gbhrps

Amir, As long as the car has a minor oil leak that drips a small amount on the driveway, why fix it? After all, the car is 11 years old and how many more years will you have it before you trade? It'll be far cheaper to put oil into the car to make up for what comes out of a small leak, than the $850 to $1000 you've been quoted for the fix. As far as the tranny fluid flush and refill is concerned, that might be a good idea at your mileage, but I would check around on the cost. It sounds too high for a filter and fluid change. Good Luck!

We traded the wife's 97 ES for her 04 ES several years ago. The new one has a lot more features (nav package, power rear window shade, power and memory pedals, seats and mirrors, etc.) and has a classier interior. It has wrung up 74 000 km so far, and other than routine maintenance has been absolutely trouble free. We have nothing but praise for the car and will replace it sometime in the future with another ES.

Awathano, There is no way to tell what parts you will need to fix your inoperative windows until you do some preliminary exploration. Don't buy anything until you test a few things. Pull the window fuse and relay and switch them with other good ones from the fuse panels to see if your problems lay there. My previous experiences have taught me to then suspect dirty power window switches. Easily enough done since the switch modules usually can be pried up out of the arm rest using a taped up flat-bladed screw driver (to prevent scratches). Remove the switches and spray electrical contact cleaner into any seams/openings you can find and cycle the switch several times and repeat. Give them time to evaporate the cleaner, reattach to the harness and test to see if they work. ( Assuming that yo don't have the power window lock switch activated.) You could use a test meter to see if the switches are working before and after cleaning as well. Next check the rubber gaters at the front door hinge areas. Slide them back from the door or from the body of the car and check to see if you have any frayed or broken wires. If you don't find the cause of the problem there, then you have to pull the inner door panels to get at the mechanisms and the remainder of the wiring. Again check for corroded connections and broken/frayed wires. Take some long heavy wire and a good 12 volt power source and try powering the window motors themselves. Reversing the wires will make the windows go in the other direction. By now you should have found your problem. If not, check the driver's door interior for the power window amplifier, a small relay-like box that is on the same circuit as the motors and switches. I do not know how to test it (no factory service manual to look at), but if you get to this stage your best bet is a repair technician. Not a bad deal even at this point, since you will have saved the expense of paying to have the door panels removed and replaced. This is not rocket science, and with a little snooping around you may be able to solve the problem yourself, and save some coin. Good Luck!

I don't know for sure but this may be worth a try. The same model year Camry has MANY interchangeable parts with the ES 300. The brake parts are all interchangeable between the 2 models, (put all new Camry rotors and pads on the wife's 97 ES years ago) and the interior door mechanisms may well be the same as well. A combined Toyota/Lexus dealership should be able to cross-reference the part numbers for you.

herb, You can check, but I'd bet that you'll not be able to get just the part you want, and you'll have to get the entire assembly. Sometimes you can get just the motor or just the regulator, but trying to purchase just one part of the regulator most likely can't be done. Hint! When you finally get to the job ...... mark the bolt locations for any you remove from the door in order to remove the window regulator. When you get the new parts installed it'll save you having to realign the glass in the opening, and the glass should fit perfectly without any fiddling. Good Luck!

herb, If you have the patience, the usual home mechanic's tools, a place to do the work, and a little mechanical savvy, its a DIYer. Over the years I've done many of these on a lot of different cars. They all have a different setup of motors and window assemblies, but they are pretty much the same when it comes to how to change them out. I suggest buying a used motor/regulator assembly(for the same rear door) from a junkyard and doing a swap. The glass rides in a front and rear channel and is usually connected to a sliding channel across its bottom edge by two bolts or plastic sliding grips through the glass. To get to these bolts or clips you'll have to slide the glass down until these bolts/clips line up with holes or ports through the steel inside panel of the door. After you undo these fasteners, you'll be able to separate the glass from the bottom channel. Then rotate the glass through 20 degrees or so to drop its leading edge from the front channel and lift the glass out of the door towards the inside of the car. Now you just locate and undo the bolts that hold the motor/window assembly to the interior steel panel of the door. There are usually 4 of them but there could be one or two extra. Unclip the wiring harness to the assembly and pull the motor/regulator out through the largest opening in the door shell. Putting the new/used regulator in is just the reverse, and be sure to test its operation fully before you hang the interior door panel back on. See if you can purchase an entire door including the glass, with the understanding that you'll return the door and its glass for a refund after you get the motor/regulator assembly out. That way you'll be able to take your time to see how the unit comes apart, before you do the work on your car. I don't know how it works where you live, but we have several wrecking yards here that will allow you to remove your own parts. Good Luck!

