marantzer

Hi Guys,

I'm fairly new to Lexus and very new to this forum. My father recently purchased a 1993 Lexus LS400 with 70,000 miles on it. The car was owned by an older couple who took great care of it, however, it fell into relative dissuse when one of the previous owners passed away. It was driven, just not a whole lot as you can tell by the miles. I find the Lexus to be very slow at any engine speed below ~4,000 rpm. I realize that this car has some significant weight to pull around and it's not made to run the quarter mile in 12 seconds. However my 2001 740i is even more hefty than the Lexus and can run circles around it. I realize the Bimmer is more geared toward performance, but the Lexus is almost scary slow, almost to the point that if you had to get around someone, you couldn't. The performance of the Lexus is definately better above 80 mph than 10 mph. Also, under heavy acceleration, the Lexus has a vibration. This vibration feels almost like a flat spot on a tire. This vibration ends once the strain is taken off the engine. I wondered if anyone here may be able to comment or diagnose these issues. Thanks in advance!

Ciao,
Will

BLexACK LS

I wish i had some answers but i am just trying to get the post back to the top. All i can say is take it to a mechanic

USLEX

I would suggest bringing it to a Lexus dealership and talking to the service dept. Tell them your story and tell them you want and estimate of what needs to be done. Most likely they won't charge you tor it since they hope to get the service money on repairs.

Jayson

Do you know if the vehicle's front end has ever been in a wreck?

marantzer

We took the vehicle into Lexus dealership and the only thing they could find that it needed was the replacement of some bushings. They said lag was due to early drive-by-wire systems and made no explanation for the apparent lack of power. To my knowledge, the vehicle has never been in a wreck, car fax is clean on this vehicle. This was several months ago and I wanted to tap the knowledge on this board. I'm not very familiar with Lexus service and with my BMW the message boards are usually much more aware of common problems and their fixes than the BMW service. Thanks for the replies guys.

Ciao,
Will

{-.-}

Marantzer welcome to CL,

It does not sound like the Lexus dealer you took it to did much....... take it to another mechanic. Your car is not suppose to be that slow.

I dont know what it could be but it does needs to be looked at again. My mechanice for my car is not a Lexus dealer I have some old guy that works on drift / high performance cars and has been doing it for 25 yrs.

If there is another Lexus dealer in your area take it there.

theomms

I am assuming that all the fluids were checked and changed. The vibration could be from a loose engine mount, but it seems that the lexus dealer would have checked that. What was funny was that when i first got my LS i thought it was slow too. What i figured out was that i was acctually driving faster it was just that the ride was so smooth compared to other cars that i have had that it just felt like i was going slower. i dought that you are expiriencing this since you are already used to the luxury ride of the 740. The 740 and all bmw's have a totally different pedal feel than Lexus. the only way to describe it is that the BMW feel way more torq-ee. The lexus has a much different feel; smooth and almost detached from the acceleration.
...but all of that is only my opinion of the cars. sorry i can not be of more help

Theo

tn52

1. Acceleration: low mileage is good but there are problems associated with cars that have been stored improperly or disused for a long time. Most of the problems are related to moisture/water condensation and lubrication inside various automobile systems. As an example, someone reasoned that running the AC is bad for gas mileage so he/she decided not to use it during the year/s... then complained about it in a hot day because something has frozen up. I once did not drive my LS for a little over two months and really got couple weird things happened. I don't recall for sure but 0-60 should be around 8.6s & 1/4 mile around 16.6 something. It's not as fast as your BMW but pretty good/decent back in 1993. Try to use a couple cans of moisture/water fuel treatment then follow it up with injector cleaner to see if they help. If not, then do a tune up with new plugs & rotors - you probably got rusty parts somewhere.

2. Vibration: you will need to do some detective work here. Find out if it is from the engine (car not moving) of from the tire/wheel and/or drivetrain (car moving - transmission, driveshaft, etc) - also is the vibration from the steering wheel or from the seat...Good luck and cheers.

retrodrive

The acceleration slowness is probably due to the self learning transmission. Disconnect the battery for 15 minutes and drive the car hard after connecting it back. This way the tranny will learn to be the new driving style. There are too many things about the shaking that could be wrong. I would look into all the bushings in the suspension, tire balancing and lastly the engine/tranny mounts. Good luck.