1990LS400

TSO, Although the solution you found has been posted many times on this forum, and a number of times by me, it never hurts to have another thread that restates the solution. The past few days I've been wondering if there is a way to connect the audio system mute wire from my Nokia phone kit to the HVAC blower speed control so that the blower speed is lowered when a phone call is in progress. If I remember correctly, the dealer installed Lexus phone systems lowered the blower speed but the blower speed could be overridden and bumped back up while a phone call is in progress. BTW, there is an audio mute min under the center vent you see when the front armrest is raised. It's on the drivers side. Connect a after market Bluetooth or fixed phone kit's mute wire to it and the radio will mute when a call is on progress just like with the Lexus phone.

Yes. Use tires of an appropriate size. Your car came from the factory with 225/60-16 tires.

It's false advertising. They are not HID bulbs. They are junk. Blue tinted bulbs almost always put out substantially less light than clear bulbs. Save your money and buy clear halogen bulbs for your car. There are some inexpensive clear bulbs that provide a little bit better light than regular bulbs -- Sylvania Xtravision and Wagner Britelite, for example. Here is a great website that discusses the blue bulb crap: http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bu...ue/bad/bad.html

I can tell you that the chrome wheels that came with my 2000 LS400 were severely pitted after three years of year round use and they were replaced under the car's original 4 year/50,000 mile warranty. From then on, I used a set of painted aftermarket wheels with snow tires in the winter and kept the newly replaced chrome wheels for summer only use. Both the painted wheels and the replacement chrome wheels still look like new after 6 years. Painted wheels are the only type I've had much success with for winter use. How Lexus Canada handles the situation may be different.

Welcome to the forum. My advice would be to spend time reading past forum threads and doing some test drives of Lexus vehicles. Look at the Comsumer Reports yearbook for information on repair stats -- the statistics are wonderful compared to everything else. I'm in my 19th year of driving Lexus LS cars as my primary vehicle after driving "lesser" makes such as Mercedes for many years -- need I say more?

"Towbars" used in Europe and the U.K. are of a very different design than "trailer hitches" used in most of the western hemisphere (e.g. US and Canada) and in other countries such as Australia. European/U.K. towbars are not compatible with hitch mount bike racks and trailers sold in North America. Trust me, I know. I've been towing trailers with cars and trucks in North America for 40+ years and have spent quite a bit of time in the U.K. and Europe.

One reason you haven't gotten any responses may be because similar questions have been discussed to death. You might try searching this forum for past threads about wheel interchangeability.

Search for "Parrot", other Bluetooth kit brands, etc. and you will find threads where people installed phone kits. Blake918 recently provided informaiton about a Parrot install in his 99 LS. Installation is usually straightforward ... only connections to the car are power, ground and audio system mute. Many people use interfaces from VAIS for adding aux-in to later Lexus audio systems ... search and you will find. Lexus models for Hawaii may have audio/nav system differences from those for the mainland ... you're in another world.

I haven't seen black carpet maps for the 98-00 LS400 from online Lexus parts sellers in a couple of years. Don't see too many colors at all being offered with the Lexus logo on them. Have you tried a Lexus dealer to see if they can be ordered? I have black carpet mats in my 00 LS and it would be nice to have new ones.

Have you popped off the plastic caps that cover the bolts that hold the seat tracks to the floor?

Since you use only one of the Homelink buttons, why don't you try setting all three buttons for the same garage door opener to see if the right and left buttons continue to work after the middle one fails?

I thought you said in a previous thread that your bumper coverable was reusuable. You can buy an OEM bumper cover for $353.38 at http://www.parts.com/oemcatalog/index.cfm?...playCatalogid=0 I'd sure think about that aftermarket bumper cover for $180.

Verify that the heaviest part of the tire is opposite of the heaviest part of the wheel which is usually where the valve stem is. The heaviest part of the tire should be marked with a paint dot. It is possible that a tire has defects that balancing can not overcome -- I once had that happen with a defective Dunlop 5000 tire. From my experience the skill levels of people who balance tires varies a lot -- the guy who last did it for me at the Lexus dealer was like an artist/scientist and went to great lengths to explain how his machine worked and how he determined exactly where to place the weights. One memorable comment he made was about "road force" balancing being oversold and rarely needed. By the way, my snow tires are mounted on wheels that are not compatible with hammer on rim weights and there is not enough clearance between the break calipers and the rim to do a dynamic balance with even the thinnest stick-on weights. They are statically balanced with stick-on weights on the inner section of the rim and there is absolutely no vibration from them at highway speeds -- and I'm ultra sensitive to vibration and noise.

You can see which phones have the most compatibility with the Bluetooth system in the GX here: http://www.lexus.com/models/GX/accessories/bluetooth.html

I think we can let Lexus off the hook after 165,000 miles and nearly 13 years. Goodness knows they had problems with and replaced a bunch of instrument clusters under TSB on the 98-00 LS -- none of this stuff is bullet proof.. The mechanical odometer on my first LS (a 1990) lasted less than 125,000 miles and 10 years. Still, I would have expected the electronic odometers to last "forever" without having problems. Well ... enjoy your "new" car!

