4 Wheel Drive 460 ?

[moriwaki]

Seen on Auto Trader.....looks Good....I thought it was a US only option....anyone know different lads ?

[scythe]

well, just before the bottom dropped out of the market in 2008 a single solitary all wheel drive model arrived in this country. Specification similar to the standard 460, though the engine power was intentionally reduced, but only slightly. Uses the internals from a LS600 - some sort of central diff, powered by petrol engine, but without the electric motor, feeding drive front and back. I noticed it for sale a few years ago in Manchester. It sold quite quickly, but unfortunately it's in silver, a colour I'm not too fond of. I'm sure it's great in the snow, though. By this time though they just stopped the 460 altogether.

Looks good - still has a low mileage - depends whether you want to be absolutely unique or not!

: o )

[PCM]

Very nice...

If I had the money, space etc ...

:)

[ambermarine]

I have just read a long and drawn out sequence of events regarding the AWD 460 as distributed in the states and it was less than pleasant .A number of owners had serious misgivings on the cars performance which was a vibration problem at certain speeds coming from the drive train and wheels.

It went on for several years with Lexus actually doing a buyback on one car that they could'nt fix,several owners took their cars back to Lexus for ECM updates tire changes diff changes all to no avail until Lexus finally admitted they had a problem and set about fixing it.

Lexus have now resolved the problem ,only partially in some cases, by tinkering with the Transmission ECU and to that end the issue as died out .I think that given this issue was a design fault we are well lucky they did'nt import this model to the UK.

[moriwaki]

Thanks lads.....very interesting story to a unique in the UK car.....

[Cotswold Pete]

Is there any FWD system that really works, and by that I mean one that does not wear the tyres out a different rates, or cause weird vibrations, snapped shafts etc etc.

The mechanical and electronic engineering required for modern cars is pretty challenging. I spoke once with a truck servicing company and they said that just about most modern cars are way to simplified compared to trucks in how they are engineered, and the money on a truck/tractor unit goes into the mechanics not the fancy stuff in the cab.

Personally five me rear wheel drive and when it snows I stay home and light a fire, and I have no desire to go off-road with my LS, or try and lap the Nurburgring in record time in the wet (or even in the dry).

Given that the Jensen FF started it all back in 1967 - is it still taking a time to get it right??

[Malc]

.... my tyres wear at different rates !! ....... always get 2,000 miles more from the fronts ............

Malc

[Cotswold Pete]

.... my tyres wear at different rates !! ....... always get 2,000 miles more from the fronts ............

Malc

What I was getting at is the FWD system actively wears the tyres.

Most cars have uneven tyre wear due to the driving wheels taking the brunt of gaining traction, and then front wheel drive cars suffer from torque steer wear (due to different lengths of drive shafts).

Modern cars have all sorts of electronic/mechanical systems to try and overcome this 'normal uneven wear', it is just IMHO FWD drive systems seem to be more prone to the electronics engineer not quite getting what the mechanical engineer was trying to achieve. If you throw enough money at the R&D end then all is likely to be better, but the problem you then have is that the road surface and tyres are variables that can muck up the best laid plans made in the design and testing office.