NEILJ

Just updating Thought I would have another go at getting the mirror out. So as everyone describes I got both fingers on both hands under and gently increased the pressure until I thought something must give and it did the mirror unclipped without damage thank you thank you. So now just follow the instructions posted about the rest of the strip down which looks straight forward. So the wuss has done it but thanks all for your encouragement. I will finish off the post when I have stripped and cleaned everything and got it fully functional again. Neilj

Reporting my steaming fix has only lasted a couple of days I suspect because it now needs lubrication. I think the only way to go now is to strip it so back to fathoming how to get the mirror to unclip. At the moment I cannot get it to budge but will possibly have to try a bit more force. I have wondered if there are any lexus technicians on the forum as they must have to do this frequently. Like you have all said so far it's just go for it and hope for the best but surely there must be a more civilised way of doing it. Have a stinking cold at the moment so will have to get back in the garage when I'm allowed and have another go. Neilj

Thanks Steve for the appraisal on your IS . The SC'S woodwork is rather special and yes I would miss the V8. I think the creaks come with the folding roof as until the car gets warm from the heater it creaks all over the place especially around the back seats so your IS is no exception . Back to the subject of mirrors I gave it another blast this afternoon and it left quite a grease slick down the door which I removed with some white spirit on a cloth. I hope it does the trick for a while we shall have to see but if it does prove a success then it turns out to be quite an unusual way to fix. Must try and fathom how to get the mirror to release though some time later for now. I'll bet the other chaps are saying you did what! Arrrrrrrgh sorry chaps I will go sit up the corner. Neilj

Well chaps Have tried to get the mirror to release, got my fingers behind it and applied as much pressure as I dared but no way did it budge. Then tried a couple of the plastic trim tools and could not get enough purchase so gave that one up. However an idea sprung to mind after Steves reply saying they get gunked up with oil and dirt. I have a hand held steam cleaner I bought for my Lidl tool collection which is quite a collection now. So got the nozzle in behind the mirror and gave it a few prolonged blasts but feeling how hot the mirror was getting at all times. Well the condensation dripped out down the door carrying with it traces of gunge which when dried was quite greasy. Left it to dry for an hour then tried the mirror and cycled it in and out and it all works fine again for the moment. So sorry chaps for now I have dodged the problem but will report on how long the bodge lasts. Yup call me a jessi if you like. By the way Steve I notice your picture of the IS convertible and wondered how they compare to the SC as there are a few nice ones for sale on the trader at the moment and might be tempted to go have a look. The SC however hit me as pure quality the first time I sat in one so I wonder if the IS will impress as much. Ooooh keep mentioning IS no i mean Lexus IS and not......... Neilj

Steve Thank you for your input to the topic. Could I ask did you use any tools or did you as others have suggested just get your fingers underneath and give a firm pull . As I said to Verbout I will try my trim removal tools. With each reply it is giving me more confidence to have a go I just think better to have a bit of fore knowledge before going ahead and so far all the replies have helped. Like Scudney and Verbout all are doing their best to help which is what I like about this forum Unlike the Jaguar forum I used to go on when I owned one which was all about their cars they wanted to bragg about accompanied by stupid answers to your posts totally unhelpfull. Thanks Neilj

Verbout Apologies in the last reply for getting your name wrong unless there is auto correct on here and it was changed to the nearest thing like vermouth. Anyway thank you for your last encouraging reply. I have a proper set of the plastic trim removal tools I bought to get the heater controls out of the dash for the stereo fix so will try one of those perhaps one with the biggest blade to spread the load across the mirror. I have done another search on the net for an OEM replacement mirror glass and it looks like you have to buy the whole unit at £300 and that is unpainted. So that will encourage me to take the utmost care. I will update when I have pumped myself up to tackle it perhaps after a drink or two on new years eve and hope my baubbles don't drop off. Its always nice to hear that someone has actually tackled the job and succeeded so thanks again Verbout. Neilj

Yes nice one vermouth but if I cracked the mirror my balls will fall off for sure. No I would give it a go if I could get a replacement glass easily enough. Perhaps that should be my first priority locating a new mirror. The price of a mirror glass for a fully functioning mirror would be a fair deal . Will as ever post my progress if there is any together with any disasters like a trip to A and E. Neilj

Paul I have forgotten to update. A couple of months or more ago now I purchased a new battery a Duracell which was on offer at Euro car parts and have to say so far it will do two weeks and start on the button without a murmur. You were right and perhaps I should have done it sooner. The battery fitted when I bought the car was a new one but possibly very cheap budget buy by the dodgy car dealership (not Lexus). So so far so good and thanks for the help. Neilj

