1990LS400

It might be a 6,000+ mile round trip from Miami to Banff and back but it's not like you are going to the North Pole. You will probably be on interstate highways or similar much of the way. You might want to have snow tires on your IS and make an appointment at the Lexus dealer in Calgary to have your car serviced before heading back. It sounds like an adventure ... a very long, tiring adventure! I know you didn't ask but ...Round trip air fare Miami to Banff is less than $450/person with advance purchase and it takes as little as 7 hours and only one stop to get there. A hard shell locking ski case like I have carries two sets of skis and poles and cost only about $100 -- it's great for air travel. You can get a shuttle from the Calgary airport to Banff if you don't want to rent a car -- a 1-way shuttle from the Calgary airport to Banff is as little as C$53 -- and the shuttles run many times each day. Have fun!

I'm certainly not an expert in this but I have been following this issue closely on a number of forums and manufacturers websites. You probably already know the options: 1) Cassette adapter 2) FM modulator 3) CD cable hack - see Puredrifter's thread on Clublexus 4) Aftermarket radio with RCA or iPod input. The non-nav gen 2 GS seems to be the Lexus that most frequently gets an aftermarket radio/nav/etc. unit - the possibilities are endless. Look around on the forums and you will see lots of photos of gen 2 GS cars with nice aftermarket systems. You'd think some company would have come out with an interface product for older Lexus cars, wouldn't you? Those companies that tried seem to have given up pretty quickly. The closed architecture of the pre-2001 Lexus audio systems apparently made it too difficult and the profit potential just wasn't there by the time MP3 players got truly mainstream. If you come up with something great, please let us know!

Do you know if your tires have the mountain/snowflake logo on the sidewall? Tires with that logo have to meet stringent tire industry standards for winter performance. For snow tires to be truly effective, they need a lot of tread depth -- several times the 2/32" or 3/32" which is considered the minimum on all season or summer tires when used in non-snow conditions. My snow tires are worn down to 7/32" tread remaining and are barely adequate for making it through their 6th and final winter before I replace them. I almost always change from snow tires back to summer tires on the the first day of Spring -- only 2 months, 14 days to go! Wooohooo! The "M+S" label on tires has more to do with tread design than effectiveness: Here is a good article: http://www.tirerack.com/winter/tech/techpa...currentpage=116 The standards are pretty lax and a tire manufacturer can slap a M+S label on almost any all season tire. If you were on ice, the thickness of the ice doesn't really matter. Heavy duty snow tires might not have helped that much. One millimeter of ice is just as slick as an inch of ice.

As Kingjack said, remove the lower radiator hose to drain the block -- that's the standard way of doing it on all cars. I guess you could suck out any that doesn't come out with a small rotary pump -- I bought one at the hardware store for about $10-$15; it has a handle like a fishing reel.

There is not much that technology can do to help if you are driving on a sheet of ice. There is a compound in some snow tires - like the Bridgestone Blizzaks I have on my LS - that supposedly makes the tire tread grab on to ice a little better. At the least, you need all season tires with a lot of tread for driving on snow and ice. Infinitely better is to have a set of real snow tires -- ones with the mountain/snowflake symbol on the sidewall. I use the Snow mode setting on my 00 LS only when needed and I turn it off as soon as possible so that the transmission shifts normally. The way I look at it, if I can reach about 20 mph, I no longer need Snow mode above that speed. Leave VSC turned on if your RX has it. VSC is amazing for being able to keep a car going where you want it to go.

That's nice but Al has a standard Pioneer system and the Navtools including the one you bought are listed as being for navigation systems. Am I missing something?

