1990LS400

Wow! Two blow outs in 26,000 miles? That's just too weird. Are you monitoring inflation? Low inflation is the main cause of blowouts and high tread wear. I've driven the Michelin Primacy MXV4 tires on my 00 LS about 7,000 miles since I bought them earlier this year. They are certainly a pleasant riding quiet tire and I hope they last as long as the reviews and warranty say they should. We have not had Turanzas on a car but have had several other Bridgestone tire models. The MXV4 tires on my LS replaced a set of ultra high performance summer Bridgestone RE750 tires. The RE750 was great fun to drive on by were thoroughly worn out by just over 20,000 miles -- typical for an ultra high performance summer tire. My LS came originally with Bridgestone 4000 tires and I replaced those with Bridgestone 5000 tires at 40,000 miles. My wife's Camry came with Bridgestone 4000 tires and I bought a replacement set just before they were discontinued. They are lasting well over over 70,000 miles and the second set will have to be replaced due to age and not because they are worn out. I just bought a set of Bridgestone Blizzak WS70 winter tires for the LS. I hope they last as long as the Bridgestone Blizzak WS50 tires I squeezed seven winters out of. As you can see, I've bought a lot of Bridgestone tires. I bought the Primacy MXV4's mainly due to the noise and wear ratings but also because I got them at a bargain price.

Well, if you are not going to respond to questions about your issue, I suppose this thread is dead.

Off hand, it sounds like a security feature on your radio has been activated - similar to security feature on the 1990-1994 LS400 sold in the U.S. On one of those U.S specification radios, the characters "SEC" appeared on the display if a security code had been set by the car's owner and the radio "sensed" it had been stolen. The radio would become inoperable and sometimes had to be reset by a Lexus dealer after proving ownership. Do you have an owners manual for your car and, if so, does it describe a radio security feature? Is there a Lexus dealer you could ask? Or have you tried asking on the Australian section of this forum: http://au.lexusownersclub.com/forums/ Lexus radios for various world markets can be very different that those in U.S. specification cars. For example, in some countries early LS400 radios came with a "traffic" function that would interrupt a broadcast with traffic information. And none of the U.S. Lexus radios had RDS until around 2001 while other countries got it almost a decade earlier. If you want to see how the radio security feature works on an early U.S. LS400 radio, you can view the owners manuals without registering at https://secure.drivers.lexus.com/lexusdrivers/info/my-lexus/resources/home.do

Personally, I'd keep looking for a better example if not a better price. You betcha. My CPA wife drives a 98 Camry and cringes when I hand her the repair invoices for my LS. I could probably give you some hard data but I'll take an educated guess that my LS costs at least three times as much to maintain and own as her Camry per mile driven.

Desecration? It's a freakin' car! And I wouldn't care if Joe's Plumbing did the same thing. The Blackberry Farm scripts are likely decals that come off with a heat gun with zero damage -- the same way tape stripes are applied and removed.

Maybe I'm becoming (even more) cynical. A coworker died in a one car crash when he hit a concrete barrier at 2:00 AM on a recent weekday on a pretty well lit empty Kansas City freeway at the Grandview Main Street exit. He worked a day shift and why he was out at the time seems to be a mystery. The previous week another coworker's brother-in-law, immersed in bankruptcy and a family feud, shot himself in the heart with a shotgun in a wooded area at the edge of his back yard near Springfield MO. Both fatalities were ruled accidental. When there is no explanation for why an accident occured or why someone did not take obvious steps to avoid an accident, then maybe ... just maybe ... it wasn't an accident.

The fog is most likely on the outside of the lens. It is not necessary to remove a headlight to restore the lens - here is a link to a video: It might be good to mask the bumper and parts around the headlight with tape before you restore it. The Crystal View and some other brand kits require using very fine sand paper and you don't want to sand your paint. Of course, open the hood while working on the headlight. My headlights looked worse than yours before I restored them with the kit. They looked like new afterward and still look great two years later.

No, the only steering issues I've ever had were Tequila related.

I just checked eBay and there is a wide selection of both corner light assemblies and headlight assemblies for the 99 ES. If your headlight lens is foggy and there is no moisture on the inside, there are a variety of products to restore the lens to look like new. I used a Crystal View kit, available at lots of stores including Advance Auto, but there are other good products. If you need to replace only the corner light, it probably is held in place by friction like my LS400. There may be a retaining screw or two that you will see when you open the hood -- the screw(s) is mainly to keep the light assemblies from being stolen. Should be easy to replace ... probably take 3-4 minutes.

There must be a lack of ambulances to chase. What year and model is your car? From what I've read on this and other Lexus forums, the leaks are usually caused by stopped up drain tubes. And I think I remember a case where a drain tube was improperly routed. This type of issue is not peculiar to Lexus cars.

Register on http://www.toyodiy.com/ and you will be given access to the diagrams. You have to be logged on to see them. It sometimes takes a day or two for access to the diagrams to be granted.

Any tire can hydroplane if the water is deep enough regardless of how new the tire is. And some tires are much more resistant to hydroplaning than others. There are other factors like the ratio of car weight to tire contact patch size. And if your car has the optional 245 front, 255 rear tires, then it may be more prone to hydroplaning due to fewer pounds of pressure per square inch of each tire contact patch. What size, brand and model tires are you using and what are the pressure readings of the tires? Maybe your IS250 is simply communicating the hydroplaning to you in a way your SC400 could not. Some cars just give more feedback. If your SC400 didn't have VSC and the "Oh !Removed!" alarm like your IS has, maybe you were just as out of control in your SC and didn't know about it. Ignorance is bliss! I love that VSC chime and sometimes drive hard when it's rainy or snowy just to hear it. I gotta stop doing that.

