IS400

Duuuuude. My car just needed a 25 cent gasket for the high pressure connection behind the battery. Don't get ripped off. Recharge the system with leak detector R-134a and retrofit the system. Read up online and on this site. The old rubber o-rings are 99% the issue. One little slow leak is all it takes.

Another thing to remember is that you do need to pull a vacuum on the system before you refill it for the long term. It is fine to throw a few cans of 134a in it to see if the compressor will work or not, but all the moisture needs to be removed by vacuuming for about fifteen minutes before refilling permanently. You can pay a shop to refill or buy an ac vacuum from harbor freight tools for $30. Just make sure to have an air compressor available, that is what powers the vacuum. The fittings to make it work will be under $10. If you have a friend that is even just a little mechanically inclined, you should be able to vacuum and fill the system with no trouble at all on your own. Good luck!

It could also be that the system lost pressure suddenly due to a failed seal and disconnected the compressor and disabled the system. Get someone to check the refridgerant level before mentioning the failed system. If it is empty a recharge will allow the compressor to function again and then you can start looking for leaks rather than replacing a compressor that is working. Just a guess, since that is what happened to mine. A couple dollars for a seal behind the battery and I had ice cold ac again! :)

Awwee nc211, you know just how to make a woman blush! :P Have a great summer sweetie.

Hi Tommy, My failed wire was a black one that goes into the driver's side trunk hinge bracket. I think the best way to find it is to get inside the trunk and look at where the wire loom would have to bend when the trunk closes. Mine was pinched easily if the trunk had too much stuff in in like when I go on vacation. That last beach towel stuffed on top of the suitcases was all it took to get me locked out of my trunk in Nowhere, Ohio! :o

Find an independent garage and tell them WHY you are coming to them. That you want to establish a working relationship with them and will go out of your way to make sure they get their FAIR profit in exchange for the work done PERFECTLY. Jiffy lube is a mistake. Oh god don't make me bring up what they did to my C5 'vert Corvette! They are going to take your lexus fluid and re-sell it on e-bay and put diesel oil in your tranny! :o Stay away from quicky lubes!

Flush using the car's pump. Search for it on this forum. Use the good fluids and do it yourself. I'd think the power flush is just as profitable to the shop as putting nitrogen in you tires. Was the old flush they did by gravity or hand pump? If it connects to a machine, I'd say it was always a POWER flush. We highly recommend certain investments/programs at our firm too, they kick us back a lot of tax benefits when employees sign up! ;)

I agree! Don't let the techs near that transmission! :o An afternoon at Jiffy lube school barely watching the video about how to change oil, but told every day to find premium services for luxury cars to boost the store's bottom line <_< , that is what you are subjecting your baby to. :( Stand there like a hawk next to that transmission if it is ever opened by someone you do not know or explicitly trust. A new transmission is worth WAY more than your car! Do the transmission fluid change yourself, through the cooler up by the radiator. Search on here for the tutorial. Good luck. :)

ahh yeahh, i thought the symbol would just look cool, ya know? but overall i think it looks pretty good my self. For nearly $1,000 it better be cool! :o ;)

Dude, I think I can save you a lot of cash. The hose that runs from the compressor to the condenser is very high pressure as everyone says. The neat thing is that it has a feature that most people don't know about. Take out your battery. Look behind it, near the back of the headlights. You will see two ac lines. The one that goes to the aluminum junction block, about the size of a child's fist, is the place to look for a failed o-ring. It is a little difficult to access, but if you take off the light closest to the lexus emblem and feel for the hole that the ac line goes through the headlight bulkhead, you can move the rubber/foam gasket enough to get a small socket extension in to get the ac line junction block apart. Once you do I will bet that the o-ring will show either a break or be seriously beat up. Take the o-ring to Lexus and ask for a new one. They are all silicone now due to 134a I believe, and orange in color. Save yourself from paying too much for a repair when the o-ring has to be replaced anyway with a new hose. With a cheap vacuum pump from harbor freight and an hour of your time it can be a very inexpensive repair. Mine runs ICE cold now where before it leaked the refrigerant out slowly over time and got warm just when I needed it most. Good luck! :) p.s Remember to start the car just a few moments after you reconnect the battery, or I believe the anti-theft feature will be activated.

Good for you for being able to take it Jcrome. ;) Plastic is just engineering speak for a flowable substrate. Glass is flowable for sure; if you look at very old windows they are thicker at the bottom than on the top. I would bet that the 'glass' used in the 90's Lexus lenses are a polycarbonate/silica blend that yellow over time due to the oxidation of the polycarbonate filler. If you have ever been to an outside aircraft museum, the fighter plane cockpit canopies are very yellow on most. But hey, I could be wrong and the lenses are the same glass as an office window pane.

The Fusion/Milan are mostly made in Mexico if that means anything to you. The auto workers around her call it Ford's foreign car line. B)

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. Ughhhh!

