet key. I'd be hard pressed to find instructions or an old forum thread that tells how to jump the circuit to open the trunk but I think it involves bridging two wires behind the dash mounted trunk switch. A locksmith might even know how to do it. I don't think a physical cable runs from the dash mounted trunk switch back to the trunk lock. I think it is all electric. My memory is fading about it since I sold my last LS400 seven years ago. The keys and fuses are described in your owners manual. If you don't have one or want to view it online I can be viewed without registering at https://drivers.lexus.com/lexusdrivers/resources/manuals-warranty

A fairly common cause of the problems described in this thread is a starter drawing excess amps. Have your starter checked for current draw. The starter in the 2000 LS400 I drove for 11 years developed this problem at something like 150,000 miles. It was a lot of years ago but I seem to remember that having it replaced cost around $800 at an indie repair shop specializing in Lexus.

What kind of paint job are you looking for? Something basic to make your car look a little better or an OEM quality paint job? Prices can range dramatically from a few hundred dollars to many thousands of dollars. Preparation is everything. I've largely stripped cars before I had their bodies painted removing all pieces that weren't going to receive paint, e.g. badges, moldings, headlights, taillights, fog lights, grills. I even removed the windshield on one convertible. Since you're in California, here is a link to an LA Times article about having an entire car painted: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-05-02-fi-1447-story.html

You can check for a filter but don't be surprised if you don't find one. The 1990 LS400 I drove from new to 14 years didn't have one. The first model year that a filter is shown in the parts list is 1992 but I thought that 1993 was the first model year that the North American market gone one. The Lexus organization made quite a big deal when the HEPA filtration system became standard on the LS400 in the North American market. It was an expensive option on the Japanese market Celsior (LS400) in the early years. Ducts in the HVAC system could be clogged with who-knows-what or electric servo motors that open and close flaps in ducts might have failed or the flaps could be stuck. It sounds like the HVAC system is in sad shape if a previous owner capped the heater core and the fan is stuck on high. Debugging the fan speed is further complicated by it being also controlled by the phone system. Even if no phone was installed, corrosion of the factory phone system prewiring can cause all sorts of weird problems including putting the audio system in permanent mute.

Thoughts? Maybe you should have bought a 2010-up RX with the optional the Luxury Package which includes power seat cushion extenders.

I've always wondered why muting the audio system during a navigation instruction on Toyota/Lexus navigation systems isn't an option ... but it's never been. I've gotten used to pressing the MAP buttons in our vehicles to have the last navigation instruction repeated. Sometimes I first manually mute or lower the audio system volume.

Why not replace your 2013 RX350 with an SUV that can tow your boat safely with no drama and also carry at least as many passengers as your RX? It would probably be less expensive than owning an extra vehicle. If you don't want to buy new, I'm sure you can find something nice on the used market that would work for you. For example, the Carmax down the road from me here in Kansas has Chevy Suburbans from 2013 to 2019 priced between $25K and $37K. The purchase price of a boat is only the beginning. I was stunned at all associated costs. I swore I'd never own another boat unless I could walk out my back door and access it from my own property. Friends bought a house at the T-intersection of a canal in southwest Florida in around 2005. It included a dock/slip for a boat. It was one of the first houses in a new development - fairly modest 3 bedroom, open plan but still very nice. I was stunned at the price - around $400K back then which I thought was very low for what they got. Their house was perfectly centered at the "top" of the T-intersection which meant that looking out from their back patio was stunning - water straight out to the gulf. That sounds awful good when stuck here in Kansas!

A unit body vehicle like the RX cannot be "beefed up" to handle that kind of load. I suppose you could ask around but I strongly doubt that anybody in their right mind would assume the liability of doing that type of job. You've just plain got the wrong vehicle for towing that kind of boat. Some versions of the F-150 wouldn't tow that boat either. The marina service I used to recover our sailboat used a much larger 4WD pickup truck - something on the order of an F-350 - but they were sometimes launching and recovering boats that weighed well over 10,000 pounds. You need something on the order of a Ford Expedition, Toyota Land Cruiser, or Chevy Suburban to tow a boat of the size you are talking about. If you haven't bought that boat and don't want to rent a slip or get a different vehicle, then maybe don't buy that boat. Maybe you could look for a much smaller boat but I realize that boats of the size you are talking about are pretty typical in Florida. I've owned a 2014 Toyota Sienna Limited since new. It is also unit body, has the same drive train and brakes as your 2013 RX350 and is also rated to tow 3,500 pounds. It's essentially a larger, heavier version of the RX350. It has a 2" inch receiver hitch rated to tow 5,000 pounds as long as an additional weight distribution device is used. I wouldn't dream of towing more than the rated 3,500 pounds with my Sienna. 6,000 or 7,000 pounds would be absolutely scary.

