ambermarine

the 97-2000 ls400 had 16 inch wheels for a reason the suspension and drive train was designed for them any other size makes a mockery of the original calculations for using that size of wheel. My advice is get those 17 inch wheels off which I beleave are off a ls430 that as a totally different suspension to the LS400.

When I resided in Argyll in the noughties there was a shortage of salt Nationwide in one particularly bad winter and the argyll & Bute used a chemical formula on the roads and it wrecked my Mark 1 so much so It rotted out the rear suspension and the cills.

The subframe is the worst as are those pipes which need checking out for replacement where plastic shrouds meet or cover the sills and floor remove them as there is likely rust under them.The wire brush will take off scale but you must use a rust inhibitor before aplying any protective coats.

Yes my 98 LS400 23 years without a advisory bearing in mind the first three years of its life are exempt although it as only done 54k .

The issue you have is the duplicity of ownership you know how wonderful these cars are and you have now got two .Trying to convince someone who is not converted is likened to being a missionary in darkest Africa in the 18th century,the would be buyers are wary and trying to get gifts from you and threaten you with spears if you do not comply they do not trust you because they are not yet converts so you have to take a missionary position which can be a very unpleasant experience .I suggest you put it up on ebay with a reserve that way you will not only save yourself a unpleasent experience but find a bottom end price to expect.

Here is the part number and tutorial for replacement, www.lexls.com/tutorials/steering/pspumprebuild.html

The workshop manuals are available on Ebay USA ,you can also purchase online manuals per subject ie engine /transmission on a hourly or daily basis from Mitchell Automanuals usa there are other sites for that so best option is just to download specifically what you need .the Book Manual published by Lexus is probably your preffered choice but expensive.

There is another site which as more to offer than the rest and that is "Yoshiparts.com". Looking at the job you did on the citreon you will have no problems working on the Lexus.

The car is a Lexus and in this regard is bulletproof both the engine and transmission ,being in Spain there should not be much corrosion so for a few hundred euros you have a project. The trans fluid maybe low and the suspension is fixable and there is a library of advice both on the UK and USA Lexus owners sites . All the known historical faults are on record so are their fixes you will not be dissapointed with the car when you start work on it because you will soon see the quality in these cars.

Reading some of the contributions on the forum it amazes me how we now take for granted the years we own these masterpeices.I have owned two for a total of 30 years and counting. I think the most I owned any of my previous cars was two years apart from the cars mentioned in a earlier post I had company cars for 22 years but non of them more than two years. the improvement in those bog standard BMC and Ford models over that time was snail pace and so was the quality ,I can remember being given a escort popular, brand new and already rusting in the engine bay and you could see the rust everywhere because the engine was only taking up a quarter of the space in there. I used two tins of wd40 on a trip from Manchester to Head office in Bristol on a wet rainy motorway stopping every few miles to keep the ignition leads dry from what was a non protection open to the elements space. I can remember having a brand new Montego estate in the October they were first produced and the front drivers door did not close properly,went back to the dealership Lookers and they ground off the edge with a grinder stuck some paint on and sent it back to us and you think present day dealershis are bad. We as a family went all the way to Rimini in Italy on a Cosmos grand tour in that car ,during the journey home the front windows fell out of thier slides and we had to tape them up. Nostalgia for our classic cars is more about the era than the car because we tend to only remember the good times. Because the LS400 does not give you any pain nostalgia is not part of the experience the car becomes part of your normal everyday being.

The price of the latest Lexus LS is approx 2.5 x what my 98 ls400 cost 26 years ago so I do not think the price is unjustified.The inflation will contribute most of that increase and techno improvements costs( R&D) will add a fair bit .The depreciation will not be as considerable as in the age of the LS400 because there are less being made so a smaller used buyers market. I was fortunate to get my car for less than 4k when it was 12 years old with 20k on the clock I believe it is worth a bit more than that now and I could afford a brand new all up LS but I do not see the point in that as I everything I need in the one I own. Cars are part of our lives and I have owned some real classics frog eyed sprite, sunbeam rapier ,Hillman californian, minivan, triumph herald, and a austin a40 farina the first hatchback. If I still owned those they would be worth a fortune but life dictates what we keep and what was happening at the time and those cars I mentioned were just modes of transport at the price I could just about afford they were not bought for any other reason and to that end nothing as changed I have now found the right car at the right price to keep.

