The vehicle is a 1997 ES300. I am in México and there are times when I would sleep better if I knew a quick and handy way to disable the starter motor, or have some other quick anti-theft technique. Heck, in Arizona too! I notice in the 1997 Lexus Owners Manual it has an entry in the table of contents for CHECKING THE CARTRIGE TYPE FUSES, and I suppose pulling one of these might do the trick.but... which one?
Any suggestions?

 

If you remove power to the EFI relay coil it prevent the engine from starting. EFI fuse is 15 amps can kill power there but that would require a high current switch.

 

Well a quick Google search brought results that show #14 fuse under the hood is for the starter motor. That should do the trick!

 

Hello,

The problem is that the disabled starter is a huge sore thumb, if all the rest of the lights in the cabin would be on full brightness and the starter won't spin, there could only be one cause for that, so it will take less than a minute to "disarm".

Even pulling EFI fuse would be more beneficial, since the car would at least crank, significantly broadening the list of possible causes, especially when you consider that, well, the car is 20 years old, who know what could happen to it.

With that, all such systems are like a cheap bike lock, which basically only attracts thiefs instead of repelling them. If you really want to sleep well, you need a real alarm system that would be locking something like a Crankshaft sensor, which will make it very hard to diagnose in the field, maybe even in the service if done right, when the system doesn't trigger the CEL, which is possible.

Hope this helps and best of luck!

 

Pulling the EFI Relay should do the trick. I would just be concerned with a lot of wear and tear on the fuse box cover and the relay socket inside the box.