1990LS400

Take a look at this thread: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/topic/86587-2006-rx330-water-in-floor/?hl=water It's about a water leak on a 2006 RX330 that was caused by a gap in a body seam behind the rear bumper cover. I've never seen an interior water leak caused by a defective side door seal - only from blocked sunroof or A/C drain tubes, defective or improperly installed windshield gasket, defective rear hatch/trunk gasket and the worse leak I've ever seen which was caused by a tail light gasket that a body shop installed upside down during a collision repair.

I can't tell from your incoherent rambling which road you were on when "Approaching Albany NY area from west" but would taking I-90 still routed you to the Massachusetts Turnpike fairly efficiently? (I used to spend a lot of time in Albany on business.) Navigation systems are advisory but will usually get you to your destination but not always the best or preferred way. If you know a better way or prefer a different way, then take it. You might want to look at the routing preferences in the nav settings and change them if needed. The way navigation systems work, whether Garmin or Toyota/Lexus, they quickly adapt to the route you have taken after you ignore the nav's instructions. That's what your nav did. Thanks. You reminded me that I need to get a nav update for my Sienna this week. Toyota/Lexus nav updates are available each November.

You have a Japanese home market import. You won't find any of those in the U.S. but they could be imported to Canada under its 25-year rule. I don't know where you would find a diagram for it and if you did it would probably be in Japanese. It might be necessary to dismantle the car to the extent to find all the components. You might even have to run new speaker wires and install new speakers. Maybe you could ask on the U.K. section of this forum since Japanese imports are common in the U.K.

A common cause of hard to remove film on the inside of windshields is a leaking heater core. Are you smelling coolant (antifreeze) or having to add coolant to the coolant reservoir? Does the film seem a little oily? I suggest that you have the heater core checked. If the heater core is leaking even a little bit, the film is going to come back which would be the least of your problems. As for removing coolant film, try denatured alcohol and plenty of paper towels being careful not to splash any on the dash.

Have you checked that the bulbs are good? I was told by my mechanic that it is common for fog lights on the early LS400 to stop working due to corrosion of a connection on a "fuse block" - or at least that was what my mechanic called it. My mechanic always got the fog lights working again by cleaning the connection at this "fuse block" about once each year during the last several years I owned my 1990 LS400. I never asked where this "fuse block" was located - whether it was the one in the engine compartment or under the dash but I would think that the one in the engine compartment would be the more likely suspect since it was exposed to the elements.

I know that Lexus dealers can have the odometer on a replacement new instrument cluster "flashed" with the correct mileage when ordering it but it was not something they could do in-house. I suggest that you document the current mileage and just go with the replacement cluster with the higher mileage. There is a legally required odometer replacement sticker that should be placed on the door jam but that is more often done when the new odometer is set to zero miles. I suppose you could have the mechanic install one of these stickers to document the odometer reading at the time it was replaced. Here is an example of one of those stickers: http://www.paadps.com/odometerrepairlabel.aspx

Looking back, I should have replaced the OEM Nakamichi in the similar 2000 LS400 I sold last year a lot sooner than I did. The inexpensive (< $500 total cost) Kenwood double-DIN that I had installed made the old car seem much more modern - great sound using the Nak amp and all the original speakers, 18 FM presets, built-in Pandora interface, first rate voice controlled Bluetooth hands free phone, XM radio for less than $50 more, support for backup camera and rear seat video screens, played movies from DVD, fully supported iPhone video, wireless Bluetooth audio streaming, USB and 3.5mm aux-in inputs .... and it didn't look like an aftermarket head unit. It looked like it could have been installed at the Lexus factory. IMO, aftermarket audio is the way to go in these older cars.

If the bulb you were replacing was the one under the shift lever, I know how much "fun" doing that is. I did it in a 1998 Camry which has a similar or the same shift mechanism about five years ago Maybe the "click" you heard was a wire burning through and then permanently grounding. If so, that might be difficult to find but I would think that would cause a fuse to trip. Have you installed any LED bulbs into interior sockets not designed for them? There was a recent thread on another forum about someone who lost all his dash lights after installing LED bulbs. The dash lights worked properly when he reinstalled the correct bulbs. Maybe inspect the wires leading to the shifter bulb socket since that is where you were at when you heard the "click". I remember it being very difficult to access the shifter bulb socket but I stopped short of completely dismantling the shifter. And you might try changing fuse #37 ("Instrument panel lights, Glovebox light") even if it looks OK.

Did you try pressing the shift lock override button while moving the gear shift lever?

