New to Lexus Ownership. A couple of questions...

[AlpineAlex]

Hi guys,

I always knew Lexus were great cars when I drove the LC500 V8 a few months ago, but it didn't quite fit my needs at the time.

I've decided to get myself a motorway cruiser in a 2008 LS460 and I absolutely love it, it's everything I was hoping it would be and the technology is far beyond what I was expecting from a 2008 car.

My fuel economy is reading in L/100km, does anyone know how to change this to mpg? I got a vehicle check and the car isn't an import.

The only issue I have with the car is I have a slight juddering vibration at high speed. I know the control arms can be a common issue with this car so that's my first thought. The previous owner told me he had had them done, but he may have just been saying that.

I had a look underneath the car and there is a leaking from the front ball joint and also I've got lower arm juddering. Would this likely be the problem?

It feels like it's coming from more so the middle of the car so my second thought was propshaft?

It would be great to know if this sounds right and a good place to begin the investigation.

My final question is regarding the exhaust vents you can order, I'd love some extra sound from the V8 and after research it appears this would be the best solution. Does anyone supply and fit them in the UK?

Look forward to being more involved on the forum!

[Tulpen]

Hi Alex, welcome to LS ownership.

It sounds as if you could have control arm problems, a visit to a dealer or good independent might be an idea. I've not heard of any prop-shaft  woes. 

How many miles has your car done and has the radiator been changed as a precaution? (You'll find info on that in the forum,)

For L/100km conversion, I use rough numbers:

9L/100km = 30mpg: 10L = 28mpg: 11L = 26mpg: 12L =24mpg etc.  If you're worried about mpg, an LS is not the car to drive.  🙂 

Also, it's your car and you can do what you want with it, but......the LS was designed to be a fast, luxurious, nearly silent, limousine; why would you want to make it noisier?

[AlpineAlex]

17 minutes ago, Tulpen said:

Hi Alex, welcome to LS ownership.

It sounds as if you could have control arm problems, a visit to a dealer or good independent might be an idea. I've not heard of any prop-shaft  woes. 

How many miles has your car done and has the radiator been changed as a precaution? (You'll find info on that in the forum,)

For L/100km conversion, I use rough numbers:

9L/100km = 30mpg: 10L = 28mpg: 11L = 26mpg: 12L =24mpg etc.  If you're worried about mpg, an LS is not the car to drive.  🙂 

Also, it's your car and you can do what you want with it, but......the LS was designed to be a fast, luxurious, nearly silent, limousine; why would you want to make it noisier?

Hi Brian,

 

Thanks, I will look in to it!

The car has 45,000 miles on it.

Not worried about MPG, it was just mildly annoying having it in the wrong units.

I understand what you're saying about you wanting it to be silent, but I feel like it could sound like a classy Bentley with just a little more roar to it and I'd enjoy that.

[Malc]

sadly classy Bentleys come with huge classy maintenance costs too .......... fortunately your Ls460 maintenance costs will be tiny by comparison AND you have all the comfort and presence too 

Whilst on age you could expect issues like this it's quite strange at such a small mileage ................. would have thought your suspension issues etc might not come to bear until approaching 100k miles tbh

Malc

[AlpineAlex]

2 minutes ago, Malc said:

sadly classy Bentleys come with huge classy maintenance costs too .......... fortunately your Ls460 maintenance costs will be tiny by comparison AND you have all the comfort and presence too 

Whilst on age you could expect issues like this it's quite strange at such a small mileage ................. would have thought your suspension issues etc might not come to bear until approaching 100k miles tbh

Malc

This is what I thought too.

The interior condition matches 43k miles and I got a full Car Vertical report and all of the mileage checks out on the MOT history.

 

[Malc]

it's a car and 14 years young ..........  there's always gremlins with any car methinks  ..........  might it have had a whack at some time that's put some of the geometry out and not been positioned back quite 100% !

Malc

[AlpineAlex]

35 minutes ago, Malc said:

it's a car and 14 years young ..........  there's always gremlins with any car methinks  ..........  might it have had a whack at some time that's put some of the geometry out and not been positioned back quite 100% !

Malc

That's very possible but I couldn't see anything when I had the car up on a ramp, all of the parts matched up and had the same amount of wear on each corner.

I've had the alignment checked and it's all fine.

I'm hoping it's just the ball joint.

