1990LS400

Would any of these 4 to 5 pole converters help? --> http://accessories.etrailer.com/search?w=5%20pole I've been happy with the products I've bought from etrailer.

It sounds like your Roman radiator is low on coolant.

The halogen headlight units and the HID headlight units are not the same. If you look on the lower right corner of the drivers side headlights lens you will see the bulb type - mine says D2R. Yours will say something else - maybe H4 or HB2. Also, I don't think your car has the autoleveling system that kicks in each time the car is started. Its an important feature for HID to keep from blinding oncoming drivers. Sure you can add an HID to any H4 light unit but oncoming drivers are not going to be happy. In fall 1997 I test drove, back to back, 98 LS400s with and without HID at an introduction event at a Lexus dealer. Except for the light of the HID being whiter, I found the coverage of the HID and H4 headlights to be about the same. The big benefit of the HID system is autoleveling which keeps your headlights from pointing at the tree tops with the car is heavily loaded. I recently posted information on how to refinish the plastic headlight lenses -> http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...showtopic=50816 If your lenses are worn and cloudy, refinishing the lens surfaces will vastly improve light output.

The Skylink receiver appears to simply replace the garage door button mounted on the wall. It doesn't have anything to do with the garage door motor unit which contains the original receiver. I haven't seen dip switches on an opener motor unit or a garage door remote control since the mid 1980s. If your opener has dip switches then I doubt if it is a modern opener. My understanding is that rolling code technology replaced the old dip switch method which was pretty easy for thieves to hack. I've gotten to install a lot of garage door openers over the years. It's usually a very easy DIY project and simpler than tearing a Lexus apart. And if your opener doesn't have infrared safety sensors on either side of the door, immediately replace the entire door opener. It is usually not cost effective to buy the infrared sensors and add them to an existing opener. An acquaintance lost a beloved family pet when it was killed by a closing garage door last year - it probably wouldn't have happened if the door had the infrared sensors required by most current building codes. It could have been a lot worse -- an auto reversing door that reverses on pressure alone can kill a small child and seriously injure an adult.

Did you buy the car from the original owner? Lexus can usually identify prevous owners and your local dealer can contact them in your behalf. I know because that was done for me when my 00 LS came with only one key when I bought it in 03. My Lexus dealer verified that the lessee had turned in all keys when the three year lease ended. Oddly, the missing keys showed up after a few weeks -- standard procedure of the auto auction where my off lease LS was sold to the dealer I bought it from. That particular auto auction provides only one key to the purchaser so the car can be driven away and it then sends the rest of the keys by mail. I have no idea why it is done that way but maybe to ensure that all the keys don't get lost. My point is ... don't jump too fast. Maybe you can get the original keys.

Here is one of the more recent threads on programming the garage door opener buttons in a Lexus: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...t=0&start=0 I don't see anything on the Skylink website that says it is compatible with HomeLink. If it is not, then I doubt if you can use the Skylink it to program the opener in your car. The Skylink products I saw on the website have their own receiver that mounts on the opener housing. Maybe you can use the original remote to program your Lexus Homelink control. Have you verified that your original garage door opener remote and main unit is compatible with HomeLink? Does the opener motor housing have a "learn" button? Our house was built in the early 80s and none of the original openers were HomeLink compatible. I replaced the openers with HomeLink compatible openers which have a "learn" button and they work fine with the HomeLink control in my LS. It took a few tries before I got the programming procedure to work on my car. It could be a timing issue as I think the learn button on the opener housing has to pressed within a limited amount of time.

Hi Steve, My headlight lenses on my 2000 LS400 were in perfect condition when I bought it in 2003 at 38,000 miles and three years after its in-service date. I know that the person who leased the car for its first three years has a garage but I don't know if he always garaged it. Regardless, the whole car looked like new when I bought it. Since I bought it in 03, the 00 LS has sat outside about 10 hours each week day. My LS headlights were not yellowed but were instead very cloudy on the top one fourth of the lenses. It looked like the lower portion was worn and scratched and a bit less cloudy. I wondered out loud tonight as we came back from the airport that the cause of the damage might have been from my cleaning the headlights with a gas station window cleaning squeegee or by cleaning the headlights with a clean cotton cloth and water each winter morning before pulling out of the garage. But I suspect the real cause was related to road debri and dust during the many 600 trips up and down I-35 to football games. My wife's Carmy's headlights look like new and her car has the same mileage as mine but it has never been driven out of the Kansas City metro area. I have always cleaned her plastic headlight lenses each winter morning with a clean soft cloth and water so that can't be the cause of the damage on my LS unless her headlights are more resistant to damage. It seems odd that the worst damage was towards the top of each lens. It is almost as if the aerodynamic characteristics of the car came into play. We could discuss this all we want but I'd bet that the Lexus people know what causes this.

