1990LS400

Never give the "number one" sign or express any hostility towards another driver --- no matter what they have done or you "think" they have done. Learning to control our emotions are part of being and becoming a "grown-up". You certainly would not want to have your case heard by a judge in a court room as it would not be favorable for you.

After buying (2 used and 1 new) and driving three Mercedes through most of the time from the late 60's until 1990 when I bought my first LS, I'd suggest that you lie down until the feeling passes. OK, my first Mercedes was a '56 190SL dog with 150,000 miles (my teenage mistake!) and I kept it until 1973 until it had almost 300,000 miles. It was a complete disaster - I didn't know that many things could break on a car. The second one was a a beautiful '73 450SEL which I sold in 1979 at 150,000 miles. It had excellent care by both the original owner and me but it had turned into an incredibly expensive disaster. I'm glad the sump held over 10 quarts of oil because it burned so much oil between changes - at least one quart at every gas tank fillup. What an oil burner. And all sorts of interior parts - mainly heating and AC controls and motors - were breaking. So, I thought if I would buy a new Mercedes, all would be better. Driving a new 1979 240 Diesel off the showroom floor in the middle of the 2nd big oil crisis (the Iranians had just taken the hostages) with gas prices soaring, I felt pretty good. I should have known it would be bad when the radio failed and the dome light housing broke and fell into my lap during the first week. The next 10 1/2 years and 210,000 miles were awful. Changing the fluids aggressively and babying the car made no difference. The first diesel engine failed (low compression in two cylinders) at 140,000 miles). I thought that was unusual until I saw documentation that, not only was this typical, but that Mercedes view was that their diesel and gas engines have the same life span - and a very short one at that. I had the dealer replace the original engine with a factory rebuilt, caged engine (not just reconditioned - completely rebuilt) and the rebuilt engine lasted only about 20,000 miles. The 2nd engine was replaced under warranty at about 160K and the car limped along until I sold it at 210K. And things kept breaking. I was constantly replacing interior parts because of shoddy design and poor construction. And the drivers seat literally collapsed at about 150,000 miles - and I weight only about 150 pounds! Then I bought an LS in 1990. What a wonderful relief!!! Virtually no problems for 120,000 miles. Still wonderful when I sold it last year at 183,500 miles. And the new owner says it is doing quite well at around 200,000 miles. Not knowing about my horrible Mercedes experiences, a friend of mine bought an E320 in 1994. He takes wonderful care of it (it looks flawless), spares no expense, and has driven it only about 75,000 miles. But he can hardly keep it running and the dealer and other repair shops can't figure out what is wrong. It is sad. And of course, like most Mercedes, it has an almost useless air conditioning system and is very unpleasant in the summer. Last time I read the European J.D. Powers survey, Mercedes had sunk to 11th in owner satisfaction. Guess who is number 1 ... That would be Lexus. My opinion is that the only thing worse that a new Mercedes (if you don't count Yugos and Fiats) is an old Mercedes. Well I guess that was quite a rant!

I had to replace the battery on my 90 LS four times (exactly every three years when it showed signs of failure) before I finally sold it last year after 13 1/2 years. It didn't seem to matter if I bought an expensive (OEM) or cheap (Interstate brand) battery. They all lasted three years. My 2000 LS still has its original battery and it had its fourth birthday a few days ago - I've got to wonder if if should go ahead and replace it before winter instead of waiting for it to fail. But I'll probably wait until it shows signs of failure just to see if there has been an improvement in the LS electrical system.

Here is a link to where you can buy the car kit and phone holder for your Nokia 6800: http://www.nokiausa.com/nokia_accessories/...2224,40,00.html It looks like the kit is supposed to work either as a hardwired or wireless kit and with an external antenna. I don't see how the antenna would connect to the cradle as with most Nokia kits - maybe it connects to the junction box of the kit. If you are going to the trouble of installing a phone holder would you gain much by using the wireless feature? Bluetooth is useful for other things besides linking to a car kit ... like syncing your Nokia's address book with a PC using Nokia's free sync software. If you don't have Bluetooth on your PC, USB Bluetooth adaptors are cheap - saw one recently for less than $40. And Bluetooth/Wi-Fi PDA's like my Dell Axim can use a Bluetooth phone as a route to the Internet if a Wi-Fi hotspot is not available.

