Tomtit

I thought it was worth the cost of getting them from U.S.A. The wheels look much better with these covers. See my post dated 22.11.22 for photos.

Great news. It is good to be leak-free. I had to strip out all the interior of my wife's RX300 to trace and cure the leaks. I know how much work is involved.

George. I have been using trolley jacks for many years and this is the first time something has gone wrong. With the engine undertray hanging down and the car low to the ground it was difficult to see the exact position of the trolley jack pad, so I have to take responsibility. I have a set of hydraulic ramps from CJ Autos and I would not be without them. In this instance I needed to move the wheels whilst I was underneath, hence the use of jack and axle stands.

Thank you to the members who have given their thoughts. I have done some checks and the results are as follows:- 1. I rubbed chalk along the whole length of the 2 year old belt and refitted it. The squealing is still there. 2. The tyre treads are OK. I checked this when putting the front wheels on the back. 3. Fluid replacement - see 6. below. 4. Nothing is rubbing in the wheel arches. 5. There is no play at the roadwheels so I assume that the wheel bearings are OK. 6. The back of the engine undertray was hanging down slightly blocking my vision when I jacked the car up under the front crossmember. The jack pad was probably not central and either the car or the jack moved. The weight of the car went onto the steering rack. I heard a loud crack and found a small pool of fluid on the floor. The result is shown in the attached photo. It is going from bad to worse. I am trying to seal the gap to stop the fluid leaking. I will then take it to have a replacement steering rack fitted. I will keep you posted.

Malc. That is a fair point. My wife has not had the car for long and I have not yet had a proper look underneath. (Too busy fixing water ingress). I will be careful.

Can someone please tell me where to position the trolley jack on a 2003 RX300. I know where to put the axle stands. Are there central jacking points for front and rear? A search of this forum has not given the answer. The Haynes workshop manual does not tell me, and I have not yet found an official Lexus workshop manual for sale. Thank you.

My wife's recently-acquired RX300 began to smell musty inside. Lifting the carpet revealed water in every footwell and in the rear of the car. Having read a number of helpful posts on this forum I decided to strip out the whole interior to find the source of the leak(s). I removed the headlining, the carpet and everything in between. I found that water was entering past the roof rail bolts and at the rear behind the bumper. I then removed the roof rails and rear bumper cover. I bought some Tigerseal seam sealer and ran it under the roof rails where the seams join. I did the same on the vertical sections at the top where the tailgate sits. I put seam sealer behind the bumper cover and inside the car; it is light grey on the attached images. I put silicone sealant under the fixings for the tailgate struts and behind the black plastic parts shown on the image which are behind the bumper cover. Water was also getting in via the nearside rear wheelarch, as shown by the patch of rust on the inside of the car. There was a small area of exposed rusty metal under the wheelarch which I covered with underseal. I also put silicone sealant behind all the rear light units. The car is now watertight and I can look forward to putting everything back together. I hope this post will help others who may be struggling to trace leaks.

Andrew. Thank you for that. The belt is just over 2 years old and is still like new. I have taken it off and refitted the old belt (which did not make any noise). The squealing is still there.

My 2002 LS430 has started making a squealing noise from the front when turning at low speeds. Like the tyre noise when you corner too fast. I can turn the steering from lock to lock whilst stationary with the engine running and there is no noise. My first thought was the power steering fluid, which was brown in colour. I had assumed that the level was correct, but what I thought was the fluid level was actually a dirty mark on the inside of the reservoir. I used a turkey baster to remove as much fluid as possible from the reservoir and replaced it with Dexron III. I bled the system in accordance with the workshop manual but the noise was still there. I have since bled it about 6 times. I took off the auxiliary belt and spun the PS pump pulley and there was no noise. I was able to pull the pulley towards me with about 1mm of free play. There is no sign of a fluid leak. The tyres are OK with sufficient tread. i have even put the front tyres on the back and vice versa but this made no difference. I have used the search facility but I have not come across a post with my problem. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Paul Frost has sold me used LS430 spares in the past. He trades on ebay as lexussparesdirect. He may be able to help. If I had spent money on a LPG conversion I would be reluctant to get rid of the car, particularly as it drives well. You may have to spend £1600+ on it, but you will have to spend much more to get a decent replacement.

I have just checked my invoices. It was bought over 3 years ago. The ebay seller was speaker-repairs, based in Cheshunt, Herts. The kit came with instructions and was straightforward to use.

I bought a repair kit for the subwoofer on the LS430. Bought from ebay and it has been fine for over a year.

I have now obtained a new connector and fixed it in place. A word of advice for anyone looking for a replacement CTS connector. The CTS has ridges along the sides which fit into corresponding grooves in the connector. The grooves are staggered - on my car the one on the left is higher than the one on the right. I could not find a part no. and did a search for the CTS connector. Ebay listed many examples but for almost every one the grooves in the connector were the wrong way around. I did come across one from Brands Hatch Performance which fits perfectly. It is a replacement for Toyota part no. 90980-10736. Have a careful look at the image of the connector before you order it.

