The Lexusening

"Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To" (murdersofa) 03/03/2019 at 11:28 • Filed to: None

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The Lexus 2nd-gen LS400 has a power tilt and telescope steering wheel. Like the 1st-gen it automatically retracts and tilts away from you when the car is turned off and whirrs back into position when you get back in. Except mine is sort of intermittent and sometimes gets stuck and requires some prodding to get back into a usable position. Not wanting to get stuck with my steering wheel in an unusable position I looked into disabling the auto-tilt function. 1st-gen LS400s have a dedicated button for this, but the 2nd-gen requires dealer tools to change settings. Absurd, but I’m told many dealerships will do this for free. Okay. The issue there is my two local choices in Toyota dealership are both own and run by assholes. The Toyota dealership wanted $60 for 10 minutes with their scantool to change something that shouldn’t require a fucking dealer visit, and the Lexus dealership told me (contrary to every official piece of Lexus literature on the subject) that it is impossible and I’d have to pay $170 for the motors to be unhooked, which I don’t want to do because then the column couldn’t be adjusted at all.

So I bought a knockoff of the cable the dealer uses to hook up a laptop to the computer for $23. It came with a CD with a totally legitimate version of the Techstream software on it. I installed it on my Win10 64-bit laptop, fired it up, and everything looked great. Hooked it up to the car and... no dice. Turns out the drivers don’t like 64 bit computers. No issue, I have a 32-bit Lenovo with Windows 10 on it as well. Install the software on that, suddenly the activation hack doesn’t work anymore. Odd. Find another version of the software and it activates and connects to the car. Great! Except it thinks my car is an LS430 and crashes every time i go to change setting. Thinking it’s maybe a Windows 10 issue I set up a virtual machine in Hyper-V on my Windows 10 computer with Windows XP in the VM to run the software. Get it installed and... oh look Hyper V doesn’t support USB passthrough. Uninstall Hyper V and install VMWare workstation. Load up the VHD and... it automatically loads my XP VM with a mouse integration feature and now I have no mouse pointer. Cool. Good. FUCKING GREAT. So I uninstall VMWare and switch over to VirtualBox because fuck it I guess I’m desperate enough to use Oracle software at this point. Load up the VM in VBox and it works great! Then it installs a mouse integration feature and the mouse pointer stops working again. Luckily VBox has a button to disable that and now I can use the damn VM. Load up the software with an older version of Techstream this time and it shows an LS400! Sweet! Scan a few settings, marvel at all the data it’s able to pull. Cool! We’re in business. Go to change the settings and oh look the button for that is fucking missing now. Cool.

So I go online and ask about hey, I know people have done this, what firmware# cable did you use and what version of Techstream so I can disable auto tilt away ? And these fucking mouthbreathers just see “steering column” and start spouting “I HAD A SHOP REPLACE MY MOTORS IT WAS $400 APIECE” (hell no) or “JUST UNPLUG THEM” (but then I can’t adjust it) or “GO GET A NEW COLUMN OUT OF A SALVAGE YARD” (there are none in Wichita) and nobody is even remotely technical but the annoying part is they aren’t technical but they insist on fucking chiming in with things I explicitly said aren’t solutions.

Fuck.

Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 03/03/2019 at 12:01

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Problem is, I can’t walk you through what you need to do, because it’s very non-trivial. (Think: registry edits.) What you’re trying to do is possible, it’s just not EASY.

2Fast2Furious: Rotary Powered > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 03/03/2019 at 12:06

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This is a rip Jake story if I’ve ever heard one

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks 03/03/2019 at 12:12

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For what it’s worth I work in IT and I’m not stranger to doing obnoxious shit to get obscure software working in ways it shouldn’t. I’m just befuddled at how this Toyota software running in an environment that should be normal for it (32 bit windows xp) has an entire menu option mysteriously vacant. The only solution the internet has is “try different versions until you find one that works” but so far that’s been a miss for me. I need to do a comparison between a cracked MainMenu.exe and a factory one and figure out exactly what people are doing to kill the activation.

Ssfancyfresh > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 03/03/2019 at 12:19

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Mouth breathers on the Internet

I wish enthusiast forums (any forum, really) would allow the OP the ability to delete posts not related to the specific topic. Keep the conversation on point so that the thread remains a useful knowledge base.

There’s a lot of wasted bullshit text on the inter webs  that needs to be sifted thru in order to actually find good info

HammerheadFistpunch > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 03/03/2019 at 12:20

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This is relevant to my interests.  I want to disable mine.  I asked what techstream would cost me legit and its $900 a year.

