Hi, I have a 2013 LS460 with standard/short wheelbase. 92k miles.

I recently got the idea in my head that it would be a good idea to try and get my car’s interior and exterior back to the condition it was in when new, as far as it’s solid/quiet feel and sound. Basically I wanted to tighten everything down, get rid of as many noises squeaks creaks rattles that I possibly could because I am very OCD and low level autistic so those sorts of sounds, even very faint ones, drive me mad (insert “just turn up the radio” joke here). Actually, just knowing that my car is making noises that it shouldn’t be making, ones that in all likelihood I can locate and silence with some time and ingenuity, is enough of a reason to address them. I just can’t stand knowing that something is not quite right in the way that it’s been assembled, or that something is functioning at a sub optimal level that I could probably improve with a little bit of time and luck. Im guessing from reading hundreds of thousands of threads on this site that some of you can relate to the feeling of not being able to walk away from a project knowing that something (however minor) is not quite right, out of place, etc.

I’ve removed far more than I intended to originally, and have run into some problems that may or may not relate to anything I’ve done, but need addressing regardless. So far I have:
-Added sound deadening material inside the front passenger side fender and inside the front passenger side door and rear driver side door.
-removed some of the trim in front interior
-removed portion of center console where shift **** is
-removed cup holders and radio unit
-removed front air vents and the two ambient lighting strips in dash
-removed glove box
-removed trim running along the foot of passenger side door frames (the plastic material that has the word Lexus written on it, it may or may not light up on your car, it did on my prior GS but doesnt on this car).
- I also removed the lower trim piece in the passenger side B pillar where the rear door AC vent is housed. I did that because of very very low airflow from that vent, which my daughter has complained about for a while given that we live in the desert and that’s where she sits.

im not too worried about how to put it back together as I have already taken it apart and put it back together a couple of times now to make it operable when needed. Instead, the issue is some never before seen/heard items since I last put it back together.

Issue No. 1: Weird Smell inside car. After I reassembled all but the glove box my daughter and I got in the car so I could take her somewhere and as soon as I started the car she complained of a weird foul smell, she couldn’t describe it any better than that and I didn’t smell it myself because my nose is not good, so I just chalked it up to a gust of wind that smelled funny and sort of forgot about it and drove her where she needed to go.

Issue No 2: sound of water moving around behind dash primarily on passenger side. After driving for about 15 minutes I heard what sounded like water whooshing around on the passenger side near dash/maybe front passenger door. I’ve heard one person on here describe it as the sound a rain stick makes if that helps. Whether it was happening during the first 15 minutes I was driving I couldn’t say. I had the radio on then and didn’t when I first heard it. It seems to be most pronounced when turning at slow speed, coming to a stop , basically anything that would cause a shift in the thing that’s making noise. Mind you, I had the glove box removed at the time so the sound was likely more pronounced than it probably would’ve been had the glow box been in place. Regardless, I highly doubt it’s a sound that has been going on without me noticing it because the glove box was blocking noise. My nose isn’t good but my ears are. Definitely never heard the sound before in this car or any other car I’ve previously owned (and that includes another LS 460 and a GS 350).

Issue No. 3: weird behavior of AC fan control button. After noticing the noise I noticed odd behavior on the AC fan controls in front of car near Radio. When I pushed the fan up button near CD player in center controls, the car will display a resulting increase in the fan speed like it should only to immediately drop back down to the speed that it was out prior to me pushing the button. It did this numerous times, which really caught me off guard because I’ve never seen anything like that before with my car.

Some things I have looked at after reading up on these kind of issues.

Checked coolant level in white plastic reservoir under the hood on front passenger side. it was roughly 12 ounces low I’d say. Near the low line so I added enough to bring it right at or just below the max line. To be honest, I havent really checked the coolant level in a while as the needle on temp gauge never departs from its position just below the midway point. So I assumed that the coolant level was fine. Put simply, I don’t know whether the cool it’s been low for a long time or if it just became 12 ounces low in short order relating to something I did in regards to all of this.

I checked under the carpeting and padding on the front passenger side floor and the rear passenger side floor to see if it was wet. Did the same thing for the inside of front passenger door. No moisture that I could see or feel.

i recently removed the 2 long skinny rails that run along the outside of the car beginning where the hood windshield and side mirror border each other and ending where the trunk lid rear window and rear fender collide. Sorry I don’t know the name of this part but it’s held in by clips and it’s about 10 feet long or so and about an inch wide and deep. I mentioned that’s only because I’ve seen posts talking about water leaking from the sunroof or from somewhere near those drip lines making its way into the car.