Scudney Yes thanks have tried this one or two times and it worked for a while but now doesn't make much of a difference. Could try again with a longer piece of pipe on the nozzle to reach in further and see what happens. Neilj

Back again with the sticky wing mirror problem. One day I will get this car fully functional I hope. Well in the two and a half years I have had the car it has intermittently had the passenger side wing mirror not fully open out . It retracts fine but not the other way. So I have come to the point where the only thing to consider is stripping it and clean and lubricate to see If that will sort it. I have seen the step by step guide posted on here with all the pictures which is brilliant I must say but as ever I am really nervous about the first step of tugging at the base of the mirror to unclip it. I have looked to see if I can get a spare mirror glass just in case but there is another question. I can't see any OEM ones on the net has anyone ever bought one from Lexus or elsewhere. Has anyone ever done this procedure and can offer any tips and advice. This is reminiscent of my radio removal where I could not get the control panel to budge but with the proper tools finally succeeded. Any advice about the right tools etc would also be much appreciated thanks. Again I suppose I have to bite the bullet and hope it doesn't crack. Neilj

Thank you for the reply. I have just read my post again and spotted my mistakes so apologies but hope it gets the points over. Really pleased with the end result and it worked out to be a relatively cheap fix. six out of ten must do better. neilj

Just thought that I would upload my latest fix on my SC430 as I am sure I must not be the only one who has experienced this. Washing the car a couple of weeks ago and noticed one of the chrome tail pipes was wobbling. On further investigation I found that the exhaust ends were completely rotten and disintigrating and the ends support the chrome tail pipes hence wobbly tail pipes. As ever I got to work straight away and hack sawed the totally coroded retaing screws off and removed the tail pipes revealing the rotted ends which are like pipe reducers welded to the pipe ends, note the rest of the back box and pipes were in really good condition. Next job was measure up and sketch the offending parts and then search ebay for two reducers and hey there they were under exhaust pipe reducers. Every Exhaust Part Ltd. Unit 5A and 5B, Widney House Bromsgrove Road Redditch Worcestershire B97 4SP 76.3 mm to 50.8 mm Mild Steel Standard Exhaust Reducer Connector Pipe Tube eBay item number: 351386366008 I was tempted to buy the stainless ones but thought it might create a problem with welding disimilar steels ie stainless to mild steel so stuck with the mild steel. There was one small hiccup like UK mail lost the package but Kirk dispatched a second pair without question which I got the following day by royal mail. I booked into my local garage to have the job done and Richard and Matt at the garage had a look and the first job was to cut off the rotten ends which they did with a nifty little tool an exhaust cutter which was a chain whith small cutting discs in the links, you wrap it around the pipe and clamp the chain and wind it around the pipe and in a few secconds the rotten tails were off. We then tried my reducers and they were size on size with the back box pipes where as I thought they might have slipped over to be welded. A bit of a set back so I took the car home and bought some exhaust tubing locally (£16 for 2 meteres) and made sleeves to fit inside and align the exhaust pipes with the new reducers. I had carefully measured everything before starting the job and measured and noted the distance from the tail pipe fixing bracket and the end of the rotten reducers. Therfore I cut down the new reducers to give me the same dimension and made the sleeves by cutting a 75mm long peice of pipe for each however I had to slit them for half the sleeve length to comfortably fit inside the back box pipes. All this done I dry fiited it all together and everything was aligned. Drove back down to the garage and Matt welded in the sleeves and welded the assembly onto each back box pipe he also ground off the siezed and rusted fixing screws and welded new studs into the bracket. All done and the job looked great all i needed was to get the car home and prep and paint the new metal and back box which I did with Hammerite smooth. See Below a few pictures of the work, hope the write up is of some help to anyone experiencing the same. Neilj

Paul Purchasing a new battery is on my list of to do's in the next few weeks and I will report back when its ticked off and complete. Just getting over a crick in the neck after laying on the floor removing the front bumper to change the second HID bulb, battery will be a doddle in comparison aye. So thanks for the suggestion and point taken. Neilj

Rayann thanks for your reply. I do agree that Lexus are certainly looking after you, given the prices you have quoted. I will perhaps try and give our local dealership the opportunity to redeem itself next year and offer me some sensible prices like you. I think perhaps you get the number one treatment because maybe you purchased your car from them whereas as I mentioned I purchased my car from a VW dealership which our local lexus dealers couldn't even get close to the price I paid for the car they were at least 5000 more so It wouldn't be likely that I will purchase a car through them in a hurry. As I have said I will give them a nudge next year and try and sell it to them, the virtues of offering reasonable servicing and MOT prices etc. Neilj

