Leaderboard

Hi Everyone, Just a Heads-Up which may be of benefit to any owners of elderly Lexus's (Lexii?), who are interested in "doing" classic car shows. Having just been to Bromley Motoring Pageant, we saved 25 quid, by registering online for "one-make cars", which required the car (ie my 1991 LS400) to be pre 1995 - 20 years old. This cost £5, to include allocated parking by make, AND admission for driver and 1 passenger. Normal admission was £15 each. Also avoiding long walk from public car park, and huge gate queue. I have also done the same booking for Cranleigh Classic Car Show in August. Only two Lexus took advantage of this yesterday, the other guy not even a member, so it would be great to see a few more of us showing off - mine was well admired by many people who hadn't realised what good kit we have! See you at Cranleigh.

-

I did read that Sir Harvey Jones hated being driven in his Lexus LS 400 - he preferred a Volvo for comfort. Just goes to show you can't please all of the people all the time! It is still the best car I have ever owned - and one of the cheapest to buy!

Stuart, sorry to hear that you find your LS uncomfortable as I've never come across anyone saying that about one of these cars before. I've taken mine on the Continent a few times now doing some really long trips and I have been amazed at just how comfy the car was after many hours at the wheel. Perhaps you need to experiment with the seat settings a bit more to alleviate any muscle strain or tension. My lad has driven my car a few times and he's very tall, but to my knowledge hasn't experienced any discomfort with the driver's seat.

A cautionary tale... About six months ago took my RX 400h to a certain north London main dealer for the recall work to be competed. Naturally they checked the car for other problems and turned up very little (a couple of missing plastic clips under the bonnet). Lulled into a false sense of security I decided to do the next service with them as they quoted a fairly reasonable price. The car went in. Then a short time later I got the call... Lots of red flag work needed in addition to the service, some of which made very little sense. According to them the rear brake discs, that I know to be less than two years old, were ‘very old’ and ‘provided almost no braking power’. I had a seized front offside caliper which meant that by their logic the car was stopping on one disc. But I knew the rear discs were not that old at all and there had been no apparent deterioration in the braking power of the car — certainly not to the extent that it was stopping on one disc only as claimed. There were other things besides, naturally. Anyway I was very busy so reluctantly agreed to much of the work and the eye watering bill — didn’t have time to get a second opinion. Got the car back a couple of weeks ago and in the time since I have barely used it (I live fairly centrally in London so I mostly use the car at weekends). No one else has keys to the car or has driven it since and I have not had the car cleaned or worked on in any way. This weekend I was driving on the M6 with three others in the car including my 4 year old daughter. I was in the middle lane which was crawling at the same speed as he left hand lane and I decided to pull into the right hand lane which was moving quickly with (fortunately) large gaps between the cars. The right hand lane was moving so much faster than the other two that I floored the accelerator to rapidly increase my speed so I could safely join. As usual with the RX400h, all three motors kicked in and I zoomed into the right hand lane nicely. Then I eased off the accelerator to match the speed of the car in front and... my car kept on accelerating at full pelt. I pulled my foot off completely but the car was racing as fast as it could and the car in front was getting bigger very, very quickly. I had to brake against the engine go-kart style. Then I shifted my left foot onto the brake so I could jab at the accelerator with my right foot. I could feel it was stuck to the floor and jabbed at it and tried to get my foot underneath to work it free. Thankfully I managed to free it, but that obviously meant the car pitched into rapid deceleration. Everyone was thrown around like crash test dummies for a moment before I managed to bring the car back to equilibrium. I pulled the car off at the next exit and found a safe place to park. With the engine off I jabbed the accelerator all the way to the floor again and, again, it stuck fast. I got out of the car to take a close look and could then see (and this was not obvious) that the rubber mat (original Lexus and in good condition) had been taken off the safety hooks and placed on the floor unhooked and so far forward that it held the accelerator pedal if it is floored. I put the matt back on the hooks and there is now (obviously) no way the accelerator can become caught — that's what the hooks are for, right?! Now when I occasionally have my car cleaned at a hand car wash I check they have hooked the matt on properly. But I don’t expect to have to do that with a main dealer — especially not when checking that the matts are in good condition and fitted correctly is one of the items covered in the service (I’d already seen this on the service sheet with a big tick next to it). I can’t prove fault of course. But there is no way I unhooked those matts and no one other than the main dealer at the service has had access to do so. I am, of course, warning them about what happened. Perhaps the car was cleaned after the service rather than before and whomever does the cleaning (probably not the best paid of trained individual in the dealership) didn’t know any better. But that kind of sloppiness could cause a pile up. I thought I’d pass this on. Needless to say I am now doubly disinclined to revisit the main dealer. And I will now always check the matts after any service or valeting work.

