Malc

............ or you could take it to your local bodyshop repair place and they have a trade proprietary product that costs them about £25/30 ( to do both headlamp covers ) and leave it to them to " do " professionally at whatever cost you agree for labour etc ...... I believe ( from my indy ) that it's not a very long job at all ( professionally ). He's doing it all the time with the cars he buys at auction, to spruce up, doing minor body repairs, like bumpers etc and then, the glistening long term finish of what looks like new headlights ........... and he tells me his finish lasts for many years Malc

......... and never buy unseen nor in the rain nor in the dark ............... we had an Audi TT on our forecourt for sale for a customer ( about 15 years ago now ) and I saw exactly that car, everything the same, number plates etc, driving past me one afternoon visiting family about 35 miles from the forecourt ! Phoned my business partner to ask why " our " car was out in Herne Bay and he confirmed it was still on the forecourt ! Needless to say that car went immediately back to the owner to sort out .... it had probably been ringed or whatever at some stage ............ and I didn't want it to be our problem You can never be too careful when buying secondhand cars. Malc

why not do the DVLA MOT history check on line too ............... see if that tallies with anything and makes sense of it all Malc

My 1992 Mk1 and Mk2 1994 Ls400s had the stalks the other way around than my now 1995 Mk3 Ls400 ........ whatever, you soon get used to it Malc

not sure about Celsior but the Ls400 UK models Mk1 and Mk2 have exterior fog lamps at the front. The Mk 3 has fog lamps incorporated in the main cluster. They have been advertising that specific car/ import for years ? now ........ and it started much much higher ££ Malc

suggest you look at having a Nationwide Flex Plus account ............. covers much of what you might need, including European cover AND much other stuff too...... e.g worldwide travel insurance for all account holders ( joint account say ) ............ i get lots of benefit from it, .........hope I never need the car breakdown stuff Keeping £2500 ? surplus credit on your account also reduces the monthly £10 cost down to about £3/4 with the offset tax free interest, BUT do check it out, it's not for everyone Malc

brilliant, I did exact the same thing many years ago when i was in Scotland in my Vauxhall Carlton ................. at 111111 miles ........ seemed like a milestone at the time Malc

well now ..... have you ever lived or even been to Peckham ? I lived there as a child, born there in 1950 and moved when my school by Tower Bridge moved to Orpington in 1967 Would I move back to Peckham, well NO, not my cup of tea at all .......I doubt I could ever afford it tbh ......... it happened to be in leafy Surrey about a century ago ....... ever heard of Surrey docks ! If you live there now then I wouldn't want to offend ......................... Malc

Some train journeys can be magnificent, most in India are NOT with comfort in mind. Travelling through the night one misses so much I think .......... the train scenery can be spectacular I'm assured BUT you never get to the real life situations that you do by car ............. not sure that's a good thing sometimes, real life in India can be extremely harsh and challenging as well as magnificently brilliant too.............. By car I always like to go to out of the way places never seen by most travellers, treading new ground, deviating from the tried and tested ............... we'll see how the planning pans out, my India business partner can't see why on earth I would wish to travel the length and breadth of India, his home nation .... he doesn't understand the " age " issues that some of us face ( oh to be 34 again ! ) and the reality that each year gone by might make one less physically robust enough to complete such an adventure Let's see .................. Malc

You're right in that no one sane would drive in India, a hire car always comes with a driver . it's picking the right driver that matters a great deal too. A passenger, well on each visit there ( my business as a travel agent owner ) the drives have been great, amazingly challenging roads where even the " new " Delhi to Agra " motorway " toll road is akin to your worst imagined and not quite finished approach/slip road to a UK motorway ! I'll try to avoid major cities, Delhi is great and terrible in the same breath, never a car without battle scars, bit like Italy ............. hahahaha Malc

Just looked again at the UK Govt advice on Sikkim and it's just saying one has to apply up to 3 months in advance for a Special Permit to travel to there, Kashmir is out of bounds as you say. Just starting to do a bit of low level planning for this adventure, my business partner in Delhi says it's do-able, car and driver, plenty of hotels en-route .......... and it helps him being Hindu ! Maybe between September and February sometime ...... let's see how the money goes eh ! Malc

