DJT

When I got my new ultra light alloy wheels on my LS430 I hand Dunlop all season tyres fitted. Now I'm on day 4 of snow and ice. Tyres perform brilliantly. Tonight I took my usual route home from visiting my friend who is not very well. Took their dogs out for a walk. Never took into account a 1 in 5 hill with a 90 degree right hand turn. Got up the hill slowly with traction control engaged. Never switched on snow mode as LS430 would drive normally. What surprised me was one I could get up hill. Two there was no wagging from the back. If I had tried this in my 2nd car (Mondeo) fitted with winter tyres I would probably never of made it. Going down hill touching brakes never got ABS kicking in. Just a good reduction in speed. My LS430 is always giving pleasant surprises. Makes me wonder how much testing Lexus did on LS430 before signing off for production. Try doing this trip in a BMW or Mercedes I bet they would fail.

Winter arrived Sunday evening/night. Had an inch of snow fall over night. At 5am Monday morning I was busy chipping frozen snow off car. No roads gritted until 7am at earliest. Had new Dunlop all season tyres fitted to new alloys. They work extremely well. Fresh snow slush and black ice proved to no issues. Never engaged snow mode and traction control never kicked in. Last week fitted some made to measure "rubber" floor mats from car mats 4 u. Look good and will protect carpet from the worse of winter weather

Malc need to do an internet search.

Malc you will see my LS430 on day. Someone sent me a message about a jap fest gathering of all types of Japanese cars. Only issue is it's in south of England so need to book some holiday and hotel.

We don't have speed bunps, we've got craters with bits of tarmac around them. No I don't drive fast just roll into craters and crawl out slowly. Best bit is every built up area is now 20mph. If only we could go that fast 🤣. A9 is only decent bit of tarmac for miles.

Steve 2006 not sure if pub it's still under same name but black stairs is part of the original Wick. Also black stairs was the subject of a painting by LS Lowry. Can you remember the drive north of Inverness where the roads start to get "interesting" 😆.

Seen 34mpg on drives to Edinburgh from Wick

Hi finally got 4 wheel alignment done. Rear needed more toe out I was out by 2 degrees 🫣. Front need more toe in again out by 2 degrees. Yes she feels a lot better. Very planted on the rear. Drive back from alignment was impressive no slowing for bends. Just turn steering wheel and go around bend. I didn't get pushed to either side of car during cornering. After putting in some petrol after alignment I got 32.8mpg on trip meter. This was on a 20 mile drive. Hopefully longer drives should see me closer to 35-36 mpg.

Razor61 I measured drained oil when it was cold. 6+ litres of cold oil is going to way over full mark on dipstick. Reason I never noticed before car is parked on a slope with dipstick side lower than non dipstick side. Photos show volume of cold oil. My mpg has improved over mpg when I had when lexus do the service. Car care nut on U-tube who is lexus trained says to check oil on warm engine after it has sat for 15-20 minutes to get accurate measurement. So on a cold engine should be just below full mark. Merc sprinters have similar issues only fill to 3/4 on dipstick. Know this because when I worked delivering hire vans, mechanic's always told us to make sure previous hirer's had not topped up oil in belief that engine was short on oil.

Hi does anyone know the part number or what I can use to clip floor mat hooks into. See photo of item that I need to fix to floor. My fittings are missing from floor.

After a test drive today LS430 feels so much better on the road. Still need to get toe in/out professionally adjusted.

Forgot say I had sprayed ball joints and bolt on arm with penetrating oil daily for a week to make job easier.

Hi thanks for replies. I have bought new toe in/out adjusters arms from hard racing. Very nice bit of kit. Removing arms on NSR was a piece of cake. Took an hour from getting car jacked to replacing wheel. OSR rear was the complete opposite. Had 3 ball joint splitters to chose from. As the ball joints are deep two would not work. Had to go the brutal old fashioned way. Ball joint wedge and lump hammer. Still could not split it as I ran out of gap between forks. So went off to buy a propane burner to heat up ball joint housing to help remove it. It removed ball joint and steel insert for aluminium housing 🙄🫣. Separating ball joint from steel insert was a 💩💩💩 of job. Getting insert back in was just as bad. Managed to destroy old ball joint now in all its separate parts no sign of wear in ball joint after 320k miles. Lexus knew how to build longevity into the LS430. As for toe in/out I have done a rough measurement using a tape measure. Gone from 9 o'clock on NSR to 3 o'clock OSR on front of rim. Reversed for rear of rim. Divide the difference by 2 which gives the amount to alter each side. LS430 has very slight toe out at rear. So have set it as close to parallel as possible. Need to to find a 4 wheel tracking place to set it it perfectly. This could be 100 miles down the road so need it as close as possible without upsetting handling and scrubbing tyres on inside edge.

Hi have got around to doing an oil change on my 2004 LS430. Got genuine filter off eBay from a company called JDM ?????. Photo attached of filter after I finally got it off. Instructions on filter say to hand tighten then do a 3/4 turn with a approved tool. Last oil change was done by Lexus Edinburgh. I drained near 5.5 litres plus 300ml from oil filter. That makes 5.8 litres plus what I managed to spill on road 🫣. To get to full mark on my LS430 it took 5 litres. Never really took much notice before as engine oil was very clean (hard to read level) with car parked on slope. Hopefully got photos attached showing how much oil I drained. Think Lexus Edinburgh over filled my engine, but when looking online to check oil capacity there are 3 amounts for 2004 LS430. Lowest on is 5 litres for oil change. Highest is 6.5 litres for a fill on dry engine. Think technician took wrong number for a fill. I did buy a service kit from opie oils which included 6 litres of oil. So I have an unopened 1 litre of opie oils nano tech oil. Car does perform alot better but whether is down to clean high spec oil or having right amount of oil in engine, or combination of both.

Hi seem to have a lot of toe in on rear axle. Have taken photo of what I believe is toe adjustment for rear. This looking down from top on OSR. Could anyone confirm this for me Thanks David