BMW 7 Series V LS400

[Chris Skelton]

I'd be interested to read of anyone who has moved to an LS 400 from a 7 series (or has both....).

I've always liked the looks but wonder how they compare.

ACTUAL experience preferred to fiction! Lexus is hard to beat we all know!

 

[Malc]

I guess the BMW bills will probably exceed the car value each year of ownership maybe !

Malc

[i-s]

What year 7 series?

My father bought a 1996 E38 740iL 4.4 in 1999, and the LS400 was the car that made it into the final 2 (S was too big and too slow (needed an S500 to match the 4 litre cars from other manufacturers), XJ was far too small and cramped (belying its very dated roots) and the A8 was idiotically uncomfortable (extremely hard suspension, extremely hard seats and horrific roadnoise - suitable for a sports car, not a luxury saloon)). 

At the time, we got the 7 because of a number of things that swayed the choice that way. The budget that my father had in mind didn't quite stretch to getting us into an LS400 mk4, and the mk3 was a little off the pace of the BMW in a few ways - the BMW had a 5 speed transmission and the (then new) 4.4 V8 in the BMW was a decent engine. The LWB 7 series had more space in the back than either LS400, and electric reclining seats in the back which the LS couldn't match. His BMW had the comfort seats, which were better than what Lexus were offering at the time, and really nicely trimmed and finished, and the cabin plastics and wood were a little higher quality than the LS. Another factor that swayed it was that we knew the original owner of the 7 (but it was sold through the BMW dealer). 

The LS was quieter inside and had a smoother ride quality. The BMW was more powerful (than a mk3 LS), faster, more spacious and handled better. 

Over the years (he owned it from 1999 until his death in 2017) that car covered over 100k miles, at significant cost. On the mechanical side I think the LS is a far sturdier car - the BMW had problems with the cooling system (belt shredded, fan blades everywhere, coolant leaks), it had a persistant high-load misfire (and limp mode) for a long time that after they replaced a whole bunch of parts (one bank cat, plugs, coil packs, etc) was eventually diagnosed as a bad inlet manifold gasket. There were ball joints and all sorts. Even when the car was 20 years old he would not dream of taking it anywhere other than a BMW dealer, and a visit there rarely ever came to less than 4 figures. 

There were also persistent niggles - the parking brake release system was idiotic and fell to bits regularly. The orange inverted LCD displays were all losing pixels (the cables inside die). By the time I sold the car in 2017 corrosion was seriously taking its toll on body and suspension. 

In retrospect I do think the LS would have saved him thousands of pounds on maintenance costs (but many years before he had a British Leyland Jaguar XJ12, so after that there's no such thing as unreliable or expensive to run), and the BMW brought out the worst in his driving which might have been a little more relaxed in the Lexus

I think both were great cars, with different strengths and weaknesses

 

[GrahamG]

At the same time as your father I bought a 1995 Mk3 LS400, kept it for 15 years and drove it from 30k to 90k miles. It only failed once when a front suspension coil spring broke [for no reason ie no impact] under guarantee. Main agent servicing was expensive in the early years but an independent local garage looked after it for very low cost later on.

An old school friend who owned a BMW concession had warned me off the 7 series particularly for electrical gremlins.

Interestingly well before that my father had owned a new British Leyland Jaguar XJ12 and against all the odds it never failed including starting after being buried under a snow drift for a week in Amsterdam during a record cold winter. All his new RRs, Daimler Jags etc were dreadful. The Daimler Vanden Plas Double Six was fantastic to drive though and I always thought what a pity Toyota /Lexus had not simply copied that car and built it to their standards. That would have been a world beater.   

[Chris Skelton]

When I owned my LSs, I thought/wished I had the body of a Citroen CX on the mechanicals of the LS.

(Include the Citroen's Vari-power steering and peerless suspension to that!)

Maybe why that's the reason I might find a Soarer?

[Newbie1]

It's interesting seeing the interior pictures of the E38. The fit is not as good as the LS400; not as many flush surfaces between panels, and the rear light assembly looks less than integrated. 

[i-s]

My dad's 7 never really had any serious electrical issues other than the display pixel problem (endemic to ALL BMWs of the era with the orange reverse-polarity displays). There were some minor ones (it went through a phase of regularly pinging up "Check Brake Lights" when they were fine, but a change of bulbs (FoC by dealer) solved that, and the alarm was super-sensitive and set off by an adjacent hornbeam hedge in the wind (again, FoC by dealer altered the sensitivity or replaced the sensor or something)) but no stranding events due to it. 

The 7 was a good car. It had a real sense of being in something special when you rode in it, and it could simply devour the miles. We left Biot (near Antibes, south coast of france) in it at around 6am one morning - we were back in Canterbury by 5.30pm, despite a relaxed picnic lunch. 

