1990LS400

I "googled" and found a number of helpful webpages including this one: http://www.navigationbypass.com/products/lexus_gx470.php

Unfortunately, Ford's positive influence on Jaguar didn't take hold until towards the end of the 1990's when Jaguar cars began to share platforms with U.S, Ford cars -- at least that is an opinion held by some Jaguar enthusiasts in the U.S. The Indian company's name of Jaguar's new owner kind of sums up Jaguar's current state -- TaTa ... Goodbye.

Yep a 1989 Jaguar XJ6. One of the last real Jags before Ford f00ked em up..lol My Jaguar owning neighbors over here would never have bought their cars if Ford hadn't interjected a bit of reliability and modernity.

$15 for used (take-off) chrome caps sounds pretty decent if they are in A1 condition. I gave a bit less than $25 each for new ones a couple of years ago from Sewell. LA Wheel has an LS430 UL and is very active on "that other Lexus Forum". Last time I heard, he had punted his "big wheels" and was running the same 16" 01-02 LS430 wheels that you and I have on our cars. Some of us like cheese. I particularly like brie, camenbert, goat cheese and feta. AzHotLS, do you have any idea why there is such a chrome wheel fetish in Scottsdale?

Location:Lawrence? You don't mean "Larryville KS, do you? A bra? I'd suggest a D cup. Strap that thang onto the front! Sorry for the joking! I've always thought bras for cars are more of a fashion statement unless you are running the Baja or live/drive in areas where windblown dirt/sand is a problem. I have my friendly mobile bumper repair guy repaint our bumpers occasionally -- same guy that repaints bumpers for local car dealers. It usually doesn't take very frequent cleaning and conditioning to keep Lexus leather in decent shape -- I do it maybe 2-3 times per year. I bought my 00 LS used in 2003 and its leather doesn't look any different than the day I bought it. Are you using your RX like a regular car or hauling stuff out on the farm? Most leather damage I've seen has been abrasion and cuts from carrying objects (e.g. building materials) and dogs. There are planty of companies that sell seat covers to prevent dog damage ... like http://www.caninecovers.com/ If the front seats contain side air bags like my LS does, you have to be careful to use seat covers that are compatible. I keep a couple of of beach towels in the trunk to throw over the seats when I/we are especially dirty/sweaty from sports or the like. Buy some Lexol leather cleaner and conditioner at a saddle shop or auto supply store and put it in your garage where it is staring back at you. I keep it on a shelf right in front of my car so it makes me feel guilty. It takes me maybe 15 minutes total to clean/condition all the leather in my car. I do occasionally wipe the dust off the leather with a barely damp cloth between full cleanings. Having your front/side windows tinted to match the back/side windows might help and even darkening the rear side windows if you want -- UV rays kill leather over the years. Using a removable sun shade on the windshield helps too -- I use one if I'm parking for more than a hour or so outside and not just in the summer.

There were no "factory chrome 16" rims" for a 1994 LS400. 1995 was the first year that chrome wheels were available as an official Lexus option. Anything before that was aftermarket chrome. Phenix wheels is a good place to start: http://www.phenixwheels-store.com/servlet/StoreFront If you are not looking to match the 1994 wheel style, any LS chrome wheels from the 1995 through 2006 model years will fit your car. Maybe I've spent too much time in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area where it sometimes seems like most cars have chrome wheels, but I've grown to like the ones that came on my 00 LS400.

I don't know why you would need permission. Maybe you could add them on an existing "common issues" "sticky" thread. The TSIB PDF's are also available on a number of non-pay websites including ARRC last time I checked.

I guess the first thing to check is to see if there is adequate refrigerant in the system. The 134a A/C system in my 00 LS400 blows hot air if the refrigerant level is only slightly low. A safety feature on the compressor should prevent it from running if the refrigerant level gets too low to lube the compressor. The repair manual set for my 00 LS has about 40 pages of instructions for diagnosing A/C problems. Don't know if it works the same on your LS430 but my 00 LS400 can be put into A/C self diagnosis mode ... "Turn the ignition switch ON while pressing the A/C control AUTO switch and REC switch simultaneously." If a code is displayed on the A/C LCD, that is only the beginning. Most of the codes listed in my manual can represent several different potential problems that have to be diagnosed separately. Let's hope it is a simple leak from a fitting somewhere ... it's often something simple.

