gbhrps

I've tried figuring out what you are referring to as the "reman seal". If it is the Rear Main Seal, your mechanic is correct, the tranny must come out to replace it. However, I would check to see if your PCV valve (Positive Crankcase Valve) needs replacing first. If it is gummed up and stuck shut, pressure inside the engine will build up and force oil out past the weakest seal, in your case the rear main seal. I have a Nissan that this happened to about 15 years ago. It leaked oil out the rear seal, not badly, but enough to be a nuisance. Changing the PCV valves (that car had 2 of them) solved the problem and the car (I still have it) hasn't leaked a drop of oil since. Another point. If changing the PCV valve makes no difference in the oil leak, maybe you can just live with the oil leak. If it is not too severe, and you are checking your oil level regularly every few days, topping up your car with oil between oil changes may prove to be a lot cheaper in the long run, particularly with a 13 year old car. Then again, maybe your leak is too severe to make constant refilling unfeasible. In this case you'll just have to go ahead and get the seal replaced. Good Luck!

Go to You Tube and search for a video on replacing struts. You'll find just about anything mechanically that you're looking for there. Yes, this is a job for a DIYer, if you have access to the tools and a hoist or jack stands. You will most probably require a spring compressor (some auto parts places will even lend you the specialized tools if you purchase the parts from them. Check around.) and an air gun and compressor, or a breaker bar, to remove the larger nuts that have been on there for all of those years. If the top mounts have been tight all along and aren't chewed up, they should not require replacement. Good Luck!

Absolutely! Mag wheels are porous and will leak a certain amount. The ones that you have seem to be very much so. If the tires are removed from the rims, and the interior of the rims are properly prepped and then epoxy primered with several coats, your problem should be solved. Just make sure that when remounting the tires that care is taken to not scrub off any of the epoxy. The stuff is pretty tough, but insist that the tire tech take some care. Good Luck!

You have many of us confused, much more than we normally would be, simply because you haven't given us enough specifics of your problem, and then you give us conflicting information. You have a "deep sound". Coming from where? When the engine is idling? When at speed? When accelerating/slowing down? Is it coming from the rear of the car? From the transmission? Can you be more descriptive as to what the sound really sounds like? A deep sound isn't much to go on. You really need to give us more. You ask if there is a problem with your remote key fob, and then say that when you " unlock and lock the doors with the button on the inside ten times the car beeps once, then a pause, and then twice." Does your key fob remote lock and unlock the doors properly? Are you saying that using the door lock button on the driver's arm rest causes the system to beep once, then pause and beep twice? And why would you lock and unlock the door 10 times in a row? Are you trying to reprogram the remote? And now I'm going to take a guess as to the small grill opening you've found on the dash. I've seen the same thing on many newer cars for years, and I'm assuming that behind the grill there is the in car temperature sensor. Its how the automatic heating and air conditioning system senses when it needs to turn on or off or raise or lower the interior temperature to what you have it set to on the dash selector. ( At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it. ) Please get back to us so that someone here can answer your questions.

As stated in my opening sentence, "Upon startup they cycle as they should, first moving fully up, then fully down, and then centering themselves as to the weight of the car and occupants and cargo. " In other words, they seem to be operating as per normal, the only exception being that the warning light for the system is staying on.

My wife's 04 ES330 has the powered, self levelling headlights. Upon startup they cycle as they should, first moving fully up, then fully down, and then centering themselves as to the weight of the car and occupants and cargo. Within the last week, the dash indicator that warns of a malfunction in this system has lit up. I checked for any obvious signs for the indicator to come on, found nothing, so disconnected the battery overnight in hopes of resetting the system. Upon reconnecting the battery the indicator lit up again once the car was started. Has anyone gone through a similar situation, and can give me an idea as to what the problem is? Otherwise its off to the dealership sometime in the future. Thanks!

Here's an inexpensive-it-might-work-fix. My 90 Nissan 300ZX developed a rear main seal leak about 10 years ago. Mind you, the leak was minor, leaving a 3 inch sized pool of oil under the bell housing after each run. It was suggested by an online forum to change the PCV valves on the car (that car had 2 of them), as their poor operation would cause increased crankcase pressure that would push oil past the rear main seal. I took the advice, changed the PCV valves, and the car has not leaked a drop to this day. Good Luck!

bokaj, The other way to do the same thing is to pull the battery cable and leave it off overnight. That'll kill any residual power in the system (it's required to fire the airbags in an accident if the battery were somehow cut out of the system). It'll reset your computer. Be sure to copy down your radio station presets and your radio theft code (if so equipped) before you disconnect the battery, or the radio will be unuseable afterwards until the correct code is input. Good Luck!

