1990LS400

I have done extensive research over several years and have never found information about how to use a Lexus dealer installed phone system with a phone that was not meant to be used with it. It is possible, however, to connect an aftermarket phone kit to at least some of the factory installed phone wiring harness. Jainla took it further than anyone I have seen and connected his aftermarket Bluetooth phone system to the OEM phone wiring harness to play the call through the door speakers of his LS430. You might try searching for the thread he posted. Here are a couple of threads on how I installed a phone kit in my 2000 LS400. This thread contains a link to a MS Word document which has details on how I installed a phone kit and includes information about audio mute connections you can use: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...91&hl=phone This thread shows how I switched from mounting the phone on a bracket to a Kuda console: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...53&hl=phone Blake918 did a similar install in his 95 LS; the mute connection on his 95 LS is slightly different. Blake and I have communicated a lot about phone installs; I suspect he will soon be switching to a Bluetooth kit to use with his new iPhone. If you search for "Blake918" and "phone", you will find a detailed account with photos of how Blake installed his phone kit. Personally, I think mounting the phone in the center console makes it very unhandy unless you are using a Bluetooth phone with a Bluetooth phone kit. Your "utopian vision" has come true -- at least for Lexus owners in the U.K. Lexus dealers have provided a "convenience kit" which includes an easily removable charging cradle with an antenna connection. The charging cradle is meant to be installed in the center console and for use with Bluetooth phones and the Bluetooth built in to newer Lexus vehicles. Lexus in the U.K. has supplied charging cradles for a number of popular Bluetooth phones. For example if several different family members have different Bluetooth phones, each person would insert his own phone cradle into the cradle receiver and then insert his phone into the cradle. There are a number of threads from others on this and the Clublexus forum on how people installed Bluetooth kits in a variety of Lexus vehicles. Regardless of the kit type, most of the principles are the same.

I have never seen aftermarket headlights for a 95-97 LS400 other than headlights that matched the OEM headlights. Are you looking for better lighting? The 95-97 LS400 has wonderful headlights compared to the POS headlights I put up with for 13 1/2 years on my gen 1 (1990) LS400. If you are simply looking for better lighting you might try Philips Vision Plus 50 bulbs. Or ... I just put a set of Sylvania Xtravision H4 bulbs in my wife's Camry and I can tell that they are significantly brighter. Neither of these bulbs are tinted -- they provide real light improvment and not just a "look". Both the Philips bulbs and the Sylvania bulbs have a shorter life than OEM spec bulbs. The Sylvania bulbs will likely be the easiest to find and are carried by major discount stores.

I wonder if the bulb fault indicator on the dash will light up after you cut the wires. Can you see the wires for the high mounted brake light when you remove the housing? I can see the wires when I remove the housing in my LS to change bulbs. Why not leave the existing high mounted brake light working? It's going to be obvious that your GS was not equipped at the factory with a rear spoiler anyway unless you remove the brake light housing from the rear shelf. I see lots of cars with both a rear window brake light and an aftermarket spoiler. It's not like the spoiler is going to do anything in terms of providing better performance. It's mainly cosmetic but it sure can make parking easier. After being hit in the back a few times, I wouldn't mind having another set of high mounted brake lights on my LS!

Brendon Bosy, I got hung up when I read that your 105,000 mile (15,000 mile) service cost "only $370". I've performed that service numerous times on V8 Lexus cars over the past 18 years and can tell you that it is an easy 1 1/2 hour job for an amateur. I do it myself in my admittedly well equipped garage which has floor jacks and jack stands. Aren't the only supplies needed to do this service on your SC just five or six quarts of engine oil and an oil filter? Otherwise it is just checking a few fluid levels and torquing a small number of bolts. Is this what dealers are charging these days? Yikes!

