1990LS400

I find that snow tires are most important when driving in deep snow on unplowed streets and parking lots and up and down steep hills on unplowed streets where the snow is fresh and has not been beaten down by traffic. I could get by with all season tires on plowed streets and parking lots or when the snow has been beaten down by traffic -- if I had all season tires. But I do not have all season tires and have driven lots of times on streets which have not been touched by snow plows or other traffic -- particularly when we travel in Iowa. I use high performance summer tires on my 2000 LS400 -- similar to what was OEM standard equipment. All season tires were never standard on the LS400 and were a no cost option. IMO, all season tires are "OK" but summer tires make the car a lot more enjoyable during spring, summer and fall. My "lead foot" co-worker with his 99 LS400 with Turanzas (sorry, Steve, if you read this!) seems pretty unhappy with the way his car handles in the snow. If he wasn't too CHEAP (sorry again, Steve) to buy a decent set of real snow tires, I think he would be very happy with the way his car handles in the winter.

A page (180) in the 2000 LS400 owners manual is dedicated to resetting/calibrating the VSC system and eliminate the warning message. The same thing happened in my 2000 LS400 the last two times the battery failed. I did not have to follow the procedure described in the manual when I replaced my battery - it apparently reset on its own. It did, however, take a day or two for the VSC message to stop re-displaying.

I passed all the records for my 1990 LS400 to its new owner - he is still driving it and I see him most days at work. From what I remember, the approximately $4,500 I spend over the last two years of ownership included the 180,000 maintenance (timing belt, water pump, all fluid changes, etc.), still another power steering pump rebuild, another battery (probably its 5th since new), a new windshield (about $200), another set of four snow tires, another set of four summer tires, a suspension part or three, driver seat back repair, an A/C compressor and related parts, conversion to R-134a, various miscellaneous repairs, etc., etc. I loved my old 90 LS400 and might be driving it today if it had better headlights.

gcal, it sounds like our ages and goals are similar. For reference purposes, during the last two years of ownership of a 1990 LS400 (owned from new until 2003), I spent about $4,500 at an independent repair shop to get the car to 183,000 miles. The work would have cost perhaps 15% more at the Lexus dealer. $4,500 also happens to be what I sold the car for in 2003 -- it looked and drove like new and all maintenance was current. I suspect that my current 2000 LS400 (now at 94,000 miles) will require similar repairs at similar costs as it ages. $1,000 average per year in repairs is pretty inexpensive to keep a car like an SC or LS running well and certainly far, far less than it costs to buy a comparable new car. We aim to keep cars until they are about 13 - 15 years old. By buying well optioned cars with the latest technology, and particularly the latest safety features, we keep from feeling too deprived as the cars age. For example, our 98 Camry is one of a tiny number that was sold with optional side air bags, ABS and traction control. The Toyota dealer here had it trucked in from a dealer 600 miles away. Sure, we now wish it had VSC, more air bags, and a few more comfort options, but we can easily get by another six years until its planned retirement date. Personally I would not dream of asking the indie repair shop owner to use parts that I had purchased elsewhere. He is also my friend and I know that the mark-up on parts is an important part of his revenue -- and my helping him put his kids through college! It might help address VMF's questions if you listed the specific repairs that you expect to be required on your cars. Although I did most of my own car repairs when I was younger, these days I would rather take our cars to professionals for most everything. The only tasks I do now are oil changes, wiper blade refills and tire rotations and weekly checking/top-up of all fluids except the rear differential. Well, that is not exactly correct -- I sometimes, for fun, rip the interior of the car apart while installing gadgets like phones and navs.

amf1932, wwest, You two are a real hoot! I always enjoy reading all the posts from both of you. This is the probably the most humorous exchange on this forum I have seen. Keep it up! Merry Christmas to you both.

I am in my 18th year of driving Lexus LS cars and have rarely taken them to a Lexus dealership due to the high cost of service and the all too frequent poor quality of workmanship. Most of the times I have used a Lexus dealership are for warranty repairs or when my favorite indie repair shop is too busy or does not have the equipment (road force balancer, for example) to work in our cars. If you are at all handy with simple tools, it should take less than one hour to change the engine oil and filter - should cost less than $20 if you use a quality non-synthetic oil and a Toyota filter and a few bucks more if you use synthetic oil. For example, I buy a 10-pack of Lexus/Toyota oil filters for my LS400 at a Toyota dealer for less than $40 including 10 oil plug gaskets. I assume that the filter for your RX is the same as on the Highlander and Camry so you can likely go to a Toyota dealer to get them or buy them from Sewell Lexus (www.lexus-parts.com). I was at the local Lexus dealer last spring having my tires balanced. I sat a nicely decorated waiting room in a comfortable leather chair, watching a Plasma TV, using the WIFI Internet service and sipping gourmet coffee. A variety of snacks were available. It was a nice experience but one of the reasons that service costs so much at a Lexus dealership.

