1990LS400

No, I change the oil in both are cars at 5,000 using Mobil 1 synthetic oil. There has never been a detectable drop in oil level between oil changes on either of our cars during 102,500 miles (98 Camry) and 105,000 miles (00 LS400). There was never a detectable drop in oil level between oil changes in the 13 1/2 years / 183,500 miles of driving our 1990 LS400. Even my Mercedes diesel with it's super high 20 to 1 compression didn't use oil between changes until it had way over 100,000 miles on its original engine. From what I've seen over the past 40+ years of car ownership, manufacturer's the oil consumption figures are worst case scenarios. The owners manuals for both our Toyota and Lexus cars recommend checking the engine oil level every time the car is refueled. What does your owners manual say? If you don't want to check your oil, consider taking your car to a full service gas station. Full service gas stations around here do a thriving business - particularly with women and senior citizens.

Your IS350 is not a toy? Wow, I thought that's what they mainly are! Well ... I think the oil could have been lost in only two ways -- leakage or out the tail pipe. Was the oil lost in a week or two after you last checked the oil level or did you drive 8,000 miles without checking the oil level? I was surprised recently to learn that Lexus does not sanction a 7,500 mile oil change interval on its newer cars -- only 5,000 miles regardless of whether or not synthetic oil is used even though far longer oil change intervals are specified in other markets. When making a warranty claim for engine damage, one would likely be expected to produce documentation that the engine was serviced in accordance with the maintenance schedule. Consider taking you car to an indie repair shop for an evaluation -- don't know if you want to have a Lexus dealer know what has happened. A decent shop can put an additive in the oil and use a black light to check for leakage. A compression test might be in order to see if there is cylinder wall/piston ring damage. Even though I don't think I've had to add oil between changes to any car in more than 20 years, I still check all fluid levels weekly in an early Sunday morning ritual. It takes perhaps 15 - 30 minutes for both cars -- about the only fluids that ever need topping up are windshield washer fluid and battery distilled water. I also check and check and correct tire pressures every couple weeks -- more often if there has been a big swing in temperatures.

Here is another supplier of Lexus parts, including the IS 250 name plate, although I have never ordered from them: http://www.parts.com/oemcatalog/index.cfm?...playCatalogid=0

The AUTO climate feature in my 00 LS isn't all that exact either -- sometimes the A/C is on when its a little below freezing and sometimes its not. The outside temperature indicator on the dash doesn't seem to have anything to do with the HVAC system. I'm guessing there is a separate sensor in the HVAC system that senses outside temperature and makes the appropriate adjustment. I usually don't use the AUTO setting in the winter (e.g. when it's below 50 degrees) and manually turn the A/C off so that it doesn't needlessly cycle on and off -- unless I'm driving in heavy, slow traffic and want the air quality sensor automatically recirculate the inside air when the outside air has a lot of vehicle exhaust fumes.

Have you checked the fuses? Check your owners manual for the location of the radio fuses. In my LS there is a "Radio 1" fuse and a "Radio 2" fuse. Don't know about your IS300 but checking the fuses is the first place to start.

Is there anything else on the cigarette lighter fuse of your car that is or is not working? For example, is the auxiliary outlet on the same circuit and does it work when something is plugged into it? If you can't verify the circuit that way, I guess I would use a test light to see if the cigarette lighter fuse is getting power. If the fuse is getting power, then you might have to do a bit of disassembly so you can check the hot wire at the back of the cigarette lighter with a test light. I'm no auto electrician -- only know how to do the really simple stuff.

