The-Acre

Not done one on a Lexus but it looks dead easy. This guy with the annoying voice changes one on a Toyota and it's very similar.

I second that!

I had mine changed but I was never quite sure it was faulty, certainly not leaking. I'm sure it's possible that you have some blow back from the condenser, and your pipework may well be ok, it's usually the rear pipe that suffers not the front.

It'll happen with any car, and when you buy what was made for the luxury market for little money and is now years old, it's like Russian roulette, but we all hope the gun doesn't go off! I would have your air con fixed, driving with the windows open seems to defeat the object of being in a quiet comfortable car. Are you sure both the compressor and the condenser are leaking? The compressors on these are pretty tough.

It's not a rad out job but you really need the car up in the air.

I bought an ac compressor for my last LS430 from a breakers for £75 and had it fitted and gassed for a further £100. The problem with breakers is they leave them on the shelf and seals dry out, best to have it taken off the vehicle if you go down that route.

I actually bought the whole thing, housing included from a breakers, all for £45 delivered. A good price apart from the fact the piece I really wanted being the glass was no good, even though they said it was. Fair play to the breaker though, they refunded my money including postage! The self adhesive one I bought still meant taking the old one apart to fit the new, but works a treat. Next job some nice new stainless exhaust tips from Grove Garage.

True enough, and I wouldn't risk it, although in theory it would work. They don't last forever anyway so a new one makes good sense. I put my new radiator to the test on Monday when I traveled 6 miles in two hours through London traffic!

Looks good. As far as mirrors go the price of genuine parts will make your eyes water. One of mine was too dark so rather than paying the £200 Lexus wanted in bought a replacement shelf adhesive one online. It doesn't dim but the heat still gets through and only £8

I can't help thinking that that one was on borrowed time, if you look at the amount of rust near the o rings it may not have been long! Which makes me think, could a cheaper fix involve unscrewing the two unions, cleaning the rust off and fitting new o rings...hmmm, food for thought. And that way you get to keep the original radiator if you wanted to.

Everything In the second photo is internal, what you see is the actual trans cooler which is aluminium and in perfect condition which I took out, there's nothing else that can really fail and because the transmission fluid is pumped it sucks coolant in when the o rings fail due to rust.

This is where the problem begins, the union corrodes and the o rings no longer seal allowing water to mix. I took my old one apart to have a good look.

At last our time has come!!

So all gone except for the best of the bunch by the sound of it!

To be honest I think it's still ahead of many luxury cars I've been in recently, they all seem to have a certain amount of tackyness about them.

And was, and maybe still, is owned by a LOC member and living in Surrey. Doesn't that say volumes about the build quality! I wonder if the others in that footage are still around, the cars I mean!

Very nice, lovely colour. I'm not familiar with the interior of the IS but that looks the biz!

You may have seen this already but this old Top Gear report gives the price of the very early LS

It's obviously different for a company wanting to make money, but...until last year I had a Vauxhall Vectra estate which I used for work, and a regular issue is the little plastic housed motor that operates the air re-circulation flap, it's a nasty Chinese made part. It has 3 nylon cogs inside and a tooth always breaks off a cog making it click as it operates. Not wanting to be beaten I took it apart and replaced the tooth cog with a piece of plastic from an old tooth brush which I fixed with glue and re shaped. It lasted 5 years, so some DIY fixing is worthwhile just for the satisfaction of beating the system, and that's worth more than money!

I agree with that entirely, and of course it has to be viable which means not every part is worth repairing, but many are. An example would be the power steering leak on the early LS400, Lexus wouldn't do it but the repair costs approximately £2. An example from the Jag man last week was the diesel particulate filter on a car with 30K. The main dealer wanted £2.5K to replace it but it was removed and cleaned by another company that the Jag specialist has contacts with, all working again for £300. So yes, it has to be viable, and it's not so easy of course with electrical components, I'm thinking more of mechanical.

Absolutely, that's why it's so good having the Jag man and "mechanics" like him, he'll take components apart and repair them if possible, you certainly won't get that at a Lexus main dealer!

Since last year we've had a Jaguar specialist start a new business on the site where my workshop is. He's been working on Jags for 40 years and knows them inside out. Yesterday, and because I couldn't be bothered, he put new front discs and pads on my LS (charging me only £30 labour) He gave it a good looking over while it was in the air and was really impressed by the underside. After taking it for a test run he came back and said he was so impressed by how smooth and quiet it is that it makes Jags seem like ****! When I dropped it off yesterday he couldn't work out at first why it made a nasty noise as he tried to start it, that's because it's already running was my reply! Not bad coming from a man who's worked on "prestige" cars for so many years. He also put a new cam belt kit and auxiliary belt on my Volvo today, all for £160, very happy with that.

As Mike says, they moved from Hove to Brighton where they have much better premises, no longer do they have to do a 30 point turn to get in. The owner is a Lexus driver himself which is always a good sign! I've always been very happy with their work.

Great info, well done!

£200 for the whole job? Excellent!