1990LS400

The 03 LS430 is a great choice. The five speed automatic is just about bullet proof and was in its 6th model year by 2003. A fairly high number of 2004 LS430's with the 6-speed had transmission problems that sometimes required transmission replacement. I don't think the horsepower of the 04-06 LS430 is any greater. You might be able to add a backup camera and for sure you can add a Bluetooth kit that will at least respond to voice commands. Personally, I like the 01-03 LS430 styling more than the 04-06. Plus, with the 03 LS430 you are more likely to get 16" or 17" wheels and tires that provide a nicer ride than the 18" wheels and tires that came on the later LS430. It's a big change from an ES300, isn't it?

You may not "want" a separate speaker but you should know that 99+% of aftermarket phone kit installations in the North America use a separate speaker. It's just not a big deal -- the phone call audio from an external speaker is as good and sometimes far better than if the call is placed through the door speakers. In fact some car kit manufacturers recommend that their kits be connected to the car's door speakers only as a last resort and only if the car has no place to mount a dedicated phone kit speaker.

It is likely that the tilt and telescope motors were not replaced with the redesigned improved onces under the relevant TSIBs while the car was within warranty. I fairly certain I've posted the TSIBs in the past here. There is an additional TSIB to replace the flexible cable coupling in the steering shaft with a more rigid part which I think has a u-joint. The cost having the dealer apply all the tilt/telescope TSIBs when the car is out of warranty is way more than $1000.

According the the car valuation web sites - for whatever they are worth - $7500 is very high for a 92 SC400 of that mileage and condition. It really comes down to whether you think it is a good deal and whether or not others in your area think this is a car that justifies the high price and would be willing to buy it at the same high price. Even low mileage cars age -- the biggest potential issue is corrosion in the electrical system.

J', you know I love ya' man, you're my boy. but, you gotta' quit this sh*t. people are in serious trouble right now, from the country club to the soup kitchens. nobody's being forced to get a job to prosper, but rather being forced to find a job to survive. I'm sorry my friend if I'm chewing on your tale a bit. You know it's nothing personal. Great words, NC. Finding a job in many areas of the U.S. right now is just plan impossible. Companies in the Kansas City area are laying off thousands of people each week and flooding the labor market. The largest local employer, Sprint, just announced they are laying off another 8,000 people by April. I personally know hundreds of people here who have lost their jobs and can't find another one. I'm about as economically conservative as they come -- zero debt, own a nice house with no mortgage, nice paid-off cars, conservative investor -- and I think a federal government stimulus is critical to getting the economy moving again. I also have a strong background in economics and history and know what happened in the 1930s when a certain political party resisted and hindered the implementation of a stimulus plan. Herbert Hoover was a member of that particular political party. I find it hilarious that the most economically conservative people I know usually vote Democratic. The supposedly conservative Republican people in my family and neighborhood mostly focus on social issues and are completely out of control in their personal finances and severely in debt. Yes, the situation is bad. I'm disgusted that us economically responsible people are going to be the ones who have to bail the posers out of this mess. But, really, that is the way it has always been. Look back in history over the past several hundred years and you will see the same cycle repeating over and over.

Virtually all phone kits, including Parrot, have a mute wire (industry standard color "yellow") and can be connected to play the phone call audio through a car's door speakers. It's usually up to the installer to understand how to connect the phone kit to the car -- either with an adapter harness or by wiring the kit directly by hacking into the car's wiring. Installers in the U.S. tend to use external speakers with phone kits because "mute leads" with car speaker interfaces are rare for U.S. cars. The installation of hands free phone kits in Europe is more advanced -- perhaps because laws prohibiting the use of hand held phones while driving are more common .... and perhaps because audio systems in Europe are more standardized using ISO and DIN standards ... and perhaps because cell phones were more common earlier in Europe than in the U.S. There has long been a thriving industry in the U.K. and Europe producing interface products for phone kits. I know all this might sound complicated but it will seem simpler the more you read about phone kits and read their installation instructions. I probably did 100+ hours on research before I installed a phone kit in my 2000 LS. My install was especially complex and took about 16 hours -- a very long day. I'm sure Jainla or I would be willing to come and help you if you buy one of us an airline ticket! ;)

Jainla has an interesting idea. The phone cradle in the 03 LS430 with the dealer installed phone appears to be the same cradle that is part of the Nokia CARK-91 phone kit. Here is another adapter that converts a Nokia CARK-91 handset cradle to Bluetooth: http://www.foneshop.com/accessories/description/2358 I would be surprised if it worked with the 03 LS430 phone system but there is a chance.

