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Well, following on from finding and buying my LS460 Original post I’ve covered about 800 miles now and it’s every bit as smooth and comfortable as I had hoped for! I had a nice 60 mile waft up the M40 and got surprising fuel economy, although to be fair my normal commute of 30 miles each way is about 10 miles of slow A/B Roads And 20 miles of Motorway and that gets me 26MPG which I am still happy with. I knew that the Service History was pretty flaky when I bought the car so first thing was the Air Filters - yuk, obviously not changed for a couple of years 😞. Next up was to replace all the brake disks and pads, I’ve done my own for years, how hard can it be............ I whipped off a rear wheel, popped off the Caliper, removed the pads and then realised that the E-Handbrake was still on and therefore I couldn’t remove the disk (my first time with a E-Handbrake), no probs I thought, I’ll just start the engine and flick the switch to stop the handbrake from coming on. Jump into the drivers seat, foot on brake pedal, push the start button, servo wakes up...pedal drops a bit...dash lights up like a bloody Christmas tree with every sort of warning light known to mankind - IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT Being a smartarse car it recognises that the rear caliper pistons have moved excessive fluid compared to the others (caliper is clear of the disk and has no pads in it remember!), assumes there is a fluid leak, locks off that fluid circuit from the ABS module and warns you that Armageddon is approaching, do not pass go, do not collect £200, in fact go to dealer and deposit wads of cash with them to sort the problem out, or....... Go to E-Bay, cross your fingers, buy an OBD interface lead and some TIS TechStream software EBAY Link to Lead Load the software onto an old Win7 Laptop, cleared the codes and life was good - I claim a lucky escape this time 🙂. But at least I learned something new and now have the Software should any other sensors etc decide to throw a wobbly! Next stop is the Oil Filter/Oil, Cabin Filter - even I can’t duff that up....can I? So in summary, after 6 weeks, LOVE IT. !!! Jim

Nipped down to Lexus Glasgow this morning, brilliant service, they supplied and fitted, free of charge, my fuse box is in the engine compartment, spent ages looking around under the dash, as the manual said... Top marks to Glasgow Lexus

as a LS400 driver, and a clean example at that, i find it extremely easy to forget sometimes that im driving a 20 year old car. i have 3 of them. a 95, 99, and 00 but have been activley looking for a clean 90 for years. ill find one, someday hopefully. anyway, the car i do the most travling in is my 99 thats just a tick over 200k although youd never know it. everything works, its silent as the tomb on the highway and feels like its a pillow floating on air at 100 mph. i drive around town and notice the few other cars of its vintage which are completely clapped out smoke belching turds, that seriously look the part. last weekend i went to go see a friend of mine and he had a mid 90s Cadillac Deville he recently picked up as a project thats about the same age, with about the same mileage and in the same condition as my LS400 and we compared our rides. after driving my LS400 he is obsessed with finding one now and wants my help to look for one which of course i will lol. what really struck me was just how absolutely ancient that caddy felt in comparison! everything from the clunky door handles to the interior finish to the way it rode on the ride, -antiquated by todays standards and even by my LS400s standards. it felt like i was driving something out of the 1960s. ive driven a few other folks 20+ year old cars recently and its kinda the same deal. they feel like antiques! is it that the LS400 really was that well built to that it still feels modern in the 21st century or have i just gotten so used to the way they drive that everything else i drive feels like a wheelbarrow full of dog poop after it? my buddy's caddy was nice, REAL nice and had all if not more features then my LS400 has, but it felt like junk! even alot of other more modern cars feel like junk after driving it. thing is, i have driven and owned plenty of really tired LS400s over the years. my 95 for example, feels and looks old but not almost 25 years, but the experience of one thats right, and i mean really right is something thats completely different and honestly vanishing these days as more and more are abused and crushed. another reality check is when im driving around town or driving even long distances between large cities, not passing very much on the road from the 90s and not passing a single other LS400 for weeks sometimes. yes, these cars are a dying breed, and its all of them really and you can see it here on CL even. early Lexus vehicles are finally dying off and in alarming numbers. they have finally reached the age of not old enough to be an antique but almost, and too old to be taken seriously and just written off by most. hell even the enthusiasts have grown bored and moved on to newer cars. i go to the junkyard to get parts for my cars and its not a mad dash to get to the recently totaled one that just hit the yard. last 3 LS400s i pulled parts from were 90% intact shortly before being crushed. why? people just arent interested in them anymore and the few that are still hanging around people are not fixing. not enough supply to really even be a demand. even more so on the other models. 2GS are vanishing and 1GS are almost extinct as i really dont see them at all anymore outside well worn junkyard examples. i dont ever see early es300s anymore and i thought the 250s were all long gone till a fresh one went cruising by me in traffic a few days ago and i almost had to blink my eyes at the thought id seen a ghost! these are the greatest cars of the 90s and honestly its sad that there are so few left. they are not bad cars, its just that you can kick an old loyal dog around for so long before they get tired. these cars have fully aged out well past their life expectancy and now their reliability without major work being done to keep them alive. theres a whole adult generation that doesn't know a world without Lexus, but also have never experienced just how amazing the old ones really were, and if they do get a chance to drive an old one, its usually some friend of theirs absolutely clapped out bomb, therefore ruining the whole experience of what these cars really represented. i work at a lexus dealership as a Technology Specialist. one of my co-workers drives a 07 ES350 but was having trouble with it so he hitched a ride home with me and he had only ridden in one LS400 years before that was absolutely on its last leg and kept saying, "wait, THIS is an LS400??!?" REALLY I CANT BELIEVE THIS IS AN LS400!!" -basically assuming they were all horrible bombs like his friends was. first impressions can mean everything i guess.. for those of us that drive the older models, especially the nice ones, bravo to you all! someones gotta keep these cars around for future generations to experience. and its sad that so many never will....

