SC430 with 500 000 miles on the clock

[ColinBarber]

7 minutes ago, Spacewagon52 said:

Like the LS430, I presume it is prudent to replace the radiator for the potential gearbox contamination problems?

It has the same setup with an oil cooler within the radiator so certainly wouldn't hurt to replace it.

[aviator888]

On 3/9/2018 at 5:16 PM, messi said:

I've had my one just over a year and now is had just over 185000. No issues with gearbox or engine. I did have that oil leak though but that was cam covers gasket. New radiator was fitted just before I bought it and I had the cambelt replaced last October. I had a receipt that the previous owner gave me, it was a Halfords receipt for a cambelt and water pump replacement. I did tell him then that they hadn't replaced it, being Halfords they are good at saying that they've done a job but hadnt and how right I was, I got it in time, it was shredding. I got cambelt and water pump from lexus. New rear shocks too and it's perfect. The roof rust is common on our earlier models. I had mine sorted and resprayed 

This is one of the reasons i prefer doing the cambelt myself. Yes it's not something i would call an easy diy job, but i know 100% it will be done properly. Never recommend anyone to go anywhere near Halfrauds or Kwik-Fit type of places if you care about your car. 

[Bob King]

1 hour ago, aviator888 said:

This is one of the reasons i prefer doing the cambelt myself. Yes it's not something i would call an easy diy job, but i know 100% it will be done properly. Never recommend anyone to go anywhere near Halfrauds or Kwik-Fit type of places if you care about your car. 

I done the belt on my last SC430 .....nice mechanical job not complicated just load of layers to take off ...and follow the timing marks and the second set of marks it must be turned too.

 A fair few clips on YouTube on the subject to  familiarise yourself with the job in hand .

two needed tools .....torque wrench and a puller to get bottom pulley off 👍🏻

Also a few pipe caps to stop fluids leaking out .

[aviator888]

Gearbox oil change  

Called a few local dealers yesterday. Lexus Leicester quoted £295 and hanged up when i started asking questions. 

Lexus Birmingham told me £139 but they will only be able to drain and replace 1.3 liters of oil and claimed in order to do the full flush the gearbox would have to be removed. Yes i agree lots of oil is inside torque converter etc..  but 1.3 liters is not really cutting the mustard. So i called Lexus Leicester again: apparently they are able to drain 3-4 liters for £189 and they literally talked me into it as my car is due for passenger airbag recall and they will give me a nice courtesy car.  They also asked the mileage and i had to repeat it twice.. 

[Spacewagon52]

21 minutes ago, aviator888 said:

Gearbox oil change  

Called a few local dealers yesterday. Lexus Leicester quoted £295 and hanged up when i started asking questions. 

Lexus Birmingham told me £139 but they will only be able to drain and replace 1.3 liters of oil and claimed in order to do the full flush the gearbox would have to be removed. Yes i agree lots of oil is inside torque converter etc..  but 1.3 liters is not really cutting the mustard. So i called Lexus Leicester again: apparently they are able to drain 3-4 liters for £189 and they literally talked me into it as my car is due for passenger airbag recall and they will give me a nice courtesy car.  They also asked the mileage and i had to repeat it twice.. 

They may want it as a demonstrator and offer you a fantastic price to take it off your hands? 

 

Let us all know how you get on - this is an interesting thread to read. I enjoy reading stories like this, of running high mileage cars.

[aviator888]

After having a discussion with my friend who works as a mechanic in Listers Toyota, i have decided not to go ahead with the planned £189 donation to Lexus  Going by the old saying: want something done properly- do it yourself. Yes i cannot overlook the savings as the Dexron II atf will cost £50 max, but i'm more concerned about controversial information given by the different dealers.. Most likely the problem lies in the fact, that in big dealerships you are never allowed to speak directly to the mechanic.. there is always a middleman who's very good at milking £££ out of you, but often has no clue about the brickworks. Who wouldn't prefer it to be the other way around?  

Still going in for an airbag recall tomorrow and encourage all fellow SC430 owners to ensure yours have been done too. 