SWheat, I'm not understanding. Longo Lexus is not responsible for the paint on your car. Lexus Corporate is. If Lexus Corporate refuses to repaint your car, I don't see how you can expect Longo to do it at their cost. I've had a lot of paint work done on cars and it sure looks to me like it would cost a lot more than "three or four hundred bucks" to repaint the front end of your car properly. It takes only a few minutes driving in adverse conditions (e.g. windblown sandy soil) to make a car look like yours. Maybe your BMW owning friend hasn't encountered the same conditions you have. About 30 years ago, I once polished ALL the paint off the front of a car (and trashed the headlights and windshield) by driving in windblown soil in Wyoming for a couple of hours -- until that time, I had no idea that could happen. One reason we now buy only white cars is that they don't show nicks and scratches like dark color cars. The damage is still there but at least it is harder to see. I go through a lot of touch-up paint. My wife drove her white Camry between Kansas City and Omaha the last two weekends and now I have another 100 paint nicks to touch up. Some of my friends love black cars -- their black cars don't look any better than yours after two or three years. I am more surprised that the dealer wouldn't try to have the wheels replaced if the chrome is coming off. My 00 LS came with Lexus wheels that had been chromed by an aftermarket company. My Lexus dealer had no problem getting the chrome company to pay for their replacement while my car was under the original 4yr/50K warranty. Since the dealer put them on the car before it was sold new, the chrome wheels had the same warranty as the car. I suggest making another try at getting the dealer to see if the wheel chrome company will replace the wheels. I agree it is tough buying a new car and seeing it deteriorate before your eyes. After 43 years of driving, I guess I've just gotten used to it.

rvgraham, if your 99 LS owners manual is similar to the one for my 00 LS, there is a procedure in it for resetting the VSC after the battery is disconnected/reconnected. But as you found, the VSC usually resets itself within a few start/drive/stop cycles. Yesterday afternoon, my next door neighbor and I "talked cars" like we often do. Between the two of us, we have over 33 years experience owning and driving LS400's although he parted with his in 90 LS in 2004. Neither of us have gotten much more than three years out of a battery in an LS. That's a bunch of batteries we've gone through. If the front defog button light was blinking amber and if you altered HVAC systems's default sensitivity setting that determines how quickly it goes into recirculation mode when it senses foal air outside the car, it may be necessary to reprogram the feature. How to do it is described in your owners manual.

I guess you would use an oil filter wrench of the appropriate size and type. Oil filters are easy to remove if you have the right tools -- might require a trip to an auto parts or discount store to buy one. I've accumulated four oil filter wrenches of various sizes and types over the years.

Sure, the plastic bumper covers can be repainted. In fact it is pretty standard to repaint both front and rear bumper covers before Lexus cars are resold. I had the rear bumper cover on each of my two LS400s completely repainted after minor rear end colisions. In both cases the body shops removed the bumper covers to repaint them.

You could do a search and find several methods of clearing the plastic headlight lenses complete with before and after photos. Some people have used various grades of sand paper from hardware or auto parts stores, wet sanded their headlights and then finished the headlights off with a clear spray lacquer. Others like me have used Crystal View headlight refinishing kits that can be bought at auto parts and discount stores which include the needed sand paper, lacquer and applicators: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...&hl=Crystal PlastX works pretty well unless the plastic lenses are really trashed. My understanding is that headlight clearing methods that involve using a final clear coat usually last longer than PlastX and hide the imperfections that PlastX can not hide. My headlights refinished with Crystal View look far better than my foglights cleaned with PlastX ... I was too cheap to buy another Crystal View kit to do the foglights. PlastX seems to work pretty well even if it is a temporary fix. I sometimes think it would be fun to carry a bottle of PlastX and a small towel and do a stealth cleaning of some of the badly discolored headlights I see during my daily walk. If I did, I would clean only one headlight on each car -- wouldn't that be fun? But I'd probably get nailed for vandalism if I tried something like that.

A Lexus dealer service writer told me in 2004 that the odometer reading in my 2000 LS400 is stored in the instrument cluster -- don't know if this is the same on a 96 LS or even if the service writer really knew. I was considering having my instrument cluster replaced under the "Miles since refuel" TSB and the service writer told me that the new instrument cluster would arrive "flashed" with the same mileage reading that was showing at the time on the original odometer. The service writer told me that Lexus dealers do not have the tools required to set odometer readings. Does your odometer still work or does it continue to read zero. I've seen some weird problems reported from people who had battery issues. My "favorite" is the outside temperature display switching to displaying the temperature in celsius: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...&hl=celsius

I think the foglight lens is glued to the foglight housing similar to the way the headlight lens is glued to the headlight housing. I don't know if it is possible to separate the foglight lens from its housing by heating it in a warm oven like can be done with the headlights. If you have the foglight unit it off your car, you could trying blasting the inside clean with a blast of water ... maybe at a car wash. That is how I cleaned out a headlight unit on a 90 LS after a bulb exploded and scummed up the reflector and lens. And maybe filling the foglight housing with water will show you where water is leaking in. If you can find a crack, you might be able to seal it with clear epoxy. Also, check that the drain tube in the foglight unit is not blocked. If you do blast the foglight unit out with water, it will likely dry out in a day or too. I used a hair dryer to speed the drying of the inside of the headlight unit I cleaned out with water. If you need to replace the foglight, the least expensive new one I've seen is on Parts.com. There are sometimes used ones on eBay.

Remove the screw from the dummy side light housing and pry it out -- I used a putty knive with a stiff blade wrapped with electrical tape so I would scratch anything. After the dummy side light is popped out, I think you will see the screw that holds the fog light housing in place. If you need to replace bulbs, you can do it from the wheel well without removing the fog lights but you will have to remove a portion of the lining in the wheel well to get access.

The bulb types are listed here: http://www.sylvania.com/ConsumerProducts/A...placementGuide/

I've seen new Phillips 4300K bulbs on eBay for as little as about $60 each -- same bulbs that were OEM on your car. Read the small print though ... some people are selling used Phillips HID bulbs on eBay at similar prices.