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1990LS400

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Everything posted by 1990LS400

  1. Be very cautious. If it sounds to good to be true, It's likely too good to be true. A post on the Club Lexus forum said that this is a Russian website selling pirated software. Take notice of how few times the people in this thread have posted on this forum.
  2. The parts diagram shows the navigation hard drive as being on the right (passenger) side of the trunk. I'm not very familiar with the GS but on the 1998-2000 LS400 like I had, the navigation hard drive was under a false floor on the right side of the trunk along with the ECU for the factory installed telephone system.
  3. Try a salvage company. For example, there are twenty-eight 1995-2000 LS400 at Pick-N-Pull salvage years scattered around the U.S. I also found salvaged rear differentials on eBay. According to a part number cross reference, the 1995-2000 LS400 use the same rear diff.
  4. Probably not. TPMS is a federal requirement which is why reputable tire sellers will not mount new tires unless TPMS is functioning. You should be checking the pressure in your tires when they are cold and much more often than only at tire rotations. Tire pressures increase and decrease about 1 psi for every 10 degrees Fahrenheit change. I sometimes have to correct tire pressures more than once a week if there are big temperature swings. Costco's price for TPMS is pretty good. I bought and had Costco install TPMS on the winter wheels I bought for my Porsche last fall. In fact, I've bought all our tires except one set from Costco since 2001 when they opened a store nearby. Discount Tire is pretty good too but Costco almost always beats them on price either up front or with the annual Costco member giveback check. Some Costco stores have nitrogen air pumps out front if you want to use them but be sure to recheck your tire pressures when they are cold. Does the 2009 RX350 have a full size spare tire with a TPMS sensor? You might have TPMS only on four tires. I'm a strong believer in TPMS. Getting a low pressure alert has helped me get to a safe area several times where I could either change the tire or add air with the portable compressor I carry so I could limp it to a tire shop for a tire repair .... or tire purchase if the tire was ruined. The last thing I want to do is to change a tire while semi's are whizzing by me on a busy highway.
  5. 1990LS400

    Sirus

    Yes, streaming audio from a cell phone uses cellular data. The amount of data used varies depending on application and how much it is used. I don't remember how much data the SiriusXM cell phone app uses since the last several vehicles we've purchased have had built-in sat radio. You could also buy a separate SiriusXM tuner and likely output its audio to a cable that would plug into the VAIS aux-in jack. But why bother at this point. Sat radio isn't really from satellites in many areas anyway but instead is broadcast from ground based repeaters.. The money you spend on installing a separate SiriusXM tuner is better applied to a more robust data plan in my opinion. Unlimited data plans or data plans that provide a massive amount of data are fairly common and inexpensive these days. When I was daily streaming Pandora from my cell phone to my modified radio in my 2000 LS400 10 years ago, I doubt that it ever took more than 1 or 2 GB of data per month. I haven't used the SiriusXM cell phone app in several years but from what I remember it sounded better than sound from a built-in SiriusXM receiver. In my current daily driver (2022 Porsche Cayenne), 99% of what I listen to is streamed from the Internet. We even listen to local radio stations on the Internet based TuneIn service when we travel out of our home area. Steaming from a cell phone opens up all sorts of possibilities. For example, I burned my entire music collection from CD's to my cell phone. Doing that requires a decent amount of storage on a cell phone but not that much compared to how much storage many modern cell phones have. My current aging Samsung S10 phone has 512GB of built-in storage and a 512GB removable SD card for a total of one terabyte. I doubt that my personal music collection takes up even 5% of the total storage. Another cool aspect of doing everything from your phone is that it's portable. You can stream from your phone to other vehicles, wireless Bluetooth speakers or just listen to the audio (including SiriusXM) with earbuds. As you can see, once I get started on this stuff, I have a hard time stopping!
  6. I answered in your other thread:
  7. Weren't your original wiper blades of the "conventional" type? See the attachment showing the types. Beam type (also called "flat") wiper blades often work poorly on curved windshields - even on slightly curved windshields. If your original blades were of the conventional type, then go back to using those.
  8. 1990LS400

    Sirus

    It looks like VAIS still sells aux-in kits for your car: https://vaistech.com/ You could stream SiriusXM from the SiriiusXM cell phone app by either connecting your cell phone directly to the aux-in or adding a bluetooth adapter to the aux-in and streaming wirelessly. SiriusXM sounds quite nice when streamed from its cell phone app. This aux-in would allow you to stream whatever you want from your phone ... Pandora, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, etc.
