Hi all,
I'm looking to buy my first LS400 shortly, and have been to see a few today.
I saw two Mk3s and a Mk4, and had the opportunity to drive both Mk3s. What awesome cars! I was amazed at how smooth and comfortable they were.
The first Mk3 had covered just 128k, and drove very well. However, a couple of things did worry me slightly and I was hoping for some advice.
The car was started from cold and there was a fairly annoying rattle/groaning/screeching noise when manouevring at slow speeds. It seemed to go away or be obscured by road noise when driving normally. Is this a common problem? Should I forget this car and move on?
There was also a slight amount of rust right at the top corners of the windscreen, on both sides of the car. It just appeared to be surface rust and had obviously been touched up with paint (not very well!) at some point. Again, is this a common problem or something that's going to cause grief in the future?
The Mk4 was buried behind a few rows of other cars and I got to the garage quite late so didn't have an opportunity to drive it. However there were some immediate problems - damaged and mismatched driver's door mirror, missing centre caps on the nearside wheels, the trim in front of each rear wheel arch was missing entirely for some reason and on the offside had started rusting... And the guy was asking £3k for it! I'm going to take it for a drive tomorrow to see how the Mk4 compares to the Mk3, but unless he'll cut his asking price in half I think I'll be leaving that one on the forecourt.
Thanks for any help/advice you can offer. Can't wait to join the club :)