The dealer is completely "BS-ing" you if he is telling you that 225 tires are "too wide for the snows back east" on a car as heavy as a GS430. The snows in the Northeast are nothing comparied to what I've dealt with in decades of driving around Colorado ski areas, the bases of which are often at over 7,000 elevation. I've driven over Loveland and Berthoud passes a bazillion times - more than once in a full blown blizzard - and never once got close to getting stuck driving normal passenger cars. Colorado mountains are much larger than that wimpy little Whiteface ski area at Lake Placid where I skiid a couple of years ago. 1.57% speedo error is well within the acceptable range of variation. Sounds like the dealer wants to sell you what he has. I can't blame him. Snow tire supplies get short in the winter which is why I avoid buying them then. The best prices and supply of snow tires are usually in the summer or early fall. You will be fine with either size. Don't worry, be happy.

There shouldn't be any damage from a timing belt breaking on a 92 SC. It is not an interference engine. The timing belt on my 90 LS400 broke at about 75,000 miles - absolutely no damage and I drove the car another 100,000 plus miles before I sold it.

You can calculate the differences in tire sizes at http://www.1010tires.com/TireSizeCalculator.asp 215/60-16 tires would make your speedometer read 1.57% slower. I would recommend staying with the OEM tire size unless you are going to frequently drive in unusually severe snow conditions. 225/55-16 tires are a reasonable size for snow with your GS. If you were to go with wider tires (235, 245, etc.) the traction could be fairly bad even with Blizzaks. We don't get much deep snow where I live, but the OEM size Blizzaks I use on my 00 LS (225/60-16 is OEM for it) provided stunning results in the few 6 - 10 inch fresh snowfalls I have driven in and on many less severe slushy days. Another thing to remember is that snow tires provide less grip when the roads are dry or simply wet. Using 215/60-16 tires on your GS would provide even less stopping power in these conditions. If I am correct that you recently purchased your GS or moved to the Northeast, I think you will be surprised how well your car gets around in the snow with Blizzaks and the transmission mode in "Snow". The VSC is particularly effective when driving in snow - mine hardly ever kicks in outside of winter. Not that you want to "go crazy fast" in the snow, but, if you haven't already, take your car to an empty, snowy slick parking lot and drive it to and past the limits (when the audible alarm sounds) to get an understanding of how VSC works.

This article has a comparison between the spring based Sport Suspension and the sport setting on the Ultra air suspension system: http://www.automotive.com/2004/12/lexus/ls...iews/index.html Regarding the information in the article about using the high setting for driving in deep snow, I would hope you would not need that very often in Forida! Maybe it would help when it rains really hard, LOL.

Of course you can use snow tires on your OEM wheels. But one of the points of buying an extra set of inexpensive wheels for winter use is to preserve your nice OEM wheels for the other three seasons. If you are not going to keep your car for very long, mounting snow tires on the OEM wheels might be a better option financially. Also, switching back and forth between winter and summer wheels over and over tends to damage the beads on the tires. However, tires on 18" wheels often have an extremely short life so you wouldn't be switching the same tires on the wheels as many times as on cars where the wheels are smaller and the tires last longer. Another good aspect of going the minus one (17" inch wheels in your case) route for winter tires is that they give you a little more comfort in the winter when tires are stiffer due to the cold and there are more potholes caused by freeze and thaw. And snow tires on 17" wheels will likely last a little longer than snow tires on 18" wheels. The staggered size wheel setup on the IS350 seem to make the cost of snow tires (and tires in general) a bit painful.

No one can guarantee that using snow tires on your car will make it perform like you would like it to. Even with snow tires, you will have to drive with extra caution on snow and ice - especially to keep out of the way of those who are not using snow tires. All I can tell you is that the dealer is right - there is a "night and day" difference between using dedicated snow tires (with the mountain/snowflake label representing a certification) and using summer or "all season" tires. I get a kick out of driving up hills with my Blizzak equipped 2000 LS400 while passing stuck 4-wheel-drive vehicles helplessly spinning their all season tires.

