TXSC3

Thanks for the tips; I'll consider a tape adpater but I will try and reset the changer then clean it. BTW, if I remove the radio from the car will it require a security code to work again?

This is all for a 98 SC300 with Pioneer sound. The 12 disc changer skipped excessively but last week it started to jam up. It would eject the magazine but I would have 1 CD stuck in the player. I closed the player and pushed eject to get it to spit out. Now the magazine is stuck in the changer and it just makes clicking snapping noise while the eject button flashes. I have read previous posts about how these changers are best replaced by the 6 disc ES units. Well, since CDs are now a 20+ year old technology I have decided to go to MP3 player in the car. The cassette adapter I used by Sony was a total failure cause the wheels do not spin in sync of e/o so the radio thinks the tape is jammed or broken. I plan on sending my head unit out to a radio shop in VA for them to add a 3.5mm jack but do it in the back of the radio so I can run a wire through the console and have it come out in the arm rest storage so everything looks nice and clean. I need to retreive my CDs from the changer. Where exactly is the reset button? If I can't get Diana Krall, Frank Sinatra, Cathy Dennis, & Gloria Estefan out of there I will have to do some surgery on this unit. Is there anywhere on the internet a how to guide to remove the changer from the car? I need step by step instructions. This LS radio on ebay has what I want to do but instead of the port being on the face of the radio I want it on the chasis. The shop in VA wants $90 to do this; much cheaper than a used changer or having to burn CDs when you consider an Apple ipod suffle is under $50 so it is cheap enough to lose or break plus it NEVER skips. http://tinyurl.com/6hvgpg

I have a 98 SC300. This car was bought on election day 08 for 5 grand with 170K miles. I am the 3rd owner. It was bought new by a lawyer who kept it until 06 when he sold it to his partner. His partner used it for a weekend car and put about 3200 miles on it in 2 years. In that time he did the major service on it and put 99 GS300 chrome wheels in place of the stock silver wheels. The first problem (a common one) I fixed was the dead LEDs in the 3rd brake light in the spoiler. Condensation gets in there and ruins the electrical board. This was just a bad design and most of them have dead LEDs these days. A new one is around $160 from Toyota. I fixed mine for $5. Some people try and repair the board and then solder in new LEDs. I just went to the junkyard and bought the 3rd brake light from a 98 Mitsubishi Eclipse for $5. The LED strip is almost the same length. Anyway, break the Eclipse casing, remove the strip, drill holes in the board to match the Toyota strip mount points, and solder the power wires to make it plug and play. Seal the OE Lexus casing with clear silicone and let it dry a day before installing it on the car. Mine works great now and has stayed working trough a few heavy rain storms. Next up....fixing the memory seat system in my car that has been dead since the day I got the car. Other plans I have are to tint the glass, replace the headlights, make the fogs yellow, and get new struts for the trunk. The car runs great and looks/drives like a sub 50K miles car. The only dissapointment is the lack of torque between 50-70 mph. I have not put the ECT switch in power yet...but in normal mode the passing power on the freeway is lacking. The engine just runs out of breath. Once you reach 70-80 mph it easily maintains speed. This is not a huge deal but it probably was to people who paid $45K for them new.

They look awesome! The wheels on the 97+ are just perfect. What bulbs is the 1st gen SC running in the fogs to make them yellow? Is that a HID retrofit with a new projector or just an HID 9006 bulb setup?

I think it is just buying someone's problems when it comes to that car. SC parts are very expensive and hard to find. By the time you save this one it would have cost more than buying one that was good to begin with. Keep looking and be patient.

On 97+ I LOVE the rocker panels and the 1/4 panel body kit like things. The spoiler on 97+ makes the car look even longer which is a good thing. 96 down spoilers were okay as well but did not create this effect. The small grille is pretty ugly on 97+ but I like how aggressive the lower end of the bumper looks. 92-96 cars have a sort of rounded lower bumper area which is not as attractive. Toyota did that same grille on gen 7.2 Celicas and it looked ugly there as well. As for tails....97+ look wickedly slick in the dark. By daylight....well...the kind of gold glow of the plastic and the chrome trim in them looks cheap. I also dislike how the backup lamps look yellow in them in the daylight. 94-96 tails look the best in daylight. I never absolutely loved any wheel that came stock on any SC. Mine came with GS wheels which I like and will probably keep as is. The BBS like mesh wheels that were a dealer installed option were okay but the gold accents on them looked very cheap. As a side note, I think the headlights on all SCs were very cheap looking at night because the fluted plastic that lighted up beside the low beam projector was distracting and took away from that razor sharp precision lighting look of projectors which were a big deal back in the early 90s when few cars had them. Toyota should have made the headlights glass, had complete darkness next to the low beam, used a dual filament bulb in the turn signal chamber to have that serve as the front running light, and kept the side marker as is.

