wwest

Dealer had mine monochromed, burnished gold, before I took delivery, $1300 adder as I remember. Looks much better than two-tone IMMHO.

Ebay motors....search for "lexus seat"

Most luxury buyers get to that plateau by being smart and more importantly, knowledgeable. With knowledge and age comes the realization that above a certain level HP/Torque numbers are meaningless. For instance I become very leary when I see manufacturers touting 0-60MPH numbers in their advertising. That tells me that I do not fit the market demographics for their product. Also with knowledge comes the realization that if the RX400h yeilds V8 performance with "fair" fuel economy then an RX250h with V6 performance might actually yeild excellent fuel economy. I have no complaints, really, about the get up and go of my 01 AWD RX300. Now, on another subject. "RX sales are no longer climbing and may very well be on the decline." I was at a large gathering, Christmas party, last Saturday evening and I was frankly amazed at the number of people that joined into our "cars" discussion and almost all had somehow become aware that FWD vehicles and FWD biased AWD drive vehicles were not desireable. Many had detailed reasons, but most had simply picked up information from friends and the media. Now remember that this is the Pacific NW, where these things just might be more important that other places in the US, and don't forget that we are a "bellweather" state also. With the RX400h only having 30Hp at the rear and 270Hp at the front there will be no arguing that it isn't front torque biased!

Counting chickens before thyey hatch! None of us yet know if the RX400h will yeild decent fuel economy. Take notice that Lexus has changed their RX400h marketing toward HP, not fuel economy. Touting V8 performance from the hybrid. I for one do not believe the Toyota hybrid concept can be scaled to the weight of the RX series, let alone the 2.5 Ton Cayenne. There is only so much power that you can recover using regenerative braking, okay in city traffic, but lousey on the highway. The RX400h was originally slated for customer deliveries, ME, early this year. Now I'll wait to be sure it isn't a pig in a poke.

Google for: wwest (&) defog or wwest (&) odor other source: http://www.airsept.com/eed.html

VMF... The subject matter has to do with windshield fogging LONG after the cabin itself is up to your desired temperature, let alone the engine water jacket.

Block heaters are very common in MT and AK..... But they still don't prevent the power stearing fluid from freezing up.

Your A/C is totally non-functional with the OAT below 32F. Most modern day systems disable the AQ/C below about ~35F.

Search google for "denso" and "defog".

Rochester MI, December 2, 2004. "Pedestrian accident: A 23-year-old Warren woman was hit by a car as she jaywalked across Main Street in downtown Rochester around 10:30PM Nov.24. The driver of the car, a 26-year-old Macomb woman, said she has just turned on her defroster and it fogged her windshield so she never saw the pedestrian. She was ticketed for careless driving. The pedestrian, who was thown 50 feet, was taken to Royal Oak Beaumont Hospital, where she underwent surgery." A Lexus or Toyota?? But for sure an automatic climate control system designed by NipponDenso, Denso US.

Hmmmm...... I rather doubt that air, sea level atmospheric pressure, can overcome the 3000PSI of pressure downside of the pump, at the fluid end of the accumulator. I suspect you would see lots of brake fluid leaks long before any air gets into your brake system via any path other than the filler cap. By the by, you can probably pick up, for cheap, an entire Trac/pump/accumulator assembly at your local wrecking yard.

In the twelve years I have owned my 92 LS400 I probably added as much as a quart of antifreeze, likely about a pint at a time. Liquids decrease their volume with temperature, so if your fluid was even close to the low mark during the summer, the onset of colder weather would likely result in a low fluid indication. I finally changed out the factory fluid in mine just this past summer. Oh, and it isn't really a "sealed" system. The radiator cap has a pressure release to allow coolant to flow backward into the expansion tank as the engine temperature rises, heats the coolant, and its volume expands. The expansion tank is in no way "sealed". As the tank "refills" due to engine heating, the trapped air, and the moisture contained therein, must be allowed to escape. As the engine cools the coolant is pulled back into the radiator.

With no signs of leakage?? If so that would be a waste of time. Did you remember to bleed the brake system at the Trac pump accumulator and at the abs pumpmotor? What the diagnostic really means is that the Trac brake fluid pressure replenishing pump is running too often. Each time you apply the brakes the Trac ecu checks the brake fluid backup pressure at the accumulator. If the Trac pump has to restart to replenish the pressure fluid pressure on ten sequential brake applications the diagnostic indication will be illuminated. Oftentimes you can just sit in your driveway and count as you apply the brakes and on the tenth one the light will come on. That can be because the accumulator has lost it 3000PSI of nitrogen charge or it could also mean that some small debris is blocking one of the reverse flow check valves open. A complete brake fluid flush fixed mine. If you take it to Lexus to have this done be sure and point out the extra bleed valves, Lexus of Seattle didn't know of them until I pointed them out.

Reading -22 is a pretty sure bet that the OAT sensor connection is completely open or else the sensor (thermistor) itself is. If I remember correctly 4800 ohms is about 32F.

On my 92 LS I took a good set of needle nose pliers and "adjusted" the wiper assembly tabs to fit standard blades.