Your overheating issue could be a failed thermostat that needs replacing. At least that where you should start first when solving your overheating issue. Other causes are a clogged radiator, collapsed rad hose, failed water pump, or blown head gasket. You need to get to the bottom of this one before you have to replace the engine or the heads. The ABS light could be a corroded connector at a wheel speed sensor, or a bad speed sensor at one of your wheels. I believe a service tech can pull the ABS codes to diagnose just where the problem is and give you an estimate to fix it. The air bag light needs a service tech's diagnosis. The air bag can't save your life if it won't fire when needed. There's no need to change coolant between seasons, but there is the necessity to change it and flush the system every 4 years or so. Have it tested to see if it requires changing, and to see how much protection its giving your engine. Three things usually cause the windshield washer failure. A clogged nozzle( clean it out), a corroded connector at the washer pump( pull connector and clean it), or a failed washer pump( change it). Good Luck!

sarrah, Chances are that your friend's mirror will not work on your car, since there is a body style change between the two model years. Usually when body styles change, so will many of the car's components. But until you actually remove the inner door panel, so that you can gain access to the wiring harness connector for your mirror, you won't be able to tell for certain. Removing the door panel is not rocket science, but is a little intimidating for a first timer, particularly on a car of this class. As for the number of pins necessary in the wiring connector for a heated/memory mirror? My experience has been that there will be four pins for the up/down/right/left functions of the mirror, and two pins for the heated function. How the many pins the memory function requires I don't know. Your best bet would be to ask a Lexus parts tech at a dealership to pull up the part number the passenger mirror for your year, and for a 2001, to see if they cross-reference as the same part number. Baring that, look for a 2003, or 2004 part number and see if you can track down a used one. They should definitely fit as they are the same body style. Good Luck!

igbeserk, Your rear brake rotors have a small set of drum brakes inside that are the emergency brakes. There are two small brake shoes that sit inside the rear rotor, that may have come unseated and may be the rattle that you hear. Its fairly easy to see, since after pulling the rear wheel there are only four bolts to be removed and the rear rotor comes off. Inside you'll see the small brake shoes and be able to assess what needs to be corrected. Good Luck!

Quixtar, These show up from time to time on eBay in printed form, or on a CD. I'd check that avenue out. Good Luck!

spot19, You give the impression that this will be your first timing belt install. If that is the case, you may be biting off more than is wise. If you are going to help someone else who is knowledgeable and has done many of these type installs before, that would be wiser. For instance, crank seals can't be removed or replaced until the gear for the timing belt is removed. On some cars ( many a 90-96 Nissan 300zx, for instance) they won't come off unless they are cut off the crank and a new crank gear installed after the seal is replaced. If not replaced properly and the seal leaks, it will destroy the timing belt in a short period of time. Timing belt installs require that the cam shaft timing be spot on for the engine to fire, and that the cam gear be locked in position until the belt tensioner is properly set up. And so on. As I said, if you've done many of these before, by all means tackle the job yourself. If not ...... it would be wiser to let an expert at least oversee your work, before you replace the covers and replace the coolant and fire the car for the first time. Good Luck!

Judy, Anything can be corrected, but I doubt that a previous owner could have made the seat any wider than it was at the factory. Two things come to mind: that the car was jacked up in the air incorrectly and the floor pan under the driver's seat has been deformed. This may have caused the driver's seat to lean more towards the side of the car rather than sit properly straight up and down. Sitting in the back seat should let you see if this may have occurred or not. If it has, the floor pan can be pushed back down into its proper position. The other reason for your problem may be that the plastic finisher on the door post (the B pillar) between the front and rear doors, and that the seat belt mounts to, may not be properly seated in the B pillar, and needs to be reattached correctly to provide the clearance your seat belt needs to work properly without snagging. Without actually seeing your car its hard to really see what needs to be done, but for sure you should not be having this problem, because it didn't come from the factory this way. A look at my wife's ES330 shows at least 3/4 of an inch clearance between the seat and the B pillar, even with the seat as far forward and as far up as it will go. You may have to go back to the dealership and see if they installed the B pillar finisher correctly, or that the seat's bottom side panel is correctly attached to the seat frame. I suggest that you have a look at other ES's from the same year on their lot and compare the clearance with your car. Good Luck, and keep us posted! We're curious as to how the problem will get resolved.

