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If you look at autotrader.com it looks as if there is a surplus of supply, with some dealers having as many as 80 or 90 in stock. Since the dealers cannot sell above MSRP they are adding on, insisting on, paint preservation, undercoating, leather preservation, etc, etc. I was told by Lexus of Bellevue that I could have one within a week with about $4,000 of those "extras".

There is an ECU that monitors tail and stop light bulb filament condition. It does this using a small resister in series with the plus side of the 12 volt supply. If one of these sensing resisters should fail or maybe just an ECU connection, the bulbs cannot be illuminated.

From a picture? Trac switch as someone said. Otherwise best way from outside is to take a peek at the inside of either rear wheel, if there's a driveshaft there it's "pretend" AWD.

Hmmmm.... Central FL.... The older we get the poorer our eyesight becomes, mostly we lose sight sensitivity to color. HID's, having a much wider light spectrum tend to help our night vision dramatically. And yes, they have a rather sharp forward cutoff, that's to prevent them from inadvertently blinding oncoming drivers. If you're like me, 65+, you don't much like driving at night anyway, certainly not at a speed that over-runs our vision (leave that to the younger set that still believes in immortality).

From 1987 to current: 1985 Jeep 4X4, 1992 Jeep 4X4, 1998, 99, and 2000 Chrysler T&C AWD, 1994 Aerostar AWD, 2000 AWD RX300, 2001 AWD RX300, 2001 Porsche C4. Other than regular checks of the ATF for color and burnt odor NEVER bothered with ATF change on any of these except the 01 RX, NEVER bothered with ANY differential lub. Have not yet had ANY problem unique to the AWD system. The 01 RX has had the ATF changed twice, at 40k and again at 45k, but that has to do with a design flaw by Lexus. Actually there have been 4 AWD Aerostars involved, two 92's and two 94's. My son is still driving one of the 94's and the company uses the other 94 for shuttle service. The 92 Jeep was "retired" to a cattle and wheat ranch in north central MT in 2001. Still doing stellar duty there except one crankshaft position sensor failure.

The base rule is.... Brake pads are one hell of a whole lot cheaper and simpler to replace than the clutch surfaces in any automatic transmission. Actually the same is true of even a manual transmission clutch surface, just that you have a LOT more control with the manual.

Doesn't the statement apply only to downhill runs when otherwise the brakes might overheat?

So pretty much if i was sliding on ice etc, it would kick in? ← Well, no. VSC will activate only momentarily at the very beginning of over-stearing, a spin, it either works or it doesn't.

Just went through this, your, symptoms entirely. The battery was not being fully charged because the slip rings within the alternator were worn completely away. Apparently this had NOTHING to do with PS leak.

The VSC system activates if the vehicle is not following the "line" designated by the driver's use, postion, of the stearing wheel.

THe LSD option was eliminated with the advent of VSC/Trac in 2001. Trac provides a "virtual" LSD.

Basically you wouldn't notice VSC was off until you needed it. But then the need is extremely rare if you're a careful driver. Mine is a 2001 with 45k miles and I only know of one time the VSC activated. Much worse would be the loss of Trac on a FWD or front torque biased AWD vehicle.

Sadly, it begins to appear that the RX400h's highway fuel economy is substantially better that city. Not an owner, but here on the internet I keep seeing postings of 28 highway vs less than 24 for city. Certainly better MPG than the RX330 in any case, but the above is an oddity no one has yet explained.

That light is the most useless thing I know of in today's automotive marketplace. The only explaination I have ever heard it that it is a reminder to turn it off so you don't actiavate cruise control accidentally. Some of the newer models have a light that tells you when it is actually active.

At 17k miles the cabin of my 2001 Porsche C4 still smells WONDERFUL.

I already responded elsewhere.....

The 12 volt stearing wheel unlock solenoid is nearby. Fairly high current draw, the last thing you need is the stearing wheel getting locked down the way.

I don't understand, completely... When I buy brake pads I ask for the most aggressive pad material available. By aggressive I mean I want the damn things to "EAT ROTORS FOR LUNCH!" I NEVER want to buy brake pads that have a lifetime warranty. The dust free issue.... The frictional material on the pad will wear away, it must! There are only two ways that can happen, dust or gas. If gas is the result of wear then your braking will be poor due to the gas boundary layer between the pad and the rotor. I'll take dust any day, I may have to clean my wheel more often but at least I'll be around to do it. If the pads I use are deemed too aggressive by some of you due to excessive pad or rotor wear then so be it. You can often reduce the squealing by chamferring both the leading and trailing edges of the pads.