The Ford F-150 is a "body on frame" design and engineered from the start for heavy towing. The RX350 is a unit-body vehicle without a separate frame and is designed for light duty towing at best. Trailers over around 1,500 pounds should have their own brakes - electric or surge. Trailers over 3,000 pounds REALLY need their own brakes. Trailers for boats of the size you are talking about usually have surge brakes since electric brakes aren't happy being submerged. Boat ramps can be scary slippery with moss in the Midwest but maybe that's less of a problem in Florida. I once had a scary experience pulling a 3,500 pound sailboat/trailer out of the water with a mid-size RWD sedan - rear wheels spilling and not getting traction on the slick steep ramp. From then on I had the boat pulled out of the water by a marina service that used a large 4WD pickup truck. I gave up on launching/recovering the boat every time I wanted to use it and rented a slip for it and later moored it on a buoy and rowed out to it in a dingy. At most, you might be able to pull 5,000 pounds using a weight distribution hitch with your RX - something like a travel trailer but not a boat if you are going to launch and recover it yourself. You would need a receiver hitch rated for 5,000 pounds and a weight distribution setup on top of that.

I doubt that you would get ticketed anywhere in the U.S. for not having rear side marker lights and certainly not in the Florida keys "Conch Republic". Is anything illegal down there? 🙄 Does your replacement lamp unit have a manufacturer name and/or part number on it or does the box it came in have it? It would be interesting to see what it really is. Here's an image I grabbed from Amazon that shows the back of the type of lamp module you needed. It has a socket for a 5W side marker bulb. If the lamp unit you bought instead has only a socket for a larger 21W rear fog lamp bulb then you've got the wrong product. Key West is sounding pretty good today. It's 1 degree Fahrenheit here in Kansas which is the forecasted high for the day and I see that it is 81 degrees in Key West. I'd rather be sitting at an outside table on Duval street drinking a beer right now.

OK, another possibility that I hesitated to bring up is that a rear fog lamp unit may be involved. In most areas outside North America, the lamp units in the rear bumper are fog lamps instead of side marker lamps. These rear fog lamp units use 21W bulbs instead of the 5W bulbs used in the side marker units. The attached diagram and parts list shows the rear fog lamps for the European market RX. There are a number of possible scenarios including ... 1) A previous owner removed the rear side marker units, installed the rear fog light units, and did the necessary rewiring to support them. That's exactly what I would have done since I've often installed OEM or aftermarket rear fog lamps on our vehicles. I consider rear fog lamps infinitely more important than rear side marker lamps. 2) The OP lives in Florida but he inadvertently purchased a European, Australian, Japan, etc. market rear fog lamp as a replacement part. These rear fog lamps have been available from a variety of sources including on eBay. 3) The OP doesn't really live in Florida or North America regardless of what his profile says, owns an RX version that originally came with rear fog lamps, and inadvertently bought a rear side marker lamp as a replacement. So ... maybe the OP will come back to this thread and provide more information.

My understanding is that security codes were not used on Toyota/Lexus vehicles sold in North America after the early/mid 1990's. For example, my 1990 LS400 radio had an option for entering a security code but my 2000 LS400 did not. The security code feature was documented in the owners manual for the 1990.

I wonder if you got the wrong version of the light unit. Determine where your RX was assembled - Japan or North America - and verify that the part number you were sold matches the one in the appropriate attached image.

Here a parts list for both rear tail lights. Google the part numbers for sources.

If your 2012 RX has the optional heads-up display, it includes current speed displayed in digital format. Press the "HUD" button on the lower right of the dashboard to turn it on.

No. Why would you want your current speed to be shown on the nav screen? If you instead meant to ask if the current speed limit can be shown on the navigation screen, I think 2016 generation 4 RX was the first year that the RX got that feature.

Turn the A/C off. It's done on the audio/navigation screen.

My opinion is that the blade is more important than the arm. Your rubber wiper blade insert should have a slot on each side for a metal rib. The metal ribs that fit into the slots are curved. It's important that the curvature of the metal ribs matches the curvature of the window when inserting the metal ribs into the slots in the rubber insert. If the curvature of the metal ribs is reversed, the wiper blade won't contact the glass well through its sweep. If you purchased an aftermarket wiper blade that doesn't use the two reusable curved metal ribs, then that's likely the problem ... or if the aftermarket blade doesn't have the additional inward spring arms that allow the blade to flex and adapt to the curvature of the glass. Your rear wiper blade should like like the one in the attached image.

