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i swear theres something wrong w/ my 94. i've tried all sorts of ways to launch my car for a good 0-60 and im gettin like 11 secs. i've tried floor both gas and brake at same time and then releasing the brake, flooring the brake and pushing the gas down part way to revv to about 1500-2000 rpms then simultaneously, releasing the brake and putting the gas pedal the rest of the way to the floor. to try to improve the performance of my car, i have:cleaned throttle body, new spark plugs from lexus, new airfilter, and all sorts of fuel system treatments. HELP!!

actually, i have a 94 LS and my car does the exact same thing. it comes from the front end and only when giving the steering wheel input of somekind. i used to work at the local lexus dealer here in raligh, nc (johnson lexus) and got to know some of the techs pretty well. i noticed this creaking noise b4 i even bought my car a few months ago. when i heard it, i was on a test drive by myself and decided to drive to the dealer. i saw a tech that i knew walking around and asked him if he could help me figure out what this noise was. i drove really, really slow and turned the wheels back and forth and when the car made the noise, he immediately said "upper control arms". he said they are really expensive to buy and a b*tch to put on. he said i shouldn't worry about it, its not gonna make a wheel fall off or anything and if the noise gets annoying, turn the music up. hope this helps

jzz30, Are you saying that in 94, the "LS400" emblem was standard or an option? I have a 94 and it does not have the "LS400" emblem on it.

ChrisD1, Are you saying that originally, your car had 4 brake sensors fully operational and that you disabled both of the sensors on the left side of the car so that only 2 sensors on the right are operational? If thats the case, i guess it's got it's positives and negatives. A postive is that should you wear your brakes down to the point that they contacted the rotor or broke on the side of the car with working sensors, you could then enable the sensors on the left side of the car so that you still had sensors. A negative is that if you should have a sticky caliper (a caliper that does not release all the way and maintains contact with the rotor) on one of the wheels without the sensor enabled, and the pad gets worn down to the point that it starts to scratch/groove the rotor, you wouldn't know if this happened because the sensor isn't hooked up. Also, i think that i've read somewhere in the LS forum on this site that the sensor is a small piece of wire or something and if it is damaged, you can use a piece of wire or something and it will work the same as the sensor. I've never seen this sensor and have no idea what it looks like. If this isn't true, is there someway else that the real sensor that is damaged can be substituted out with another piece of hardware that can be obtained at places other than the dealer?

Well, first of all I have a 94 LS with almost 170k on the clock and its absolutley amazing how good the condition of my car is. mechanically, my car is outstanding also. I bought it about 6 months ago with 155k miles for $10,900. Some may say that i payed a steep price but like i said, great, great condition. Also, the car has an extensive service history at the local lexus dealer. Every single time the car needed ANYTHING the original owner brought the car in for sevice, even every oil change at no more than 4k mile intervals. I also bought it from a dealer who probably bought it at an auction for really cheap and jacked up the price a little. Anyway, I would say go for the LS but i think that im just in love with my car too much to even consider another car (exept a Porsche GT3)! I think the biggest thing is what 90LS400Lexus said: what does your mother like better? Does she like a smaller car like her honda or does she like a larger (much much larger) car that weighs 2 tons and drives like a tank on steriods. Speaking of weight, since the LS is quite heavier than the ES, she would probably like the fact that the next time someone wants to take up more than their fare share of lanes, she can just use the weight of her car to her advantage and be confident that the extra weight will help her stay in control and decrease the chance of her getting run off the road. Also, since the LS is larger and heavier than the ES, should she get in a more serious accident, she is better protected by more metal around her and the extra weight that will just push an accord or camry aside. About the matter of snow, this past winter North Carolina revieved 1 rather heavy snow storm. This system left something like 3-6 inches of ice on the roads for many days after the snow stopped. I drove my car every day there was snow or ice on the ground and only got stuck once but that was because of my own stupidity (trying to see if i could make it up a really steep hill). As long as the car has fairly new tires or snow tires, a full tank of gas, and if need be, a few cinder blocks or sand bags in the trunk, she should be fine. Hope this helps

You'd probably be suprised at what you can find on Ebay. (hint hint) yea.

