Imzjustplayin

I can almost guarantee the issue with these ECUS stems from faulty electrolytic capacitors much like the gauge clusters that have that flickering problem.

It's water in the spark plug holes... Around the engine there is a plastic covering where it says "V8 4 CAM 32" that covers the spark plug holes. While it does have a rubber gasket on the edges, two things are possible, 1. It wasn't installed properly so the gasket doesn't seal tight, letting water in. 2. The design is crap and no matter how it's installed, water will migrate into the spark plug holes, causing the plugs to short to ground, therefore causing a misfire.

I felt compelled to chime in because this was an issue that stumped me for some time and I didn't figure out the problem until I stumbled upon a video on youtube discussing cleaning engine bays of Toyotas/Lexus vehicles and how water likes to get into the spark plug holes.

I have an ES350 and I've already taken off the bumper cover. I don't really need to remove the parking sensors but I want to know if it's possible to remove them in the event that I decide to get the bumper refinshed. I removed one of the sensors and I broke some plastic clips on the sensor and it just seems really difficult to remove these sensors without breaking anything. Has anybody had any luck removing the sensors? I have a sensor in the front bumper which is loose so I think I'll be tackling that issue some time in the future. Rear bumper cover wasn't all that difficult to remove so I'm wondering if removing the front bumper cover will be much worse or not.

As of today the second link still works!!! Didnt try the first link. Thanks for posting!

Both links work surprisingly enough!

Regarding mileage, the Lexus was rated higher for years, but remember the government recently issued "real world" mileage numbers that brought my 94 down to an average 18 mpg. That's why I think it may be eligible for the tax money. We all know that the mileage numbers on new cars were BS-especially on our American Road Hogs. And that everyone is stuck with lousy trade-in value beaters now. Bye, bye GM and Chrysler.

Yeah I know but the calculation for MPG and "real world" MPG, aka the MPG rating done strictly for consumers is very different. For CAFE purposes, GM's cars average 27MPG but according to the "new EPA MPG ratings", most car companies like GM average about 22MPG. The cash for clunkers program is a bit vague and it doesn't specify what method they use to calculate MPG, I mean for all we know they could calculate it by the MPG WE get which would be kind of silly.

I don't think you guys are aware but I don't believe this car will qualify under this program due to it getting such "high" mpg. Back when the car was introduced, Lexus made adjustments to the car in order for it to not get the gas guzzler tax levied onto it and coincidentally, it's only the cars that are considered gas guzzlers that qualify for this program.

I had a subscription to the TIS website for the past two days and it has expired, in that time I accured some what I think is valuable information that I'd like to share with all, I'm just waiting for the green light to do so.. I have the simple list and I have the ACTUAL PDF documents of the TSBs for 1990-2004 Lexus LS400 and LS430 Cars. I don't know if there is a FAQ with this already but I couldn't find it, so if you guys can, please fill me in.

When it quits running. :P

if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Well, LLS...I replaced the fuel Injectors on my SC400 and it now runs like a stuck hog..I have almost 200,000 miles on it and I thought it ran great until I replaced the Injectors..I did notice 1 of the injectors was just a little wet on the bottom seal..so I just replaced them all and am I glad I did. I agree with you to a certain degree..if it isn't broke don't fix it..but in this case I was right!!!

I also was told by a good mechanic friend of mine that changing the fuel injectors every 100,000 miles is a good idea anyway..they start leaking..their sprays get irratic and they can get clogged up over time..and fuel injector cleaner doesn't necessarily fix the problem either. They can just wear out too.

I don't understand this post, it seems really contradictory, can you elabtorate? Yes I realize this is an old post but unfortunately this problem seeems to apply to me and I want more information.

does anybody know anything about wix? I was told that these were the closest to or are the same/better than OEM filters.

