Vehicle Speed Sensor Issue P0500 (Solved)
 

1998 ES300 here. I've had the car for about three years and this was one of the major issues that I'd never got around to fixing, me figuring it would be a headache. Which it was. Symptoms were a dead speedometer needle, a blank odometer, no overdrive 4th gear, and no cruise control. Gas mileage was worse than it needed it be presumably, but how can you tell with no odometer, right? Car drove/drives beautifully otherwise. Started my troubleshooting with changing both of the speed sensors with no success. Made a thread back in July about that here https://www.clublexus.com/forums/es-...ed-sensor.html
Lots of help and info from everyone that replied but a special mention to user MasonFX who figured out and acted on the next logical step: What happens is that a bad instrument cluster will not allow your speed sensors to either work properly or send their signals correctly. I replaced my bad cluster with a working-one-on -the -first-try from salvage and was successful. Now the car has a working speedometer with odometer and a quick drive confirmed that I have 4th gear and cruise control. A code scan right after installation didn't throw the P0500 anymore. Literally did this today so haven't yet tracked the mileage for a hopefully increase in mpg.