Checked behind where the glove box normally is to see if any electrical components had been disconnected, pinched or damaged. And looked at the servos to the left of the blower motor/cabin filter. None of those look out of place or damaged, for what it’s worth.

I also remove all of the lining and spare tire and trim from inside the trunk so that I can put sound deadening material in there. I mention this because I have seen some stuff online (can’t remember if it was on this site or not) talking about clogged drain lines inside the trunk, somewhere along/near the left and right sides (so near the parking brake equipment found on the far left (driver side) and the Mark Levinson amplifier found on the far right (passenger side). I don’t see anything out out of the ordinary in the trunk.

lastly, I know that there’s a drain line in the front passenger wheel well. It is a black rubber tube about a half inch outer diameter that is mostly concealed but pops out of a small hole on vehicle located to the rear of that wheel. I suspect that the AC condensation drip line.

Any ideas on what I’m looking at here? So far things I’ve read about being possible causes are:

Air trapped in the cooling system
Blown head gasket
Clogged AC drip line
Some other clogged line
Damage to one of the servos
?

Please don’t tell me to just go to the dealer as if I’m unaware that car dealers have service departments and mechanics that do this sort of work. Not helpful.

Appreciate any and all insights other than that, thanks.

 

That smell could be coming from the sound deadening material that you used. I had this scenario on my last Toyota Avalon. I did complete soundproofing in that car and it smelled weirdly for some time. If you hearing water behind the dash it could be that as well. Check that drain line from the evaporator box. Park your car on the driveway and run it with the AC at full blast for 10 minutes or so and see if you have any water on the ground. It supposed to be dripping out somewhere around front passenger's feet area. If not, you probably got it pinched or maybe it got clogged.

 

Thanks, I hadn’t even thought about the soundproofing material being the cause of the smell. My daughter seems to only smell it at times though, which would indicate that it might be something else since the soundproofing material is a constant. So the black rubber hose that visibly comes out of the front passenger wheel well is the AC drain line? That’s what I figured but wasn’t sure as I couldn’t trace the other end of it to where I expected it would be (in the area behind the glove box near where the cabin filter is).

even if I find and clear a clog in that line, wouldn’t that still leave open the possibility that air is trapped in cooling system? The reason I say this is (1) because I thought the swooshing noise behind the dash was typically associated with air in the system, not a clogged/pinched Ac drip hose, and (2) I did have to add more than a splash of coolant yesterday, which would indicate that it’s either burning or leaking coolant, right? How would air get into my system absent a leak? And if I was able to purge/burp any air from that closed system, wouldn’t I still have to address the more worrisome issue of exactly how did air get in there (ie where the leak is located)?

 

If you had to add coolant and you don't see any obvious leak on the ground you might just became a member of the "Valley plate leak" club. Basically, these engines are known to develop slow coolant leak from under the heat exchanger in the valley of the block. This leak is nearly impossible to see from the outside until it gets real bad. Here is one of many threads about it https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-...ce-manual.html . When cooling system operates as intended hot coolant expands into the reservoir and when it cools down it will pull some coolant back into the system from the reservoir. If you in fact loosing coolant and coolant level in the reservoir is below normal, then every time engine cools down it will suck air into the system. Bleeding air out of the cooling system in LS460 takes time and if you got some air in there then it is possible that this is exactly what you hear in your heater core behind the dash. So, you might have two unrelated issues. Clogged up drain in the AC and some mold with bad smell as the result and coolant leak, which would explain air in the system and that sound of running water (coolant) from behind the dash.