Grassypond, I don't think you are asking for too much at all. There is no information about the phone prewiring in the repair manuals for my LS. There may be information in the electrical manual (which I don't have) and I am fairly certain that I read that there are installation manuals specifically for Lexus phones. These manuals may be in the accessories section of http://techinfo.lexus.com/ A one-day subscription was $10 the last time I checked. Have you asked your Lexus dealer for any assistance or advice? If you could speak with a mechanic who installed Lexus phones in the past. it could certainly make this simpler. Of course you could aways disassemble your console to see what you find under it...

We have cargo nets in both our Camry and LS. I bought the one for the LS from Sewell - see the link below. They have one for the ES300 at an on-line price of only $18. I assume it would come with the hooks since all ours have. The hooks replace plastic trim clips on both sides of the trunk at the top of the opening. The nets are very handy and keep groceries and briefcases from sliding around. If you get one, consider positioning the net so the Lexus logo tag is toward the front of the car. If you don't, closing the trunk lid will likely break the tab and you'll then have a "LE" tag. http://www.lexus-parts.com/partdetail.asp?...SubCategoryID=4

Here is a link to Motorola's web site where you can buy the S9708 car kit (only $149) for your T730 phone: http://commerce.motorola.com/cgi-bin/ncomm...amp;type=249147 The kit comes with a speaker, mic, cradle, wire harness and junction box and is similar to our Nokia kits. I did not notice if it can work with an external antenna. Pro-fit lists an ES330 bracket to hold the cradle and there are probably other companies who have them: http://www.pro-fit-intl.com/Adobe/LX-52-01-p2.pdf From my experience the key to a successful installation is connecting the phone kit's mute wire so that the audio/Nav system mutes automatically when a call is made or received. If your phone rings loudly in a car kit and if you can here it over the audio system, this may not be as critical. I've hooked up the phone kit's mute wire on both our current LS and Camry and they both work very nicely. (My wife and I both missed a lot of calls before I hooked up the mute wires.) But how to find the mute point on your ES330... Maybe your dealer can help. Mine didn't want any part of it except for one parts department employee who printed the electrical diagram for the audio system which showed which wire colors are for the mute. None of the local phone installers would help either. Since you are in Fairfax, a high population area, you might have better luck finding a phone installer who can hook up the mute wire and do a decent job installing the entire kit if you want him to. Personally, I have not had much success with phone installers and prefer to do it myself. Installing a car kit is not all that difficult if you have the repair manuals although it can seem daunting at first. Here is a a link to another thread with a doc on how I did it on our 00 LS: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...?showtopic=7791 If you are successful in installing a phone kit and connecting its mute wire, please report back on how you did it so others can benefit. My guess is that the mic in the rear view mirror is for the voice actuated Nav - I doubt if it can be used for a phone. Phone kits come with mics which usually are fairly inconspicuous - see the photo of the mic in my doc.

The functions LS007 mentioned are also available on the head unit of the Nakamichi (some are on the underseat amp on the standard and Nav audio systems) of our 00 LS. The reason I stayed away from tapping into the wires at the head unit was that our 00 LS had almost one year left on its warranty when I installed the phone car kit. If the audio system had failed during the warranty, I did not want the dealer to be able to say that the phone installation contributed to the problem. The same four functions LS007 mentioned (plus others) are available on the phone plug under the rear console of the 00 LS and can be determined by using a test light - very easy since the connector is pointing "up" - but it may be different on the 01 LS430. Because of the design of this phone connector on the 00 LS is it possible to connect these four functions without using "t-tap" connectors or cutting into any wires in the car's wiring harness - it only takes a wire tie or two. I guess you could call it a "stealth" installation. On my 00 LS, next to the the six pin phone connector under the center console is a coax cable for the phone antenna imprinted on the inside of the rear window and it can be activated by connecting two other coax cables on the right side of the trunk. Your LS430 may not have this coax or the window antenna - I don't know. And I don't even know what frequencies the phone antenna is supposed to support on our 00 LS. Regardless, it seems to make a huge difference when we are driving in rural areas - if I pop the phone out of the cradle I have no service but if the phone is in the cradle and attached to the rear window antenna, the signal is strong. But our phones are "tri-mode" - GSM, TDMA and analog - so I guess we have most of the bases covered.