Are you saying that you have snow tires and are still having a problem? The first thing I do when I buy a car is to buy an extra set of four wheels and a set of dedicated snow tires - tires with the mountain/snowflake symbol on the sidewall. If you have especially wide tires you might want to go with slightly narrower snow tires for winter use and even go with wheels of 1 inch less in diameter. If you choose to go the "minus one" tire/wheel route, be sure that the circumference of your winter tires are within one or two percentage points of your summer tires. I wouldn't dream of driving my LS in snow without dedicated snow tires and I live way south of Chicago!

Here is a link to power steering pump and parts for an 06 LS430: http://www.lexus-parts.com/assembly.asp?id...10&year=167 The basic pumps seems to be the same but there are lots of variations in other parts depending on the "Mark" designation - I do not know what the "Mark" means. I clearly remember a thread on this forum started by a person who drove a number of non-sport LS430s and then bought a sport version without driving it. He was not happy.

I had the timing belt replaced on my 2000 LS400 last summer at 90,000 miles and almost exactly seven years from the car's July 2000 in-service date. I went one year past the number of recommended years on the timing belt. The old belt looks good as new with no signs of wear or cracking. I kept it as a souvenir. I guess I could have let it go longer but I would rather trust Toyota's (ahem, Lexus) engineers than my visual assessment of the belt's condition.

I think if you look closely that you will see a 17th character in the VIN. One of the positions in the VIN is a "check digit". When a numeric calculation (alpha characters are assigned a number for purpose of calculation), the result of the equation equals (or is supposed to equal) the check digit. Only 16 characters of the VIN actually describe the car (country of origen, manufacturer, etc.). I used to be pretty good at interpreting VINs, including the old pre-17 character formats, but it has been nearly 20 years since I did that. Yes, I occassionally saw invalid VINs on vehicles back in the 1980s - I probably saw only three or four kick out as invalid of the many millions that a computer program analyzed.

Duh! Regarding using the piggyback fuse connector, I forgot to include that you would have to find a place to attach the ground wire from the cigarette lighter extension cord. You can find out which is the hot wire and which is the ground on the extension cable by plugging it in to the cigarette lighter and probing its two wires with a 12V test light. For my phone kit, I attached a ground wire to a bolt on the firewall. If you don't mind using t-taps or scotch connectors, the wires leading to the accessory port under the front armrest in a 98-00 LS are exposed after you pop up the wood console panel. For my nav, I used scotch lock connectors to connect an extension cord to these wires. There is plenty of room to route the extension cable receptacle forward under the wood console panel and/or behind the carpet on the side of the transmission tunnel. If the extension cord receptacle is hidden behind the carpet to the right of the gas pedal, it is especially easy to peal the carpet away from the transmission tunnel to plug and unplug accessories such as a radar detector or nav.

No curb feelers please, No fuzzy dice either. LOL :chairshot: I have Nav and it does not work that great. Was looking at options to maybe help the reception of the stock one or an external antenna for another Nav unit. I'm just kidding you! Seriously, modern nav units almost never need external antennas anymore. The cheap Magellan nav you can see in my avitar mounted above my phone console has the SirfstarIII chipset and almost always shows that it is receiving maximum signal strength from 11 or more satelites and operating in WAS mode -- without an external antenna. The nav in the 98-00 is light years behind even the most inexpensive aftermarket navs available today.

IMO, the easiest way to power your detector is to use a piggyback fuse connector and a cigarette lighter extension cable. Cut off the end of the cigarette lighter extension cable (the end you would plug into the cigarette lighter) and wire it to the piggyback fuse connector. Remove the accessories fuse from the fuse box under the dash and replace it with the piggyback fuse connector. Plug your radar detector into the extension cable receptacle. Tie the tangle of wires up under the dash with a cable tie. The nice aspect of this method is that you do not have to remove or damage the connector on the end of your radar detector's power cable . This method works for just about anything else too - navigation devices, MP3 players, etc. - without having to tie up your cigarette lighter or accessory port or splice in to any wires in the car's electrical harness. The piggyback fuse connector and the extension cable are available at many auto parts stores. The extension cables are commonly available at discount stores like WalMart and Target.

I absolutely agree with everything that SRK says with one small amendment ... I am fairly certain that the timing belt change interval for all U.S. market LS400 models is 90,000 miles or six years. The recommended change interval for SRK's Canadian market models could be a little different. Do you have the maintenance manual that came with your car? It probably tells you the timing belt change interval. The great thing about the belt on the 90 LS400 is that no damage is caused if it should break. If you don't mind having to call a tow truck when it finally (if ever) breaks, you can drive your 90 LS until it does. The bigger problem on the gen 1 LS is the water pump. The water pump on the 90 LS I used to have failed at around 75,000 miles and took the timing belt with it when it seized up. Supposedly the water pump was replaced with one of an improved design but I had the water pump (and timing belt) replaced again at 180,000 miles shortly before I sold the car to a coworker. If you ever smell coolant, your water pump may be leaking which means that its failure is going to happen very soon. If this happens, you might as well drive directly to your favorite Lexus or indie repair shop and save yourself the trouble of getting stranded.