Just completed the stage 1 mod to my 2001 AWD RX300. Have had too many instances of sudden and spontaneous windshield fogging with no ability to quickly remove condensation. In defog/demist/defrost mode the Toyota/Lexus automatic climate control system relies EXCLUSIVELY on the ability of the A/C to dehumidify the incoming airflow. If that airflow is already warm enough or heavily laden with moisture the operation of the A/C will dehumidify the incoming airflow and thereby create enough vapor pressure over the interior surface of the windshield to rapidly evaporator the condensation. The problem is that the ability for the A/C to efficiently perform this function is highly dependent on the level of moisture, Rh, relative humidity, of that airflow. In most northern, colder in the winter, regions of the US Rh actually declines with temperature and so the ability of the system to perform the defog/demist function also declines precipitously so below about 47F. As a matter of fact even though the design itself is such that the A/C is disabled below ~35F Toyota/Lexus STILL relies on the probability that fresh incoming airflow will be dry enough to rapidly defog the windshield, a new form of Russian roulette. As of ~2001 they added a new C-best option that allows RX300 owners, and maybe others, to unlink the automatic enabling of the A/C compressor when the climate control system is put into fully automatic mode. A second option will also unlink the A/C from operating automatically, without the driver's knowledge, in defog/demist mode. While I remain an advocate of the use of the A/C as an aid in defogging the interior surface of the windshield the manufacturers need to recognize that in too many instances this method alone will either be far too slow or completely non-functional, whereas FRESH incoming HEATED airflow to the windshield's interior surface will ALWAYS work. Heating the airflow can dramatically lower its Rh, raising the vapor pressure substantially thereby resulting in virtually immediate vaporization of interior windshield surface condensation. Additionally, and this is REALLY IMPORTANT, applying heated airflow continuously will raise the temperature of the windshield surface such that it moves substantially above the dewpoint of the "local" atmosphere. If you own a new RX400h you will find a note within the owners manual indicating that the climate control system will automatically switch to floor/footwell outflow mode once the OAT drops below ~35F. That's because they just disabled the A/C compressor and now unless the windshield receives at least some level of heated airflow it will soon fog over. When your system is in cooling mode, dash or dash/floor airflow paths enabled, there is NO warming airflow to the interior surface of the windshield and therefore it can, and may, chill to the dewpoint of the local atmosphere. I fully expect that Toyota and Lexus will now begin to see not just a few lawsuits from accidents, injuries, and even deaths due to instances of sudden windshield fogging during wintertime operations of the RX400h. Automatically routing even a small portion of system airflow to the interior surface of an already thoroughly CHILLED windshield, at the same instant (OAT declining below ~35F) the A/C compressor becomes disabled, is likely to dramatically increase the number of incidents of sudden and spontaneous (to the driver) windshield fogging. But the main problem in all of this is what happens to the remaining this layer of condensate (too thin to accumulate into droplets and run down the drain) on the chilled evaporator vanes, 10,000 square inches thereof, once the A/C compressor is disabled automatically as the OAT declines below ~35F. Or you simply "exit" the defog/demist mode not knowing, with no indication thereof, that the A/C was operating and now you have just turned it off, potentially releasing a huge MOISTURE BOMB that will soon quickly coat your already chilled windshield. The C-best options in my RX300 have been set such that only I control my future lifeline. I only enable my A/C if the air temperature and/or the MRT require it. That means that it is never enabled during the winter months. Beats having to disconnect the A/C compressor clutch power lead each fall and then reconnect it the next spring. What we have done with my 2001 RX300 is add an ECU, microprocessor, that manipulates the climate control ECU's input signals such that when I activate defog/demist/defrost mode the system will ALWAYS provide a high level of HOT airflow to the interior surface of the windshield. When activating defog/demist/defrost there will be a slight delay(***) and then the reheat/remix apportioning vane will automatically move to the max heating position and then the blower speed will go to full "high". *** The new ECU detects that the system is in defog/demist/defrost mode by "watching" the system outflow routing servomotor's feedback potentiometer. When defog mode is activated and the servomotor has moved the airflow routing to the windshield outflow position the new ECU takes over control of the reheat/remix servomotor and moves it to the MAX HEAT position. Once it has reached the max heat position the blower motor speed is raised to maximum. The new ECU will remain in control of the system for a minimum of 45 seconds and then it will relinquish control back to the parent system's OEM ECU. In my 1992 Lexus LS400 I was able to accomplish this with a simple switch that added a resistance in line with the IAT (cabin atmosphere temperature sensor). The added resistance caused the climate control ecu to "think" the cabin had instantly gotten a LOT colder and it would therefore quickly raise the heating level and the blower speed. Somewhere between 92 and 2001 the engineers had added some digital signal processing for the various sensors and now the climate control ECU does not react to a "sudden" decline of the cabin temperature until about 20 seconds have elapsed. And even then it does so in increments. The new ECU design still forces a cabin COLD signal from the IAT sensor to the OEM ECU. But since that ECU will not react to such a dramatic, quick, (INSTANT)temperature change in the cabin atmosphere we have added new capability. After the 45 second delay the OEM ECU will have recognized, fully, the COLD state of the cabin atmosphere. After the 45 second delay the AMKA ECU will return control to the OEM ECU, EXCEPT for maintaining the FALSE cabin cold signal from the IAT sensor. That will be removed, negated, only by leaving the defog/demist/defrost mode. Once the defog/demist/defrost mode is deactivated it will take ~25 seconds for the OEM ECU's digital signal processing algorithm to adjust to the now correct cabin atmosphere temperature indication. So for that 25 second interval the driver will notice the blower speed and the airflow heating level decline incrementally. Hopefully that will be a good reminder to keep the damn thing out of cooling mode. If there is anyone out there with good technical knowledge and electronic DIY skills that wishes to participate in a Beta test of this product let me know.

