BoaR

Ok thanks for the info. I thought MPG was calculated like this (note i live in canada. all KM here. 1 extra math line): Total KM x 0.625 = miles Miles / 18.5gal (tank size) = mpg going by usually people full tank. set the trip meter. run it to empty and then do the math. so if you are using half a tank then zero'ing that would mean you are diving your trip meter by 9.25 (half a tank) instead of 18.5 (full tank size). That would give something like Miles - mpg 243 = 26.27 203 = 21.94 241 = 26.05 246 = 26.59 277 = 29.94 etc etc no ? regardless it's still excellent MPG one way or another. but the car is rated at something like 27 pure highway with no mixed driving... find it odd that you could be breaking into the mid 30's and yes, it's a highway cruiser. all ES's are/were. It's exactly where they shine like the gem they are. makes me want this car all the more! need to keep shopping for a newer one lol

should be 3 engine mounts on a '95. my old one when i bought it had 2 broken. looking at the engine top down, one is just on the upper left corner as a "bar" type hand length (looks like a dog bone of sorts). others are under the manifold as a fat circle with a center rubber squash shield and the other is to the left of the passenger side driveaxle. off the top of my head thats what i can remember, as i no longer have had the car for a while. but you know if you have a broken mount because while putting it into gear or under heavy acceleration you will hear a "clunk" type noise. or have someone (while holding the brakes!) put it into gear while you look at the engine with the hood up (get a trusting friend lol) if you see the engine move then you know you have a broken mount. it's very obvious the pronounced engine lift. hope it helps!

Err last colum is GPM ????? gallons per minute?? that a typo lol ?? TCM, im in the market for the same year and model... im very curious as to how exactly you are doing your "math" calculations? some doohicky on the car itself telling you all this? or you just pen and paper mathing it? not claiming you are not getting what you are stating, rather just how you can calculate such high results. because in all honesty that is brilliant milage. Thanks for posting up the info.

EWWWW gross. dude lol. the haynes manuals are like 20 bucks at any auto store. (canadian tire here for instance) and nowhere near 80+ bucks the name you should look for is Haynes Haynes Toyota Camry Automotive Repair Manual: All Toyota Camry and Avalon Models 1992 thru 1996 ISBN-10: 1563923513 or ISBN-13: 978-1563923517 there is none for "lexus" specifically as it is a camry base for the ES. another side note... kijiji search usually pops up haynes for 10 bucks or less. thats where i grabbed mine but im glad you finally found one. just hope you didnt get shammed for it in the process

overnight, sitting for a day without being started, or after parking at the mall while shopping. doesnt matter, the problem arises. and other days i cant smell any fumes at all. I took a look at the O-seals around the firewall and they seem to be in order also. When i get some time i guess ill jack the car and verify the tank area. cant figure out why it would smell gas every time if im driving at 100, if it was some crack or hole in the tank. that isnt exactly where the fumes would be venting off. (though that would explain the sitting). yet the firewall like you mentioned would explain the driving speed issue. sigh I hate gremlins !

36 is front left. the left rear would be 34 on the ES. the difference between the codes ranging from 31 to 34 is that it says to check: speed sensor, sensor rotors, harness, connector. the 35/36 are the two that omit the sensor rotor verification, but keep the other 3 verifications. By all means fix the right first, then re-check. good luck !

hehe i posted at the same time as you. page 1 last post for the info. ;) I would not attempt the reset steps from the LS on the car. my friend just bought a 95 LS in excellent condition. we were oggling over everything the other day. changing a few things here and there. fixing this and that. its a very different beast than other lexus' in the family. there isnt even a haynes manual for the LS until something like 2000. plain beast of a car to get info about. there is no base for the car... like the camry is the the ES base. making it very hard and very annoying to fix problems. this is the main reason im very very hesitant to even attempt some of the things from my car on his, or vice versa.... it might work fine - but it might turn into a catastrophy. not worth blowing out the entire circuit when jumpering "testing". now, if my car was dying and it was a last ditch - i'de be the first one in line making that wiring to jumper it. cuz there would be nothing to lose if it fried something. not the case for you bud! haha. maybe someone else can shed some light on the subject. but I advise agasint it. i would try to find some way to get the airbag codes to see what's up first. even if that means paying 50 bucks to the garage guy to read them. for all you know it could mean your airbag is dead or yourseatbelt device has failed ~ not fun in an accident when you die.... =/

