1990LS400

Mandingo,

I always hate to see questions go completely unanswered and I hope that some LS430 owners will chime in. You might try providing more information on where you expect to mount your V1 and from where in your car you would like to pick up power.

If you are wanting to mount your V1 near the front edge of your sunroof, there are plenty of hot wires above the dome light assembly. I don't have an LS430, but the entire domelight/sunroof switch assembly in my 2000 LS can be easily dropped after removing the lens and then a few screws holding the assembly to the roof. I had mine off last week while planning for the placement of my Nokia's microphone. You would need a test light to identify a hot wire and some small "scotch lock" or similar connectors to connect the V1's wires to the existing wires. Have you considered asking your Lexus dealer's service department for help? Some are very helpful and, after all, you car is under warranty.

Having worked in the insurance industry for the past 27 years and being with a company that owns a large insurance company mentioned in this forum topic, I have to say that a better source of information than this forum is your licensed insurance agent. And if you are dissatisfied with what he or other employees of your insurance company tells you, it might be best for you to consult an attorney rather than to rely on information presented in this forum.

I am unaware of a state or federal law that ever requires the use of OEM auto parts in repairing a car. An insurance policy has the same force as a contract. Policy language usually, if not always, stipulates "like kind and quality".

While one might successfully argue to an insurance company that a aftermarket fender is not up to Lexus standards, it probably would be more difficult to argue about glass since the general quality of aftermarket auto glass is very high.

A person with a high deductible on the applicable coverage might well have to pay for the replacement of a windshield.

93LSOWNER,

http://www.exoticwooddash.com also lists wood kits for the 90-94 LS.

Take a look.

Dogboy,

I sure hope the forum moderator doesn't mind since so many people are looking for a way to use their handheld phones with the factory system.

A "radio mute lead" harness that I ordered from a U.K. company last Wednesday arrived today. It is supposed to integrate a Nokia handhelds's car kit into the audio system of most Toyota/Lexus cars - or at least the ones sold in the U.K. - play the call through the front speakers and mute the radio on an incoming/outgoing call. The harness includes a mystery "black box". I'm taking it all to a phone installer tomorrow for his opinion although I may try it in our Camry first -- cheaper to fry the Camry radio than the Nakamichi!

Dogboy, I hope a lot of people will be interested in your ideas! Consider registering your with the search engines. It can take quite a while for a new site to show up in the listings if you don't pay the listing fees.

Thanks!

Hendrick Auto Group's (also owns the Lexus dealership) body shop in Kansas City, replaced the windshield on my 90 LS with a non-Lexus windshield (PPG?) about two years ago for a little over $200. I paid for it myself since it was worn from 12 years of driving and not broken. When they ordered the windshield they asked me about the interior color so they could match it and of course my interior color was gray so maybe I lucked out. Even though it was not from Lexus, the windshield had the "black dot" design (it is not a heating element) around the edge and looked just like the original. If you have to settle for gray at least it is a neutral color and will probably look OK.

My wife has twice bought a case of oil filters for our LS's at a Toyota dealer at a price that breaks down to only $4 each. And the parts guy throws in 10 oil plug gaskets at no additional cost. (The owner of an independent repair shop said that this is near the wholesale cost.) The Toyota Landcruiser V8 uses the same oil filter as the LS - at least through the LS400 run. Costco stores sell Mobil 1 for less than anywhere else I've found.

It has been frustrating how many times dealer (especially Mercedes dealers) and non-dealer repair shops have damaged and dinged my cars over the past 40 years. And these guys are professionals? Unless you have a eally wonderful repair shop, I've convinced that the best thing you can do to preserve a car you love is to buy the repair manuals and take care of simple repairs and oil and filter changes yourself. A quality floor jack and a set of metric tools are pretty cheap and will last a lifetime.

LS98,

Your picture looks like the ones sold at http://www.exoticwooddash.com and the diagrams on their site appear to show the little slots for the labels. The minimal 3-piece set for the center air vents, AC/heat, and audio system are listed at $142.

The have detailed install instructions too. Would applying a kit like this to an audio system prevent from doing a radio exchange if you had to? My repair shop owner told me that the repair service he uses only exchanges radios and does not normally want to return the one sent for repair.

It is amazing how many varieties of kits that exoticwooddash has. Gosh, looks like you could cover everything except your dog with wood!