If you mount it in the oEM position it will be influenced by radiant heat from the radiator. I extended the wiring and mounted mind just behind the passenger side bumper fasia.

Missing facts.... There is absolutely NO mechanical connection between the shift lever and the transaxle, nor the O/D button. You may have had an intermittent electrical connection within the shift lever that was telling the tranny to be in.... 2nd?

I lived, and drove, in the days before ECU controlled engines..., LONG BEFORE! Back in the stone ages, the time of carburators, mechanical ignition points and distributor caps... We knew that if we started up a long incline and the engine started pinging, knocking, we were "lugging" the engine (operating well below the engine's best power level/RPM) and we therefore downshifted immediately. So the engine/transaxle ECU "commanding" a double downshift (assuming that's what's happening) is a perfectly logical thing to do. When I got older and decided that flying was in my blood I was taught to ALWAYS run our recip engine on the rich side because in an airplane "pinging" is not so easily heard and in short order we would have a failed engine. So.... If the knock sensor "says" the engine is pinging, you (or your ECU) can... A. Enrich the mixture. B. !Removed! the timing. C. Downshift. D. Decrease the prop pitch. The correct answer is: A or B or C Or: A or B or D I can readily see where the engine/transaxle ECU might become quite thoroughly confused, befuddled even, with all those choices. Quite a decision "tree" for your average "bright" programmer to solve. Sure am glad I couldn't adjust (didn't have to think about) the mixture or the timing on my old 56 Ford. PS: Pinging can still occur even with the timing fully retarded.

Bridgestone Turanzas Very quiet and comfortable.

Some time ago the service manager at Lexus of Bellevue told me that using premium fuel grades would help to alleviate the engine hesitation symptom. My thought at the time was..."yeah, RIGHT!". Last week I was in Memphis and the Lexus service manager there told be the same thing. "where there's smoke there's fire..."??? So during the subsequence "windshield time" (I'm now in Tucson) I gave the fuel issue some considerable thought. The only thing premium fuel would directly affect would be the knock sensor. I have posited in the past that these transaxles are being upshifted during closed throttle coastdowns either to extend fuel economy or reduce the potential for loss of control due to engine compression braking or possibly both. Assuming the truth of that if I were to quickly open the throttle while the transaxle remained in an inappropriately high gear the engine would certainly have a high potential to "knock". Obviously less so with Premium fuel "loaded". But why would the knock sensor "going off" at this particular instance result in a delayed/changed shift pattern? Software. Having the engine develop knocking at this particular junction might be an indication to the ECU that a lower gear ratio needs to be selected "next" than would have been selected otherwise. Possibly resulting in two shifts in sequence? The first downshift due to the initial pressure on the gas pedal and now another, yet lower one due to the knocking? While at the same time a rather low supply of fully pressurized ATF due to the low engine RPM just prior to the current incident? The Lexus rep said the hesitation was a design charactoristic to provide for "Safety of the transmission....". Trying to engage a new set of clutches with low ATF pressure would undoubtedly result in premature clutch wear and subsequent failure! QUICK! Close the transaxle pressure regulating solenoid to the next few engine revolutions (800RPM = 13 revolutions/second) can build enough ATF pressure.

Page 451 of the RX400H owners manual, left column: " !CAUTION Under certain slippery road conditions, full traction of the vehicle and power against drive wheels cannot be maintained, even though the traction control system is in operation.." Anyone care to guess what this statement might mean??