I just wanted to stop by and say hi and let you all know you have an awesome forum. I was a frequent user of LS1Tech and I have been a long time GM guy. I just bought my first non GM vehicle, a 1999 LS400 with 77k. The quality of this vehicle does not compare to my past GM vehicles so I am pretty excited with this purchase.

I have a few random questions I was hoping you could help me answer.

1) I have a phone in my center console. Does everyone have this? Is there a way to make it work?

2) I think my car needs shocks. The body rolls around all over the road on bumps and dips. I did some searching and I saw the Megan shocks were highly recommended from the forum. They are made in China and I was a little skeptical about that. Are there any American made coilovers for this car? How bad does ride quality suffer with a set of coilovers? I generally like a firm ride.

3) I'm looking for a set of LS430 wheels, preferably in chrome. Where would be the best place for me to find these? I've searched CList and eBay without much luck.

4) Anyone have any idea what wheels these are?

5) Neither of the remotes built into my keys work. One has a light that flashes red when I click it, the other's does nothing. How long do these keys last for? I wasn't sure if it was a battery or if they were known for breaking.



Thanks for the help in advance!

 

welcome! what made you purchase a non-GM car? What eventually lead you to the LS400?

to answer your questions:
1) phone cannot work since the analog infrastructure is not there. it's virtually obsolete and just a retro factor. i am unsure if you can make it work with a bluetooth connection to pair it with a modern day cell phone. with enough research i'm sure it's possible, but i have not seen it done.

2) at 77k miles the car shouldn't need shocks yet but it's possible depending on road conditions. keep in mind the car does feel "floaty" in stock form. do the bumper push down test. it should bounce up and stop, instead of oscillate. most aftermarket coilovers that are affordable are made in china/taiwan. megan is one of them, and also BC racing. tein is a very common japanese made product though most don't run them bc they do no drop the car low enough. it all depends on how you want the car to look and handle. keep in mind it will never handle like a sports car, but can get plenty stiff and low with the right set of coilovers.

3) as for wheels, they are rare so you'll have to scour CList beyond your area, and frequent ebay, or buy from a third party online store like OEM wheels which can get expensive.

4) those wheels look aftermarket and doesn't look too bad. unfortunately i do not know what they are. any markings or stampinngs?

as for you remotes, they do have a button battery which can be replaced. open via small screwdriver and pry open. it might be that you need to reprogram them back to the car. search here how to do so. i would replace the battery on the one that doesn't light up and see if it's paired to the car. the program does not "forget" the pairing when the battery dies.

best of luck and welcome to the club!

 

1: The phone is analog therefor it cannot work. But there are analog to GSM conversion boxes from the UK that would allow the car to take a GSM Sim card and be active

2: HA! Shocks or struts made in the USA?? You know almost all of them are made in asian countries or mostly with asian parts? Megans are if you are going to coilovers instead of the stock replacement struts.

3: I would go to Scottsdale Lexus, Superstition Lexus or one of the others and try to find "Take-Offs" - ones where someone bought the LS430 and had the stock wheels taken off and put aftermarket ones on. Also - go on facebook and search for AZ.Lexus Club - they will probably have a set floating around.

4: Those wheels look like Reps of a BBS almost style wheel. Those centercaps will have the name on them and then inside the back of the tire will be markings for it. If you are nearby the 19th ave and Peoria area - You could go see Sergio at MaxSpeed on mountain view and 19th - or Tito right on the corner of 19th and Peoria. Tito is a cool dude - both sell rep sets and tires for a great price.

5: Most likely the batteries because there are people using the same transponder keys from 1990.

Also that looks a lot like the parking garage over at St. Josephs?? That or the downtown garage in Old Town Glendale.

 

congrats on the japanese defection lol, i think you'll be quite happy with your LS (the proper version of LS that is). yeah the 430 wheels are tough to find, especially a full set. there were a few wheels that came with the 430 do you mean the 18" 5 spokes?

also the car is just a naturally soft and squishy car haha don't expect it to ever handle like a 540i or something. putting the 430 wheels does help ever so slightly but it's really a pretty negligible difference. new shocks will probably help a little but there's also various bushings which go bad over time (just happens to the rubber) known to cause certain handling side effects. the oem struts are made by KYB so buying the strut directly from them will save you some $$ rather than buying a "lexus" strut while maintaining a stock feel.

the strut rods in the front are also known to be among the first to go which is this guy 48660-50041

also the rear carrier bushing can go bad and cause kind of a rear shimmy under acceleration which is 48780-50021

i could go on and say control arms and tie rod ends but no matter what it'll never be stiff... also if your key light blinks but nothing happens maybe something else is the problem

 

I started commuting to work and it just wasn't economical for me to drive a cammed, 4400 stall, roll bar Camaro around. It is loud as hell and I just can't deal with it. I had an old lifted truck that I DD'd so between the crappy has mileage and the constant repair of my truck I knew I needed something comfortable and reliable. I did some searches on the Internet for reliable sedans and a jalopnik article brought me to the LS400. I did some research and I ended up finding the one I bought for a steal and it had all maintenance documents. The previous owner detailed cars and this thing is immaculate. I never looked back haha.

The parking garage is the Arizona Center. Thank you for directing me to the Facebook page!!!

I ended up getting getting one key to work with the battery. The other key works for the panic and lock, but the unlock feature and open trunk don't work. I think that ones needs to be replaced.

I bet some of the bushings need to be replaced. Thank you for the numbers of those parts. If/when I do coilovers, I will work on replacing them.


Will these wheels fit with this offset? I was going to purchase these.

http://www.oewheelsllc.com/Wheels_3/...-Lexus/LS430_2

 

that's what i have at the moment, even with the 1" drop and spacers they fit just fine. i'd just get some lexus center caps to make it even more discrete lol... but the 245/45-18 is the same overall diameter as a 225/60-16 so it fits perfectly and the speedometer is unchanged

 

Your car looks perfect to me. I'm more of a factory look kind of guy and that looks great. Can you tell me what center caps you got, what color lugs, and where you bought the 1" spacers from?

Just bought those wheels from OEM Wheels!

 

aww thanks... i actually found my wheels on ebay, they were the ONLY set of legit, non replica wheels i could find anywhere and they came with the center caps. they don't look any different from the replicas but i'm vain and it was important to me that my wheels were embossed with the JWL stamp and that i be able to say "these were the ACTUAL wheels that were once on an LS 430" lol so i quickly bought them before someone else did

the spacers are H&R TRAK+ bought on amazon, and i kept the factory lug nuts. if you're into petty aesthetics like me, you might also have to end up lowering it an inch with H&R or tanabe springs because the stock ride height doesn't really "work" with the bigger 18s (to me at least) but other than that there's no reason