I'm generally and OEM type guy but I wanted to know if anyone has had a positive experience with replacing the LS400 '90-'94 fuel filter with an after market part. Stealerships in my area want to charge between $56-$65 for a fuel filter and I think that is really too high. Is there anything wrong with going with a fuel filter from the likes of fram or something?

trust me i know very well how expensive these cars are. $1500 tune up on a almost 20 year old car LOL. even the parts alone ran me about $500 but thank God for sites like these and lexls for all the great and FREE info lol. i checked the coils with a multimeter and both check out at 12.25 and the repair manual states they should be between 10200-13800 so they are fine. i also checked my wires, extremely low!!!!! Denso first time fit wires; cost about $90 here are my ohms

1... 0.75

2... 0.89

3... 2.52

4... 2.31

5... 2.40

6... 2.25

7... 1.58

8... 1.61

c... 0.59

c... 0.85

thus why i LOVE denso products (PS both coils are denso originals and wires have 2-3 yrs on them)

Its good to see people actually using Ohm Meters to diagnose an issue before they spend thier Hard-earned money on useless replacements! :D

I was hoping someone would post a list of diagnostic procedures that you can do cheaply and or w/o replacing parts. It seems like using a multimeter is enough to check most issues on a car.

I think it may be the gasket but i ahev not seen someone who change it post back that it is resolved.

My 98 used to do that as well as atleast 4 others also filling up with water.

I have a 94 LS with the same problem, looking for the solution.

I have a similar issue and did a similar thing, I am hoping there is a resolution to this issue.

Hey guys, It's been a while since Ive posted but my 92 is still running great, I bought it last january and have put 20k on her so far.

I posted about what I thought was a dying starter back in august. Alot of people here gave me a couple weeks to a month based on the symptoms I described, Intermittent slow cranks and a whirring sound for about a second after the engine fires up. Anyway 8 months later its still doing it but starts every try, first try. I really love this car.

Pete

Weak battery? I had issues with starting, replaced and fully charged the battery and that issue went away.

LOL wow.

Has anyone ever replaced the fuel pump sock? Can I pick up one of these socks at autozone or something? (I have no idea what it looks like, and google images isn't any more helpful)

..why would a neighbor be putting brass fittings inside your gas tank??

What device are you talking about??

It's this piece of crap:http://www.baproducts.com/siphon.htm

Can you not just remove the fuel pump then stick your hand into the tank and recover the fitting without removing the whole tank?

I don't think leaving it in would cause any problems.

How did your neighbor manage to drop this into your tank in the first place?

Stupid "gadget" he got at an autoshow, apparrently a friend of ours who I'm working on the car with too bought the device as well I suppose I could just stick my hand in there and look around with a flash light, but the whole purpose of this exercise was to remove the gas from the tank since it's old and I think bad (is yellow?). Does an LS400 have a fuel pump sock/filter of any sort or is the only fuel filter the one that runs along the chassis?

I basically was draining the tank because I think I had bad gas and people got involved when they shouldn't have. I hadn't driven the car seriously in two years and I'm only now working on it because it needs to pass a smog check. The check engine code I get is Air-fuel ratio lean malfunction which would imply that it's not getting the fuel that it needs, i.e it's being starved. I'm thinking the old fuel has gelled a bit and made it hard to pump, I heard some things about the fuel pump going bad on these cars but I figured the cheapest and easiest thing to try first is to get some new gas in it, instead I'm now doing work I had no anticipated in doing.

Neighbor left a brass fitting inside of my LS400 gas tank and I'm trying to remove it. I found these pages: http://www.lexls.com/tutorials/body/rearseat.html# and http://www.lextreme.com/fp.htm. I've already removed part of the luggage covering out of the trunk and have unbolted the gas tank. I basically want to remove the gas tank in order to get at it and drain out all of the fuel. Is there anything else I should know about when working on my car? Has anyone ever removed the gas tank?

