Haylands

I've been driving for nearly 40 years and it has always been the same, stay with the auto renewal and you will pay too much, every year I go through mine and my wife's and save money... funny thing is, this year it was cheaper to insure our cars separately with Admiral than it was on a multi car... Silly price for multi car renewal so I spoke to Aleksandr Orlov and Admiral was the cheapest for both of us but on separate policies...!!!???? Any accident you have will increase your premium whether it was your fault or not, or if you claim or not, their view is that if you have been involved in one, in any way, then you are more likely to be involved in more, so the risk goes up, and the premium. Value quoted at insurance renewal is NOT what you will get if you write it off, the value for insurance is to establish the risk so they always over estimate the value to put the premium up, always worth changing it to what you think it's worth... They only pay market value in case of a claim and then it's usually a very low one...!!!

Same here, had a car classed as Cat C after a non fault that I bought back from the Insurance Co... premium remained the same...!!!

Very hard to find a real bad one now 99.9% will be through the insurance company and get categorised as Cat A or B and they can't go back on the road...

I expect just after it is sold a similar silver IS-F will get stolen overnight, after a few days the crashed one will be back on the road and a load of IS-F spares will come onto the market... or am I just being cynical...???

I'll second ECU testing, used them twice in the last year, once for a Audi Mechatronic unit and then for a Rav4 engine/gearbox ECU, both fixed quick with no drama for a few hundred quid...

Sorry, got GS and RX mixed up......

Don't think i'd want second hand suspension from a breaker on my car, who knows what's happened to them.... The suspension ECU talks to all the others and if it's not working properly then you could get all sorts of errors, or none at all... You really need to find someone who's done it, but then you run into the problem that people don't like to admit that it was a bad choice and that they suffered from all manner of problems.... There is a new kit on eBay for £400 for all four corners.. maybe worth asking them if there are any problems...??? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lexus-GS300-JZS160-Tein-Street-Basis-Z-Coilovers-Dampers-Suspension-98-05-/122300525903?hash=item1c79aded4f:g:9uwAAOSwiDFYP~7o

That's a shame, thanks for looking..

If some previous owner stole the flashlight then get one of these, yes it's a bit bigger and won't fit where the penlight went and you will have to be careful you don't point it upwards when you use it or planes will start crashing...!!! https://www.aldi.co.uk/lightway-multifunction-led-torch/p/074664098046200 For a fiver it is superb value... two magnets on the swivel handle, another on the body of it, a hook as well, two stage main light and a little flash light in the top... even comes with batteries, so if you are passing Aldi, drop in...

Hi, Anyone sold their Lexus and still has a spare key knocking around...??? I need the MDL B53EA with the UK 433mhz 4D-67 chip. The more common B74EA is no good AFAIK.. It should have MDL B53EA in very small lettering under the Lexus logo on the opposite side to the buttons. Doesn't matter about the physical key being cut for your old car as these are replaceable.. If you have one, please check the numbers and let me know, they are fairly rare... Thanks

Mark, I got out of a Range Rover as I was getting fed up with lots to do... Hopefully when the 460 is sorted I can just polish it now and again... Lots of other things on this year so trying to get less busy...!!!

You can see where it's pulled away from the rear wing, just above the bumper..... And covered the chrome trim on the bumper, that's one piece used to cover the wing and bumper...

The extra two wires (some have one extra) are for a heating element inside the sensor, this aids getting the system into closed loop quicker, all modern sensors will be 3 or 4 wires... You should be OK just using the other two wires... the heating wires are usually the same colour, normally black or white...

My 460 skips in reverse when cold and damp, the tyre that does it is a Pirelli PZero, the other front tyre, a cheap horrible thing doesn't skip.. (new ones on order...) I've had it on other modern cars as well, I think it's down to the kingpin inclination and it's effect on castor at, or near, full lock, it's as if they are messing with Ackermans arrangement and the loaded tyre is trying to take a tighter turn... Don't worry about it...

Looks like the yellow is a wrap, 30mins with a hot air gun and you'd have a black car again...