I had a day off from work so I went out to scout a lake for fishing at some point in the future. There were only 2 other cars around for at least 4 miles.

When it does move does it ever feel like all of the power the engine is making is not getting to the wheels? If so the torque convertor might be at fault. If you take it to a shop make sure they agree with you on a price to just diagnose it. Cottman transmission is run by crooks that will disassemble the whole transmission, diagnose it, and then say "well...we have it all out and ready to fix so it will cost you xxxx to fix it but we can put it back in the car for xxx" xxxx =ed $3100 in my MR2 xxx would have cost $1200

I have to agree with the other guy. A car is just as good as how someone cared for it over its life. A 2000 LS400 with 75K miles can be trash compared to a 1990 with 250K miles but like new if the 2000 was wrecked and abused. I have had MR2s and Celicas that reached over 200K miles and have always been running strong without need of any internal repairs. Currently I have a 3000GT with nearly 230K miles that purrs. Those cars are notorious for oil leaking and burning but this is all due to neglect so they end up in the junkyard. My 98 SC3 was purchased on election day this year and so far so good. It was owned by a lawyer who just went to the dealer for everything (even oil changes). About 2 years ago he sold it to another lawyer in his firm that did work on it himself because he was a car enthusiast. He told me he always ran syntheic oil but when I went to go change the oil the first time I found a Pennzoil filter on the car (YIKES!). The internals are the most important thing in the car. Spend the extra money on full synthetic oil and OEM filters. These cars are known to last to over 400K miles if cared for. Whatever you do I would advise never to mess with the stock engine by adding a turbo or supercharger on an engine that has already over 100K miles or 10 years of use on the street. The seals and gaskets are already well worn and imbedded in there. Extra pressure and work the engine has to do will break something. If things do go wrong there are plenty of used motors out there that have barley any demand in the market since these were not mass mass mass produced cars to begin with. Go with your gut feeling with the car. If it looks pretty but something just does not seem right then walk away.

My cousin carries 2 orange cones in his car (BMW M3) that he went and stuck Home Depot bought letters on to say "POLICE". He parks at the end of the lot where there is no space on one side of the car and on the other side he puts the cones in the vacant space. He says if he comes back to his car and finds the actual police he can just deny he owns the cones and say it must be some kind of practical joke. If someone steals the cones he's out $20 which is not a big deal considering dent repair starts at $75. He's been doing this for about a year and has no dents.

Tapping is normal in any car if it has been sitting for a day or more and all of the oil drained from the top end into the bottom end. However, oil filters are vital in any car. Stick to the OEM part cause Toyota filters usually have a valve in them that prevents all of the oil being sucked out for a dry start. I have gone a step further and stick with the V8 Lexus filter in my SC300 just because it looks much better built. Someone did an excellent write up on it over at the Supra forum. http://www.mkiv.com/techarticles/parts/toy...lter/index.html

http://www.toyodiy.com/ The discount Toyota dealer I buy parts from told me about this. You can enter your VIN or just pick stuff like year model trans etc... The diagrams are the same as in the dealership and the diagrams are clickable. The only downside is that it still does not give EXACT parts numbers. For example, if I look up a tail light for a 98 SC300 it will show all 3 part numbers for the 3 types of tails though the years. You can somewhat get around that with using the lexus trademotion web pages to enter a part number since those catalogues usually show what years a part is for. This is very valuable for pricing parts. For some reason most all dealers I have dealt with hate giving out part numbers and will usually ask for the VIN while saying they don't want to cause me to order a wrong part so they are doing it that way. Test it out; it is a big help.

DO NOT drive around if you smell gas anywhere. Get it towed into a shop. If your SC is a 96+ you might be able to disgnose it with a OBD II scanner that you can buy at places like Sears, Autozone, etc... As for tires in the winter; don't sweat the speed rating because it is unimportant. Look for a tire which has deep and aggressive tread to grip in snow and ice. You might try somewhere online like tires.com or tirerack.com and get the tires shipped to you. Take them to a shop and get them installed. I always do it like that; lower price, better selection, and no pressure sales.

I have a 98 and want to make it like the 99+ models that use the high beams as daytime running lamps. This is purely so people see my car is there and don't crush my fenders; I've had a few close calls. I want to do it the right way and not with some Mickey Mouse add on module that flips a relay when the ignition on wire is hot. The OEM Toyota system does it the same way but it does not look like ghetto engineering. Anyone know if there is a module somewhere in the electrical system of a 99+ that is plug and play for the older cars?