AndyCheltenham1

Just collected car after having wing resprayed for £180-they did an excellent job and for a reasonable price. I had 5 different quotes all for around the£300-£350 range.One of the bodyshops I went to even wanted me to make an appointment just to get a "quote"!!

Is it major work to take the wing off as I read a post on here from a few years ago that the front bumper has to come off to gain access to bolts to take the wing off?? If that's the case then it sounds like quite a lot of work just to get the wing off?? I've had a few more quotes for a respray the best being £180-but with no guarentee that the rust wont return again!!

I have found a front wing on ebay which is the same colour as my car (pearlescent white ) which would bolt straight on and save the cost of respraying. The wing seems to be in excellent condition with no rust and is £35. My car is October 1993 (Mark 2 ) and the wing has come off of a J reg car. Is a J reg car a Mark 1 or 2 and would it fit my car?? I spoke to the bloke on ebay who is selling but he wasn't sure if it will fit?? Any ideas??

Thanks steve2006 for offer of a wing, but unfortunately mine is a Mk II (1993).. Jon-I am from Cheltenham and have just had a quote from Premier for £295 inclusive, so it's getting better. I'll try a few more and see how cheap I can get it.

I hadn't thought about fitting a replacement wing from a scrap car instead of getting my wing resprayed-maybe it would be the way to go if I can find a decent one cheap enough. I will have to get a few more quotes from other body shops, but compared to what people here have paid £300 + VAT does seem too high.

My front wing over the last few months has started to bubble up with rust around the edges and it will only get worse if I leave it. I have had one quote to respray it for £300 + VAT. The colour is Pearlescent White. This seems a bit high to me? Has anyone had spraying done recently and what price did you pay? Maybe I am tight or just totally out of touch with the cost of body repairs?

Thats a great price for insurance. The only problem is when you insure your car through a classic car policy you will lose any no claims bonus you have built up, so when/if you come to insure either this or another car through a normal insurance policy your no claims bonus will be ZERO!! It happened to me where I insured my Lexus through Adrian Flux for a good price but didn't realise it was on a classic policy. When I changed occupation the price jumped up massively on renewal so I changed to a normal policy and then realised I had lost my maximum no claims bonus and had to start again with ZERO bonus again and have now got to build my bonus up again, so while I had a couple of years of cheaper insurance I am paying for it now until i build up my maximum bonus again.

Are you sure you have got the number right-have never heard of a BR1218, but there is a BR/ CR1216 which is a very popular battery??

I have had my LS400 for over 6 years now and it runs perfectly, has passed every MOT on emmissions and as far as I can tell there is nothing at all wrong with the engine or the way it performs-yet I manage around 18mpg on average. I do mainly local runs with occasional longer runs.The best I have ever had on a long run (ONCE ) was 29mpg, and that was driving at a steady 65mph. After constantly reading what other owners are getting mpg wise I have spoken to my mechanic a few times and he assures me that my mpg is about right for a 4 litre V8. On searching online for more official mpg figures ( as opposed to owners club members figures) my mpg seems more in line with what you should be getting. If you search on many American sites the official figues go from-19/25, 16/22, 18/23 (city and highway). The one site I went onto which is www.fueleconomy.gov (the official US government source for fuel economy information) gives the mpg as 17 (city), 23(highway) and 19 combined and as this is an official government site I would assume is fairly accurate?? I know if you look at any published mpg figures here in the UK they are nowhere near what you will actually get, yet if you look on an American site the exact same car will get significantly less mpg over there!! I don't want to offend anybody on here but I find it hard to understand how these mpg figures are obtained when they are often much higher than official sites and even Lexus themselves would claim??

I've now arranged insurance through Hyperformance for £390 which is more expensive than Adrian Flux but it is now on a normal policy so I will start earning NCB again. They have taken account of my 5 years claims free driving with the Lexus and said if I renew through them again next year they will charge as though I have 5 years NCB. All of the other companies I phoned wouldn't even consider my 5 years driving experience with the Lexus and were quoting silly prices of £1000-£1900!!

I've had my LS400 insured through Adrian Flux for 5 years now as their price was always the lowest. My insurance is due for renewal next week and the premiums have gone up from £320 last year to £355 this year, so I had a look on the comparison websites and found that More Than would insure me for £206-quite a difference!! When I looked at my renewal from Adrian Flux I noticed that my no claims bonus was showing as NIL?? I phoned Adrian Flux to point out their error as showing my no claims bonus as NIL when I had been insured for 5 years with the Lexus and assumed my insurance would decrease significantly but was told that I was insured on a Classic policy and you do not earn ANY bonus on this type of policy!! So had I been on a normal policy for the last 5 years I would now be paying much less for insurance and more annoying is that if/when I sell the Lexus and change to a more modern car I will have ZERO bonus and it will then take me a few years to build up a bonus again. I tried getting quotes from other companies with NIL bonus and was told I am now considered as a much higher risk because I have no earned bonus and even though I have been insured and driving the Lexus for 5 years this is basically ignored!! My quote from More Than was inaccurate because I said I had 5 years bonus whereas I actually have NIL bonus. While I have had cheaper insurance over the last couple of years I will be paying for it when I do change cars. I was totally unaware that I was on a classic policy as it doesn't actually say anywhere that it is not a standard policy. So if you do think about insuring on a classic policy bear in mind you will lose any no claims bonus and will end up out of pocket later on!!

