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Everything posted by wwest
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Were I you I would worry. The VSC light comes on automatically by default anytime there is an engine diagnostic on, nobody has ever explained why. IMMHO an engine oil pressure light on is ALWAYS a rather serious matter. Be sure and check that the shop put the drain plug back in properly and the oil filter is tight. And be sure and check the engine oil level via the dipstick provided. I once had a Lexus dealer add the new oil in without even draining the old so anything is possible.
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Take a flat blade screwdriver with tape over the end so you don't damage anything and slide the edge under the cover nearest the seatback and lift firmly/pop up.
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Your owners manual must definitely implies that the regenerative braking effects may be overcome by engine braking. On the other hand if the hybrid batteries are already FULL......
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Blue tinted lights will undoubtedly impress the oncoming drivers but also may help get your face impressed in the air bag.
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I used 30mm spacers all around on my 01 AWD RX300, upgraded to 17X8 wheels and Bridgestone Turanzas (summer tire for quietness). 30mm allows me to safely use tirechains on the rear rather than only on the front, EXTREMELY HAZARDOUS, as advised by Lexus.
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None today that I can think of. Artificial vision system somewhere in the future. Lived in FW, from ~67 until 87, lots of work for Weyerhauser.
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Sorry, but your statement was.... "maintaining the same speed under the same conditions..." That says to me, your true intent or not, that you were modulating the throttle in order to maintain the same speed regardless of flat, uphill, downhill, etc. And you didn't have to pre-accelerate, all you had to do, did, was see the upcoming incline and thereby be fully prepared to apply more throttle just as soon as the car reached the incline. The CC, on the other hand, was flying blind, and had to wait for the speed to decay, however so slightly, before applying more throttle. I am in some agreement with you in that I often notice that upon cresting a hill the CC causes the vehicle to overspeed slightly and then the slowdown, when it comes, is always a bit abrupt, somewhat discomforting. But having designed a few servo loops myself, some in hardware and some implemented in software, "instantly" reacting servoloops controling mechanical devices often go into oscillation, and are extremely hard to "tune". When controlling a 2 ton mechanical device it is best to crank in just a little bit of correction each few milliseconds depending on the overall mechanical time constants involved.
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The cruise control computer has no eyes. When you are in control and want to maintain a constant speed up an incline YOU can SEE how steep and long the climb will be. The cruise control doesn't "know" of the incline until the engine starts to "lug", load up, due to the extra effort needed to move 2 tons up an incline. The firmware may even have a delay built in for the instances where the "incline", engine load, is only short term. So of course the transmission doesn't downshift with you driving. You saw the upcoming incline and were able to add throttle predictively, the CC has not choice but to do it reactively, AFTER encountering the incline. Same with going downhill, reaching the crest, you know to start releasing the throttle, "IT" doesn't know to do that until the vehicle actually starts gaining speed. And almost all modern day vehicles will downshift very quickly if/when the throttle is cracked open for even the slightest level of acceleration. Today's transmissions and transaxles want to remain in O/D gear ratio to conserve fuel and lower emissions. That REQUIRES that the torque converter lockup clutch be engaged as much as reasonably possible. The lockup clutch is not of enough heavy duty to sustain the engine's high level of torque required to accelerate a 2 ton vehicle. The transaxle/transmission MUST be programmed to drop out of O/D with even a small level of additional torque required. BUt here again you are denigrating the ECU for not having human "feel" and reaction times, etc.
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Look thoroughly at the 90, if it looks as if it once had a GPS locator transciever mounted on the trunk lid it may be Bill Gates' original LS400. Otherwise buy the 93.
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I NEVER do coolant flushes absent a repair that requires it or the coolant degrades beyond the anti-freeze level I require (Seattle area) or if the Ph goes out of whack. The only exception was that I changed out the factory coolant in my 1992 LS400 about two years ago, 11 years and 100,000 miles, simply because it was looking a little murky.
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RIGHT ON...!!!
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Personally I do not believe that replacing ATF on some scheduled will result in substantially extending the transaxle service life. But I do believe that it should be replaced if it starts to look or smelled burned. I quite firmly believe the premature failures are the result of undue wear of the clutch frictional services due to the ECU commanding an upshift during coastdown periods and then having to quickly downshift with little internal hydraulic pressure available. Toyota/Lexus "fixed" the premature transaxle failures in the RX330 by going to DBW and delaying downshift until enough hydraulic pressure was available.
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You can avoid cycling the A/C on and off manually by simply putting the temperature control in max cooling and the system in recirculate. Then use the blower speed to adjust/set your comfort level. NEVER use reciculate if the OAT is below 50F. In automatic mode the Lexus climate control uses a reheat/remix mode wherein all of the system airflow is first cooled via passing through the A/C evaporator and then a selected portion is reheated via the heater and then remixed with the cooled airflow. Using max cool bypasses the remix/reheat cycle and results in greatly reduced operational cycling of the A/C compressor.