Got one from Lexussparesdirect on eBay he had a pre facelift one for sale so I asked did he have one for my car and he did 🙂

Evening all! Thought this may be of interest to some people/ generally satisfy curious people like myself who like to know numbers or generate some discussion. Attached will be a finance quote for the Track Edition I received at the beginning of the week after inquiring. Apparently there are only to be 4 build slots this year, 2 of which have already gone, with delivery likely to be November. This quote also included the extra matte grey paint option.

Ok, I know I have an "old" RX, a 2000 model no less, and it has the normal radio/tape player/Cd changer in the glove box set up. But "poverty spec", no controls on the steering wheel. And I cannot find any info on what the actual "abilities" of this unit's amplifier are, I'm pretty much stuck with it because the a/c panel is part of the fascia, so where do I go to find out what would be the best option door speaker wise? What I'd ideally want to know is the RMS output, fed into how many ohms, 2, 3, 4, 8 ohms? So that I can source speakers with the same impedance.If I decide to go the "booster amp" route then that's another option. The door speakers are terrible, probably because they are 20 years old... They look like cardboard cheap'n'nasty 10 bob specials which is a bit of a surprise given the car quality.

Thanks for the detailed response and I fully accept that we have different views on this and we can both be considered right and wrong depending upon viewpoint of the reader. So, I'm not sure if you have listed three different definitions of a petrolhead or whether they were intended as three requirements to be called a petrolhead, but I definitely fit the description of the first two. I have a mild interest in motor racing, but most of it I can take or leave. Does that make me a petrolhead, or am I missing a key ingredient? In my mind, I am one because of a life-long interest and enthusiasm of road cars. To be honest, that's why I was careful to put "sports car worshipping petrolhead" because I don't think you have to be a sports car lover to be a petrolhead. Isn't the classic car lover in their Rolls Royce, Jaguar XJ or Austin Allegro an enthusiast? Or are they excluded because they are not looking to charge around the country lanes pushing their car to its limits? What I am saying is that I think you are defining a sports car enthusiast, the definition of a car enthusiast is much wider than you suggest and not all of them base their hobby around speed and handling. I think you missed my point on the busy motorway comment, because on a busy motorway you do not get to drive in a straight line for long periods. You end up slowing down and speeding up with the traffic, looking for the overtaking opportunities, trying to choose the right time to change lanes, showing the 65mph motorist that hogging the middle lane when the inside lane is empty is not a good choice (😉) and finally getting the freedom to put your foot down for a bit when the traffic clears. It may not be testing the limits of the car, but it can test your driving and be both frustrating and rewarding particularly if you are trying to be a responsible driver at the same time. Some cars handle it a lot better than others as you'd expect. If you haven't experienced this, I can recommend driving the length of the M40 most days, you'll see all these events. I admit I'm stretching my point a bit with the slow traffic comment, but cars do handle queues differently. I have 2 cars at present, my GS accelerates quickly enough as soon as I press the accelerator pedal (thanks to the electric motor), doesn't jerk between gear changes (because it has none), comes smoothly to a halt and is always in the power band when I need to go. My Skoda has to restart the engine before I can accelerate if I don't turn the Stop/Start system off, can often give a jerky gear change especially when coming to a halt and drops out of the power band so it feels like it is suffering from turbo lag. These don't particularly relate to speed and handling, but all of them affect how much I like the car, which is the important part. With regard to the potholes comment, comfort and handling go hand-in-hand. If the entire car shudders, or the steering wheel jerks whenever you go over a pothole at slow speed, imagine how it would feel if it happened part way round a fast bend. Again, my point is that the "Top Gear" definition of how a car handles on the limit is not the whole story of how good or bad a car is and just because I don't see that as a top priority for me, it doesn't make me any less of a petrolhead or car enthusiast. So I think you are portraying a narrow definition of an enthusiast, they come in all shapes and sizes and how fast a car accelerates, its top speed and how well it can go round a fast corner is not the only criteria. I know we've had this discussion before, but I wanted to make the point again that the things you see as important are not always the things that others see as important (as you say above), but importantly that does not make anyone else more or less of a petrolhead or car enthusiast than you. Having said that, if there is an official definition that says that handling and speed are the top priority, then I take it back and consider myself a... car liker perhaps? By the way. I think I have seen enough of the "Top Gear" and magazine type of reports to understand the specific meanings of the terms they use and do you know what, I've even experienced some of them! Sorry if that comes across as a bit of a shock for you. Please stop making assumptions about the type of person I am, you still don't know me or what I've experienced and you are coming across as insulting. Try and keep your responses to the points made rather than making it personal.