There's sound technical information about tinted bulbs on the Daniel Stern Lighting website: http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bu.../good/good.html The clear bulbs sold by Osram in Europe as "Silverstar" and by it's U.S. subsidiary Sylvania as "Xtravision" are considered by Stern to be superior to the tinted bulbs sold by Sylvania as "Silverstar" in the US.

Well ... if you agreed to purchase the car, then you have decided that you are satisfied with the deal -- that's all that really matters. My current 2000 LS400 I bought in 2003 is the first used car I bought since the 1970s. I bought a new LS400 in 1990 but I couldn't get all that enthusiastic about buying another new one since there were so many nice low mileage used ones available -- and I had my CPA wife breathing down my neck wanting me to stop spending so much money on cars as I got nearer to retirement. How much is your time worth? The way I look at it, I can always squeeze a few more dollars if I take the time to look hard enough. I probably could have bought a car similar to the 00 LS400 I bought in 2003 for a little less in a private party transaction but it wasn't worth the inconvenience. Even if I spent a few thousand $$ more than I could have, the extra I paid will be amortized over many years and ends up being a nit. When you keep cars 10 - 15 years like we do, it's just not a big deal. With the fewer miles we're driving these days, it should be easy to keep the 2000 LS400 until about 2015 and my wife's 98 Camry until about 2013 unless one of them gets crashed. One great thing about buying a relatively new Lexus LS is that they are very up-to-date in the safety gadgets and features they have. I don't know of any big advancements since 2005 when "your" LS430 was produced. You might check the in-service date of that LS430 you are buying. If it was sold late in the model year, it might have some of its original 4 yr/50K basic warranty left. It should have quite a bit of its drive train warranty left.

I can only tell you what I did in 2003. I bought an off lease 2000 LS400 from an non-Lexus dealer for over $8,000 less than what the Lexus dealer was asking for two CPO 2000 LS400 with similar (about 36,000) miles. The car I bought still had almost a year and 12,000 miles left on its 4yr/50K mile warranty which gave me plenty of time to get a few minor issues fixed, including getting a new set of rather expensive LS430 chrome wheels to replace the original ones that had some corrosion. I just could not see the value of the CPO program. If I wanted an extended warranty, I could have purchased one for a fraction of the $8,000 price from the insurance company I just retired from. I suggest that you look for a car that still has a substantial amount of warranty left to give you time to get any issues fixed.

Jainla, you are one quick dude! Sprint - the company pretending to be a phone company. Yep, I visited my Lexus dealer in fall 2003 right after I bought my 2000 LS400 used and I was told they had just put all their spare phone parts and documentation in the dumpster. They just didn't want to talk about it. Or they were *BLEEP*ed that I didn't buy the 2004 LS430 I was offered by the salesman they fired during the negotiation or that I instead went off and bought a used 00 LS from another dealer. In fall 2003, the local Lexus people were unable to demonstrate that they could make a Bluetooth phone work with the 2004 LS430 Bluetooth system -- they told me to buy the car and trust that they would eventually be able to make it work. I may have said something like "Bull$#!+". I think it was the Nokia 6310i which was GSM only and the carrier was Cingular. The problem was that, at the time, GSM hardly worked anywhere except in metro areas and along the interstate. Cingular finally offered the Nokia 6340i in January 2004 after its intro had been delayed for months - I got the very first one sold in Kansas City. The 6340i is virtually identical in appearance to the 6310i except without Bluetooth and with AMPS and TDMA in addition to two GSM bands. Unlike the 6310i Lexus was pushing, the 6340i seemed to work "everywhere". I know that the old Qualcomm handsets used in the Lexus phone system used special firmware. A few people reported on forums that they bought Qualcomm handsets without the Lexus logo, couldn't make them work and Lexus wouldn't help them by providing the special phone software. Jainla, Speaking of Mercedes, I forgot that Mercedes offers charging cradles with antenna connections which are very similar to the ones from Bury and Lexus/Toyota dealers in the UK/Europe. It's the simpler "MHI Hands-Free Communication System - Telephone Cradle" -- you can see it on the US Mercedes website. Unless it's an iPhone!