There were a couple of fun memories with that car on that trip.... we pulled into a tiny little rural french petrol station to fill up, and the (appropriately matching) little french lady came out to fill the car (yes, attended service!). Many minutes later, still pumping (95 litre tank), she commented, totally deadpan, "C'est soif, non?". The other incident was when heading down a country road at about 120kph, crested the brow of a hill and a group of gendarmes were sat under a tree by the side of the road. British plates on a BMW, time to fill a quota so one gendarme stands up and about to flag us down when... out of nowhere a black, German-registered Alpina B12 5.7 flies past us. The gendarme changes target, flags him down and we continue on our merry way (and may or may not have given the alpina occupants a little wave as we went past :-)). 

My dad's XJ wasn't terrible (and I myself don't really remember much of it - I was brought home from the hospital in that car, and I was 4 or 5 when he sold it. I crashed it into a tree when I was 2.) but it had constant ignition issues (my father described the ignition wiring as resembling a 12-legged octopus) and the suspension wouldn't stay aligned for more than 1000 miles at a time. He described the fuel economy in town as "perilously close to gallons per mile", but on a good day he said it was a dream to drive. 

Around the same time my father got the 7, a school friend's dad got an XJ X300 4.0. The X300's relationship to the previous generations of XJ were apparent, with far less interior space and a very shallow boot. I think that Toyota would have done themselves a disservice by simply copying a dated design like that and the approach that they took with the LS was one that paid off. I think the underlying engineering of the LS was brilliant and in many ways better than the 7 (or S class, or any other euro competitor). The LS certainly made a huge impression on me as a teenager (culminating now in our having the GS - I think my dad would have loved our GS450h, it would very much have been his sort of car (in his life he only had 5 cars - S-type 3.8, P6 3500 V8, XJ12 5.3, Nissan Silvia 1.8T (this one was not his choice and he hated it, but money was in short supply at that time and my grandmother sold it to him at a very favourable price) and then the 740iL). 

[i-s]

1 minute ago, Newbie1 said:

It's interesting seeing the interior pictures of the E38. The fit is not as good as the LS400; not as many flush surfaces between panels, and the rear light assembly looks less than integrated. 

Certainly true - by the time of those pictures part of the dash had "sagged" - the gap above the wood strip was larger than when the car was newer - it was previously flush.

[Newbie1]

I like the comment that your father didn't like the Silvia. Quite a different beast to a large barge, but impeccable taste nonetheless.👍

[i-s]

Just a few other random thoughts about the 7

There were a few touchpoints on the 7 were you'd hold or use something and be left in wonderment, EVERY SINGLE TIME, at how solid it felt - two specifically were the exterior door handles (which were actually a solid metal casting, not plastic) and the gear lever (certainly felt like solid, real wood). 

The wood on the 7 was a league ahead of the LS - the LS was still very much in the japanese "then we'll stick this bit of wood finishing on the top", especially on the doors of the LS, around the window switches. The wood trim in the 7 was really, really high quality and solid, beautifully matched around the doors, dash and centre console. I think it's only much more recently that Lexus have come up to that level (and I think BMW have come down since then - I found the touchpoints on newer 5 and 7 to be much more plasticky and cheap). The finishing of the rear door cards on the 7 was lovely, with the leather quilting flowing down into the armrest.

Ventilation was another plus - the LS400 mk3 had "dual zone" climate, but the 7 was a TRUE dual zone - you can see it had separate fan speed controls for driver and front passenger (which I've not seen on many cars since either, even "luxury" cars), as well as separate driver and passenger controls for face/feet ventilation. In other words, the driver could have a cold gale blowing in their face (and my father always did!) with nothing to the feet while the passenger could have toasty hot feet with nothing from the face vents. It was two totally independent systems. My father's car did not have it, but it was an option on the 7 to have a third zone for rear passengers (again, a third independent fan speed and temperature). Although our GS has "3 zone" climate, it only has a single fan speed setting for the whole lot. 

I am reminded at times that european (at least BMW, Merc, Audi - I'd hope RR and Bentley aren't this way) luxury cars are very much designed and built for the first owner. The manufacturers are not interested in how something will be in 5 years time, they are only interested in the now. To that end are things like the BMW E65 phone integration (it had a drawer in the dashboard that you could dock your Ericsson T28 in - totally useless 5 years later). Now they're doing stupid stuff like built-in fragrances in the 7 and S. Lexus build the cars to last and last well. 

In other words, as a new to 3-year old buy, the European cars may have more to offer than the Lexus. As a 10 year old buy, the Lexus is a FAR better choice (for your wallet and sanity).