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Object: See or be SEEN??!! If you truly want driving lights this approach will never work. The fog light reflective surround is designed for a low and wide beam pattern such as one might want in foggy roadbed conditions. On the other hand if the object is to dress up the "look" of the vehicle....

Your city MPG is more than acceptable IMMHO. Highway seems a bit low are you sure the overdrive lock up torque converter works?

For 01 and after ALL RX300s had VSC and traction control. The only difference is that the FWD model had an on/off button for traction control.

You lucked out. It simply doesn't matter. Even the AWD model is really only FWD in most instances. After 01 all RXes included VSC/TRAC and trac which prevents the VC (short for automatically "locking" center differential) from ever routing torque to the rear.

Moisture in the trunk, condensation within the CD player, ERROR!

Gas pedal lift / engine braking... My guess is that you are in the process of transitioning from a FWD vehicle to a RWD LS. Most modern FWD automatic transmissions are designed to virtually eliminate engine braking due to the hazardous of loss of control of the vehicle that will often result from engine braking at the front wheels on a slippery surface. The transmission designers for FWD have no way of knowing if the surface is slippery or not so they tend to err on the side of safety. I had virtually the same experience recently while test driving a new BMW X3. The X3 is AWD with predominant engine torque normally to the rear so it exhibited, to me, rather extraordinary engine braking when I got off the gas fully. My normal wheels are an 01 AWD RX300 which is definitely FWD torque biased, 95/5, and Lexus has gone to extraordinary measures to assure that the engine lagging toque on throttle lift has little or no effect on the front "drive" wheels. The Lexus seemingly upshifts, or maybe even shift into neutral, when coasting with throttle lifted. Quite some years ago now Cadillac started using an over-running clutch within the transmissions of FWD caddy that used the high torque Northstar engine because too many old codgers were dying due to loss of control from the severe front wheel braking effects. Since those folks are/were the primary market for caddies GM had to pay attention before the marque lost too many buyers.

Get the 18" wheels with the air suspension.

Your Lexus is acting like a high volume low frequency whistle. If you could open a rear window like I could on my 68 Ford station wagon, or like the Chrysler minvans, then the pressure wave that you're hearing wouldn't reflect from the rear of the car. Fundamental physics, SOP, sorry.

The early LSes had an EPR (evaporator pressure regulator) valve downstream of the evaporator, mounted right against the firewall in the engine compartment. An EPR is more typically used where multiple evaporators are served by one compressor, many minivans have them. Other than to quieten the expansion valve outlet noise/sound I never got a satisfactory answer from Lexus. But. The use of an EPR in this manner allows "unused", liquid, freon into the downstream side of the evaporator. Often evidenced by up to 1/2" of rime icing on the outside of the inlet line to the compressor. Eventually that will lead to liquid refrigerant entering the compressor, a very BAD situation indeed. If you car has an EPR, 92 does, then I would have that checked immediately. And by-the-by, unless you are very careful with cleanliness changing the compressor is not a DIY job. Expansion valves...refrigerant contamination (system has been "opened" three times.....??) might restrict the flow which would not harm the compressor but would reduce the functionality of the system significantly. Having the expansion valve "too" open would result in freezing up the of the moisture on the evaporator core and that would soon result in no airflow to the passenger cabin, no functionality. altogether.

Incandescent bulbs filaments are infamous for being intermittent, VERY! It has always been the case that if a bulb is out then tapping it lightly will often cause the filament to reconnect and then it will burn okay for awhile.... Your brake light housing is plastic so be sure and check the ground return from the socket to the metal body contact. On the connector end of the bulb will be a "dome" of lead and silver solder that serves as an elctrical connect to the contact within the socket. Over time these "dome" lead/silver contacts will "cold flow" and now you will have a not so good "concave" connection. New bulbs are cheap and I always have spares in the glove box and if a bulb acts up just once it gets tossed!

I have known, heard, of any way to calculate torque ratios from final drive ratios. You may be right, I just simply don't know. My numbers are taken directly from a 4 wheel dynamometer where the 01 RX300 indicated a 95/5 F/R torque ratio unless there was many tens of seconds of disparate F/R rotation rate to activate the VC fluid and then it rose to not quite 75/25 F/R.

