TO DO list when you buy a used LS:
04-13-14, 02:58 PM
#1
Advanced
Thread Starter
TO DO list when you buy a used LS:
Hey guys, over time and with everyone's help here I learned a few tricks that I wish I knew about when I first bought my used LS400. I will post them here for any new owners, and we seem to have a few around these days.
Basically, as soon as you get your used LS, go over this list and do it all, right away. Don't wait for any symptoms first, just do these first. They will eliminated many potential problems and almost certainly wave you money and frustration later. Some of these are common sense and common to all cars, but most will be LS specific. I hope others will join in too.
Let's make this a list of "easy to do, but not to be ignored, even if you have no problems" list.
0. PULL ALL YOUR CODES FIRST! You can disconnect the negative battery terminal for about a minute, then drive normally, reaching highway speeds at least four to five times, and then pull codes. On 1st gen, you just need a paper clip and there is a how-to on lexls.com website or anyone here can point you how to do it. On 2nd gen, I would get an OBD2 scanner. Codes are usually a very good indicators of what may be wrong with your car. On first gen, frequent ones have to do with transmission solenoids which do go bad and cost a pretty penny, but at least are not hard to replace. Those also affect O/D so you get a code for that, when nothing is wrong with O/D.
1. Change your oil (costco has awesome deals on Mobil 1, at $27 for 6x1 L bottles at least twice a year if not three to four times), the last owner probably put in the cheapest oil knowing they were selling the car. Change the filter while at it too, and to make your life easier next time, buy this little thingy and install it: (thanks LScowboyLS!):
http://www.qwikvalve.com/search.php?mode=search&page=1
The cheapest good filter is this one for our cars (ignore amazon warning "this does not fit your car" - it does):
Obviously, you can also use Toyota filter; there is the replacement one (not terribly expensive) or OEM Denso one that they put in the factory, available from few selected dealers (Carson Toyota in SoCal being one of them at around $15 ea.)
2. Check your coolant color and level. Lexus / Toyota coolant is red in color (slightly pink sometimes). Any other color, especially the green one, has absolutely no place in there - ditch it right away. It is like poison and will destroy your cooling system over time. In my case, my cooling seemed to work well,l but when I changed the coolant I also used Prestone Flush that can stay in the system for a couple of days:
I bought mine at Walmart for $2.75 only. The best two bucks I ever spent because as soon as I flushed my system, then rinsed with distilled water, (twice because it was brown as dirt!) the transmission started running like new! Until then it was lazy and just did not shift right, and I was sure it was the transmission that was going bad - but it was just overheating a little, enough to not run well. Your cooling system cools the transmission too, and the system also has many tiny passages so the fact that everything seems good is no guarantee that everything IS good. On such an old car, it is almost certainly not.
One more thing: There are three places where coolant is flushed, and you don't want to get smart and open only one or two of them, all three need to be opened fully and flushed at the same time.
For coolant use this Toyota OEM red colored long life coolant - it needs to be mixed with distilled water at 50/50 ratio. If you are in hotter climate, a little more water and a little less coolant is OK but not necessary; in colder climates, perhaps a little more coolant and less water (like 60:40). Jjust buy two 1 gal jugs of distilled water in your local pharmacy to mix it with; check exact fill volume of your cooling system, I believe it was almost exactly one gallon but am not sure. Leave the rest for topping up later. This stuff is cheaper than pre-mixed toyota pink coolant:
3. Get a new PCV valve and grommet that goes with it, like these:
and
Carefuly with replacing them. It is an easy job, but grommet could easily be hardened by now and almost impossible to pull out. It may just break into million pieces and fall into the engine. Luckily, Toyota engineers thought about that, and there is a little plate below to catch those pieces, but it was no fun fishing them out... Don't forget to put some oil on the grommet when putting in the new one, otherwise you will be cussing a lot , I know I did
4. Check your transmission fluid level, and try to smell it. It should be pink, and not smelling burnt. If you need to replace it, and you very likely do, use original Toyota ATF and nothing else. I used redline, and its running perfect, but in hidnsight, it was neither cheaper nor better...
5. Remove all the plastic intake parts (all 10mm bolts, so a little electric wrench will make that a breeze), and check your air filter. Our cars breath a lot of air, and mine is already dirty and I just changed it a few months ago! Obviously, if not too bad, just clean it with vacuum cleaner or compressed air...