VAIS products fit some Lexus vehicles beginning with the 2001 model year -- nothing earlier. When VAIS first went into business several years ago, they said on their website that they would have products for some 98-00 Lexus vehicles but they apparently decided not to -- probably not enough demand. The other interface products I've seen advertised for the 98-00 GS seem to have been withdrawn. Some people hack into the cable going to the CD to add a jack for an MP3 player -- Puredrifter over on Clublexus has an extensive thread on doing this. Some people do the CD hack method with a switch so that they can continue to play CDs -- there is a video demo of this on an LS400 on Youtube. I saw another thread where someone hardwired an RCA cable directly into the cassette player electronics -- don't remember which forum it was on. The slickest setup I've seen was on a 98-00 LS400 where the owner had an audio shop install a custom interface that used a three position switch that I recognized as being from Soundgate -- used the exact same Soundgate switch we have in our Camry. The switch toggled between CD, Aux 1, and Aux 2 and was different from most of the other CD hacks in that it did not require playing a blank CD while listening to an MP3 player. I don't know what shop did the install but I ran into the guy in a Lenexa, Kansas Costco parking lot a couple of years ago when I parked beside his car -- I suspect the shop is here in the Kansas City metro area. I like keeping things OEM but, since radio repair shops can no longer get parts to repair Nakamichi radios, I'll be replacing my Nakamichi with an aftermarket system with MP3 if my Nak dies again like it did last year. I'm starting to think that an aftermarket audio system is the best way to go.

All you need to do video calls on Skype is a decent video camera/microphone plugged into a USB port on your PC ... and of course a stable high speed broadband Internet connection. And your PC has to have speakers. My parents are in the mid-80s and use Skype all the time to see and talk with their kids and grandkids scattered around the U.S. I use Skype to do a visual check on their health since they live 200 miles away. As "Blacktop" said, call quality is sometimes not good. Video quality is sometimes poor but, hey, its free. When you see the number of current online users (shown at the bottom right of the Skype screen) top 10,000,000 you can almost count on call quality being poor.

I think VBdenny was alluding to the common problem where wires at the left trunk hinge break and cause all sorts of transmission shifting problems. There are plenty of past threads about this problem. The fix is to remove the insulation from the wire bundle at the left trunk hinge and splice in small lengths of wire using either solder or wire connectors and insulating each wire so that no bare wire touches another one. If you have never checked the wires in the left trunk hinge, do it now. They always fail at some point on a gen 1 LS400.

I have not done what you want to do but, based on a number of threads I've read on the forums, some people report that they partially remove the liners in the wheel wells to access the area behind the fog lights and that they attach the ballasts to something behind the bumper with cable ties or double sided tape. I've had fog lights, either factory or added by myself, on almost every car I've owned since the 1960s. I have to say that the fog lights on my 2000 LS400 are the poorest fog lights I have ever had on any car. Most fog lights spread an even, concentrated beam of light but the fog lights on my 00 LS mainly light up small areas on both sides of the car. Even the fog lights on my 90 LS were far better. I don't do many lighting mods any more but I've been thinking about installing a 3000K (yellow) or 4300K (white) HID kit on my fog lights since they are currently just about useless. HID kits have gotten dirt cheap -- I was reading today on another forum about someone buying a 9006 HID kit for his LS430 fog lights on eBay for about $70 and he said that he was pleased with the results.

There is a spare tire kit available for the SC430 but it eats up most of the trunk space when the top is down: http://www.factorylexusparts.com/servlet/t...ARE-TIRE/Detail There is another photo of the spare tire kit here: http://www.familycar.com/roadtests/lexussc430/

VictorVictor, every time I see your member name, I'm going to think of the movie Airplane: Roger Murdock: We have clearance Clarence. Captain Oveur: Roger, Roger. What's our vector Victor? Tower voice: Tower's radio clearance, over. Captain Oveur: That's Clarence Oveur. Over. Tower voice: Roger. Roger Murdock: Huh? Tower voice: Roger, over. Roger Murdock: Huh? Captain Oveur: Huh? Could the the designers of the RX been trying to prevent exhaust fumes from being sucked into the passenger compartment by making it difficult to drive with the hatch partially open? Could you use duct tape? I'm not kidding. It would probably be easy to use tar remover to remove any residue left by duct tape.