Stolen? How'd that happen? Maybe one of the people who switched out their OEM nav for aftermarket would sell or give you a hard drive. I don't remember a thread on this forum about doing this but there have been several over on Clublexus from people who have done it on a 98-00 GS. I just now searched and found several threads about this over there. People who have switched from OEM nav to aftermarket have obtained a climate control module from a non-nav car and have said the the climate control is plug and play with the connectors on nav cars. Or maybe one of the eBay sellers of the in-dash portion of a 98-00 nav can provide a hard drive.

Google "SC430 spare tire kit". The spare tire for the SC430 from Lexus is shown as being a "T145/70R17 temporary spare tire". All you are going to use it for is to limp your car to the next tire repair facility. There seems to be a number of alternates including the space saver spare from the 1990s Supra Twin Turbo. I'm seeing the SC spare tires on eBay too.

From http://www.lexus.com/contact/faqs/mechanical2.html , "Lexus models are 50-state certified which means they meet both the Federal emissions standards and California emissions standards." All V8 Lexus cars took a power hit for the 2006 model year. The 2005 SC430 engine is rated at 300 hp but the 2006 SC engine is rated at 288 hp. Lexus cars sold nationwide have for a number of years been certified as "Ultra-Low Emission Vehicle (U-LEV)"

There are a bunch of different problems that can cause the check engine and VSC warnings. Definitely see if there are any stored codes. One problem than can cause the warnings is a bad knock sensor. When the check engine and VSC warnings came on in my 00 LS400 a few weeks ago, the problem was a bad throttle position sensor -- pretty obvious since the accelerator pedal didn't work intermittently. I've had a defective battery cause the VSC warning at least twice on my 00 LS but the check engine light didn't come on when that happened. The VSC seems to turn itself off at the slightest hint of a number of problems -- checking for a stored code would be the first place I would start if there is nothing else obviously wrong.

snakehead. why don't you just drive both cars and decide for yourself. The 97 E320 is a nice enough car I suppose. I drove -- more like raced/flogged -- one of that series three times around a short course in a BMW Challenge event -- pushed the car to the limit. The concensus of the approximately 15 event participants was that the E320 was a fairly close second to the BMW 528i and ahead of the other cars we droved on the course during that day. I remember the E320 being a very comfortable car and feeling larger than the older series 94 E320 a friend owns and in which I often ride. A 97 E320 and an 04 LS430 don't seem like very similar cars to me.

Maybe stripping the interior and trunk down to bare metal would help you fulfill your 35 mpg fantasy. And there are plenty of heavy components under the hood that can go ... who needs A/C, ABS, power steering and the like? Get rid of the spare tire too. Put very skinny tires on the car and pump them up to maximum. I usually drive quite gently and have tracked every gallon of fuel used in every car I have owned in the last 40+ years. No matter what I have done, 27 mpg is towards the top of the range for my 00 LS at 70 mph. Yesterday, I filled up the tank and drove five miles at 45 mph or less for a total of less than five miles and 178 miles at a constant 70 mph with cruise control set. The trip computer for this 183 miles says the car has averaged 25.2 mpg. OK, I had a couple of airline carry-on size suitcases in the trunk but the car was otherwise lightly loaded. My 00 LS400 has exceeded 30 mpg, and just barely, only once -- while driving from Tulsa OK to Kansas City with one of the stiffest tailwinds I've ever encountered ... a tail wind wind of as high as 50 mph. Even my 4 cylinder Mercedes diesel sedan rarely broke 30 mpg at highway speeds -- I drove it from new to over 200,000 miles and tracked every gallon of diesel fuel that ever went into its tank. It usually averaged about 28 mpg at 70 mph. 35 mpg at 70 mph in a 99 LS400 is a dream. It's a nice dream but still a dream.

Take a look for yourself: http://www.toyodiy.com/parts/p_U_1993_LEXU...TMGKA_8503.html http://www.toyodiy.com/parts/p_U_1993_TOYO...EPGKA_8503.html

Are you certain? The manual for the gen 1 1990 LS400 I drove for 13 1/2 years recommended only 30 psi for non-winter tires. The manual for my current 2000 LS400 recommends an even lower pressure - 29 psi. The manual for my 1990 LS400 recommended bumping up the pressure on snow tires by 4 psi. The manual for my 2000 LS400 does not recommend doing that. Many snow tires, including Blizzaks (which I use in winter), have a fairly low maximum inflation limit -- 35 psi. I've found that the best combination of ride, handling and tire life on an LS400 is when the tire pressure is kept at the low end of the recommended range. I keep the tires on my 00 LS400 at about 32 psi mainly to keep the pressure from dropping below 29 psi due to temperature fluctuations. During the nearly 300,000 miles I've driven LS400s over the past 19+ years, I haven't found it necessary to balance tires on an LS400 very often unless there is some other suspension problem that is causing uneven tire wear. And I've rarely found it necessary to have the alignment checked more than every 30,000 miles and, even then, sometimes the car is still in perfect alignment.

