Glyn Jennings

I couldn’t agree more the TVR was the epitome of that. I get the feeling that with all these mega expensive cars we all dream of owning is more the situation where we are allowed to buy and run what they have made on their terms and we are privileged to have the opportunity in their eyes.

I do like Aston Martin but a friend of mine hired a nearly new DB9 a few years ago. The ride was terrible unless it was smooth tarmac. The glovebox wouldn’t stay shut. The boot struts didn’t work. The bonnet was so far out of alignment it was scraping the paint off the edge of wing by the windscreen and the leather was lifting where it had been glued down on the door panels. A few years later my daughter worked as a service adviser for a Aston Martin dealership near me and the stories she told about unreliability and astronomical costs was disturbing. Sadly the way the dealership treated their customers was appalling too telling customers a pack of lies when they had messed up. That was 10 years ago so hopefully not the story now. The great thing with Lexus they always come top on the things that matter.

I also have the lighter wood colour which is not to my taste so I wrapped it. Had it been the darker colour like yours I would have left it as it is.

Regret buying TVR 390SE loved the looks and sound but all it did was break down so I spent more time working on it than driving it. It also took me a year to sell it as it was just after everyone was buying new ones but because of the reliability issues that stopped and the market subsequently collapsed. Regret selling my BMW Z3M Coupe. Mainly because since selling it 10 years ago it is now worth 3 times what I sold it for. Again loved the looks but I found the seats uncomfortable and I am not overweight and the ride was not that great. It also seen to rattle a bit and tramline. Third regret is not buying. SC430 earlier however they were newer then and probably outside my price range at the time. The SC is everything the other two weren’t. ie lovely ride with the most comfortable seats ever, more storage space as 2 + 2 as opposed to only 2 seater. Open top or solid top. So reliable and looks wise what once was a bit of an ugly ducking has turned into beautiful swan. I won’t be selling this one.

Welcome to the ownership club. Looks like you have managed to fine a splendid example.

I not saying the Tesla is great but it is an everyday car that seats five and has an enormous boot. Build quality varies but the model 3 is the most reliable model according to owners. No road tax, no annual servicing and a serene comfortable ride. Even after 50,000 miles the batteries have only lost 5%. So thats the good parts. The negative is long distance driving.Although Tesla have there own chargers which are many more than the competition. Everything is via the touch screen. You can’t even open the glovebox by a button. The insurance for the performance model is sky high. I have 9 years NCB and the cheapest quote is £1300. Where can use that amount of acceleration? It’s not very stylish especially from the front. The juries out for me. I will always keep my SC but changing the RX is tempting apart from the insurance difference Although my RX has suffered very little depreciation in the two years I have owned it. Interestingly most people seem to be firmly for or against electric vehicles unless it is a Lexus of course.

I know this is a bit off topic butI was with a guy today who was admiring my SC. He happened to have a Tesla model 3 performance and I was saying how I am not sold on electric cars. Anyway he was really enthusiastic about his car and offered me a ride in it. Wow, what insane acceleration 0-60 mph in 3 seconds l have never experienced anything like it I was thrown back in the seat so much it almost hurt my back and he went round a roundabout twice really quick and it held the road like glue. It is no looker and there are things I don’t like about it but where can you get that sort of performance for the £25,000 you would pay for a used one. It is one mental car that you have to experience to see how good it is performance wise that will out gun all but the top super cars. Obviously the built quality is not there compared to a Lexus but for bang for buck it is way out there. Just felt I had to share this in that if ever you get offered a ride in one you will be up for a big surprise.

Thanks for posting this detailed process and materials required to restore the seat leather. I am sure this will be very helpful for those wanting to do the same.

To me the SC looks so much better when the standard wheels are changed to something else. 5 spoke alloys especially.

You can order most clips from a Lexus dealership or use Lexus Parts direct.

I also thought about those in red.

Thanks for the info. I always thought about a thin red line on the tyres. I believe years ago you buy them new like that but not anymore. I saw a TV program where Drew Pritchard had the tyres done by Mr Whitewalls on a car he was restoring. I guess then that doing it afterwards is not very successful.

I don't profess to be an expert on wrapping but I did use proper 3M wrap on my interior and I can't believe how easily marked it is. On that basis I would never have a car wrapped plus the life expectancy is only about 4 years before you would have to do it again. Seeing what bird poo does to normal paint I can't imagine what it would do to vinyl.

I don't use mine much either having only done 700 miles this year. However I am happy to drive it occasionally and I know if the money was in the bank for what it is worth would gain little interest anyway and their is no other car I would want except for an RCF or LC500. Interesting that one of your pictures shows white wall tyres. Did you have that done yourself?

It's now a fabulous car. If you are going to keep doing more things to it you might want to consider creating a build thread in the build thread section on here. that way you can add to it and it will all be in one place.

Theres a long post here when a CD is jammed which may be useful. https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sc430-2nd-gen-2001-2010/572620-cd-changer-jammed-7.html A more expensive option is to change the unit if that is the problem and not something like a wiring/fuse issue. Paul Frost has a used on on ebay currently.