Tarnish the ES's overall appearance? Funny! Mudflaps have been standard on the most expensive Lexus sedans sold in many markets outside North America since the beginning. They are hardly noticeable. Take a look at the Lexus OEM mudflaps on my 1990 LS and 2000 LS in my gallery -- almost impossible to see, aren't they? The first thing I do after buying a car without mudflaps is to install a set. I don't know how much they keep a car from looking dirty but they go along way in preventing damage from road debris and they keep road tar from building up on the sides and underneath behind the wheels. Problem is, Lexus and some other foreign car makers do not distribute mudflaps for their cars in the U.S. market. I bought a set for my first LS in the U.K. I bought the mudflaps for my 2000 LS400 from Metro Lexus in Victoria, BC -- right across from Seattle. Unfortunately, mudflaps were probably not available from Lexus for the 05 ES -- even in Canada as Lexusfreak said in an January 2005 thread. I suppose you could call or email Metro to ask: http://www.metrolexusvictoria.com/index.htm Metro has an export license and ships to the U.S.. If they can get mudflaps for your ES, you could hop on a ferry and pick them up in person before having high tea at the Empress. I guess if mudflaps aren't available for the 05 ES, you could see if ones for an 05 Camry would fit -- probably would not. I would think twice about using aftermarket mudflaps -- quality and fit is generally not good. The molded mudflaps from Toyota/Lexus fit like a glove, come with some pretty fancy mounting hardware and last a car's life. Lexus mudflaps, if available, can be expensive -- the ones for my 00 LS cost US$352 for the set of four. Edit!: I just now checked the parts reference at http://www.toyodiy.com and did not find mudflaps shown for any market in which the 05 ES and Windom were sold.

Based on the requirements you have provided, I think you are looking for ... a miracle! Even if you don't buy from them, Tire Rack's website is a good place to compare tires: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/Compare1.jsp...mp;x=47&y=4 The ratings and survey results on Tire Rack can be helpful. The Dunlop 4000 was not the best tire but that is how my 2000 LS400 was equipped when it was sold new; they were shot by the time I bought the car used at 38,000 miles. The Dunlop 4000 tires sure was cheap. I bought 8 or 12 the last time I bought them at only about $50 each and am currently using the last of the 4000s on our Camry V6. Our 90 LS and Camry used the same tire size so I sometimes bought a butt-load of tires of the same size at a time. Even when I used all season tires on my 90 LS, I always used snow tires on it in the winter. Very quiet tires usually do not have very good snow grip. I use directional summer tires (not all season) in spring, summer, fall on my 00 LS and use heavy duty winter tires (with the mountain/snowflake logo on the sidewall) in the winter so I don't have to compromise on performance at any time of the year.

You might find used manuals at low cost on eBay -- I've seen many but it might be a trick to find them for your specific model year. Some people get a one day subscription ($10) to Lexus Techinfo and spend hours downloading and organizing the PDFs. I bought the repair manual set from my current LS400 from a Canadian dealer when the exchange rate was especially favorable -- Metro Lexus in Victoria BC. I think I bought the manual set for my previous LS400 in 1990 from either Sewell Lexus in Dallas or a Lexus dealer in Omaha. I have bought quite a bit of stuff from Sewell -- been given pretty good discounts with or without a discount code probably because I am a repeat buyer. Check the ClubLexus website vendor list for a discount code for Sewell. There have been lots of sources for new parts including manuals posted on this forum -- Iron Toad, etc. You could google "Lexus parts" and find a lot of companies if not don't mind paying for a new set of manuals. I've found that Lexus LS repair manuals are not particularly detailed and that they do not provide adequate information for doing many repairs. I have been especially disappointed that the manuals often do not say exactly where certain electrical parts are located. They do, however, have a good selection of diagnostic procedures. The diagnostic procedures can be complex and require special equipment and knowledge. As poor as they are, the Lexus repair manuals are still useful to have even if you want them only to understand and verify what a repair shop is doing on your car.

