jragosta

they actually perform differently...by perform differently I mean some let more air pass through than others also depending on the different material used some clog faster than others... K&N is washable and resuable pays for itself within a couple of years...they also let a hi flow of air through which in turn improves performance... ← This has been discussed several times in thie group. While the K&N filter is washable and might save you a few bucks, the performance gains are going to be insignificant. More importantly, you run the risk of damaging your engine from inadequate filtration or dumping oil into your engine which will foul your plugs - and possibly your O2 filter. I'd suggest staying away. Get a good quality pleated filter.

MYTH. pure myth. i have switched cars from synth to dino ever other oil change. my dad does this in his truck. every 3 oil changes, he uses a synth. for 3000 miles, then he goes back to dino for 3 more oil changes. do you have any proof tat it causes engine problems to switch? cause i have never heard of it. what kind of engine problems could it possibly cause?? Myths About Synthetics. ← I'll admit that most of what I know about synthetics comes from early days. The story then was that if you used synthetics you had to stick with synthetics or you'd start having seal problems. If that's no longer true, then my statement would be incorrect.

Actually, I think that the manufacturer's recommendations should be the MINIMUM change interval. They don't want your car to last 300,000 miles, but you presumably do. Plus, most people look at the standard mileage interval and ignore the 'severe conditions' interval - even though the majority of people are doing a lot of stop and go driving - which is a severe condition. As for future owners, you are, of course, free to do what you want. But I happen to think about others a little bit. Putting on better tires or brakes or whatever won't cause a problem if they switch back. But if I put in synthetic oil and they don't know that and use regular oil, it can cause engine problems. I have two teenage dautghers driving used cars. I wouldn't want them to have their car break down because of something a prevoius owner did - and I therefore wouldn't do something that carries the risk of causing a future owner's teenage daughters to have a breakdown - or even excessive repairs. This is particularly true since synthetic oil isn't going to extend the life of the car all that much compared to good quality oil and adequate maintenance.

Although you're getting a lot of 'this oil is better than that oil' stuff, the #1 overriding issue is to replace your oil regularly and use a good filter. If you do that and don't abuse your car, the engine should last far longer than you'll want to drive the car. My advice is to buy a good quality name brand oil and change it regularly per the manufacturer's recommendation or a bit more frequently. If you do that, 'which oil' is only going to provide a marginal advantage. HOWEVER, if you're in a very cold or very hot climate, the advantages of synthetic might be a bit more important. If you go with synthetic, you'll need to stick with it. That may not be an issue for you, but could be a problem for the next owner - if you feel any concerns about that.

If the A/C is turned off, do you still hear the noise? If not, they're probably correct. You could try giving it a little gas to increase the rpms with AC off just to make sure it's not a RPM thing. If you still hear the noise even when A/C is off, it's somewhat less likely that they're right - although it could still be a bad pulley bearing. Even with AC off, the pulley turns, so there's some chance of a problem there. Have you stuck your head under the hood with things running to see if you can localize the noise? Again, if it's near the AC, that reinforces their opinion. Finally, what has your past experience been with this dealer? Have they been reliable and given you good diagnoses in the past?

I gathered that he questioned NGK wires, and nothing was said about the grade of wires. ← But you already said that no one's likely to find the NGK racing wires unless they set out looking for them. If he's mentioning NGK, he's almost certainly referring to the standard grade. My advice on stuff like this is simple: If you're interested in tweaking and spending time learning about alternatives and heavily researching all the options, things like racing wires might make sense (although it's probably not going to be a huge difference for most people). If you're just looking to drive your car and want to perform normal maintenance, stick with Lexus parts. By the time you've researched the different brands enough to make an intelligent decision, you've got so much invested that the modest price savings are inconsequential.

I get a similar noise on my ES330 - only when making a hard right turn and hitting a bump pretty hard at the same time. The dealer couldn't duplicate the problem and I'm not too worried about it. If it gets worse, I'll have if fixed.

is it possible this lurching may be caused by the "Power-adjustable accelerator/brake pedals with memory" ?? streetbird, do you have this option on your car? is it possible to change the pedal settings while the pedals are pressed down? also how bad is the lurching, does it feel like the car is just rolling on its own, or does it feel like someone pressed down on the gas pedal? also, does your car have VSC? VSC should only retards throttle.. based on what I read, is that correct? I am considering to purchase a 2005 ES330, however I am worried about this lurching forward problem. How bad is this problem, has many people experienced it, and is it controllable? If at red light or stop sign, I am afraid it can result in a very serious accident, either getting hit with a side impact or maybe hitting pedestrian. ← I wouldn't be too worried about this particular problem. As I've stated before, it's very rare, but has been reported on virtually every car ever made. That makes it unlikely that it's a real defect in the vehicle itself. NHTSA did a formal investigation and found no problem.