I just now looked in the two volume repair manuals (section BE-35) for my 2000 LS400 and I don't see any detailed headlight removal instructions. The drawings of the headlight units in the manual look much like the headlight units in the 1990 LS I had for many years. The attachment points look similar so I assume you would just remove the whole unit like you did on your 1994 LS. I know some people remove the batteries and other stuff in the engine compartment to access the bulbs in earlier LS models but I don't know if that can be done in your 1998 LS. I found I could jerk a headlight unit out of my 90 LS in less than five minutes. The biggest pain was popping off the side lights without breaking them - they get fragile as they age. I would think you would want to replace all the bulbs - otherwise the HID color will likely not match from side to side assuming that your 98 LS has HID. I assume yours has HID since I don't think the non-HID 98-00 LS has autoleveling. The high beam bulbs should be pretty cheap and there is also those tiny parking light bulbs which are also known as "city lights". If you have HID and none of the bulbs are out, I'd recommend not replacing them until one fails. My understanding is that HID bulbs don't degrade with use as much as halogen bulbs do. If your headlights lenses look worn and you take the units out to replace the bulbs, it would be the perfect time to refinish the lenses. Per the following thread, I used a Crystal View kit earlier this week and the results were stunning: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...showtopic=50816 Although I refinished the lenses because they looked worn, I was amazed at how much better the light output was when I was on a dark interstate highway last night. Remarkable difference.

The top one fourth of each lens on my 00 LS was opaque and the rest of each lens was dull with many small scratches and flaws that were especially noticeable when the headlights were on. I just now went to the garage and turned the headlights on and found that I can not longer see scratches in the lens. Before I used Crystal View, they looked like $#!+ but now they look like new -- at least from a couple feet away. If I look closely I can still see some tiny nicks in the lens. I suspect these nicks are damage to the lens itself. What the Crystal View sealer does is to provide a new finish on the lens surface. Most of the damage you see on the lenses is likely damage to the original surface finish and not to the lens itself. It seems odd that my headlights lenses looked so bad while the headlight's on a friends 99 LS look like new even though his car is higher mileage and was manufacturered almost two years earlier. As you can see in the attached TSIB, the dealer can turn the DRL off on your 2001 LS430 - this was the first year that DRL was a customizable option on the LS. I don't think the DRL has anything to do with your headlights looking bad. As I said, the headlights on my friends higher mileage 99 LS look like new but he hasn't taken a bazillion 600 miles trips to Iowa football games like we have -- on one of these trips I could feel the car being pelted by blowing sand and dust so badly that I slowed down and drove at about 40 mph on I-35 for quite a few miles. I'm a proponent of DRL and have been driving either with headlights on or with DRL since the 1960s after reading about DRL studies conducted on northern Europe. I hope you leave your DRL on so an old !Removed! with limited vision like me can see you coming! Good luck with your project. 2001_LS430_LPS.pdf

Sorry, I did not take "before" and "after" photos but I refinished the headlights on my 2000 LS400 today with a Crystal View kit. I bought the kit at Advance Auto Parts. At $20, the product seems expensive for what you get. I'd bet that the total manufacturing and packaging cost per unit is less than one dollar. But the product works as advertised. My previously ratty looking headlight lenses now look like new. I suspect one could find the two grades of fine sandpaper and a similar rubbing compound and sealer at a good hardware store but using the kit means there is go guessing or experimenting. It was a little scarey going through the procedure since it looked like I had ruined the headlights before the sealer coats were applied. When they say to take no longer than 20 seconds to apply each sealer coat, they really mean it. Although it isn't noticable I caused a little streaking on a portion of one headlight when I took a little longer than 20 seconds and when I went over an area of the lens with the sealer a second time. I used painters tape to mask around the headlight lenses and covered the bumper below the headlights with plastic so I wouldn't damage the paint or side marker lights with the sand paper, rubbing compound or sealer. I spent about 30 minutes total on the project. If your headlights are even a little cruddy, I'd sure recommend you take a few minutes to refinish them with Crystal View.

