Cotswold Pete

Totally agree about front wheel drive, once drove Oxford to Bristol in the great freeze of Dec 1981, took 4 hours, dug out cars stuck in the way, took it steady and that was in an Escort Mk3. and when I got to a garage in Swindon to fill up, the owner was amazed. However I am sure a front wheel drive LS would be a bit of a handful. Snow tyres are the things to have, but not sure for the one day every 4 to 5 years they are needed in the balmy climes of the Cotswold Valleys, it is worth worrying about, and all the more reason to stay indoors and have another sloe gin

Not so sure I'd be brave enough to try to oversteer technique as in the video. Just spent ten minutes trying to put car into a proper space in car park at work, and car sliding around like a bar of soap in a shower, car park has a 1 in 25 slope!!! Cetainly a little easier with Mk4 Snow Drive, but not fun when you have lots of things, including office wall to hit.

Not sure if there are any stats on how many autos in park have ended up rolling down a hill where the pawl in the gearbox snapped. It is not a huge bit of metal so parking and LS on a 20% for long periods may well create a problem. However the MOT pass rate for an LS is 16% (see MOT Manual ) and last time mine was 18% ( I recall) and my handbrake is next to useless when the gradient gets to 10%. I would have thought from an engineering view point parking on steep hills (a lot) is going to create more strain and potential failure of the parts, whether it was auto or manual, it is just that with a manual you can park in gear which has less chance of failing than a pawl in the auto-box. Be interesting if anyone has ever known a failure of LS pawl.

Did that once in current Mk4, and it was not all noticeable on the short drive from office down to the dual carriageway, but once I hit 35mph on dual carriageway it sounds like I had a full set of Minions clog dancing in the boot, and did not know what the heck was happening until I looked at console to see that parking light staring at me. I know my brake is only just meeting MOT standard (for last 3 years), and it is naff at holding the car on any hill that looks like a hill, so maybe time to go to my local garage and insist on a proper clean, and then find a 20% gradient to do a hill start on.

I wonder if second hand car prices are more driven by cheap car leasing that depresses the second hand car market, where as this cheap credit is not a feature of anywhere else. (Not that leasing is cheap, just a lot of people been bitten by the 'get a new car on the never-never bug'. I bought a 2nd hand 1.6 Cavalier in 1995 for £6K, then in 2001 paid the same price for a 2.5 Omega (same age), and then in 2007 paid £2.5K for a LS 400. More car for less price as time went by. I am sure in years to come the LS 400 will be held with same esteem a Morris Traveller is today, and that just like really well looked after Traveller £2K will not get you a lot. On the view that Americans value their luxury motors (well at least prepared to pay a higher price), I think they do, but the run of the mill car drive in USA, seems to not worry if all sorts of things are falling off. Well that was my experience of working over their on and off from mid 90's to early 2000's.

Gordon Bennett, that is my final word on this subject

I've just worked it out what the problem is. There is that much 'stupidness' being carried around in a car, the weight of that stupidness is causing the runnnig gear to collapse. Answer to problem must be get a student loan, study at Uni to be less stupid and ... (just realised getting into huge student debt is also stupid). Oops!!!!!

Phil, according this post Nakedness you may not get arrested, so the question might be, "Is driving a LS400 that looks like an abused bulldog going to be more or less offensive than wandering about with the wedding tackle on display"? A close call in my book

Crickey, not my thing at all, might have been when I was 18, but not now. Though I do like the colour.

Wonder what 10 years storage has done to it, assuming it was not in a conditioned environment, by the looks of those containers.

Looks great - a bargain for some lucky person. If it goes to trade be interesting to see where S441 JGM appears next and for how much

As we all know the Italians can spot a good car a mile off, so not just Lambos but LS pique their interest.

I love the fact that it has not a spec of rust as it has lived in the south all of its life. Does this mean down south the council use fairy dust to de-ice the roads where as up north they use toxic-chassis-eating-road-salt?

I assume in cassette mode making calls would work if the phone mic was able to pick up my voice (which being a nice and quite LS should not be a problem). Not sure if and when I'll get off my backside and buy the gateway, as I have other things to spend wonga on at the moment. It is a shame the LS400 was around just before all this MP3 stuff took off, and trading up to a 460 seems a little extravagent to also be able to watch videos and dial from the console screen. But if I do go ahead I'll let you know if it works, especially if someone buys me a Fire tablet with a 256GB card (so I can drop most of my music library - compressed - onto the tablet). The only problem I find with Bluetooth is a lot of devices get confused by twinning to too many devices, and you end up having to reboot this that and the other.

That's a neat solution, I might try that with the 400, using the 3.5mm jack into a cassette adaptor, not as elegant as in the 460 but would give me simple bluetooth for music off my tablet, and allow my wife to listen to the Archers off her phone. Nice one.

More than happy to let my good lady take my old lady out for a spin, but she thinks it too much of a barge so rarely does it happen. The fact that I do not have Bluetooth is also a factor in not liking it, so she has to make do with my choice of music if ever she takes it out. Her motor is a 10 year old XJ type 2litre V6, nice car, but not a patch on the 400. I only drive the jag to keep my use of manual gearbox skills up to scratch.

Looking at that picture that would not be the plug that normally gets removed when leaky boot syndrome occurs - my Mk3 and Mk4 had leaky boot and it gathered in teh wheel well, as the water runs around the seal and then leaks in near the boot lock. So it might be just a case of putting some duct tape over the hole and then after some decent rain check out the boot. The appearance of the jack and brace seems to show corrosion worse then any of mine were, but not sure if that is just quality of the picture. If the boot has been collecting water for any length of time the spare will have a very dull and (possibly) corroded appearance. The only other thing I know if that can cause problems would be a water ingress on the rear clusters, but the MK4 has a better design of bulkhead fitting to reduce chances of this.

Sounds like the quick fix to deal with leaking boot seal, so worth checking if seal has been replaced.

German wheels, German relative, job done

I t hink there is many a forum member who has similar experience. I converted 3 mates with a quick drive, they all love their LS tanks.

Excellent, love the shiny allows, mine seem more matt in appearance even when I have given them a darned good clean. Long may all your car parking be as spacious (mine has a fair few dinks from numpties bashing into it).

A total bargain has been made, best of luck with luxury driving.

Only just seen this, only comment - "Gordon Bennett"

It does seem cheap for the price. Noticed what looks likeslight mod to the rear number plate lights.

I would say test drive a 460 and if it feels right then from the driving experience it should be right. If not then try another one or two, and you'll know. As to reliability, a more sophisticated motor is bound to have more sophisticated faults (and wallet impact), and the 460 is a more teched-up motor than the 400. I would say I found my Mk3 a really strange drive after previous Vaux Omega, and for a while I was wondering if I had done the right thing. I would say that the first 30 minutes in the Mk3, told me it was worth sticking with, but previous test drives if a wide range of motors in the past - mid range priced Vauxhalls, Fords, Mazdas, Mitsubishi, BMW, Audi, VW, Rover, Saab - I would know within 10 minutes if I was going to like it, and most of them I did not. The only car I ever drove (just for a day) that I fell in love with straight away was a Rover 827 Vitesse Fastback (down the M4 in dead of night at a touch, just a touch over 70), but had to give it back to my manager after 24 hours. Then had to go back to my Cavalier SRi