curiousB

Hi gang, Haven't posted for a while so hello again to all. I'm having a similar brake problem but not as severe as OP. My pedal is a bit spongy and if I press the brake pedal very hard I can get the pedal to hit the mechanical stop. The car never creeps though and brakes stop ok. The brakes just seem grabby. If I tap the pedal quickly they seem to grab rather than a gradual engagement and slow dow. I did flush brake fluid a couple months ago thinking that might be it (air in lines old contaminated fluid) but that didn't seem to do much. There are no apparent leaks anywhere so I don;t have a rupture seal that I can see. I'm wondering if this is an indication of master cylinder seal worn out and fluid leaking past the seals. I have also read some folks say the flex lines to each wheel can get weak and lead to soft brake pedal ( I assume the sidewalls of flex are stretching under pressure?). I notice it more now as I got my wife a GX470 last year and her pedal is firm and no sponginess. I don't want to start randomly throwing parts at this. Anybody a brake expert or solved a similar problem with a LS430 (2004)?

This is a common problem. The foam speaker surround dries up and disintegrates. You can just repair the surround with a bit of patience. Search this forum for speaker of sub woofer repair and you'll see more on this. I bought the repair kit on ebay for around $15 as I recall. There are good utube videos on the complete repair process as well. The hardest part is getting the speaker out of car and back in after the repair.

I got at 20% fuel savings (¢/mile) the past 4 years by using regular instead of premium fuel 8.28 ¢/mile vs. 9.96 ¢/mile http://finance.yahoo.com/news/as-gas-prices-collapse--high-octane-fuel-fetches-unusually-fat-premium-150553933.html

I left my shields off. Its been a >couple years now and my car didn't disintegrate or get hit by a death beam from outer space. Seriously, the heat shield are primarily to keep the pipe and exhaust gasses hotter the length of the exhaust. When they are hotter they are less dense and have lower pipe friction. So by leaving them off you maybe lost 0.0003 MPG of performance. I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

OK so this repair was quite simple and cost me $20.70 instead of $330 for new woofer. I cleaned off the old cracked surround as best I could then used some lacquer thinner sparingly to get the rim clean and the cone edge foam free. The regluing of a new surround was easier that I expected. I had though the alignment would be tough without some exotic factory alignment jig. In fact it was quire easy. I think the speaker spider keeps the voice coil pretty well aligned and not so much the cone surround. Simply Speakers has a terrific uTube video to walk you through the process. Kit was delivered in just a couple days from order. I tested it at low volume and all is good. After a few days for the glue to fully cure I'll give it a stress test and rock out.

I'm confident you'll be resolved. When I did the before and after (welding) the OBDII scans of the secondary O2 sensor it was unmistakable. I'm 30,551miles (1072 days) since the fix with no issues! If you have an OBDII scanner you can reset the code right away. You can also disconnect the battery for a few minutes if you don't have one. The secondary CAT code is one that is monitored for a few hours of run time after it is reset so you need to log a few miles before you can be sure it doesn't return.

Awesome. Take it to a local muffler shop and have them weld in the cracks and or add some patches. Probably under $150 all in. Makes you think twice about dealers motives when they prescribe all sorts of unneeded parts. Either that or buy something like this and bolt it in.... http://www.ebay.com/itm/2001-2002-2003-2004-2005-2006-Lexus-LS430-4-3L-Front-Y-Pipe-with-Catalytic-OBDII-/281370791321?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item4183018d99&vxp=mtr

2004 LS430 Mark Levinson Well after 10.5 years of ownership I got bit by the sub woofer surround problem. Started to hear large distortion out of sub woofer in rear deck. I removed the speaker today and sure enough the surround was crumbly and cracked all the way around. Removal was a bit of a pain as you have to remove the rear seats and door/side moldings to get the speaker deck out. Once all the trim out the speaker removal was a breeze. I ordered a repair kit online http://www.ebay.com/itm/140722138905?ru=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fsch%2Fi.html%3F_from%3DR40%26_sacat%3D0%26_nkw%3D140722138905%26_rdc%3D1 They had great instruction video at their web site so I figured I'd give it a try. Anyone here done this repair yet?

No as stated in the other thread you started, corrosion wouldn't kill an alternator. Might explain a dead battery from time to time. Does this car have any modifications to the electrical system. An exotic sound system, DC/AC inverter for some AC powered load, a winch? .... or is the electrical system stock? Just wondering if some strange external load that is creating havoc. Not sure of a loose charge wire from the alternator to the battery could be a problem. Is the lug/stud connection on the alternator clean and free of corrosion? What about the wires integrity all the way to the battery? I wonder if there is some weird load dumping scenario occurring when alternator is kicking out max power and then the wire wiggles open circuit. The energy in the core has to go somewhere and maybe results in a high voltage that could fry the internal electronics of the alternator. Seems unlikely but my only other theory is poor quality remans from O'Reillys. It is odd both you and I have had quality issues on alternators from them. I suspect their QA procedure is too superficial and fails to properly stress test the alternator under load.

Any idea what the failure mode is of the alternator? The fluid leak is a common problem that ruins the brushes contacting the rotor (field) rings. Sounds like you fixed that problem though. Anything blocking airflow to and around the alternator. That could cause it to overheat and fail. Just poorly remanufactured replacement alternators? Where do you get the replacements? I just spent several hour changing an alternator on my daughters Ford Escape. Massive job due to its location. The new alternator failed a couple days later. errrrrrrrrrrr!!! Had to do it a second time. Lousy reman part from O'Reilly's. They were really good about swapping it under warranty though. Still several hours wasted. Second has held up a couple months now.

Probably due to the fact you let it drain for an extended period. The 1.9 qt is probably if you just pull the plug and wait for the initial wave of fluid to come out only. I wouldn't worry too much. Replace what you took out. If it was working fine before then there should be no problem. At 233k miles its lasted this long...

Leaky pipe after O2 sensor under heat shield. Common problem. Easy fix, weld the leak. Never was the CAT.

Many engine codes take time before the error is flagged. Secondary cat efficiency is one of them.

Great stuff. I'm 2.5 years since my fix and 25k miles and no P420/P430's. A little bit of welding saved me a $2,000 dealer bill......

did you overfill and get a splash around the fuel door and entry hoses? Not install fuel cap and click it down fully? Gasket shot on fuel cap? Lay down some plain paper under the car near the fuel door and see if any dripping when car id idling. You are wise to keep car outside until this is sorted.