I see you have not made a lot of progress since you last asked about Bluetooth retrofits a few months ago ... An owner of an 03 GS with Nav/Lev was able to hook the mute wire from his Sony Ericsson Bluetooth kit to his audio system but I suspect that he did it the hard way: http://www.clublexus.com/forums/showthread...&highlight=mute The 2001 LS had a "Lexus Dual-Mode Mobile Phone phone option": http://www.lexus.com/cpo/model_detail/ls/430/2001.html My assumption (and I sure could be wrong!) is that the 2001 LS430 was prewired for a phone somewhat similar to the way my 2000 LS400 was. My 00 LS has two phone connectors under the rear of the center console. I attached the mute wire from my Nokia car kit to a terminal on one of the connectors. The same connector also supplies power and probably other functions that I didn't try to use. I determined the mute terminal on the connector by probing the terminals of the connector with a grounded 12 volt test light while the radio was playing. I don't know if your LS430 has a similar connector in a similar location - maybe your dealer can tell you. Or you can just disassemble the center console to check -- probably fairly easy to do. I did a ridiculous amount of research to understand just a little about how the phone prewiring in my LS works. I wish it was simpler. If are going to the trouble of installing a phone car kit and do not already have a Bluetooth phone, I suggest that you instead consider a non-Bluetooth car kit with a phone cradle. I hope someday to see a Bluetooth phone and OEM or aftermarket bluetooth kit that compares favorably to the features and performance of non-Bluetooth phones and car kits with a cradle. I included a link to an MS Word document in a previous post on how I installed my phone and attached the mute wire in my 00 LS. You can find it by searching for my user name. Best of luck.

Mike, Whether or not you install a phone kit yourself, it would be helpful to buy the repair manuals for your car so you would understand how interior components fit together. The electrical diagram is usually in a separate manual. Or you could do a one day subscription to http://techinfo.lexus.com/ for $10 and print/download the repair manual portions you want. The kid who installed a handsfree kit in my previous LS really messed things up - damaged the wood trim, put the handset cradle bracket in the wrong place, etc. You might consider doing part of the work yourself and letting a "pro" finish it. I would suggest verifing the the quality of an installer's work before you let him touch your car. Really nice phone car kits are often quite inexpensive - $100 - 200 - and they are fairly straight forward to install if you plan well. Most provide a better user experience than the systems that car manufacturers, including Lexus, offers. I probably provide this link too often but here is how I installed my Nokia car kit in the LS I purchased last year: http://home.kc.rr.com/colchester/phone/Nok...H%20install.doc Good luck and feel free to PM me if I can be of any help. Jim

anuhome, Since you already have the wiring for the Portable Plus, it would be a bit easier to hook up a car kit for a phone - even a Bluetooth kit. If it is like my LS, the plug under the console to which your handset base is connected contains both an audio system mute point and power. It may even contain terminals for playing the call through the radio speakers but I never bothered to check. It may be possible to cut the wire harness that runs from your Portable Plus handset base to the connector under the console and connect some of those wires to power a phone car kit and mute the audio when a call is received or made. You could determine which wires are power and which one is mute by testing the wires with a 12V test light. You might have to remove an in-line booster in the trunk (assuming that your's has one) and plug the connectors the trunk together as if the car never came with a Lexus phone. This doc shows the connector under my center console to which I connected the mute wire for my Nokia kit. In hindsight it would have been simpler to have powered my Nokia kit from this same connector. http://home.kc.rr.com/colchester/phone/Nok...H%20install.doc I doubt if it is realistic to expect to use the steering wheel controls. The voltages required to control my Nokia are too complex for me to build an interface to the steering wheel controls and the voltages probably vary by phone.

Although Lexus had a cell phone option with audio mute on all U.S. RX300's (http://www.lexus.com/cpo/model_detail/rx/300/2003.html), the Lexus website makes no mention of cell phones for the RX330 (http://www.lexus.com/cpo/model_detail/rx/330/2004.html). What do you want to install? A old-style fixed phone? A car kit for a handheld phone? A Bluetooth kit? I doubt if you would have much luck getting a Lexus dealer to install a phone or phone car kit in your RX330 but it wouldn't hurt to check. My local Lexus dealer no longer has a "phone guy" since Lexus went with Bluetooth on the LS and LX. You might get a copy of the electrical diagram for the audio system to see if it shows a mute point. For my current LS, the mute point on the electrical diagram is marked TMUT and TLMT. A friendly dealer employee printed the two page diagram from http://techinfo.lexus.com/ IMO, attaching the phone's mute wire to the audio system is by far the most important aspect of making a phone system work well. Before I connected my phone kit's mute wire to the audio system, I missed lots of calls when listening to music at a high volume level. I couldn't get anyone in the Kansas City area to hook up the mute due to the liability issue - I had to figure it how to do it myself. In some areas like southern California there seems to be lots of phone installers that can handle this.