Here is my favorite way of mounting a portable GPS: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...si&img=1349 This is in a 2000 LS400 but something similar could be done in an ES. The Pro.Fit Legend bracket is really nice and has a built-in swivel to perfectly position a GPS so both the driver and front passenger can see and use it. I used a Pro.Fit Legend model MV-50-03-L which I think would fit on any year ES even if it is not listed in the application chart: http://www.pro-fit-intl.com/lexus The Pro.Fit brackets have an "AMPS" hole pattern. You can find an AMPS adapter for your Nuvi by Googling "Nuvi AMPS adapter" - like this one -- http://www.semsons.com/ganu4hoamadm.html If if was doing an install today, I would tap into the car's power by using an "add-a-curcuit" fuse adapter at the underdash fuse box rather than tapping into the car's accessory outlet wire; like this one http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cf...tnumber=071-580 The Nuvi 760 is very nice. I wanted to buy a 770 recently when it was on sale at Costco for $399 but I laid down until the feeling passed. Garmin is a great company too ... just down the road from me ... some of my friends work there.

hmmm, that's funny. In our 98 Camry owners manual, thats where they make it look like its supposed to be.... And when I open the change drawer in the Carmy and then remove it by pulling upward and outward, I see a fuse box containing a whole bunch of fuses. Maybe this helps: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_is_the_fus...98_lexus_es_300

Insurance Institute vehicle ratings: Lexus LS400: http://www.iihs.org/ratings/ratingsbyseries.aspx?id=519 Jeep Grand Cherokee: http://www.iihs.org/ratings/ratingsbyseries.aspx?id=341 You can see injury stats for various years here: http://www.iihs.org/research/hldi/composite_intro.html The Jeep's safety did improve over time -- probably because of requirements to meet more passenger car safety standards as SUVs became mainstream vehicles. Sorry, I'm a little "hot" on the whole SUV rollover issue this year -- two people in my circle killed in SUV rollovers including a 14 year old in a high speed Honda Pilot rollover on I-70 and a 30 year old in a low speed Jeep Wrangler rollover on a rural road.

One of my favorite tools for picking up dropped metal items is a borescope like one of these: http://www.voscope.com/page11.html I paid $270 for the VO36-6H model. It has a detachable magnet that supposedly can pick up 1/4 lb. The really cool thing about using a borescope is that you can see what you are doing as you probe around. A much less expensive magnetic pickup tool is a collapsible magnet -- mine looks like a small five or six inch auto antenna with a magnet on the tip. Mine expands to perhaps 24 or 36 inches. It's a little like this one: http://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages/flash...ing_magnet.html It clips on my shirt pocket like a writing pen. I think I bought mine at a hardware or autoparts store for just a few bucks.

Do you have a coin holder on the lower left of the dash? If so, take a look behind it. So many other things are similar between the 98 ES and our 98 Camry -- I have to pull out the coin holder on the lower left of the dash on our 98 Camry to change a fuse in the interior fuse box.

Yes, unevenly and over-torquing lug nuts can cause rotors to warp. Some cars are more resistant to rotor warping than others -- usually cars with beefier rotors. In the rare cases I have had an unfamiliar shop remove and reinstall wheels, I have verified that the lug nuts would be manually torqued with a torque wrench and that an air gun would not be used. I even tell the mechanic the lug nut torque amount. I learned this the hard way many years ago when I had a flat tire and the lug nuts were torqued so high that I could not remove them with the lug wrench in the car's tool kit. It took a large "breaker bar" to move them. After driving a car about 100 miles after a wheel has been reinstalled, the lug nuts should be re-torqued. It is rare but they can loosen up. The lug nut torque specifications for both our LS and Camry are the same: 103 N-m or 10.5 kgf-m or 76 ft-lb.

Before reviving an old thread, it is a good idea to look at the statistics for the people that participated in the thread. fay31 has not signed on to this forum since 13th February 2008 - 03:44 PM

Steve, that got me wondering if you have seen the condition of the old front pads after they have been replaced at 40K. Somehow I can't picture you flailing your ES to the extent that you get only 40K from a set of front brake pads. I just now looked at the maintenance records for my wife's 98 Camry V6 which has the same 4-wheel disc brakes of the ES300 of the same year. I thought the front pads on the Camry have been replaced but they have not. The original brake pads on her Camry have about 103,000 miles on them. Her car is in the garage so I just now measured the thickness of the front pads -- 1/4". Amazing!

