1990LS400

If you also can't operate the door lock with the inside electrical switch the problem may be the actuator. Here is a thread on that: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=41219&hl= Yes, it is possible that the headlights are not turning off due to the door lock issue. The headlight auto setting is great for turning the headlights on and off as lighting conditions change but I found that it tends to run the batteries down in our Toyota and Lexus cars when the cars are left sitting for more than a couple of days. Because of that, we turn the headlight switches to the off position when we park the cars.

According the the attached diagram it's plugged into the outboard side of the washer fluid tank. The pumps for the windshield and rear window washers are also plugged into the tank so I'll post a diagram of those too. Most Toyota/Lexus washer pumps and tanks are replaced through the wheel well but I'm kind of remembering somebody having to remove the bumper cover on his RX ... but he may have had to replace the tank rather than plugging in a new pump.

Have you checked for stored problem codes? Do any of the work orders from those three shops and the dealership show what problem codes they read?

Pages 89-90 of your navigation manual which you can also view at https://secure.drivers.lexus.com

Quite possibly. Attached diagram shows the three damper servos.

The amplifier for both the Nakamichi and Pioneer audio systems are under the front passenger seat in the 95-00 LS400. dcfish must have been thinking about his GS. By all means follow Landar's advice and maybe contact "Bob" at Car Stereo Repair in Florida; http://www.carstereohelp.com/lexus.htm They fixed the Nak in my 00 LS a few years ago but I think they no longer repair most Nak issues due to a lack of available parts. When the right channel of my Nak became distorted and finally quit working entirely, I assumed it was an amplifier problem. But when I plugged my Nak amplifier into the Nak system of a friend's 99 LS400, my amp worked perfectly. I can't remember if I sent the amp with the head unit, but Car Stereo Repair found that the problem was a loose connection at the balance control in the head unit. They resoldered the balance control and my Nak system has worked fine ever since. Ideally, it would be great if you could test your amplifier in another 95-97 LS400 with Nakamichi. The 98-00 LS400 amplifier can be easily removed without removing the passenger seat but I don't know if that is possible in a 95-97 LS400. When I tested my 00 LS Nak amp in my friends 99 LS, it was a matter of removing the amp cover in his car, unplugging the connectors from his amp, and then plugging the connectors into my amp which I laid on the back floor. There was plenty of cable length, so I did not have to unbolt/remove my friend's amp to test mine. But, of course, it could be something else like the speakers ... but all the speakers aren't going to fail at once.

Let's ignore this duplicate thread and answer your question in your other thread: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=69462&pid=433959&st=0entry433959

If you have not done it already, check for broken wires at the left trunk hinge -- absolutely the #1 cause of erratic transmission shifting on the 90-94 LS400. Unwrap the insulation and wiggle each wire to determine if the wire core has broken since a wire core can break without the insulation breaking. If any wires are broken, splice in short lengths of wire -- soldering is best but you can get by for a while with just twisting the connected wires together and wrapping them with tape. The problem could be caused by something else but check the trunk hinge wires first -- the problem eventually effects ALL 90-94 LS400's.

Based on your question, I figured you hadn't had your car very long. Do you have/have had other vehicles that made it up your driveway? What were those? Are your winter tires in really good shape and have relatively few miles? It takes a lot of tread depth to cope with deep snow and even the best winter tires can fall below that tread depth by 12K to 15K miles. Maybe ask your Lexus dealer for advice. If your driveway is that steep, maybe you need a 4WD vehicle. I think you are going to find that you are wasting your money on LSD but ... well, everyone needs a hobby.

Easy install, wasn't it? Some Lexus models have required a little drilling and removing the rear wheels to do it. I had to do both on my 90 and 00 LS400's.

I assume that you are talking about only the front brakes since there is no way you could get a four wheel brake job with rotors for close to $520. I am not familiar with rotor life on a 2008 GS350 but the front rotors on my 2000 LS400 show are still at the original thickness (no wear at all) at 136,000 miles. I checked the rotor thickness a few days ago. If your brakes were "gone" you should have gotten a warning message in your instrument cluster. It's hard to say if you got a good deal since we don't know how much work was done or if the rotors or pads were really worn out. On most older Lexus cars, front rotors last well over 200,000 miles but that may not be the case on your car. It is rare for rear rotors to ever need replacing due to wear. I was told at 73,000 miles that I needed rear brake pads but they still had 5K-10K miles of life left when I finally had them replaced at 120,000 miles. The Lexus dealer told me last fall that my front brake pads were worn out at 128,000 miles. The first set lasted 73,000 miles and according to my measurements, the second set will likely last beyond 150,000 miles. Brake jobs are a "cash cow" for dealers and repair shops and I don't think you should ever trust a dealer or repair shop to tell you when a brake job is needed. My advice is to buy the appropriate gauges and measure brake and rotor thickness yourself -- then have the brake pads and/or rotors replaced only when you are certain they are below specification.

