1990LS400

If you don't read the manual, you might not know what you are missing. There may be features that you would really value if you knew about them. One of my roles in my "retirement gig" is to write instructional materials and to get supposedly highly educated technical staff to use them and other reference materials that would help them use technology to perform their tasks more efficiently. It's a lot like persuading car owners to read owners manuals!

Navigation systems are an aid - not a directive - and they get easier to use with practice. Review the route choices before selecting one - don't just press the "go" button and accept the default route. Perhaps review the turn lists. Glancing at the map while driving can help. If the navigation voice tells you to do something obviously ineffective, ignore it and it will automatically reroute you - often in a better way. I once had a portable navigation device (Magellan) tell me to turn on to a bridge over the Missouri River than had been removed several years earlier. I guess I could have driven through the barrier and into the water but I decided not to do that. Phones can be tracked regardless of whether or not you have turned off location services - even older phones before GPS on phones was mandated for 911 emergency services can be tracked via signal triangulation. Oh, poor Denny! I remember a blustery, cool day in May, 2006 when my wife and I were dining at restaurant on the Virginia Beach strip a stone's throw from the water. It really is true: A bad day at the beach is better than a good day at the office. It's funny how I often remember vacations by the cars we rented - that 2-week vacation was "Ford 500 Limited" trip.

Also be aware that the weight of much bigger wheels and tires will make your 90 LS400 seem slow and sluggish - 240 horsepower ain't much these days. I noticed this even when I tried only a "plus zero" setup on the 1990 LS400 I drove from 1990 to 2003. My "plus zero" setup was 225/60-15 tires on the original 15x6.5 inch wheels. This setup kept the speedometer accurate. The wider tires wrote harsher (wife hated it) but having more rubber on the road made the car feel like it braked better although I don't know if it really did. The 225/60-15 also made it almost impossible to "curb" the wheels since more of the tires stuck out and protected the wheels from curbs and I thought they looked better on the car.

I think most people and certainly most Lexus forum moderators would put forth a little more effort to explore the features of their new Lexus vehicles than you did. :chairshot: I've taken delivery of a number of brands of new cars (VW, Volvo, Honda, Toyota, Lexus, Mercedes) and none of the delivery "ceremonies" and overviews went into much detail. It was always something like: "here's your owners manual which explains everything". (The Mercedes delivery really was a ceremony - not sure if giving a person a glass of Champagne before driving away was a good idea but it was the 70's.) The annual cost of the "Enform Complete Package" does seem a little high - particularly when it is the same for a relatively inexpensive IS250 and a vastly more expensive LS600hL. It is possible to "unbundle" Safety Connect and subscribe to it separately: https://secure.drivers.lexus.com/lexusdrivers/lexusenform/subscriptions.do We purchased multi-year subscriptions to Safety Connect on our Toyota Sienna and Prius to get a lower per year cost and I assume that discounted multi-year subscriptions are available for Lexus since the single-year cost is the same for Toyota and Lexus brand vehicles. And maybe discounted multi-year subscriptions are available for the "Enform Complete Package"? Denny, do you have a cell phone? If you do, you are already being tracked! :chairshot: (How many "chairshots" can be put in one post?)

Well it certainly should be removing condensation on the inside of the windshield. Is the A/C working OK? The A/C should turn on automatically when the front defroster button is pressed unless someone has changed the "COMPRESSOR/DEFROSTER/OPERATION" setting to "NORMAL" with a scan tool. "LINK" is the default setting. Like others are saying, the cabin filter could be blocked but that would be affecting all HVAC modes - not just defrost. I've seen some hilarious photos of cabin filters that have never been cleaned or changed - totally blocked. I sometimes cleaned the filter with compressed air between services at which time my mechanic would change it. Be gentle when removing the cabin filter as some have damaged the little door in front of it - an expensive repair. But really ... there was never seemed to be a lot of air flow from the defroster vents in either of my LS400's but it was plenty enough to quickly clear condensation.

The key question ... is your defroster working well enough to defrost your windshield? I went through 11 winters with a 2000 LS400 with a significant portion of my winter driving being in almost to the southern border of Minnesota. It's defroster worked well enough the majority of the time but sometimes not well enough to melt accumulating ice when driving in freezing drizzle - I pulled off Interstate highways numerous times on long trips to scrape ice from the windshield and to free up the wipers. I sometimes had to manually set the fan speed and temperature to maximum. My 1990 LS400 defrosters performed about the same in this respect. I did a "happy dance" when I found out that my Toyota van has an electrically heated windshield ... would have bought it anyway but it was a nice bonus.

Maybe this past thread may be helpful: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/topic/18799-only-136-miles-check-enginevsc-offvsc-trac/

I just checked and there are a bunch of used 2002 headlamp units on eBay. Even if the plastic lenses are worn they can almost always be restored with a kit to look like new.

Did you try my suggestion? You are not the first who has reported this "problem".

Did you try turning up the intensity of the dash lights when the headlights are on? There are separate daytime and nighttime dash light intensity settings IIRC.

Why are you asking since it seems that you were aware that you were being taken (for a ride)? It's the "American Way" to get people to buy things they don't need.