 

thanks the explanation. I’ve heard about valley plate leaks on these before, not only on this forum but in a few different videos from the car care nut on YouTube. I’m a little confused as to the timing of all this though. Is it likely or even possible that pulling trim pieces, radio, glove box (all things inside the car) would have somehow caused a leak in the valley plate (assuming that’s what I have)? Other than checking the coolant level and adding some, I haven’t touched anything under the hood and as best I can tell if there is a leak in the valley its brand new (at least I’ve never had any of these symptoms before so I assume that any leaking into the valley just so happened to start at the very same time that I was taking things apart inside the car (and nothing even close to the firewall much less near the block). I hope that made sense.

anyway, I drove the car a bit yesterday after adding the coolant and a couple observations. Very little if any swooshing sound or smell, but I noticed the heater wohdlnt blow hot air (even set at max temp and ensuring that AC button was turned off). It blew cold air regardless of whether I turned the temp all the way up or all the way down. That’s never happened before. But the engine temp stayed right where it always does just a hair or two below the midway point on the temp gauge next to speedometer. when I drove it today however the heater blew hot air just fine(and the AC blew cold air just fine, and the temperature gauge stayed right where it always does). Finally, last night I parked the car in the driveway and blasted the AC for 15to 20 minutes and then looked for any drainage from the small hose that is inside the front passenger fender liner (if you’re standing facing that fender did drain line is located at about 9 or 10 o’clock position, but its only visible when the lining inside that front passenger wheel wheel has been removed). I live in the desert so while it was over 100 degrees when i checked to see if any condensation was dripping out of that line, the humidity level was below 10%. So I wouldn’t expect it to dump a tremendous amount of condensation, but still should have been some and I didn’t see a single drop. And dripping from that area after running the AC in the summer is definitely something it has historically done without issue. So it would appear that my car is suddenly/recently no longer dripping water where it’s supposed to AND possibly now dripping coolant when/where it’s not supposed to. I looked at the dipstick to see if the oil looked cloudy but it looked perfect. I recently changed the oil and filter (Mobil 1 for both) and the oil on the dipstick still looks just as clean and clear amber colored as it did when I poured it in a couple weeks ago. Wouldnt that weigh against coolant making its way into engine and burning up? Another point in favor of the hypothesis that it’s leaking coolant, not burning it. Yet all this simply because I moved around some interior panels, radio, glove box? Hard to make sense of it.

Should I try to burp air out of the system or is that more likely than not to be a Band-Aid solution at this point, based on the symptoms and chronology I described? Any other tips or advice would be much appreciated. This forum is the best!

 

Dumping coolant into the cylinders is possible, but that scenario usually is a result of severe overheating, when block warps out of shape and head gasket fails. When it happens you would have some abnormal starts in the morning with white smoke from the exhaust, possible misfires and gasses venting from the coolant reservoir. So probably this is not what you have. As for the valley plate leak, it is mostly age related and would not have anything to do with anything you do with your car in general. It is rather slow leak and unless you checking your coolant level in the reservoir regularly, it is possible to let it drop to the point when it would suck air into the system when engine cools down. Then you let your car sit overnight or for a few days and here you go, air in the heater core and such. Then you add coolant, drive it for some time, let it purge itself and it is back to normal. So most likely just a coincidence. Your AC that is not dipping water from the drain is completely different and unrelated issue. Clogged water drain will result in condensation accumulating in the evaporator box, with mold and that bad smell in the cabin as the result. That drain is easily cleanable and maybe you should consider proper cleaning procedure for the AC evaporator box. I know there are many DIY kits available but I just do it as a once a year regular service when my car is at the dealer for the oil change.

 

First off thanks again! Based on what you say above, are you saying that it’s still entirely possible that air could purge (or be made to purge) from the system and go back to normal? Normal as in, no blown head gasket and thus no costly repair to plan on having done right away. I was under impression that if there’s air in closed system then Im in for a very expensive trip to my indie Lexus mechanic. I’m really hoping that I can bleed whatever air is in the cooling system, top off the coolant, and count my lucky stars that I don’t have a blown head gasket or other costly repair re to this issue.

Is that still a reasonable possibility or am I deluding myself?

 

Few years ago I had my coolant replaced and some time later I've noticed coolant level in the reservoir was low. I added some coolant and few weeks later it was low again. I added coolant again and then little more and eventually it stabilized. When my car was at the dealer for regular service I asked them to inspect it for the possible valley plate leak and they found no leaks. Eventually I figured that the coolant level was dropping because of some air got trapped in the system when coolant was replaced. My point is that it took long time, but eventually all air got purged out on its own and there was no consequences of any kind and I'm driving this car every day ever since. In your case you still have to figure where that coolant is going, so you might have to visit your mechanic, just to get cooling system pressure tested and such. So, yes, there is a chance that you will get away without major repairs, but you might have to spend some money on a thorough inspection on that cooling system.