I used AC delco on my car, because I could not find a denso then, but now I find this, and it is even cheaper than AC delco:
a
I researched those filters a lot and it least AC delco looks identical to OEM filter in every respect. I would never go with those washable filters like K&N because they get clogged up faster and they do not filter as well as old style felt filters like OEM one. This can be verified by some good research I found on the net.
6. Clean your IACV valve. It is not too hard, but it is absolutely essential for good running engine. Look up my post from today what kind of weird rtoubles it was giving me!
7. Clean your throttle body, it is hard to get to, but absolutely essential also. I have a write up on changing valve cover gaskets, and I also gave some tips there too about cleaning the throttle body.
8. DO NOT clean your MAF sensor! You will ruin it. Just leave it well alone and don't even look at it too hard, it is that sensitive.
9. If you hood struts are bad, there are good options on amazon and ebay, for about $45 for a pair. Takes all of 15 minutes to replace them. Mine have been replaced more than a year ago, and they are holding as good as new.
10. Replace wipers if needed, don't touch Goodyear they suck, just go for Bosch.
11. If your remote is not working, on 1st gen there is a switch near your left knee that turns it off. Yes, they put it in the worst possible place. I switched mine off at least 10 times in the past year, thinking "Ok, my remote system is finally gone" when it was all fine, just turned off.
12. Should you attempt to open your car through the open window, or sometimes if you are really fast from unlocking the car to putting in the key, you may trigger the anti-theft system. The car goes bonkers, your neighbors are wondering why you are stealing your own car, and so on... the way to reset it is to put the key in the lock, and lock and unlock the car SLOWLY a few times. It needs to know that you have the original key and that's how you are locking and unlocking. Doing anything else will NOT work.
13. The annoying buzzer/beeper when you are exiting the car may be your sunroof not closed well. It does not do that for other things, only for the sunroof. Pretty smart methinks, only frustrating if you don't know what it is.
14. The annoying rattle from front or rear suspension may be just a half open window, especially on gen1. either open it all the way or close it all the way, and see for yourself.
15. The window washing fluid tank does not hold all that much fluid, so be ready for that one. I personally prefer to put in a few drops of dish-washing detergent than the crap sold at pumps which does nothing. It leaves my windshield squeaky clean especially in rain due to change in surface tension...
16. One more thing to check would be coolant temperature sensor (on passanger side, kind a little hidden there on the front of the engine, just don't confuse it with another similar looking sensor which is right next to it);
All of the above is probably around $200 if that (except for transmission solenoids), but it will make your life so much easier. Good luck!
EDIT: one or two more things: check and clean your EGR valve and filter. There is a decent write-up on lexls.com about that too. My EGR valve was gonners, and it gave me a code for EGR system and engine light was on. I thought it was OK since I cleaned it already, but I actually needed a new one, these things do go bad. The engine light will stay off if you reset the codes and drive below 40 or 50mph, but as soon as you reach highway speeds a few times in a row, it will come up again and stay on.
And one more thing: If it ever happens that ALL your dash lights (check engine, coolant level, brake light, oil light etc) come on like a Christmas tree, it is not gremlins time. It is your alternator going bad. You have a day or two to replace it or watch your car leave you stranded. Alternators don't go bad easily, unless they are full of power steering fluid, and that happens a lot on our cars. Just search this forum for all the stories about that one...
Oh., and in case you've been living under a rock, the infamous ECU caps do go bad, and are almost certainly bad on your car, unless someone already replaced them. "Caps" are capacitors. They have electrolytes in them that go bad over time, which is normal. They also go bad even faster if they are not used, or not exposed to electricity, so if you are buying a car that was just stored for a while, the caps are almost certainly gone. The range of problems that can result from these bad caps in the ECU is incredible. Read the "All my crazy issues solved" thread started by LScowboyLS, there is plenty of info there on how to replace those caps and which parts to order as not all caps are the same - we need special ones for our car. (BTW, user "Yamae" is the guru of Lexus ECUs, so read his posts with reverence). BTW engine ECU is hidden below the glovebox, right above front passengers' feet, behind that panel. The ABS ECU is right next to it, so make sure you are checking the right one.
Basically, as soon as you get your used LS, go over this list and do it all, right away. Don't wait for any symptoms first, just do these first. They will eliminated many potential problems and almost certainly wave you money and frustration later. Some of these are common sense and common to all cars, but most will be LS specific. I hope others will join in too.
Let's make this a list of "easy to do, but not to be ignored, even if you have no problems" list.