As ever this is always a hot topic aye. I mentioned in my update that it too is still an issue for me no more than a week and its get the battery charger out and reset everything afterwards. Its a good job I love the car otherwise I would have traded it in for something much worse I suspect. I mentioned in my update that I am switching off the aircon when I garage the car, now I don't know if I am imagining it but it seems to give it a couple of days more in the garage we shall see. I have had a situation that I don't understand the other week where I had used the car on a Wednesday evening and gone to use it on the Friday afternoon and it was flat, two days !!!!!!!. Oh that was before I have started switching off the aircon. Sorry I, like many, can't add any solutions and only join in the whinge but it has been mentioned by my wife to go and get something else only to look up on forums and reviews and find most alternatives have much worse problems than the ones we are suffering. Lets say we are enthusiasts and we love the cars foibles or errrr NOT. I have been off on summer break and have used the car most days with the top down and have enjoyed every minute even got complimented on the car in the M and S car park so not everyone thinks its ugly, not all bad its only the battery they don't know about. Neilj

Well a few interesting replies. I am interested in how Rayann got 3 services for £990 when I was initially offered one service for £745 but that is perhaps because I bought my car from a VW dealership at a very good price and not like a friend of mine bought his from lexus and paid about 10K more for I think a 6 month newer car. I would have paid £300 per service myself if it had been offered. Don't quite understand the maths of the reply "To be fair £120 difference for a major service between main dealer and a good local garage doesn't seem bad to me" £430-£189 =£241 doesn't it and £745-£189=£556 oh and a Lexus oil filter was used as I had asked for as well as fully synthetic oil etc. I do take the point that some garages don't take much care of your car with respect to soiling or scratching but then do Lexus fill an inspection sheet and get you to sign on hand over of the car to them for the service if you take my point. I wouldn't mind paying £300 that would be reasonable for the Lexus stamp etc but the prices I was quoted I thought were off the scale. I always taken great care of my cars and have had compliments from time to time which acknowledge such and I will continue to do so with or without main agents. Neilj

Oh forgot to update. Battery still playing up and draining if left for more than a week but not sure yet if I have spotted that by switching off the the aircon the battery appears to be going a few days longer. Will update if this proves to be the case. I changed one of the HID bulbs within the first couple of months of ownership and found the other night that the other was on the blink too so dropped the bumper again! and changed the other so hopefully that will be that for a year or two. For all its minor troubles I still love the cars qualities. I have looked at the trader for alternatives and other cars are quoted with having the latest techno gadgets which my nearly 10 year old car already has. I work on design for the car industry and have access to the latest specs and teardowns of other vehicles to compare and Lexus are always ahead by quite a few years. I hope that they continue however lexus fortunately do have quite high depreciation so you can get a class leading car for relatively little money. I wished I could get an LX460 in my garage have you seen the prices 80k's worth of car with low mileage for 15 to 18 grand bargain. Neilj

Whilst I am logged on would like to pass on my recent experience. My RX was due for its service, I usually take my cars to a very trusted garage I know locally. They are so good that some main agents (not Lexus) send cars to them that they have trouble fixing so very well respected by all. For some reason I thought I would see what our Lexus main agent wanted to service my car and their initial pitch was £740 for an oil change, brake fluid change, spark plugs and air filter, cough cough splutter WHAT !!!!. After I had booked into my local garage they came back with a price of £430. The cost at my local garage although I didn't have the spark plugs renewed due to the low mileage of my car was £188 for the same. Tell me do Lexus mechanics walk around in silk overalls, have platinum socket sets and bejewelled tooled boxes and prance around saying my lexas is bigger than yours and do some people actually pay the prices they ask. It is beyond me how they justify what I consider to be an outrageous price for simple servicing. Oh it was said that this is a big service because they have to change the spark plugs ooooh really wow. I reckon some must actually pay up, I also reckon that this is a good business opportunity for someone set up as a specialist who could easily compete with those prices I'm sure. Neilj

I am on my summer break and have been having a few drives out top down of course but have also been messing around cleaning and polishing the cars. So I wanted to ask if anyone knows of a product that will get the clear window on the heater control panel polished up. Mine I think like many others has like a purple mottled effect coating on it so wondered if it could be polished out. Have carefully tried a bit of duraglit metal polish wadding which has had no effect so wondered if anyone has successfully managed to get the window clear. Oh tried the old toothpaste too but no luck. Neilj.