Thanks for that. It's still interesting how some people's WORST tanks are 19 mpg with a lead foot and I can't seem to break 15mpg feathering the pedal as much as possible and not having any fun! Maybe I will try lead footing it for the next tank and see what happens. Maybe the engine is more efficient when you give it a little more go!! I saw in your thread of 12/26/08 that you "just bought a '97 Coach Edition". It may be a little early to be fretting about gas mileage. I don't see where "blacktop's" survey adequately addresses typical winter gas mileage -- which can be substantially worse than when it is warmer. I had quite a few tank averages in the 14-16 mpg range during winter on my first LS400 with a four speed automatic transmission -- and that was driving in the Kansas City metro area where the traffic usually flows quite nicely and is nothing like the traffic-hell I've experienced in northern Virginia. My suggestion is to track your gas mileage on every tank -- you will likely see trends that you can tie to traffic and weather conditions and how you are using your car. I've tracked gas mileage on all our cars for decades in a log book kept in each car that is eventually passed on to the car's next owner. I don't do it sporadically but track every single gallon. The log books also contain records of tire rotations, oil changes, other car maintenance and unexpected repairs. People in the survey seem to have reported some incredible gas mileage figures that I have to wonder about. I don't think I ever got more than the high 25's mpg in my gen 1 LS400 and that was on an west-to-east trip with a fairly strong tail wind. More typical gas mileage on long trips was more in the 23-24 mpg range. A mix of city and highway driving usually had the gas mileage at 18-22 mpg. My 00 LS400 with its 5-speed auto seems to get substantially better gas mileage than my gen 1 LS did but it can still be in the 15-17 mpg range in the winter if I stay off the interstate and it averages about 27 mpg when driven continually at the highway speed limit - 65 or 70 mpg - on long trips. I got nearly 30 mpg one time on a tank full but that was with a 30-40 mph tailwind when driving from Tulsa to Kansas City. Oh .... try driving with a "lead foot". I think you will see a change in gas mileage that you will not like.

2001 appears to be the last model year that the sunroof was optional on the ES: http://www.lexus.com/contact/pdf/2001/2001ESspecs.pdf http://www.lexus.com/contact/pdf/2002/2002ESspecs.pdf If a similar but less well equipped Toyota front wheel drive sedan product is acceptable, the Camry V6, except for the XLE, has been and is still available without a sunroof. I have not driven an ES350 but I can tell that the ES and Camry V6 from prior model years have a driving feel that I can not tell apart. The ES, however, has an interior that is much nicer than a Camry of the same model year.

Wow! The $747 fine and $21 court costs for going 83 mph over in a 35 mph speed limit in Overland Park, Kansas will be the least of your worries if you get caught. How do you figure the fines for a speeding ticket. Does it vary by city? That is the exact fine for doing 83 mph over the speed limit in a 35 mph zone in Overland Park, Kansas as dictated by Overland Park city statutes (83 mph * $9). Additional charges could increase the fine dramatically. The cost of a good attorney would likely exceed the fine amount by a substantial margin. I live near you in a community adjacent to Overland Park.

Both switches light up and both seats do not work. I hope I find a connector that was not hooked up when the dealer took out the telephone. Removing a Lexus phone requires unplugging one or two connectors under the vent you see when the arm rest is raised. I doubt that this has anything to do with your seat heater problem since there are no seat heater wires near the telephone connectors and it is only necessary to remove the vent cover to unplug the phone handset cradle. There is a detailed diagnosis procedure for the seat heaters in my 00 LS repair manual set -- mainly involves checking continuity and resistance on various pins in the connectors. I suggest you get a hold of the instructions for your 95 LS and follow the procedure.

Lexol products seem to work well -- there is a separate leather cleaner and conditioner: http://www.lexol.com/ I think I've seen Lexol products in "regular" stores but I generally buy it at a saddle shop.

I don't know why anyone would want to ignore the Crystal View kit instructions and skip the polishing step -- unless one has an aversion to following instructions. I suspect that the clear finish coat will hold up at least as well as the original clear coat on the headlights. The clear finish is obviously petroleum based and is applied in two steps with an applicator that comes with the Crystal View kit. There doesn't seem to be any deterioration in the finish since I used the Crystal View kit four months ago. Attached is a photo of what one of the headlights looked like after I used the Crystal View kit. My headlights looked at least as bad as Blake's but I forgot to take "before" pics.

The VSC on my 2000 LS400 seems to reset itself within a day or two after I change a battery if I do not perform the VSC reset procedure. I installed a new battery last Sunday and was surprised that the usual "Check VSC" message was not displayed when I started the car with the new battery -- must have reset itself immediately. At least on my car, one of the first signs of battery failure has been for the "Check VSC" and VSC warning light to come on. Does your LS430 have plastic battery cable end covers that snap into place after the cable ends are attached to the battery terminals? The positive battery cable end should have a red plastic cover with a plus (+) sign on it and the negative battery cable end should have a black plastic cover. Car batteries have a plus (+) sign stamped by the positive terminal and a negative (-) sign stamped by the negative cable. I know these battery cable end covers tend to get removed and lost so getting replacements would be good if yours are missing.

