Bthiel

I realize I might be too late, but I had the same thing just "mysteriously" happen. I'm driving down the road at a steady speed, the speedometer goes to 0. Then to 120. Then down to 0. Then 60, 80, 40, 120. . . and 0. I'm thinking, "Oh no." So I read about beating on the dashboard and I look at every post I can find about the instrument cluster problems. . . Eventually I get the diagnostic code. I take the car to the dealership. They confirm that it is. . . now get this. . . a transmission speed sensor causing the problem. I'm having a little problem with rough shifting. I tell the dealer to "just replace them both." At the same time we do the 90k mile service (timing belt) and find a leaky water pump. . . and they want to do a complete transmission service, and. . . by the time I leave the dealership I was about $1,700 down by the bow (my aft being $1,700 lighter). The speedometer worked **almost** until I got home. $430 later I have a new speedometer sensor (the dealer was happy to do that for me) and everything seems to be okay (knock wood). BUT - I still have a little rough shifting. If it were anything but an LS400 from the early 90s ('92) I'd think the transmission was okay, but it isn't shifting as well as either of my 1991 ES250s were when we traded them at over 140,000 miles each. My point? If I'd just *started* with the speedometer sensor, the most obvious place to start, and ignored all the "noise" OR I had just taken it to the dealer in the first place and said, "The speedometer isn't working, can you tell me why?" I think I'd have gotten out at least a few hundred cheaper. Sometimes paying a dealer too much is cheaper than trying not-to. Bret

The car was leaning when sitting on a level surface. B

Thank you. I hope to hang-out a while. Since I've already taxed everyone's patience with that last reply I won't tell the story of how I ended-up an LS owner (my pocketbook is definitely ES, or even Corolla). Weeell. . . I won't tell it right now. I have some good news: I think I've saved a bunch of money on my car repairs by switching to the Lexus Owner's Club. I'm still learning my way around, but I plan to report on everything. My current "issue" pretends to be one thing, but is actually, I think, another. When I know the results of my efforts (a week from today) I will describe the process. In detail. At length. Redundantly. Nobody has ever accused me of being brief. B

You are having the same experience with 134 that we had with R12. The first time Lexus covered it. The second time Lexus didn't cover it. The third time he took it in the repair was not going to be covered. My dad bought all the equipment to do the job himself, got a license (or certification, or whatever it is) to buy R12 and spent weeks researching the issue. A car with (at the time of the last failure) less than 65,000 miles on it should not be on its fourth a/c compressor. I'm almost certain the problem was the "slugging" referred to in a prior post caused by not adjusting the valve (he replaced his and adjusted it - I know because he replaced *everything* and adjusted it), but I do know with a high degree of confidence that this was caused by some $100 thing the dealership was not-doing when they charged $1,200 or $1,400 to "almost-do" the repair. A letter was written to Lexus concerning this and the fact that a Lexus dealer's repair was lasting no-time. It was pointed-out to them that a car that needs a new a/c compressor every 8,000-15,000 miles is evidence that something is wrong. Lexus' response was essentially, "Gee, we're sorry about that," followed by a blurb about the standard warranty on repairs. In other words, nobody really read the letter, or they didn't care, or something. I'd have been in small-claims court. The compressor would whine and complain before dying. When he took it to the dealership he was told, "Yeah, a lot of them do that. Get ready to buy a new compressor. Nothing we can do." Amazing. Simply amazing. WHY do you need to take photocopies of the manuals with you and FORCE the mechanic to initial every step of a clearly defined procedure? Especially at Lexus' labor rates, you would *think* that something like that was being done and that you could count-on Lexus to perform the work correctly. It has been my unfortunate experience that *seldom* does my car go-in for expensive service that gets done correctly the first time. There's usually a return trip and it's usually because somebody didn't follow the procedure in the manual. This was true of two '91 ES250s (I've got a story about one of those ES250s involving a visit from some Japanese fellows I'll tell sometime - I raised hell, and Lexus responded), and now the '92 LS is following suit. I don't think it has been successfully repaired the first time, ever (two different dealerships). I have somewhat better luck with the 2002 ES. B