[aviator888]

Hit the front brakes today. Relatively easy to do, but i took my time cleaning and greasing pad slots on the caliper mounting brackets. Not a big fan of this grooved/drilled shenanigans, but must admit these discs look little bit better than the standard ones. 

[Neil E]

On 3/21/2018 at 1:03 PM, aviator888 said:

After having a discussion with my friend who works as a mechanic in Listers Toyota, i have decided not to go ahead with the planned £189 donation to Lexus  Going by the old saying: want something done properly- do it yourself. Yes i cannot overlook the savings as the Dexron II atf will cost £50 max, but i'm more concerned about controversial information given by the different dealers.. Most likely the problem lies in the fact, that in big dealerships you are never allowed to speak directly to the mechanic.. there is always a middleman who's very good at milking £££ out of you, but often has no clue about the brickworks. Who wouldn't prefer it to be the other way around?  

Still going in for an airbag recall tomorrow and encourage all fellow SC430 owners to ensure yours have been done too. 

It seems some are better than others. I had my airbag recall done at Lexus Guildford last year by their top technician and I was able to speak directly to him. 

[aviator888]

Flushed about 7 liters of oil trough the gearbox today. Pretty messy job, but filling the oil trough the dipstick opening was not as bad as i expected with Battery tray out of the way. Also replaced both cam cover gaskets with o- rings and spark plugs. I used Denso iridium SK20R11 which should be OEM part for Lexus. Quite common to find NGK IFR6T11 on these and i suppose both work the same. 

I am now looking for decent body shop, 18" deep dish style alloy wheels and someone to do my rear brakes  Two 17mm bolts that hold the calipers drivers side just didn't come loose no matter how hard i tried lol. 

Had to disconnect the Battery several times for different jobs, and i now have Error 3 message displayed on the stereo screen. Can see the disc stuck inside trough the opening. Any ideas how to get it out without dismantling the head unit please? 

[JohanH]

On 6-3-2018 at 5:02 PM, aviator888 said:

remove the satnav unit for further investigation,

I replaced mine with one from a Prius.

Plug and play.

BTW: I bought a 241.000 miles SC430 a month ago and am now preparing it for MOT.

My exhaust was very bad as well; did a temporary fix because I need the MOT to drive it to an exhaust specialist

[Neil E]

5 hours ago, aviator888 said:

Flushed about 7 liters of oil trough the gearbox today. Pretty messy job, but filling the oil trough the dipstick opening was not as bad as i expected with battery tray out of the way. Also replaced both cam cover gaskets with o- rings and spark plugs. I used Denso Iridium SK20R11 which should be OEM part for Lexus. Quite common to find NGK IFR6T11 on these and i suppose both work the same. 

I am now looking for decent body shop, 18" deep dish style alloy wheels and someone to do my rear brakes  Two 17mm bolts that hold the calipers drivers side just didn't come loose no matter how hard i tried lol. 

Had to disconnect the battery several times for different jobs, and i now have Error 3 message displayed on the stereo screen. Can see the disc stuck inside trough the opening. Any ideas how to get it out without dismantling the head unit please? 

If the disc doesn't gently push back in, it's not too difficult to take the head unit apart to fix it. 

[aviator888]

On 3/6/2018 at 2:06 PM, messi said:

Yes I have..almost all lexus sc430 owners have replaced the speakers, no point fixing the cheapo crappy ML speakers as your going to have to dismantle the door cards again in couple months as they will break again. You can replace them with Alpine speakers, we don't have any issues with them and they sound better

Just like the messi warned, i had to eventually fit new front speakers. 

Alpine SXE-6925S fitting was very straightforward. Only minor trimming was needed. I did not even remove the door cards completely, just enough to get the access to the speakers. Although the speakers will work fine without, i  also soldered resistors in-line to keep amplifier happy. I wasn't sure what the exact output per channel is, so went for 50w ones :)  

Difference is like day and night. Speakers cost £40, 3.9 Ohm resistors £2.80 each. 

Can anyone recommend a good replacement model for 12cm rear side speakers and the 16 Ohm subwoofer  please? 

