my lx 470 tried to start itself over and over
then went crazy ; alarm lights horn
but my key was nowhere near it
had to disconnect battery to turn it off
what the ???

 

hello!
i'm a newbie here. hoping to have a great stay.

 

marianne lx470,

What year is your LS ..........did you buy it new or used??? Have there been any Mod's done to it??? Let's start there and see where that takes us...........

 

Hi,
thanks for your response -
my car is a '99 engine - bought in 2000 - no mod's done.
It's presently diagnosed by Lexus as having blocked sunroof drainage channels, which leaked water down through the body of the car, and over the electrical nerve centre - front passenger side, causing the car to go berserk.
I suspect that there is an element of bad design here - surely any possible water overflow should be directed away from electrical components.
-and an important safety issue - when luxury cars of any age choose to try start themseves.
I have been advised that cleaning out the sunroof drainage channels with a compressed air blower (with a special nozzle) regulary would have prevented this. Mechanics that I have spoken with would not normally think to do this themselves - also we don't happen to have a compressed air blower at home, does anyone?
ha! I think not.
I have referred to the LX470 manual - which merely advises me not to jam any part of my body into the 'moonroof', this has not been a problem so far.
In the meantime I must say, the local Lexus service centre has been very helpful, and straightforward - and I am looking forward to customer relations feedback any time soon.
regards
marianne

 

the sunroof channel drains have been known to get clogged from time to time. ive been a toyota tech for 10 years and a lexus tech for the last 7. in all that time i can say ive only heard of 3 vehicles having the sunroof channel drain concern you had. in many cases leaving your sunroof open on a nice day will allow a leaf to fall into the track. there is the start of your problem. the leaf dries and breaks up then eventually clogs the drain. you sunroof glass seal is not designed to stop water flow. it is designed to limit it and stop air noise/leaks. the problem with that is when it rains some water will flow between the room opening for the sunroof and the sunroof glass washing any trash that has collected while the sunroof was open towards the 1 of 4 drains your sunroof channels have. me personally i would never use compressed air to blow out my sunroof drains, if you have a clogged drain at the opening of the drain you are safe, but if the trash has flushed down into the sunroof channel drain hose and you use compressed are the hose might come loose from the sunroof channel. if this happens next time it rains you will have a real mess on your hands. as far as your current concern, it sounds like you need a new r/h junction block to fix the starting and light concern. i wish you the best with this

 

Marianne,

Well chock one up for your Maintenance guys ......... Good Job. But I also don't agree with the Compressed air Fix. If you can get the guy's to try and modify a Vacume Hose to vac out the debris I think that will work better then trying to blow the stuff out. There is a very fine screen at the base of each of those drains that may get damaged with the compressed air rout. The guy's at our shop took a flex hose and ducted taped it to a vacume hose ......... fed it into the drainage channels and sucked all the stuff out. You'de be surprised how much stuff they get out of older cars. Also the Junction box may have to be replaced ............if it has been shorted by the moisture.

Keep us in the loop and let us know how everything worked out...... thanks for the update.[sm=interesting.gif]