For the past 3 months, I have only been able to drive my LS400 in good weather, having been forced to drive my wifes' car when raining or snowing. One very cold morning, 3 months ago, I switched my LS400 heating up to HOT HOT HOT in order to clear the ice and heat up the car. By the time I got to work, some 10 mins away, I noticed that the car was getting cold and that the display in the central A/C console was dead, i.e. all the lights had gone out. The temperature gauge, clock, a/c controls, front and rear screen demisters and the cigar lighter had ceased to function. Total disaster and my driving experience became reminiscent of my younger days when I bought a brand new Escort van in 1970 and found to my horror that together with the passenger seat, floor mats, passenger wiper and body paint, the heater was classified as an optional extra!
A Lexus main agent was asked to look at the problem and I was told that the Display Unit had crashed. The cost of this item would be £217 + vat plus fitting. The new display unit was ordered and fitted, only to find that this was not the problem and I was told that the only possible diagnosis was a faulty printed circuit board which can be found to the rear of the display unit. At this stage, I confess that the cynic in me whispered "and yes, I suppose this pcb will be lexus LS400 shaped in order for it to fit into a Lexus LS400 shaped hole"! I was correct. The pcb came to over £500 + vat + fitting.
A little shockled, I said I'd see if I could find another route to sort the problem, and eventually, a couple of weeks ago, I found my man.
He is an "auto engineer", as opposed to a "fitter of parts in the hope that it will eventually go merchant", and he got my car back to normal in just over an hour.
The fault, oh, I almost forgot to mention it. He descibed it as a design fault. A wire, trapped behind the ashtray, had been chafing away for a number of years, and on the day everything stopped working, he guesses that the wire had only a few strands left. When I turned the heating and A/C on to full, it blew, just like a fuse.
I must say that this little experience leads me to believe that Lexus perhaps don't know quite so much about the job as they make out.
Anyone else had this problem?