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I paid more attention to brake lights coming in to work this morning. What I noticed was not so much how quickly the incandescent brake lights came on but how quickly (slowly??) they came up to full brilliance. Now that I can accept. I suspect that at night the time it takes, from initial illumination to full brilliance is a lot less noticeable but in bright daylight it was quite obvious.
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I have never denied that LEDs illuminate faster than incandescents and via an entirely different method. If you read my posts I have said that LEDs came up to full brightness in less than 100 nanoseconds, 0.0000001 seconds. Normal incandescents come up to HPP (half power point) in about 100 milliseconds, 0.1 seconds, halogens are quite a bit quicker. Almost all incandescent filaments have a position temperature coefficient in that a cold filament has a fairly low resistance but that resistance rises rapidly and substantially with temperature. So incandescents, especially halogens, have a fairly HIGH initial surge current when voltage is first applied resulting in fairly quick production of LIGHT. The european union has just approved a new brake lighting method wherein the brake light will flash on and off, more rapidly with high braking application. The problem seems to be in getting the attention of the driver approaching from the rear, not so much the quickness, over incandescents, of brake light indications. Watch that state trooper chasing you down on the freeway, would he get your attention as quickly if his headlights and beacon were on constantly?
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If by diagnostic you mean the indicator is flashing on and off it does that when the compressor clutch is engaged but the compressor doesn't turn in sync with the engine. A 2000 MY just might have a worn out clutch and that is a replaceable wear part. Tell your mechanic to take a hike!
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There are no engine block drain plugs. You may be thinking of freeze plugs which are not normally removed.
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$1 for 2....actually. Apparently you have never replaced a bulb in the rear quarter panel of an early LS400. Or maybe the front or rear parking/street lamp in an RX300. And I do really like the idea of getting 12 watts of light for 1 watt of input. My home and our office converted to CFLs years ago.
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Again, when you set in a movie theatre watching the screen your eyes do not detect the fact that the screen is being illuminated, on and off, at a 50 hz rate. Actually the image itself is only changing at a 25 hz rate, each image is exposed twice to fool your eyes. 100,000 "bulb" life and significantly reduced power consumption was reason enough for me to switch to LED bulbs. There are a few people around that cannot really see, but are sensitive too, the 120 hz flicker of comon fluorescent lamps.
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The only possible place for the extra non-drainable 11 quarts to be is within the bottom half of the torque converter. Almost three gallons of ATF in 1/2 of a transaxle torque converter? Not !Removed! likely! I think there is a missunderstanding about the fact that the typical flushing machine uses 16 quarts to flush the RX300 transaxle, not that it actually contains 16 quarts.
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The reason I know, and am sure. At ~44,000 miles my ATF looked dirty and had a definite burned odor. Drained it and installed 4 qts purchased from Lexus. A week of so later the ATF looked dirty again. Discovered via the internet that to drain the 5th quart you need to remove a second drain plug in the diff'l case (NOT PTO). The second time I purchased 5 qts and dropped and cleaned about 1/8" of non-metalic graphite looking debris from the bottom of the sump pan. 5 qts turned out to be a tad of an overfill. But a week later, unlike previously, the ATF still looked pink and clear. As it did also last evening when in sometime of a panic, immediately after I read your 16 qts statement, I rushed out into the garage to recheck the ATF condition. So I'm fairly certain about the 5 quart amount.
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16 quarts = 4 gallons. The entire transaxle case probably couldn't hold that much even if you removed all of the internal components. Sounds to me like you have been victomized by your Lexus dealer. It probably does take 16 quarts to fully flush the transaxle but I can assure you that for the AWD RX300 5 quarts results in a bit of an overfill.
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On a hot day the A/C blower will not start automatically until the A/C evaporator core is chilled by refrigerant flow down to a fairly cool level. It should start instantly if you depress one of the manual speed buttons. If it starts manually but is delayed automatically you are likely low on refrigerant of the compressor is TU.
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Center Blower Speed To High.
wwest replied to rocky2's topic in 04 - 09 Lexus RX330 / RX350 / RX400h
Select mixed air outflow mode, dash & footwell. -
Sorry, i only said that because i didn't know (understand) that you changed them to LED's. I am sorry for the confusion. That is cool though..How did you do the conversion to LED's? Does each plug have a few LED's on it etc? Could you tell me more i'm very interested in changing the bulbs in my rx300 to LED's Where did you get them? Thanks ← superbrightleds.com