[steve2006]

With today’s state of the roads I’m not surprised, having checked the previous owner apparently lived at 14a Pothole Lane 😀

Seriously the front suspension on the LS460 is quite involved with 2 separate upper control arms and the lower ball joint is part of the steering knuckle so not a separately replaceable item

 

[AlpineAlex]

2 hours ago, steve2006 said:

With today’s state of the roads I’m not surprised, having checked the previous owner apparently lived at 14a Pothole Lane 😀

Seriously the front suspension on the LS460 is quite involved with 2 separate upper control arms and the lower ball joint is part of the steering knuckle so not a separately replaceable item

 

Thank you.

He actually did live on a pot hole road!! haha

I've booked it in to Japex in Herts for a full health check with the intention of them taking a look.

I went independent because I've heard the OEM parts aren't as good as aftermarket parts now so hopefully they're more knowledgable and can supply a better replacement.

[Tulpen]

1 hour ago, AlpineAlex said:

Thank you.

He actually did live on a pot hole road!! haha

I've booked it in to Japex in Herts for a full health check with the intention of them taking a look.

I went independent because I've heard the OEM parts aren't as good as aftermarket parts now so hopefully they're more knowledgable and can supply a better replacement.

That's the first time I've heard anyone say that aftermarket parts are better than OEM in an LS. Normally it's the other way round.

I don't live in the UK but I've heard other members say good things about Japex. It might be an idea to ask them to check the oil cooler connections on the water radiator. They are liable to corrode and age is definitely a factor. I had my radiator changed at 13 years/100,000 miles - the mechanic said there was corrosion evident.

[BigBoomer]

Welcome aboard Alex. 

Changing l/100km to MPG should be do-able in Techstream.
It can certainly be changed in Techstream for the LS430 and on the later LS460s it is done by holding the DISP button to get into the settings menu.
Ask at Japex if they can do it. They probably have Techstream.
Otherwise, you will need to buy your own cable and software (eg. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/303933863223 ) or else find someone who has a working copy near you.
 

[AlpineAlex]

Excellent, thanks for the tips guys!

I will get it all checked out.

I've just discovered the car parks itself!! That feature wasn't even listed on the ad.

[Tulpen]

2 hours ago, BigBoomer said:

Welcome aboard Alex. 

Changing l/100km to MPG should be do-able in Techstream.
It can certainly be changed in Techstream for the LS430 and on the later LS460s it is done by holding the DISP button to get into the settings menu.
Ask at Japex if they can do it. They probably have Techstream.
Otherwise, you will need to buy your own cable and software (eg. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/303933863223 ) or else find someone who has a working copy near you.
 

That's great advice about the use of Techstream - I've never changed the L/100km because I live on the Continent. I don't know if the car came with an Owners Manual but, if it did, there are a few pages in there all about preferences which can be set via a Techstream. You'd be amazed just how many there are.

As for the Self Parking; I tried it a couple of times, then decided that parking the car myself would cause me less grey hairs.

[AlpineAlex]

1 minute ago, Tulpen said:

That's great advice about the use of Techstream - I've never changed the L/100km because I live on the Continent. I don't know if the car came with an Owners Manual but, if it did, there are a few pages in there all about preferences which can be set via a Techstream. You'd be amazed just how many there are.

As for the Self Parking; I tried it a couple of times, then decided that parking the car myself would cause me less grey hairs.

It's definitely just a party trick. But a good one

[AlpineAlex]

Just taken my car for a long motorway run. What an absolutely incredible car this is.

I have noticed the vibrations come on at around 70mph and actually go away when travelling above 80mph.

Very strange.

[donkmeister]

On the exhaust "vent" question - I totally understand, I'm a V8 guy, and agree that it would be nice to have the option of sound or not.

When I looked into cut-out valves (this is what they are called), there are two drawbacks that long-term users report on...

1) They rattle. The valve itself is a butterfly, and due to the environment it's working in there isn't a nice rubber seal. It's metal on metal. So, some people who fit them end up just having the butterfly valve removed and the branch blanked off. 

2) The motors can fail. Not a certainty, but it's annoying when it happens.

On the rattling issue, before butterfly valves became all the rage people just had a blanking plate over the branch, with the idea being you removed it at whichever location you were racing at. Bit of a pain as it would be under the middle of the car, but if you wanted to just switch things up from time to time (have it louder for day-to-day but quieten it down again for a planned long road trip) you could do that. 