There is a "pinned" thread with the title "Common Issues And A Ls400 Buying Guide" at the top of the LS400/LS430 forum page. Here is a link to the thread: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...showtopic=11775

Desty, this thread has exactly what you need: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...c=44440&hl= 16" wheels were standard on the 2002 LS430 so I suppose your car either has the optional 17" Lexus wheels that were available in the 02 model year or aftermarket wheels. There are advantages in using 16" wheels for snow tires on your LS430 - extra cushioning on winter potholed roads and less expensive to buy snow tires for them. Blizzaks provide a very pleasant and quite ride for being a full blown snow tire and I'd bet they will provide a nicer ride than the 17" inch wheels and tires you have on your 02 LS430. My recommendation is to stay away from the 215/65R16 tires mentioned by a previous poster. Snow tires already have reduced braking capability and you need the standard 225 section width for safe braking on dry pavement. I know you could "get by" with 215 section snow tires but there simply isn't a good reason to try it unless you are continually driving at substantially reduced speeds in very deep snow.

Where I live, CD players were not all that common on the earliest LS400's. Unless the CD player was installed at the factory, the entire head unit had to be switched out when the dealer installed a CD player. The LS400 I bought in early 1990 didn't have a CD player and neither did my next door neighbor's LS400 that he bought in 1989. CD players became more common and less expensive, relative to total LS400 price, as the model years went by. You have to remember that the base price of the LS400 went up by almost $20,000 over an 11 year period while the price of the CD player option remained about the same. If I still had my 90 LS, I would definitely consider an aftermarket radio that has a CD/DVD player, an aux connection for an MP3 player and built-in BlueTooth. If the radio in my 2000 LS400 ever fails, I will certainly consider replacing it with an aftermarket radio with more current technology.

The lens is glued to the housing. Detailed instructions, with photos, on how to separate the lens from the housing have been posted in the past. In involves heating the headlight unit up in a warm oven for a limited time. I suggest that you do an advanced search of this forum.

Although the 1998 - 2000 LS400s look alike, there were subtle changes to the maintenance schedule as the years progressed. You might want to get the maintenance manual for your specific model year.

It is hard to imagine how harsh the ride with 20 inch wheels would be on a car with a suspension designed for 15 inch wheels. It would have to be awful. I doubt if the 20s would have caused damage other than perhaps introducing a few squeaks and rattles form all the jarring. Be sure to verify that the 90K service has been done by looking at the receipts or other evidence - it is an expensive service. You might consider having the car checked out by a dealer or Lexus repair shop if you are truly interested. The car is at or past the mileage when a number of fairly costly front suspension parts begin to fail - like ball joints and the front strut bars. Instead of buying stock 90-92 15" directional wheels, consider buying nondirectional 16" wheels from a 93-up LS400 and using 225-60-16 tires. Yes, your speedometer will be off a bit and the ride will be harsher than with the OEM 15" wheels but the wider tires on 16" wheels will provide better and safer braking. Also realize that the headlights on the 90-92 LS400 were especially poor. Make sure you can deal with that or wait until you can get a later LS with much better headlights. The poor headlights were the primary reason I sold my 90 LS after 13+ years. Good luck.

Sewell's website says it is a Class II hitch: http://www.lexus-parts.com/parts_detail.asp?id=87774 That sounds right. I doubt that a relatively lightweight car like an RX would be suitable for the higher weights (6000 - 8000 pounds) that a Class III hitch supports. I noticed that the Sewell website lists a max towing weight of 2000 pounds for an RX350 unless the car is equipted with the factory tow prep package - then it is 3500 pounds. IMO, the Lexus hitch and associated parts are well worth the higher cost compared to aftermarket hitches from companies like Draw-Tite. The Lexus hitch certainly looks better. I have a class II receiver hitch on my current 00 LS400 and also had one on my first LS, a 1990. According to information Lexus publishes in other counties, my LS is also limited to towing 2000 pounds - unless it has a towing package which includes a transmission cooler.

I posted information about the 2000 LS400 Platinum Series sold in the U.S. is this thread: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...amp;hl=Platinum Is your car a U.S. specification Lexus? I did not know that the 2000 Platinum Series LS400 was sold in your part of the world. I have noticed that Toyota/Lexus has different maintenance schedules for different countries. In the U.S. the recommended timing belt replacement interval is six years or 90,000 miles. Normally, the water pump and a number of minor parts are replaced at the same time that the timing belt is replaced. The recommended replacement interval for spark plugs on the 2000 LS400 is 120,000 miles. The shocks normally last far longer than 71,000 miles here in the U.S. and it is unusual for the springs to ever require replacement. Photos of my 2000 Platinum Series LS400 are in my gallery: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...m&album=131 I would love to see photos of your car.

