TNasty

Hey whats up CL. My name is Thomas and I am a proud owner of a 1994 LS400. I come from a Nissan background. I've owned a bunch of S13s' since I was 16. I am 21 now and in school part time while I work full time at National Institutes of Health.

I came across this LS on craigslist. Some middle aged man owned the car for 3 years, and before that his dad owned it for 15. The father kept all the receipts/service records, and I gotta say this car has been well maintained.

The car itself just passed the 142,000 mile mark. It is black with black interior. The only major things it needs is some tires and windshield wipers. The rest is all cosmetic and common things like the hvac lcd blacked out.

After going through all the receipts the following was replaced:

2003
-timing belt (76,xxx miles)
-water pump
-AT filter
-AC compressor
-oil seals
-serpentine belt
-fuel filter

2008
-power steering pump
-valve cover gaskets
-spark plugs
-spark plug wires
-caps and rotors
-steering rack boots

2009
-rotors
-pads
-alternator

2012
-battery

Alignments, rotations, oil changes and other things were done on the regular. I know i am missing a bunch of stuff

Anyway, enough talking. Here are 3 pics i took last night on my phone. I promise to have some today or tomorrow after I wash it. Its covered in a bunch of gunk from sitting under a tree.





I am looking forward to meeting other Lexus owners on the forum and in the area.

Later!

Legender

Sounds like a good find... pretty low miles for that year and it appears you've got the receipts backing up the work. I'd make sure no accidents and not too much rust and you've probably got yourself a keeper. Congrats and welcome to the club...

billydpowe

iTrader: (1)

welcome to the club and your good find!!

RA40

iTrader: (6)

Welcome to Club Lexus and congrats on a clean LS.

sha4000

iTrader: (1)

Welcome, we've been getting lots of new members in the last week or so and it has livened up the forum.

TNasty

Thanks for the words everyone.

I took some pics after washing the exterior. I need to have the interior detailed.




^The hood is wet







It failed inspection today.
Needs to have windshield chips repaired, new wipers, and both front lower ball joints need replaced.

I took care of the first two, and now I am waiting for my ball joints. I ordered them through Lexus with an employee discount. lol

TNasty

I also have another problem.

So I can lower and raise the driver window no problem. With the other three windows, I can lower them through the master switch, but I can't raise them. I have to raise them individually with the other switches. Is this something that normally happens? The weird thing is, I can't lower them through each their switches. Only raise them up.

Seize

Congrats on the LS and welcome to Club Lexus

LScowboyLS

here are the likely areas where you may have issues that ya might wanna take a peek at:

strut bar bushings
lower EGR pipe
transmission mount
motor mounts
Idle Air Control Valve (IACV)
ECU capacitors
PS leaks (which kill alternators)
cig lighter fuse link
climate control or radio LCD screen
upper control arms (UCA's)
+ side battery terminal

really nothing else tends to go wrong on these cars, perhaps drain & fill tranny with genuine T-IV fluid, and if it were mine, I would renew the plugs, plug wires, caps & rotors, cam & crank seals at the time of doing the next timing belt!

one thing that makes these cars wonderful, it that the big 3 expensive things to replace on a car: engine, transmission, and A/C system tend to never have any problems!

PS - power window issues are quite rare on this car!

dc893

I just did my lower ball joints today. I used Raybestos, but I have not read much about those ball joints. Seem to be good quality though.

Wish I had waited to find a black/black LS. Settled on the tan interior, and don't care for it very much.

Welcome to the club. Lots of great info on here. This site has helped me more times than I can count.

TNasty

Thanks for the info! I will keep an eye on those things. I have read some people cleaning the contact points on the master switch. I will give that a try.

Thank you DC. How difficult was it to replace the ball joints? I'm no professional mechanic, but I've been working on all my cars for 5 years now and have my good amount of tools.

timmy0tool

iTrader: (7)

if you have a breaker bar a basic set of sockets you can do the ball joints easily. it's very straight forward. just do NOT use a pickle fork to dislodge the ball joint from the lower arm or the steering rods. i like to use an arm puller for that.

dc893

timmy0tool is 100% correct, if you have that puller it makes the job very simple and fairly quick. If you don't have one they are cheap. Any decent parts store should carry them. I would probably rate the difficulty about a 3 out of 10.

LScowboyLS

I am so old that I can remember when this tool was over $100 and that was 1970's money which equals like $300 or more nowadays! - what is it today. $10? - lol

dc893

$10? I got ripped off!!!! I'm gonna have to take it back!!! I paid $17