3 - Costs about 10-20 bucks (DYI) 5 - Costs $0, Takes about 15-30 min (DYI) 6 - Brake inspections cost a fortune these days! Most they should charge you is 200. ← That's nonsense. When you pay for service at a Lexus dealer, you're getting a lot more than doing it yourself. If you can do it yourself for $200, then $450 at a Lexus dealer is a fair price. Don't forget that they have to: 1. provide you a loaner (you'd probably pay at least $50 to rent an RX for the day) 2. pay competitive salaries, plus taxes, plus benefits (you're not including the value of your time in the $200 figure you made up, right?) 3. pay for a fully equipped shop 4. pay for insurance in case something goes wrong 5. have all the latest knowledge of all the details on the car 6. use genuine OEM parts Now, if you can find another shop who will do all that for less, then you might want to consider it. But saying that Lexus is too expensive because you can do it yourself for less is just plain silly.

I think this is bad advice. Remember that it's a salvage title. That means that the insurance company didn't think it was worth repairing the car - and they felt that it was better to pay the car's value. If they felt that the car could be economically repaired, they would have done so. So, the repair cost was greater than the value of the car. This person is going to be stuck with the repair cost (which is greater than the value of the car) PLUS paying $5,000 to buy it. Terrible deal. It's easy to look at a car on the web but you can be sure you're not seeing it as well as the insurance company aduster. Stay away.

Unfortunately, I don't have anything to advise. As you can see from this thread, I've tried everything up to and including arbitration - none of which accomplished anything. The only thing I haven't done is get a lawyer. That's probably the only thing that MIGHT work - but even there it's an uphill battle. I don't have time for that.

Do you remember the scene from the Muppet movie where they were looking for a used car. They saw a Studebaker (?) for $1995. The monster smashed a bug between the two 9's, creating a $19.95 price. $49.90 would be about right for this car.

Got my response today on arbitration. The arbitrators unanimously decided that I had not proved that the transmission problem significantly impaired the usefulness or safety of the car. Given that the Lexus person admitted that they didn't have any specifications and that their 'the car meets design criteria' REALLY meant that 'all of the ES cars do that', I don't think the hearing could have gone any better. I guess they were swayed by the fact that there have been no accidents reported. I don't have the time to get a lawyer, but if anyone is starting a class action, I'll join in.

I jacked up the car and spinned the four wheels hard individually, here is the observation: front left: spinned 1 revolution only, intermittent friction sound was heard front left: same rear left: spinned 2 to 3 revolutions, intermittent friction sound was heard rear righ: same It seems that the brake pads are stopping the wheely from free spin. Can this be corrected and how? Thanks! ← Best guess would be that the calipers need to be rebuilt or replaced.

If you want one that matches perfectly, the dealer can get it for you. It shouldn't be too expensive.

You got one answer - why are you so sure it's wrong? It's quite possible that the owner took it to Lexus for the first few years and then started going to another shop. Unless you know where that shop is, you'll never find the records. You'll probably have better luck finding the previous owner(s) and asking. Start with the place you purchased the car. If you explain that you're just looking for maintenance records, they may be willing to help.

