donkmeister

Good opportunity if it's that bad now. Three considerations, now we know you are going from the downpipes back: 1) The 430 has a third catalytic converter which is a fair way back from the downpipes. Check the parts catalogues to confirm if there's an oxygen sensor in or after it as this could cause you a headache. If there's no sensor you should be fine removing it (cue "but the MOT" comments! *Raspberry* to that, it's already got two in the correct place for cats.) 2) consider if you want resonators in your replacement. I went without in one car and regretted it simply because I ended up with a drone at motorway speeds. Sounded lovely when not at constant revs for hours, but a long haul across the continent could get a little annoying. 3) Read up on the merits of X-pipes, H-pipes and no-crossover. You'll need to decide which you want. Fortunately, YT has many videos demonstrating many exhausts so you can have a listen as well and see what you like.

Missed this when you first posted, but better late than never. Might help someone else too! The significant bit here is that the brakes only squeal in reverse. The anti-squeal springs (those little ones that look a big like unfolded paperclips, that hook around the pad) are oriented only to work in one direction, which is forwards. So, if your brakes aren't squealing when going forwards but are when going backwards... Well at least you know your anti squeal springs are probably fitted correctly! If you are comfortable with jacking up the rear and popping a wheel off to look at the brake pads side on, I'd echo Steve on doing an inspection of the brakes. As these are opposing two-pot calipers, you can't do the simple clean and regrease unfortunately, but what you can do is check for even wear across all four pads on the back axle. This this will show if any one piston is sticking. If you do see signs of uneven wear rather than a completely seized piston, you can generally wait for a more convenient time to sort it. The quick and easy solution is a new caliper or two, the cheaper solution is taking the calipers off the car and sending them off for refurb. The cheapest, but most involved option and one I wouldn't do on a daily driver, is to get the refurb kit and do it yourself. But TBH that's more a job for tinkering in your home workshop if you have time on your hands.

True, but I came across like a knob when I said it... At least I think I did. It felt broadly equivalent to a mate bringing his new girlfriend to my house, me looking her up and down and saying "I prefer pretty girls, personally". 🫢

Yes Malc, they also reduce the amount of rain getting inside the door. I didn't want to say that as some might get excited about the electronics (which are of course safely the other side of the plastic sheet IIRC) The wiping effect is handy though.

You'll occasionally get someone who drops a snide or ill-informed remark when you run anything old and/or interesting. Amazing how many people think that newer=better without understanding what they're looking at. I realise I'm the odd one out in most settings, but some of my friends at least humour the concept of why my daily driver is nearly old enough to vote. Bangernomics is a word that I hate now. Not the concept, I admire the self-control in bangernomics. But the word, simply because one mate thinks that anyone with an older car is doing "bangernomics". I swear one day he'll use it when discussing a million-pound fully-restored classic with some beards at a car show and get himself hurt. On balance, I accidentally had dropped the snide/ill-informed remark when a mate got his brand new Skoda. I needed to run indoors to help with my kid, so rushed out something like "well, if you aren't really into your cars then it makes sense to have something like this that does the job". I'd meant it in the sense "this is reliable and competent and you aren't going to spend several weekends a year swearing at this thing with scraped knuckles because it's new!", but it came across as "harumph, clearly you are NOT a car guy and therefore I look down my nose at you". Gushed suitably about it next time I saw him, of course!

The weatherstrips on all four windows are looking a bit hard and shrunken on my LS460, and are no longer wiping against the glass when it goes up/down. Taking a look at another LS460 that happened to be parked nearby, that seems to be par for the course on these cars. As parts to replace just this piece of trim would be approx £1,500-2000 for all four doors, I was wondering about buying some generic felt/rubber strip, removing the old perished material and bonding the new strip onto the trim. Has anyone found a source for such strip? Does anyone have any joy or sorrow to share on this topic?

Doubt he'd have any problems, provided he isn't doing donuts in the local retail park with the cruise-knobs (in which case volume of exhaust won't be the deciding factor 😄 ) For MOTs, it's subjective. No MOT centre is equipped to assess a car against the SPL on its V5. Doubt the Police are either. So it all falls back to the subjective. Have a straight-through system and drive like a *****, you'll have a problem. Have a valved exhaust for some V8 fruitiness and you'll be fine. OP, I'd suggest any exhaust fabricator will be able to install electric cut-outs. There will be one in your area.