lol the ABS codes should be in the book also, but here is what it says: 31 - sensor signal problem - right front wheel 36 - open circuit - left front speed sensor or circuit for both it says : check the speed sensor, sensor rotors, wire harness, connectors and the speed sensor. usually they bust when chaning the brakes and the wire gets ripped out/damaged by accident (shock replacement damages them too btw if they are not disconnected first). happens a lot actually. might be the clip was knocked loose while doing the brakes. i'de check that first, now that you know exactly where to look! the front sensors should be mounted on the front steering knuckle. shame about the ecu, it's probably the harness or wiring like LL stated. :(

Hmm, thanks for the info. Guess i'll be jacking the car up and taking a look underneath! If anyone else has clues, by all means chime in! :)

I was not sure, so i looked it up on a few toyota forums. people were saying "no" it wont work, or you'll need to replace it in less than a few months even if by accident it did work or something. They all were posting stay OEM. When I did mine i just replaced it with oem because some of the other ones had different thread depth. didnt want the hassle. Good luck i guess whichever you choose to install. hope it works lol.

Bon, where to start... (and yes i searched lol) Suddenly started smelling gas in the cabin about a week ago. figured it was because i topped it up to full. then i realised that iver done that many many times before, and never did it smell once. The gremlin in this is it stops and starts again for no explicable reason. I love intermittant problems this week ive been trying to pin down "exactly" how i can reproduce the smell 100% every time all the time. -> sitting parked for a day: gas smell on entering car. -> driving with recirc button ON, and the AC off: no smell. -> driving with recirc OFF, ac off: no smell -> driving with AC on (recirc): no smell -> driving with AC on (recirc off): no smell -> 100% reproduction of gas smell, regardless of recirc on/off if car is driven around 90-100Km (62mph derp). seems that when you push the car to those speeds it takes a few seconds and you smell gas right away in the cabin. only exception is when AC is on, 0 smell at all. car is a '98 es300 btw. , and when I ran the diag. it throws no codes at all. People in the other thread were mentioning the Evap system, haynes manual said pretty much the same thing. but reading more into it, any fault will throw an evap code.. and i triple checked to make sure. no codes at all. car is clean as a whistle in the readings. So i took it to a friends driveway today, and we pretty much fine tooth comb'd the engine bay following every hose, connector you name it to/from the evap schematics. we found no cracks, tears, holes, leaks nothing.. the entire system seems to be in excellent shape. tugging on the hoses didnt move them the slightest, and seeing as the engine bay is a bit dusty, any wet leaks would be instantly noticable, but feeling every hose from start to finish confirmed that its all looking good. the gas cap O-ring is in great shape, and when !Removed!/unscrewing you hear a full pressure release of a bit less than a second.. so system is holding a decent, if not excellent ammount of pressure. smelling the gas cap area when screwed using 2-3 clicks has no odour at all. smelling the engine bay has no gas smell at all either (which is what stumps me, because if the evap system is not working right and the push fan fumes venting cant get the smell out, it would go right into the cabin but you would instantly smell the gas once you pop the hood, which isnt the case) . the only area that smells "slightly" and very very faintly, is driver side rear wheel when placing your head under the trunk area directly back from the wheel itself. Literally the only thing I have not tried was ripping apart the evap housing to take a look at the charcoal filter. as the friggin placement if the sucker is underneath the master brake cylinder and the air filter housing. I dont really wanna muck about with that not even knowing for certain it's the canister... googling up some threads doesnt seem to give a lot of info on them going "bad" or needing replacing type thing. So sorry for the long info post... if someone has some clues as to this friggin annoying problem, please by all means throw some light on the subject. Much appreciated!

nice info guys. thanks. :) LL the haynes manual (and the isbn # ) is this for your year of car -> http://www.amazon.com/dp/1563923513/?tag=rbookshop-20 as for your computer version of the scanner software...iver never used PC based, only handheld... from what I hear the Eqqus software does it all (abs, airbag, etc). to the tune of 500 bucks. google and a torrent might help *cough* lol. ;) Igb ~ go jumper up the port and get those codes, haha. im curious!