The roof antenna was used either for a dealer installed phone system or the obsolete analog Lexus Link service. Replace it only if you want it to look pretty or you could use a little metric bolt to plug the hole.

It's all explained at http://www.lexus.com/enform/ I might not have renewed Safety Connect in our Prius and Sienna if my wife and I weren't so freakin' old! Did you never press the SOS button in the roof to verify that it connects to an operator?

Maybe you need http://www.taninautoelectronix.com/ They have an excellent reputation for repairing Lexus LS400 instrument clusters - and some of the lowest prices I've seen.

I never noticed that few CD's display text information (album, artist, track) on the navigation screens in our vehicles since we almost never use our in-dash CD players and changers anymore - we store our music collection on our phones and more often stream music from Internet services which allows us to see this information on the nav screens. Your "problem" doesn't appear to have anything to do with the audio system in your GS300. I recommend that you do some reading on the Internet (e.g. Wikipedia) on how "CD Text" works. And please do not post the same question over and over.

Are you using commercial CD's are ones you burned yourself on a PC? Newer commercial CD's supply album title and track info but sometimes title and track info does not get transferred when CD's are burned on a PC.

The tolerances are tiny with these little clips - more like microns than millimeters. I suggest that you try a new C-clip.

A CPO inspection does not include removing bumper covers to verify that parking sensors are undamaged. The Lexus dealer was duped by the previous owner or lessee and the problem was probably inadvertently passed on to you. I would hope that the Lexus dealer would take care of this at no cost to you particularly since you took it to a Lexus collision center. But if not, you might as well have the damage fixed at your cost and move on. Something similar happened when I purchased an off-lease 2000 LS400 in 2003. When someone hit the rear of the car a few years later, previous hidden unrepaired damage was discovered. I paid whatever was necessary to repair the additional damage and moved on. I doubt if the selling dealer knew about the hidden damage so I didn't bother to bring the issue up with the seller. I think your case if a bit different in that you bought your ES only eight or nine months ago. I would be interested in hearing what the dealer says about this. That 2000 LS400 was the only used vehicle I have purchased since the 1970's. No more used vehicles for me.

Google something like "waterproof key case" and buy online or visit a general sporting goods store or a dive shop that sells scuba equipment. We've got a bunch of waterproof bags and cases from tiny to duffle bag size and all of them came from stores like I mentioned.

Remote start was optional in 2009. I think 2014 was the first model year that remote start was included in Lexus Enform on the ES but I'm not certain.

You've got it. That's one of the frustrating aspects of buying used vehicles or buying new vehicles and keeping them a long time like we have done - one simply does not get technologies and features that have become common since the vehicle was manufactured. If in 2022 you buy a new vehicle instead of a used one, you might get a vehicle that is self-driving, has a "Back to the Future" flux capacitor and is fueled by rainbows.

I suppose you could try local "junk yards". I was surprised last year when I could not find a used OEM wheel of the most common design for my 2014 Sienna, in a metro area of over 1 million people, that was in excellent condition and at a reasonable price let alone a set of four to use with snow tires.. I ended up buying a set of four refurbished wheels from Wheels and Caps at the best price I found on the Internet. They appear to have the most common 1999 ES300 wheel in stock: http://www.wheelsandcaps.com/c-2283-oem-aluminum-alloy-wheels_Lexus-ES300-1999.aspx Wheels and Caps is a subsidiary of the largest supplier of remanufactured auto parts in the U.S. which has warehouses all over the U.S. including within a few miles of me in Kansas. The refurbished Sienna wheels I bought from them were like new and still look like new after a winter's use. If you need the optional wheel that is shown as being out of stock, it still may be possible for Wheels and Caps to supply one. They didn't have enough Sienna wheels in stock when I first contacted them but they were able to deliver a full set within a few weeks. Shipping from Wheels and Caps will cost extra but is still far less than I can ship wheels for. There are likely other wheel suppliers that can help you if you do an Internet search but I was very happy with Wheels and Caps.

Yes, wife-training is almost as difficult as husband-training. :cries: I doubt if would feasible to add the driver seat retraction feature since in later model years it is also a customizable feature - "On" or "Off" with the default being "On". That means that the feature is programmed into the ECU that controls the seat memory. Maybe it would be possible to substitute the seat control ECU from an RX450h but who knows if would work properly and the cost of trying it might be shocking. Maybe look at this as one of the many additional features you will get on your next RX. The 2016 RX is getting lots of new features including heated and power folding rear seats, all-speed adaptive radar cruise control and Lane Keep Assist. The press release about the 2016 RX is on www.lexus.com .

The rear bumper cover has to come off. I suggest searching YouTube for a how-to video. If you don't find a video for an ES350, a video for a different Toyota or Lexus model should give you a good idea how it's done.

See page 363 of the owners manual for how to use the mechanical key to unlock the driver door. You can read it online at: http://drivers.lexus.com/t3Portal/document/om/OM53619U/pdf/sec_05_02.pdf The entire owners manual can also be read online in the owners section of www.lexus.com - no need to register.