Rusty, I've been fortunate enough to be able to acquire a small stable of cars, one of which is a 90 Nissan 300zx. Its just a toy in my case, but about 8 years ago it developed a minor rear seal leak that only showed up after the car had had a run and parked. Then it would drip 4 or 5 tablespoons of oil on the garage floor. I had considered doing what you describe as well, but I put the question to a 300ZX Forum online and several people suggested another course of action. It appears that if the PCV valves (this car has 2 of them) plug up, they raise the interior block pressure when the engine is running to the point where that forces oil to seep out of the rear seal. They suggested changing the PCV Valves. I did so, and I have not had another oil leak since that day. I'm not saying that this will be the same for your vehicle, but it would be worth investigating. Good Luck!

I looked at my wife's 04 and it appears that he is correct. This is a common problem with many cars, and I even have a neighbour whose Windstar van has done the same thing. The oxidation you refer to is actually the clear coat peeling off of the base coat paint in my neighbour's case. Careful masking, since the window seals are so close and tight, a light sanding with 600 grit wet/dry paper, and they should be ready for another coat of clear if you don't sand through the base black coat into the primer coat. Interesting to note that you have a Subie as well. My wife gets spoiled in the ES and I make do with an 07 Outback Wagon LTD.

Its hard to get an answer when you don't give us the model year that you need the answer for. I'll assume it was like my wife's previous 97 ES 300. You have to pull the entire turn signal assembly out from the front of the car in this case. The lens assembly has two or three fingers or pins moulded into its body that slide into holes in the fender and front end. They are tight enough fitting to stay in place on their own, but a single screw is inserted through a tab of the assembly into the top of the radiator support. You'll find that screw under the thin plastic cover that sits over the radiator support, when you pop up the plastic plug nearest the turn signal. To pull the turn signal assembly out, tape up a putty knife (to prevent scratching the paint) and slide it between the turn signal lens body and the fender, into the seam farthest from the front of the car. Grasp the putty knife as close to the body of the car as possible and give a sharp tug towards the front of the car. The entire signal lens assembly should pop out towards the front of the car, allowing you to unwind the bulb socket from its backside and change the bulb. Hope this helps!

I'd be willing to bet that the emergency brake has very seldomly been used on this car since it was new, and now it is 12 years old. It sounds to me that because of years of lack of use, and corrosion, and the freezing temperatures, that the emergency brake shoes and its mechanism have seized in the locked on position, even though the brake lever has been released. The rear brake rotor has a drum brake system built into it for use as the emergency brake. If you are mechanically inclined, have the tools and the space to work on the car, it usually is an easy DIY job. In this case you may well have a very difficult time removing the rear brake rotors because the shoes are in the locked position. You may not be able to unlock them, and may do damage to the rotors getting them off. Maybe the emergency brake cable to each rear wheel as well. The brake shoes are very small and only have about 3 mm of braking material on them. If driven for any distance at all with the shoes locked on its quite possible that the shoes will need to be replaced because they will be worn through. It really will be impossible to tell until the rear wheels are off the car and you start at it. You might get lucky and be able to free everything up without a great deal of expense, or be looking at new E brake cables, springs, adjusters, shoes and rotors. Good Luck!

Over the years I've had this happen to a couple of cars and in each case it turned out to be just a dirty switch. What I did was to (with the ignition turned off) spray electrical contact cleaner into the switch body and cycle the switch several times. After two or three applications, and giving sufficient time for the fluid to evaporate, I found the switch to work properly. On one occasion I had to actually remove the switch from the door in order to shoot the fluid into a seam on the bottom of the switch. I couldn't get any fluid into the switch otherwise. If this doesn't do the trick, I'd suggest disconnecting the switch, and using a short wire, connect the various pins in the wiring harness connector together (then turn on the ignition) to see if this bypass allows the motor to work. If it does and you can't clean the switch up, you may be forced to buy a new switch. I've even got lucky by taking a switch apart (watch for tiny springs and brass parts flying out) and cleaning up its contacts that way. Of course this all assumes that the motor is good. I believe it is in your case, since the window will go down and sometimes will go up. Good Luck!