Hmm good to know LL, thanks for the info. as for the obd2 ports... i didnt know if the 2nd gen's had them or not. really thought it was pretty much 96+ for almost all the cars. again good to know for the future! your 2 codes are : 0135 - Heated O2 sensor (hO2)circuit malfunction, bank 1 sensor 1 ~ open/short in hO2 curcuit / hO2 malfunction / PCM malfunction 0325 - Knock sensor 1 circuit malfunction, bank 1 ~ open/short in knock sensor 1 circuit / loose sensor / PCM malfunction the PCM is the Powertrain Control Module. If i recall correctly it was driver side fusebox area on 4cylinder models, but on the v6's they moved it to the glovebox side, left side. so like if you are staring straight at the glovebox "hole" it will be behind it on the left, stuck where the radio headunit is. (( side note i know sometimes they refer to this as the "ECM" in older models. not sure in your case) ------- lol knew you had regular and heated O2 sensors seeing as you already have a new ECU might as well pop it in. but imma side with LL on this one, the code have circuit malfunctions written first... and he is having the exact same problems. regardless, it's all narrowed down for you haha! as for the airbag codes not being read, the scanner needs to be "very good" to grab those codes, mentioned that. the cheap ones just flat out cant/dont. i'de just cozy up to someone at the dealership or pay them a few bucks to pull every code on the car. jot them down while you are talking to him about the "estimate" for reference. and say you are going to book an appointment for next week hehe. Best of luck tho, i remember how cramped the friggin engine bay was on the 95... total pain in the !Removed! lol. NINJA EDIT: was wondering if you had the hanes manual for the abs codes by any chance. in mine here it says you can get the code without the OBD machine by jumpering the ports and turning the key to on and watching the abs light flash you "sos" type numbers. before trying this just wanted you to be sure it's the same for both years of the car... dont want you blowing anything up lol. (page 9-3) Here it says : turn car completely off (engine not running, no electrical on). on the nippondenso systems you need to first remove the short pin out of the DLC1 before continuing (DLC1 port is engine bay usually left side with a snap cover.). Then for either of the nippo or bosch systems you do the following: use a jumper wire or a paper clip on the terminals E1 + Tc on the DLC1 or DLC2 port (not both), or jumper the Tc + CG terminals of the DLC3 port. turn the key to ON position (engine not running) and watch the ABS light. it is supposed to flash the first digit(s) of the code, pause for 1.5seconds, flash the second digit(s). abs codes only have 2 code numbers btw. so for instance code 37 is (3 flashes, pause, 7 flashes). If there is more than one code, it will wait 2.5 seconds before moving on to flash the next code so forth and so on. if there are no error codes, the abs light will flash non stop ever 0.5 seconds. (oh and if the light turns solid ON, it's one of the ECU busted codes not an error!) if you try this post up the codes for fun. would be interesting to know what the error was

pretty sure obd2 is for 96+ only. obd1 ??? or just local garage it and pay the guy a few bucks to read the codes... lol or you can do the classic rental and return. canadiantire or something. buy a scanner. use it. return it etc etc... gotta love 14 day no questions asked guarantee lol ;) really before swapping ecu's or anything i'de always try to get the codes off the car. regardless of the problem. on the off chance its 1/5th the price of the ecu or something to fix. on a side note any good scanner worth it's weight will read all the codes. airbag included. only the cheap ones skimp on that.

Ah sorry misread that abs thing. been a while since i had a '95 there.. but i just looked in my 97+ hanes for fun, seems on the v6 there are 2x O2's and included in that are 2x h(eated)O2 sensors. the hO2's are found on the driver door floor moulding, and the one near the cat. just didnt know they prefixed it with 'heated". ya learn something every day lol. the 2 others are engine bay, in front and back of the manifold. It's not the same year of car which makes it difficult off the top of my head, but might be a good place to start looking for the "extra 2" in case the 95 has them too. as for the abs light. there is literally 2 pages of error code tables in the book... ishh.. could literally be anthing. if you can pull the code then it would help greatly can read it off the list.. on a side note i see 2 entries for actual ecu abs error codes, so you were right. could be a slim chance of that too. but there are tons of other error codes that would probably happen first.