If you live near a Costco with a petrol station, it's definitely worth investigating a membership. I think I pay about £30 a year for a basic membership but petrol is a good 5p/l cheaper (maybe 10p for the E5 the 460 needs) and a set of premium tyres is a good £200 or so cheaper than even the online places (may vary depending on what cars you have, but I don't seem to be capable of buying anything with a common size). So, it more than pays for itself before you even set foot inside the shop to buy a bushel of crisps, a pallet of cheese or a metric tonne of sausages (seriously, some of their package sizes make no sense unless you are a caterer or have a warehouse-sized pantry!)

Recently did a jaunt over to the continent in the LS460 and returned around 28MPG over 4-500 miles of very mixed driving. I was mostly cruising at a GPS 130-135kph on the autoroute but made much better progress for nearly an hour after finding my "speed camera Sherpa", a kind Frenchman in an RX450 whose sense of national pride meant that he would rather up his speed to 100mph than be overtaken by a Brit. 🤣 I find one probably every second trip; you pass them, they overtake you back, then you can gently coax them up to a decent cruising speed. Just make sure to slow when they do (or if you see a flash)... I learned that one years back, and was very glad never to receive a souvenir photo.

First thing to rule out is the volt meter... Is it plugged in to the cigar lighter, or have you tapped off somewhere? Or are you getting the voltage via OBD? Far be it from me to cast aspersions at another man's wiring, however I've seen enough dodgy crimps that my first thought is "the car isn't complaining - has he just got a loose wire to the volt meter, or possibly is the volt meter dodgy?" Either way, better to rule it out before loading up the parts cannon.

I do love a hydropneumatic Citroen. Citroen SM is one of my lottery win cars, but I'd be happy with a CX as a more attainable car.

Fran, if you buy the LS400 I would love it if you can keep us updated on the work you are doing to it. Two resources you may wish to consult before making your final decision: Charm.li - this is a US-based "right to repair" website that includes a lot of workshop manuals, including the LS400. These are very useful when understanding how to overhaul, service or replace the many components of an LS! Amayama.com - this is a Japan-based exporter of car parts. Surprisingly, I can see that most of the air suspension components are still available for Series III LS400s on there. It might be worth having a browse to see the sort of costs you are in for. I hope you will make a decision that you are (ultimately) pleased with!

I worked this one out in the end; why would the mats need to be narrower on one side only? Transfer case and front propshaft. These mats are for the 4WD LS's. I've confirmed with the parts desk that these are also specified for the 600, and they have confirmed with Lexus HO that they only supply these now and not the wider RWD mats. I can live with it, but just an FYI for anyone else ordering new mats!

The V8 always calls to me too. Rover P5B is an itch I'd love to scratch one day - doesn't have the "car of the future" vibe and suspension of the P6B but it really has a presence. Plus that comfy sofa of a bench seat in the front looks inviting! Ideally, a P4 restomod would be on the cards but I don't have the room to do anything like that at home!

That's a good shout - I assumed that alignment would be one of those jobs the main dealers would "farm out", but clearly not. Quick check of the part numbers shows all adjustable parts are the same for the 460 and 600 so the alignment job is the same. (for interest, the only parts where there's a difference are the front knuckles - no surprise given one has a driven front axle and the other doesn't, and the rear cylinders - presumably the 600 ones are valved at a different rate due to the battery weight. All the multilink arms, joints etc are common to both models. Given it's a fantastic design I think they'd have struggled to add any improvement. Always surprises me how the car hides its weight in Sport mode, hustles better than my old E-class which had a 400-500kg weight advantage)

Hopefully it's fixed itself! Creaks are notoriously difficult to track down on cars in general... I had a creak on a car and my tyres/suspension place of choice just shrugged and said "come back when it's a clunk". They didn't want to just load up the old parts canon in the vain hope that one of the various bushes or joints would be the right one. They did suggest spraying WD40 on anything that could be a culprit as a temporary measure.

I'm not disagreeing with you, just asking for more information. You said "I've read the 460 is a more problematic car than the 600" - this is something I've never seen or heard so I'm interested in what they said (if nothing else because I have a 460, so am interested in dealing with any problems!). If it's simply a matter of taste and you wanted an LS600 then great. AWD is a marketing term dreamt up in the 80s in America to differentiate between full-time 4WD (such as seen on an LS600) and selectable 4WD (such as seen on an old-school Land Rover). They're both 4WD systems.