Yes, I may still do the Pop-Port cable/cradle conversion in our cars. I don't like the thought of giving up the CARK's privacy handset since my wife uses it all the time in my LS and we frequently pass it to backseat passengers. (I didn't put a privacy handset in her Camry - no good place for it and she mainly uses the car to get back and forth to work.) It will be interesting so see how much GSM service we will have on our old Nokia phones after AMPS and TDMA go away in a few months. If the service is bad, we will have to change phones to ones that have better GSM and we may do the Pop Port converson then. It would sure beat starting all over with another car kit. We have been using the CARK-91 kits for over seven years and are on our third set of phones that are compatible with them - not a bad return on investment.

The FCC is allowing phone companies to discontinue AMPS (analog) service beginning on February 18, 2008. Cingular/ATT has apparently been slowly withdrawning AMPS and TDMA service for sometime. As I and others have stated in this and other threads, forget about using a Lexus fixed or Portable Plus phone. Yes, all 1990 through 2003 Lexus LS cars were prewired for cell phones. About the only thing you can do is to buy an aftermarket cell phone kit. Today, a Bluetooth kit is the probably the best way to go, even with its limitations. You can fairly easily tap in the the OEM phone harness for an audio mute connection so your radio will automatically mute when a call is made or received. jainla installed a Bluetooth kit in his LS430 and even connected it to play the call through his door speaker - do a search and you will find his detailed tutorial. Blake918 and I installed a now obsolete phone kit in our cars (95 and 00). It might be a little more complicated in your 91 LS since (I think) that there is no easily accessible mute connection under the center console; you would have to find one in the trunk or on the amp or headunit. If you want to have your phone handy and always charged, consider mounting a charging cradle for it on a bracket or console by the radio. Doing all this is not all that difficult. There are lots of threads about phones on this and other Lexus forums and I'm sure most members will help you if you PM them.

Steve, if you are still showing real estate, I don't think the Infinity M would make a very good impression on customers. You want them to be comfortable and, with its harsh ride, the M is anything but. My wife and I rented an M35 from Hertz (photo attached) for an 8 day trip through Massachusetts last May. Since I greatly enjoyed driving various years of the Q45, I was expecting that I would also like the "M" a lot. Wrong. Very Wrong. The M35 felt "darty" in a very un-BMW like way. The "M" was more "boy racer" than sophisticated touring sedan. The interior controls did not feel intuitive - the I-Drive-like controller was a pain. I suppose the designers were aiming for mechanical sounds that were "sporty" but the engined seemed noisy and unrefined to me. The worst aspect of the "M" was its harsh ride. Our rental car had the standard 18" wheels and the regular suspension. I can't imagine the car with the optional 19" wheels and sport suspension. And from the first day, I made sure that the tires were at their proper inflation pressure. Although the seats had plenty of adjustments and were ventilated and cooled, I never could get really comfortable. I felt cramped and I'm not a big guy. I kept thinking I should like the "M" more. It had sooo much content and the workmanship was excellent -- but it somehow felt "cold" even with all the wood. About the only thing I liked about the M35 was its keyless go. I had a hard time getting used to using an ignition key when I got back home.

High pressure does not build up in the coolant reservoir. It certainly does not on my similar 2000 LS400. And my temperature guage generally is below the 1/2 mark too. If you have not done so already, I suggest you take your car to a Lexus dealer or indie Lexus specialist and have the car thoroughly checked out. I would hope that the coolant has been changed by the calendar schedule since it is low mileage. If the coolant temperature is off, the most likely culprit is the thermostat - quite inexpensive.

You have to remember that much of the information about automobile reliability is from feedback from readers of Comsumer Reports and members of Consumer Union and from extensive testing. Consumer Reports is not an isolated editorial staff that trashes cars and other products without member input and extensive testing. We have been providing information to Consumer Union about the reliability of cars and many other products through surveys for way over 30 years. I have often been assured and sometimes amused at how the reliability ratings published in Consumer Reports correlates to our own experiences with various products. It is unfortunate that Toyota Motor Company has allowed their cars - both Lexus and Toyota - to slip in quality. We are stockholders of Toyota and are especially concerned. Don't blame the staff of Consumer Reports Magazine - they are only the messenger. Full responsibility for their product is with Toyota Motor Company.