Why isn't this one spammed whenever a noob posts of a problem? I know it seems harsh to do this but this is a stupidly common issue and I think it should be the first thing posted if the OP has no mention of it. http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...showtopic=50109

I heard that there is something related with this and a ground wire in the trunk. I read about this issue in some FAQ somewhere, possibly on this site; just search for ground, trunk wire, LS400, transmission, shifting, something of the sort. Also don't switch transmission fluids, I read the transmission is really finicky and doesn't like ANYTHING but the transmission fluid from toyota, weird stuff really.

Edit: This is what I was talking about:http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=34244

http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...showtopic=50109

http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...p;hl=trunk+wire

http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...showtopic=50087

There is more on it if you search around.

Hello,

I have this weird problem with 1992 LS400.

Car starts fine every time in the morning or whenever it was stopped for longer periods (few hours). But sometimes, after driving a while for it to warm up to normal level, if stopped and attempted to start it again right away (in a minute or so) car would crank but engine wouldn't start. However, after waiting few minutes (4-5 minutes) it will start again just fine as always. Feels like something inside has to cool down to start again. Battery is fine, starter is fine, temperature gauge on dashboard never comes above the middle. This phenomenon however does not appear consistently because I am testing it now and then. For instance, I would park at the office parking lot when arriving in the morning, stop a car and then try to start it again. One day it would start just fine and the other would not. I leave it there, come back to drive for lunch and starts just fine as always.

I realize this could be caused by hundreds of problems but wondering perhaps somebody is or were experiencing something similar and would share it with me.

Thanks,

/M.

Fuel injectors, fuel pump, fuel filter, sparkplugs, coils? I don't know but those are my guesses, otherwise if you still don't see codes you could have a weak battery. This does seem like an odd problem as most issues are with cold startup and not when the car is warm.

Hi,

Did the speedo pickup fix your speedometer problem? I have a bad speedo needle, doesnt work, always way below zero, just wondering if you found a fix for this.

Generally most issues associated with the instrument cluster have to do with the capacitors failing. Replace all the capacitors on the instrument cluster and it should fix the issue. Also read this thread:http://www.clublexus.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40025 and search online for LS400 Instrument cluster or gauge cluster issues. This is a very very common issue with these vehicles and there are a lot of write ups discussing this. In the case of your speedometer, does it work better in hot/warm weather?

The year before I changed my oil to full synthetic and I'm wondering if this could be the cause of this. I washed down the engine bay two months ago and I saw coolant and oil on the ground where the car was when I was washing it which confirmed my belief that it was leaking coolant. As for the oil, I believe it's the powersteering fluid since residue can be found near and around the reservoir which implies it's leaking.

A headgasket failure is extremely uncommon for the 1UZ-FE engine. It is not unusual to see the coolant level change based on temperature, both of the coolant and outside, because it expands/contracts based on temperature.

Well the coolant level is about 3 inches below the "cold" level, only sightly higher than the line going from the reservoir. I just don't understand why it'd be low on coolant yet I see no indication that it's leaking coolant. You're probably right though, the headgasket should be fine considering I've never run the engine hot and I doubt my mom did either.

I've got an LS400 '94, 123K miles and I was looking at the coolant reservoir and noticed that it was very low. The car hasn't been driven in a while but I do remember last year noticing that it was low on coolant. I washed the engine bay with a hose about a week ago because mice were hanging out in there and I didn't want to vacuum it for fear of getting polluting the air and then getting sick so I got it wet and washed sprayed it. Anyways when I pushed the car back from its position when washing a few hours later, I noticed what I believe to be oil on the ground. My belief is that this is the power steering fluid since IIRC the powersteering has been leaking somewhat, I don't know if there was coolant in there or not.

To sum it up, I wanted to know if coolant can simply evaporate from the engine with out there being any sort of leaks or not. The car was parked last year and the year before in the hot sun so I was hoping this was the only thing that would cause the coolant level to be so low. The reason I'm asking is because I read that you can be burning coolant and not even know it, though if the tailpipe has white smoke then the headgasket is bad or there is water in the engine for what ever reason.