Be aware that if your air conditioning drain tube that goes from the bottom of your interior HVAC unit and exits through the firewall (its rubber) is plugged, the drain water will build up and run into the front passenger foot well. But since you have all 4 footwells wet, I suspect another culprit. Sunroofs have 4 drains, 2 at the very front that go down the A pillar on either side of the car, and 2 at the very back of the sunroof side tracks that run down the C pillar and empty out behind the rear wheel well, usually between the body and the rear bumper cover. If you can't get to the very end of these drain tubes to blow air back through them to unplug them (if that is the reason for the leak), then the headliner has to be pulled down to get to the upper end of the tubes where they attach to the drain channels. These plastic drain tubes are usually just pushed onto the short drain channel discharge tube. I have seen them where the tubes split at this point due to old age, and I've also seen where the drain tube has just come unfastened. Then again, your water may be leaking into the trunk from either the tail light seals, or the rear windshield, building up on the trunk floor and rolling forward to the rear seating area when you brake. As well, your front windshield may be leaking. The only way to tell is to pull back the carpeting from the front and sides of the car, remove the rear trunk carpeting, and then get a friend and a garden hose. Get in the trunk with a flashlight and have the friend start with a medium flow of water from the hose to run water from down low on the car around one tail light, then the next. After several minutes with no visible seepage, move on to one side of the trunk lid down low and repeat the process. Then move on to the rear windshield bottom edge, then along one side of it up to the top, then the other side, then across the top of the rear windshield, etc. If it doesn't show up there, then get into the back of the car and do the bottom of one rear door and slowly up each side to the top, and on and on. Front doors, front windshield. Leave the sunroof until last. If you do have to tackle removing the headliner because its the sunroof drains, make sure that your hands remain clean, and remove the front headrests to give you room to drop the shell when unfastened. Good Luck!

First off, the carpeting is not stapled to the floor. For the most part it is just held in place by the various mouldings that cover its outside edges. The only fasteners you may find could be plastic plugs that go through the carpeting, the padding, and into an opening in the firewall higher up under the dash, the bolts that hold the seatrails onto the floor, or the seatbelt anchors next to the centre console. The padding underneath may be glued to the metal floor to keep it from moving. In your case the moulding at the door floor opening just pulls up. Use a taped up blade on a flat bladed screw driver (so it won't scratch the paint) and pry it up starting at one end. It has moulded plugs that just snap into holes all along the top of the rocker panel. Where the moulding goes part way up the front of the door opening it just pulls straight out. You should be able to pull that one out just with your hand. In fact that may be the place to start from in removing it. The front kick panel will have to come out since it sits on top of the carpeting as well. Its most likely just in with as few as 3 screws or push plugs. If I were you, I wouldn't take the car any farther apart than just those 2 mouldings. With that much done you should be able to pull enough of the carpeting up to be able to jam in 2 or 3 pieces of wood about 6 to 8 inches tall, leaving the carpet gapping open at the door. Disconnect the car battery overnight (to keep from killing the battery), place a fan in the door opening to exhaust under the carpet, and it should be dry by morning and be ready to put back down in place. After that you can shampoo it to remove any stains down the road. Good Luck!

Lexusfreak, We reset the trip meter at each refill and generally can get 600 km a tank with a mixture of town and highway driving. Highway driving, locked at 115 kmph, gets substantially more.

I have no experience with them other than to say we couldn't deal with them when we were in the market to buy our first Lexus. We've dealt with Hefner Lexus in Kitchener with great success on both purchases and service, and we feel the drive of 100 miles (for us) is worth it. By the way, if you deal with Subaru of London you'll like them as well. We've bought our last 2 Subies from them. Great people at both dealerships.

Yes the oil filter is right on the front of the engine, just below and left of the front exhaust shield. One improvement they made over the last generation was to put a small hole in the front engine mounting bracket that is just below the filter. Now the oil that runs down from the filter on removal can empty out of the mount rather than pool up in it. Yes, its a messy setup, and I stuff a lot of rags under the filter before I unwind it to minimize cleanup. If you're thorough enough its not too bad.

We have burned regular unleaded in my wife's 04 ES since new with absolutely no indications of problems whatsoever. Even under hard acceleration there is no preignition pinging at all, with the odometer turning 77 000 km (around 45 000 mi). My 90 300ZX is supposed to have premium fuel as well, but I use regular unleaded in it. It has the identical mileage as the Lexus (but is just a toy that gets maybe 2 000 km a year) and I have never heard any preignition under hard acceleration with it either. The performance fiends will tell you you need the premium fuel, the synthetic oil, the the poly bushings, etc., etc., but unless you drive the vehicle hard, or have decided you are going to put 600 000 miles on it before trading it, you are wasting your money. You must do regular oil changes and maintenance on any vehicle, but unless you can hear preignition pinging under hard acceleration, you can burn regular unleaded fuel with no worries. Our previous 97 ES had 269 000 km, all with regular unleaded fuel, with no difficulties either.