Here is what I read: 1996 is the first year Lexus changed from 60k miles to 90k miles on timing belts.You have 60K mile to run without worrying about it. http://en.allexperts.com/q/Lexus-Repair-81...exus-LS-400.htm Well that is odd. The timing belt change interval on the LS400 I bought in 1990 was 90,000 miles -- same as on my current 2000 LS400. One thing that did change was the the spark plug change interval on my 1990 LS400 was 60,000 miles. The spark plug change interval is 120,000 miles on my 2000 LS400.

I wait for the warning message to display on the trip computer before replacing the pads. The original front pads on my 00 LS were replaced recently at about 85,000 miles. I expect the rear pads to last about 120,000 miles -- same as on my prevous LS. The repair shop that maintains our cars can sometimes reuse the sensors. I visually check the thickness of the brake pads when I rotate the wheels -- every 5,000 miles. They are pretty easy to see when the wheels are off.

Superior Lexus North on I-29 near KCI airport and Superior Lexus South near I-435 and State Line Road are the same company. They are two locations of the same company. There are good people at both locations although I usually use an indie repair shop in Mission, Kansas which is owned by a former Superior Lexus service writer.

"its paid for." Isn't it a great feeling? You have a wonderful car and it is all yours. You can sock away what you would pay in car payments and interest and pay cash for your next car in a few years -- a gently used one, perhaps a three year old LS460, bought new by some old !Removed! who has taken excellent care of it and eaten the major portion of the depreciation. That gently used LS460 will likely cost you less than a new ES350 or what ever the ES is called by then. Maybe one of our favorite O.F.s will be really to turn loose of his LS460 in a few years -- do you hear me RFeldes? Now if we can just get amf1932 to by an LS460 and pass it on to one of us in a few years...

Steve, ride quality is very subjective. What one person thinks is comfortable, another might think is harsh. Correction: We had the M35 on an 8 day trip through eastern Massachusetts including the Cape Cod area -- I had mistakenly said "Virginia" but that was a different vacation. I think you asked how many miles the M35 we drove had on it. It was a Hertz rental car and I think it had only a few thousand miles on it - no more than 5,000. It was in excellent condition. It is hard for me to correlate the ride of a M35 to any Lexus I have driven or ridden in. It certainly does not feal anything like the ES and RX loaner cars the Lexus dealer has provided to me and it is not as soft riding as the Gen-2 GS300 I sometimes ride it. I have never driven an IS but I suspect the M35 is more like an IS350 in the way it rides and handles. Personally, I would like to see how the M35 would feel on 17" wheels and 225/55-17 tires instead of the 18" wheels and 245/45-18 tires -- I think smaller wheels and tires might turn the M35 into a car I could enjoy to drive or at least ride in. But there are still those confusing dash controls and the pseudo I-drive to deal with. I have very much liked the way all the Q45s I've driven rode and handled - much more fun to drive than my 00 LS although it still feels somewhat similar to drive, perhaps because of its similar size. The "newest" Q45 I have driven was a 2001 Q45t -- great handling and power but some of the interior components were not of very good quality and it was short on rear seat legroom. The dealer saleman told me that the interior quality of the Q45 was the number one complaint. I have not driven a newer Q45 -- the exterior look turns me off and it is hard to forget/forgive the poor interior quality of the earlier ones. Steve, I'd say buy an M if you like it. Be sure to get the power rear seat and rear entertainment/audio control options for your customers to play with.

On a 98-00 LS like I have there is a male and female connector that must be plugged together after unplugging them from the trunk mounted phone ECU but I don't know if this is the case on the early phone systems. There are not many components in the dealer installed phone system - the phone control on the steering wheel, the handset and cradle, the trunk mounted phone ECU and, on the early LS, the antenna stuck on the outside of the back window. It is not necessary to remove the phone control on the steering wheel.

Unplug the phone handset by doing some minor disassembly of the center console and unplugging it from the connector under the vent you see when you raise the armrest. Unplug the phone system ECU in the trunk. After unplugging the ECU in the trunk there may or may not be two larger connectors that plug into each other. It is not a good idea to cut any of the wires since that can cause other problems. All this can be done in under 10 minutes.