I seem to recall that this is normal, but your suggestion to jack it up and spin the wheels is a good one. I read a book on improving fuel economy several years ago which discussed this. There's not much friction between the brake pads and the rotor under these conditions, but there's still some. They suggest jiggling the wheel from left to right a bit after you reach highway speed. Apparently, that helps the pads to retract just a bit more. I don't know if it's true or not.

man, i had no idea...that cant be the way it is...if i can get an INFINITY/CHRYSLER dealer, to change my timing belt ON A FORD CONTOUR, i damned sure better be able to get a toyota dealer to do an oil change on my lexus...if i EVER got the reply beginning with "We Dont Work On": i would be so *BLEEP*ed they would be very unhappy when i left. i would out there at the entrance to their property telling ever customer coming into the service department about it...thats totall bull*BLEEP*. /rant ← That's rather a silly attitude. You don't have any idea why the dealer does what he does. The dealer chooses which cars he wants to work on. If he wants to train people to only work on one type of car, that's his choice. He may have many reasons: Liability if someone screws up. Doesn't want to mess around with locating parts (For a $20 oil change, how much running around do you expect him to do and still make money?) Agreement with other dealers locally to refer customers to the 'right' dealer Or any number of other reasons If you don't like a dealer's terms, shop elsewhere. I'd much rather have a dealer who says "we're going offer the best service in the area on the cars we work on but don't work on cars where we can't offer world class service" than a dealer who says "bring in any car you want and we'll figure it out eventually". I realize that lots of dealers take the latter approach, but that doesn't make it a good approach. BTW, in north Jersey, there's a car dealer every block or so. It's undoubtedly no more than a few minutes to a dealer who will change the oil.

Glad you're happy. Personally, that's considerably more than I'd spend for a 4 year old car with 60 K miles, but people obviously see this issue differently. And the asking price is just plain ridiculous.

That's the key - the price must be right. Too many people think a 3 year old lexus with 60 K miles is still worth $22 K. As far as I'm concerned, you need to save a good bit of money to justify buying ANY used car with high mileage. What was the value of your trade-in? "$14,000 after trade-in" doesn't tell us anything.

"Once you reach a verbal contract you DO have a deal"a verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on. Verbal contracts are not enforceable! :D ← Wrong. Verbal contracts ARE enforceable. it's not easy and you get into a lot of 'he said, she said', but there are plenty of cases where the courts have enforced verbal contracts. In fact, we're fighting one at work right now.

I had my arbitration hearing today. To start, they asked if I wanted to negotiate with Lexus to solve the problem. I agreed and they left the room. All Lexus wanted to do was let me trade my car in on a different model and pay the difference. That's not much of a resolution - since I can do that any time I want. I declined. After all the preliminaries, I started with a description of the problem and documenting evidence (including NHTSA reports were 50% of all ES problems were related to this problem, reports from this board, reports from edmunds.com, and a letter from Lexus admitting that there was a transmission problem). Lexus got to respond. They stated that there was no problem and it was simply a matter of my driving style. They argued that the car was within specs. I then asked them what the specification on transmission hesistation was. They admitted that there is no spec on this parameter. I asked how they determined that my car was within design parameters if there's no spec. They said that they compare it to other cars of the same year and make. I then said "so if every ES has the same problem, you will then say that mine is normal?". She refused to answer the question. :chairshot: One of the arbitrators asked if there was any record of accidents caused by this problem. I wasn't aware of any, nor was Lexus. We then did the test drive. The car hesitated right on cue. No question about that. After coming back into the room, we each gave our closing statement. Lexus repeated that it was a 'shifting style' problem and not a real problem. I repeated that by Lexus definition, if 100% of the cars had their wheels fall of, it would not be considered a problem. In reality, the hundreds of complaints as well as the results of the test drive show that it was a real problem. I'll know within 10 days. If I don't win this, then I'd say that there's little chance of ever winning an arbitration hearing. The evidence was pretty clear. I'll let everyone know how it turns out.

Check to see if both cars have the same tires.

Not quite. Once you reach a verbal agreement, you DO have a deal. It's not easy to prove, but a verbal deal is binding in most cases. Personally, I'd tell the first dealer that you're going to sue his *ss in court for breach of contract. It's going to cost him your (and his) legal expenses, payment for the time you have invested, AND he'll be forced to honor his original deal. And I wouldn't back down until he's at the very least paid you for your time and mileage.

This is partially covered in the FAQ. My recommendation would be to have it done professionally by a good quality installer. The installation won't cost much, but having an expert involved will be worth it. Unless you are an expert in sound equalization and have the equipment to do the job properly, it's just as likely that the system will sound worse when you're done then better. There are too many parameters involved. The biggest thing to consider (which is probably the one that amateurs spend the least time on because they don't have the experience) is how the output of the speakers matches the car's sound characteristics. If you're going to spend money to improve things, get an expert to make sure you're really improving them.