I assume that you meant to write "in my trunk" rather than in my truck, and that you pulled out some brake light and parking light bulbs and reinserted them. If that is the case, my own feeling is that you have a bad ground or short somewhere in the systems that feeds the back end of the car, and its feeding back through the entire system. Strange how it seems to affect the CEL as well? You may very well need to see a dealer, unless you can locate a factory service manual and run the diagnostic flow charts yourself. Good Luck!

This is a frequently seen problem with the first and second generation ES, and my wife's old 97 had the same disease about every 6 months. Its left front turn signal bulb socket turned out to be the culprit. By simply removing that bulb, reaching into the bulb socket with a dental pick (thin needle nosed pliers would have worked as well I think) and stretching the electrical contacts towards the bulb contacts would fix the high flash rate. Apparently over time these contacts, which are really metal strips bent into an "S" shape, would lose their spring and would provide a poor contact with the bulb, raising the circuit resistance, and thereby speeding up the flasher on that side of the car. If after you've tried this same fix on your car (maybe do all 4 bulb sockets?), and it doesn't correct the problem, I would suggest that you'll need to troubleshoot the entire signal circuit and find out where you have a poor connection due to corrosion or such. Good Luck!

You are perfectly safe and will most likely not do damage by driving the car with the check engine light on. The manual will say to have your car serviced by a dealer as soon as possible, but that it is safe to drive as I've stated. You should be fine for the length of trip you are describing, but get it to a dealer as soon as you can. Be aware that the most common reason for the light to come on is that the gas cap is not secured tightly enough, as a loose cap will cause the system to light the check engine warning. Did you check the cap? At present I have a relative driving a 2001 Ford that the check engine light has been on, and he hasn't bothered to get corrected, since 71 000 km. Last time I saw the car it had rung up 193 000 km without any visible running problems. Personally I think he needs his head examined.

You have a couple of options. Since you have the key out of the lock, you can either go to the dealership and get a new lock for that door, (or get a used door lock from a wrecking yard) and take it to a locksmith and have it set up to match the key. Then either take the car to the dealership and have them put the new lock into the door, or do it yourself. Personally, I would get a new or used lock, get a locksmith to match it to the key, and because I've done enough car mechanics and restoration myself, I'd take the interior door panel off and put in the new lock. If you have that ability, it will be your cheapest route. If you don't have the experience to tear a door apart, you'll have no choice but to go to a dealer or independent garage that is used to repairing collision damage. It is not a job for the inexperienced who haven't the tools and have never done it before, but then again it is not rocket science. Good Luck!

If a belt is squealing its either worn out, not tight enough, or the accessory its driving (AC compressor, power steering pump, etc.) has started to seize up. I would start looking first at your drive belts and then individual belt driven items. Good Luck!

You just got some good advice. I might add that if you wanted to save a bit of cash over the Lexus parts, go to a Toyota dealer and get the rotors and pads for the same year Camry. They are identical to the Lexus ES300 (same car, just downscale and less pricey), but without the Lexus name or price hike. You are a lucky slob to have gotten a sweetheart of a car with that low mileage. I'm jealous!

I have never heard of the brake pads you are asking about, but from years of doing brake jobs on all makes of cars I can guarantee you that the front and rear brakes of any car take different brake pads. The fronts do about 60 % of the braking on the car and are substantially larger than the rears.

If you really need that master key to open the trunk lock, why not take the lock out, take it and the master key to a locksmith and get them to clean up the pins so that it'll work correctly? Its easy enough to take out the trunk lock since they're typically just held in place with a large spring washer type clip. Open the trunk as per the power trunk release, look up inside the trunk lid rear interior (remove the trunk lid liner first), unclip the control rod from the lock to the trunk lock mechanism and slide the end of the rod out. Then using a large screwdriver or a set of needle nosed pliers, slide the spring clip that surrounds the lock on three sides out from around the lock. Don't worry about getting the lock back in the correct way, since it will only fit into the cutout in the trunk lid one way. Good Luck!