DrJfrmLA

You have given me some important food for thought, Eating. I carry a Sig 9mm in the door pocket of my '04 S430 MB (the LS430 is my wife's car). I have a carry permit, so it is legal for me to have it in the car, and legal for me to use it. I have occasion to drive through some fairly dangerous parts of town at night (any other route is a half hour longer), and I have pondered how willing I am to use deadly force to protect myself. I don't think damage to my vehicle would be provocation enough, but personal threat is something else. Of course, like the Lexus, somebody unarmed would have a problem breaking into my car. Of course I'm also reminded that setting off a handgun in a closed car will blow the windows out and deafen anyone in the car for a long time. All that nonsense where people shoot through the windshield without blood running out their ears is for movie consumption. Anyway, thanks for the lesson.

It may be struts, but I'm betting it's just old tires that are separating. My mother's car had weird wear patterns on the tires and vibration that felt like a warped rotor or bent wheels. I discovered this when I inherited her Buick LeSabre (of course) after she died. Turned out her tires were 6 or 7 years old and were separating. Even though she drove just about every day, it was a combination of simple age and ozone that destroyed them. Buy a new set of tires (and check the build date to make sure they are actually new) and have a 4-wheel alignment before you go about changing the struts or any other part of the suspension.

Brett is right. Unless you got a housing full of shrapnel, a rebuild is probably going to be cheaper and more reliable. The major pieces like the ring and pinion and stub axles are pretty stout. The bearings and various ring clips and seals should be relatively inexpensive. A salvage yard pumpkin should be rebuilt before you install it anyway, so why not work with the one that's in it? If the housing is damaged in some way that changes things, but you should still rebuild what you buy.

The mast is for the GPS system that the nav system uses. If you don't have nav, you don't need the mast. You can find the little masty piece several places--just google "Lexus LS shark-fin antenna" and you'll find it.

Have you changed the cabin filter? If you have more than 30k or so miles and you live anywhere remotely dusty, chances are the cabin filter is so clogged no air can get through if it hasn't been changed. I change my filters every 15k or so, and the air is noticeably colder after a filter change.

I've got to nominate this thread as the most entertaining one I've seen in a long time. "What is a U JOINT?" " ... connects the big spinning shaft into the pumpkin?" I feel your pain but I just have to laugh. ROFLMAO. It's like Abbot and Costello's "Who's on First."

You live in one of the most beautiful places on earth. I was in graduate school in Chapel Hill and loved Boone and Blowing Rock. I bought an '04 in December 07 for about that price. It had 12.5k miles (yes, 12.5k) and still had 8 months on the factory warranty. That deal is comparable to the deal you made. The MSRP of the car went up year-over-year, but the market is really soft right now for luxury cars. The Lexus brand seems to hold its value better than others. I'd say you are within a couple of thousand of a really great deal. I'm also 60--I don't fret over small money much any more. If you like the car, you made a good deal. BTW, our Lexus dealer has treated us like we bought the car new from them, even though we found it at an independent dealer. On the other hand, I bought an '04 Mercedes S430 about six months later--same deal, still under factory warranty--and the Mercedes dealer treats me like I have $hit on my shoe. I have bought used luxury cars for the last 20 years, and they are a great deal. The original owner takes a 50% or more depreciation hit, and you get a superb vehicle for the same price as a loaded-up new Camry. Congratulations. Welcome to Lexus.

More likely a problem with the key. Take the battery out of the key and see if the trouble stops. If it does, replace the battery in the key and see if the problem starts again. If it does, you got to replace the key or live without the remote functions. If taking the battery out of the key doesn't stop the problem then all the nightmares you are imagining with the electrical system are about to come true. Just kidding--I have no idea what the electrical gremlins might be. You might try disconnecting the car battery and reconnecting it. Sometimes a hard reset of the whole system will cure the gremlins.

I'm confused. Do you live in your car? I don't get the curtains--especially since the front ones are probably illegal unless the car is not moving (the reason for my question). I don't think I've ever seen a car with curtains before. Vans, limousines, motor homes....sure. Help me understand.

