1990 Ls 400-- help please

[bencho]

Hi,

I have a 1990 Lexus Ls400. Bought off of eBay, kinda. but whatever. A little history-- I am the 4th owner, it is a flood car that has been rebuilt, bbs gold rims, eclipse sound w/ rockford fosgate amp & some 8'' sub. Still very smooth. Got it for very cheap. The problem lies in the dashboard. It showed symptoms a month or so after i purchased it. The board's speedo does not function correctly all of the time. When it doesn't, it will either stay at zero or flicker wildly all over from 0 to max. This, of course, means that the odo is probably inaccurate. It reads about 99k but with that bad odo, who knows how old it actually is?? Also every light on the dashboard will flicker on and off. Not all at once, but maybe one or two here and there. Randomly. I went to dealer and they said probably faulty wiring... and want $800 to fix it. I said no. So the question is... could it be faulty wiring? or could it possibly be from the sound system? Because I listen to my music very loud with the bass cranked up. There is a nine band EQ and i set it bass heavy. I did noticed that the dash goes haywire while listening to loud music and after like a week or more, it will start working again when i dont play loud music. So i wanna know if its possible for the sound to be screwing with the wires with interference or something like that...

thanks-

[KimMG]

The vibrations from your music can cause things to work loose. You should check all the connections under the dash to make sure they are clean, and secure. I have seen flood cars, while working in the dash on one I found mud and corrosion in the electrical connections.

[bencho]

Hi,

Actually I was told the car was given a complete cleanup. The second owner put money into it and had te entire thing stripped, cleaned and rebuilt to virtually like new. The other owner before me kept it as a show car and rarely drove it. And I am inexperienced with working on cars so I don't want to try right now.. But thanks though.

[harjp]

Hi. The speedo issue with LS400s is pretty common. Tach goes out too.

However, these issues (from what I've read) do not affect the accuracy of the odometer. Especially in the 1990 model, which has the old style mechanical read out.

I've been searching for a solution to this problem since my speedo went out a couple of years ago. A local tach and speedo guy told me the only fix is a new circuit board that Lexus charges $600 (!) for. I'll probably end up getting a GPS unit hardwired into the car and get my speed readout (and so much more) that way.

This guy offers to fix certain gauge and display problems:

http://www.lexustech.com/