I had my 'blinky dash' repaired by a guy in Farnborough (GU14 post code) about a month ago. I drove my car to his house and he repaired it while I waited-it took about an hour do do and he done a perfect job. He has repaired dozens in the past so knows exactly what hes doing and charged me £65 for the job including removing and refitting the cluster. He can also do repairs on the blacked out temperature lcd panels. For me it was about a 90 mile trip but well worth it to get the job done properly-I think he will also repair them via the mail if you take the unit out and send it to him. He is on this forum & his email is chrisvince@btopenworld.com Andy

I've checked when my air filter was last changed and it was actually 4 years ago!! I've only done 11000 miles since then but obviously it is overdue a change now. I will be booking it in for a full service next week. When the diagnostic check was done the only error codes coming up were for the front lambda sensors and no error codes came up for anything else, including the 'engine temperature sender' which Parrot of Doom suggested I should check first. Would this engine temperature sender not also show up as an error code if it was faulty? I have now found some Lambda Sensors through Worldcarparts at £58.80 each for DENSO parts which it says are original parts and not aftermarket and a lot cheaper than quoted by Lexus. I will book it in to have the 2 sensors changed and a full service and hopefully this will increase my MPG !!

Thanks AKY-B for details of justlambda-I contacted them but they only do sensors from 1994 onwards and nothing for earlier years so I'll have to try other places. thanks

My 1993 LS400 is only achieving an average of 13mpg-I have noticed this for the last 4 months or so now. I have measured the economy over a few complete tank fulls of petrol. There are no lights coming up on the dash and the car is running perfectly ok to me. I have just had a diagnostic machine plugged in and the only error codes it shows are for the two front lambada sensors as being faulty. When it had its mot two months ago the emissions were fine,being: fast idle test:CO was 0.008 (Max limit for mot is 0.2) HC was 55 (Max limit for mot is 200) Lambada was 1.007 (Max limit for mot is 1.03) Natural idle test CO was 0.012 ( max limit for mot is 0.300) Do faulty sensors create poor emmissions?? When the car was mot;d it passed the test easily but I was getting poor fuel consumption at this time also? I just phoned Lexus for a price and was quoted £199.02 for each front sensor!! Apart from damaging my wallet by having poor mpg am I causing any damage to the car by not replacing the sensors? Has anybody used after market sensors successfully or should they be avoided-I've seen various prices ranging from £50 to £100 but cant see what the difference in quality is? Thanks for any advice. Andy

There have been a couple of instances of LS430 gearboxes being destroyed by the transmission intercooler failing (which I think lets water into the gearbox)-it may not be the actual gearbox itself that initially failed but the end result is still the same-a knackered gearbox??

On Sunday 25th March a 1993 LS400 will be on Wheeler Dealers with Mike Brewer/Ed China-channel 274 Virgin/242 Sky on Shed channel at 8pm. It is a repeat and quite an old programme but well worth watching again.

If you Google 'onedayinsurance' you'll find several companies who will insure you/your car for only one day-ideal for test drives. Not sure how expensive it is though.

When I phoned Lexus in Cheltenham about having my gearbox serviced and spoke to the service manager he told me the gearbox on LS400 was a sealed unit and could not be serviced and that was the reason I used an independent specialist from fedauto.co.uk. I have since spoken to 5 different garages who are members of fedauto and ALL say they do not use genuine Toyota fluid but a compatible which is perfectly acceptable. The price quoted by lexus of £180 seems a good price for using genuine fluid (plus filters??) I'll be interested to see what your independent specialist garage quotes and what type of fluid they use and what they think of the argument that only genuine toyota fluid can be used-I still can't quite accept that all of these specialists have been servicing these gearboxes for quite a long time now( and these same gearboxes are not only fitted to Lexus) and have never had any problems with them??