[aviator888]

Also just an update on progress:  

Had a closer look on how the roof mechanism works and Lexus has done very impressive job there with actuators and motors. Since this is my first convertible, i am not used to this body roll at all when the roof is down. Would the strut bar improve this? 

Been busy at work, but will book in for body shop soon along with some other bits and bobs.. Also i am yet to find a nice set of wheels at the right price. The important thing is: car is in everyday use and still going strong 

[Neil E]

3 hours ago, aviator888 said:

Also just an update on progress:  

Had a closer look on how the roof mechanism works and Lexus has done very impressive job there with actuators and motors. Since this is my first convertible, i am not used to this body roll at all when the roof is down. Would the strut bar improve this? 

Been busy at work, but will book in for body shop soon along with some other bits and bobs.. Also i am yet to find a nice set of wheels at the right price. The important thing is: car is in everyday use and still going strong 

Adjustable coil-overs, strut bar, and up-rated anti roll bars all help.

[ColinBarber]

chassis braces too.

[Neil E]

6 hours ago, ColinBarber said:

chassis braces too.

Yes good point Colin, I see Ultra Racing do some. Figs Engineering are worth a look for suspension help too. I still need to source an up-rated rear anti roll bar. I think the ISF bar fits but I'm not sure about the drop links.

On the audio question, I only very rarely use my rear fill speakers so didn't replace them with anything. I like the sound stage up front where it belongs. 

Alpine make 5.25 speakers in the same range as the ovals you chose. I can't recommend the R series Alpine enough, they are outstanding for the money.

These E series match your front speakers.

This is what the originals look like. You have to part raise the roof to get to some of the fixings to remove the rear door cards. If it's not documented here in the build thread, you know where to look.  

The 16 ohm free air ML sub is quite small and shallow. Finding a better replacement could be tough but with say a small class D amp that accepts speaker level inputs you could swap to a 4 ohm sub like the Alpine type R. If I remember correctly they make an 8 that can be wired to present an 8 ohm load. Otherwise use an output line convertor + amp and sub or repair the ML sub. They go quite low, up to a reasonable sound level, the front and rear mids distort before the sub runs out of gas. For decent bass there 's no substitute for an enclosure.

 

 

[hondansxr]

On 3/2/2018 at 2:23 PM, aviator888 said:

Update: Had the exhaust sorted this cold morning. Quite difficult to find a decent stainless steel exhaust company in East Midlands as first of all the prices are ridiculous and the ones i found seem to be fully booked for weeks. I'm not going to advertise here but the guys who did the job were very professional and helpful. 

FYI i have included a drawing of the SC430 exhaust system. 

Sections 5 and 7 were rusted trough on mine and i had them replaced. They cut off straight after the lambda senors and removed the last cat also. 

Once the cambelt and radiator are replaced, i will have the back boxes done too. The car has noticeably more power and i don't awake the neighbors in the morning anymore 🙂

Prices as follows: 

Section 5: £150

Section 7: £300

Section 8: depending on the setup approx £350

Another option was to buy OEM parts from Lexus but stainless steel costs a lot less and comes with "lifetime warranty" lol.  

 

While the car was up on the ramp i had a good lookaround underneath. Common problem on Japanese cars is underside rust and this one is no exception. The oil leak is still there but it's very minor and i'm sure the new sump cover gasket will sort it.  Radiator actually looks very fresh, but i will replace it anyway as i have done on all my Lexuses and i recommend all LS/GS/SC 430 owners to be aware, that the gearbox coolant is flowing trough it. Ideal solution would be to bypass the rad and have a separate oil cooler. I'm sure many of you have fitted these already. 

was it facing a kfc in midlands ? 

[mackie]

Hi i think i own this car could i have the reg please every thing you said you have done and ex lady owner sounds like mine yhankyou. Im sure its your, did someone called peter bye it from morecambe, my number is 07643066002 if you wouldnt mind ringing me thanks very much Dave

[mackie]

Car as got to go mate house as sold so if you know anybody its here £2500