0. PULL ALL YOUR CODES FIRST! You can disconnect the negative battery terminal for about a minute, then drive normally, reaching highway speeds at least four to five times, and then pull codes. On 1st gen, you just need a paper clip and there is a how-to on lexls.com website or anyone here can point you how to do it. On 2nd gen, I would get an OBD2 scanner. Codes are usually a very good indicators of what may be wrong with your car. On first gen, frequent ones have to do with transmission solenoids which do go bad and cost a pretty penny, but at least are not hard to replace. Those also affect O/D so you get a code for that, when nothing is wrong with O/D.
1. Change your oil (costco has awesome deals on Mobil 1, at $27 for 6x1 L bottles at least twice a year if not three to four times), the last owner probably put in the cheapest oil knowing they were selling the car. Change the filter while at it too, and to make your life easier next time, buy this little thingy and install it: (thanks LScowboyLS!):
http://www.qwikvalve.com/search.php?mode=search&page=1
The cheapest good filter is this one for our cars (ignore amazon warning "this does not fit your car" - it does):
Obviously, you can also use Toyota filter; there is the replacement one (not terribly expensive) or OEM Denso one that they put in the factory, available from few selected dealers (Carson Toyota in SoCal being one of them at around $15 ea.)
2. Check your coolant color and level. Lexus / Toyota coolant is red in color (slightly pink sometimes). Any other color, especially the green one, has absolutely no place in there - ditch it right away. It is like poison and will destroy your cooling system over time. In my case, my cooling seemed to work well,l but when I changed the coolant I also used Prestone Flush that can stay in the system for a couple of days:
I bought mine at Walmart for $2.75 only. The best two bucks I ever spent because as soon as I flushed my system, then rinsed with distilled water, (twice because it was brown as dirt!) the transmission started running like new! Until then it was lazy and just did not shift right, and I was sure it was the transmission that was going bad - but it was just overheating a little, enough to not run well. Your cooling system cools the transmission too, and the system also has many tiny passages so the fact that everything seems good is no guarantee that everything IS good. On such an old car, it is almost certainly not.
One more thing: There are three places where coolant is flushed, and you don't want to get smart and open only one or two of them, all three need to be opened fully and flushed at the same time.
For coolant use this Toyota OEM red colored long life coolant - it needs to be mixed with distilled water at 50/50 ratio. If you are in hotter climate, a little more water and a little less coolant is OK but not necessary; in colder climates, perhaps a little more coolant and less water (like 60:40). Jjust buy two 1 gal jugs of distilled water in your local pharmacy to mix it with; check exact fill volume of your cooling system, I believe it was almost exactly one gallon but am not sure. Leave the rest for topping up later. This stuff is cheaper than pre-mixed toyota pink coolant:
3. Get a new PCV valve and grommet that goes with it, like these:
and
Carefuly with replacing them. It is an easy job, but grommet could easily be hardened by now and almost impossible to pull out. It may just break into million pieces and fall into the engine. Luckily, Toyota engineers thought about that, and there is a little plate below to catch those pieces, but it was no fun fishing them out... Don't forget to put some oil on the grommet when putting in the new one, otherwise you will be cussing a lot , I know I did
4. Check your transmission fluid level, and try to smell it. It should be pink, and not smelling burnt. If you need to replace it, and you very likely do, use original Toyota ATF and nothing else. I used redline, and its running perfect, but in hidnsight, it was neither cheaper nor better...
5. Remove all the plastic intake parts (all 10mm bolts, so a little electric wrench will make that a breeze), and check your air filter. Our cars breath a lot of air, and mine is already dirty and I just changed it a few months ago! Obviously, if not too bad, just clean it with vacuum cleaner or compressed air...
I used AC delco on my car, because I could not find a denso then, but now I find this, and it is even cheaper than AC delco:
a
I researched those filters a lot and it least AC delco looks identical to OEM filter in every respect. I would never go with those washable filters like K&N because they get clogged up faster and they do not filter as well as old style felt filters like OEM one. This can be verified by some good research I found on the net.
6. Clean your IACV valve. It is not too hard, but it is absolutely essential for good running engine. Look up my post from today what kind of weird rtoubles it was giving me!
7. Clean your throttle body, it is hard to get to, but absolutely essential also. I have a write up on changing valve cover gaskets, and I also gave some tips there too about cleaning the throttle body.
