Lvangundy

OK, eh..I'm like extremely tired right now.

Mind is elsewhere, I'm just fed up with my car. I swear I don't even want to drive anything anymore! Too much hassle.

Just put all the seats back in, extreme pain, the bolts were stripped, seat frames got slightly bent so there's gaps on the side of the bottom bench.

I've came to the conclusion my car is NOT what I want. I feel like all the work I did was a WASTE of time, all done on impulse just to be doing something. I'm estimating I've spent roughly $3-4K on fixing/maintaining, cleaning, and adding crap on my car. I STILL owe money on it. I suppose if I had a GS (what I really want) I'd feel the same way. It's soo much work for little return.

I really want to put my car up for sale, but have no confidence in getting what I want for it which is at least $7.5K. Nobody will understand what has been done to it to keep it in the good shape (minus the unkown engine/tranny problem) that it is in. All the mechanical issues like the new bushings, leaking oil pan, leaking steering rack/pinion, rear struts, weird engine stutter and slowness could cost another $3-4K to fix. NOT worth it, and I can't sell the car for what I want with all these issues.

Anyone have any advice on what I should be doing? I'd appreciate some kind of recommendation to do something. Getting frustrated over all the wasted money and no clue how to get where I want to be.

SQ-LS

Dude I feel your pain!
I'm pretty much in the same boat.
That stupid tranny/engine thing going on.

You might wanna try this (I haven't yet but will soon).
A Lexus mechanic friend told me almost all signals before going to the engine goes through your gauge panel first.
He recommend cleaning all the connections on the panel first since after time the connections does go bad.
If that doesn't work then more then likely the tranny is going bad and needs replacing.

Good luck man on what you do.
Just remember that this car is more then 10 years old so there is bound to have problems but once it is fixed will last another ten in my opinion.

JBrady

All the money and work was NOT a waste. It may seem so at the moment but it was an important learning experience that will allow you to better evaluate your future actions... you do learn from your mistakes don't you???

All kidding aside I know what you are going through. I did an engine swap once that I thought would cost $1500 and after I spent $5000 I was finally enjoying it. I would NEVER have done it if I knew what an extreme PITA it would be but was proud of the end result and did have a bunch of fun with it.

As far as selling the car... 99% of the people in the market for a used LS400 want a quiet luxury car and will NEVER race it. Your engine runs good enough for that. You have the "spend money on old or spend MORE on new(er)" dilemma. I noticed you were planning on buying a 95 or newer LS. Good choice. 98 or newer even better. Whatever you decide don't beat yourself up. What is done is done and you will live to do it again. If you think about everything that is wrong you will feel lousey and that is NO fun. If you focus on the good you will feel happy, trust me, there is always PLENTY of BOTH so it is up to you to chose how you want to feel.

JBrady

BTW, where did you buy the dynamat? It looks very similar to the material that Peter Scott used on his BFI mod on his Soarer/SC400. I wonder if it is petrochemical resistant?

Lvangundy

Check out www.raamaudio.com

Rick is the distributor for the product. Great and friendly guy. You can e-mail him there.

retrodrive

check my web site