Hmmm ... the most negative experience at a Lexus dealer ... hard to choose from the long ... oh so long ... list. I'll just copy and paste the information from a thread from the past: In about 1993-4, the engine on my first LS started to occasionally die while driving -- my basic 4 year/50K mile warranty had just expired. A service adviser at Superior Lexus in Kansas City told me that the main engine computer had failed and that they would replace it and fix the problem for about $1,000. When I told him that I was going to take my LS to an indie Lexus repair shop for a 2nd opinion, the dealer service writer "did a little dance" and told me that the mechanic had discovered that the problem was instead caused by a bad battery cable. C$180 for an oil change seems a bit much. Did you get some "free" coffee and a snack. Here in Kansas, 6 quarts of Mobil 1 and an OEM oil filter and oil plug gasket are currently right at $47 before tax. A few minutes out in the garage and I'm done ... and I don't have to worry about a dealer grease monkey violating my car or one of the clean up people/porters doing something bad like scratching my car or "losing" my headrests -- yes, they actually misplaced the rear headrests once and I never got a straight answer on why they were removed in the first place. "My car had rear headrests when I brought it in." "No it didn't." "But I'm certain it did. Could you have a look around for them?" "I'm pretty sure rear headrests were optional on the 90 LS. Are you sure yours had them? Did you leave them at home?" The headrest episode was a little like the Monty Python Parrot sketch:

Don't underestimate the amount of damage even those small RX mudflaps will prevent. The OEM ones for the RX look about the same size as the ones on my 00 LS (see attached photos) and the ones on my LS help a lot. And it is normal for the passenger side to get more damage from stone chips because debris tends to wash towards the edges of roads. It took a few months each to get mudflaps on both my 90 and 00 LS400's since I had to get them from UK (90 LS) and Canadian (00 LS) dealers. Both cars had perfect paint on the bumpers behind the rear wheels wheels when I bought them since the 90 LS was new and the 00 LS had just had it's bumpers repainted by the dealer before I bought it. I got more stone chips on the underneath and sides of the rear bumper covers in those few months than in the remaining 13+ years I owned the 90 LS and the nearly eight years I've owned the 00 LS. Mudflaps don't do much to keep a water spray from dirtying a car but they do help prevent thicker liquids - mainly road tar but sometimes spilled paint and other gunk - from getting on the sides of the car. Maybe cars don't need mudflaps as much on the drivers side but it would look odd to have them on just one side. Probably I'm so "in" to this concept is because we keep cars a long .... long time -- usually 10 to 15 years and like to keep them as nice looking as possible.

I sometimes think they should be called "stone guards" instead of mud flaps or mud guards. The reason I've put mudflaps on so many vehicles is that I sometimes drive on gravel roads and mud flaps seem to reduce paint damage from debris kicked up by the tires.

The following paragraph is from the 2006 GS300 owners manual but can be found in the owners manuals for other models: If the air conditioning compressor does not operate, the indicator of the ”A/C” switch will blink. If the indicator of the ”A/C” switch blinks even when the ”A/C” switch is touched again, have the compressor checked by your nearest Lexus dealer. Let's hope it's not compressor failure but that was the problem the one time the A/C button light blinked in a previous Lexus I owned.

It seems like OEM mudflaps have been gradually shrinking in size over the decades which I've noticed because I've had mudflaps on almost every car I've owned over 45 years. The OEM mudflaps I installed on the 90 LS I drove for many years were probably twice as big as the OEM mudflaps I put on my 00 LS. I remember reading that the larger OEM mudflaps on my 90 LS increased the noise level at highway speeds by one decibel so maybe that is a reason for the trend to smaller mudflaps. I saw a number of aftermarket mudflaps by Googling "RX350 mudflaps" but I've found that the quality of aftermarket mudflaps to be generally crappy. None of aftermarket mudflaps appear to be the molded type. Toyota/Lexus mudflaps are molded to fit perfectly and are probably impossible to get knocked off by ice and snow -- something that happened more than once with the substantially larger OEM mudflaps I had on Volvo and Mercedes vehicles many years ago. Also, OEM Toyota/Lexus mudflaps either use existing fasteners and/or come with elongated fasteners that make installation easy. And you won't have to drill into painted metal body parts or use the kind of clamps that are sometimes used with aftermarket mudflaps that can scratch paint and open a path for corrosion. I don't know if it will be the same on your RX but each of the front mudflaps on my 00 LS are held on with four flush fitting metal fasteners and the rear mudflaps are each held on by five flush fitting metal fasteners -- might be overkill but they aren't going any place. The $78 Sewell wants for set of RX350 mudflaps seems a bargain. The OEM mudflaps I bought for my 90 LS and 00 LS cost more than that for just one mudflap. The mudflaps I bought for my 00 LS from a Victoria BC Lexus dealer were US$88.06 EACH included shipping.