It came from a scrapped pallet. When you are working on your own you learn to improvise.

Anthony. I have learned a lot from the forum and I am happy to give something back. I wanted to pass on the benefit of my experience to anyone who fancied tackling this job. A year or two ago I did the same job on the LS430 and I followed the workshop manual to the letter. I put everything back together, started the engine and found that I had a coolant leak. Whilst struggling to line up the inlet manifold with the studs I must have caught a metal coolant pipe behind the manifold and fractured it at the joint. I could not access the pipe with the manifold in situ and I had to do virtually the whole job again to access the broken part and replace it. I have some experience of this job and If anyone needs some tips or advice I would be happy to pass them on.

I have just replaced the vacuum switching valve for ACIS. The engine management light was on and it generated fault code P1651. I had to sort this out before booking it in for the M.O.T. For anyone who fancies tackling this, removing the intake manifold to get to the valve is not a 5 minute job. The workshop manual procedure involves draining the coolant and disconnecting the fuel supply pipe in the engine bay. I managed it without doing these jobs. There is just enough clearance. The first picture shows things held out of the way. The second shows the sensor - the brick red coloured part near the centre of the picture. Lifting the intake manifold in and out is heavy work; ideally you need a helper but I did not have one. I used 2 small straps fed under the manifold and held together at the top. By kneeling on the plank I was able to get myself above the centre of the manifold and use the straps to help lift the manifold up and away. It is tight but it can be done. I did the job over 2 days. The engine management light is now out and the engine runs fine. It is not a job for the faint-hearted.

Perry and Anthony. The bad news is that I have broken the electrical connector for the CTS. It has become brittle with age and heat and it fell to pieces when I was taking out the metal terminals to attach them to the wires. The engine will not run without the coolant temperature sensor correctly wired up. It generated fault code P0115. For now I have taken the terminals out of the plastic connector, soldered the wires to them and pushed them onto the CTS terminals. At least the engine will now run, and I have booked it in for the M.O.T. I will have to get a replacement plastic connector and do a proper repair.

I have now looked at the relevant engine control module. The wires in there are clean and they are actually beige, not brown. I now know which is which. For the benefit of anyone else with the same problem, the beige and black wire goes to terminal 1 of the coolant temperature sensor connector. The beige and green wire goes to terminal 2.

Whilst manoeuvering the intake manifold I accidentally broke the two wires coming out of the coolant temperature sensor. I need to repair it but the problem is knowing which wire goes where. I have a copy of the workshop manual from U.S.A. which shows a brown wire going to terminal 1 and a red and blue one going to terminal 2. On my car I have a brown and green wire and a brown and black wire. I don't want to wire it incorrectly and possibly do more damage. If anyone has a copy of the manual for the British market and could tell me which wire goes to which terminal it would be much appreciated. I cannot start the engine until I have fixed this problem. Thank you for your help.

Col. I am not familiar with these engines. I have looked at the Haynes workshop manual. It says that the 3.5 litre V6 engine has 4 camshaft position sensors which are located on the back side of the VVT-i controllers (which are mounted on the left ends of the intake camshafts). The description of fault code P0340 is "Camshaft position sensor or circuit fault". It could be a faulty sensor or a wiring problem. It would need a mechanic with diagnostic equipment to narrow down the problem to one sensor or wire. Sorry this is not much help, but I have no experience of these engines.

Mark. I agree; it is best to have a permanent repair done. I will have to tackle this job on my wife's newly-acquired RX300. I would be interested to learn what your garage did to cure it.

Malc. I do my own maintenance and repairs as far as possible. ( I have just replaced two front lower suspension arms ). I like to jack up the entire front end at once, rather than jack up each side individually behind the wheel. My existing jack is too high to reach the front crossmember for jacking up.The same applies to my LS430. The new jack will be better for both cars and will save me time. Ronnie. The new jack will live in the garage. I don't intend to carry it around with me, especially as I have runflat tyres. When the runflats have worn and I change to conventional tyres I will carry the Lexus jack in the car. I agree that carrying a trolley jack will affect m.p.g.

My wife bought me a new trolley jack for Christmas. (She paid for it after I had chosen it). After comparing specifications and reviews I went for the Halfords Advanced 2 tonne low profile model. It is low enough to slide under the front of the SC430 and quickly lift it high enough for axle stands. It feels like a quality piece of kit and it glides smoothly and quietly over uneven paving slabs. The handle can be secured in place with a bolt, so the jack can be dragged along without the handle coming out and poking me in the stomach. I can recommend this jack for SC430 owners.

I did this job last year. They are plastic plugs holding the carpet and trim pieces. The job is straightforward, and a trim removal tool would be useful for removing the plugs. No other special tools are needed. Once the carpet is out of the way the sat nav player is easily accessible.

I am sure that I have read that you can send components to bba-reman for repair by post.