My new LS400

[thatfatbloke]

Pick her up this morning. I said I'd be back!. I know the colour isn't to everyone's taste,but beggars can't be choosers. Has had timing belt/water pump/tensioners done recently,as well as spark plugs and leads,new Battery,new Westlake tyres all round on Wolfrace wheels (that'll upset the purists!),recent oil and all filters renewed and all new rear brakes. Fitted with LPG with certificate. Has a few shallow scratches on nearside and a few marks on rear bumper. No dents or rust at all. Drives as she should with no rattles,bangs or knocks and goes like the wind. 150,000 miles with part service history. All pixels present and correct.

Unfortunately the nearest LPG supplier is about 15 miles from me,unless anyone local to Eastbourne knows better,but it won't be a big hardship driving out there to fill her up I can assure you. LPG suppliers seem to be getting fewer and fewer. Pictures are from the advert,but will take more once I've got her home. The last picture is of the colour I would really like. Who knows.

[The-Acre]

Well done that man, the wheels make a big difference as well. The last picture is the same colour as mine, nice, but hard to keep clean!  Enjoy!!

[Spacewagon52]

I like the colour as it is the same as mine. It does not show the dirt or minor scratches like a dark colour. Looks really good - well done.

 

Did you have to travel far to get it?

[Chasdad]

Nice car. I'm not too sure on the wheels to be honest.  Always been a fan of originality.  

[steve2006]

One of the last series III models on an R plate, that colour tends to suffer from paint fade but looks OK on yours, get rid of those floor mats asap!

Amazing where these cars appear from I never saw this one for sale, like to divulge where from and how much?

Welcome back to the fold 

[mikeyv]

I like the colour.

As to LPG, I use bp garage at golden cross, they do the card scheme, whereby the price drops by 1p a litre with each visit, up to a maximum of 10p, then you start again with a new card.

The card is also valid at the garage on the roundabout, leaving Brighton on the London road, maybe at others too, for all I know.

The only other local pump I know of, is the services at Polegate, on the roundabout.

I agree about the poor availability around this area, so if you find any others, I'd be interested to know.

Good luck with the car.

[mikeyv]

Forgot to say, wheels look ok to me, especially as the originals look like plastic wheel trims, imo.

Can't say I'm keen on any of the LS wheel patterns until MKIV DHP wheels, then 430 ones on.

 

[thatfatbloke]

Michael,a couple of websites were saying that Cophall services at Polegate no longer did LPG,but they do as I checked on the way to pick her up. Is yours LPG too then?. The car was in Maidstone,Kent. He wanted £2000 for it,but he didn't get that much!. It was/still is on Gumtree. Drove lovely on the way home. The nearside mirror won't adjust in/out,but does up/down,and there are some nasty marks on the glass but may be able to sort that. The floor mats now reside in the boot!. Only downside of LPG that I can see is that you have to have the spare wheel,a matching Wolfrace,in the boot as the 78 litre tank is in the wheel well. LPG was installed in 2008 at a cost of £2100. I will now search for someone local to have a look at it just to make sure it's all good. I filled up with LPG on the way home at East Peckham. It has a system where when full you have I believe 3 green lights down to a red light when getting low. It was on one green light and cost £25 to fill it @ 59p per litre. The seller claims he gets 240 miles on £30 of LPG. As he drives like a complete nutter (he's Polish you know) and I drive like the vicar's wife,I'm hoping for a bit more maybe!. More reports and pics later. Ta ta.