My goodness, our favorite geezer is back. You once told us what the 1932 in your member name stands for and I've assumed/hoped that the "A" in AMF stands for "Alan" instead of "Adios".

The ECT (electronically control transmission) button mainly gives firmer shifts from one gear to the next by turning off or reducing the amount that the engine timing is retarded between shifts and it also increases the speed points at which shifts are made. It supposedly gives a sportier driving experience although tests on various Lexus models performed over the years by auto magazines have shown no actual improvement in acceleration. The OD (overdrive button) turns the highest gear on and off. It is more useful when towing a trailer or driving in very hilly country. Our Camry V6 has the same drive train as the ES of the same model year and we have never turned the overdrive off. "Overdrive" refers to a gear which provides a less than one-to-one ratio between the engine crankshaft speed and the drive shaft speed. These days the term doesn't mean much since most modern transmissions have at least one and some have several gear ratios that provide less than that one-to-one ratio. In "ancient times" (1950's through 1970's), a few mainly English and Swedish cars had a separate 2-speed electrically operated overdrive transmission mounted behind the manual transmission. As on your ES, the switch was mounted on the gear shift lever. The ECT and OD buttons should be explained in your owners manual. If you don't have an owners manual, you can view it online at https://secure.drivers.lexus.com/lexusdrivers/home without registering.

Try switching the two bulbs ... should tell you if a bulb is bad.

It appears to be part of the car's ventilation system.

If you are talking about a sunshade for the front windshield, do an Internet or eBay search for "Covercraft Sun Shade" or similar string of words and find the best price ... usually around $50 ... maybe a little more if you buy the storage sleeve. They cut them to exactly fit just about any vehicle. The Covercraft shade I bought for my first Lexus in 1990 was still usable when I sold the car in late 2003. And I used that shade almost every day. My wife is still using the one we bought for her then new Camry in 1998 and I'm still using the one I bought for my current LS in 2003. They hold up well as long as they are taken care of ... and nobody sits on them.

An automotive stethoscope can be handy for finding the source of noises. I seem them online for as little as 3 bucks. I bought mine at a chain auto parts store. Have someone else drive while you search for the noise source!

$15 gets you a two day subscription to https://techinfo.toyota.com where you can download all the information in the Lexus repair manuals for your specific car model. You might want to do this during a period where you have plenty of time and you will need a good broadband Internet connection and plenty of available disk space. The files don't have meaningful names so you would have to spend time and effort organizing them but you could do that later. The Sno-Isle public library has some on-line automotive reference tools - some can be used from outside the library and some only inside the library. Click on "databases and research" at http://www.sno-isle.org/ I've bought the Lexus repair manuals for both the 90 LS I drove for 13+ years and the used 00 LS that replaced the 90 in 2003. The manuals are good for diagnosing problems but often require specialized and expensive tools that I don't have. The manuals often assume a high level of automotive repair experience of the type a mechanic would get in on the job training. But having the manuals is better than not having them. If I was doing it again, I would download the information from https://techinfo.toyota.com. I don't remember how much each hard copy manual set cost new -- I think it was around $150-$200. Like Randy said you can get a lot of help from these car forums -- particularly on common problems.

You need to buy an HVAC control module from a non-navigation 98-05 GS. Check eBay for a used one -- should cost you less than $150. Many people have done this and said that it is a "plug and play" swap.

The mirror glass can be replaced although it's tricky and one must follow the replacement instructions carefully to keep from breaking the mirror or the tabs that hold it in place. If I have the correct part number (87906-24050) - and I'm not sure I do - Sewell ( http://lexus.sewellparts.com/parts_inquiry/index.html ) has it for $262.99 if you register on their site with your member name from this forum. I think I've seen threads where people have bought the part on eBay for less $$$. Again, I'm not certain if I have the right part number -- I got it from http://www.toyodiy.com

I tend to smile every time I see "'01 LS430 '81 MB 240D (Still truckin'!)" as your car model. I drove a '79 240D from new until I stopped the day I test drove and immediately bought an LS400 in early 1990. My Mercedes Diesel was incredibly noisy and slow and I found myself inadvertently wildly exceeding the speed limit during my test drive of the 90 LS and for several weeks after I bought it until I got myself under control. Do you actually switch back and forth between driving your LS430 and 240D? That would drive me CRAZY! Or is your L.A. traffic so bad you don't notice. Your experience with your LS430 mirrors mine on that 90 LS400 and the gently used 00 LS400 I bought in 2003. I had no issues I consider major on either of these two cars over 273,500 miles and I certainly didn't "baby" them. The key, of course, is to never ever postpone maintenance and repairs. Thank you for the phone related docs you sent me years ago. They've been used a number of times to help people on car forums -- sometimes just to provide a simple way to pass a signal from the center console to the truck through that 12 or 14 pin phone cable. Thank you for all your past excellent posts. I wish you the best of fortune during the next five (or ten or more) years that you drive your LS430.

Based on the information at http://www.lexus.com/models/RX/accessories/bluetooth.html , the Verizon LG Venus doesn't appear to be very compatible with the 08 RX ... but look for yourself.

No problem at all. Check the 04 GS specs for the tire sizes to use with the standard 16" and optional 17" wheels: http://www.lexus.com/contact/pdf/2004/2004GSspecs.pdf

Maybe these Lexus Europe GS iPod kit install instructions will help. GS Europe iPod install instructions.pdf