I thought I would chip[ in with what I did to my wheels on my 2006 facelift sc. I knew the wheels needed a refirb when I bought the car so immediately got someone in to do the job. I had mine done in the standard bright silver, star silver three. Two out of the three star shaped centres were flaking and underneath I noticed a chrome finish so I paint strippered the lacquer off to reveal a hard chrome finish which I washed and polished off and fitted as is. Against the twilight amethyst pearl colour of the car I personally really like them, there are pictures of an American sc in the same colour with chrome wheels so it looks a bit similar. For my taste the dark original finish is a bit dour but then I like bright colours which TAP isn't until it sparkles in the sunlight with the sparkles in the paint finish. Perhaps some will say yuk but there is no accounting for taste aye. Neilj

Thought I would write a final update upon reinstalling my CD unit after having the error 4 code. Well to briefly recap I had the code come up on the CD screen after I had disconnected the battery for recharging and then reconnected. I must have read every article I could find on the UK forum and American, there were many suggested ideas and fixes but none were successful so the next step was the unit had to come out. The CD unit removal proved to be quite difficult for me the seat heater switches centre wood panel etc came out fine but then you had to remove the Aircon control module to access the CD unit fixings behind. You can see from my previous post that a few members uploaded photos and advised me but there was no way it would budge so again back to the internet. I found a youtube video where a chap takes the CD unit out describing the tools used and videoing the removal which was very usefull but I didn’t like the thought of levering off the wood dash facia. He used a plastic trim removal tool so for starters I ordered a set from machine mart . I was nervous about causing damage like cracking the module or marking the wood facia but if I was to get this sorted there was no choice but to try. With the right trim removal tool and a folded duster on the woodwork I went for it and had to be a bit brutal but each side popped and to my relief without any damage to anything. The next stage was take the unit out and dismantle the door assembly to access the top cover. Many on the forum have managed to fix the unit themselves and I thought that something obvious might show up and could be easily fixed but when I removed the top cover it revealed an intricate and delicate mechanism and there was no way I was going to attempt anything. These units are so rare now in the UK and almost impossible to replace the only choice was to get an expert on the job so someone had Recommended Colin at Rushden car Audio. I too can now recommend Colin as well, he kept us informed at all times, like when he had received the unit, the progress of the repairs etc. and came back to me with the price he had originally quoted. He guarantees the reapirs for three months but does his best to make sure it’s a proper job by bench testing the unit for a couple of days just to be sure all is OK so many thanks to Colin for his help. Finally thanks to all who replied to my previous post for their help, photo’s and suggestions and I hope that these posts might be of some assistance to anyone encountering these error codes in future. I now have a fully functional car again at last. Neil j See trim removal tool kit I used the Lever number 4 in from the left. Youtube video to watch Lexus SC 430 2005-2010 iPhone, iPod, AUX and Bluetooth adapter installation

Well Neil E and Peter thanks again for your replies. I have signed in to report that after purchasing a set of trim removal tools I copied the chap off the youtube Video and successfully managed to get the AC control module out Eureka. I didn't like levering off the wood facia and I did use a duster for padding but thankfully it worked with no damage that I can see. Went on to remove the CD player and remove the door cover unit. Have taken the top off the cd and cannot see anything obvious. My eyesight these days is not what it used to be and whilst I can see the springs around the cd stack I cannot see well enough to dare unhook them to take the stack out and remove the CD's. So will have another look around it and reconnect it to see if my fiddling has done anything positive but its looking like Boxing it up and sending it off for repair. I have seen a place called Cartronics but will have a look to see if there is anyone nearer the crewe/stoke on trent area. If anyone has any recommendations I would appreciate it thanks. Neilj

Neil E Warrington is not too far about an hour away and I will have a look at their website thanks. I have contacted Lexus to see if they could remove the Cd for repair and they have replied saying they need to see the car first but why. In other words as they have said earlier they want to charge £95 to look at the car to tell me what I already know. They know very well what work is involved and could give a straight answer and quote a price which is no doubt ridiculous. They are not doing themselves any favours and I have had similar experience with Jaguar in the past. So we will persevere and see some way around the problem. Neilj

Just reporting that I tried yet again to pull out the AC control Module and it was making noises that seamed to indicate something was about to give. So I am not wrecking 500 quids worth of module, it will have to stay as it is for now. I have therefore put it all back together and am conceding defeat. Ocd as I am I can for see this leading on to chopping it for something else in the future and letting some other poor so and so have the problem. Such a shame as I really do love the car. I will however perhaps contact Lexus or a specialist to see if they can get the module out without breaking it as I don't mind paying if it can be done with no damage. Neilj

Something has just occurred looking at the photos. Could I take out the whole centre console which carries the cd and AC module. I noticed that the two screws by the front lugs are angled over to be accessible from under the AC module. If that is possible then I could access the clips from behind and pry out. A lot more work perhaps but the safest way I would presume. Neilj