  9. Car electronics sometimes fail as they age. For example, there were some Lexus vehicles in 1990's that were especially prone to leaking capacitors in their ECU's. And sometimes electronics failures can be caused by simple corrosion. Sometimes ECU's can be repaired. You could try buying a used ECU but it might have similar problems. Is whoever that diagnosed the problem offering a solution?
  10. I now see what you mean. The photo of a supposedly OEM GX460 receiver hitch I was looking at on the Lexus.com accessories page was apparently a generic photo of a hitch and not specifically for a GX. The GX gallery on Lexus.com shows the receiver hitch with the tube cross bar which is very different from the aftermarket hitches.
  11. The aftermarket receiver hitches for the GX available from etrailer look identical to the OEM receiver hitch shown for the GX in the accessories section of lexus.com . It's odd that they are rated at 5,000 pounds max instead of the GX's 6,500 pound towing limit. I suppose you could contact etrailer or the aftermarket hitch companies and ask why. The reason for a stop sale could be as simple as a supply chain issue ... there have been many during the past few years. There was a stop-sale on a receiver hitch on the Toyota Sienna that I special ordered in 2014. The Toyota dealer I ordered through was contacted by the factory in Indiana to get my approval to go ahead and build the vehicle without the hitch. When the OEM receiver hitch became available again some months later, it looked exactly the same as the one sold before the stop sale. I couldn't wait, so I bought a Curt receiver hitch from etrailer and installed it myself. A class 5 receiver hitch with a 10,000+ pound rating is superfluous on a GX that's rated to tow a maximum of 6,500 pounds unless Lexus specifically states that a class 5 hitch will increase towing capacity - very unlikely. Here's a link to the current Lexus towing capacity guide: https://www.metrolexus.com/towing-capacity-guide.html The guide says that the 2022 LX has the highest towing capacity of all Lexus models - 8,000 pounds.
  12. etrailer.com appears to have two hitches for the 2022 GX460 but both have a maximum of 5,000 pounds instead of the maximum 6,500 pounds the GX is rated for: https://www.etrailer.com/hitch-2022_Lexus_GX+460.htm Unless you are really going to tow more than 5,000 pounds, either of these two hitches should work well and they're inexpensive to boot.
  13. No splicing will be necessary. The mechanic will simply unplug and discard what is left of the exterior mirror harness from the door panel wiring harness. He will then plug the harness for the replacement mirror into the door panel wiring harness. Here is a photo from eBay of a used right side mirror for a 1998-2005 GS. The cable from the mirror attaches to the wiring harness behind the door panel.
  14. Nice photo!! Thanks. Yes, it is safe to cut through the large insulated cable I see in the photo. There will likely be a number of smaller wires each with there own insulation inside the black cable. It's best to make a super clean cut so that the wire cores of the smaller wires don't contact each other but it probably wouldn't be a problem even if they did. Maybe wrap the car side end of the wire bundle with electrical tape after you cut it to prevent any of the wire cores from contacting metal such as the car door. RX400h, no, there are no connectors inside a mirror housing that have to be disconnected or connected when replacing an exterior mirror. There is only one connector for each exterior mirror that has to be connected to a wiring harness in the doors. Replacing an exterior mirror is usually pretty easy although it often requires popping off the door panel which is not very difficult. I've had some practice due to collisions ands having added turn signals to exterior mirrors. If I'm wrong, I guess you will have to hunt me down and slap me. If you are reluctant to remove the hanging mirror yourself, have your mechanic cut the cable and remove it. Or, if you are uncomfortable with cutting the cable, your mechanic could remove whatever interior trim is necessary and then unbolt the mirror from the door and disconnect the mirror connector from from the door wiring harness. That's no more than a 15 minute operation if your mechanic knows what he's doing.
  15. The connector for the exterior mirror is probably inside the car and behind a door panel - at least that's the way it is on most vehicles made by Toyota. It would help if you provide a photo showing the dangling exterior mirror and the electrical cable connecting the mirror to the door.