So I emailed Lexus UK last night at 8.00pm enquiring about having the plates fitted to my car. At 9.30am today I get a phone call from my local dealer to arrange booking it in to be done. I asked if it would be FOC and he said Lexus are paying for it at the moment. I have to say I am extremely impressed at the speed Lexus have responded to my request.

I have a Pandora Storm immobiliser fitted on my car but since reading all the updates on this post have now contacted Lexus UK about having the plates fitted. One easy trick to prevent relay theft on Lexus and Toyota cars is to disable the remote key fobs to pre vent keyless entry. You can do this by after locking the car then while holding the lock button on key fob down press the unlock button twice and the red light on the remote fob flashes four times. The key fob is no longer sending a signal and you can now only unlock the car by pressing the unlock button on the key fob. You can test this by trying to unlock the car by the door handle and it should no longer work. I am now in the habit of doing this every time I leave the car.

Now I have wrapped it it is not so slippery but not any thicker. Perhaps in the future I might invest in revised one. It’s a shame no one in the UK offers that service and I am surprised at the cost when you see how little they can cost compared to one for an old English sports car.

Thanks for your comments Ken. The story behind the low mileage is that it was purchased by a elderly lady who was very wealthy and the family owned lots of high end cars such as Range Rovers Jaguars etc. I believe it was her husband who drove it most but even that was sometimes only 100 in some of the years they owned it. After he died she kept it for a couple of years before I bought it from a dealer who was a friend of the family who was selling it on their behalf. It was only ever serviced by Lexus a year after it was purchased I assume it may have had a service somewhere else but maybe not as it only had 7400 miles when I bought it. It does however have a complete MOT history. They did spend £1500 at a Lexus dealership changing age related items like tyres, radiator, battery and timing belt before putting it up for sale. It certainly was an exceptional find and has not missed a beet in my ownership. I too am older now but enjoyed spending nearly 30 years driving to France and Italy every year with my family but never in a sports car. The reality is because my wife is unable to get in a sports car these days it unlikely I will go touring in it. I do love driving it but it is only short drives which is rewarding enough.

If you need something to help you to get to sleep tonight You can tead my update. https://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/forum/topic/134736-my-blue-sc430/?page=2#comment-1301127

Ignore the last 3 photos and the text as I can’t seem to edit them out of the post

It’s quite some time since I did an update to this build thread so here’s what I have done since the last one. I installed the rear quarter window mod as sold by Satoshi Sasaki in Japan. The install was very easy and I love the line of the rear window when it’s up as it flows into the line of the boot. I particularly like being able to have all the windows up with the top down. When driving with all the windows down and the roof up is not that practical as it gets very blowy at higher speeds. It does look stylish when stationary though. It reminds me of the pillar less coupes from old by BMW and Mercedes.      Next up was to replace the orange side marker reflectors to clear ones. I bought them via ebay as well as bulb holders and wiring in case I ever want to wire them up to the indicator circuit as they are orange LED’s. I would have liked some rear clear fog light lens and put red bulbs in them but have never been able source any.    I have now taken the Lexus Motif of the grille again which you can do on pre facelift grilles. I don’t mind it but I think it is a cleaner look without it which I prefer.  I bought a different Throttle controller to replace the SC430mods one I had and sold it to another owner. There was nothing wrong with it however I found you could fit one that has a lock function so when you remove the display if the car is started it won’t accelerate passed idle. As my car is parked in the road I wanted this extra security feature on top of the Disklok I use. I know I am sad and obsessed in that I also bought a gold coloured 1/18” scale MotorMax SC430 model.and set about making it a replica of my real one. I stripped it all down, sprayed it the correct colour blue, changed the wheels to the same as mine and even painted some of the interior black to match. It was an absolute pain to do and is not as good looking at it close up as I would have liked.   Following driving up to Coventry I have put the original muffler back on now as I realise how much I enjoy how refined the SC is as a tourer is on longer journeys. Having had a couple of other sports car I can’t believe what a wonderful and comfortable car the SC is and as good as my RX450h. I would love to take it on a long road trip around Europe. One thing personally I think it for me would improve the driving experience is a smaller diameter thicker steering wheel or a tighter lock to lock. The only other mod I want to do at the moment is to colour code the silver part of the grille and chrome on the bonnet similar to the photos below but I can’t decide on whether to do the slats gloss black or leave them as they are. I will wrap them first with some vinyl I have just ordered so it can be restored to OEM. I will post pictures when done.   At some point in the future if a system is ever available I would like cameras around especially as I am very conscious of kerbing my expensive alloys. Finally the mileage is now 9600 miles so it is never going to be a high mileage car at this rate. MOT is at next week so hopefully no issues. text 2.txt

After having done various mods requiring the console panel to be removed mine stopped working as well. I think it is a common problem. For me it turned out to be the confection on the back of the switch. it's a fiddle to take out but doing this and refitting the plug cured the problem. I think the issue is if you don't unplug the connection and just hang the wood trim on the cable to the side to do what you want to do it puts too much strain on what is a small connector. You can also take the switch out of the panel fairly easily and then you can check that the connector is seated correctly and hopefully it works before refitting he panel.