AndyCheltenham1

I bought an old Toyota last year and as soon as I bought it I filled it up to the top with petrol and it started leaking petrol. I spoke to my mechanic who said older petrol tanks often rust and leak from the top. He suggested putting less petrol in it and it see if that solves the problem-it did. I now only fill it up to just over the half way mark and it hasn't leaked again in over a year. I only use the car for short journeys so never need to fill it up fully. Not ideal if you do a lot of long journeys but ok if not. Maybe worth a try?

Thanks for comments. I didn't buy the car locally, I had to travel over 100 miles to get it, so it wouldn't be the previous owner with a spare key. I spoke to a duty manager at Morrisons who said the CCTV only covers a limited part of the car park but at the time of the theft it wasn't working at all either inside or outside the store. My service book was in the glovebox at the time but I have the ebay advert which details all the service history and the previous owner has spent a lot of money over his 3 years of ownership and he supplied a spreadsheet/receipts of work done including an invoice where he took a sample of oil and sent it to a laboratory to be analyzed to access the condition of the engine-he went way over the top on maintenance and really looked after the car. I know from searching for insurance for my LS400 some of the insurers have already filled in the value of the car for you and the value of the LS400 was put at £400!! I wish I could buy one for that price. Hastings have said that once one of their "expert engineers" comes up with a value then the claim would be settled within 5 working days. I did see the car for sale at £2995 and at the time I bought it dealers were asking much higher prices than lower spec mondeos so it is a fairly rare car. I don't think I will get the car back, or at least in a decent condition. It took me 2 months to find this car as every car I went to see was not as described and only fit for the scrapheap. Any suggestions for a replacement car up to about £2000 which would be reliable and decent to drive?? Andy

On Friday my car was stolen from the Morrisons car park while I was shopping in there- I was only in there for 30 minutes but enough time for someone to take it. It was one o'clock in the afternoon and there were plenty of people around so a very competent or cheeky thief. I don't know how they took it because the car was double locked and when I returned to where my car was there was no sign of any broken glass on the ground. Luckily it was my spare car ( I need a second car incase my main car is off the road so I can still get around) but I still need to either get it back or get another car pretty quickly. The car was/is a 2004 Ford Mondeo Ghia X Estate with 112000 miles but in totally mint condition with a full main dealer service history. I bought it on ebay in June this year and paid £1900 for it. It is NOTHING like a lexus but runs very well for what it is. I've got a crime reference from the police and reported it to my insurance company (Hastings) who said their theft department will contact me within 48 hours. I have never had a car stolen before or had to make an insurance claim so I am concerned as to what silly offer they are likely to make me as I am sure their "market" value will be unrealistically low. I have only driven about 400 miles since I have bought it so the value will not have decreased at all. I hope you don't mind me asking for advice here when it isn't my Lexus but I'm hoping somebody may have some experience of how to best deal with an insurance company so they don't screw me over. Thanks Andy

Stuart, yes this was me, I did put the car up for sale on ebay and it has now sold-for £700. I have had the problem on the car for about 2 months now and I could no longer trust its' reliability. I did contact a few ecu specialists (including the one in Devon) and was quoted from £60 to test ecu and maybe £150 to repair it. With the cost of paying to remove/re install and then postage both ways I could be looking close on £300 on "a guess" which probably wouldn't solve my problem. I was not prepared to go chasing repairs by repairing/replacing several items in the hope of finding the problem. Looking on the USA forum many people have replaced the ecu and then several more components and still not solved the problem. My car had done 100000 miles and I am aware that sooner or later the starter motor will go as it is still the original (big job), the water pump etc are all original (big job) and also possibly the power steering pump will leak and take out the alternator, so I didn't really want to pump potentially a large amount of money into the car. I've had it for 11 years and it has been brilliant and very very reliable but is now time to move on. I had a good response on ebay and very quickly (did I price it too cheap, not sure). The bloke who bought it has got another LS400 exactly same year as mine and he seems confident that his mechanic will plug it into the computer and find the problem easily (not sure about that ), but I know it has gone to a good home. Interestingly I had a message from "lexuslegend" on ebay saying he was interested in buying it- I wonder how he would have tried to screw me over had I met him and answered his message? I bought a Rover 75 about a year ago as a runaround incase the lexus had problems so at the moment that is my only car ( and it is a totally horrible car) so now have to decide what to buy next as my main car??