The handbrake shoes on mine will need replacing soon, minimum thickness allowed is 1mm and mine are at that on the leading edge, you can just see them in this pic.. And the 460 has an electric handbrake that automatically goes off when you drive so they do wear...!!! Don't forget EBC for brakes, they just gave me 30% discount through the Gold club scheme, they are a British manufacturer and they even balance and test their discs for runout which is more than a lot do... They have various pads to chose from, from standard to full race, their standard ones are low dust as well which I like, the bite and feel are easily the same as original and with the discount they were cheaper than the trade price for Pagid from the motor factors...

My trusty crowbar tells me there is no play at all on any rear bushings... if he's lying he's in trouble.... to be fair the only play at the front was the upper arms, if the tyres don't sort it then I think it's the big one.... air strut... Glad you are enjoying it... I looked at the GT but they are run flats so thought they would be a bit hard, they are shown as 1db quieter than the RT's though.... I live up north and our roads aren't quite as bad as down south, you sort of learn where the big ones are and drive round them, we can't afford to repair the roads here as we sent all our money to the EU to build roads for everyone else... but that's a different story...!!!

Just been having a look at the tyres as one has a slow puncture and the TPMS warned me, the one with a leak is the rear offside and it's a Continental SUV tyre, the two nearside ones are Pirelli PZero's and the front offside is a Potentun UHP !!! I'm hoping this mix of tyres, all fairly worn, the ultra cheap Potentum and all the curbing sidewall cuts are going a long way towards the last anomalies of the driving experience... Roll on a week tomorrow when the new ones will go on.... and why does it take 5 working days to get anything these days, if Amazon can get just about anything to my door next day why can't a good British firm like Dunlop, oh yeah, I forgot, now owned by Goodyear and a Japanese rubber firm who make all the tyres in China, Slovenia or Poland....!!!

There is also this one available, I fitted one to my 430 some years ago, it presses the "I agree" button, every time you start the car, a little thing but very welcome... http://www.vaistech.com/product/mml-t1/ They do other types as well, bluetooth and a "nav on the go" lead...

Good luck, I hope it's nice, the one in Scunthorpe is OK but overpriced for it's condition, just for your info... They do have two though, an SE and an SE-L so you get to see them side by side...

