About 4 months ago, I began having problems with starting my car first time of the day. Had the battery cables cleaned. Problems continued, replaced battery with the recommend one from Interstate. Still problem. Took to Lexus dealer twice in the past 2 months...they can't find anything wrong. Took to my mechanic, he couldn't find anything wrong. Took it to an electrical shop and the guy told me it would be hard to figure out. Yesterday, I had to have it jump started. The problem is basically like this. If I drive the car daily, it will start. If I don't drive it one day, the following day, it has a hard time starting...and as of yesterday, just wouldn't start...it didn't turn over...just clicked. I've been told it's either the starter (Lexus dealer quoted $1,000K) or something in the car is slowly draining the battery. My problem is I really don't know where I should take it and what kind of diagnostics I should request. Finances are not good at the moment as I just got laid off from my job last month...so I'm looking for an inexpensive solution (if possible!). Any help is greatly appreciated! Thank-you! Stacey

 

Welcome to CL - Yeah the starter can cost as much as $1,000. I didn;t think the 99 had a technical service bulletin like my 95. Basically the starter would get stuck or it would crank very slowly like the battery was dead. Here is TSB list for your year:

http://www.alldata.com/TSB/31/99310210.html

I remember my old Maxima had the same problem. I looked all over until I found the trunk light was staying on. It slowly drained my battery I crawled into the trunk and found it on!

 

There is a drain somewhere in your car which is steadily draining your battery.

Do you have an aftermarket alarm or stereo on your car? From the rims, looks like it might be equipped with aftermarket stuff.

Best thing to do is to check each system and locate the source of the drain. It could be a number of things.

Nice trunk spoiler.

 

Well...not sure about crawling in the trunk...lol. The rims I had put on because the standard Lexus ones were just too plain for me!

There isn't any aftermarket stuff...that I know of...funny thing...right about the time this all started...my radio 'LED' started fading...you know...you can't see all the bars so the numbers don't come out right...it comes and goes...so not sure if that may be it.

After posting, I read on some Google post it may be my cell charger...so I unplugged it...now I just have to wait until I don't use the car for a day to see what happens.

Thanks again for your help! Happy Veteran's Day!