if you are not going for boom boom then stay stock. not worth the trouble IMO to change anything. not going to repeat from my previous post. but its pretty much putting walmart junk into a honda. dont do it :P stay stock, the sound system is most excellent already. if you are stumped for the pinouts on the wiring - obviously google, but ill sugges the hanes manual for a hard copy... i actually just picked up a used one off kijiji for 10 bucks and its worth it's weight in gold. the entire electrical mapping is beyond anything ive seen before detailed in a manual. reading it off a PDF isnt the same. weird i know eh? http://www.amazon.com/Toyota-Camry-1997-thru-Haynes/dp/1563924048 it's on page 12-47 what you are looking for. hands down one of the best 10$ ive ever spent in my life lol :D

there are a bunch of things that can set off the airbag light actually. removing the cluster guage back wires (when redoing the needles or whatever), the seat sensor wires, the seatbelt explosive patch sensor wiring (when replacing the belts completely) - all set off the light if someone did not disconnect the battery first. thats just off the top of my head for example pretty sure there are more things that would set it off too. from what i hear, you cannot clear it yourself, dealer has to to the tune of 1.5k+ or something. as for the other light hmm, you are talking about the light with the (!) right? might be the parking brake, wheel sensors, or check your brake fluid levels. it sets off the light if its a hair below the proper level. o2 sensor is a busted/dirty/dead ... o2 sensor lol. 3 of them on the car if i recall correctly for the 95, and the one near the cat is usually the problem. the hot pipe fries it / soots it up . that was the issue with mine when i had that year of car. I doubt changing the ecu would even do anything tbh. if there is a bad sensor, then it will send the code to the "new" ecu regardless of how many you put in there.

well, true the stock amp is no window breaker.... but tbh i find the OEM sound system more than enough. they tuned it just right for the car. what you have to ask yourself is what exactly do you consider "quality" ?? to a lot of people i ask that question to - its just turning the knob to the end and making it loud as possible. if that would be your answer, then change out the stock for something else. it's underpowered for those kind of needs. if your answer to quality is more like hearing the proper range of sound not necessairly at window breaking boom boom civic style - then the OEM system (which at the time was actually very expensive) is tuned better than any walmart crap you can put into the car. also the year of the car makes a difference. because there are changes to the system in itself. on the pre '97's the sound was very good, but lacking base. the fronts were tuned to give the base instead of the rears and do nothing else. leaving weak backs to reproduce the rest of the sounds. the fix was to swap to some 3 or 4 way rear 6x9's. thats what i did leaving everything else untouched and it was magical. (get the same ohm and power range) everyone that heard it really though i had changed the entire stereo in that '95, only to look at the dash and see the everything stock. after '97 they added in the standard sound system from the LS so it got a sub, and the audio range changed (for the better i might add) to have a lot more "umph". nothing was needed to change if you just plain enjoyed crisp responsive tuned sound. and if you happened upon the hamachi premium as an option in your es for 98+... sorry to say but you are an idiot if you change even 1 piece. ive rarely heard anything better than that stock soundsystem - its goddamn amazing... one of my friends just got an older LS and im jealous beyond believe at how good it sounds. I laugh a little bit when i pull up next to a civic with a 16 year old booming his walmart crap and can turn my dial 3/4 to dround him out (with everything stock on the 98 nothing changed at all), with better sound 99% of the time. then peel away in my obviously non-sports car - making him feel really stupid for wasting money on that kind of car/sound system instead of getting a lexus for a fraction of the ricerpart buying cost. It's a complete waste of money in my eyes. when my 12 year old car has a better stock sound system than his brand new 1000$+ walmart special of the week. it just tells me that i made the right choice over and over again. Good luck whichever route you choose. just know that they didnt put a crappy OEM sound system in the 3rd gens.... its actually more than decent so the real question is do you want earsplitting sound or not, then make the decision from there.

just hot swap them with leads at the speaker to see. unplug the speaker, take 2 thin wires, strip each end and insert them carefully into the plug, turn on the sound a bit, and manually touch the speaker reversing the wires to see. no need to unsolder anything this way and you'll know right off if it's that.