So, a better bet might be to remove the rear silencers and accept that overall the car will be louder. By keeping the resonators you should avoid an irritating drone. Cannot stress that latter part enough - motorway trips would become a real pain without them.

I appreciate that taking a quiet limo like an LS and making it noisier seems silly to some. But at least it's a nice cross-plane V8 rather than a farting wheezing four-banger. 🤢

[BigBoomer]

9 hours ago, AlpineAlex said:

Just taken my car for a long motorway run. What an absolutely incredible car this is.

I have noticed the vibrations come on at around 70mph and actually go away when travelling above 80mph.

Very strange.

Sounds like typical rear wheel balance vibrations to me but could be the prop shaft centre bearing mount rubber has failed.
I assume you have had the rears balanced and checked for runout on both the rims and tyres?

[AlpineAlex]

27 minutes ago, BigBoomer said:

Sounds like typical rear wheel balance vibrations to me but could be the prop shaft centre bearing mount rubber has failed.
I assume you have had the rears balanced and checked for runout on both the rims and tyres?

I've recently had all 4 wheels aligned, so it could be the prop shaft centre bearing.

[cruisermark]

perhaps this thread might be of use:

 

[AlpineAlex]

9 hours ago, donkmeister said:

On the exhaust "vent" question - I totally understand, I'm a V8 guy, and agree that it would be nice to have the option of sound or not.

When I looked into cut-out valves (this is what they are called), there are two drawbacks that long-term users report on...

1) They rattle. The valve itself is a butterfly, and due to the environment it's working in there isn't a nice rubber seal. It's metal on metal. So, some people who fit them end up just having the butterfly valve removed and the branch blanked off. 

2) The motors can fail. Not a certainty, but it's annoying when it happens.

On the rattling issue, before butterfly valves became all the rage people just had a blanking plate over the branch, with the idea being you removed it at whichever location you were racing at. Bit of a pain as it would be under the middle of the car, but if you wanted to just switch things up from time to time (have it louder for day-to-day but quieten it down again for a planned long road trip) you could do that. 

So, a better bet might be to remove the rear silencers and accept that overall the car will be louder. By keeping the resonators you should avoid an irritating drone. Cannot stress that latter part enough - motorway trips would become a real pain without them.

I appreciate that taking a quiet limo like an LS and making it noisier seems silly to some. But at least it's a nice cross-plane V8 rather than a farting wheezing four-banger. 🤢

Watched some youtube videos and this is exactly what I was looking for, thank you!

[Cotswold Pete]

On 5/5/2022 at 11:43 PM, AlpineAlex said:

Just taken my car for a long motorway run. What an absolutely incredible car this is.

I have noticed the vibrations come on at around 70mph and actually go away when travelling above 80mph.

Very strange.

I had something similar on my Mk3 LS 400, I did wonder if it was engine mounts or transmission mounts vibrating at certain RPM, but never did poke around to find out.  It was not anything in the running gear casuing the vibration at such a narrow band of speed.

[BigBoomer]

On 5/6/2022 at 10:17 AM, AlpineAlex said:

I've recently had all 4 wheels aligned, so it could be the prop shaft centre bearing.

Hi Alex, Alignment is not wheel or tyre balancing, nor do they check wheel or tyre runout.
Runout is where the wheel or tyre wobbles side to side when rotating.
Balancing prevents an up-down movement due to weight imbalance.

I had a bad vibration problem on my Carlton and after going to a 2nd place to get the balancing checked it turned out that the 1st place had balanced the wheels incorrectly.
I went back to the 1st place and spoke to the manager. He checked the tech in question and it turns out the tech was cutting corners in the balance process and therefore doing it wrong. Yes, it could be the prop bearing mount, but far more likely to be a wheel or tyre issue.

[Tulpen]

On 5/6/2022 at 12:43 AM, AlpineAlex said:

Just taken my car for a long motorway run. What an absolutely incredible car this is.

I have noticed the vibrations come on at around 70mph and actually go away when travelling above 80mph.

Very strange.

Remembering that this is a public forum.......admitting that you were travelling at 'above 80mph' is probably not a good idea.😶

[Malc]

2 hours ago, Tulpen said:

travelling at 'above 80mph' is probably not a good idea.😶

well known fact his speedo misreads by 10 or 12 mph 

Malc

[AlpineAlex]

Thanks guys, I do recall this seemed to have come about after I got my wheels aligned!

 

I may go get it checked again