Have the dealer explain the C-best optional setups to you. I would recommend using the C-best options to unlink the A/C from operating in fully automatic mode unless you enable it by manually turning it on. It will remain "enabled", day after day, until you disable it by manually turning it off. I would also unlink the A/C from operating automatically in defrost/defog/demist mode. The third c-best option I would have the dealer set is to have the system not automatically switch to cooling mode. The Lexus climate control, in fully automatic mode, once the cabin temperature rises to or closely to your temperature setpoint, will automatically switch to cooling mode, (from footwell and windshield airflow to face and upper body via the dash outlets). On a day or night when your body's radiant heating effects from the surrounding landscape are miniscule this will result in significant discomfort for you and your passengers. If it remains in heating mode the windshield will still be warmed by the slight airflow from those ducts and you will be much less likely to have your windshield fog over suddenly as the OAT declines and/or the interior RH rises.

Puzzling.... The first time I need new blades I buy the complete Bosch assembly and then after that the refills, typically two mismatched sets. I seem to get a good one year life from the Bosch's here in the NW "rainforest".

On the early models there was two separate pumps, an ABS pumpmotor and a trac pumpmotor combination. If Trac activates too often and you are a reasonably conservative driver, one that "feathers" the throttle at the very first instance of wheelspin, you can simply unplug the fuse for the Trac pumpmotor assembly on the firewall in the corner of the driver's side (for non-UK). No more dethrottling nor delayed "un-dethrottling". But then you could also just unplug the connector to the servomotor that provides the dethrottling.

RWD Lexus also... May I ask where you heard that? I haven't read or seen any postings regarding experiences with the hesitation problem in RWD vehicles.

These days lots of us "marry" our cars.... Sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, friends, employees, so many folks who know you and know the car's recent ownership and relaibility history.

Has anyone out there, in modern days, without other obvious indications like oil pooling under the car, checked their transmission fluid and found it low? Its been a VERY long time for me. So its probably more important to look at the color and odor of the fluid to be sure it isn't burned.

A friend of mine was rear ended in his 97 LS400. His insurance wasn't going to total it initailly but he pleaded and begged and they finally agreed. Then a friend of his, under his guidance, got a really, REALLY, good deal on a salavge titled 97 LS400.

My Rx300 is an 01 AWD and I am on record as saying the hesitation syndrome does not exist in it. What it does do is shift into "neutral" (for wont of a more descriptive or correct term) during coastdown and/or just before coming to a full stop. My suspicion about all of this is as follows. When the Prius was in design phase they decided to eliminate engine lagging torque during "coastdown" in favor of simulating the same "feel" using the battery charging braking regeneration system. Even today the Prius driver can manually select engine lagging torque or battery recharging. And then via engineering "cross-polination" someone in the FWD design area realized that the same method, eliminating engine "drag" during coastdown by taking the transmission out of gear would result in improved fuel economy. They may have even realized that a side benefit might be fewer loss of control accidents in adverse roadbed conditions due to engine braking on the front drive and STEARING wheels. I think we have pretty much confirmed that the hesitation issue only applies to Toyota/Lexus FWD models or AWD with front torque bias. Now, my 01's gas pedal is directly connected to the engine so if I suddenly go WOT while the transmission is not in gear the only design choice they had was to put the thing in gear as quickly as possible. Sorta like on my 300HP C4 applying WOT and THEN releasing the clutch. Burned smell from the area of the clutch. My transmission fluid smells and looks burned at only 38k miles, this for a vehicle that has NO factory recommedation for transmission fluid, has a towing package, external transmission fluid cooler, that has never been used. I am seeing reports of transmission failures for my model years between 60k miles and 100k miles. Anyone want to guess why my Transmission fluid is burned at 38k miles? So, someone with e-throttle suddenly goes WOT in the same circumstance. The transmission firmware "talks" to the engine and says "wait" I need to get myself into gear and give the transmission clutches and bands an additional few hundred milliseconds to fully seat". Seems, if true, a problem that could readily fixed in firmware, right? NOT! Before even one was shipped these vehicles were EPA qualified for a specific city/hwy fuel economy. What does the EPA say, or do, if the manufacturer, after the fact, wants to go back and revise the fuel economy adversely? And possibly even more pertainant, what about the PR issue? Now, I have heard that the hesitation problem in the 05 RX330 has been fixed, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't I seen a posting wherin someone was asking why the MPG rating of the 05 was poorer than the 04 by only a MPG or so?

I always use the factory designated jacking points but use a wood block between the floor jack and....

A friend of mine who is an avid DIY'r has a 92 with almost 150 k miles. He swears he has never done anything but change the oil and filters and recently pulled a spark plug to check and decided that the one was in such good shape that he put it back in and didn't follow through with the others. He had just spent ~$1200 on the timing belt and water pump, at 150k miles! My experience has been much the same, four of our company 92 to 95 LS400s are at or exceeding 100k, all have the original transmission fluid, PS fluid, and all but one has the factory anti-freeze. One of the four had the RMS replaced but I firmly believe that to be the result of a dealer's gofer overfilling the crankcase with oil during routine maintainance.