Whoops ... double clicked the submit button.

Consider taking your LX and bike rack to a full service hitch shop. I would think there woiuld be a number of shops like that in Northern Virginia -- probably more there than in the Kansas City metro area where we have several. If a good hitch shop can't fix you up with an out of the box solution, they may be able to fabricate a solution.

Did one or more error codes indicate a knock sensor problem? What are the error codes that accompany the check engine light?

If it is like my 00 LS400, there may be two sensors -- a pedal position sensor and a throttle position sensor. The two work together. It is hard to tell which is defective -- the "PPS" or the "TPS". I had both the PPS and the TPS replaced on my 00 LS a few weeks ago - The TPS was $113.99 and the "PPS" was $343.72. The TPS tested as bad and the PPS tested as marginal so I had them both replaced -- total including labor and diagnosis was about $670 before tax at the indie Lexus repair shop I've used the past 12-13 years. I almost got stranded too ... I stopped driving the car until I had it fixed.

I don't understand what problem an extender would present as long as the extender didn't hit the spare tire, put the bike rack too far behind your truck or cause the bike rack to wobble around too much. My bike rack didn't fit my first LS when I bought the bike rack back in 1990 but the hitch company where I bought the bike rack had no problem adding an extension to the rack so that it cleared the rear vertical plain of the rear bumper when it was plugged into the receiver. I've never had a problem with it ... I've used it five times in just the last two weeks and hundreds of times over 19 years. Maybe it would be easier to have a hitch company supply a proper fitting extender or shorten an extender rather than modify your bike rack. Maybe attaching your Thule bike rack to the extender with a bolt instead of a pin would make the whole assembly more rigid if that is the perceived problem.

It sometimes takes aftermarket suppliers a few years to come out with a hitch for a new LS but I am doubting that anyone is going to make one for the LS460. I checked the supplier where I bought a hitch for my 00 LS400 and which has hitches for the LS430 but they don't have one for the LS460. I suggest contacting a local hitch fabricator. Unless there is something really odd about the LS460, there shouldn't be any problem fabricating a hitch for it. I'm supposing that a hitch for LS460 would best attach to the muffler hanger hardware like it did for all years of the LS400 and LS430. Last time I checked, a hitch wasn't make for the current ISx50 either but a forum member near Toronto recently had no problem finding a local fabricator who would make a hitch for his IS.

I'm not sure I'm following you. Isn't the ball mount secured to the receiver on an LX470 with a pin? Normally, one removes the ball mount from the receiver, then plugs the bike rack into the receiver and then secures the bike rack to the receiver with a pin. etrailer is where I bought the class II hitch for my 00 LS and they have hitch extenders ( http://www.etrailer.com/c-extender.htm ) and hitch mounted bike racks ( http://www.etrailer.com/bike-rack.aspx ) You might give them a call and ask them for advice -- they have been very helpful to me.

The undercovers become so brittle over time that I don't think it is worth buying them used. You can look up the part numbers here: http://www.toyodiy.com/parts/g_U_1998_LEXU...L-BEAQKA_3.html You can buy the big undercover (part number 51441-30250) here for $87.39 not including shipping: http://www.parts.com/lexus/lexus-parts.cfm It helps to search by part number on parts.com ... otherwise it can be difficult or impossible to find a particular part.

Having driven a 90 LS400 from new until 183,000 miles and a 2000 LS400 from 3 years old/ 38,000 miles to its current 110,000 miles, and having owned both at the same time and driven them on alternate days, I'm doubting that installing new shocks on your 99 LS is going to give you what you want. I wouldn't expect the 90 LS and the 99 LS to have much in common when it comes to how "planted" they feel -- the main thing the two cars have in common are their model names -- LS400. My 2000 LS rode and drove waaay different than my 90 LS even at 38,000 miles. Are all the suspension bushings and other suspension components on the 99 LS in top notch condition? Do the strut bar bushings have more than 80,000 miles on them? My 2000 LS never felt as sporty and "tossable" as my 90 LS did but it wasn't designed to be that way.