Hi Craig, Personally I like well designed HID's but sadly not all HID's are equal. Some manufacturers do not put leveling - either manual or automatic - on their HID's. Does your Mom's Acura have leveling? I especially notice that the automatic leveling HID's in Mercedes, BMW and Lexus do not cause me any problem when I meet them head-on. I notice this a lot since I have the beginning of cataracts which are making my eyes much more sensitive to glare. One thing that helps on-coming drivers is to turn off the headlights (one notch down to the "parking lights"), when stopped at a traffic light at night. That is why Japanese cars have the light switch on the turn signal lever - to make it easy to do this. Take care! Jim

Yes, 90-92 LS400's sold in many countries including the U.S. came with 205/65-15 tires mounted on 6.5 inch wide, 15 inch diameter wheels. I bought an LS400 in early 1990 and my next door neighbor bought one in the fall of 1989. We both kept our 90 LS's for over 13 years and we both experimented with different tires and wheels. My point is that the horribly long stopping distances of the early LS was caused mainly by the tires being so small. True the brakes are a bit too small too, but the main cause is the small tire size. There are lots of on-line tire size calculators but an especially good one is at http://www.1010tires.com/TireSizeCalculator.asp Put the original tire size 205/65-15 on the left side of the calculator and then, one at a time, put the other three sizes we are discussing on the right side of calculator: 225/60-15, 215/60-15 and 215/65-15. You will see that the 225/60-15 size provides by far the most speedometer accurancy - only 1/2 of 1% difference from the OEM size. And 225/60-15 also provides the largest section width increase (over 3/4 inch) and thus the biggest improvement in braking. Changing to 225/60-15 tires on the early LS is an inexpensive way to improve safety since there is no need to change wheels. Probably one reason this size is so widely available is that 5 and 7-series BMW's came with this size for quite a few years.

SRK and Silvermate, Sorry to disagree but 225/60-15 tires fit fine on the 6 1/2 inch wide 90-92 LS directional wheels and they ensure that speedometer accuracy will be almost perfectly maintained. 215/60-15 tires, however, introduce a fair amount of inaccuracy - get out your conversion tables and you can verify what I am saying. I used 225/60-15 tires on my 90 LS for several years after the original Eagle GA's wore out and they fit and looked fine. More important, they provided vastly improved braking. 205/65-15's provide too small a contact patch with the road to provide really good braking on a 4,000 pound car. The 205/65-15's that came standard on our Camry, however, do provide acceptable breaking - but our Camry weighs about 1,000 pounds less than the LS.

I agree with 92Lex. One of the benefits of the 225/60-15 on the OEM Lexus rims is that it makes it a harder to "curb" the rims. 225/60 is well when the allowable width for 6 1/2 inch wide rims according to my Dunlop guide. When Lexus started putting 225/60-16 tires on the LS in 93, it chose 7" wide rims - only 1/2 inch wider than previous.

Do you know anyone with an LS or GS that would let you try mounting their spare tire on your car? When rotating the tires our 98 Camry V6 and 90 LS one time, for fun, I switched the wheels between the cars and was surprised that it all seemed to work. At least I could not see any offset or clearance issues and the wheels all properly self-centered on the hubs. Both cars used 15 inch wheels and the Camry wheels were 1/2 inch narrower than the LS wheels. I'm not sure if this would work with later model years but it might. You might try asking SW03ES (or he may showup soon here) - I think he said that his dad has an LS430 and he might know if its wheels will fit his new ES.

Here are the four pages from the repair manual for my 00 LS on the "Headlight Beam Level Control System". http://home.kc.rr.com/colchester/Lexus/BE-51.jpg http://home.kc.rr.com/colchester/Lexus/BE-52.jpg http://home.kc.rr.com/colchester/Lexus/BE-53.jpg http://home.kc.rr.com/colchester/Lexus/BE-54.jpg Please reply when you have downloaded them since I will need to remove them within the next few days.