[Bluesman]

2 hours ago, thatfatbloke said:

Michael,a couple of websites were saying that Cophall services at Polegate no longer did LPG,but they do as I checked on the way to pick her up. Is yours LPG too then?. The car was in Maidstone,Kent. He wanted £2000 for it,but he didn't get that much!. It was/still is on Gumtree. Drove lovely on the way home. The nearside mirror won't adjust in/out,but does up/down,and there are some nasty marks on the glass but may be able to sort that. The floor mats now reside in the boot!. Only downside of LPG that I can see is that you have to have the spare wheel,a matching Wolfrace,in the boot as the 85 litre tank is in the wheel well. LPG was installed in 2008 at a cost of £2100. I will now search for someone local to have a look at it just to make sure it's all good. I filled up with LPG on the way home at East Peckham. It has a system where when full you have I believe 3 green lights down to a red light when getting low. It was on one green light and cost £25 to fill it @ 59p per litre. The seller claims he gets 240 miles on £30 of LPG. As he drives like a complete nutter (he's Polish you know) and I drive like the vicar's wife,I'm hoping for a bit more maybe!. More reports and pics later. Ta ta.

I wouldn't take too much notice of the LPG gauge as I dont know of one that is accurate. What most people do is fill the tank and zero your mileage on the speedo and wait for it to empty, make a note of the mileage and use that as an accurate gauge to how much you have left. Enjoy. Mike.

[mikeyv]

5 hours ago, thatfatbloke said:

Michael,a couple of websites were saying that Cophall services at Polegate no longer did LPG,but they do as I checked on the way to pick her up. Is yours LPG too then?. The car was in Maidstone,Kent. He wanted £2000 for it,but he didn't get that much!. It was/still is on Gumtree. Drove lovely on the way home. The nearside mirror won't adjust in/out,but does up/down,and there are some nasty marks on the glass but may be able to sort that. The floor mats now reside in the boot!. Only downside of LPG that I can see is that you have to have the spare wheel,a matching Wolfrace,in the boot as the 78 litre tank is in the wheel well. LPG was installed in 2008 at a cost of £2100. I will now search for someone local to have a look at it just to make sure it's all good. I filled up with LPG on the way home at East Peckham. It has a system where when full you have I believe 3 green lights down to a red light when getting low. It was on one green light and cost £25 to fill it @ 59p per litre. The seller claims he gets 240 miles on £30 of LPG. As he drives like a complete nutter (he's Polish you know) and I drive like the vicar's wife,I'm hoping for a bit more maybe!. More reports and pics later. Ta ta.

Yes John, mine is LPG as well, converted about three years ago, once I'd decided the car was worth keeping for a while.

Firstly, I agree with Mike regarding the gauge, I first drove an LPG car in 1980, and have owned or driven quite a few since, not one of which had anything approaching a decently accurate gauge.

I also use the same method of resetting the trip after filling, then around the 200 mark, in my case, head for a pump.

Good luck finding anybody local to work on the gas side of the car, I've looked a few times and also checked on the lpgforum, and nothing comes up.

So if mine needs anything in the future, I'll get it done when visiting family in South Wales or Yorkshire.

The nearest I've seen mentioned is Gas and GO (?), in Swindon, don't know if they're any good though.

The blokes figure of 240 miles per fill sounds reasonable to me, I tend to press on a bit as well, so you may indeed do better, particularly if you do reasonable runs, rather than short town trips, which will knock your mpg down considerably, in my experience.

As to what the various websites say, about availability and price, take them with a pinch of salt, and ring the garages for info from the horses mouth, as opposed to the other end of it's anatomy!

The spare wheel thing is a bit of a nuisance, but the majority (I think?) of new cars, don't carry a proper spare anymore, so you could join them in prayer and carry a tin of miracle gunk, I suppose.

At least we have the choice of carrying one or having a full boot space available.

Anyway, that's enough of my waffling, good luck with the car, let us know how you get on with it.

By the way, that LS430 is still showing as in stock at Eastbourne auctions, so can't have sold on Friday either, must be too high a reserve on it.

 

[Colin M]

Welcome back, John, and car looks good. Many more miles of happy motoring hopefully.

I have found that my car with LPG will run for quite a distance with the red light on the gauge - perhaps 20-30 miles. I thought when I first had the car that it needed filling up more or less straight away when the red light came on but this is not the case.

I hope you manage to find someone good locally for any LPG work.