hi my 2004 sc430 only 45000 miles. I notice that the air conditioning suddenly blows cold on drivers side and warm on passengers side. Anyone know reason what it could be thanks

 

I had a similar situation on my 03.
Kind of sounds like one of your servo motors (a vent motor that opens or closes ) is not working
( mine were dirty and had to be cleaned).
Check all fuses first, then go thru and work all your climate settings such as defrost, lower vents only
etc. and see if they all work. Each settings changes a servo motor vent flap that directs the air.
I believe you have 4 servo motors and they are located under and behind the dash.
Hope that helps.
theazz

 

hi thanks for reply it is not fuse and air comes out of all vents but on air does not come out cold. My mechanic who doesnt do air conditioning said dash board has to be taken off - sounds expensive - any idea on price to fix thanks

 

Is your car under the airbag recall? If so and hadn't been done then you might want to talk to the dealership and see if there were some deal you can work out with them.

 

+1 that's a really good thought!!

 

I tired this same concept to ask Lexus to fix my dash "bubble" where adhesive on the dash has failed while they were to do the airbag recall fix. They said that since they aren't removing the whole dash anymore for the recall and only going through the glove box, they would only offer me 50% on the over $1000 repair to fix a small 2inch bubble. I would be responsible for the other 50% and any additional charges that arose. Good luck.

 

Still sounds like a servo motor isn't operating correctly. If you go to Lexus they could tell you for sure. If it is a servo I removed all of mine without removing the dash. I did have to remove some of the wood grain to get to it but it's very easy to do

 

Can you be more specific on the procedure please?
Also, how many servos are there in the system?
Tks!

 

Sorry had to ask, are the temp settings the same? You have 2 thermostats and 2 temp setting *****.

 

There are 4 servos on the SC430. They are simply a motor driven flap that is controlled by the mode selection on your climate control panel. My sound was apparently from dust collecting on the driver rod. I didn't know which one was bad or if I needed to replace one of them so I decided to remove all of them, clean them as best I could and see if that worked. Luckily for me it worked. However these new sell for about $115.00 each. To begin with from your browser type in
How to fix your Servo Motors SC430. That should take you to a club lexus entry by Odinson. He gives direction and some pictures that helped me. Youtube had some pictures also.
3 of the servos are on the passenger side and 1 is under the drivers side above the gas pedal to the right. Sewell Lexus parts also has some good details of locations.
I've tried to send attachments let me know if your able to see them.

SC430 servo-1.pdf

SC430 servo-2.pdf

SC430 Servo-3.pdf

 

Due to a intermittent noise when the key is first turned to the "On" position each time, I've serviced two of the aforementioned servos: the driver-side and the mode one.

Some observations:

1. The driver-side kick panel has two bolts, one of which is hidden behind a trim piece.
2. The driver-side is quite hard to reach, due to limited working space; however, it may not be necessary to service it. I would recommend doing the passenger side first: only if the symptom persists would I suggest doing the driver side. This is because the passenger-side servos are next to the coolant pipes and the heater core. They're much more likely to degrade than the driver-side.
3. The passenger-side servos can only be accessed after removing the glovebox, which is easy: 2 hex + 2 philips
4. The mode servo is easy to remove.
5. IMPORTANT: insert the connector before reinstalling the mode servo! It's not possible to plug the connector in with it in place.
6. The mode servo would work EVERY time the key is turned to ON, with the AC OFF. So, if you have symptoms with the AC off, as it was my case, it is only this one that needs work.
7. The passenger temp servo is unfortunately blocked by a vent pipe, which is connected to the entire assembly by two screws. One of these two is awkwardly positioned such that it could be easy to lose it when unscrewing. I skipped this part.
8. When reinstalling, the position of the "arm" is not important as long as it's within the range that is valid for this car. As you can imagine, without the unit the linkage moves around easily / freely in some cases.

Driver-side temp servo

Mode servo

 

What tools ? Looks like I need to replace the servo/s in our SC430, I "think" the noise is coming from the passenger side (noise comes on when the ignition is turned on , maybe driver side , not sure yet).....Gonna have to figure out exactly which servos are bad.
What tools do you recommend to make the job a little easier, I know many have said its very tight quarters....
Will these help ?
Can you think of anything else that might make the project go more smoothly ?

Ca

 

Hello! i know this post is old, but i'm facing the same issue, having to replace the driver side servo, and i have no idea how to reach it, i can baraly touch it, no way i can fit a screw driver in there, did you take any pictures in the process?

 

Welcome to the Club and Congrats on your first post!!

Was Post #11 above helpful at all in trying to replace driver side servo and DIY?

Have you tried googling a DIY video showing this?

I hope someone chimes in that can help you

 

Hello! Thank you for your message, yes post 11 was useful but i cant find any images of videos about the process, i see the servo, but honestly i dont know where to start... My option atm is to get the entire dashboard removed