Judy, There was a Lexus TSB (Technical Service Bulletin) several years ago about seat belts that would not retract properly on their own, and I'm assuming that you have this same issue. My wife's last Lexus had this problem, and it was certainly easy enough to correct. The TSB said that grime from your hands gets transferred to the seat belts over time, and collects on the plastic/metal loop support on the B pillar (the overhead loop at the back of the driver's door right at your ear), and builds up enough friction to prevent the belt from retracting on its own. They suggested lifting the belt up away from the loop to expose the hidden sides of the loop, and just scrape off the grunge collected there with a dull knife or small flat bladed screwdriver. Be sure to do both sides of the loop. On my wife's car, just as soon as the loop was scraped clean, the belt's retraction returned to an as new condition. Good Luck!

The code should be recorded in the owners manual. If you don't have it, I would suggest that you pull the radio from the dash yourself to get to the radio's serial number on its label. Once you have it, just go to the dealer and ask them to look it up for you, and save the labour charge. Pulling the radio is not rocket science. If you can't figure out how to go about it, go online to "carstereohelp.com". They have step by step instructions on how to do it with pictures. Look at the list of makes down the left side of their homepage for LEXUS. Click on it and search for your model and year. It couldn't be any easier, and their site is free. Good Luck!

Go online to the12volt.com website, search for your make, model and year, and they'll list the instructions for pulling the dash parts to get at the radio, as well as the interior door panels etc. Its a site for audio installers, and its free. the12volt.com Good Luck!

I've solved a similar problem some time ago, on another car's audio system, by removing the entire radio to the workbench. The front of the radio just unclipped from the metal case and I pulled it away from the case to straighten the ribbon cables between the two. At that point I was able to slide the locking tab (part of the ribbon cable socket on the printed circuit board) away from the circuit board about an eighth of an inch to unlock it, and remove the ribbon cable. A shot of contact cleaner into the connector, a few minutes for the fluid to evaporate, and I reinstalled the ribbon cables and the front of the radio. A test install back in the car showed that I'd fixed the problem, so I installed the radio and the dash pieces, and the radio worked perfectly for the remaining few years that I owned the car. I'm not saying that this will work for you, but you have to remove the radio anyway to replace it, so it may be worth a try. Good Luck!

First of all, you have a 13 year old car with 13 year old gaskets that have lost flexibility and hardened over time. Eventually some of them will allow oil to seep past. It really isn't a problem until it becomes excessive to the point where you are losing more than a quart between oil changes, or it just drives you crazy that the car keeps marking its territory on your driveway. Depending on who does the work to replace the seals and which ones get replaced, the cost could be very expensive, and far exceed the cost of the extra oil that you'll need to keep topping up the engine over the life of the car. RX300ES300 is correct about changing your PCV valve. The valve (positive crankcase ventilation or PCV) allows for crankcase pressure to be released while the engine is running. If it clogs up and sticks shut, the result is increased crankcase pressure to the point where oil may well be forced from some of the engine seals. I have a 1990 Nissan 300ZX that suffered from an oil leak through the rear crankshaft seal, until I changed the PCV valves (that car has 2 of them) and totally eliminated the oil leak to this day some 8 years later. I'd start with changing the PCV valve, and if that doesn't solve your leaking problem, you'll have to have someone track down just where the oil is coming from, and then give you a price to correct it. Then you'll have to decide whether the problem is severe enough for you to spend the money on it, or whether you decide to live with it. Good Luck!

I should add that before fuel injection became the industry standard, it was very easy to hear preignition when under hard acceleration on just about any car that was running regular gasoline, and not the premium fuel that was required. Under hard acceleration you could hear the hammering from the engine that sounded like someone was under the hood with a wrench bashing at the engine block. It even continued when the ignition was turned off, as some engines continued to run on with shaking and stumbling until you suddenly popped the clutch to stall them out. With fuel injection the computer reads all of the engine inputs and instantly adjusts all parameters to stop preignition with lower octane fuels, ...... up to a certain point. Continued hard, demanding driving, while using lower octane fuels, will eventually do major engine damage since the computer can only do so much.