White papers? I've never heard of something like that for rack crossbars. The installation instructions for the crossbars for the 2010 RX350 do not have measurements for the crossbars. Can you measure them yourself? Measuring calipers like I have are about $10 at a store near where I live. My favorite trailer supply company where I have bought hitches, harnesses and the bike rack I use on my Sienna has only one roof bike rack that fits the crossbars of the 2010 RX350: http://www.etrailer.com/Best/Lexus/RX_350/Bike_Rack/Roof_Bike_Racks/ $127.20 seems like a lot to carry only one bike. I paid etrailer only $99 for my hitch mounted Pro Series Eclipse 4-bike rack when it was on special and its current price at etrailer is $125.95: http://www.etrailer.com/Hitch-Bike-Racks/Pro-Series/63124.html It is a very sturdy hitch, folds away from the vehicle and is nicer than some hitch racks that cost far more. I used a La Prealpina car top bike rack for about 10 years but only hitch bike racks for the last 25 years. Hitch racks are much more convenient, easier to load bikes on, no risk of damaging vehicle paint if a bike slips from your grasp, doubles as a work stand, no worry about forgetting that bikes are on top and trashing them (and the vehicle) on an overhead obstacle, and NO WIND NOISE. If you don't have a receiver hitch on your RX, you could buy one from etrailer for little more than what than what that 1-bike rack for your RX crossbars cost. A receiver hitch is very easy to install.

Both 16.5 and 15 mpg seem pretty bad for a gently driven RX350 F-Sport if that is your overall average numerous fill-ups and represents a typical mix of city and highway driving - unless you usually drive in stop-and-go traffic or on surface streets and rarely drive at highway speeds. My FWD Sienna with the same engine averages about 20 mpg in combined city/highway driving and a little over 23 mpg on long highway trips at a constant 70 mph. The RX350 and the Sienna have very similar (heavy!) weights although the RX350 has a little better coefficient of drag factor at .27 vs. .309 of the Sienna. The V8 2000 LS400 I sold last year weighed 700 pounds less than my Sienna and got far better gas mileage - particularly at highway speeds. I wouldn't expect the gas mileage of a FWD 2015 RX350 to be much different than an AWD 2013 RX350 F-Sport.

The same V6 engine used the 2013 RX350 F-sport, regular RX350, ES350, etc. is used in a number of Toyota brand vehicles including the Camry, Sienna and Highlander. Regular gas is specified for the Toyota vehicles for an output of 266 HP. Premium gas is specified for the Lexus vehicles for an output of 270. The 2013 RX350 F-sport with the 8-speed transmission is EPA rated at 18 mpg city, 26 mpg highway. My 2014 Sienna with the same engine but the regular 6-speed transmission instead of the 8-speed is rated at 18 mpg city, 25 mpg highway as is the regular 2013 RX350 with the 6-speed transmission. It's up to the individual whether or not to pay more for premium gas to get four more horsepower. I tried using premium gas in our Camry V6 a few times and couldn't tell a difference in performance. 15 to 16 mpg sounds about right for an F-Sport if driven a little hard in city driving but it should get at least 22 mpg on the highway.

The forum threads I mentioned were about a "busy ride" and not about wandering. One of those threads in the RX sub-forum got another comment yesterday if you would like to take a look at it. The forum thread about the RX steering was about a perhaps unrealistic expectation that one could gun the throttle of an RX from a stop while sharply turning the steering wheel to the left without inducing over-steer. My, but you are old. You've got me by three years. VDIM is not at all intrusive and doesn't take anything from driving any more than Porsche's "PTV Plus" which corrects steering by independently braking the rear wheels to put the vehicle back on the course that PTV Plus "thinks" the driver wants to go. Both these systems allow stupidity - intentional or not - without consequences like crashing, injury, death. Have you ever pushed your RX hard enough for VSC to activate? A little scary, eh? I did that many times on purpose in my 2000 LS400 when driving on snow and ice in Winter just for fun. By the time VSC activates, the vehicle is going out of control. VDIM activates just before that point so that "out of control" is never reached. I never cared much for Porsches before the Panamera. My main exposure to them were 356, 912, the awful "Volks-Porsche" 914-4 and the 944 that were owned by others. I had another "discussion" with my wife just last Sunday about buying a Panamera and she again said "NO!!!". I drove several hundred miles of California Highway 1 north and south of San Francisco on separate trips a few years back for my "bucket list" - would have been a lot more fun in a Panameria than the not-so-great rental cars. I'm loving all the safety and convenience technology that Toyota and other manufacturers are introducing. I thought about that yesterday when I was driving to work in traffic, rain and darkness on mostly interstate highways. Traffic flow varied up and down between maybe 30 and 65 mph and visibility was sometimes poor. I was absolutely fine with letting the Sienna's radar cruise control do most of the accelerating and braking for me and never having to touch the windshield wiper control. What could get us to replace our current vehicles sooner than planned is if vehicles we like are introduced with significant self driving capabilities. I still enjoy driving but I would not mind just monitoring a system that did it for me. I'll be driving to Paul A.'s neck of the woods in a couple of weeks and would just as soon "sleep" while driving through southern rural Iowa.