  16. Have you verified that it working as well as the rear cameras in other LX470? Toyota has long been criticized for the poor image quality of backup cameras in most of their vehicles regardless of brand, e.g. Lexus, Toyota, Scion, etc. Clarity is probably limited by the screen resolution or the interface between the camera and the screen. If it is, a higher resolution backup camera isn't going to help.
  17. I don't expect a receiver hitch to ever be introduced for the UX since it's been in production for quite a long time. If a receiver hitch was going to be available, it would have happened in the first year or two of UX production. Most of your options have been presented in this thread. You could get a hatch mount bike rack. You could buy cross bars and a bike carrying product for them and carry your bike(s) on the roof. You could find a company that can fabricate a receiver hitch for you. Where in the wilds of Missouri do you live? Unfortunately, a fabricated hitch can get pretty expensive but often no more than an OEM hitch. I'm going to be spending nearly $1,000 to have a class II hitch fabricated for a sports car I'm getting. The hitch is going to be used only for carrying bikes. As much as I hate carrying bikes on a roof, that's what I would do if I had a UX. But that would work mainly for "normal" bikes. I sure wouldn't want to hoist a 60 pound e-bike up to a roof.
  18. I doubt that anyone here in North America can provide guidance on car prices in Greece. The car's value is largely dependent local prices, condition, how it was maintained and how it was driven. LOL, driving on rural roads in Greece is one of the more exciting things I've done! My last rental car there was a Hyundai Atos.
  19. The 2011 RX has a generation 6 navigation system that has its data stored on a hard drive. It can be updated only by a Lexus dealer with proprietary software ("Navigation Update Tool") through the vehicle USB port from a master DVD that only the dealer can get. If you ask a Lexus dealership parts department, I think you will find that navigation updates for your RX were discontinued some years ago - maybe in 2017 or 2018. If nav updates have been discontinued and if the Lexus dealer has or can obtain the software and master DVD for the final map update, it will be up to you to decide if it's worth spending the money to get maps that won't be current. You should be able to see what map version you currently have by going into your navigation settings. If you're lucky, a previous owner updated the maps at some point. This particular navigation system can be pretty expensive to update. The retail price of the update itself was around $170 and dealers usually charged that much or more for labor. It wasn't unusual for the total cost of an update to exceed $350 which was probably why not many people got their navigation systems updated. I am not certain that the 2011 RX with navigation can read text and email messages. I do remember that the function was added to some vehicles for the 2012 model year. Do you have the navigation manual and is this function described in it? Or can you see the function on the phone screen? If your RX does have the text/email reading and response function, it's pretty easy to set up for an Android phone. Not that you're interested but iPhone iOS didn't fully support this function until recently. I'm providing most of this from memory so you might have to do some reading and investigation for yourself. After you pair your Android phone with your RX, go into your Android phone's Bluetooth settings for your RX and give your RX access to your contacts and messages. It should be a matter of toggling the settings from off to on if they aren't on by default. Then go into your RX navigation system's phone menu and find and enable the reading of text messages and/or emails. If your 2011 RX does not support the reading of text and email messages, all is not lost. There are apps on Google Play for Android phones that can do it. I use the Android app "A2DP Volume" to read text messages to me in one of our vehicles that doesn't have the built-in function but it doesn't allow me to respond with "canned" replies like the Lexus and Toyota systems do. If you want to experience additional "trauma", then install Lexus Enform on your phone from the Google Play store. I originally had great hope for Lexus Enform and its Toyota Entune sibling but both were plagued by stability issues. The operating system was from a subsidiary of Research In Motion (the Blackberry phone company) and we know where Blackberry went. Still, you might find an app or two in Enform that you might appreciate but I'm not sure what apps are left for the original Enform. If you don't have manuals for your RX, you can order hard copies and view them online in the Owners section of the Lexus website. Edit: Whoa! I just saw that you are in Canada - Alberta no less. That means that your 2011 RX may not have Enform and other functions that were on U.S. market vehicles. I do know that, later on, some of the Enform apps weren't available in Canada due to copyright restrictions. Some functions weren't even available on U.S. market vehicles when they were driven in Canada since the restrictions were based on IP address.
  20. As I mentioned in a previous post in this thread. Toyota/Lexus navigation systems have never had an option to mute radios when navigation instructions are broadcast. It's been that way since the 1990's - at least in the U.S. market. Where are you located? Something that might help you is pressing the MAP button to have audible navigation instructions repeated when you don't hear them. I do that quite often. By the way, can you see the navigation instructions in your HUD?