Why would you bother? These engines give terrific performance as the are, for what they are intended to do. If you wanted a performance machine, you should buy an ISF, or a GS, when you have the dough. You already have a 16 year old car. Put in the new engine and save your money from the port and polish for the proper maintenance a car of this vintage is sure to require over the next few years. Hopefully by the time you need to replace this car, you'll be further up the salary scale and be able to get closer to what you really want to be driving. Good Luck!

Premium fuel was required for my wife's old 97 ES300, her present 04 ES330 and my Nissan 90 300ZX. But we have used regular unleaded fuel in these cars since the day we purchased them. There have been absolutely no mechanical or performance issues at all in over almost 400 000 km that these cars have travelled collectively. However, neither my wife nor I drive these cars hard. Nor will we ever do so. Maybe both of us being newly under the heading of senior citizens is the reason. The cars' ECU's will automatically retune the engine parameters to prevent preignition with the regular unleaded fuel, if you are not constantly demanding top performance. But, if you are the kind of driver to drive a car hard and are always on the gas asking the tranny to kick down .... do yourself a favour and spring for the extra cash to use premium. A burned and melted piston is a very expensive wake up call.

ryan_h, I don't think that you have any blown fuses or window motors that have gone bad, as they wouldn't both give up the ghost at the same time, unless hit with a power surge. Guessing here, but do you have the window lockout switch on the driver's door pushed down? The only thing that might not fit with this idea is why the passenger front window went down but not the two rears as well. You may have a lockup somehow in the remote's radio receiver that controls the alarm, immobilizer, door locks and windows. I would wonder if disconnecting the battery for 5 minutes would somehow reset it. Its worth a try. Keep us posted! Good Luck!

zockslexus, From what you describe your sunroof unit has a problem that cannot be corrected without pulling the headliner out of the car, and then removing the entire sunroof as a unit from the car. You have stripped the drive cables to the motor, or the sunroof lift/slide mechanism has broken or stripped components. To make any repairs at all (other than replacing the drive motor) the entire assembly must come out. If you do it yourself, and then purchase an entire used unit from an autowrecker, you can swap the used one into your car. Believe me, it is not rocket science or hard to do. If you have the dealership do it ..... count on big dollars, mainly for the time it takes to remove and then replace the unit and headliner. The time and money for the actual repair of the sunroof mechanism will be small by comparison. Another alternative is to remove and replace the headliner yourself and let the dealership do the rest. Or go a little further and remove and replace the sunroof assembly yourself, but take it to the dealership for repair. You will save a great deal of money. I did this a year or so ago on a dual sunroof Subaru Outback Wagon. As it was the cost was over $300, the dealership wanted over $600 for the entire job. About 2 weeks ago I removed the entire tilt and slide sunroof assembly from a pickup truck, and swapped it with a used assembly, and I'm just a backyard mechanic who has been in the backyard a while. I do my own brake jobs, and I have tackled a transmission swap or two, but I'm a long way from being a service technician. The main thing to make sure to do correctly is to ensure that all of the sunroof drain tubes get properly reconnected, and that when you reinstall the sunroof assembly, that it is fully in the closed position when placed into the roof opening. Snug up the 10 or so nuts securing the assembly, hook up the motor and wiring and test several times before tightening everything up and installing the headliner. Good Luck!

I would not be surprised that an alternator having voltage irregularities caused weird electrical problems. It does seem logical, and recently I had an acquaintance of mine have all kinds of electrical system items malfunction and cycle on and off. While not a Lexus, the source of all of his gremlins was a bad alternator. A recent posting on another forum just this week (different make of car) had several respondents say that his electrical gremlins (lights flashing/dash weirdness/auto HVAC intermittent) were all the fault of his alternator. It seems that inconsistent voltages makes for some electrical systems to be infected by strange goings on. One other thing for you to consider would be a bad power door lock actuator/solenoid in the passenger door, or a partial disconnection of the control rods from the door lock mechanism to the manual lock at the inner door handle, or to the outer door key lock. Good Luck!