The learning process isn't unique to Lexus. Most new cars besides the bottom end of the food chain have some kind of logic circuits like I described. Power versus Snow settings only affect the starting gear as I understand it. In snow setting, the transmission starts in 2nd gear to minimize wheel spin. It will affect gas mileage only insofar as it shifts to higher gears more quickly, so the engine revs slower and uses less gas as a result. The logic circuits don't affect the torque converter slippage/lockup dynamics so far as I know, so the smoother shifting is the result of more slippage and lower gas mileage. I expect the two things wash out in the end. If you bought your car used and have never disconnected the battery, you most likely did inherit the previous owner's patterns. Over time, it has "learned" you and your wife. If you bought it new, the default settings were probably a thing of the past in a couple of thousand miles. I think the thing to remember is we aren't generally talking about a dramatic change. The change will be noticeable if you disconnect the battery after a relatively long time, but it won't be stunning. You will need to drive your car like a street racer ALL the time for it to stiffen up beyond the factory defaults. It is like a rheostat, not a light switch. I don't know of any way it can be adjusted stiffer than factory defaults if it can be adjusted at all except to disconnect the battery. The right computer software (like the dealer's) might let you adjust it so it snaps your neck with each shift, but I'm not sure why you would want to do that. Also, I don't think it makes the car any slower--if you jam the accelerator pedal into the carpet, all bets are off and it runs to redline and snaps off shifts like a manual (well, almost). :)--it just feels slower.

"Memorize" is not exactly what it does, but that's close enough. The car has a fuzzy logic circuit that patterns your driving habits in a kind of "moving average" way and then adjusts shift points, shift stiffness, throttle tip-in and response to those patterns. If you drive with a soft foot, the machine will remember that and develop a driving "feel" that is consistent with that. When you disconnect the battery, the logic circuit resets to the factory default settings, which sound a little brisker than it remembered from your driving style. My indie mechanic has a Toyota Tundra pickup. He says he disconnects the battery at every oil change to get back to the crispness of the factory default settings. Even if we occasionally (or even often) slam down the hammer and run through the gears hard, it's still the case that most of our driving is more gentle and so the machine is almost always going to loose some of the factory 'click' that are the default settings. If you like the default feel, you can do what my mechanic does. Otherwise, you will get the old softness back before too long.

You are right about the '00-'02 W220s. They are extremely complex and it took three model years to get the bugs out. The early ones have frighteningly expensive airmatic suspension problems (struts are $1700 a corner), and many of the electronics aren't well sorted. The '03s were much better, and the '04-'06s were very reliable. The '04 got a 7-speed transmission and DVD-based nav, and I'm averaging 23 mpg in mixed driving and 27-29 at highway speeds (on premium fuel, of course). The '04 LS got a 6-speed tranny and HID adaptive lights so it's pretty "new" though the 460s are exciting. Our LS doesn't have nav, so I can't compare, but I've heard the Lexus nav isn't as good as the MRZ. The real exciting thing for me is the adjustable suspension in the S-class. When it is set at its stiffest, it will suck the doors off a lot of "sport sedans" on a cloverleaf. I suckered a kid in a rice-burner down a decreasing-radius not long ago that left him headed out across a field. I'm sure an old man in a luxo sedan wasn't the teacher he expected for the lesson he learned. You can fling 5100 pounds around pretty well when the suspension is sorted. In my opinion the W220 is the best looking S-class Mercedes has made. I don't much care for the W221. I do agree the classic '80s cars are hard to beat. Thanks for your comments.

I'm with you 90LS. I have an '04 LS 430 and an '04 S430 (W220) Mercedes. I've had an ES300, GS300 and now the LS Lexus, and I had a W108 and W124 (280SEL 4.5 and 300E) and now the S-class Mercedes. They are both great brands in their own right, but they are also very different cars. The love of each is a matter of preference. My wife drives our LS and isn't interested in being more than a passenger in the S-class. I'm pretty much the opposite, although I enjoy driving the LS. I don't get why the owners of one hate the owners of the other; you say to-may-toe and I say to-mah-toe. Event thought they are supposed to target the same buyer, I don't think they do. Anyway, glad to meet another forum member who likes both big Benzes and big Lexuses.

You're comparing an apple and an orange. A C-class is a pretty good car, but it was never marketed as a luxury car or as a roomy, comfortable autobahn cruiser. It's the entry level MRZ, and shouldn't be made more than that. The C and the ES are comparable cars, though for my money the ES is the preferred vehicle in that class. You'll get more gas mileage and have a simpler vehicle to repair, but you're trading the comfort and reliability of the LS to get it. If you want to move into a MRZ from your LS, see what's out there in an S-class or a loaded up E-class. The E still isn't an LS, but the S may be more car than your budget will stand. I've got an LS430 and an S430 MRZ, so I can look at them in the garage and compare them. They are very good cars, each in its own right. They are also very different. and it's a matter of taste which one is better. I think you'll be let down moving out of an LS into a C-class unless you consciously decide a smaller, lighter, less roomy vehicle is what you need.

That is an interesting question. If you're concerned about getting the best mileage possible, you probably ought to have a Prius. Being prudent and getting the best you can makes sense, but the LS is hardly an economical car. The sheer size of it is sort of a dead giveaway. I've got a Honda Civic hanging off the back of mine as a tender. :P