8. DO NOT clean your MAF sensor! You will ruin it. Just leave it well alone and don't even look at it too hard, it is that sensitive.
9. If you hood struts are bad, there are good options on amazon and ebay, for about $45 for a pair. Takes all of 15 minutes to replace them. Mine have been replaced more than a year ago, and they are holding as good as new.
10. Replace wipers if needed, don't touch Goodyear they suck, just go for Bosch.
11. If your remote is not working, on 1st gen there is a switch near your left knee that turns it off. Yes, they put it in the worst possible place. I switched mine off at least 10 times in the past year, thinking "Ok, my remote system is finally gone" when it was all fine, just turned off.
12. Should you attempt to open your car through the open window, or sometimes if you are really fast from unlocking the car to putting in the key, you may trigger the anti-theft system. The car goes bonkers, your neighbors are wondering why you are stealing your own car, and so on... the way to reset it is to put the key in the lock, and lock and unlock the car SLOWLY a few times. It needs to know that you have the original key and that's how you are locking and unlocking. Doing anything else will NOT work.
13. The annoying buzzer/beeper when you are exiting the car may be your sunroof not closed well. It does not do that for other things, only for the sunroof. Pretty smart methinks, only frustrating if you don't know what it is.
14. The annoying rattle from front or rear suspension may be just a half open window, especially on gen1. either open it all the way or close it all the way, and see for yourself.
15. The window washing fluid tank does not hold all that much fluid, so be ready for that one. I personally prefer to put in a few drops of dish-washing detergent than the crap sold at pumps which does nothing. It leaves my windshield squeaky clean especially in rain due to change in surface tension...
16. One more thing to check would be coolant temperature sensor (on passanger side, kind a little hidden there on the front of the engine, just don't confuse it with another similar looking sensor which is right next to it);
All of the above is probably around $200 if that (except for transmission solenoids), but it will make your life so much easier. Good luck!
EDIT: one or two more things: check and clean your EGR valve and filter. There is a decent write-up on lexls.com about that too. My EGR valve was gonners, and it gave me a code for EGR system and engine light was on. I thought it was OK since I cleaned it already, but I actually needed a new one, these things do go bad. The engine light will stay off if you reset the codes and drive below 40 or 50mph, but as soon as you reach highway speeds a few times in a row, it will come up again and stay on.
And one more thing: If it ever happens that ALL your dash lights (check engine, coolant level, brake light, oil light etc) come on like a Christmas tree, it is not gremlins time. It is your alternator going bad. You have a day or two to replace it or watch your car leave you stranded. Alternators don't go bad easily, unless they are full of power steering fluid, and that happens a lot on our cars. Just search this forum for all the stories about that one...
Oh., and in case you've been living under a rock, the infamous ECU caps do go bad, and are almost certainly bad on your car, unless someone already replaced them. "Caps" are capacitors. They have electrolytes in them that go bad over time, which is normal. They also go bad even faster if they are not used, or not exposed to electricity, so if you are buying a car that was just stored for a while, the caps are almost certainly gone. The range of problems that can result from these bad caps in the ECU is incredible. Read the "All my crazy issues solved" thread started by LScowboyLS, there is plenty of info there on how to replace those caps and which parts to order as not all caps are the same - we need special ones for our car. (BTW, user "Yamae" is the guru of Lexus ECUs, so read his posts with reverence). BTW engine ECU is hidden below the glovebox, right above front passengers' feet, behind that panel. The ABS ECU is right next to it, so make sure you are checking the right one.
Last edited by peterls; 05-08-14 at 11:55 AM.
04-13-14, 07:30 PM
#3
Lexus Test Driver
What about buying a new Ls400? Lol no in all seriousness excellent thread. There's stuff in there that I've never even thought about and I've bought 3 of them.
04-14-14, 03:41 AM
#5
Lexus Test Driver
Haha I forgot about the annoying sunroof buzzer! My ucf20 dosent have one. Pretty sure that's something only associated with the 1st gen. My 90 and 91 had it. My 95 dosent have it unless it's just not working.
04-14-14, 09:22 AM
#6
Advanced
Thread Starter
That thing used to drive me bonkers because I thought it was my doors that were open, yet they were all closed! Then I finally read the manual (duhhh) and learned what it meant. Now, I am actually grateful that I have it, because it is really easy to forget it, or just not close it well and then you have rain in your car and you may as well toss it away because it is as good as a flooded vehicle after that.
Trending Topics
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