I took the car to the mechanic yesterday and it was driving perfectly. I was speaking to two mechanics there for some time and they were both saying the same thing that if the fault is intermittent then it can be very difficult to find the fault and they would struggle to find the fault unless it happens while they are testing it. I said about the ECUs failing and they are not confident that is the problem but maybe this would be the first thing to get done. They are wary about trusting anyone to repair it who isn't an ecu specialist as they have seen a lot of problems in the past.So no testing was done of the car. I received the caps this morning from ebay (same supplier as you Stupot ) and they come in a small Static Shielding Bag and are stamped as Made In America so are not the fake Chinese ones. Thanks for the link to dieselecurepairs.co.uk where you had yours done, they look very reputable and I think this is the place I would use. I wont even try to take the unit out myself as my diy skills are very very bad and I know it would cause ME problems-I'll leave that to a mechanic to do.

Have just got a reply from the ebay seller and he has got more for a 1993 and is going to list them soon

Thanks Stupot for the info. I wouldn't try and take out the ECU myself, I am far too clumsy to go anywhere near it. I had a look on ebay for the capacitor kit but there are none available for a 1993-I've emailed the seller to see if he has any more available. There are no ECU repair companies close to me, so I need to find a reputable one that I could post the ECU to.

Thanks Stuart for details of Scotty Kilmer video on you tube-it really is a simple job to remove and replace the ECU. I noticed that the LS was newer than mine so he was able to plug in a scanner which confirmed that the ECU was at fault which you can't do on mine. I read through all the comments and it seems that this can be a common fault on older LS's. Scotty commented that he did not recommend having the unit repaired as he has had a lot of problems with repaired units and the mechanic who is looking at my car tomorrow doesn't have a lot of confidence in repaired units either? Speaking to a company that does repair them they charge around £150 and gaurantee it for 2 years. Will see what the mechanic says tomorrow when he checks the car over.

Stuart, I moved away from Cheltenham 2 years ago so that is why I have not yet found a mechanic I can 100% trust, because I've had no real problems with the car (apart from 2 springs) I've not yet experienced how good a mechanic is/isn't until you get a problem like this! The mobile mechanic I tried was totally useless so I am going back to an older mechanic who seems to be on the ball who fitted the new springs for me. I've got it booked in on Thursday and he will go through all the obvious and simple things that could be causing the problem but he is not too confident of finding the problem. With it being intermittent it could run perfectly ok when he is testing it and if nothing obvious is at fault I could end up replacing several parts until the fault is found, it could be egr valve,ecu,iac valve, bad leads and maybe something else?? You said that you had put an ecu for sale on ebay-have you still got that for sale and if my fault was the ecu how easy are they to take out and re fit-do you have to re programme anything or is it just a case of plugging the new unit in?? I will know more after Thursday but at the moment I can see me selling it on Ebay for pennies as a spares or repair car!!

Thanks Stuart for your advice. I need a competent mechanic to look at it (hopefully I've found one) to go through all the simple things first. I looked at the link for faulty maf sensor and a lot of those symptoms do relate to my car. Not sure how easy it would be to check as it says do a computer diagnostics check which you can't do due to age of car. I changed my air and fuel filter within the last 5000 miles so they should be ok. My problem is finding a decent mechanic who knows what they are doing-a lot of mechanics seem to be wary of the LS400 as they think it will be very complicated to work on-to me it is just a car and if you are a good mechanic surely any car (within reason) works in exactly the same way??

Malc, There are a few posts on the USA forum about blocking it off but their advice seems to vary from being a very simple job and others saying it can take 6 hours to do? My car is a 1993

I've hardly used the car since the problem started just over a month ago. It seems that the problem is very intermittent as I have used it maybe 5 days in a row ( only short journeys of about 3 miles) and it runs perfect and the next day it is running a bit rough. Looking through the forums there seems to be many possible problems it could be: ECU (capacitors failing), EGR Valve, Coil pack, Idle air control valve? I've given up on the mechanic who cleaned the throttle body as he hasn't got a clue what to try next, but another mechanic who seems more knowledgeable has suggested the next step could be to block off the EGR valve by fabricating a plate but has said it could be like finding a needle in a haystack to try and locate the problem! Has anyone had any experience of blocking off the EGR valve or know of how much work is involved in this? I feel I could be throwing lots of money at this before I find a cure and maybe it is time to get rid of the car, not something I would like to do as I have owned it for 11 years now and it has been near totally reliable with only a few very minor faults in all that time.