There are plenty of websites that can give you a rough idea of your car's value including the following one that includes variations by province: http://www.vmrcanada.com/value_menus/canprices/00lels00.htm I've never found valuation websites to be particularly useful. Supply and demand in one's local area is what really makes the market. Generally, I've found the valuation websites show values that are substantially higher than in the real world. Going from an LS to an IS sounds like a real shocker to me since they are completely different in the way they drive and ride. I think our cars are very similar - same interior and exterior colors - but I don't remember if the Canadian LS400 Millennium Edition has the maple wood that my 2000 LS400 Platinum Series has.

Here is a link to a recent thread on clublexus where someone used "Crystal View" to refinish the headlight lenses on his 98 LS400: http://www.clublexus.com/forums/showthread.php?t=375156 Here is a link to the Crystal View website: http://www.myheadlight.com/ I've seen a number of threads about Crystal View on car forums with before and after photos. From all reports, it looks like the product works. The main difference seems to be that Crystal View comes with a sealant that prevents headlights from fogging up again. The headlights on my 00 LS400 are starting to look hazy and I will be trying Crystal View before winter. I noticed last week that Crystal View is available at Advance Auto Parts stores at about $20.

I posted instructions in this thread: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...836&hl=hard Here is a link to Sewell Lexus where they are currently selling a new hard drive on an exchange basis for $360: http://www.sewellpartsonline.com/parts_det...88792&all=Y

It sounds like your 2001 LS430 has the same exterior (crystal white) and interior colors as my 2000 LS400. It is a nice combination -- that tan leather/vinyl makes the interior seem light and airy. Here is a link to the specs for the 2001 LS430: http://www.lexus.com/contact/pdf/2001/2001LSspecs.pdf Oddly, I find that using non-metalic Toyota/Lexus white touchup paint works better when touching up nicks and scratches than using crystal white touchup paint. I've bought several vials of Crystal White touchup paint at the dealer but it always seems too watery and drys a much lighter color than the surrounding undamaged areas. My wife's Camry happens to be a nonmetalic white which is how I found this out when I used the touchup paint meant for her car. The color code on the crystal white vial is 062. The color code on the non-metalic white paint I use instead is 040. You can get both at a Toyota dealer although it was a special order when I bought crystal white touchup paint there.

c.word, I don't understand the reasoning behind some of your comments. Would you mind explaining further? What has been causing you to have to prematurely drain your "boxes" (do you mean engines?) so often? I've driven some fairly temperamental cars during my 42 years of driving and I can't remember having to do anything like that. Well... a lot of members of this forum do exactly that. There are many forum members driving generation one 1990-92 LS400s including a friend who is still driving my first LS400 that I bought in early 1990. That's over 18 years and, I am told, it is doing quite nicely as it nears 270,000 miles. OK ... I recently retired after over 30 years with one of the top U.S. providers of extended warranties sold by car dealers. Yes, I was a big fan of extended warranties too since they are wildly profitable for both the selling dealer and the warranty company. But they are rarely a good deal for the consumer unless the car model is of particularly low quality or the consumer is cash poor. And what do you mean by "They pay for themselves once a vehicle gets to the ten year mark."? It is not unusual for the repair costs over a 1 - 3 year period for an older car to exceed the car's market value. That doesn't mean that continuing to drive an older vehicle doesn't make economic sense. Lexus V8 engines can easily go far past 300,000 miles with only routine maintenance. Yes, some external engine components (e.g. power steering pump, alternator) may need replacement but it is extraordinary for the basic engine (bearings, pistons, rings, camshafts, etc.) to fail. These cars more frequently meet their end when they are crashed and the cost of the crash repair exceeds the car's market value. Or when owners allow the interiors and exteriors to get trashed (scratches, dents, upholstery rips, broken glass) and the cost of repair exceeds the car's market value. Or when the owners never do any maintenance at all. Hey, PM me and I'll buy you a pint at my favorite bar in O.P. If you are in Kansas City, we can't live all that far apart.

The Garmin Nuvi 770 is available online from Costco at $399.99, including shipping, for a limited time but you have to have a Costco card. Links to stuff on the Costco website are not good for long but here is the one for this offer: http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?...g=en-US&s=1 If I was buying a Garmin today, the Nuvi 770 would be the one -- mainly because it is one of the few models that includes maps for both North America and Europe right out of the box - no need to buy extra maps.

