paomien168

Hi, I'm pretty new to this forum, so excuse me if my post is kinda crappy... have a few problems with an otherwise trouble free 1991 LS400 w/ AS and 152K miles...

1) I've replaced the front driver's side air shock at 90K miles...heard from the dealer that it's normal for them to wear out at that mileage or so. The other ones he said were fine, and since I purchased an extended warranty back in 1990, he replaced the front control arms on both sides under warranty. Now I'm getting a slight thump sound from the passenger front side, so the car is probably asking for more money... The steering wheel shakes when I drive over uneven surfaces, i.e. potholes...could that be something with the steering? Or just bad suspension? (already replaced a leaking power steering resevoir)

2) The brakes on this car are awful ... keep replacing the rotors and in a few thousand miles, they're vibrating like mad again! My other cars don't have this problem... heard from the dealer that it's actually a poor first generation design in the LS, the post 93's are better?? Anybody have the same experience as me?

3) CD Changer just crapped out... radio displays "ERR" when I try to play CD's. Dealer wants $600 to replace it. arugh Any suggestions???


Thanks!!!!
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1988 Titanium Lincoln Town Car Cartier 155K miles
1991 Silvermist LS400 152K miles
1995 Dark Emerald Toyota Land Cruiser 81K miles
1999 Obsidian Black Mercedes-Benz E430 sport 41K miles

Bobby K

Hi paomien and welcome to the club. I don't know if is normal for a shock to go bad in 90K or not, but I can tell you that when you replace one in a car, you should replace all of them since they've been together and have the same wear. Probably the dealer wanted to save some money since your warranty was near end and you would have to pay for it after that. When you have more that one similar parts in a car and don't replace them at the same time, the end result is, the new one works fine, but the old ones cannot perform to that level causing the new part to wear out even faster and create an overall instability for the car. The thumb noise that you hear is mostly like, from bad strut or struts. The shaking on your steering wheel could be because of bad struts, defective tie rods, or the end of the rack that connects to the wheels and don't remember its name (forgive my English), or a combination of the above. When you have vibration, is it while you step on the brakes, or at another time? Not all vibrations are because of bad rotors. I cannot understand the design that the dealer is talking about. Explain to me please, when the vibration occurs, cause I have never heard before about bad rotor design or something similar!. In regards of your CD changer, if is able to browse the disks, open the door to pull out the cartridge etc, but it cannot only read the CD, propably the laser went bad. You can change that yourself if you have some knowledge, or you can take it to a shop and fix it for a lot cheaper compared to the dealer.

ColoLS4

Stupid question about the CD Changer... Are you putting the CD's in upside down in the cart? You will receive an ERR if you face them up as the CD player cannot read the CD's they have to face down.

Lvangundy

Hello and welcome.

About the rotors, yes there was a known design flaw with the first 2 years of the LS. The brake rotors were too small and increased in size in the 1993+ models. I have a 90 LS which I just replaced the front rotors with aftermakret cross-drilled 'performance' ones. I also need to change the back rotors eventually because those are very worn and warped like the front used to be.

As for the shocks i'm in a similar situation, mine are worn on all sides, and often my ABS kicks in when I brake on moderately rough surfaces. They also squeak when I go over dips when the outside air is really cold.

LOTC

How are your new rotors holding up? Are they from the 93-97 supra and are they bigger in size than your stock ones?

paomien168

Thanks for the replies, everybody! For the person who said my question regarding the CD changer was stupid, do you really think I'm so stupid as to put the CD in right side up instead of upside down, then further not to check if I got an ERR message? In regards to the question about the vibration i'm getting, it's actually both when I'm driving over uneven surfaces and when i'm braking. I know that when I'm braking it's because of the rotors. How are those cross drilled rotors treating you? Is there any way to upgrade to the post 93 design?

ColoLS4

paomien168 - You need to read my question more carefully. I was asking a stupid question - NOT saying You were asking a stupid question. Obviously it sounds like I did not word my question right. A friend of mine recently bought a 91 LS and she was getting the ERR message. She had the cd's loaded incorrectly we flipped the cd's and it worked great.

paomien168

Oops! I'm sorry about that...maybe I'll try the thing about disconnecting the battery for 30 minutes or so. The changer unit does load the discs and all...so i find it kinda strange...or maybe it's just the laser...we'll see..will let you guys know. thanks!