yes, amf1932 is right. Here in Raleigh, NC we have a large group of car dealerships on 1 road called Capital Blvd (US-1). They are all owned by a very rich man named Chris Leith. These dealerships include: "Leith Toyota", "Leith BMW", "Leith Honda", "Leith Lincoln/Mercury", "Leith Mercedes-Benz", "Leith Audi", "Leith Jaguar", and "Leith Volvo".

wow, 344k in 11 years!! thats over 31k per year. did he get bored and decide to drive around the world??

about number 3-little jerk/jump forward when going from Park to Drive: my car does this too and has done this even since i bought it 4 months ago. There have been some threads about this. Just search on a few key words like "lurch", "park", "drive", and whatever else u think will give you hits. I am not doing anything about this in my car b/c i think its normal.

it depends on exactly how much taxes are for you. Do the math and figure out exaclty how much it would cost you per year and in the long run. Make sure you take into account insurance, cash or loan amount, vehicle tax (the main issue for you), gas, possible service issues, and depreciation. Also, you are gonna have to find a rather large SUV to exceed the 6,000lb you need for this tax write off. My 94 LS weighs about the same as my brother's 96 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo V6(just a hair under 4,000lbs or 2 tons). add all these up and this should give you a pretty good idea of what you're up against. You are probably gonna have to do a lot of research to figure all of this out but it's well worth it.

yes that might be wise too. always good to have a second/backup car. not to mention if u dont have any other cars and it snows up there (which im sure it does a lot in the winter) then u can just drive the older LS around cause im sure u'd rather have ur older LS smashed up rather than your new 430.

have u checked Ebay?

just FYI, About 5 months ago i bought a 94 LS for $10,900 from a dealer. My car is in EXCELLENT condition and has quite an extensive service history at the local lexus dealer here in raleigh. Options:heated seats, Nak sound, CD, memory seats, trac control and i think thats it. My A/C blows VERY cold. dont let some dealer idiot tell you that the A/C is "not a major issue." When i bought it, it had about 150,000 miles on it. The BEST thing that u can do is during a "test drive" bring it to your local lexus dealer and get a "pre-purchase inpection". (only costs about $50 or less) This is the smartest thing that u can do. Also have the Lexus dealer give u a quote on fixing the A/C. The lexus dealer will do a THOROUGH inspection of your auto. My dealer even went as far to tell me that the heated seat switch "sticks" sometimes. My car now has over 165,000 miles on it and the only things that i've done to it is spark plugs, throttle body cleaning, and new battery. Dont even think about buying this car without a Lexus technician checking it out first.

well, I went to the dealer today to ask a new car salesman who had been selling Lexus' since 94 (the year of my car) and 93LSOwner is right. yucaton_tom's car costed almost $50,000 and after i told them all my extra options (some of which i thought would be standard) they told me that my car probably would have costed about $58,000!!! wow. its really hard to believe that a 17 yr old like me is driving around a car that sold for almost 60 big ones!(and no mommy or daddy didn't buy it)Anyway, i mailed this to travelers insurance today and since they had my VIN number wrong too (the original reason they sent this dumb thing) then they probably weren't charging me enough for insurance too. I'm gonna get the next bill and look at how much i owe and this is where i realize that my insurance company: picked me up, turned me around, bent me over, and BAM!!! SCREWED!!!

For some odd reason, my insurance company has requested the "Original Cost New" of my 94 LS. I have looked on the internet and have not been successful in my price hunt. My car has heated seats, Nak, trac, 6 CD changer, no height control and no ride control. I think thats all the options that were available on the 94. If someone can look this up or knows how much my car would have costed brand new back in the day just let me know. thx

I had the same sort of problem with my 94 LS400. One day i sat in the car listening to the radio with the key to ACC. After about 20 mins i tried to start the car and it BARELY started. I also noticed that after this happened, when the car was running and i was stopped at a stoplight or something with the radio on, wipers on, headlights on, brake lights on (stepping on brakes) all the lights would start to get dim, the radio would die, and battery charge light, trac off, and a few other lights would go on. once i even tapped the gas and the engine spun even a little over idle, everything would comeback to life. I thought it was an alternator. My mechanic tested the specific gravity of each cell of my battery and found that it had 2 bad cells. He said that since my battery wasn't holding a proper charge the alternator continously tried to charge the battery and robbed other devices of power (radio). Once i replaced the battery with a new once from Lexus ($60 because of my employee discount), everything has been working fine ever since. I replaced it about a month ago. I hope this may be of help to someone.