2001 was the first year that the LS was available with a factory 17 inch wheel option and a "Euro-tuned Sport Suspension System" option - see: http://www.lexus.com/cpo/model_detail/ls/430/2001.html The 17" wheel option came with a warning that "Your riding comfort may decrease and road noise may increase during driving." If your car has the 17" wheel option, you can likely find someone who would gladly swap their 16 inch wheels and tires with you since larger wheels seem to be the "in" thing with the younger crowd. The easiest way to find out which size your car has is to check the tire side wall for the size. Factory 17" wheels came with 225/55-17 tires. If, heaven forbid, someone put 18" inch or larger aftermarket wheels on your car (which would really trash the ride quality), you could still find some kid who would gladly swap wheels and tires. I would think that a Lexus dealer could "look up" your car in the Lexus on-line system to see if was sold with options that would degrade ride quality.

I suspect that almost any 16 inch Toyota or Lexus wheel will fit your 95 LS. The first year 16 inch wheels were used on Lexus LS400's was 93. I once swapped the wheels between an LS and a Camry and they fit perfectly. Tire Rack used to sell Avalon wheels in their snow tire packages for LS400's so that might be an option too. Hopefully you could find one at a salvage yard and "try before you buy".

My understanding is that having the wheels on the correct side was important for cooling the brake rotors but I doubt if it is an issue in everday driving. I noticed that the buyer of my 90 LS has the wheels on the wrong side (he didn't notice that they are directional) and I mentioned it to him a couple of days ago. The brakes on the early LS are pretty poor compared to ones starting in 93 (?) when the rotor size was increased and the tire width was increased from 205 to 225. I was a little shocked after I bought my LS in 1990 when Road & Track listed it in its "Road Test Summary" section as having just about the longest stopping distance of any car and far worse that all its competitors. Although ride harshness is increased quite a bit, changing from 205/65-15 to 225/60-15 tires dramatically improves braking and there is almost no impact on speedometer accuracy. If you try this switch, stick to the bottom range of inflation (30 psi) to keep the ride harshness down.

If you are intent on using larger wheels (an "upgrade"?), I agree that the wheel and tire size that you have chosen will cause the least damage to comfort and tire longevity. What are you trying to accomplish? The 98-00 sold in the U.S. was not designed with 17" wheels in mind. The 17" wheel option on the 2001 LS430 came with the following caution: "Optional 17 x 7.5-in wheels with 225/55HR17 tires are expected to experience greater tire wear than the standard equipment tires, 225/60HR16. Tire life may be substantially less than 15,000 miles, depending on driving conditions. Your riding comfort may decrease and road noise may increase during driving. Please consider all this when selecting an LS 430 equipped with this option." Gosh. I love the comfort of my 00 LS on its 16x7 summer and cheepo 16x7.5 winter wheels. And my wife hated the ride harshness of my rather conservative experimentation with wheel/tire sizes on a previous LS. Personally, I think an LS looks better with more conservative wheels. (IMO, the best ever were the chrome wheels - not the Coach ones - of the 97 LS.) But heck, you're in California so anything goes.

I tend to agree with VBDenny except for the reason that people sell their older LS's. Both my next door neighbor and I bought early, he in late 89 and I in early 90, and we both kept them for over 13 years. We both kept our cars in top condition and drove similar miles per year. It didn't bother me at all that I spent about $4,500 in the final two years of ownership since it was a wonderful and comfortable car, looked and drove like new, and the repair costs were far less than I would spend on an annualized basis to buy and maintain a new car. What finally drove both of us to sell our old LS's was simply the wish to move on to something different and more modern - the repair costs were not an issue at all. He sold his LS to his brother. I sold my LS to a coworker and I get to see it almost every day in the company parking lot. A 90 LS is a great car but I would not recommend one for a 17 year old unless the 17 year old does not mind spending a couple of thousand per year on repairs and maintenance.

Tire Rack has a nice selection and you can "see" all their wheels on a GS of your color at http://www.tirerack.com To preserve my chrome wheels, I bought a set of four 16 inch Milla Miglia Bello wheels and 225/60-16 Blizzak snow tires for about $880 for my LS before last winter. Look for the "mountain/snowflake" symbol if you want true snow tires and not just all season tires.

Here are some instructions on removing the radio/climate controls. They are for 95-97 but the procedure is the same for 98-00. http://carstereohelp.com/stereoremovalLexusLS400str1.htm I found that a 1 or 1 1/2 inch stiff blade putty knife well taped with electrical tape words very well. (A screwdriver can put too much pressure on a small area of the wood trim.) I've had the radio out of my 00 LS two or three times. One caution: the wood trim is thinner and more fragile than the early models. Work your way gradually and it will pop right up. Be sure to protect the vinyl around and below the radio with a towel or similar - it is easily scarred as I found out on a previous LS.