runsgrateasanut

What were the advisories last MOT? Also you can check all previous advisories on DVLA to see what may or may not have been dealt with in the past. Early LS's exhausts may have been S/S but not the flanges which rot out and cause leaks.. Also if you put a magnet to the pipe or the Cat you'll find little nickle left after a lot of years, so rot is happening all the time. Sounds like you've found a gem which will give you yrars of pleasure. They are lovely Cars to drive, if expensive to maintain.

Are you tempted? ps no litter bins? - thought this was purely a Sea side phenomenon! We get scuzzers here daily.

Might try a bit of gold tape on my lights - should go well with "beige", ermmm sorry that should be "Saharan Sand" Colour. Easily removed thats the upside, and at £3.50 its a no brainer - definately is me! hahaha (must find those emoticons to save typing) afterread - did I really spell prone - prown!

Strange, I saw three bids to about £160. Unsure how you judged the condition as there is little neg info and the seller says in good condition - one owner car 85k on clock. ? Very poor photo's. did you go and see it?

Yes they are prown to erosion and my own was outside on the sea front so to be expected.- BUT the S500 V8 engine is a wonderful piece of engineering and the soft closure doors and rear sunscreen are sometihng I definately miss. Did Lexus add these things in later year Cars or on the LS430?

Many thanks again for useful tips. I'll be copying and pasting them for future reference. I hadn't quite finished the job when I wrote my last post. Started the car and was hearing a strange whispering noise and checked under the bonnet and clearly the cup of water would have been spilling over. Stripped back and found no 1 cylinder cable was in two parts. (At least I hadn't wrongly wired them) Being the shortest cable really puzzling.The oil cap side was difficult getting the cover back on. Why they had to place one of the coils down the side of the engine heaven knows, but it made trying to ensure that the coil cable did not get snagged extremely difficult. Clearly No 1. cable must have got snagged and I snapped it. It couldn't have touched the Cam Cog I feel sure. Started the car and only a slight ripple on the water and I think less exhaust visible even at cold.Great news on emissions hopefully. It will get a run shortly and see how it performs. BTW the ECT sensor - is this also known as the IACV idle control valve? I've seen it mentioned as being in the spot behind the coil pack?

OK I have to admit that sometimes I look at a car and I get a bit bored with some part of it. With the Merc I had it for six years and I did look at rear cluster clear indicators on later models but was reluctant to pay £80 for something from Taiwan as the rust all around the car made the expense seem pointless and could be better spent. So, having dug out some 60's go-faster tape that had been sitting in a drawer, I thought I'd try to give the cluster a bit more definition, a bit of pizzaz. Initially I used silver tape which was OK and should have stopped there, but then I tried white. Mock me if you will, ( I can take it - I think!) but it did give the cluster a bit of a boost imo.

Wow what a feeling - dancing on the ceiling! Must put that glass of wine down! You can buy cheap Sensors at Rock auto I believe.

personally I'm not a fan of LED's. Can't stand looking at the front of an Audi. Stupid looking daytime lights.imo. Have you got yourself some of those Door lights that show the Lexus emblem on the gound? I do have clear indicators but think thats about as far as I'll go with "modernising" the car. Good luck to those who like to update - some of the extreme things they do to cars look and sound great. Love the 19 inch wheels but I like the barge to have an armchair ride rather than a bone shaker ride. My spines seen enough discomfort - twenty four years travelling on British Rail.

It is recommended that you cool the interior as much as possible pre turning on the Air con. Drive with windows down? My strange experience is that up until yesterday I think my car seemed to start from cold at about 1100 and drop down to 650 when hot. I always notice the increase in revs when A/C switched on and so got into the habit of turning it off when approaching lights /crossings or even in a 30mph zone. Replaced plugs and cables yesterday (all did not go smoothly) and today after a two mile trip started in the drive half an hour later was idling at 850 and when A/C turned on, it WENT DOWN TO 800. Bizarre Perhaps the ECU is still calibrating changes, so will check after a good run. Seemed to be less exhaust smoke and cup on engine top only a very minor ripple BTW.

see he's pulled the Car from the sale. Perhaps he read this thread or recognised that he'd have to leave the plate on as bids had already been made - or perhaps some enterprising individual (no please not Lexus chap) steamed up to his place and thrust a wad of notes into his hand knowing he could make a killing.

If it only last a month it will probably suffice for the expectation of Summer weather - I found this to be the case with my S320 one year.

Gentlemen you are kidding? - MG car club members would die for the plate if it came cheap. I think I am right that it could be transferred once purchased? or am I wrong on this point? I owned a Riley Linx and the four number and two letter plate was worth 5k. JB - Jim Bean, James Bond, etc.

If this seller doesn't make clear that the number plate is not part of the Sale then this car could fetch a LOT of money. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LEXUS-LS400-/261948638617?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3cfd5b0599

Many thanks for the interesting info Rupert and others. I transferred the curly bindings. The Lead set were slightly longer than originals (Prospark - better than too short!) which leaves you with a dilemma where to stuff the excess and hope the Covers will go on without a problem and not rub. Took a while to fit the Filler side and discovered in addition to several missing screws, that the upper rubber strip was missing from the panel. Transferred the lower from throttle side as ingress of oil and water possibly on that side due to this. . Hate it when parts have gone astray. Screws on order, rubber? that will have to wait. Postponed carb cleaning until tomorrow. Purchased gasket looks on small side (via Rock Auto who I have used for some years.) May be OK - hope so. Unfortunately, the Cleaned and spray painted throttle spare I have, turns out to be for a Mk 111 and is not the same. Vacuum pipe goes into the side, near the bolts. Not on mine. Is messing with the cruise control wire and other parts likely to create problems? I prefer to take TB off to clean. Ps I have a small solder station and the Caps courtesy of a senior member. Will check the ECT and also perhaps the MAF sensor after the TB clean. Fingers crossed that the spagetti of cables was put on correctly. I will know tomorrow.