Search the SC430 forum with the key words "+spare +tire" (without the quotes) and you will find a number of threads about Toyota Supra, Acura TL, etc. spare tires being the same wheel and tire size as the tire/wheel in the official SC430 spare tire kit. You can get a spare tire/wheel that fits your SC430 for very little but if you want the complete trunk kit, that's another story.

Come on, Lenore ... this just isn't a big deal. Most times I see a thread started by you, I think "Walter".

The first thing to do is to manually calculate and record your fuel mileage over eight to ten tanks of fuel. Has anything changed? Are you carrying a boat anchor in the trunk that you didn't carry last year? Are you driving shorter distances, doing more stop and go driving, carrying more passengers, etc.? Not that it is going to make a huge difference but are your tire pressures at the correct level?

Why didn't the OP just have the first tire shop rotate the good tires to the front and then install the new tires on the back?

Was there some sort of special GS400 sold up there that had 400 ft-lb. of torque? The engines in the ones sold in the U.S. have a far lower torque rating. The engine in my 2000 LS400 is the same except with a bit more restrictive exhaust system that provides slightly less power and torque. Have you had this car long? Are you using high quality and fairly new winter tires (with the mountain/snowflake logo) on your car in Winter? Do you have studs in your snow tires? -- Studs are allowed about half of the year in Quebec. Are you using the snow mode transmission setting and leaving the VSC on? Are you familiar with the drawbacks of limited slip differentials when driving on snow? Here is a thread about LSD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysergic_acid_diethylamide

It's because different tire models can have dramatically different handling characteristics. I have Michelin Primacy all season tires on my Lexus too (I do not use them in winter) and they are quite, ride great and provide acceptable handling and braking but they fall far short of the handling and braking provided by the previous tires I used during Spring/Summer/Fall -- summer ultra high performance Bridgestone RE750. The RE750's were incredibly fun but I didn't like their short life - I squeezed just over 20,000 miles out of the set and I really should have discarded them sooner. The Primacy's are very nice and should last far longer but I have had to moderate my driving style which is something I should be doing anyway since I'm in serious geezer (60+) territory and I know my reflexes have to declining even if I don't notice it. No blasting around curves at the limit of adhesion on the Primacys. People interested in maximum performance don't use all season tires.

Insurance rates are not set arbitrarily but are based on loss experience using statistics both provided to and received from services like the ISO. Virtually all insurance companies rate use a symbol based rating system for autos: http://www.iso.com/Products/VINMASTER/Physical-Damage-Rating-Symbols.html And rates are filed with and approved by each state. If you think you are being charged an unfair rate, you can file a complaint with your state insurance commission but remember that it is the entity that approved the rates you are being charged.

The only Lexus "magazine" I ve seen or at least remember seeing in my 21 years of Lexus ownership is the online one on the Lexus website: https://secure.drivers.lexus.com/lexusdrivers/magazine/home.do

Brake rotors usually need replacing only when they wear down so much as to be out of specification or when they are warped so badly they can not be machined back into spec. I can't forecast how long the brake rotors on your particularly ES will last but I can tell you that the brake rotors on most vehicles made by Toyota are exceptionally resistant to wear. As on most cars, the rear rotors should last about twice as long as the front rotors. I just went out to the garage and used a micrometer to measure the thickness of the original factory installed front brake rotors on my 2000 LS400. According to the specs in my OEM shop manuals, the original thickness of the front rotors was 28 mm and the rotors should be replaced at 26 mm. Now the car is at just over 136,000 miles. The thickness of the front rotors measures is ... drum roll, please! ... exactly 28 mm. ZERO detectable wear. We will likely drive the LS and Camry to around 200,000 miles and we will never have to replace brake rotors on either car. It was the same on the 90 LS I bought new and drove for 183,500 miles. It's the same on our Camry which we bought new and have driven to 120,000 miles. Frequent rotor replacement is much more common on high performance cars and especially on both high and low performance Germain cars like a Mercedes I had where the front rotors were worn down below spec by about 120,000 miles. The original rear rotors however were still within spec when I sold the car at 210,000 miles. Back to the OP's original questions and comments. The ES was not designed to deliver a hard brake pedal or particularly sharp handling. It's a really nice front wheel drive boulevard cruiser with a comfortably soft suspension. If you have pump up the tires to 36-37 psi to make the car feel responsive then maybe an IS350, IS-F or BMW M3 would be a better choice.