The reason for the following was because the front end felt wrong, it was very floppy (floppier than normal) and it wandered a bit... you could see the top arms were worn and you could twist them without much effort... It says in the workshop manual that to change the two top arms (the 460 has separate top arms as opposed to the earlier LS's wishbone) you have to remove the air strut assembly and to do that you have to remove the bottom arm and the track control arm so I thought I may as well change all four arms each side as at 116,000 miles and 9 years they will have seen better days... Well, as usual with official workshop manuals, you don't "have" to remove the strut so all the bottom can be left complete if you need to change the top arms...!!! The top arms were in the worst condition out of all of them... You start with this... First thing is to remove the clips that hold the brake pipe and wiring for the speed sensor, and on the offside, the pad warning sensor, then the two bolts that hold the caliper on and tie the caliper to the anti-roll bar with a couple of cable ties, then take the disc off, it doesn't have a retaining screw so is just held on by the wheel, they are very heavy 358mm discs so make sure it doesn't fall off when you remove the caliper as your foot won't like you for it..!!! Remove 4 bolts that hold the disc back plate on, best to take these off to avoid damage, they are aluminium so were in near perfect condition, just looking a bit aged... The front hub is a large aluminium casting, as is the front subframe that holds the engine and attachment points for the bottom arm and control arm, they are all beautifully made and are very light, the bottom arm and two top arms are aluminium but the track control arm is cast steel. It is a pleasure to work on a Lexus again, I remember doing my brothers top wishbones on his Mk1 400 and cracking off the bolts and nuts in the wheelarch and then spinning them off with your fingers, his 400 was about 16 years old at the time. The quality and design mean that everything comes apart with minimal fuss... Having said that the wet looking patches on the pictures were not leaks from anything but some penetrating fluid, force of habit made me squirt some around before I started but it really wasn't necessary... Back to it.. Remove the inner bolt that holds the bottom arm on and push the arm downwards, the subframe casting has a notch in it to release the arm towards the floor and not pulling it towards the wheel... then remove the track rod from the hub, a spring steel split pin (again, beautifully made and we reused them all as they were still in perfect condition) and a large flanged nut (the alloy hub has steel inserts where anything bolts to it so a large flanged nut is used to spread the loads over a large area of the aluminium encompassing the steel insert) Then remove the nut and bolt for the front track control arm, this was made easier by removing the plastic engine undertray. This bolt is a bit fiddly as when it is nearly out it hits the rack...!!! It's worse on the nearside, but if you put a pipe wrench on the arm and tilt it a few degrees you can wiggle it out (and get it back in with the new one) No mention of this issue in the manual... Finally remove the top two arms, two more splitpins and flange nuts. I don't like using balljoint splitters, they break and rarely work well, a few good blows with a large hammer and balljoints will yield... You then end up with a car looking like this And this.. You know the top arms are gone when they drop like this... You can see above that the two top arms are bolted to two small frames that are then bolted to the inner wing, the manual says you have to remove the frames to remove the arms. The two top bolts that hold the frames on are prevented from coming out by the strut, hence, removal of the strut. However, if you remove the other two bolts (front frame) and one bolt (rear frame) you can get a spanner on the top bolts to loosen them and then pivot the frame away from the strut, it is then "just" possible to remove the bolts that hold the upper arms on. This is a close up of the frame You can see the top bolt that is loosened, it then pivots forward like this... (Yes I know I should wear gloves, I really hate them though...!!!) These are the top two arms, you can see shards of rubber and a split all around the central pin It didn't take much to pull this out, it is supposed to be bonded to the rubber... Track control arm... you can see the splits starting and it was movable with hand pressure, the new one wasn't... Bottom arm, inner bush, again starting to wear and offset slightly... Bottom arm strut fixing, squashed a bit... To be fare the bottom arm had many good years left in it and the control arm wasn't too bad either... Big hammer again to remove the bottom arm and control arm from the hub and then the fun starts, removing the large ball joint that locates the bottom arm, it was a two man job and a very big hammer, a brass drift and some heat from oxy acetylene, heat the alloy hub up, being careful of the bearing which is pushed into the hub so not easily removed, they do provide a recess in the bottom of the balljoint to use a drift in, several large blows and it was out... The shape of the upright means it won't fit under a hydraulic press so we used a couple of large (52mm IIRC) sockets and pushed the new joint in with a large vice, again heating the alloy to get some expansion, with hindsight I'd have put the balljoints in the freezer.. Reassembly is, as they say, a reversal, I fitted the arms to the car first, a bit of faffing with the control arm and that bolt but it will go in without removing the steering rack, the top arms need to be bolted on in the correct alignment for when the car is at normal height, there is no way to tighten these bolts up with weight on the suspension so I had a "best guess" at this I was within an inch, so not too bad... Once all the arms are bolted to