I bought the old bus around 70-something thousand miles and I'm up to 103k miles now. It has almost complete service history on the Lexus app before i owned it, I suspect at some point the owner went overseas or died as it didn't seem to be used for a couple of years fairly early in its life. Repairs... Apart from replacing a door where a bollard ran out into the side when Mrs Donk was leaving a parking space (can't blame that on Lexus!); I replaced the rear brake calipers around 90k miles. One was bordering on seized on the inboard side, the other was sticky, and I didn't have time to rebuild them. Checking the service history I should have expected that as the previous owner had only got 20k miles out of the previous set of rear discs and pads. I had all five wheels refurbed recently because they were looking flakey and horrible. At the same time I had all 5 TPMS replaced as one had recently gone (so the other 4 probably weren't far behind!) and the wheel caps (Good old Amayama!) I replaced the radiator around 90k miles, along with waterpump, belt, the coolant pipes ("whilst I was in there") - amazed that I only had one corroded fastener, everything else was like a 1 year old car. Everything else has been standard oil and filters. Next summer I think I'll do the spark plugs, and reboot the cables. I might even replace the VVT filters if I feel brave but there's no real need apart from "because it's there". I'd like to get the ATF replaced too, however the jury is out on whether that is a good idea or not. Oil changes are surprisingly expensive - even DIYing it, it's getting on for £150 (10 litres of Mobil 0w20 ESP, plus the filter), but it's cheap compared to rebuilding the engine! I also rent a 2-post at a local garage when I want to do the oil - only costs me about £40 for an hour, makes it so much more pleasant. Altogether reliable. I am concerned that good ones will become harder to find; I checked on the Lexus app today and a service is now £770 so I can imagine now they're a bit cheaper some will skip maintenance unfortunately. So I'm keeping a log of what I do in case I want to sell it on at some point. If you're ever around the Beds/Cambs border let me know and we can compare and contrast!

Given your location I can see that 4WD could be a benefit in harsher winter conditions for you. I can't see the 460 being more problematic than the 600 though; any specifics you've read about? Just curious to see the anecdotes behind that. Looking at it through the engineer's eye, LS600 = LS460 + more complexity. You've also got the suspension carrying an extra 500kg, and the unfortunate consequence that the 600 is slower than the 460. If you've been watching Car Care Nut (aka "Horror Movies for Lexus owners") then the issues he raises with the 460 apply to the 600 also as these are "features" of the whole UR engine range.

The 460 (same chassis as the 600) is well priced these days. Most (if not all) the toys of the 600, but traditional V8+auto instead of hybrid V8+CVT. No-one seems to have touched on another issue with the LS600: the doors are too small now. They're not big enough to fit the immense testicles one needs to have in order to buy a 200k mile LS600. It's a used car paradox.

Given the LS460s rather complex suspension set up, has anyone had any issues with getting the alignment done at their local laser alignment place? Or is it a job that ideally requires someone with experience of it? I recently had my wheels refurbished and the chap highlighted that the way the rear tyres were wearing indicated that the car would benefit from an alignment. To rule out worn joints I'll check for play next time I have it up on ramps but... If I need to replace anything I'll still need to have an alignment done anyway!

I've only done the rad on a 460. It's not a bad job, but still not something I'd like to do every year (I'm assuming the 430 has a similar level of effort to replace) so better to go for OEM and keep to the 10 year replacement. Do the water pump (easier with the rad out of the way), replace the serpentine belt and consider replacing any hoses that don't look fresh enough. It's a small cost in time and money on top of the basic radiator swap job. 460s are a fair bit cheaper than a couple of years ago so you could consider one if you fancy it. It's obviously more complex than a 430 but I think Car Care Nut on YT has overstated his concerns about that (and at least some of the 430 optional equipment).

C5 ditched the earlier "bird cage" construction used in C2-C4s didn't it? A few years back I had a hankering for a "Faceman" C4 and the condition of the birdcage was a gamble from what I read. Made me realise I needed to have a bit more free time for car fettling before I'd take the plunge!

Assuming the ISF has air suspension, try putting it in full-floppy with the engine and gearbox in max-attack, then get on and off the throttle in a tunnel in 2nd. It's hilarious just how high the nose will go. I definitely didn't do that in the Dartford tunnel in my LS460 the other week, it's all lies if anyone claims otherwise.

I've heard good things about Meguiars Plast-X and things like motorbike visors, so would work pretty well there I'd expect.