LS400, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I feel like such a copycat, but it's true: I drove from coastal SC to central MS all at once. I stopped for gasoline and "necessaries." When I calculated my average speed by my odometer / my watch, it was 79.5 mph. . . with three stops. . . At one point I honestly did look down at my speedometer and find I was traveling 110mph without a clue. Mind you, this was after four new tires, four new sets of springs, and four new struts, oh, and new brake-pads all around! But there was *no* sensation of moving that fast. It was boring at 110mph. I may as well have been in my comfy chair at home. No wind noise. No tire roar. No engine noise. No buffeting. No hint of speed, just center stripe after center stripe disappearing in the rear view mirror. But it wasn't just the lack of noise. The car didn't "feel" like it was "on the edge." There was accelerator left. There was no "brittleness" in the steering. The brakes just slowed it down when someone made me slow down - without nose dive or any hint of the rear-end trying to come around me. As far as my "inputs" told me, I could have been driving 70-75mph in my other vehicles (including the 2002 ES300). I'm too old and have too many mouths to slap. . uh, I mean, feed, yeah, feed . . . (teenagers make you wanna - - - do things ----- nasty things ---- Edgar Alan Poe things, sometimes) and I feel my mortality creeping up on me for the first time in my life - so to drive 110mph is nonsense; or even 90mph. In fact I get better gas mileage at 65mph (GAD, did I just say that? ? ? I'm turning into my father; somebody shoot me, quick <flashback> "Well, son, the trip may take an extra four hours, but we'll squeeze an additional 3mpg out of our fuel economy, and I wouldn't want to waste that money - especially considering I spent seven hours changing the spark plugs and analyzing the proper gap with a scanning electron microscope to be certain we were getting optimum spark. If we continue to be careful like this, I can pay for my fuel-saving customizations in only 17.484 years at an average of 14,230 miles/year at the mathematical mean of the price of gasoline from 1956 to present, inflation adjusted for a 2004 dollar constant. Well, don't just sit there staring at me blankly my boy; hoist the mainsail!") Anyway, what I was trying to say was that every time I see a speedometer register over 80mph my sphincters all tighten-up like they were when I was 25 and I realize that even 70 will probably leave you squished. A wreck at 110mph and I think you might end-up looking like a smear of something unidentifiable. Why I care I haven't a clue. Truly, this was kind of cool (again, showing my age with 60s lingo): On this trip (I kid you not one bit) as I was leaving Charleston, SC I was blown off the road by a black LS4x0H - brand new, shiny black, and oozing the new look. Well, my old girl wasn't having it, so I pulled in behind this new LS and hit the gas. I kept a distance - short distance - between us. The two of us were moving through traffic at 80+mph, not a care in the world, and we both blew past a pearl white LS400 ('94 or later) who decided this looked like too much fun and it pulled-in behind me. The three of us passed another LS, this time a relatively new 430 and *it* pulled in behind the car behind me! I slowed-down on purpose and let the later models pass me. I suppose the 430 driver didn't "get it" because when the lead 400 slowed, he didn't go around. The new car paid no attention at all, but for a while I thought we were going to get a 4x0H followed by a 430 followed by a badged 400 followed by me (unbadged) and all of us going like a bat-out-of-hell. The 430 pulled out of line and disappeared. The lady / girl in the 400 slowed down and I passed her, then she sped up and kept pace. But the biggest surprise of all was when the new model slowed to make an exit. As I passed, this was the first opportunity I had to see the driver. I was imagining some General Dynamics guy, mid-forties, $5,000 suit, Rolex. What I saw was a little-old skinny lady who looked like she may have witnessed the signing of the Declaration of Independence first-hand. The hair on her head was that awful grey-blonde, and it was stacked high, but I'll bet it wasn't her's. There was a male corpse sitting in the passenger seat. He might have weighed all of 80 pounds and his back was so bent that I could just see his head hanging there off the misshapen stalk of a neck - so far forward that his nose was closer to the dash than the headrest. He wasn't grey. He was bald. The only color he had were his blue veins at his temple. I was keeping-up with THAT for fun? As I said, I'm getting older. Fun gets harder and harder to have without pain. I suppose this was all the excitement I could take - but it would have been great to run-up beside that car and found Ronnie James Dio driving. . . come to think of it, the guy did look just a little like Keith Richards. The girl in the pearlized white 400 ran up beside me and with a smile to match her beautifully kept Lexus' paint, she looked over and enthusiastically waved at me before dropping back, exiting, and leaving me there all alone again. . . naturally. We'd had our affair at 80mph. Well, o.k., not really an affair, but at least we were sharing a love. B 1992 LS400 86,511 original miles a one family car, just Dad and me