cmartin248

My wife looked at the G35 before we bought the SC430 and we found the SC430 to be the much better car. She now has over 170,000 miles on her 2003 model and I feel that I can speak for high mileage and a daily driver. I am the type guy that does all my own repairs and replaced the timing belt at 140k. You have mentioned the worst part of this car, that being the tires. There are many people on here that either have money to burn, or dad is buying their tires. After replacing several sets of different brands, I found that most got around 10k and some got 15k. I wrote a large article on tires and you should read that. My advice is get rid of the run flats and go with a quality good tire. After modifying my rear swing arms and taking as much negative camber from the front as I could, the tires now wear normal. I expect to get 40k - 60k on the set I have now. There was a small price to pay in extreme handling, but well worth it. As for not having run flats and no spare, on the slim chance of a remote flat, everyone now has a cell phone and roadside assitance is only a phone call away. My wife has a can of fix-a-flat, a 12v compressor ($20 at walmart) and me on speed dial. The rear seat is useless for anyone over school age but would hold a car seat nicely. I vote on her getting the car, change the tires, have a tire shop work on the camber and enjoy.....

I have a set for a 2004

And you actually passed the driving test and got a license? Can't believe anyone would want to bypass the parking interlock on your convertible top. If you really want to open your top at 10 mph,, I am sure that two pry bars in the upper front corners would do the trick......

It totally depends on how many amps your amplifier will drawn at full load. Your instructions should state the required amperage for your circuit. Depending on the requirements, you can connect down stream of a large fuse circuit, but you will have to install a 12V DC relay which will be triggered from your accessory circuit. Use a tester and find a wire under the dash that is 12 volts with the switch "on" and no voltage with the switch off. The cigarette lighter wire is a good place to start. The relay trigger circuit will only draw a few milliamps from your accessory circuit to make the relay pickup, which can then carry 10-30 amps. Extreme high power amps need their own supply directly from the battery through a fused circuit. The relay can be obtained from radio shack or most auto parts carry them for fog lights ($4-$5). If the amp draws less than 15 amps DC, then you could connect directly to the cigarette lighter wire.

First read the owners manual.... open the hood and the big thing in the center is the motor,,, the thing in front of that is the radiator,, just to the right of the radiator is a cap with a little picture of a windshield wiper.... geeeesssh... maybe you should change the air in your tires while you are at it....

The extended warranty usually only covers the engine and transmission. My wife's 2003 has 170,000 on it and absolutely trouble free. I did change the timing belt at 140,000 but the old one looked good. If you ever do need engine or trans service then take it to a good toyota mechanic and save yourself a bundle. For my vote keep your money to buy tires with, because the car has no design flaws mechanically except alignment. Read the postings on tires and deal with a good alignment shop that can set it up for the way you drive, not to factory specs.

Their just fishing and you've been hooked..

I love this guy,, H + O2???? Is that deturium or heavy water? I'm sure you meant H2 + O...... Engine digesting so much water??? We're talking about a system that seperates the hydrogen and oxygen and then you burn the hydrogen by piping it into the intake, sort of like a nitrox system works. I have no idea how you are going to freeze your fuel lines... LOL.... You seem to think that we are some how talking about injecting water into the fuel line and making hydrogen and oxygen at the injectors. Don't understand how the injectors would damage the cylinders,,, maybe they would spit ice cubes into the pistons....Wow,, I bet you don't work on your cars do you? LOL They are probably going to band me from this board, but I love to comment, both good and bad....

Guess you didn't take the time to search the board for your answer. Tire questions have been answered over and over on this board. Several of us have spent a lot of time trying to tell people about tires on the SC430.

Thought you might want a second opinion....http://www.jimloy.com/pseudo/car-h2o.htm