First, the RX300 is not really AWD since they are front torque biased by about a 95/5 F/R ratio in normal use. If a circumstance of virtually continuous slippage (something on the order of tens of seconds) of the front driven wheels happens to occur then the VC will tighten up to about a 75/25 F/R ratio. On 01 and later models, at least until the 04 MY, VSC/Trac became standard and thereby the "predominantly driven" front wheels can NEVER endure a continuous slippage condition since the brakes are virtually instantly applied to any slipping wheel and the engine is automatically dethrottled (to prevent brake overheating and rotor warpage) if the condition persists. When the 04 model came out Lexus acknowledged that VSC/Trac had made the VC used in previous models useless and dropped its use altogether. The 04 model uses a simple open type center differential with the brakes used exclusively for torque apportionment. The 04 also uses a more disparate F/R final drive ratio seemingly making the F/R torque distribution closer to 98/2. The bottom line to all that is the FWD with VSC/Trac will undoubtedly give you just as good adverse roadbed traction as would the AWD version. But if you really want to find an SUV with excellent overall performance in adverse roadbed conditions then have a look at something that is predominantly RWD biased and one in which you start out using rear snowchains and then install front snowchains only in extreme circumstances. But there is something else to remember. They is NO SUV, nor any regular passenger vehicle, that will reliably get up and go in the kind of wintertime weather we have had here in Seattle three times in the past 14 years absent the use of studded tires or snowchains. If your travel countryside is flat then maybe... During the wintertime there is always a set of snowchains stowed in the back of my 01 AWD RX. I used them the first time about a month ago now and they paid for themselves.

In the alternative...... I use the quietest tires I can buy with absolutely no conern for adverse roadbed traction. But with a set of snowchains at the ready and no reluctance on my part to put them to use. The most common use is for getting around all those SUVs helter-skelter on the roadbed, or not.

Hey, if my 92 LS can survive some of the rainstorms and wet weather it been through here in the Pacicfic NW then I have no doubt it can withstand cleaning with a low pressure water stream.

Just to sure... Most coolants have a sickeningly sweet odor. It doesn't take much of a coolant leak to create LOTS of odor. The water valve for coolant flow into the heater core is at the top center of the firewall in the engine compartment. That's the most common leak source, the hose fittings around this valve.

Just to sure... Most coolants have a sickeningly sweet odor. Sorry, no delete option...

Are you sure it's coolant you smell and not mould and mildew?? Old, sweaty and dirty gym socks odor??

First, I rather doubt that at 70k your struts are the cause of the problem. Cost, struts only, is about $200 a set, $400 all.

Spacers........Space the wheel outward from the hub/brake !Removed!'by so wider wheels and tires may be used without rubbing. If you need a more expansive or different definition you'll need to ask James T. Kirk.

K&N and incresed gas mileage.... If you have certain types of MAFS then once it's coated with oil from the K&N it will show, falsely, decreased intake airflow causing the mixture to be lean and very soon you will be replacing oxygen sensor and MAFS.

An advantage of the 1.2" spacers is that they allow you to use snowchains on the rear or the rear and the front without incurring the safety hazards of snowchains only on the front which is what Lexus requires due to poor rear suspension clearance. Also the new tires have a wider tread giving more traction and with the wider "stance" comes more stability against rollover.

The VC is hermetically sealed and not serviceable in the field. There is no modern day transmission fluid nor diff'l fluid/lube that needs to be replaced nor replenished in the normal scheme of things. It might be a good idea to replace the filter and clean the clutch lining wear debris from the pan at about 100k or so. Obviously that would involve replacing at least some of the fluid.

Bulbs aren't shorting out, electrolysis is eating the contacts away and the poor electrical contacts build up heat and add to the rate of bulb failure. Buy replacement "bulbs" from "super bright leds" and forget about replacing the sockets.

Well.... More air and gas going in results in more HP at a lower RPM. Lower RPM, less friction. But we're talking about 3% difference with and without the K&N. The OEM filter only becomes functionally restrictive to airflow at max RPM and WOT and even than the restriction is only about 6 to 7% reduction in airflow versus a completely open intake. So the only possible airflow efficiency improvement in intake airflow is in the range of 3 to 4%. Touted as a ~50% improvement in the opinion of K&N with respect to that 7% restriction limitation. You're also taken the quite serious chance that the oil wicked from the K&N by the airflow will redeposit, contaminate, the MAFS and that will eventually result in a mixture screw-up with an engine diagnostic and likely oxygen sensor failure. Additionally I guess I have always thought that Lexus buyers/owners were of a brighter breed, generally, and would recognize the K&N scam for what it is. Never too old to learn something new.

RX330............AWD......... The 04 RX uses an OPEN center diff'l and different final drive ratios F/R to bias the engine torque to the front by a rather large factor, say 98/2 F/R**. AWD engine torque apportioning is provided by braking any slipping wheel(S). With the front wheels "natively" achieving such a large portion of the torque AND having to handle the lateral torque during turning it is extremely unlikely that the rear wheels will have encounter a slipping condition. What that means to you is that the ONLY time any significant level of torque is routed to the rear wheels is upon Trac braking application (to limit slippage) at the front followed fairly quickly by engine dethrottling if the driver doesn't react quickly and lift the foot feed. ** The RX300 used less desparate F/R final drive ratios (~3.12/2.98) than the RX330 (~3.48/2.92) and had 95/5 F/R torque biasing (actual 4WD dyno measurement) so I would assume the RX330 is closer to ~98/2)