Thanks Rupert I'll have to check where the ECT sensor is placed. I have a set of Capacitors but not too keen to do this job. Re-looking at the vutube on spark plugs, I see that my readings were virtually spot on to original leads when new. These leads have a part binding round them which my new ones don't. Originals? wanted to put in plugs for possible LPG so not a waste of time and money. Thats an interesting link Plexus may be worth a try. Reminded me of this link to Eric the Car Guy (alias George Clooney) ! I checked my butterfly valve and its pretty clogged so will take off Throttle body and clean. New Air filter post MOT and using injector cleaner.

The plugs I removed are PK20R11 which in the excellent vutube video of how to change spark plugs the orator mentions that he thought his were originals with this number. Still could have been replaced as they do look very healthy (with the two exceptions). The burn is faultless and so looks like I'll need check elsewhere to discover why my high CO2 emissions. For interest these are the results of the resistance check and I'd welcome any observations as I'm not au fais with the technical even though my old Dad worked in Radar development , Marconi, Elekluft Bonn and SHAPE after the War. 'Fraid I got Mothers brains bless her! to LHS Coil 3.88 to RHS Coil 5.00 No 8 10.58 no 6 16.62 No 4 15.16 No 2 4.93 No 7 10.49 no 5 16.15 No 3 14.92 No 1 4.88

Does it have a Midge repellant system? ps What year is your S320 out of curiosity?

Indeed we are Rupert. Always something to slow down progress.(not that I'm very fast in dealing with this sort of thing. Lots of dirt to clean off takes an hour + First I found my extension to my breaker bar was too short, borrowed one from my mechanic which turns out to be too long for number 1 Spark plug next to expansion tank. doh! With the exception of number one cylinder the plugs are all Denzo and looking good. Can't imagine they are originals. Cables, not sure? Numbers 6 and 8 plugs do have a brown ring like rust at base of ceramic. Did I read somewhere this is an arcing problem? The tip of the coil cable is corroded 1/4 inch on LHS of engine. Oh and number 7 tube has rust on it - my mechainc said that soemtimes this is caused by water from the Windscreen jet not exiting properly but dribbling down onto the Cover and into the spark plug hole - think he could be right as it is over that tube. going to check the cables now for resistance - finish job tomorrow, hopefully!

Its the difficult Bank feed line down the RHS of the bay between the engine and battery. one is on top and one down the side. Solved the problem myself with what I used to use to pull out the Instrument panel on Mercs rather than buy the special pullers. Half a pair of scissors with 3/8ths inch end, bent at 90% angle.. Able to get my hand down by the water pipe and pull toward me the release lever on the plug whilst pulling at it with the other hand. The difficulty is mentioned in this thread, but perhaps later models don't have this problem?

Anyone got a tip how to remove this ****** thing without remvoign the battery? There's always one thing that own't budge or won't unclip. Looks like I have to open the catch slightly to remove looking at the other one? Hope not to have to remove battery as my back can't take it. Thanks

(between fitted mudflap and wheel arch)

Well Brian, I've had three S classes and a W123 and W124 series and never spent fraction of what this car has cost me since I bought it, £2,000 and still counting . Only the rust issue made me get rid of them. Did your friends look like the one in the ad or was it a rust bucket? No wonder (as others point out) we don't see many of these cars on the road when we travel about., maintenance is prohibitively expensive. Parts flown in from Germany daily are no comparison in price to parts from Japan, unless electrical. Chains instead of cambelt saves £600 in parts alone (or £1000 job outsourced) and with two of my S classes having over 200k on the clock the 5L V8's still sounded sweet. Interested to know what model your friend had and what were his expenses? Suspension possibly? OK can be a £1000 a corner but older Lexus with pneumatic possibly have similar expensive faults? I was going to change plugs and leads today (Rained off) and also replace the Throtttle body with one I bought s/h hand already cleaned, as MOT last July car barely got through with high CO2 level. I'm hoping to discover the cause and nail it. If it should fail I've spent a lot of money for nothing. I love the lexus 4L V8 engine and it sounds quiet at 120k miles but I do get a smell of exhaust regularly from the Car, getting out and in. And yet on a long journey the car seem to give that 30+ mpg. Overfuelling seems to be ruled out, unless its a failing cold start valve? perhaps those gunked Cat to y pipe joins are still leaking even though I couldn't feel anything. Possibly i need to check that the Manifold has not got a leak. Hopefully this week, if I can get away from the Desk to change those plugs. Should be able to see better.

Raining hard and haven't looked under the rear wheel archs properly. Removed half a field wedged nicely in that channel back lower w/arch when I bought the car. Treated and seems OK. Bit worried about a rust patch appearing on the horizontal part under the passengers side boot lining abutting the wheel arch. Why do i think this is coming from underneath!!! Unable to see t'other side as CD player in the way. Go on, tell me the bad news guys! (Dreaming more and more about cheap Mercedes I see on ebaybut I've still got parts yet to fit to the Lexus! ) http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mercedes-Benz-C200-2-0-auto-Elegance/261917784241?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D30775%26meid%3D72f7b020d6b347b5b09f787f4bf5298e%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D5%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D121686921694&rt=nc

Did nobody spot the expansion tank level - Oh dear!