yes it's basically that part from radio shack. but in your case you in theory dont even need to spend money on that at all. if you had no buzz when you first installed it, then there is a wire touching the "frame" metal somewhere, giving the buzz. find the touchy wire, problem solved. what that part does is just filter out the noise - even though it's still not fixed and still a problem per se. only reason I used that on my problem was because the car was 100% stock. i was splicing off existing wiring without running anything new. so there was nothing for me to check like in your case. the only real solution for me was that little gadget. you will need two if you use that yes. LR and LR channels on each. as 1 box does only 2. sad your oem unit broke though. you could have probably found a scrapyard working one or ebayed a replcement for the ammount of money you now "have" to drop into fixing the problem hehehe. It's always a learning game with lexus. sigh. before buying those things (which by the way cannot remove 100% of the buzz. it will get about 95% give or take.) i would tear it apart and recheck the wiring. always better to kill the problem at the source instead of putting a band-aid over it. :)

Sounds like a ground loop fault. DJS3G was right, totally power related. causes interference. the reason you get the noise only when the car is on is the engine/alternator (over simplistical layman terms). when off your only circuit "on" is the radio loop. with the car on the entire engine is now grounded along with the charge system. total noise interference. I was wiring up a xm splice and the same thing happened to me. I chose the "ez" way out and wired in a fault loop adapter to cut the buzz. mainly because i wasnt running a new system, and only splicing off the OEM factory parts. in your case, something is touching some metal, or rattled loose. and with any changes its always best to run clean wires to the batt and grounds. no chassy paint in the way grind it off to hit metal etc etc. on a side note (your car you can do want you want blah blah) no idea why you removed the oem headunit...if you didnt change your speakers, your new headunit is kinda doing err nothing lol. the oem system is actualy tuned much better than almost any aftermarket. (unless you do a 100% swap of -all- parts) anyways. was just side note curiosity mentioning that lol. your car. can do whatever you want :)

Any mods done to the car electrical side? My friend had some gremlins pop up in his 92 when we did a full LED convert of all glowing buttons/guages/dials on the interior etc... seems the voltage draw was too high for certain parts of the circuit (oddly) yet not others. In the guage area it was on the 220km area backlight that would burn out the led after 2 weeks and also the volume knob led. would be tons brighter until failure in the same general timeframe. Every other one was flawless and never even flickered. It was hard to troubleshoot because the entire units had to be plugged in order not to throw off warnings on the car, or set off the airbag "deployed" light. so on so forth... In the end he just replaced the burned led's and sold off the entire gremlin car. nothing more annoying that electrical probs - especially when you know its coming directly from your "simple" mod. sigh....

wow... i wish i was getting 19mpg+ in granny mode i can barely squeek out 16.5mpg mixed driving.... :( I think it's time for me to seriously look into my majorly low mileage... hmm. and yes its normal for the rmp. im almost always around the 2k range.

lol 2 solutions. #1 = chococat's suggestion for the adapter. #2 = backsearch some of my older posts. basically I did a write up with imput from a few other forum people on how to rip out the entire center console, unsolder / resolder a pinout stereo jack to the casette line, internally so that only the plug shows on the faceplate, and you can just output to that and have it play over your system just by selecting the casette button. looks flawlessly OEM and unmodded. solution 1 is the easiest. solution 2 is the "best" but.. ill be honest. im never doing it again. (did it on my old 95, not on my 98) someone could offer me a thousand bucks to do it and i would refuse. not that it didnt work... it was flawless. I'de consider myself a good solder guy and a great electrical guy - just the headache and time put in to get it flawless was beyond what anyone in their sane minds should go through LOL. ;) that adapter you linked is over-the-air fm linking. by far the worst solution in my opinion. the signal gets so muddied it sounds like a soup can. tried to do it once with XM radio and after 3 minutes of driving and trying to listen i almost threw the xm unit out the window it was so bad. hard wire all the way, regardless if you solder or wire casette adapter. Just as long as there is a wire. :)

If you can find one in the scrapyard that is. the oem ones last a good 140k easily my 95 had 180k on the oem b4 it burned a hole in it. so you might only be delaying the exact same problem by 10k or something by scrapyard hunting. its still an option but i'de rather get a custom flange job done and pay the 250 to have it last 100k rather than 10... still your gamble might pay off. good luck either way (and its called a flange not a flex :P )