I sometimes think I've seen more of Chicago that most of my coworkers at the home office in Schaumburg - just northwest of O'Hare and 10 minutes north of Glen Ellyn. dcfish is right. You will never run out of things to see and do in Chicago -- Museums, Navy Pier, sports, the "beach". Any city with street names like Upper and Lower Wacker has to be interesting. I get a kick ouf of just walking around downtown -- did you know you can walk for hours and miles in the subterranean passageways that connect downtown buildings without ever retracing your steps? Is the Billy Goat still operating? Cheeseburger! Cheeseburger! You're right about real estate prices being a bit high. My wife saw a perfectly kept cute little bungalow for sale in Evanston a few years back when we were at Northwestern for a football game. She guessed that the asking price would be in the $200-$300K range -- it turned out that the asking price was around $1M.

I'm not saying that a 4X4 SUV is silly. I'm saying that a properly equipped 98+ Lexus LS RWD sedan with all its technology gizmos (VSC, ABS, snow mode transmission setting, heavy duty snow tires) will get around in moderate ice and snow just as well as a 4WD SUV. There is definitely a place for a 4WD SUV when the snow is deep and roads are poorly maintained. So you would rather be in in your "old Grand Cherokee" in a crash than in your 99 LS400? Do you mind if I don't ride with you? I know the odds from over 30 years the auto insurance industry and I certainly don't want to be in an "old Grand Cherokee" during a crash. SUVs are more likely to be in a serious crash in the first place and they have a much higher frequency of rollovers. We travel and rent cars quite a bit -- I never, ever accept an SUV as a rental car. The last time Hertz tried to foist an SUV on us when they ran out of "normal" full size cars, we drove out their lot in an Infinity M35 --> http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...amp;hl=Infinity I admit I'm a "raving car safety nut". I made sure my parents had the first car in town with seat belts in the 1950s and the first car in town with halogen headlights in the 1960s. All the family cars had high mounted brake lights long before they were mandated in the U.S. and most of our cars we drove through Colorado blizzards had rear fog lights. I even had my wife's new Camry trucked in from 1,000+ miles away just to get one of the few sold in 1998 with side air bags, ABS and traction control. Yes, I'm more than a little obsessive about vehicle safety.

AMF, have you noticed that Lexus has offered a variety of official wheel and tire size options on some models? These different wheel and tire size options are often dealer installed -- it's not like the car is being re-engineered to accept the different sizes. A Lexus dealer will sometimes have an incredibly wide selection of optional wheel and tire sizes that are not official Lexus options. For example, on the 2002 LS430 you could have either 225/60-16 tires on 16x7 inch wheels or 225/55-16 tires on 17x7.5 inch wheels. On the 2004 LS430 you could have 225/55-17 tires on 17x7.5 inch wheels or 245/45-18 inch tires on 18x7.5 inch wheels. Even though they were not available on the 2003-up LS430, some people used the 16" LS430 wheels from 2001-2002 model years on the 2003-up LS430. Essentially the same car -- three different wheel and tire sizes. Yes, there might be a "best size" wheel and tire combination but there also seems to be quite a bit of wiggle room.