The white 98 sure sounds like it was better cared for. I think the DRL's can be activated inexpensively - I place a very high value on them.

I thought it was interesting that a study in New Zealand found that silver was the safest color. (Do a Google search for "Car color and safety".) Or could it be those wacky guys just pulling our legs?

Back in the 60's, I let my sister drive my silver Mercedes 190SL (a terrible car but that is another story). While driving another car, I met my sister on the highway coming from the other way. OK, the 190LS is a small car, but the silver color blended in with the highway color on this hot summer day and made it seem almost invisible. Suddenly I realized why I'd had so many close calls when someone tried to pass on oncoming car. I started driving with my headlights on. And I never bought another silver car.

I have read that white is the safest car color except in snowy areas when it was 2nd safest and when yellow was best. But there is a lot of controvery. We now only buy white cars and my wife has now gone six years in her white car without getting hit - she got hit every few months in the dark red car she once had.

Nav would be fun although I told my friend "no Nav, no air suspension" when he searched for the 2000 LS that I bought recently. I was mainly concerned with the added complexity since I plan to keep this car a long time and do not know how long updates will be available. Heck, if Lexus phones that came in these cars are getting marginal or no support from Lexus, how long can we expect updates for their older Nav systems? If you want Nav, you could always add a Garmin StreetPilot on a bracket and you could take it with you. (Garmin - a wonderful company! - headquarters just down the road from me.)

Here is a recent photo of my both my current and first LS - both white of course.

Gosh, this is a tough question -- there are lots of factors to consider. I plan to take my 2000 LS to the dealer for service only until the warranty expires late this summer. I want to be absolutely sure that, if there are any "product improvement programs" (i.e. fixing things that are likely to break in the future), that all the work gets done during the warranty period. I took my first LS to the dealer too during the warranty period. Although there seems to be fewer bugs in these cars than in the early days, I suspect that some non-maintenance, unrequested, free work is still being done by the dealer during the warranty period.

I've been fortunate because there have been one or more excellent non-dealer repair shops in my area that specialize in Lexus - and they have been owned by former Lexus service managers or service writers and all the mechanics were formerly with the Lexus dealer. The quality of work has been better and prices lower than at the dealer. And sometimes the owners and mechanics at these small businesses have become friends and customers.

The answer might also depend on how long you plan to keep your car. A buyer of a high mileage cars may care less that it was maintained by a dealer. It is probably more important that you keep complete records to pass on to the next owner. The records I passed to the next owner of my first LS even included every gas fill-up.

Although the free bagels, brew-to-order gourmet coffee, plasma TV's and sumptuous furniture in the dealer's waiting room are nice, I know this helps keep their prices high. I'm looking forward to when the warranty expires and I go back to my favorite independent repair shop.

Everybody likes Lexus cars. Right? Here is how you can have more of them.

A solution that can work very well is to adopt a "staggered purchase" stategy.

The scenario: Your family is like most in my neighborhood and you have an average of three cars. And you prefer to have a nice new car every three years or so.

Action: Buy (i.e. save in an investment account and then pay cash) a quality car (Lexus, Toyota, etc.) every three years. Keep each car nine years - quite close to the current U.S. average. (Or buy a low mileage car off a short term lease, let the lessee take the worst of "the depreciation bath" and keep it almost as long.)

Result: Your family will always have a quality car to drive and which is no more than three years old. You will save a substantial amount of money by keeping each car past its depreciable life. And you will have a variety of fun and interesting cars to drive.

A quote from the book "Management", by Robert Kreitner (available at Amazon.com) relates to the information I have been providing:

"Studies of middle-class families have shown that, overall, the best influencer and indicator of total accumulated assets over a lifetime is how long people keep their cars. Those who buy new cars every few years had a much smaller total worth at retirement than those who kept cars for five or more years. So, in a way, the quality focus of today's cars may be contributing to the total wealth of today's middle class."

I know a lot of this seems complex and "not fun" but it really isn't and can provide you with real economic power. By planning purchases carefully and avoiding debt and leases for depreciating assets, most people can vastly improve their economic situation - and have nicer, fun cars too.

By participating in this forum, I'm not just trying to help with what we have learned from 14 years of Lexus ownership. I am also providing information we gained from life. And yes, I am probably very senior in age compared to most forum participants - but I love cars!