You might try reinstalling your original wiper arm and blade if you still have them and replace the rubber blade insert with a new OEM one. It's rare for a wiper arm to wear out. We've kept a number vehicles for from 10 to 14 years and have never needed to replace a front or rear wiper arm. I don't know what kind of aftermarket blade you bought but some don't have the little spring arms that the OEM blades have that allow them to conform better to curved glass. I tried aftermarket wiper blades on the 2000 LS400 I drove for many years and they didn't begin to conform to its curved glass windshield. I immediately went back to OEM. You may need your rear wiper more than those of us who live further south.

Did you replace the entire wiper blade or just the rubber insert? If you replaced either, did you use OEM parts? Unfortunately, the effectiveness of rear wipers on windows with curvature is sometimes marginal. The rear wiper on our Prius v wagon's flatter rear window works better than the rear wiper on our Sienna van's window that has more curvature. Something else you could try is to thoroughly clean the rear window glass and wiper blade insert with denatured alcohol to remove road film and general crud. I do that several times a year on our vehicles with rear wipers. It's surprising how much crud builds up even when the glass looks clean. Applying water repellent (I use Rain-X) after cleaning the rear windows with alcohol seems to help the wipers function better.

The most common cause of this problem is failure of the stop light switch on the brake pedal arm. Are your brake lights lighting up when you press the brake pedal? OEM brake light switches sell for gen 1 LS400 sell for around $75 but I see aftermarket ones online for far less. Autozone has several brands of them for as little as $27.

I'm also seeing the left and right turn signal wires only at the driver side junction block and combination meter in your electrical diagram - surprising. I see the right sign turn signal wire color (G-Y) referenced at the bottom of the diagram for the passenger side junction block but not on the diagram itself which is confusing. Looking at electrical diagrams on a small laptop PC screen is NOT my favorite activity! It's possible that the LS430 is different than other recent vehicles from Toyota in this respect. Or maybe only the UK/European version of the wiring diagram shows the turn signal wires in the kick panels for the fender mounted turn signals that are standard there. There's nothing wrong with picking up the power for the turn signals wherever you can find them. When I installed fender mounted turn signals on my first LS 30 years ago, I went the easiest route and ran the wires inside the front fenders, over the fender liners and connected them to the wires near the connectors for the front turn signals - not the best way but it worked fine. If you run the wires from the left side through the dashboard, be careful not to block anything that moves or has to be accessed. When I ran wires for a phone system in the 2000 LS400 I used to have, I inadvertently ran it in front of the HVAC filter behind the glove box - not a huge problem but I didn't leave enough slack in the wires and had to push them out of the way each time I changed the filter.

There are likely turn signal wires on connectors to the junction blocks near the kick panels in both the driver and passenger sides as there have been on most vehicles made by Toyota in the past few decades. When I added mirror covers with turn signals to our 2012 Prius v, I used an inexpensive unpowered 12V test light to locate the turn signal wires in its similar junction block connectors near the driver and passenger side kick panels. But if you want to use the power source you already found, you should be able to run a wire above the lower trim panel on the driver side, behind the audio/nav system head unit, and behind the glovebox. It would be more work and won't be pretty but no one is going to see it after you do it.

There are a LOT of reviews for the gen 4 RX Curt and Draw-Tite hitches on the etrailer website. People seem pleased with them. I see that the installation difficulty rating for both is "3 out of 10" which is about the easiest rating that etrailer gives for installing receiver hitches. I've bought a lot of stuff from etrailer including the receiver hitches on our current vehicles, wiring harnesses, bike racks, etc. The appearance of the Curt hitches I've bought has held up a little better than the only Draw-Tite hitch I've bought but that may have been a coincidence. There are a lot more reviews for the Curt hitch than the Draw-Tite hitch on the etrailer website. There are installation videos for both products on the etrailer website. If you are going to install a trailer light wiring harness, what you need depends on whether or not your RX has the optional towing prep package. And of course the towing capability without the optional towing prep package is sharply reduced. The towing prep package for the 2016 RX350 included the following: Heavy-duty radiator and cooling fan, engine and transmission oil coolers. If you are don't know if your RX has the towing prep package, you can determine that by either looking for the engine and transmission oil coolers in the engine compartment (they are pretty easy to see if you know what they look like) or you can view the build specifications for your RX at https://drivers.lexus.com/lexusdrivers/resources/vehicle-specs