Hey guys, new here in the Lexus forums. I've been around (and stay) mostly the European car scene for a little over 7 years now. Cars and their inner workings are not new to me, but please bear with me as I get re-introduced to Japanese cars. It's been a decade since I last owned one (a 1993 Nissan Maxima SE 5 spd., my first car).

Story goes I plowed my last beater car, a 1989 Honda Accord LXi, into the back of, ironically, a 2007 Lexus RX 350. So what did I do? I went and bought a 1994 Lexus ES 300 to be my daily driver. It's in decent shape for how old it is and 131K. It is a two owner car and when you do the math that comes out to a little over 8K a year mileage wise. Not too bad IMHO. I take possession of it Saturday.

It does need some work, though. Maintenance and wear and tear work mostly. The sunroof is currently not working in it (I assume the motor or switch), the rear driver's side window motor is bad, needs all four rotors replaced, needs new struts\shocks (probably going aftermarket for those since I won't be able to resist modding this car to a certain extent), and definitely new window tint as the previous owner used the cheap stuff. The CEL is on as well, but the car runs and drives fine so I'm pretty sure it's just a sensor of some sort. My former Honda's was on constantly due to an 02 sensor. Going to get it scanned ASAP and fix whatever that is. Sounds like a lot of stuff, but really it's piddly crap to me to fix considering how good of shape the rest of the car's in, body and interior wise.

Anyway, I've probably already worn out my welcome with that little spill there, so without further B.S. on my part here are the pics! Forgive the fact that they're from the ad on Craigslist where I bought the car, but they're all I have for now. I will post more soon after I finish a bit of reconditioning.

1994 ES 300:








2006 Audi A4 (My Baby):

 

that a4 looks great. i like the wheel choice. welcome.

 

Welcome man glad your here and there plenty of DIYs here for the ES so just do a search on whatever your looking for and pretty sure you can find one, Ans the A4 looks sick, I just got ride of my 99 A4 and one thangs for certain I will never buy one again lol it hardly ever ran but heard bad things from that year but non the less Welcome to CL

 

Welcome aboard! I've got a '92 with 181k miles on it, and she's still going strong.

I recently replaced the struts and springs, as well as some other worn suspension components, and I'm very happy with the result. I went with the KYB GR2 struts, and the Eibach "Pro Kit" springs. Very mild drop that looks nice and does not compromise the ride quality. If you're looking to "upgrade" when you make that repair, I highly recommend these components. :-)

Enjoy, the ES is a great car, and I've grown to love it more and more over time.

 

Thanks for the welcome guys.

Trust me, your friend's A4 and the 2005.5 up models are MILES apart in terms of engine and overall quality. Mine's got about 50K on it right now, software's been loaded since about 2K miles and progressive upgrades along the way, as you can see, and I've had hardly an issue with it. That's not to say that the B7's (my car) don't have their issues, but as with any German car (and most cars in general) if you take care of them, they take car of you.

Thanks for the suggestions. I will look into those. Going to get everything on order next week and have my mechanic do everything at once (the rotors and struts).

Right now, my main search revolves around figuring out what I'm going to do to get my iPod and Sat radio unit in the car as well as overall audio configuration. I have an aftermarket HU to put in already anyway, just not sure if I want to go that route on this car or not quite yet. I'm a big fan of trying to keep everything clean and the HU I have isn't really going to go with the interior of the car. If I have to, oh well, but if I can figure out other auxiliary input route, I probably will go that route and keep the stock HU. If anyone has suggestions, fire away. My car audio wiring knowledge is pretty advanced, so I don't need any noob answers (as you can see by my Avic install in my Audi, which has just as many hurdles to get over as this car). I've already found the wiring harness I need to integrate with the stock amp and have ground loop isolators (because I've already found people have alternator whine issues with this setup route) to get it hooked up.