I hope python and lucscood will update this thread and tell us if they are successful in getting Lexus to pay for seat belt repairs on cars as old as theirs are. I suppose there could have been state or federal regulation changes that might require restraint systems to be warranted longer than in the past. The warranty book for my 2000 LS400 is specific about warranty coverage for air bags and seat belts -- 72 months or 70,000 miles after the in-service date. The only extension listed in the warranty manual is for the state in which I live - Kansas. In Kansas, seat belts and related components are covered for ten years regardless of mileage - but only if the car is both sold and registered in Kansas. The way I read it, if the car was sold new in Kansas City, Missouri but registered a few miles away in Lenexa, Kansas where I live, the warranty extension on seat belts would not apply. Air bags are not listed as being covered by the warranty extension for Kansas. It looks to me like the entire rear seat has to be remove to get to the retractors - but I'm not sure. The package shelf has to be removed. It is easy to remove the rear seat. I think your 96 is like my 00 in that the seat bottom pops up and out - I had to use a big screw driver to pry it up. )There are no release tabs on the lower front seat edge like on the early LS.) Once you have the seat bottom out, how to remove the seat back should be obvious. There are just a bunch of bolts/nuts to remove and the seat back will come right out after sliding it upward. Some of the hardware may be hidden behind a leather panel, attached with velcro, you will see when the rear armrest is pulled down. I've never removed the parcel tray in my 00 LS. My repair manuals may show how it's done.

I see them on eBay right now for $20 less than that including shipping. The ones at less than $300 appear to be refurbished / used.

After measuring, I tend to think that a wide screen Garmin would not be too wide mounted where my bracket is now. My "old" (purchased June 07) Margellan 4:3 aspect narrow screen nav is 4.2 inches wide due to its rather beafy housing. The Garmin 700 series widescreen, rated #1 in a recent Consumer Reports mag comparison, is only 4.8 inches wide - only six tenths of an inch wider. Look at the photo above where my Magellan is mounted on a bracket and visualize a wide screen nav that extends only three tenths of an inch further on either side of my Magellan. Three tenths of an inch seems like a nit to me so I think a widescreen Garmin would fit just fine on my bracket. I'm glad Steve made his comment since I was thinking about buying a narrow screen Garmin Nuvi. Now that I realize there is so little difference in width been a wide screen Garmin and the Magellan I currently have, I'm now leaning towards buying a widescreen Garmin. I'm not sure a wide screen nav would be much better for me than a narrow one since I spend so little time looking at the screen when the nav is guiding me. I rely mostly on the voice prompts, e.g. "Turn right on Elm Street in two miles" ... "Turn right on Elm Street in 300 feet". My main reasons for looking at the nav screen while driving are to see how many miles or minutes until arrival, to see exactly how far it is to the next turn, to see the name of the next major cross street (displayed when I press the banner at the top of the screen), and to look at the compass (the LS400 doesn't have one). A wide screen nav wouldn't help me in these cases. Perhaps a wide screen nav would not truncate the names of POIs as much as my narrow screen nav does. That would be nice.

I certainly agree with Steve that an indash nav looks better. And having to remove a portable nav from the windshield or a bean bag mount every time you get out of your car and remount it every time you get back into your car is a real PITA. If I was going to buy a new car every three years or so, I might buy cars with factory nav even through OEM nav returns a very small percentage of its original value on a used car. But I keep cars far past their depreciable value which means that an OEM nav would be hopelessly out of date by the time I get rid of a car. As I've noted in past threads a solution I've found that works well is to mount a portable nav on a bracket just to the right of the radio. In that location, the portable nav is easy to use for both the driver and passenger. Since it is attached to the accessory circuit, I never have to turn it on or off -- it turns on automatically when I start the car and it turns itself off after 10 minutes of no activity. Although I still have to press an "I Agree" button on startup, the portable nav can be used by me or the front seat passenger while the car is in motion. I never remove the nav from the bracket when exiting the car. Mounted by the radio it is almost invisible from outside the car due the the tinted side windows, the windshield sunscreen I usually put up and because I use "something" (it's a secret) to disguise it. One nice thing about using a portable nav is that I can take it to use in rental cars -- no need to learn how to operate or pay extra for a nav in a rental car. And, when I travel and use rental cars, I can pre-program the destinations in my portable nav while sitting in my living room at home. That sure beats doing it in a Hertz rental car lot in an airport before I drive out. There are some really nice AMPS standard brackets from Pro.Fit and other companies. One bracket model from Pro.Fit works on about any Lexus except the LX which uses a different Pro.Fit bracket. Some portable navs (not Garmin) come with cradles that are AMPS compatible. Several companies sell inexpensive AMPS adapters that allow Garmin portable navs to be mounted on AMPS brackets. I'll attach two photos -- one with a portable nav on the windshield of my LS where it is almost impossible to reach; the other photo is with the portable nav mounted in my LS on a Pro.Fit bracket where it is easily reached.