I have to wonder what generation and variation of Sienna you test drove. My 2014 Sienna Limited with ATP is vastly more similar to the Lexus LS cars I drove for 24 years than any RX loaner provided by the Lexus dealer or other RX that I have only ridden in. Here an article about the 2014 Sienna Limited like I have before it got the facelift for 2015 - the article says Sienna XLE but that might be because the Limited is called the XLE Limited in Canada: http://driving.ca/toyota/reviews/road-test/road-test-2014-toyota-sienna-xle There have been several threads on this forum in the past few months from owners complaining about the "busy" ride of the RX350 and its tendency to dangerously oversteer when making sharp turns from a stop. There is none of that in the much longer wheelbase Sienna and VDIM makes all sorts of corrections including to steering if you overdo it. Maybe you can actually find a Toyota dealer that has a Sienna Limited with the Advanced Technology Package in stock since you are California and much further from the factory than I am. Last year when I tried to find any Sienna Limited just to look at before ordering one, none of the seven Toyota dealers in the metro area had one. Sienna Limited with the Advanced Technology Package seems to be extremely rare ... easy to identify by their different grill. I've seen only one on the road since I started looking early last year. VDIM is an extraordinary technology which I hope will become standard on all vehicles made by Toyota. Here is a Wikipedia page about its "hand of God" properties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Dynamics_Integrated_Management

Don't hold your breath waiting for a "Lexus van style", Dixon. The RX is sort of the "anti-minivan". People who wouldn't dream of driving a "mommy-mobile" van are fine with driving a pseudo-SUV RX. There doesn't seem to be room in the American marketplace for a large luxury brand van or MPV. Mercedes gave up on its R-class MPV a couple of years ago after selling very few and it is unlikely that its V-class/Metris is going to make it to North America. The fully optioned Sienna Limited is already nicely Lexus-like with nice leather, memory driver seat, ottoman middle row chairs, power reclining 3rd row seats, acoustic glass, roller blinds, Pre-Collision System, radar adaptive cruise control, Safety Connect (S.O.S.), Entune, HID headlamps with auto high beam, rain sensing wipers, power folding exterior mirrors, dual screen Blu-ray rear video, front and rear sunroofs, VDIM like the RX F-Sport and on and on. Other than a hybrid drivetrain, the 2016 RX appears to be the first RX that has significant features (e.g. Lane Keeping Assist, all-speed adaptive cruise control) that, at least for now, are not available on the Sienna Limited. I suspect that the redesigned generation 4 Sienna Limited will have those features when it is introduced for 2017 or 2018.

PIONEERSUBY was last active on this forum on Aug 24 2014 so I doubt that he will see your request. I doubt that an OEM navigation system from 2002 would be desirable since annual map updates for the generation 2/3 system were discontinued in 2013. IMO, a portable GPS unit like a Garmin provides better navigation and Bluetooth hands free phone that even the newest Toyota/Lexus systems. If you really want an in-dash nav, aftermarket is the way to go but it will cost far more than a portable Garmin.

I can see where Mr. Toyoda is coming from. The Lexus brand and the RX in particular has been targeted more towards ... ahem ... "mature" drivers. The Toyota brand has been targeted towards younger drivers and already sells multiple vehicles with three rows of seats. Both the Toyota Highlander and the Lexus RX continue to share the same understructure and have the same wheelbase - 109.8 inches. When third row seats were added to the Highlander for the first time in the 2014 model year, there was room to make them suitable only for children or diminutive adults with a mere 27.7 inches of legroom - not at all Lexus-like. It was in the news some time back that the largest Lexus dealer in Japan lobbied Toyota for a Lexus version of the Toyota Alphard or Sienna three-row vans but was turned down. The Toyota Alphard Executive van has an incredibly high level of equipment, a commensurate price equivalent to over US$100,000 and is often used as a chauffeured vehicle for corporate executives. My take is that we will see a three row RX when 20- and 30-somethings with kids start buying the RX.