It is very, very unlikely that your car needs a complete brake job at 22K miles -- unless you drive like a total maniac. I can't believe pads on an IS would wear far faster than on other Toyota and Lexus cars. The original factory front pads on my LS lasted until 71,293 miles. At that time the service writer told me that the original rear pads would need replacing "soon". Well, I just checked the rear pads last week when I installed my snow tires at 105,000 miles and it is obvious that the original rear pads will last until at least 120,000 miles. We get similar pad life on my wife's Toyota Camry and got similar pad life on my first LS I drove from new to 183,500 miles. Pull a front and back wheel and visually check your pads and rotors yourself -- it's easy to do -- I do it every time I rotate my tires. Even if for some bizarre reason the pads need to be replaced, it is not necessary to replace the rotors. Unless the repair shop's labor rate is unreasonably high, it is far cheaper to resurface the rotors. Rotors on most Toyota/Lexus vehicles can last a least a couple of hundred thousand miles. If you verify that the dealer is trying to "take you for a ride", consider finding some place else to take your car. Don't burn your bridges with the dealer though - you might need them later for something like warranty service. I once had a Lexus dealer tell my that my first LS needed a new $1,500 ECU just after the car's basic warranty expired. When I called a tow truck to have my car taken to a non-dealer repair shop for evaluation, the fix "magically" became a $15 battery cable.

Here is one more listing from Denver Craigslist: http://denver.craigslist.org/pts/898946107.html There are likely more for the size tire you need. To be really effective, snow tires have to have a lot of tread. When Blizzaks are worn down to the winter wear bars, there is about 7/32" of tread left. When Blizzaks are worn down to the summer wear bars, there is only about 2/32" of tread remaining. I don't know if all winter tires have both summer and winter wear bars. Yes, Blizzaks or any heavy duty snow tire with the mountain/snowflake logo on the side wall are waaaaay better than all season tires in the snow on a RWD car. It really depends on the car though. I had a FWD 1985 Honda CRX Si that I used primarily as my "ski car" during the five years I owned it. Even with its fairly wide OEM tires, it was an incredible snow car as long as the snow wasn't so deep that the car bottomed out -- it drove more like a rally car. As long as they are not studded, you could use snow tires year round if you don't plan to own your car much longer. Snow tires don't have as much traction on dry pavement so you have to be careful. You could probably "get by" with a new set of all season tires with that five sacks of sand in your trunk -- hope you have self leveling HID headlights though! However, real heavy duty snow tires with plenty of tread makes it less stressful and more fun to drive in the snow. If you can't tell, I find driving in the snow to be great fun.

There is a set of used Blizzaks in the 215/60-16 size you need on the Denver Craigslist for only $40: http://denver.craigslist.org/pts/912318826.html If they really do have "at least 1 or 2 winters" left, they should not be worn down to the winter wear bars yet. There are summer and winter wear bars on Blizzak tires. You might find other used snow tires in the size you need by going through all the listings for "tires" on the Denver Craigslist. I searched for Blizzak because it was easy to do and that's what I use on my LS. What are you doing on Loveland Pass? Taking the back way to A-Basin or Keystone? Carrying hazardous materials that can't go through the tunnel? I've taken the Highway 6 back way to A-Basin a zillion times.

A person in this thread cut the wires to remove the handset: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...17&hl=phone He apparently didn't remove any of the other phone components. It's probably better to unplug the handset from the connector(s) under the air vent you see when the arm rest is raised. I don't have my 90 LS anymore but I disassembled the console in it a number of times. I remember there were two screws underneath the removable thin liner at the bottom of the console that had to be removed. There may be one or two hidden screws underneath the air vent grill you see when you raise the arm rest. I can't remember if the air vent grill pops off like it does on my current 00 LS or if the screw(s) are hidden under a little tab that pops off. Once you remove the three or four screws that hold the hard plastic inner console shell in place, the plastic shell can be pried out with a stiff tool like a putty knife -- I tape the knife blade with electrical tape to keep from scratching the console vinyl/leather. I think I started prying at the front and moved around the sides little by little. Be gentle but firm and the inter shell should pop up and out. I don't remember having to remove the cup holder. Once you get the inner console shell out, how to remove and unplug the handset should be obvious. Got a digital camera? Maybe you could take and upload photos to show others exactly how you removed the handset.