Ssfancyfresh > Ssfancyfresh 03/03/2019 at 12:21

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Delete replies, I mean

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 03/03/2019 at 12:27

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Well... If you can't seem to find even one testimonial of someone successfully disabling this themselves without dealer level scan tools, maybe it... is impossible? 

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo 03/03/2019 at 12:37

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This is the dealer level scantool. Plenty of people use it, I just can’t seem to get ahold of any of them.

Darknight > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 03/03/2019 at 17:16

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FIX! I disabled auto tilt on my 98 LS. You just need to take out the little trim piece where you insert your key and unplug the auto tilt cable from the ignition . Auto tilt works independently from the manual control so y ou can still adjust your steering wheel with the joystick on the left. Also there is a fix i f your column is grinding or works intermittently. Search lexus forums for that.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Darknight 03/03/2019 at 19:31

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Oh sweet! I’ll look into it. Somehow that never came up in my research.

Arrivederci > Darknight 03/07/2019 at 08:58

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My GS doesn’t have a key, but I’m assuming the overall idea might be the same.  I’ll keep this in mind when mine invariably goes on the fritz.

Jonny Obnoxious > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 03/31/2019 at 17:00

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Why not just fix it? There’s several write ups on how to repair the worn gears.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Jonny Obnoxious 03/31/2019 at 21:08

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The gears are not the fault. Nor can anybody tell me how to remove the lower dash area that covers it on this specific version of the car.

Jonny Obnoxious > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 04/21/2019 at 09:52

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The lower dash? Super easy! 3 screws on the bottom at the seam between the hard plastic and soft foam bumper. Then pop off the ignition bezel with a nylon pry tool or taped screwdriver from the bottom of the panel. The soft foam part then has 2 screws on the bottom at the corners, 2 on the top behind the parking brake release and 2 behind the ignition bezel. Then the heating duct behind it pulls out. There are 3 screws in the column cover; 2 on the bottom 1 on the face behind the steering wheel on the right (ignition) side. The face screw is easily accessible by turning the steering wheel 90° left.

But you say it’s not the gears? I’ll go back over your post, but is it the tilt or telescope functions that are messed up? I just swapped out a whole column because the telescope feature was stuck and causing the entire wheel to fail.  I'm planning on breaking it down and doing a write-up on how to rebuild the column, if it's even possible. 

Jonny Obnoxious > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 04/21/2019 at 10:01

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OH damn! You have a post facelift UCF20. No wonder you can't get the column straightened out, those are apparently quite problematic. I'm working with 90-97 columns which are easier.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Jonny Obnoxious 04/21/2019 at 10:15

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Yeah to make things as complicated as possible i have a ‘98 but it’s an early ‘98 so I have the 98-2000 dash design but I have the 95-97 tilt and telescope motors (can motors instead of ultrasonic ones). I’m 99.999999999% sure the issue with the motors is dirty commutators so a dip in an ultrasonic cleaner should fix them right up if I can figure out how to get the bastards out. I’m not very flexible so any under dash work is super unpleasant , especially when I have no idea what I’m doing.

Jonny Obnoxious > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 04/21/2019 at 11:57

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OH NO! THAT’S BETTER!!! IDGAF about the dash. I think I have the info to help you out. I’ m 99% sure I know your handle on CL, so I’ll shoot you a PM there.

As far as the column goes, what EXACTLY is it doing? My 94 wouldn’t move and I replaced the shitty foam-like washer behind the gear and that got the tilt going. HOWEVER, when I tried to telescope it, the in-out directions, it moved a little and froze up. So then every time the auto-tilt tried to work it would lock the whole column down, including the tilt. I replaced it with one from my parts car, and, as I said, I’ll be reverse-engineering the one I pulled out.

And I totally feel you on the under-dash work.. At 6', 200# and 40 years old, flipping myself upside-down in a seat is no longer the fun it was when I was 20. I rather prefer to remove the front seats if I’m going to be doing such extensive work.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Jonny Obnoxious 04/21/2019 at 12:05

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Occasionally mine will just refuse to move in one axis. Relay click, nothing else. Wiggling the joystick or hitting the memory button won’t make it move. I need to take it apart and bench test the motors and such.

Jonny Obnoxious > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 04/21/2019 at 12:12

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That’s exactly what mine did. With the key in the ignition, disconnect the battery and wait about 30 seconds. Reconnect the battery and then test the tilt first and then the telescope. I’m gonna bet you that the telescope locks it up.

Edit: The tilt function motor is easily accessible and serviceable . The telescoping motor is not. H ence why I swapped out the column.