  21. A more typical "plus zero" alternative would be 235/50-17 which would be a -0.22% diameter change. That, however, might make your car feel and be more sluggish. Why are you considering 225/55-17 tires? I could see doing that if the OEM size wasn't available and the current tires were shot.
  22. That is odd. But the part number that Lexus sells for the 2020, 2021 and 2022 RX450h is the same which would seem to indicate that a Curt hitch for a 2020 would likely fit a 2021 and 2022: 2020: https://parts.lexus.com/p/Lexus_2020_RX-450h/Tow-Hitch-Receiver/69522951/PT22848160.html 2021: https://parts.lexus.com/p/Lexus_2021_RX-450h/Tow-Hitch-Receiver/69522951/PT22848160.html 2022: https://parts.lexus.com/p/Lexus_2022_RX-450h/Tow-Hitch-Receiver/69522951/PT22848160.html
  23. The Lexus, U-Haul and other brand hitches for the RX are all of the "receiver" type. The "ball mount" you are referring to is bolted to a drawbar which inserts into the receiver. Bike racks for receiver hitches similarly plug into hitch receivers. Lighter capacity receiver type hitches come in two formats - 1 1/4 inch and 2-inch. A 2-inch receiver hitch is vastly preferable over the 1 1/4 inch receiver hitch if it's going to be used for accessories such as a bike rack or cargo tray. The Lexus website says that the receiver hitch Lexus sells for the 2022 RX450h is a 2-inch receiver hitch: https://parts.lexus.com/p/Lexus_2022_RX-450h/Tow-Hitch-Receiver/69522951/PT22848160.html Don't even think about getting a 1 1/4 inch receiver hitch if you are going to carry two e-bikes. E-bikes can be quite heavy. There's no way I would put even one e-bike on the Pro-Series 2-bike rack that plugs into the 1 1/4 inch Curt receiver hitch that I installed on my wife's Prius v - it would be too unstable. I would, however, be comfortable with carrying one or two e-bikes on the far more robust Pro-Series 4-bike rack that plugs into the 2-inch receiver on our Sienna. Maybe a bike shop that sells e-bikes can help you identify a bike rack that works particularly well for carrying two e-bikes. LOL, my wife is after me to help her find an e-bike that fits her. We've bought so many bikes for her and none have worked to her satisfaction including her current quite expensive Trek "hybrid" (mountain bike type frame with road bike type wheels). It's difficult to find a bike that's easy to mount and dismount for a 4' 11" tall woman with limited mobility. Finding an e-bike that small sounds like finding a unicorn. If you want to see what a drawbar with a ball mount looks like, here is a photo of the "kit" I bought that includes the draw bar that plugs into a 2-inch receiver. This particular kit includes easily interchangeable balls of the most common sizes. Not that it's useful, here's another photo showing our Pro-Series 2-bike rack that plugs into a 1 1/4 inch receiver and our Pro-Series 4-bike rack that plugs into a 2 inch receiver. I suspect that a platform type bike rack would work better for e-bikes. .
  24. The RX450h is suitable for towing although to exploit its towing capabilities it should have the factory installed tow prep package that I mentioned in my first post in this thread. The components of the tow prep package have nothing to do with the hybrid traction motor or a "rear diff".
  25. I looked at the Uhaul hitch on their website. It actually doesn't look bad which is saying something since some of the most butt-ugly hitches I've seen have been from Uhaul. The installation instructions say that trimming an "appearance panel" in two places is necessary. Are you OK with that? I've occasionally used Uhaul services and have found that the skill levels of their employees are EXTREMELY variable and I do mean E-X-T-R-E-M-E-L-Y !!! If you go with Uhaul, I suggest that you carefully interview the person who is going to do the installation to see if he is at least conscious. Installation looks very easy and similar to my installation of a Curt hitch on our Toyota Sienna which is a close cousin of the Lexus RX and shares many components. If you are handy and have the appropriate tools including a torque wrench, you could do it yourself. Installing a hitch on your RX looks easier than on our Sienna which took only about an hour including the time it took to trim the underbody plastic panel. It would likely require elevating the rear of the RX such as with jack stands.
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