Hi Tach.l I purchased my 01 LS430 9 months ago and was told it had the timing belt replaced at 95,000 miles, but not by Lexus. All services for this car were done by Lexus other than for a few years when it went to an independent shop. I was always curious as to what brand timing belt was used, and just found out it was Gates. Of course I would have preferred the OEM belt but I had no choice since I did not own this car at that time. I've heard nightmares about gatorback timing belts. Should I be overly concerned if it is a Gates belt? What's your opinion? Thanks.

 

Hey Tach,

I own a 2000 GS300 with around 101,000 miles on it. Everything about the car is wonderful except when I'm driving on VERY flat and well paved roads I can hear a slight "thudding" sound coming from the rear of the car. It is not noticeable on roads where the pave job was cheap (living in the northeast, apparently our taxes aren't high enough) but only on roads where it is completely smooth where you could find cars at any ride height.

When I purchased the car in November of 2010 the front two tires were replaced with brand new Goodyears but the two rear tires are old and used. My father and me have brought it down to a few possible issues.

1)Alignment - Which I don't think it is because when I hear the thudding, there is absolutely NO vibration in the steering wheel.
2)Bearing - I guess this could be the issue but there is no noise coming from the tires at any speeds below 40 mph. What would be a big indicator of a bearing issue?
3)The old worn rear tires causing the thudding noise.

Or maybe it is something else?

Just asking for your opinion on what you think it is. If anymore information is needed I will be more than happy to provide it. Thank you so much!

 

The actuator is one of the fixes, another was a special pad grease they put on the shims. That is another fix for it. When picking up the car request a road test with a diagnostic specialist to confirm the noise.

 

Dont worry, Gates is a great brand. Gates corporation actually makes alot of the oem parts for many car makers. They make belts,water pumps, pulleys and tensioners.

 

The noise you are most likely experiencing is flat spots in the tires due to the vehicle sitting too long. I would just replace the rear tires and get a 4 wheel alignment. That will alleviate the noise.

 

Thanks for the quick response Tach. I feel much better. You are an amazing contributor to this site and your feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks again! Isn't that why they pay you the big bucks?

 

Big bucks LOL!!! Im doing this out of the goodness of my heart. Im tired of Lexus Dealers B.Sing their customers and over charging people for repairs. From seeing all this from the inside I decided to take a stand and help out the community by directing Lexus owners in the right direction for their repairs.

 

I am totally aware you do this for gratis. I guess trying to be facetious doesn't go well online! Anyway....keep up the good work and thanks again for your expertise!

 

Thank you so much!

 

Hello all. I am a new GS owner (98). I am about to attempt a swap from obd1 (94 2jzgte usdm) into my 98 GS. I would like to know once Phoenix Tuning finishes my harness,if I will need to address any otner known issues ? I am also swapping the tranny and rear from the 94 Supra that the engine came from. Any thoughts and or help would be appreciated.

 

Nice!!! congrats. If your getting a custom harness made; what computer will you be running ? You will have pretty much a full bolt on affair except for running the intercooler setup which you will have to fab up and the exhaust piping.

The rear will be bolt on as well but you may have to do some minor grinding to make it sit right. Since its going into a GS body you wont have as much issues as the IS guys would with a swap. Good Luck

 

hey tach, thanks for all your help man.

unfortunately I am back in this thread, you wont remember cuz you help out so many, but about a month ago, I told u I was driving spirited, car bogged down... limp mode, all lights came up.
I turned the car off and on and everything went away including lights.



THE NEW SITUATION (a month later)

Riding and stepped on it, here it goes...
@ about 6,000 rpms

1. Bogged down
2. CEL flashing
3. Traction light on
4. Sputtering/cant gas it.
5. Pull over, turn off car.
6. Back on, car is no longer bogged but unlike the first time a month ago, the lights were still present on my dash.


Thursday afternoon...
Hooked up OBD, p0300...
1. Had throttle body/injectors cleaned
2. Reset dash lights

Friday afternoon...
1. Stepped on it again
2. Same chit allll over.... bogged, lights, the whole show....


IDK what to do man, I dont want to spend money on trial and error, dealership says thats the best they can do, go replacing part by part...

thats a lot of money, any suggestions? 43K on the dash...

 

Since thats a random misfire; try replacing out the spark plugs first. Something like this needs to be diagnosed with the lexus scanner. Go through a diagnostic scan ( full system wide scan )

 

Thanks for the response....I will be using the Lexus computer...I was told that it had to stay online especially going from obd1 to obd2...that's what I was told anyway......