Hi it looks like a vibration damper that is fitted to the exhaust I think it's on the centre section. Don't worry it shouldn't case any issues Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

Stuart, I agree with Malc. I've been driving 400 and 460 for 18 years now and, with all the seat and steering wheel adjustments that are possible, I think you just haven't found the right combo for you. Even on VERY long journeys, I get out wishing I still had further to go.

....... the Ls400 is absolutely the only car that I know I can drive for hours and hours and hours and emerge with zero back pain or other aches and pains ...... feeling as tho' I've just stepped out of a comfy armchair. And I'm a fat old bugger only 5'10" tall. Throughout my driving life of 48 years, of which 14 have been Ls400, I speak with some experience......... not always so rotund tho' but I did have aches and pains with other cars when I was " smaller " Malc

I bought a 53 reg RX300 with just under 48,000 miles a few months ago. I looked around for a good few months before seeing anything on autotrader and ebay, finally bought off a private chap on ebay. You will get to know the cars that have been advertised for weeks and weeks at dealers or over priced private sellers so you will have a better idea of the value and market. Good thing about these cars is the horrid MPG puts a lot of people off so you can be very picky, choose one with no issues mechanically and as full service history as possible. After owning a SEL I would now consider cars without sat nav if they are very low mileage or in very good order as the reversing camera and changing the heater speed by touch screen is a gimick, but cool to have.

Your responsibility on details is that you get the persons Registration number, an address would be useful but the Registration number is the all important one after that get as, many other pieces of info from the 3rd party you can. I ask for proof of identity as well but in the two accidents, always make sure your insurance company has any contact info on witnesses. I am sorry that this is all ready sounding messy. Threaten him with the police and if you haven't heard anything in 24 hrs go to your Police station and report him. Mike.

Looking forward to hearing a 'manned-up' LS. Always though the horn made the car sound like the one that Noddy drove around in.

...... intuitively ............ the lad was maybe driving without insurance cover and his dad will probably settle with some cash .... get two estimates, show his dad those and tell him he needs to give you the cash immediately or you will report it all to the police ................. Then it's your choice on timing and repairer to fix your car................. I wouldn't worry your insurer any more with cash in hand .......... . just don't use them again, they seem amazingly unhelpful especially if you have Fully Comprehensive cover with them. Malc

Brian Hi and thanks for this, really appreciate it. I slept on it and had another look. The reason I over did the bolt as I had not factored it going over a small cover too...oh dear. From a safety point of view the main work is done by x4 14mm bolts/nuts. I might be able to use a 12mm trim clip to offer a firmer fit to that part of the plastic cover. I will leave as is. So it wasn't the sealant or gasket remanants after all. This morning I fitted the rear under tray, took out the battery for charging as it was flat. And fitted and torqued the fan bracket. I'm waiting on the drive belt tensioner and driver belt idler pulley due soon I hope. Then I can complete the job. All good fun. :winky: We've all gone out to buy hats so we can take them off to you! we want see a video of the car running first LOL Good point, I'll put it back in the hat box until we see it running, can't wait, I think I may look good in a panama!