Apparently, the n00b didn't see that he was posting in the "LS Lexus LS400 / Lexus LS430 Forums." someone might want to move this so that this person can actually get an answer

VB, Lovlex is talking about the brake pad wear warning light. Either the 1990 models dont have this feature (my 94 has it) OR u haven't owned ur car for long enough and driven far enough for the brake pads to get thin enough for the light to come on. Look in your owners manual (if u have one) in the first few pages of the book and it shows diagrams of the guage cluster with every warning light illuminated. The light is at the bottom of the cluster and looks like a circle with 2 semi cirlces on the left and right side of the cirlce. The parking brake light inside the tachometer is totally not related.

Now this is gonna sound crazy but i bought my 94 a few months back and i had the same problem. Neither of my lighters worked. I pulled the fuse and when it looked fine i simply put the same one back where it came from. I got back into the car trying to think of what might cause this and i hear a click noise from behind me. Apparently someone had pushed in the rear lighter and since it didn't have power before it just stayed pushed in. When i pulled the fuse to check it and put it back in, it now had power(got no idea how/why) so it got hot and popped out. I suggest that if you all are experiencing broken lighter problem then u should do what I did. Simply pull out the fuse and check it and put it back in if it looks fine. If the lighters still dont work with the car running then pull another fuse with the same rating and switch the two. If they still don't work then get out a large gun and...... just kiddin

Im going to have to agree with obergc. The same thing happens to my car. This is totally normal. Just like obergc said you have to have your foot on the brake to shift from park. It doesn't make the sound when the ignition is off because that would make it too easy for car theives! When it makes that thudding sound, thats when you can depress the button on the shifter to shift from park. Once again, my car does it too and its totally normal. You are probably hearing from the first time because you broke your drive belt recently you have been really paying attention to every sound and vibration the car makes. dont worry about this at all.

before i bought my 94 LS400 I had a 94 Mazda 626. One day i was driving and noticed that the car was slightly overheating. The problem get progressively worse and after a few days the car could not run for more than about 15 minutes idling or on a highway without coming dangerously close to the "H". It turned out that the water pump had gone and so all my coolant leaked out (I had no idea since i NEVER saw a puddle of coolant under the car). I had the water pump and thermostat replaced. This time the car kept its coolant but still overheated from time to time. This was even in the dead of winter in 25 degree weather. It turned out to be a sticky thermostat. All in all it took 1 water pump and 2 thermostats. The moral of the story is that you shouldn't overlook something just because it was allready "fixed". You might be in the same boat I was. Check and recheck.

ok, now thats established. will it be called the "IS430" or something else?

i have a 94 LS with about 165k and i already cleaned the throttle body and changes plugs w/ oem. i am 17 and dont have the $$$ to buy wires or cap and rotor. I know there isn't much to do about the wires other than to save $140 and get the oem set but what about the cap and rotor? can't i salvage that? something about sanding/cleaning the contacts?

i must have missed this topic. Everyone's remote works up to 15' from the car?? When i first bought my car i thought that the battery was causing my to be so close to my car to lock/unlock. i replaced the battery myself and it didn't help. I really dont care about the distance because you are going to be walking to your car to get in anyway so what does it matter if you unlock it from a few feet farther? Even if many of you can unlock/lock from this distance, what could be causing me to be really close. I have a new battery in the key, under the hood, and the beeping sound turned all the way up so its not like it is unlocking and i just dont hear it. Also, the flashing lights were introduced to the LS in 95 right? I have a 94 and no lights flash. If I am understanding what I read in previous posts then this is true. right?

I am active mostly on the LS forum but I do stumble over here sometimes when i get bored. I remember reading a little while ago when someone asked if there will be an IS430. I dont know if this topic has been discussed since that when someone INSISTED that there was NOT going to be an IS430. I get 2 auto magazines: Automobile and Car and Driver. In one of the two magazines i read a section on the new IS. This article was either this month's or last month's issue. It stated that there WILL be an IS430. Actually, I am not sure if it was called the "IS430" but it will an IS with a 4.3 V8. Does anyone get these magazines that can back me up on this issue. I seem to have lost this issue and am trying to find it but in the mean time others can give their input.