Hello everyone I bought a 2005 LS430 a month ago and it's been good so far, fixed minor issues like 4 EVAP codes caused by the hose that came off the VSV, low tire light that I fixed by initialization. Now I still have a couple of issues that I need some suggestions for.
1) Right LED tail light is acting up... since I bought the car, the bottom LED part did not work at all whether the light was on or when I pushed the brake, the little top part worked but flickered and dimmed at times. Today, for the first time, I saw the bottom part worked nice and bright! But the top part seems to be flickering not and not working well, the trunk mounted part works well. So I assume there is some connector issues, I took it out before and it looks nice and clean, would electric contact cleaner help, has anyone dealt with this on your old LS's?
2) The smart driver side door handle doesn't unlock the door or lock it when I put hand on it, with the smart key in pocket, all others work fine, and the vanity lights on bottom of mirror light up when I walk to it so I know it senses the key. The door unlocks when I push unlock from the remote of from inside, just the driver handle doesn't sense my hand and I have to reach in my pocket and push unlock which is annoying lol
Ps here is a short video of the top tail light part flickering slightly but not turning on much, I have seen it work brightly too a few days back so its some electrical problem:

 

The taillight is defective. Chances are the trunk leaked at some point and water got in there.
I believe that someone on here took theirs apart but I can't remember if they managed to fix it, or just replaced the unit.
Definitely easier to replace it with a good part from a recycler or eBay.
Make certain it is an 04-06 model as the 00-03 ones are different.

For the door handle, have you cleaned the inside of the handle?
I believe it is a contact sensor so build up of dirt of wax can prevent it from detecting your touch.
Clean the inside of the handle with some plastic/paint safe contact cleaner and see if that fixes it.

 

I don' think the electric contact cleaner helps. Things are a bit more complicated.
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-...03-lights.html

 

Just an update guys! Later last night when I went back and turned the lights on, they all worked! Now I never saw the whole bottom right one light up since I bought the car until yesterday so definitely a pleasant surprise considering it works, If I connect the dots now, when I bought the car 12/27, it was raining HARD in SoCal and I drove the car on streets flooded with water up to the sidewalks covered on the right side and splashed like mad even when driving at 25 mph, so I assume it got into the tailight assembly somehow and caused some issues, and finally now, it must have dried out a bit and things are starting to work, even though I didn't see any water when took the assembly out a few days back... Hope they keep working... Here are a couple of images of them all working, and from before when the bottom one didn't work.

 

I think that your problem is intermittent caused by the board problem in the unit. The problem is either some soldering cracks or components failures. The major component failure is the failing LED chip itself but sometimes the current limiting resistor is dead open including the cracked solder joint.

A skilled person might fix the problem but dealers simply replace the unit and give a customer a big bill. I have seen a Celsior owner replaced the unit picking up a working one at a junk yard. But it failed within a couple of years. I'd say it was one of results of poor design issues of the car. Other than this, the soldering crack problem in the ECU unit is another common problem of UCF30/31 manufactured after August 2003.

"RoHS" forced car manufacturers to use the lead free solder and it is one of the reasons why solder joints problems are common after that. But there are countermeasures to avoid the problem. Toyota did study hard to overcome the problem but unfortunately those 2 were not perfect. Many other auto manufacturers are facing more serious problems, I see now. BMW is the worst, I'd say.

You can find more about the soldering crack caused by the lead free solder viewing this.

 

Thanks for the input, I believe there is some electrical issues with these accessories as the car ages, I think they significantly improved it with the 2006-11 GS, as my dad's 2006 GS430 has all LED tail lights working 100% with no issues in all these years. With my LS, again today, the top part of light flickered a bit and stayed on later so IDK, if anything, I found a used tail light locally for like 50 bucks and the guy has no buyers since months so I may just get that one for even less if it works 100%, otherwise, at least my bottom part started working and top works most of the time too so I guess I will leave it on the car for a while until it gives more issues.