Having a working original battery in a 2001 LS430 seems amazing to me. I'm about as obsessive as one can get about maintaining batteries -- checking weekly and topping up with distilled water -- and I rarely get much more than four years out of a battery in an LS. Maybe I should ignor them, LOL. My 2000 LS400 in-service date was 31 July 2000 and it is already on its third battery. The original battery was replaced 14 Oct 2004 after its failure was verified by my regular mechanic -- so it lasted a little over 50 months. The second battery, a rather expensive Interstate installed by my mechanic, failed in March 07 -- it lasted only 29 months. This time I replaced it with a battery from Wal-Mart since it was a weekend, failure was total and I was stranded - in a cemetery, no less. I've gone through a butt-load of batteries in the almost 18 years I've been driving Lexus LS cars. The owner of the indie repair shop (specializes in Lexus) who maintains our cars told me that the LS is particularly hard on batteries due to all the electronics/power gadgets. I'm thinking that his theory is correct since my wife's 10 year old Camry is on only its second battery. On my LS cars, batteries have generally exhibited signs of failure over a several month period before failing completely. Symptoms have included the engine dying when driving hard around a low speed curve and/or hitting a bump or pothole -- and on my 2000 LS400, the display of the "Check VSC" message. During this period of gradual failure, the batteries have sometimes checked out as still being OK when the specific gravity of the electrolyte was checked with a battery tester. Unless you are trying to set a record, you might as well replace your battery.

Your question has been discussed numerous times on this forum and other Lexus forums including clublexus.com . You might consider doing a search both here and on other Lexus forums. There is a search and a "more search options" feature at the top right of this screen. I've been watching a thread on clublexus.com where a guy bought an 05 LS430 with the optional 18" wheels and 245/45-18 tires. He hates the punishing ride and is searching for the standard smaller wheels and tires. And remember, his LS430 has a more compliant suspension that can better cope with larger wheels --> http://www.clublexus.com/forums/showthread.php?t=326908

The revised EPA estimates for the 98 ES300 at http://www.fueleconomy.gov/!Removed!/noframes/14224.shtml are: MPG (city) 17 MPG (highway) 25 MPG (combined) 20 If you are driving purely in stop and go city traffic, then 15 - 17 mpg sounds about right. My wife's 98 Camry has the same V6 engine and automatic transmission as your ES300. It has 98,000 miles on it and is used mainly for a 20 mile round trip daily commute -- about 75% on a 60-65 mph interstate highway and the rest at about 35 mph with few traffic lights. I calculated the gas mileage over the last several tank fulls this morning as I gassed up her car -- 20-22 mpg. My wife has an unusually "light foot" on the gas pedal. Toronto's traffic has made quite an impression on me over the years having spent the equivalent of several weeks there - mainly based near the inner harbor on University Avenue. I love Toronto but its traffic seems more like New York City than the easy traffic where we live in the Kansas City metro area.

Well, you certainly aren't going to be "unique" if these rims are sold commercially. Why do you care what others think? Why are you seeking approval? No, I don't like those wheels but why should you care? Buy what you like. Personally, I think those "Dodge" wheels would be more appropriate on the red pickup truck I see parked on the other side of your LS430.

The information on resetting the VSC came straight out of my owners manual - the one in my glove box. It is possible that a similar reset procedure is not necessary for an LS430. The 45 pages on diagnosing VSC problems are in my two volume 2000 LS400 repair manual set -- I bought the set from a Lexus dealer shortly after I bought the car. I was under the impression that everything in the repair manual set is on techinfo.toyota.com but I could be wrong. The repair shop that maintains my LS uses techinfo.toyota.com.

Here are removal instructions: http://www.carstereohelp.com/stereoremovalLexusLS400str.htm It's probably only a 5 minute job after you have done it once or twice. If you mean that your current radio does not have a CD button, you could substitute a LS400 radio with a CD button and install a CD player -- if you can find all the parts. The local Lexus dealer here did swaps like that back in the early 90's when a customer wanted a CD player on a car that didn't have one installed at the factory. Or you could install an aftermarket radio/CD/MP3 player - even one with nav and sat radio. I've seen a number of threads over the years where someone has done something like that.