the car, offer the hub up and bolt it all back together... New bottom arm, Strut is bolted where the upside down R is, then moving right is the drop link for the ARB then the height sensor fixing and finally the connection to the front subframe. New control arm with the wiring to the hub attached, just out of focus in the foreground is one of the large flange nuts.. After putting it all back together it was onto the brakes, the old discs had seen better days... The brakes felt fine though... I opened the new boxes of EBC brakes, a full set of four new discs and front and rear pads in their basic range, these are excellent for normal road use and the pads are low dust ones so even better.... This is where I found out that there are two different sizes of front disc fitted to the 2007 LS460...!!!! and I'd ordered the wrong ones, to be fair it doesn't say anywhere on the EBC web site that there are two different sizes and it doesn't give the disc size either so how was I supposed to know...!!! I phoned them and they were more than helpful and put the correct set in the post for next day delivery but I did have to pay and then claim a refund when I return the wrong ones... The woman said "It happens all the time"... WELL PUT THE SIZE ON THE LISTING THEN...!!! Rant over... So, while waiting a day for the new ones to arrive I thought I would do a summers job I had lined up, luckily I had already ordered the caliper stickers so the following morning it was back to my mates garage with sanding and painting gear... It's easy to do the calipers without pads or discs, just bolt the caliper back on and away you go... I gave them a clean with some brake cleaner, excellent quality aluminium, these don't look 9 years old... First give the calipers a good sanding, I used a DA sander with 120grit pads... make sure you round off any sharp corners, it helps the paint stay on longer Then a light coat of Acid etch primer, just dust on a few coats until you have complete coverage, I used a hot air gun to warm the calipers up first, aids adhesion and drying... Then stick on the caliper stickers... (no I'm not going mad) Then paint it with your chosen colour, Metallic black in this case... again just dust on a few light coats until it is all covered, out with the hot air gun and give them a good baking moving the gun over the surface all the time, keep it in one place and you will burn the paint... Then, very carefully pick an edge of the stickers up with a sharp blade and pull the stickers off.. To reveal this... Then give it a good six coats of UHT clear coat drying between each coat... and the finished result is a well protected caliper and the stickers won't fall off...!!! Rear is the same with a different sticker I sanded, etch primed and stonchipped the back plates Forgot to take an after picture...!!! This is the paint I used, got it from halfords with my 15% club discount card, I had the clear UHT paint already but I think they sell that as well... You must etch prime aluminium or the paint will fall off in a short time... I love the metallic black, the 460 is not really a car that would look good with red or yellow...!!! Then sat about twiddling my thumbs waiting for the new front discs to arrive... they turned up at 4.30pm so my mate did one side and I did the other, discs on, pads in, wheels on, off the two post lift, settle the suspension then onto the four post ramp and fully tightened the lower arm and control arm to subframe bolts so the bushes are in the correct alignment... I didn't get a chance to take a picture with it all back together so you will have to wait... Mark asked above how it feels, well... better and worse...!!! let me explain... The tyres are badly abused, one has at least 10 large chunks out of the sidewall and they are well out of balance so the wheel wobble is even worse. The play in the front suspension was absorbing a lot of the wobble... on the plus side the steering is more precise and the front end wobble is much better... I took it for a four wheel align this morning, it didn't pull and ran straight but that was because it had 5 degrees of toe in on the front, even both sides the rear was 3 degrees out from the front, they pulled it back and got them all within half a degree, the tolerance is 1 degree, it now feels even more solid and drives nicely up to about 50 when the wheel wobble starts... So this afternoon 4 of these were ordered, and another mate will fit them next Saturday as they are coming direct from Dunlop and won't be here till Wednesday It says on the Dunlop website that these are 102 load rating but the ones I've ordered and all the adverts I can find say it's a 98 load rating which is correct for the Lexus, the 102 wouldn't matter much but it would be a tad harder.... So, a fair way towards sorting it out now...

Hi, I have some information about discounts on the scheme and wondered who I should be telling about it...?? Cheers

Got quite a lot done today, 8 suspension arms and two ball joints changed... Finish it off tomorrow and change the discs and pads all round as well... I'll do a proper write up at the end but here's a taster for now...... love the shadows created by the multi bulbed LED work light...!!!

Looks lovely, thanks Admin...

James, The red one was still there, it had several warning lights on, not a nice colour combo IMHO and in worse condition, it's for sale on ebay for £6,500 at the moment, well it was a couple of days ago, very poor wheels, several areas of damage.... It's been cleaned up well for this latest advert... This Lexus was registered on the V5 under Make as Lexus LS 460 and not just Lexus so a mot/tax check at DVLA shows no trace unless you submit it exactly as it is on the V5 and of course even he didn't sus that out... I went to see it before the auction finished and managed to spot all the issues apart from it's had a replacement n/s door mirror glass and it's not photochromic, it's just a plain one... that's a few hundred quid...!!!