They miss the target when they apply 'petrolhead values' emphasise on a vehicle like ES300h which is not and isn't pretending to be a high performance car.. if one wants a lovely sounding 4 cylinder, a 4 cylindr diesel or 4 cylinder petrol revving less than 6500rpm wouldnt cut it anyway.. 7000rpm and up that's when you talking.. so why apply these 'petrolhead values' emphasise on an ES300h when its far from one is beyond me..

TIS(techstream compatible) as it states. Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

I expect Sytner will be pushing my old 100k FLSH example out via the trade at some point soon... Apparently it's too leggy for them to do themselves.

Yup dont buy an ISF if you ever might need to move it on quickly! Surprises me sometimes though, what else offers this level of ability and reliability other than something from the same stable? Every dog has its day and I think this cars might yet be to come, when we reach the point where m3's and RS4's of the same era are terrifying ownership prospects. In fact we are all but there really, who would buy a 100k example of either of these cars?!

Bargain.... I’ll take 2 😅 Those figures are mind blowing. That GFV is truly a killer, I had the same problem when looking to buy a Mustang a few years ago. They were massively undervaluing their GFV’s, but at the time, a 3 year old stang had only depreciated a grand a year, so I would have potentially had upwards of £15k in positive equity by contract end. The monthly payment was substantially more than I wanted to pay at the time and I didn’t want to take the risk on residuals with a facelift due.

You need to buy a virgin key or a key that has been properly deleted from a vehicle. I bought a key some time back and upon programming it with techstream the key was coded to another car. This must be recognised by the key having some part read that informs the vehicle 'it' is coded to another vehicle. This message pops up at the time of coding. So that key was useless. Unless reseed process was used and I wasn't about to go down that route. In the end I managed to buy a virgin key and techstream coded it right away with no problems. A thing to note is there will be a code on the label on your current key like 'BC2EQ' or similar. It is important that the key you buy matches this and is of course virgin (not coded to another car) . Regards Ian Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

Last night when I parked the car the fuel light came on, it didn't this morning... But nevertheless there it is... Overall mileage and miles since "improvements to fuel managing applied". I must say - I didn't expect that to happen, at all.

With an £80k RRP that GFV is a killer

Try Paul Frost at lexussparesdirect on Ebay Davey.

There is usually a fuse extraction tool in the main fuse box under the bonnet. Looks like small plastic tweezers coloured white. John.

No, that red one from a while ago is YT12MJY and has been moved in the trade again and on sale with yet another dealer in Halesowen Birmingham. (on motors.co.uk) The fact that one ISF sells in one day and this one has been roaming round the trade for about a year now tells its own story.