Yes, if you keep cars for a short time, leasing will be less expensive than buying. But an aspect of Lexus cars and Toyota vehicles in general is that they are incredibly reliable and can provide a wonderful driving experience over a very long time. Keeping a vehicle past its depreciable life is always less espensive than leasing and frees up money for other uses. The difference gets bigger the longer you keep a vehicle and can add up to a staggering amount. People have different goals and personally I find it very satisfying to buy a nice car, take care of it, and drive it for a long time. We kept our first LS almost 14 years and the young person we sold it to told me his neighbors think it is brand new.

The concepts regarding the acquisition of a car (value "always" falls) and a house (value "always" rises) are completely different.

The lease/buy choice is discussed in lots of financial texts and a brief overview is at:

http://www.auto-consultant.com/LeaseVBuy.html

Here is a link to how to pop out the radio in the 95 - 97 LS:

http://carstereohelp.com/stereoremovalLexusLS400str1.htm

Analyzing the effect of the cash/lease/mortgage decision on a particular person's financial situation is too complex to discuss in this forum. My wife and I have spent most of our professional lives in the financial industry and we are aware that our views on this subject are different than those of the general population.

The "VSM Legend Series" bracket at http://www.pro-fit-intl.com/ looks interesting.

Panavise brackets can be seen at http://www.panavise.com/

You might try calling a phone installer in your area. I had a choice of several bracket styles from installers in the Kansas City area.

I did not expect my post on leasing to be particularly popular. This subject is certainly something that my wife (a CPA) and I have often discussed. We recommend that anyone considering a lease or mortgage thoroughly "run the numbers" on all three options: cash purchase, mortgage, and lease. Use the real numbers - not what you would like them to be. Consider all the tax consequences, opportunity costs, depreciation, etc. Frankly, we doubt that most people can do all this without the aid of an unbiased professional.

Even when people understand the numbers, I still hear: "But I really want this car and leasing or a loan is the only way I can afford it". Ignoring the numbers and going ahead and leasing or financing a car does not make one a bad person. My only point is that if people really understood the numbers, some of them might change their behavior and be better off in the long run. And some of them would not. It is all about personal choice and each of us has to decide for himself. I probably got on this soap box in the first place because it is very disturbing seeing so many "high income / low net worth" people who are deeply in debt.

I'd doubt it would be feasible from a cost or technical standpoint to retrofit a Lexus Bluetooth interface. There are other Bluetooth kits from Nokia, the CK Parrot, which might work for you although they are not at sophisticated as the Lexus Bluetooth which a lot of people seem to be complaining about anyway.

Regarding the bracket, a very similar bracket was used by a Cingular installer in both our 90 LS and 98 Camry to position our Nokia handsets to the right of the radio. I think we were charged about $15 each for it. Two approximately 3/8 inch self tapping screws were used and they were so short that there was no worry about coming though the visible side of the console. Bolting the radio/ventilation unit back into place also contributed to holding the bracket firmly in place. One thing I have noticed about the "no-drilling" brackets is that they are made to mount where the designer thought the handset should be positioned. I've seen some that, when mounted as designed, blocked the air flow from a vent. I didn't particular care for where the installer mounted the bracket in my LS and it took only a few minutes to pop out the radio and reposition the bracket exactly where I wanted it.

Sometimes I think we need a separate forum category for phones!

Well is Lenexa Kansas close enough? And "99LSguy" lives in Lees Summit and is quite active in these forums.

Whether one buys, leases, or pays cash really boils down to how one wants to spend his or her money. Leasing, like buying a car on a mortgage, is providing profits to others. There is no "free lunch". One of the easiest routes to financial independence is to avoid paying other people to use their money but to instead have other people pay you to use your money.

The "spread" between what you would pay others in interest on a lease or mortgage to use their (a bank's) money and what you would gain by having others pay you to use your money is large and can exceed 20% of your income during periods of normal interest rates. And its even worse (or better depending on your perpective) than that because of compounding. It is like increasing your income by 20% with no effort.

Don't get me wrong. There have been times when leasing a car made business sense if you could write it off. But not now and not recently.

Increasing your income in this way by avoiding debt and investing wisely will free you from fear of economic volitility, provide for a comfortable retirement, and allow you to buy just as many, if not a lot more, nice Lexus vehicles. I wish I had learned these "Finance 101" concepts at an even earlier age but it is never too late to learn.