Okay,, I don't have time to fully answer your question, but here goes. You say the electricity to power the hydrogen decombination uint is free from the alternator or battery. Say what???? Your engine has to power the alternator and charge the battery. This takes extra fuel to do this and the average car engine is only about 28% efficient. You are correct in stating that most of the energy in the gasoline is wasted as given off heat, either out the exhaust or from the radiator. The simple fact of combustion engines limits them to around 30% efficient. There has been some attempts at using the heat to produce steam and turn a turbine to get some of the lost heat back, but its not cost effective. Hybrid cars use the energy of the brakes to turn a dyno/generator and charge the batteries, don't you think that if the alternator output was free, that we would simply charge big batteries while driving and then run the car on the batteries, but its not free. Braking energy is sort of free. The big probably with hybrids is all the parts, electronics, and replacing the batteries. Have you noticed that hybrids get better gas mileage in town, than on the highway? That would be a different science lesson. I stand by my statement that no energy is free. You state that flowing water is free. Say what???? Some sort of energy is required to make the water flow. Either the sun has to evaporate the water and rain, or you have to pump it up to a higher elevation to add kinetic energy to the water. There would be no wind currents without the heat from the sun. I am sure you will say that sun power is free, if you look at it on a micro scale and our lifetime, then yes. However, the hydrogen will one day be used up producing your free energy and the sun will supernova. I find it very comical "that a pepetual machine doesn't exist yet".... Wow, so you think there will be one? or are the oil companies keeping us from having one now? hahahaha Really don't want to pick at you, because I deal with people everyday that think there is an easy answer to the world's energy needs. I did not read about your hydrogen website, because I know that it can not be efficient to use electricity to produce hydrogen and then use that energy converted to mechanical energy. It goes against the laws of thermo-dynamics. In mathmatics it would be like saying 2+2=7. If you are really interested and want to educate yourself, please take a college course on thermo-dynamics. For home study just look at the "Carnot Cycle". Laws of thermo-dynamics may change when the universe stops expanding and begins to contract, but we won't be here to see it..... I study energy for a living, but was never good at spelling or proper grammer, so please get me a break....

First of all use a good quality 5 mm allen wrench and not the 3/16" you are probably using. Next, take two ballpeen hammers, place one of them on the bolt and strike it sharply with the other hammer. You will probably be able to get them out with your fingers then. If you don't have two hammers, then use a punch that fits inside the allen head and give it a good whack.... Not responsible for mashed fingers or cussing..... Clyde

I find it very frustrating to see how many people don't understand the simple rules of thermo-dynamics. You can't get something for nothing. It takes more energy to get hydrogen from water than the energy that you get from the hydrogen. Why do you think we don't use hydrogen to free ourselves of the oil dependency? It is so utterly stupid for the government to support biodiesel and ethanol, when it takes more fossil fuels to produce them than you get from them.... It would be like buying watermelons for $2 each and selling them for $1.50, does that make sense? Not to count the rise in food prices, because we burn our food in our cars. It would take 90% of the USA land mass planted in corn to meet our oil demand. I am sure it would increase your gas mileage to add a hydrogen injection system. It cost about $.15/mile to power your lexus on gasoline. Just guessing, but it would probably cost around $.25/mile with hydrogen and gasoline, not to mention how difficult it would be to find a hydrogen station... And if you thing you are going greener, think again, because it takes electricity to produce the hydrogen. The electricity comes mostly from coal. I am a great nuclear power advocate, its our only way out. If you sit down and thing about it, the only energy not dependent on the sun, is nuclear and geothermal. The wind comes from the sun's heat, the hydro dams use the rain made by the sun, biodiesel and ethanol are simply plants converting the sun's energy to oils, coal and oil are simply stored plant and animal energy from millions of years of sunlight. There is no magic energy supply and people need to understand that. We all have to cut back, reduce the population, and not waste our very limited resources.

You do realize there is a button on the garage door motor, that must be pressed and then the Lexus button programed with few seconds, maybe 60 secs? I programed two Genie rolling security doors and they work fine with the Lexus remote. You are missing a step... Clyde

There are several limit switches that must be adjusted just right to make the top work correctly. I know that I had problems with the two at the top of the windshield after it was replaced. You will have to look closely at the point where you are having problems and do some continuity checks with an ohm meter. The switches are very small and difficult to find and test,, but its either do a little troubleshooting yourself or pay a dealer to do it...

Well I have a 2003 that has 160,000 on it and it only runs on regular 87 octance. Don't waste your money on high test and heaven forbid octance booster...... there is actually more energy in regular gas than high octance,, but the flash point is higher with the high octance which reduces valve rattle and pre-ignition.... if your engine rattles on up hill pulls, then increase the octance rating,, if it doesn't then enjoy the cost saving....

I doubt you have an ECU problem. It would help greatly to discribe the type problems you are having and go from there. The only problem with the roof is usually with the micro switches mounted where the two front pins slide into the windshield posts. My first check would be a continuity check of those switches.

you do know the car must be in park and ignition on??????

Check my posting about "tire wear". It is absolutely rediculous how rapid the tires wear and the waste. I will never ever have runflats on anything. My wife drives her SC430 all the time and puts a lot of miles on it. We now have 155k on it and the dealer has never seen one with near that many miles on it. With the runflats and factory camber, you can expect about 10k per set of $1200 tires. Some people on here think that is the price you pay for driving a 430, but I think they need a little dose of hard work and learn what $1200 means. In MY opinion, get rid of the run flats, stick a can of fix-a-flat and the green slime kit with the little 12v air compressor (walmart 19.95) in the trunk spot for the spare tire. Take your car to a good alignment guy and have him take all the negative camber out that he can. Then, set the toe-in for the front and rear. This will make the front tires wear perfect, but the rear will still eat the inside edge in 15-30k miles, depending on the tire. I actually modified my "A" arm on the rear so that I could get the rest of the negative camber out of the rear wheels. I can tell no difference in the car handling, but then I don't do the drifting or track driving that it appears some people do with the 430. Why the heck buy a 430 for speed? There are a lot better cars out there for cornering and speed. The wife loves this car and now that I have the tire wear problem solved, I entend to keep it until about 250K and get her a newer one.