I bought a 2005 Rx300SE for my wife back in March. It had 100k on the clock with full lexus history. I also run an LS 400 mk4, so I can advise you on general comparisons with the 2 cars. Firstly, I find that fuel consumption isn't as good as expected - 21 urban and best of 25mpg cruising at 70, in other words, my LS is my economy car. General build quality whilst good, isn't to LS spec and neither is the gear change, with the box being caught out at times. I find that performance can be described as adequate with hills needing the box to change down, again it's a heavy car with nearly 100bhp less than the LS. I do enjoy sitting higher up in the car, and handling is better than I expected with little body roll and low wind and tyre noise. I also find the seating arrangement good with the rear seat being able to accommodate 2 child seats with room for an additional passenger. boot space is also very good with storage space under the floor for sundries. Like the LS, cam belt change is expensive, so make sure that it's been done and that all electrics work as they should. I didn't want the additional technicalities that the air suspended SEL had, so the SE ticked that box. Have a good look underneath as they do rust a bit under there. The good thing is that there are quite a few to choose from as they are more popular than an LS, but this is dependant where you live as I had very few to choose from in Scotland. Seems to be quite a few LS owners getting RX's these days, says a lot for brand loyalty. Pete

Here's a perfect example. I've just driven for an hour to do a Porsche Boxster, but sadly Mr Porsche isn't getting done today - despite the fact I took two screens with me, just in case. The result of the questions asked, the info provided was; has rain sensor, no top tint, no aerial, no GPS. In actual fact, the screen he has; no rain sensor, does have top tint, does have aerial, no GPS. So I guess 1 out of 4 isn't bad - must be my or my company's fault it's wrong...

Reg numbers won't do anything fro deciphering what windscreen is in a vehicle. Sadly, even chassis numbers are not linked to a database with full specs, let alone windscreens. All we can go on are the available options, and the customer knowing what they have. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. On some cars, this isn't a problem. For example, the original shape Ford Focus - there are only two types of screen; green non heated, and green heated. However, there are two different heated screens, with a change over year. So all we need to know from the customer is if it's heated or not, and we work it out from the change over year. This only becomes a problem if the vehicle is a late registered model, although we can usually pre-empt this by asking if the indicators are in the bumper or the headlights. We still sometimes get it wrong, 1) because customers give the wrong info, and 2) because that's the problem with having multiple options on modern cars. Did you know that for the Jaguar X-Type there are 16 different windscreens combinations? Nope, neither do the owners. Lexus also have multiple combinations for windscreens - only recently I went to a CT200h (64 plate) with the wrong screen. His was acoustic with rain sensor, but he told us it had an aerial in the glass. When I got there it didn't. As for colour, half my customers think that windscreens are clear! (when in actual fact very very few cars have clear glass - the Skoda Fabia is actually the only car of recent years I can think off the top of my head that still has clear glass). Typically, UK cars have green glass, although some special models have blue glass (Golf GTi, Mondeo Titanium X), but also many models have what's called "clear solar", which you may have noticed by the distinctive "purplish" petrol effect tinge. Japanese imports are usually grey or bronze, although old UK spec Ford's also had bronze glass (mk1 Sierra, mk3 Escort for example). See how it can get confusing? Add into that rain sensors, light sensors, rain & light sensors (combined, Merc do this a lot), infra red cameras, lane departure cameras, cctv/traffic cameras, new Fords that have road sign detecting cameras, heated screens that can be fully heated or only wiper heated, acoustic and non acoustic, nano-rain treated windscreens, the list goes on. It's not simple like it used to be! NW are indeed a windscreen company, but I wouldn't expect them to be able to identify the exact windscreen specification over the phone with the answers you gave them. Just as I wouldn't expect British Gas to tell me what boiler I have if I say "it's white and square". Spend a week with a windscreen fitter - it's harder than you think ;)