Wow! The $747 fine and $21 court costs for going 83 mph over in a 35 mph speed limit in Overland Park, Kansas will be the least of your worries if you get caught.

I was curious about the size change. The IS is a smaller car, although I kind of disagree with you about the back seat. I'm 5'11'' and I was surprised at the fit. There seems to be more room than it looks back there. I was quite comfy. OK, "Smooth", since you own an IS350 and disagree with my opinion about the usefulness and the size of the back seat of an IS, tell me how you fit an adult male human in it when two adult male humans are occupying the front seats. I tried it again today in the same IS250 in which I tried it a few months ago and with the same three friends. It was not pretty. I again got relegated to the back seat since at 6'0" I'm the shortest by a couple of inches and, of course, it's not my car. This time, instead of sitting behind the driver, I tried the back seat behind the front passenger seat which was probably most or all the way back since the guy sitting in the front passenger seat is 4 - 6 inches taller than me. With my butt pressed as far as it would go into the seatback, I could not even begin to swing my legs into the car -- my knees hit the hard side of the front seat back and there appeared to be only about three inches between the backseat cushion and the front seatback. Is there some kind of trick or is the IS backseat only for gnomes? The only way we were able to proceed was by having the front passenger slide the seat forward and have his knees pressed to his chin -- we made it - painfully - the couple of miles we had to go. My friend sitting behind the driver wasn't too happy either and the driver wasn't too happy because he had to sit too close to the steering wheel. I've had these same three guys in both my previous 90 LS and current 00 LS and even in our Camry and it hasn't been a problem -- or at least there was enough room that no one was screaming. I thought my memory might have faded but today's experience confirmed to me that the IS is mainly a two passenger car with a back seat for small children or pets - or gnomes. Well, first, I thought we were talking about the IS 300, not the ISx50. In the IS 300, the cabin is a bit longer and there is more space back there than the ISx50. Regarding the rear seat space in the ISx50, what year does your friend have? In 08' they changed the back of the seats to a "caved inward" design to make more leg room there. I often take a few of my employees to the local lunch joints in it, and no body has complained or said they needed more space. We are all about 5'10'' to 6'2. It is an 08 IS250. Are you saying that an IS300 has more rear seat space than an ISx50? The specs on the Lexus website say that the 08-09 IS has more rear legroom than the older IS300. Go out to your IS350, run the front passenger seat all the way back as if a tall person is sitting in it, recline the front passenger seat normally for a tall occupant, and tell me that you can even begin to swing your legs into the car when you try to sit behind the right front passenger seat. Betcha you can't. If you tell me you can, I still won't believe you since I couldn't even begin to do it and I'm a normally proportioned 6 foot person. OK, I do have long arms and my knuckles tend to drag on the ground. LOL. My main point is that an E-class Mercedes, which I have also owned, while still a little short on rear seat legroom, has far more rear seat legroom than an ISx50 or IS300 and can carry a fairly tall person in the backseat while a fairly tall person is riding ahead in the front seat. An IS simply can't do that. It is physically impossible to have a 6' foot person sit in the back seat of an IS if a fairly tall (6'4" to 6'6") person is sitting in the front seat. I'm not saying that this is a completely bad thing but that it is a bit unrealistic for a person needing to carry adult passengers in the rear seat to consider moving from an E-class Mercedes to a Lexus IS. The two cars are in completely different size classes. I think the IS is a really fun car -- but it is mainly a car for two adults except if carrying four adults on very short drives with all four occupants being very pressed for space.

TireRack did the same thing when I bought a set of Mille Miglia Bello wheels and Blizzak snow tires from them in 2003 -- they installed the balancing weights so they hit the calipers. I was surprised that they were not aware of the minimal clearance between the wheel rim and the brake calipers. My Bello wheels can't take rim hammer-on balancing weights so I'm stuck with having them statically balanced -- that's the last time I buy a set of wheels with a polished lip that can't accept hammer on rim weights. I guarantee you will find your LS much easier and more fun to drive in the winter with snow tires.