The SC430 has a huge amount of negative camber and by putting wheel spacers on the car, you have applified the negative camber. You will probably be replacing tires every 6-8k miles, due to inside wear. The noise is probably due to riding on the inside of the tires, which makes a roaring sound and tends to change on different road surfaces. Read my article on tire wear and it should give you some ideas.

In reply to reducing the rear camber from -.2 to -.05, the adjustment will not allow reaching -.05. I intend to modify the swing arm so that I can bring it to -.02. I'm still getting some inside wear on the rear. Why should the RF camber be more negative than the LF???? I have them both as near 0 camber as the adjustment will allow. Your second post says that people who can afford this car, don't mind spending $1200 every 10k miles for tires. I certainly can afford this car, but can't stand the waste. Why would anyone buy a 4 seat car (of which the rear seat is useless, except for a couple of grocery bags) to drive on a slalom course? The car has fair power and good handling, but by no means matches a Corvette, Porsche or even a Ducati 999. My 2003 SC430 has 155,000 miles on it and I have done all the maintenance myself, including a new timing belt at 130k. The car is very dependable and there have been no problems at all mechanically.

You should read my article on tire wear. You sound like me and don't need super handling, just good tire life and a smooth quite ride. The michelins give a really smooth and quite ride. They are expensive and if you don't reduce the excessive negative camber, then you get a very short life, due to inside tire wear.

I doubt you transmission or shifter has a problem. This problem occurs with all automatic transmissions when you park on a steep hill, tight against a curb, or anything that would put a lot of pressure on the parking dogs in the transmission. There is nothing to be fixed in the trans. In the future when you are parking in a bind, place the emergency break on FIRST, and then the trans in park. When leaving, take the car out of park first and then the emergency break. I have 150,000 on my 2003 and absolutely no warranty issues. Most of the extended warranties are a rip off. Keep your money to spend on tires. I wrote an article on here about tire wear,, check it out....

Not only is the short tire life very expensive, its wasteful, and sends 4 tires to the landfill every 10k miles. I bought the 2003 SC430 with 130k miles on it and it had run-flat tires with less than 10K on them and they were worn out. The wear is only on the inside edge as most of you know and was about equal on all four tires. My first idea was to get the alignment fixed, but after taking it to a guy who is really good with alignment, it was dead on for the factory settings. My next move was to buy non run-flats and get the 30-40k that some people on here were bragging about. The new set of bridgestones didn't do any better and got around 10k before they gave up. Now is was time to do some measuring. I used simple tools like levels, eye site, and a home made toe-in guage. The first thing I notice was a lot of negative camber. Next, was a little toe-out on both the front and rear wheels. I jacked the rear end up and removed both wheels. Took all the negative camber out that I could, and put just a slight toe-in (1/16"). Moved to the front wheels and because they didn't have as much factory negative camber, I only moved the camber about 4 clicks in the positive direction. Then I brought the toe-in to about 1/16" also. I still feel the rear wheels have too much negative camber, but the only way I get more positive is to modify the swing arms. The front camber is about where I want it. A lot of you will want to know how much camber, but I only used a bubble level and I don't have anyway to measure it. I talked to the Lexus dealer and he said nobody was getting more than 10-12k on the run-flats. It seems if you are one of the lucky people getting good mileage on your tires, then your camber is not set factory. Lexus puts tons of negative camber on the car to improve the handling under extreme driving conditions. If you are like me and drive normal without doing the teenager drifting thing, then talk to your alignment guy and have him set your car up for your type driving. He can't alter the factory specs unless you approve it. I waited to write this until I had 5k on my new tires and they appear to be wearing very evenly and no sign of inside wear. Drop me a line if I can help....

I just bought one with 130,000 on it and consider it good for at least 300k. The one I bought had been serviced very well, but had never had a timing belt. I took the engine down to replace the timing belt and was surprise how well the original looked, even with 130k on it. If you decide to have the timing belt replaced, it should be done at about 125k and let the toyota dealer do it for about half what a lexus dealer will charge. Same engine in some of the toyotas.... Buy it and enjoy... Clyde