............ and I'm thinking a little more about this phenomenon of the World's Best Road Trips .......... surely another must be the journeying through the length and breadth of the north and south islands of New Zealand ......... I don't know if any of you guys have been there that but it really is a phenomenally breathtaking experience ............ again I had a 6 week, but this time a minibus tour .............. with half a dozen others, back in 2002 I think it was ............. just occurred to me that that journey was about on a par with the others, and I hadn't really appreciated just how lucky I was then. So much so that I'm thinking, and now getting really old and nearly past it, having seen Joanna Lumley " do " India ( on BBC4 last Wednesday ? ) to do another long, say 6 week or so trip from the bottom of India to Shimla or so ( Sikkim is out of bounds to tourists ) and I reckon about 5000 miles by the time I've done lots of twists and turns ............. anyone want to join me Malc

a few great cars there, if only one had hindsight and the money to have kept one or two eh ! ..... super classics in the making then and definitely would be now Malc

well well well ...... who'd have thought a good by-product of this extremely hot weather ( I guess ) ............. today driving for about 20 miles in stop start traffic and a little dual carriageway, amazingly the rev counter is behaving impeccably, back to normal .......... just flabbergasted But HAPPY ............................... heaven knows why the fault has vanished, but it has, and some 10 months later Malc

I'm intrigued by France being free of diesel and petrol,.......... they say by 2040 I just wonder how electric combine harvesters will work, long distance trucks, classic cars ............ let alone mowing the grass Perhaps they'll run them on grape juice eh ! Malc

Sorcerer extracted the Companies House stuff and the last mentioned Profess Autogas to go out of business was in 2015 .. see above ! Malc

but 2015 was a long time ago in corporate history .... maybe the individuals have resurrected the business under a new name ? Malc

Upper Control Arms are UCAs ..... I've not said anything about lower control arms, sorry for the confusion Malc

Those prices seem like UCAs............. fronts now are @£500 and rears @£250 and that's EACH side Malc

well at least my 1995 Mk3 sits in the easy to identify block .. your's. well, could be a little confusing ........ guess you'll be ordering on the chassis or Vin no. identifier Malc

so it's an M regd Mk2 The very last of that style then ? Are the springs common to both the Mk2, 3 and 4 ? or did the Mk3 and/or the Mk4 have a new set-up on the redesign of the Mk3 I wonder Malc

Andy, how old is your Ls400 ? Malc

hardly believe it ............ the NC500 route was " created " in 2015 to promote Scottish holidays ... Brilliant ......... and looking at a Daily Mail ( google search threw it up ) article from then it shows the NC500 being in the Top 6 world Road Trips ............just ..... with amongst others, the Cape Overberg route ( I did this more or less, unknowingly, in a month's motoring holiday around South Africa in 1988 ) and also the Amalfi Coast, which again i did on my 2015 ( France, Switzerland, then ) round Italy Grand Tour over 5/6k miles and 4/5 weeks in 2015 .... ........... so I've actually done 3 of the Top 6 World Best Road trips without even knowing it ......... ....... ain't I just soooooo lucky .... life's good to me eh ! But I sure did realise at the time how wonderful those motoring holidays were, such magnificent and breathtaking scenery ......... and the last two in my Mk3 Ls400, the very best Grand Tourer car ever Malc

.............. then that price hasn't changed much over 6 years. I remember ACLex, the guy i bought my car from, had to put on one brand new Lexus spring when he re-instated from coilovers to original ............ for me to buy my car from him. He then said that the spring cost him then about £100 all-up ................ as the parts manager at Lexus Poole Dorset ! He had kept the original set-up when he changed to coilovers. had put the springs away for safe keeping then when he took them out of storage found one had snapped. If you're keeping the car then maybe a slight increase in cost to@£100 AND availability is a small price to pay Malc

170k miles isn't bad on original ball joints then eh ! if indeed they do need sorting ... after all, that might solve your drive problem Malc