I suggest that you not focus too much on getting the phone call audio to play through the car's door speakers. I suppose it is nice not to have to mount a separate phone kit speaker but like I said, there is plenty of room under the dash to put a speaker in most cars. Attached is a photo showing where I installed a phone kit speaker by the parking brake in my 2000 LS400. It can't be seen unless one gets on the hands and knees to look. An "add-a-circuit" connector, available at auto parts stores, could be used to pick up power for a phone kit from the under-dash fuse box. The UK and Europe didn't have a bizillon different phone companies each with there own network like we have in the US. I don't know haw many cell phone companies you have in Canada. I'm thinking my phone said I was on the Rogers network when I was at a family reunion near London, Ontario last summer. I got a kick out of the fixed Lexus phones in the UK 98-00 LS400 -- one could take a SIM card out of a hand held cell GSM phone, slip it into the SIM card slot of the Lexus phone and you were good to go. I'm doubting that many Lexus phone systems were installed in the 2001 - 2003 LS430 here in the US. (The phones were installed by Lexus dealers and not at the factory. Most Lexus cars prior to 2004 were prewired at the factory for phone systems.) By 2001, anyone who would be buying a new Lexus LS would likely already have a handheld cell phone and the phone that came with the Lexus system was not exactly state of the art. I'll attach the installation instructions for the 2001 LS430 phone system for it's humor value. While I'm at it, I'll attach the audio system diagrams for the 2001 LS430. 2001_LS430_dual_mode_phone_install_doc.pdf 2001_LS430_audio_1.pdf 2001_LS430_audio_2.pdf

That's pretty amazing. I've seen several LS cars with some rust on their sides over the past 19 years and they have all had one thing in common -- poorly repaired body damage. Have you owned this car since new ... i.e. do you know whether or not it has had its door skins replaced and/or repainted?

http://www.sylvania.com/ConsumerProducts/A...placementGuide/ says that you have separate bulbs for the low (9006) and high (9005) beams.

WHAT? Blasphemy! Bite your tongue, sir! :D A Lexus dealer service manager once told me that it was constant source of amusement to hear LS owners tell him how relieved there were to get out of the dealer's ES and RX loaner cars and back into their LS cars. His standard response was "That's why you bought an LS.".

Hey, be nice ... did you notice he's from Singapore? Are you from Minnesota? Ya! :P Can't we just all get along? Even 40 years ago, many fairly people from rural Minnesota spoke English with such thick Scandinavian accents that it was difficult for outsiders to understand them. I remember asking an approximately 25 year old Minnesotan woman in about 1968 how long she had been in the US after hearing her thick accent. She responded that she was born here and that so were her parents and grandparents and that her great grandparents had come to the US from Finland.

When the timing belt broke on my 1990 LS400 when the water pump failed at around 75,000 miles, the engine sputtered and died. I was going perhaps 35 mph and was able to coast into a convenience store parking lot. There was no damage, I had the timing belt replaced, and I drove the car for other 7 or 8 years until I sold it in 2003 when it had about 183,000 miles on it. I had the timing belt replaced for a second time at 180,000 miles. When I last spoke with the car's current owner, he said the car is at well over 250,000 miles. I forgot the exact number of miles but a coworker of mine drove his Camry with a non-interference engine to way over 200,000 miles before the timing belt broke. IMO, the main reason to replace a timing belt on a non-enterference engine is to keep from getting stranded and having to call a tow truck or having the engine stop in a dangerous situation. To say the least, having a timing belt break on a trip or in a remote area can be a very expensive and inconvenient proposition.

I've been driving Lexus LS cars for 19 years and never had any rust ... and I'm guessing they use more salt on the roads in Kansas, Missouri and Iowa where I do most of my driving than in Delaware and North Carolina. I'm guessing that you have no experience with Lexus or Toyota products. I drove my first 1990 LS400 from new until 13 1/2 years and 183,000 miles -- no rust. I bought my current 2000 LS400 at 3 years/38,000 miles and it is now at 8 1/2 years and 107,000 miles -- no rust. I plan to drive it at least as long as the 1990 LS I had -- which is still on the road with its new owner at over 250,000 miles.

