Sc430 Battery Drain

[alphacat]

I have heard of that one from the amplifier on MK one models. There is a company (in the UK) that refurbishes them and sells them at a fraction of the cost of a new one. New amplifiers cost in the region of £2000 + fully refurbished and guaranteed £700..

[Neil E]

Well I shall take mine apart and have a look as soon as I can find a few daylight hours. The amp itself works okay when it's connected but it loses its link connection to the head unit so it could be a fault at either end. I do have a spare SC ML head unit as I swapped it for an Alpine double din unit so if it uses the same connections I may hook that up to the RX to confirm it is the amp that has the fault and not the signal/link cable from the HU.

£700 is far too steep if they know where the faults lie. I would be interested to talk to the UK company to find out what they do for that. Hard to believe Lexus could charge £2k for a small amp but I know the SC ML sub costs around £350 from the dealer. It's a pretty poor bass driver. I haven't enquired about the amps. If my SC amp goes the same way I shall invest further in proper components, switch to 4 ohm drivers and ditch the ML kit completely.

I'm sure I will cure it one way or another but the important message in relation to the Battery drain is that because of the fault, the audio amp can remain on when the car has been switched off.

[alphacat]

The ML kit is the best no doubt about it... ditch it if you must but you only get what you pay for...

[Neil E]

Sorry that's wrong, Lexus ML is not nearly as good as you think it is and it is a very long way from being the best. I would concede that the earlier LS models had some good kit in them but standards have slipped. The very latest ML, Harman, JBL combination may prove to be better but I haven't heard it yet.

In our SC430s the audio components carry the ML badge and whilst it is working it produces a very acceptable sound quality for factory fitted audio but it is not robust and it doesn't compare favourably to many components that cost a lot less.

[Connoisseur]

Hi

Well this is said while firmly crossing fingers! but over the winter I haven't been near my factory standard SC for 3 to 4 weeks on a number of occasions and it has always started first time on what is a 4 year old Battery. Just saying to illustrate how a standard Lexus, even when 11 year old, can be absolutely fine on electrics.

I am a ML fan in both my cars. Agree we can always find better aftermarket but the ML in the SC is powerful enough for me with great bass, and after 11 years is staying the course with zero problems (crosses fingers again!)

Cheers

Mike

[alphacat]

I have heard of that problem before. On one post somewhere it mentions listening for the ML amplifier after the ignition is turned off 'humming'. I even tried listening all around my car in the boot etc. to see if it was a similar issue.

[lasse1]

hi guys,

im selling my sc430 a 2003 53reg with 85k done, someone asked me about the fiming belt/cambelt, same thing, he said 80-90k and it should be due now and its almost 1k, sounds little bit steep to me.

i thought lexus was saying it should be done in the 100k service, anyone have any ideas?

cheers

lars

sorry ended up in wrong section