This thread shows what I did on my 00 LS: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...c=49523&hl= I'll eventually be getting a Nuvi to replace the Magellan. The way I have it installed, it should take only about 10 minutes to switch it out with minimal disassembly.

It is hard to say whether or not the installer used what you are calling a "Parrot cable harnas" when the Parrot was installed. The only adapter cables I've seen for the LS430 are from http://www.quickconnectproducts.com That your radio mutes when a call is in progress does not mean that the phone kit installer used an adapter cable. There can be multiple places on Toyota and Lexus vehicles that a phone kit mute wire can be attached to make the radio mute. I attached phone kit mute wires to mute the audio systems in both our 2000 LS400 and 1998 Camry without using adapter cables. It was common for professional installers to hardwire phone kits in Lexus cars without using adapter cables -- particularly on Lexus cars since their audio systems do not conform to ISO standards. For example, I found three places on my 00 LS with Nakamichi to attach a phone kit mute wire: at the audio system amp under the passenger seat, on the OEM driver side phone connector under the center console and in the OEM phone harness in the trunk where the dealer installed Lexus phone would have been installed if my car had one. On some Lexus cars, a phone kit mute wire can not be connected at the amp but can be connected at the radio head unit. It might take some interior disassembly to determine how your Parrot kit is installed. Even if it does use an adapter cable that conflicts with the the use of the Vaistech adaptor, the way your phone kit is installed can be changed so that there is no conflict. You might as well obtain the Vaistech adapter and jump off that bridge when you come to it. When you pull your head unit to install the Vaistech adapter, you will see if there is a conflict with the way the Parrot is installed. I'll attach audio system wiring diagrams for your 01 LS430 from ARRC in case they help. You can see by the diagrams that your car was prewired for a phone system. Jainla, a member of this forum, used the prewire harness on his UL to install his Parrot phone kit. He posted very complete information on his install which you can find by doing an advanced search. 2001_LS430_audio_1.pdf 2001_LS430_audio_2.pdf

From my experience with Lexus cars, when the switch at the brake pedal fails, it is also difficult or impossible to shift the transmission out of Park without pressing the override button near the shift lever. Is this the case with your car? When the brake pedal switch has failed on my cars, the failure has been intermittent. Sometimes the brake lights work and I can shift out of Park and sometimes not.

I assume you mean "weight" instead of "grade". The recommended oil weight is shown in the manuals that should have come with your vehicle and often is shown on the oil fill cap on the valve cover. The oil change interval when using synthetic oil is the same as when using regular motor oil -- don't exceed the recommended interval if your car is under warranty. Some people use longer change intervals when using synthetic motor oil in cars that are not under warranty. You can find web sites that discuss this by googling something like "Mobil 1 change intervals". One more thing ... it makes it easier for others to answer your questions if you include the year and model of your car in either or both your profile and signature. (Darn, I love Seattle! Been there many times; even climbed Rainier twice.)

I doubt if the shop manual would help much. I have the two volume repair manual set for my 2000 LS400 and it glosses over how to remove the outside mirror. On my 00 LS, the repair manual says to remove the upper door garnish (inside trim) by twisting inward and pulling upward -- it is supposedly held in place by clips. Once removed, there are three bolts exposed that hold the mirror to the door -- but it might be different on your LS430. The procedure looks "iffey" to me -- I'd probably let a dealer or body shop do it. Questions on how to remove the outside mirrors have been posted a number of times on www.clublexus.com. You can find them on that forum by searching for mirror in the LS430 forum. No one seems to have responded on exactly how to remove the mirrors. I see a number of people on clublexus reporting that their outside mirrors on their LS430s have stopped folding. Some have gotten them to work by spraying WD40 into the crease where the mirror pivots and by manually folding the mirror in and out until it frees up. WD40 is awfully evil stuff - it can really gunk things up - so I suggest you use silicone spray if you want to try this. Attach a plastic tube to the silicone spray can nozzle so you can spray the stuff into the crack. My LS400 repair manuals has a section on diagnosing problems with the folding mirrors on LS400s sold outside the U.S. -- 2001 was the first year for folding mirrors on US spec LS cars but they were available on earlier LS models in many other markets. The diagnostic procedure is kind of funny in that whenever the mirror motor assembly fails an electrical test, the recommendation is always the same -- "Replace mirror assembly". There are never instructions on how to fix the problem without replacing the whole assembly. I'll attach a TSIB from the ARRC website about mirror noise on the 01 LS430 -- might give you an idea how the mirror is attached. Nice to hear that you fixed your sunglass holder! 2001_LS430_mirror_noise_TSIB.pdf