Have you searched the forum? There have been a bunch of threads on the tilt/telescope system but I think most have been in the LS400 part of the forum. Here is a thread about a wiring harness being too tight: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...ost&id=6473 Replacing the entire steering column sounds like a lot of work when it is fairly easy to replace the tilt and telescope motors. And the tilt and telescope motors in a used steering column might not be any good or have a very long life. It's been posted in a past thread but I'll attach a TSIB on how to replace the tilt and telescope motors in a 99 LS400 -- the procedure may be similar on your GS. If you can nudge the steering wheel to where you want it, you can have the automatic tilt/telescope turned off with a handheld scan tool. Tilt__Telescopic_Steering_Column_TSIB.pdf

I've followed this issue closely and have never seen anyone who was able to integrate an aftermarket Bluetooth kit to work with the 01-03 LS navigation like on the 2004-up LS430 or to use the steering wheel controls. Jainla may respond eventually -- he added a Parrot Bluetooth kit to his 01 LS430 UL so it mutes the audio system and plays the call through the door speaker but the phone can not be dialed from the nav screen. It's easy enough to add a phone kit to at least mute the audio system and there is plenty of space under the dash to hide a phone kit speaker. I've asked but no one has ever checked his 01-03 LS430 to see if it has phone connectors under the center console like the LS400 did for 11 years. The 01-03 LS430 was available, at least in the states, with a dealer installed Lexus phone. I connected my phone kit's mute wire to a mute pin under the center console of my 00 LS400 and hid the speaker under the dash. Lexus and Toyota dealers in the UK and Europe currently sell the Motorola IHF1000 Bluetooth kit, rebranded with Lexus and Toyota logos, as official dealer installed accessories for Lexus and Toyota vehicles that do not already have Bluetooth. As sold there, the IHF1000 plays the call through the door speakers and has an optional phone charging cradle with external antenna connection. There is at least one company, Connects2, that provides at least some integration of aftermarket phone kits into BMW and a few other vehicles, included a few Toyotas, sold in Europe: http://www.connects2.com/

I think the speedometer has read a little fast on every car I've ever owned. Manufacturers seem to do it on purpose -- one reason may be to be sure they are not contributing to speeding ... i.e. to keep the manufacturer out of court if a driver wants to blame the manufacturer for his getting a speeding ticket or having an accident. The speedometer in my LS reads at least two mph fast at 60 mph. So does our Camry. As long as we know, we don't care. If I want to know the true exact speed, I just look at the GPS. Maybe having the speedometer read a little fast on an RX is a "safety feature". I've driven RX loaners enough times to know that they aren't exactly the most stable vehicles on the road. T-J-M, I think you are blowing this "problem" completely out of proportion. And yes, the odometer and trip computer work off a different sensor and are more accurate.

Still another partially inaccurate chart -- where do these companies come up with this crap? Did one company (Gates) get it wrong and then everybody else copied the incorrect information? At least it is correct for the 97 ES in that it does not an interference engine.

I forgot to ask to see the old one when a front brake wear sensor was replaced a couple of years ago. On my last Mercedes, I could reuse a brake wear sensor by coating the electrode (reproducing the electrode insulation) with some of my wife's fingernail polish. An illustration of the front brake wear sensor is here: http://www.toyodiy.com/parts/p_U_2003_LEXU...ETGKA_4705.html I think the brake wear sensors are on only the right side brakes -- front and rear. I think I was charged a little less than $60 for a replacement front wear sensor on my 00 LS.

It doesn't do any good to start replacing stuff and doing things without first diagnosing the problems. Does your mechanic down there in Wi-cheat-a normally work on Lexus cars? If he does not, is there an indie shop there that specializes in Lexus? I'd recommend either punting your car or getting it to somebody who knows Lexus cars. An older LS400 can get a little expensive to maintain as it ages but the cost of repairs is usually substantially less than buying a different car. I spent an average of about $1,000/year on repairs and maintenance during the final four years I owned the 90 LS400 I sold in 2003 at 183,000 miles. If you don't depend on your car as a daily driver, PM me and I'll provide info about the indie Lexus repair shop in Mission KS that I've used for over 10 years. It's a healthy drive from Wichita to Mission but it might be worth your time.

The "diamond white pearl" 1990 LS400 I bought new and drove 13 1/2 years had body work done several times, including the rear one third being repainted one time, and I never could tell it had been repainted. The car looked like new when I sold it. I've also had paint work done on the "crystal white" 2000 LS400 I bought used at 3 years/38,000 including once in my driveway by the same touch-up guy the Lexus dealer uses. I don't think anyone can tell where it's been repainted. I think it may just be more difficult for me to see repainted areas on a white car due to the way white reflects light. The body work we have had done on darker color cars - especially one with metallic burgandy paint - hasn't come out as well.