Python, Thanks for all your kind words. The fact is when someone picks a fight, you have two choices, back away and let them bully or take them to task for what they said. If the person is poking fun, then they should have thick enough skin to take being poked back even HARDER. My four brothers taught me that one... ...and meeting them tends to let guys know how they should behave around me pretty quick! Yes, it gets COLD here, but the lake I am on, Lake St. Claire is quite shallow (10-15 feet) and gets very warm in the summer. 75 degrees farenheit is normal for water temp in july and august. The great thing is that this lake changes its whole volume of water every 48 hours or so and the water is as clear as the florida keys in summer. You can snorkle over the sand flats and watch all the fishies play and get eaten by the maurading Muskies! If I hide the detroit skyline, that is 20 miles away, with my thumb, you would swear you were in Ft. Lauderdale! Have a great weekend everyone!

Cool! Glad we could help!

God I hate wasting time dealing with Trolls... On topic though, I think that new stock lenses will help a lot for those that want better performance. The mid-90's plastic yellows like crazy and disperses the light effectively from the bulbs. People clean the outside, but I bet the cross section of the plastic would show the same aging changes to the optical substrate. Just a thought. Yes it is me... get it Jcrome0Troll?

Here she is! The only american engined (5.7 liter) vehicle I own now, besides my riding lawn mower, which is probably chinese I guess.

Yes, they match your wheels perfectly; the prism, crystal effect and such. Did an SUV give your car a beat down? I see she has two black eyes... :D Sorry, at least you get a girl's honest opinion from me at least! If you want to impress a girl, the interior is the way to go. I soooo want new butter soft seats in mine, with ac and heat! I hate how hot and sticky they feel when I am wearing bikini bottoms too and from the boat. A cool tushy on hot days would be heaven!

Awwwwwwe! You made me blush! Those slider pin boots can tear or break down over time and then they leak out all the grease. Water and debris like you said, gets in and they rust up and jam. So many people concentrate on the rotors and brake fluid when the floating piston has to be working properly first for the brake to work any where near good enough to diagnose other issues with the system. If you can't move the pin in and out of the boot with two fingers and a thumb, they need to be re-greased and re-booted. I change the re-grease the pins and boots of any one that drags even a little, with every pad change. What is $7 for four replacement boots, compared to knowing the pads are actually floating as designed each time you depress the pedal. Priceless! LOL!

Do you want to fix your problem for $7? Here is how you do it, pull out the slider pins and replace the two rubber boots that keep grease between the pins and the caliper pin bores. Go to local parts store, ask to look at exploded diagram of front brakes for LS400, point to twin pins on the caliper and ask for the boot kit that has four boots in a pack for $6.95. Grunt and groan as you pry the jammed pin that is not sliding and binds up the brake as it gets hot. A slide hammer works wonders if you can't pry the pin out with a big screwdriver and liquid wrench dousing. What do I know about cars....., I'm just a girl! LOL! Good Luck!

Search the site for timing belt replacement and you will find my description for using a large allen wrench to jam the transmission flywheel against the transmission case enabling you to remove the pulley bolt. Crawl under the car, if you have a small flywheel access hatch with two bolts, on the bottom front of the transmission, you are in luck.

:P It looks like it just had its eyes dialated at the optometrist. What matters though is how it drives, I understand... ...but whoa is that one big eyeball looking lense! Good for you if you like it though!

Unless you are a mechanic or willing to buy a shop manual and learn how to repair cars, I would not recommend an older Lexus to anyone. Imagine what a used LS 460Lis going to be like to repair in 20 years! OMG! Blacked out auto-park screen, executive lounge seat stuck in full extend, computer screen start up menu on dash defaults to japanese... The same thing with the LS400, it was bleeding edge tech in its day and is not going to be like a F-150 or Grand Am to repair on your own. Here in Michigan all my friends are in the auto industry. Drunk by noon on the job (buzzed at least) and rush as fast as they can to get their quotas done to be off by 1 pm and go fishing. Stop the line for a defect in a car/truck? Ha! Get a beating in the parking lot for that one! I'll take a Japanese ASSEMBLED car anyday after the stories I've heard and scenes I've witnessed. Part won't fit? Bigger hammer buddy! We've got forty more doors to assemble and we are off all off for the weekend at 11:30 am! Whoo hoo! Buy domestic!

Good luck Fugative! :)

The way I got the trunk to open when I jammed it was to get my hand through the subwoofer hole under the rear brake light. Luckily the sub was out since in had failed and I was looking for a replacement at the time. I reached in deep and grabbed the wires and wiggled the harness that runs inside the groove of the drivers side trunk hinge, while someone else kept pulling the trunk switch over and over again. After about fifty wiggles and pulls it popped. I then unwrapped the harness and found the almost broken black wire everyone talks about. Only one copper strand was even close to connected! If your sub is not out I think a locksmith is going to be the only way to get it open. Sorry...