as99east

Say what?

They said not worth the trouble and there is stuff that can break with fuel lines when change is done, just not worth it.. they said they never do fuel filter changes. is this just more of their general hesitancy to mess with stuff on these older cars?

I thought fuel filter you want to do regularly, maybe every 30-50k? (I know it depends on what is going through the filter and driving habits and conditions, etc.) But it’s a <$50 part that directly affects flow of fuel to engine and performance (potentially) why wouldn’t I change it? Or are they right to leave it alone? I believe it was last done on my car about 30k miles ago but also that was like 8 years ago.

LeX2K

Depends on if the lines are rusty, if so you can make the car not drivable and needed a fairly difficult repair. Unless the car been fed low quality fuel I think 1-2 filter changes is reasonable for the life of the car. Dealers are all about liability they won't do the job because the profit vs. risk is not worth it to them.

400fanboy

As far as I'm aware, it's true.

People run hundreds of thousands of miles through these things without ever changing the filter. It's not part of the maintenance schedule.

However, it's not a particularly difficult job in the scheme of things either.

http://www.lexls.com/tutorials/EFI/fuelfilter.html
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i think it's highly unlikely it's impacting performance. You'll get way more for your money by cleaning your throttle body if that hasn't been done in a decade (or ever).

I think most of the situations where it becomes a problem are in cases like Lex said, where the lines are heavily corroded for a variety of reasons. Or, the car has been sitting for an extended period of time and the fuel went bad. Besides those two situations, the fuel filters... aren't ever really changed in these cars. And unless your car was sitting un-driven for 6+ months, with only 30k miles on the new filter, I wouldn't worry about it.

as99east

Ok got it, super helpful thanks.

I guess what I was worried about is that the prior and original owner had some cheap crap filter put in the last time it was done. He dealer serviced the car for the first 45k miles or so based on what I was able to pull from Lexus website using the VIN (interestingly it looks like the starter was replaced at about 27k miles) but then from 45k to 127k he just used various independent shops as I think the car became more of a backup / second car for him. Hey, at least he serviced it I guess. Some of these rigs I see on Facebook that these kids have run through are scary looking!!

It still drives great and shifts smooth but takes a little longer to start vs most videos online of cold starts I see. And one time I started it in the cold it sounded like it was sputtering and gasping for air for a few seconds at first but then quickly caught its breath. It has a brand new battery and starts every time but I am just trying to go through list of things that may need freshening up. Throttle body is on that list but I am at the 101 level as far as DIY so when I have the timing belt done soon I may ask guy to clean throttle body and maybe have a look at one of the plugs to see condition. I have heard fuel injector cleaning can do good. And then there’s cold start injector I guess. It’s a lot of stuff for a first timer like me…

400fanboy

What year is the car? This starts entering realms beyond my knowledge, but do be aware of the ECU issues with this car. It's possible your starting issues, with maybe some other unrelated things, may present suggestion for this.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-...capacitor.html

But otherwise I dunno. Sometimes my car takes a crank or two more than normal to start from cold. Depending on the condition of the car, it is pretty old. A lot of stuff needs looking after when it's a quarter century old. Stuff you wouldn't normally think of.

I suggest googling terms and things you come across. Add "starter motor forum" and it'll remove the bull**** advertised searches and bring up the forums talking about the car with actual information. I never use the built-in search tools here unless I need something extremely specific.

as99east

Sounds good thanks, yeah ECU was repaired, it was one of the first things I did with the car (a 95) since when I got it, the car was throwing two oxygen sensor codes, then once those were replaced and a new battery put in, it threw a new p1600 code re power to ECU, maybe prompted by new battery. I took a guess that the code could be leaking capacitors and had one of the operations on eBay do it and they sent me photos, capacitors had been leaking. When repaired ECU went in, it cleared the code and no CEL since. Anyway, I take your point. It’s an old albeit beautiful car. It has never not started on the first crank and never left me stranded (so far) so I can’t complain. And I absolutely love driving it. I bought it actually knowing nothing about LS’s (just Toyota/Lexus reputation generally) which has been a blessing and a curse because if I had known about all the crap you guys put up with on these cars as they age I probably would have been scared off and never gotten to know this beautiful automobile…I can’t even imagine how good this car would have been driving it off the lot in 95 if it is such a pleasure 27 years later..

CELSI0R

I like the change the fuel filter every 100k miles.. Not that regularly, but I think it should be changed every now and then

If your car is clean underneath and the lines aren't all rusted, I would consider changing it. But, totally up to what you prefer.

The dealer is probably too scared to touch it since the car is old.