Hello, first time Lexus owner here. I just picked up a 2000 GS400 in white with 120,000 mi on it. Paperwork for water pump timing belt was all done in May of this year. Basic oil changes and things of that nature up-to-date. Seems to ride great coming from a 2013 GTI was my little race car. Car was a lot of fun unfortunately it was stolen. The person selling it was asking for $10,000 I ended up paying $6,500. I think I got a pretty good deal. I believe I am the third owner. Interior is mint condition exterior is pretty good couple dings here and there nothing too major. Might want to do a rap down the road. I just did a muffler delete complete stock setup, now I notice when I'm in manual mode it will not go past third. When I first got it it would not go past second now third and I hear a ding off in the car. Wondering if anybody has any ideas what it could be? My plans for the car are not too crazy I definitely want to get a full cat back exhaust eventually, intake headers hoping that it will add some more power. Do I need to get a tune when I get headers? Also considering coilovers but I want to keep the comfortability of stock ride so maybe just springs I don't know. And I guess getting a sound system in this vehicle is pretty difficult at the non-navigation but it does have the stereo package forget the name. Anyways would love to hear everybody's inputs on what route I might want to go as far as upgrades and if anybody can chime in about not going past third gear anymore. Also I hate the stock wheels that came with they're too shiny. Will at some point be getting some new wheels.Hope everyone's having an awesome day.

 

Search for transmission solenoids. Notorious for going bad on 98-2000 models which is why I never looked for the 400 model.

 

I would have it checked for transmission codes just to verify no surprises are coming, and get the fluid changed if it hasn't been done. Won't likely fix a manual shift mode issue, but definitely something you should do because it seems like you are going to be hard on the pedal.

 

My '00 GS400 came with the factory touchscreen/navigation/HVAC controller, which I was able to replace with a modern Double DIN android stereo, and keep the HVAC control by sourcing an OEM stand-alone HVAC controller that came in cars that did not come with factory navigation. See my post here (#13) for the before and after photos:
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gs-...p-problem.html
However, note that I bypassed every single factory wire, speaker, and amplifier, and installed my own speakers:

• Ran power from the battery to a custom buss bar in the dash, with both constant, and relay-switched ignition +12V terminals, to power the stereo (and other 12V goodies)
• Ran all new speaker wires from the JL Audio amps in the trunk, to each door speaker (3 wire pairs in each front door to power the 3 speakers in each custom carbon fiber sealed speaker pods, and 1 wire pair to the rear door speakers for an 8" mid-bass speaker in a custom carbon fiber speaker sealed pod). Again, I did not use any factory wires.
• Removed the factory 10" subwoofer in the rear deck, to allow bass from the two 12's in the trunk to propagate into the cabin. The trunk on these cars is a major bass trap. Not much makes it into the cabin. I also cut out the factory leather behind the arm rest in the back seat, and replaced it with speaker fabric mounted in a 3D printed frame, to allow more bass through and into the cabin.
• The sound system is epic: 10 speakers receiving 80 watts RMS each with DSP, and 2" subs receiving 1,200 watts RMS at 4 ohms.
• The android stereo also gave me modern options such as:
  • Backup camera
  • Front camera (to avoid crashing the front clip into a curb when parking)
  • Bluetooth phone connection
  • Torque App
  • Optical digital signal cable to my amps (no analog RCA noise!)
  • Lots of other cool features