Well Frazer it looks like Lexus have stamped down on my supplier ,I bought the whole timing belt + tensioner and waterpump replacement from them 4 years ago at a total cost of £175 including shipping Burj Auto DWC -LLC in Dubai they still supply Toyota parts but the Lexus name as been removed from the manfacturers list if you put in a lexus part number it will state it is out of stock in their parts reference box. They were too good to be true I suppose thinking about it I should have bought a boat load off spares at the time but again we think conservativly when we have to buy something not speculatevly.

There are a couple of blogs on u-tube regarding the replacement aftermarket arms and the results in general are very poor some lasted less than nine months before the bushings virtually collapsed.

When mine was done a couple of years a go I sourced my parts in the middle east they came in genuine Lexus parts at half the price of Lexus UK and that was with the shipping and taxes. there are several sites based in the UAE just google that area . As for getting a competent mechanic that can be a bit tricky.

Save yourself a few quid on the sensor just solder a piece of wire on to the two terminal ends,therefore reinstating the circuit.

Brake maintenance is critical to us Diy owners who do not use dealership servicing,I did my fronts last week and although I have only done 8k since they were last serviced it is amazing how much brake ditritus builds up around the pistons and moving parts.the other benefit of having the wheel off is being able to access the suspension parts and the upper wheel arch. On closer inspection there was surface rust apperaing on control arms and the upper control arm body anchor brackets mainly from contamination off the arm. A quick wire brush action and primer paint on all these surfaces followed by a liberal dinitrol covering and we are back to factory finish.

Yes a local firm had to do them three times before I was satisfied but to be fair they are all apart from the one that went bad ok. I have had a quote from wheel specialists for five at a price of £550 with ceramic finish so I will have a look in the future but not needed now I have refurbed the £50 buy I made four year ago. As a point of interest I was informed by a technichan in a Lexus dealership in the states some years ago that the reason Lexus Toyota wheels are vunerable to corrosion is they supply cars to predominatly southern hemisphere envIronments so the rust belt protection is not required in the majority of the wheels and the cost per wheel is less in manufacturing terms .

About four years ago the opportunity came up to buy a wheel for my 98 lexus ls400. I did not need one at the time because I had just had the wheels on the car refurbed but it was priced ok at £50 and had a tyre on. It hung around my garage getting in the way for four years by which time the tyre had gone out of date so I cut it off and cleaned up the wheel which was not corroded anywhere. Recently I checked my wheels on the car and discovered one had started bubbling on the face around the centre ,on further inspection it proved to be quite deep corrosion so I sprayed the cleaned up wheel with the same paint code and stuck a new tyre on it and that is now on the car. On further inspection of the offending wheel I found extensive corrosion on the inside rim in lots of areas , my conclusion was too much filler for the refurb was required so it was now scrap ,I took it to the scrap yard and they paid me £10 for the wheel. The wheels are still available for the 97-2000 LS400 at the princely sum of £700 per wheel,so the lesson to be learned here is have one more wheel for the road.

I have said this before also, Those busy looking people walking about on those marble floors in the showrooms with free coffee have to be paid for "Step up muggins" not me sir I'll stick to the independants and wait for a phone call.

The issue with service departments is the motivation behind thier existence, "Make Money ". As you correctly stated the mantra is " We are right you are wrong". I do all my own servicing by the book and choose very carefully who does the big jobs ,Timing belt etc, I source genuine Lexus parts from overseas suppliers. The issue with warranties pursea ,conflict of interest,although Lexus through a third party obtains your warranty on your behalf they then change sides when claims are made. I have said this before the more complex a car gets the more issues are created and we end up in battles we did not wish for or create and to avoid this scenario it as been my intention to keep things simple by not upgrading to the next model when the one I have is perfect.

Bite the bullit and take it to Lexus dealership and have it properly diagnosed.

Take it to Lexus the issue could be within the ecm and only the right diagnostic equipment will find it ,the a/c shops don't have the kit for in depth diagnostics.

The headlight self leveling mechanism is built into the body of the headlight and takes its instructions from the self levelling actuator mounted to the chassis which is connected to the suspension via a short arm check if that arm is intact and also the actuator movement. It is possible to check it by jacking up the front of the car and starting the engine with the headlights on .

I think there are two seperate lines on the 98 model each one operating different functions, the head light washers with individual pumps are set in the bumper and the windscreen line comes from the pump at the reservior.

This problem you have is one of the reasons I am reluctant to move on from 98 LS400 ,as it was the final version of that class, Lexus had ironed out all of the problems in its 10 year production cycle. As new models appeared the amount of gizmos increased also and therefore more things can go wrong the 98 model as everything I need to enjoy the luxury it provides so I am thankful that the motivation to better what I have does not exist.