 

Hi Tach,
I've got what I think is a failing ECU on a 94 LS400 I bought last week from a car lot.
I test drove it 2 days in a row and the CEL came on during decel or stopped condition but went back off within moments after accelerating again every time so I checked for codes and it reported only an AFM code, which I have a spare of from my 1992 Turbo Supra and decided that was a non-issue since the car seemed totally drivable anyway, so aside from being at a major service interval (timing belt/water pump needed since there's 184k miles on the car and a totally unknown service history) and there was also some overall general maintenance needed and really horribly warped rotors, but the car seemed to idle normal and run smooth and drive properly so I bought it on day 3 and handed it off to a buddy for a timing belt/water pump and overall check-out and some other basic tlc because I'm a long-time 5M/7M/2JZ Supra fan whose never tried a timing belt job on a V motor. before and didn't have time to figure it out.

The LS made the 2.5 hour trip to my buddy's place for servicing and made it back home again a few days later with no real issues to speak of but now occasionally it acts like I've begun switching the key off/on/off/on/off/on rapidly, tach actually falls to zero and it's NOT a problem with the tach it's actually like the engine has been shut down and recovers just as quickly. The CEL comes on when the tach falls and goes back out when the car jumps back to life and back and forth in less than 1/2 second intervals, it's that fast, and eventually it will either jump back to normal or flat out stall if I'm at low speeds and trying to turn, and when I put the jumper it for checking diagnostic codes it just flashes "all good", no codes at all.

That's one of the two nasty gremlins.

The other really nasty gremlin is that it will stumble momentarily, lose all power, go absurdly rich (exhaust makes your eyes water!), light the CEL, pretty much stop managing the tranny at all, and put the car in "limp it home" mode, making it fling gravel and "burn out" in reverse but a bicycle can accelerate faster in Drive and it's undrivable and completely unsafe in that condition...
Oh, and it will NOT acknowledge insertion of the TE1 to E1 jumper into the diagnostic block at all for 10-20 minutes, when it finally does think about recognizing the inserted jumper it randomly decides to flash "all good" or go back to ignoring the jumper, and another 10-15 minutes later it'll mostly just flash "all good" with the occasional stumble of the flashes (both the CEL and O/D Off light stumble together when that happens) PLUS the ECU will NOT reset at all that whole time.

So at this point I've concluded that either I have a major electrical problem (harness/wiring fault) or the ECU is in the process of failing, which explains why the lady got rid of this otherwise really nice overall car that's really clean inside and out with clean/clear carfax and auto-check after the 12 years she had it as owner #2 and why it passed through 5 used car lots in one month, so I discovered when the lot I got it from handed me the title...

Although it did have power steering leaks I'm giving the alternator the benefit of the doubt because the battery warning light is good but not showing any problems and everything electric seems to work as it should including headlights, security, etc, and even with the factory security system armed the battery holds a charge for days and days without the car being driven so it's apparently charging normally as far as I know...

NOTE: When I got the car back home from the timing belt (and other) servicing by my buddy I did replace the AFM sensor module (bolts/screws to the AFM housing) with another identical one (same P/N) off a 7M-GTE powered Supra and reset the ECU and drove about 25 miles of mixed interstate and city stop-n-go and the CEL on decel and Code 31 seem to have been resolved but it was on that test drive as I was satisfied that the problem was fixed and got off the interstate that the on/off/on/off/on issue first appeared for me and the next day was when the car went into "limp it home" mode.

We were originally hoping that the random drivability issues with stumbling/stalling and hesitation and running really rich when the CEL was on were possibly the result of the AFM code that kept appearing on decel as that's about what a 7M-GTE Supra does when the Karman Vortex AFM sensor gets screwed up or goes bad, but the AFM code issue being seemingly resolved after the AFM sensor swap and all the other symptoms still remaining PLUS the ECU not responding to the diag jumper for long periods after it goes into "limp it home" mode makes me believe the ECU is dying.

So my two questions are....

1. Does my conclusion seem feasible and reasonable based on symptoms?
2. Does anyone on this forums repair failed ECU's and/or send advance swap-outs with like a core charge so I can get back to driving this car ASAP?

I bought this LS400 because the car I'm commuting in now is borrowed and the owner wants his car back ASAP so I need this LS400 to be stable and highway worthy asap.
It's totally "serviced" and good to go, but it's not usable with those two problems because I can't afford to be stranded on the interstate along my 50 mile commute in the middle of the night or have it decide not to be drivable when I get an emergency call from work.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!