When I decided to change my transmission fluid my intention wasnt to use a cheap alternative fluid. I live a mile from the Cheltenham Lexus Dealership so phoned them for details/price to change the fluid.When I phoned, the service department were unavailable so the receptionist said they would call me back soon.One day later the service manager called me back.I then asked him for price etc on changing filters/fluid-he told me that as far as he was aware the automatic gearbox on LS400 was a sealed unit and couldnt be serviced.He said he would talk to a technician and call me back-he never bothered calling me back. At about the same time as this I was aware that Lexus Cheltenham had mis diagnosed a faulty gearbox problem on an LS430 which resulted in it being totally clapped out(due to water entering gearbox from radiator). With the level of service that Lexus Cheltenham seem to offer I wouldnt let them service my lawn mower let alone my car!! I then phoned Lexus Swindon who are reasonably close to me to get a price from them.Their level of service seemed pretty poor too. The receptionist said the service department were unavailable to speak to me until the following week. She said she could give me a price for service work but I could not get through to her that I ONLY wanted the gearbox serviced and not the whole car.She kept quoting me silly prices for servicing the whole car (plugs,air filter etc etc). I then decided to give up on Lexus and go to an independent specialist who obviously know a lot more than Lexus seem to know?? The price I paid for the service was £158 (including fluid/filters), so not a cheapskate job in my opinion? Thank you abs66 for details on the correct Mobil 3309 that should be used. I will speak to the people who changed the fluid to confirm it was the correct fluid that they used. I will speak tomorrow to Gas & Go, an independent Lexus specialist in Swindon( which was recently recommended on here) to ask their opinion as they are ex Lexus mechanics and sound like they know what they are doing.

I had my automatic gearbox serviced in August last year at an Automatic Transmission Specialist and have done about 2000 miles since.They changed all the filters and used a mobil fluid which they assured me was the equivalent to Type IV Toyota fluid. The reason I had it serviced was because as far as Im aware it hasnt been serviced before and being a 1993 was long overdue. Recently on occasions when accelerating I can hear a whining type noise coming from the gearbox whilst it is changing gears.It is not doing it all the time,only occasionally.Infact I had the car serviced a few weeks ago and asked the mechanic to listen for any noises and he drove about 10 miles and it behaved perfectly. The noise is very intermittent and some days behaves perfectly and another it will make a noise while accelerating but not all the time.When driving at speed it always drives perfectly. I have read on here and the USA lexus forum that you MUST ONLY USE TOYOTA IV FLUID but my question is WHY??? Today I phoned 5 different Automatic Transmission Specialists who are all members of Fedauto(Federation of Automatic Transmission Engineers) and asked for details of price/fluids used to service a lexus transmission and every person said it was not necessary to use genuine toyota fluid as their alternative fluids are to the same specifications as toyota fluids( fluids used were Petrochemica/Total/Mobil). I was also told that the lexus type gearbox is used in other cars and they have been using alternative fluids when servicing/rebuilding them with no problems at all. Do you think using non toyota fluid could have damaged my gearbox and if so how could I complain to the specialist garage who serviced it when all of the experts I have spoken to say that genuine toyota fluid is not necessary?? I hope this doesnt come across as rude to the forum members who insist you MUST use genuine toyota fluid but I have read all the comments on here about it and yet transmission specialists tell me something different-am I missing something and who is right?? Any advice would be much appreciated. Andy

My window is now working properly again. The problem was burnt/dirty contacts on the switch. The mechanic tested the motor and that was ok, so then thoroughly cleaned all the parts and it now works perfect. He said it was quite a fiddly job to do as everything is so well built it takes ages to get to ( like about 20 screws to take the door panel off instead of just a few). It was 2 hours labour (£60 in total) so not too bad at all. I've had this car for 3.5 years now and this is the first fault its had so I can't complain. The mechanic commented on how well it drives, better than the modern Jag XFs etc that he normally does, so I'll be keeping it for a while yet :P :P

I've got a mechanic looking at it tomorrow and if it is the regulator(motor and mechanism) it doesn't sound like a cheap repair with parts and labour :angry:

Went to open the drivers window today but nothing happened.All of the other windows work perfect except the drivers window, so it cant be a fuse thats gone. When the ignition is on (whether the engine is running or not) you can hear a clicking sound about every 8 seconds coming from the drivers door,it sounds like its coming from above the window switch more or less behind the inside door handle. Luckily the window is in the up position but I still dont like driving around with the window permanently closed!! Any ideas what the fault could be and how simple is it to repair?? Thanks Andy

I've had good service from the AA in the past when I have broken down (the last time being about 5 years ago ). When I take out breakdown cover with either AA/RAC I never go direct through them, I go through a site called topcashback.co.uk. This site gives you back cash for clicking on their site first and they then direct you to AA/RAC site and you proceed as normal.My AA cover would have been £105 but I got a refund of £50 from topcashback.co.uk, making my AA costs only £55(this was for aa/relay/homestart). The only downside is it can take up to 5 months for them to pay you as they can't pay you until the AA pays them. They also offer cashback for ebay as a buyer(you get back 40% of the sellers fees) plus MANY other companies. I have used them many times and they have always paid out ok, but you do have to be patient to receive your money.