Just to let you now I tried it with the AC on and off and it made not difference. These are cars a so smooth and quite that any minute vibration is felt - I guess this one is so mild that a Non-Lexus driver will not know its there I will speak to the garage when I pass by next time I pass by

Thank you for the instructions. I dismantled the motor, put lot of grease in the axial, then …no more noise! No parts needed.

After cleaning out battery fan filter I’ve had over 60mpg in the 70 miles since last I last filled up. Mainly motorway commutes to work but some local roads too.

Funny you should say that - we moved into a new build estate a few years ago made by Bellway and not a single house on the estate can get their car into the garage easily and literally almost every one has been converted to a room (while mine is full of junk!) It all looked good on the plans - every house had a garage and a parking spot but in reality they all had two cars so every frontage over time has converted the front from grass to extra parking. They build them like doll houses. I'm on the 4th car now since I've lived here - if I managed to squeeze them in the garage I wouldn't be able to get out of the car! Most houses around here have SUVs as is the current fashion - we got rid of the Volvo XC90 a month back as although it was the best family car I've ever driven it was just hard work finding spaces big enough. It literally picked up three parking dings in the first few weeks I had it although they all stopped right away when I added the metal side steps. They were the best thing I've ever had for stopping people damaging the side of the car.

Whilst we are talking about size - the other day I drive into morissons car park and there is a brand new GS300H F Sport in Blue - I parked next to it (on purpose lol) and I immediately noticed that it is larger than my 430 - I wasn't expecting that. 2 things I noticed: that the space between tyre and arch is a lot and it appeared to be sitting quite high in my opinion. secondly the actual sills themselves look unfinished. I then noticed a mature bloke walk up to it and then we got chatting - apparently he had an S class Mercedes which was costing him too much in repairs and he decided to buy a Lexus - I couldn't believe him when referring to the Lexus he said "they are giving them away at £34000" - wish I had your sort of money I thought to myself. He then showed me the interior - he hadn't even take off the covering paper off the rear sills and there were scrapes and marks on the front one - what! I then sat in the drivers seat briefly - it was a black interior - was too quick to draw any opinion though. But I do think modern cars don't have the same personality attached to them like the old ones (mines a 04 430)

i`ve not been shopping for at least 25 years. The shops (Sainsbury`s, Amazon and E Bay) come to me, come rain,wind,hail,snow or storm. I do not use petrol, worry about traffic accidents, look for suitable parking places, or worry about who has dinged my car. Problem solved.

Been a loooong time!!!! So the battery relocation has started. 140amp circuit breaker, motamec battery tray, 2 post junctionbox, bunch of terminal connectors and all the cable. ripped all the rear seats and front passenger seat out. Pulled all the carpet up to find a decent place to hide it. Managed to push the cable through a hole in the wiring harness grommet in the firewall. Mounted the junction box. Mounted the battery tray.... Then realised the power cable is about half a metre too short!! 🤦‍♂️ so ive ordered another metre and a crimp joiner. Once thats come i can mount the circuit breaker and finish it off.

Although you can turn off the AC it's not really a good idea. These cars are equipped with climate control, the idea of which is to set the temperature that you want in the cabin and then the car computers use a mix of hot/cold/AC to maintain that temperature automatically. Another reason is that the AC system will contain one or two rubber seals in the pipework. If the seals dry out it can lead to a leak of the refrigerant gas, so an oil lubricant is circulated around the system with the gas to keep the seals supple - if the AC isn't running then no lubricant is getting to those seals. If it has already leaked out then you obviously need to get the fault rectified but don't go to somewhere like Kwik-Fit, ATS, or Halfords - go to a proper aircon specialist who has the right equipment and the right gas oil lubricant - that is extremely important. The AC compressors in normal cars are belt-driven from the engine but in a hybrid, because the engine doesn't run all the time, they are driven by an electric motor. The windings of the electric motor are actually immersed in the lubricating oil for cooling purposes, so the oil must be non-conductive. Normal PAG oil found in belt-driven AC systems is conductive and as little as 1% contamination of PAG oil in a hybrid AC system can cause damage to the compressor's motor. Of course, your particular problem may be something other than needing to be regassed, but it's one of the easier things to check so makes a good starting point.

The built-in nav is absolutely abysmal so I never use it. Much prefer Waze on my phone.

Drivers seat back wearing through at that mileage isnt a fault as such

The title did get your attention though, didn't it?

The content of this thread does not meet the initial expectations raised when I first glanced at the topic title.