Personally, I benefit financially when others lease or mortgage their vehicles. But who would you rather pay? Yourself or me?

Let me be the first to congratulate you for accomplishing this. Electrical issues can be very difficult to track down. My repair shop tried off and on for years to figure out why a dash light showing a brake light out would occasionally come on when the brake light was still working fine. I was starting to suspect the expensive lamp failure module but by chance found the real cause which was a loose connection in the trailer light wiring harness installed by the hitch company.

We need people like you with electrical skills in this forum! Welcome aboard!

Dogboy! Did I understand you correctly that you have integrated a non-Lexus handsfree phone into the factory phone controls and wiring? If so, and based on what I'm reading on this and other Lexus forums, there are a huge number of poeple who would like to do this. I don't know if you've read my recent posts on phone topics but I'm about to attempt to integrate my Nokia CARK-91 car kit into the LS audio system using a wiring harness I ordered today from a company in the U.K. Any information on how you accomplished integrating your handsfree phone would be appreciated by lots of people. Cases of beer or better would start showing up on your doorstep! Or you could write an instruction manual and sell it.

I tend to think that the phone jack and little speaker were left over from a previously installed non-Lexus phone.

The early Lexus phones were analog only, hardwired into the car, had a steering wheel control left of the horn/airbag cover, and played the call through the audio system when in handsfree mode. The rear window antenna used a cable that was prewired into the car and which you can probably see if you look near the rear center of the headliner. I started out with a hardwired phone when I bought my LS in 1990 but sure wish I had switched to a handheld much sooner when I found out how much more useful they are. You could always put in a car kit for a handheld phone or just install an inexpensive phone holder. Car kits are fairly straight forward to install although some kits require removing/reinstalling quite a lot of trim and stuff to run the wires.

Consumer Reports had a good article on cell phone service in a recent issue and particularly highlighted the issues with GSM in the U.S.

I'd recommend searching the forum for "phone". I think you will find that most people are not using the original Lexus phones.

If you would like to do a complete deinstall of the phone. Next pull up the little mat that is on the bottom of the consul. There are 2 screws that you can take out that will allow you to be able to lift the console up enough to pull the wires through.

I'm struggling to remember if the screws under the little pop-in plastic ventilation grill have to be removed in order the remove the console insert or if they have to be removed only when removing the entire console. This is the little grill that passes air to the back seat when the console cover is closed - you can see at the back of the console when the lid is up. When removing the console insert, use a regular scewdriver with the blade well taped to avoid damage when prying the insert out. I usually started prying out the insert by inserting the taped screwdriver blade between the console insert and the upholstered portion just ahead of the coin holder. The first time I pryed the console insert out I thought I was going to break something!

While you have the console apart, it might be a good time to replace the bulb that lights the rear cigarette lighter. Take care to reinstall the plastic shield around the tiny light bulb when reinserting it.

If your 91 is like my 90 was, I think you will see where the Lexus phone plugs in after you remove the console insert. I must have removed the console insert and sometimes the entire console seven or eight times as we changed phones during the many years we had the 90 LS. As many times as I disassembled the console, you would think I would remember the procedure exactly but I'm having a "senior moment".

You could always leave the antenna on the glass in the event you want to use it some day with a handheld phone's car kit. My external analog antenna seemed to add signal strength even to our digital handheld phones.

A Lexus dealer parts department might be able to answer your question or perhaps you could contact a salvage yard. I had a 90 LS for many years and bought a 2000 LS recently. I suspect that the back seats are different because it was obvious how to remove the backseat bottom cushion in the 90 LS (by pulling the two tabs) but there are no tables on the cushion of the 2000 LS. Consider using seats from a 91-92 since those cars were virtually identical to your 90 or from a 93-94 which were still not all that much different. If the seats are basically sound, maybe an auto upholstery shop could redo them. Good luck!

I did - finally - get a radio mute lead harness ordered early this morning from Dashmount in the U.K. for about $80 US. Whether or not it will properly interface with the audio system in our U.S spec. Camry and LS400 or come with adequate installation instructions is still unknown. A local phone installer I spoke with yesterday seems very enthusiastic about doing the installation but will require me to sign a damage waiver. The Dashmount rep said that the reason I have been getting their voice mailbox when I called was that they are being inundated with calls because a new laws there provide for very large fines for using a handheld phone while driving. I'll post the results although I expect it will be a few weeks at best.