Paul1307

I went through this process on my 2005 RX, and it was surprisingly simple. On that vehicle, the ballast was on the back of the light module (everything, including the plastic over the lights). If you're already bought the new ballast, then you know what it looks like. One point: my old ballast was rusty one the inside, and had sand, grit, and god knows what in it, so I used some silicone sealer on the new ballast to seal any possible place water could get in. Just a thought.

I have both a '98 GS400 and an RX330 and tires have occassionally been a slight wear problem. Bridgestones were really bad, Michelin really good. Then I discovered the "85% rule." All tires are different and assuming that you don't have an alignment problem, and that the tires are properly inflated, you can get some clue from the coding on the tires as to how long they'll last, how quickly they're expected to wear, and their speed rating (which you probably already knew). Theoretically, the higher the speed rating (like Z, for example), so they tell me, the softer the tire. I've not necessarily seen that correlation, but I won't argue the point. However, you'll also find on the sidewall a "maximum inflation" level in PSI. My best experiences with tires and tire wear come when the tires on my GS are inflated to 85% of the maximum PSI. On a Michelin rated for 40 PSI max, that's about 34 PSI; on long trips I bump it up to 36 for a smoother ride on interstates and better gase mileage. On my RX, the tire's max pressure is 50 PSI; 85% is about 42.5 PSI and I bump it up about 2 PSI for longer trips. Monitor your tires and rotate them regularly. I don't see any appreciable decrease in ride quality at these higher PSIs. Like the earlier writer aluded to, if you get cupping (wear in the middle of the tire but not on the outer edges), they're under-inflated; if the center of the tire is experiencing more wear than the outer edges, they're over-inflated. Rotation equilabrates the wear on all tires.

Back on the key-not-turning issue. Security on all Lexus vehicles is pretty strict about the key matching the vehicle. Not as well known is that if you have two Lexus keys on the same keyring sometimes the vehicle fails to recognize the correct key, and it won't turn. Not saying that the wrong key was inserted, simply saying that the presence of two Lexus keys on one ring - even if you insert the correct one - may confuse the security system and prevent the key from turning. Hope that helps a bit (rather than just adding to the confusion).

Probably much too late, but... I have a 2005 RX330 with one bad actuator on the passenger side; mirror tilts up and down fine, but not in and out. My service writer listened to my issue then responded that you could manually adjust the mirror without causing any damage (and save about $450 in the process). Since i'm the only driver, this seemed sensible to me.