Can you just delete your old phone from your car's Bluetooth system and then pair your new phone with it and download the address book from your new phone to the car's Bluetooth system? Were you able to get the address book moved from your old phone to your new one? Were you able to move the SIM card, which might include the address book, from your old phone to your new phone? Or are you SOL and have to start over and manually enter the address book into your new phone. If you got your new handset from a major carrier and if your old handset was functioning at all, many carriers will move your phone book from your old phone to the new one for you if you ask them to. If you don't already use one, there a variety of OEM and aftermarket PC software products for maintaining address books on phones and backing up address books and settings to a PC. Most allow importing address books from Outlook and other email programs. Some handset makers like Nokia provide the software free for download. The connection between the phone and the PC is by Bluetooth, Infrared or USB cable depending on the phone. Since my current PC doesn't have infrared built-in, I bought a USB infrared dongle last year for only $5 and use it to maintain our older model phones. I bought a USB Bluetooth dongle a few months ago for $10 and use it to maintain the phones of family members who have Bluetooth phones. I keep a few unlocked handsets in reserve in case one of our phones fail. When my phone failed a few months ago, it took less than five minutes to initialize a new handset by restoring the address book (about 300 entries!) and all settings from backup files on my PC.

According to Tire Rack, you can use either 16" or 17" tires on your 06 GS AWD: http://www.tirerack.com/snow/WinterPackage...autoModClar=AWD 16" might provide a little more comfort in the winter and 16" snow tires will likely be much less expensive. The above Tire Rack page has a link to information about the traction and cost benefits of using a 16 inch "minus size" wheel/tire setup on your GS. I've bought a lot of tires and four wheels from Tire Rack over the past 20 years including the Bridgestone Blizzak snow tires and the wheels I have on my 00 LS400. Any snow tire with the mountain/snowflake logo on the sidewall should be fine. Since you mentioned the Blizzaks, I want to mention there are different Blizzak models with different characteristics ... the "winter performance" Blizzaks do not provide the traction of "ice and snow" Blizzaks. You might check the Chicago Craiglist -- there are a bunch of used Lexus wheels on there today and it would give you a chance to "try before you buy": http://chicago.craigslist.org/search/pts?q...&maxAsk=max One aspect of using OEM Lexus wheels is that it is more likely you will be able to find a replacement if you ever damage one. The wheels I bought from Tire Rack to use with my snow tires are no longer available so I will be S.O.L. if I ever trash one. I almost forgot to mention that you will spending a lot more if you want to buy TPMS sensors for your snow wheels.

I had the radio head unit of my 00 LS repaired last spring by http://www.carstereohelp.com/ in Florida. I think the guy who owns/runs the place is "Bob" so you shouldn't have trouble remembering his name. Service was quick and Bob gave me call when the repair was completed. The price was good too. The Lexus repair shop I use here in Kansas also uses them to repair radios in customer's cars.

Kennyr, I don't think comparing how your 91 LS handles snow to landar's 98 LS is a fair comparison. landar's 98 LS has VSC, a snow mode transmission setting and a traction control system that is more effective than the traction control of the gen 1 LS. The 98 LS also has a more complex and effective ABS system. We're talking apples and oranges. My 90 LS was quite a handful through the 13 winters I drove it -- even with its snow tires and a sack of sand on each side of the trunk. It got around "OK" but it was always a little dicey. My 00 LS - virtually identical to landar's 98 LS - is a completely different animal in the snow. It feels secure and even fun to drive on snow covered roads. Having averaged 20 - 30 ski days per year in Colorado from the 1970s until my sled ride down Aspen mountain in '05, I've done quite a bit of winter driving around Denver -- often stayed with friends near Stevinson auto plaza in Lakewood across the street from the circus winter home. I love how Denver can get a butt-load of snow which is completely burned off by the sun within a day or two. I never thought the winter road conditions were all that bad in Denver -- probably because they do such a great job of clearing the roads . In all those years of driving mostly RWD sedans around Colorado ski areas, I don't remember getting stuck unless I count the times the Eisenhower tunnel or one of the passes was closed to traffic. You guys out there in Denver are pansies! ;)