Carpet mats for both the interior and trunk were sold by Lexus dealers as accessories in a variety of colors for some Lexus models. For example, the 2000 LS400 I bought off-lease in 2003 and sold last year had ivory interior carpet and a low nap black trunk carpet mat but also had black interior carpet floor mats and a plush accessory black carpet trunk mat on top of the standard low nap trunk carpet mat. Both the original low nap black trunk carpet mat and the accessory plush black carpet mat were the same size but the accessory trunk mat had the Lexus name and maybe to "L" logo on it. I suppose I could have discarded the original standard low nap trunk carpet mat and used only the black accessory trunk carpet mat but I used one on top of the other. These accessory carpet mats often go out of stock long before the standard carpet mats do and are not listed in the standard parts lists. Edit: I forget to mention that I checked the official parts list and found that only one color trunk carpet is listed for the SC430 for both the 2003 and 2004 model years: "medium gray". Lexus accessory catalogs are separate and short term. I've seen some official Lexus accessories available for only a year or two, an example of which was the rear window roller shade accessory that I bought in 1990 for my first LS400. That was a wonderful accessory and had to be dealer installed using a large hard plastic template that allowed the mounting holes to be drilled in exactly the right places.

According to the parts cross reference at toyodiy.com , only the ES manufactured from 07/2001 through 02/2006 uses this particular regulator/motor assembly - part # 85720-33150.

They certainly are inexpensive - not much to lose if they don't work or last. A number of reviews about the Tao on Amazon said that it failed after a few weeks or months. I didn't read reviews about the other one. Your profile says 2004 ES350. What year and model do you really have? Both these products require a 3.5 mm aux-in to the vehicle audio system.

OK ... so my understanding is that the car does not show in the list of available devices on your phone's Bluetooth screen. Have you tried the "usual" actions like scanning for Bluetooth devices from your phone, switching Bluetooth on your phone off and on, rebooting your phone, etc. Does your new S6 pair with and work OK with other Bluetooth devices? e.g. other vehicles, a home Bluetooth system, portable GPS, headsets, toaster ovens, etc.? Have you tried deleting all the phones from your ES350 and starting over? Samsung is really p1ssing a lot of people off with the S6. I and a number of people I know have an S5 with swappable batteries and huge capacity micro SD cards. If I wanted an iPhone 6 like my wife has, I would have bought one instead of a "look-alike" like the Samsung S6.

Have you checked eBay?

I would spend just enough to keep the car moving safely if it has so low a value that it isn't worth insuring. I wouldn't replace any belts or hoses unless they look like they are about to fail. A proper timing belt replacement that includes the water pump, tensioner and idlers will cost nearly as much that KBB value. Timing belts rarely fail on their own - usual cause is another part failing, e.g. the water pump. Sure, do basic fluid and filter changes - decent coolant is important if you live where the whether gets cold. I would save the money you would spend fixing this ES up and prepare to buy a newer, lower mileage vehicle.

Is that a package of Depends I see on the front seat? :o

My newest set of jack stands - labeled "MVP Pro-Lift 3 Ton" - has slots in the "saddles" for the pitch welds. I don't remember where I bought them but it was probably at a local chain store five or ten years ago. I'm not nearly as old as you (!!!) but I'm thinking that my new Medicare card gives me license to start letting others change my oil. It was easy to change engine oil and filters on our 90 and 00 LS400's and our 98 Camry but it's gotten much more difficult on recent vehicles made by Toyota due to the replaceable paper filters and oil filter housings that have their own drain plugs. It may even be impossible to change the oil in our Prius wagon without putting the car on a lift or on some super-high jack stands due to the length of the hinged access panel. Two of the last three oil changes at Toyota dealerships have not gone well. A Toyota dealer dramatically overfilled the engine oil in our Prius (especially bad for an Atkinson cycle engine). A different Toyota dealer tightened the oil filter housing drain plug on our Sienna so tightly that I can't remove the plug even after removing the housing from the engine - same dealer that rotated my tires and tightened all the lug nuts to way over 150 ft. lbs.! I've tried to avoid dealerships as much as possible. I've had quite a bit of minor damage done at dealerships - particularly by porters and cleanup people - over the years with my "favorite" being a Lexus dealership cleanup crew removing and misplacing the rear seat headrests from my 90 LS400 and then telling me that my LS400 didn't come with rear headrests. Duh!