Leaderboard

Sounds good. Nothing to worry about with a DA machine though. They stop spinning if you put too much pressure on it and you CAN'T cause any damage unless you physically wack it on the car. It's the orbital machines that cause damage I use AG SRP with medium polishing pads on machine. Fills very well. If you do go round to the machine route, use sonax Perfect finish on a medium polishing pad. It'll get rid of all those swirls and leave the paint perfect!

You guys don't half test drive some boring cars. :P Was trying this one out a couple of Fridays back.... Very nice car. Took some practice to use the throttle in a refined fashion, but was surprised that it didn't feel as quick as my Supra.

OK here is my story. My Celsior was involved in an accident which was not my fault, the other party admitted liabilty at the scene to 2 police officers so no going back there. My insurer decided that the claim would be handled by a "Claims Management Company" who duly took the car away to an "Approved Repairer"and provided me with a similar specification loan car.... a Volkswagen Polo! Sure enough the car was "written off" I was then contacted directly by the 3rd party insurer who initially offered me £1600.00 which was upped to £2000.00 during the phone call and I was allowed to retain the salvage for free, in addition to this they also paid more cash if I returned the "hire car" no problem for me with an insulting Polo diesel on the drive unused. So I basically sacked the Claims Management company (Ambulance Chasers) told the hire company to collect the car and the approved repairers to return the car to me, they were reluctant but had no choice. I took the car to a local bodyshop who repaired the car for £600.00 and I took a nice holiday in the Dominican Republic. It was my insurance company who refused to reinsure the car unless it was cat C'd otherwise it would have not been recorded.

God that must be infuriating. A neighbour of mine has just experienced the same thing. He was sat in his car with his wife, parked, in a local Co-Op when the driver in the next bay did exactly the same. The lady got out and offered profuse apologies and accepted it was her fault, blah, blah. My neighbour is very proud of his S reg Scorpio Cosworth and has really looked after it. When the insurance companies were notified the culprit denied doing it!! Thankfully a member of staff at The Co-Op had witnessed the event and produced the necessary. Suddenly she accepted it was really her fault. The neighbours' car was written off and he has bought it back from the insurers and had his own repair undertaken. He has been left traumatised by the whole process and feels very let down. Most of the problem seems to be down to stupidly over the top repair estimates.

No you cant. Its a safety feature and could be the difference between someone banging their head on it and not. BTW the door doesn't stop once it starts if anything is trapped inside so you'd rather not turn it off even if there is a way

£3k off a Premier at Broadspeed now. Id assume that'll only go up to like £5-6k after September.

i thought it being a non fault accident he can approach the other persons insurance company and demand that his car be repaired at the a garage of his choice? Why should he suffer through no fault of his own?

Cheers for the comments. But you were the pioneer! I bought the GS a couple of months ago. It had been stood a few months. After driving it a short distance it died on me. Then after restarting it did the same again. I limped it to the Lexus dealer for a hybrid health check. They listed the fault codes for me. And the estimated prices for the repairs which came to more than I paid for the car! I searched around and all roads pointed to Richard at hybrid battery solutions in Northampton. I left the car with him and he pointed out that he could repair and recondition the battery for me but the gearbox oil pump issue meant that the battery management wouldn't be exercising the battery correctly and the guarantee would be invalid. It was probably a partially seized pump bearing and being stood so long that had killed the battery in the first place. Whilst Richard did the work on the battery he gave me the additional option to install a port to attach a battery conditioner unit. I thought that I plan to keep the car quite a few years and it might save me a couple of trips to Northampton. You can attach the conditioner and plug it into the mains overnight. Or for up to 39 hours. Or leave it on a timer one hour a day if you go on holiday. I'm hopeful that now the oil pump is fully working I won't need the conditioner too much. But it's good to know that I have it. Have a look at Richards site on the web or his eBay page. There should be more info there. And I think he's subscribed to this thread and will probably come along and correct some of my info! He's a very knowledgeable guy.

Thank You, appreciate the kind comment. Yeah I was very lucky when I got to this car to purchase it, it was as immaculate as I had hoped, there was 3 small parking dints which I have since had PDR removed and they are now not visible even to me knowing where they were so yeah the bodywork is very nice. Means I have a perfect base to work with and keep immaculate throughout my ownership

I'm confused what "the government" or "the system" has to gain out of making darker front window tint illegal? After driving a vehicle with darken front windows as mentioned earlier I can understand why they are illegal, I would never forgive myself if something happened and I would always question would it have happened if I didn't have tinted front windows. Its not worth questioning yourself in the event of an accident or attracting unwanted attention but that's just my opinion

Edited to replace step by step write up with a blog post: Many thanks to Hayne, without whom I would have bunged this into a dealer and probably spent 7-800 pounds on a pump or £3k on a transmission. If you have the P2797 code and suspect the pump bearings it's worth a go. Armed with some car lifting kit, new transmission oil and bearings for both ends of the pump I carried out the pump repair over the weekend. Also used basic tools, spanners, oil drain tray and a pump for squirting the new oil in. Allow a full day but if you're very mechanically minded with a good set of tools you might half it. Photos and steps attached: http://carlthomas66.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/lexus-gs450h-transmission-oil-pump.html Took me twice the time Hayne did but I didn't have a ramp. So allow a day at least depending on access, tools and mechanical skill. Test drive it. Do a lot of gentle battery only driving to make sure the pump gets a good run and look out for dash warnings. Then a final check with the Mini VCI if you have it and hopefully no more P2797. Take it for a long run. I blasted mine up to Stansted and back to pick up the girlfriend! Brave I know! Then celebrate with a beer. After you park up the car! I did! Good Luck!

Well! After all the hype about Oxygen sensors, and even catalytic converters, it turned out to be a £22 MAF sensor in the air intake! Surprisingly, when I changed all the plugs, and as the upper intake manifold had to be removed to get to the rear ones, I was shocked at the inlet ports. One bank were black the other three were clean ... cant see how that could happen unless the majority of air flow from the engine breather is directed to one bank only.

The eBay one just seems too cheap. With Eurocarparts it's easier to return a part if there's a problem. As far as I'm aware the sizes are all the same, although I did have to make a small and very easy modification with one small top hose, the overflow that you refer to. To gain good access to the sensors you really need the car up on a ramp, but the wheels can stay on. As the coolant is a Toyota product I'm certain you won't be able to get it elsewhere. And the transmission fluid you need is Mobil ATF 3309 (that's assuming your dip stick states Type 1V)

The later LS400 mirrors have a small PCB ( electronics board) inside the motor casing, this has 2 Hall sensors which detect both the vertical and horizontal position of the mirror glass,these detectors rely on a small cylindrical magnet on each axis for reference. Over time dirt can enter the plastic tube these magnets move in so preventing their movement the ECU then tries to reset and the result is a random movement of the mirror glass. If you're brave enough you can actually strip the mirror down and clean the guts to cure the problem.

I really should read the manual! Had the car since 1st July last year and only just discovered the parking change holder - it had 5 £1 coins in it from the previous owner! Result!

yes i have checked all the fuses even the ones in both footwells