ChasFenwick

My 1999 LS400 is a terrific car, but it is not perfect. Here are my gripes. How many of these imperfections does your car have?

1. Biggest Complaint: On heavy acceleration from stop, at constant throttle, car will accelerate for a second or two, then dramatically decelerate, then accelerate again. Deceleration seems to be occurring at shift point between "L" and "2". This has been discussed on an earlier thread.

2. Locks on all 4 doors will activate on their own. My car will sit in the garage for a period of days and then when I go to drive it I will discover that the doors are locked. This occurs approx. one time out of five. I'll swear that I didn't do it.

3. Squeal and roughness as steering wheel tilt motors downward. This appears to be covered by TSB. Can someone who has had this service performed confirm that it is a straightforward fix with no downside risk?

4. On hot, sunny days (above 90 deg. f), air conditioning will not back off after bringing interior temp. down to the set point. Say, you have desired temp. set at 74 deg., it will keep blasting away with max. cold from outlets and excessive blower speed. If you keep inching up the set point a little at a time, to 76, 78, 80, 82, a couple of minutes apart, has no effect on anything. Get above that and suddenly the outlet air toggles to warm. Now start inching DOWN the set point and interior temperature is controlled better; you will end up with it set at approx. 78 deg. It's as if a plenum damper (that controls mix of heated and cooled air) gets stuck. My 1990 LS400 had exactly this same problem. Dealers claim they've never heard of it. Heating works OK.

5. Nav system estimated time to destination is a complete joke. Seems to be based on a single, ridiculously low average speed. I see that they have fixed this in the LS430. It would have made more sense in the LS400 to just leave the feature out entirely.

6. Occasionally, for a period of minutes, the nav system will show you driving parallel to the road you are on, with a constant offset. LS430 owners tell me that they have seen this, too.

7. Very occasionally, nav system will become confused and start giving you ridiculous route commands.

So there. Would be interested in seeing the squawks of other owners. Maybe there are other things that I should be unhappy about that I am not aware of!!

Stephen

Hey Chas.

For #4 thats a common complaint with most automatic A/C Systems.

For #3 I know people who have had it done (mine doesnt squeal) and its worked fine for them.

As for the nav system, cant tell you because I got the Nakamichi instead on my car.

I'm a little concerned that you seem to be looking for problems with your car Oh well, guess its better to have to look for them then to have them blowing up in your face huh?

retrodrive

Heh. Lex drivers want their cars to be PERFECT in every aspect. I am iven more picky about my own car

#1. I am not sure that there are performance shops in your area that do Lexuses, but I had the same problem with my one. I went to one of the best performance shops in San Diego and they tuned my gears so that this lag disappeared.

Stephen

Yes its a car but his problem #1 is a very big design flaw. Nothing else on the road acts like that from a stop.

emus1

Re the acceleration problem: This is my third Lexus, and I have noticed it adapts to your driving habits. If you spend a bit of time driving around town in a docile fashion, it assumes this is your mode and reacts accordingly. It’s next reaction will be a hesitation upon first heavy accel. I have found this to go away after a few faster starts. I believe Mercedes (according to friends) does same.
Re the steering wheel: Had the “squealing” problem upon retraction in my GS, was fixed and it went away. Same problem with my LS, again was fixed; No side effects.

99 LS 400 Silver/Jade.

ChasFenwick

This "adaptive" business is something that had never occurred to me. I'll do some experimenting. Thanks for the info.

Stephen

Like I said, mine has gone away almost totally, but its still there every once and a while. The LS430, S500, etc dont have this problem, however the new Q45 does.

Its gotta be a combination of the adaptive transmission and the drive by wire.

LOTC

For the slow acceleration problem.I have heard that if you reset your ECU by disconnecting your battery for a while and then put it back on and drive agressivley for about two days then the ECU tends to adapt to the new agressive style of your driving.

Stephen

Its not that its slow, its kinda like a hiccup. Ypu lay on the gas, it lunges, burps then erupts again.

emus1

I did not address the AC problem in my last post. If the AC is in MANUAL mode, it will keep blasting away regardless of the temp setting. In AUTO mode, this should not happen. If it does, the dealer will take care of it.

99 LS 400 Silver/Jade

ChasFenwick

We are talking about "AUTO" mode.

I took my car to a dealer and described the problem in detail to the service rep that they claimed was most knowledgeable about LS400. He said that (a) he had never heard of such a problem, and (b) if there were no fault codes stored (which there weren't) then there is no problem. I could believe (a) but found (b) to be absolutely inconceivable. They've designed in feedback sensors on every actuator in the car, to determine if it followed the command? I don't THINK so!!

If you are aware of someone getting this problem fixed, I'd appreciate any additional info you can provide about the nature of the fix.