Thanks for details of a coil pack,I will keep the details in case I do need one. Looking on the USA forum there seems to be a lot of people that have had problems with stalling and rough idling but there are there are no simple solutions-you could end up replacing many items before you find the fault!! I started the car this morning and it started perfectly again and seems to be running smooth when go backwards and forwards. I will try it again tomorrow and take it for a run. I just did a diagnostic check using the paper clip method and there are no error codes showing at all ( not sure how accurate these old systems are )??

My car has been running perfectly until last week when I was parking in a car park in a tight space and on full steering lock when the car stalled. It started up again no problem and after I 'd been shopping I drove home about 2 miles with no problem. The next day I started the car in the morning and it started perfectly, but when I put it into reverse to back out of the drive it stalled. It would not re start-the engine was turning over ok but just would not start. I left the car for a few days and when I went to start it it started up fine-I went forwards/backwards a few feet and all seemed ok. I didn't drive the car as I need to reverse onto a very busy road and can't chance that stalling half way out onto the road. I got a mobile mechanic to come and look at it a few days later-once again it started perfectly ok. He thought it could be the throttle body/valve causing the problem so cleaned it all out. He said it was pretty gummed up so was hopeful this would cure the problem. Once he was finished I took the car out on about a 2 mile trip and all was good. Went to start it again today and it started instantly but when I put it into reverse- to me it was idling a bit rough and lumpy and again I wouldn't want to drive it like that. I asked the mechanic whether it could be a fuel problem but he said unlikely as it WAS running well while he was working on it. The only work carried out recently was I had all the spark plugs and wires changed ( about 4 months ago ) and it has been running fine since then. Any ideas what the problem could be?? Andy

My opinion on this is that even though you only had a 1 year warranty the parts should not have failed so quickly and that they were not fit for purpose. If I were to buy a deep freezer with a 1 year guarantee and it packed up after the guarantee had expired I can still go back to the retailer up to 6 years after purchase and expect a repair or refund as it is unreasonable to expect it to last only 1 year ( even if the warranty was only for 1 year) If I had bought a kettle for £10 and it failed 2 years later it would be unreasonable to expect a repair/refund on a cheap item. So I think that compensation should be due from Lexus for supplying inferior parts. I think that you will have a problem maybe because you actually fitted the wrong part and could it be argued that a competent mechanic/exhaust fitter should have known the part was incorrect and should not have fitted it?? If Lexus had also fitted the part then I think they would be 100% at fault.

I've got it booked in for Friday for the mechanic to sort out ( I did try and remove the centre console inner bit to get to the proximity sensor but struggled to get it out-if I carried on I know I would break something, I'm too clumsy to tinker with cars) I've disconnected the battery so at least it'll be quiet for the next few days

My alarm decided to go off for no reason this afternoon and then again at 4 o'clock this morning-didn't stay on for long, maybe about 10 seconds, but enough to wake me up!! Does turning down the proximity sensor(under centre console) sort the problem or could it be something else? The battery is about 3 years old so should be ok. Can the alarm just be deactivated to sort the problem out once and for all or will that affect the immobiliser? I'm not bothered about having the alarm working as a theft deterrent I just want to stop it going off at anti-social hours and annoying me and the neighbours?

Thanks for all your comments and very interesting guides for how to fit them from Simon(timonline) and Steve2006. It seems that the job can be relatively easy or could cause problems with the potential to cause some damage. I think the Denso plugs I seen on ebay may not be original parts due to the low price so will give them a miss. When I have it serviced in a few weeks I will see what the mechanic thinks but at the moment I'm probably 50/50 whether to change them now or hold on a bit longer and avoid any potential problems.

I have a 1993 LS400 that has done 101000 miles. The spark plugs were changed about 12 years ago at around 60/65000 miles by the previous owner . I've had the car for 10 years and the engine is still running fine. I've put off replacing the spark plugs as the car is running perfectly ok. Is the replacement down to miles or length of time-if they need changing every 60000 miles does that mean I should not replace them until 120000 miles ( even though they will have been in the car for many years by then) ??? The main ones on ebay seem to be NGK or Denso Iridium Power(£57 for 8)-is there much difference between the two makes? Any idea of how long a job it is to change all 8 plugs? Thanks for any advice.

Mark-I've now managed to order 2 from Ebay USA for £27 which will give me a spare one in case I lose another one!! I was going to get the one from JapParts at £30 for just one but when I tried to order it they said it was out of stock. Thanks Mark

From my understanding all air conditioning systems lose at least 10% of gas per year (more if you use it frequently) so are amazed that you can go several years without topping up and still keep your car cool??

I've had my LS400 just over 10 years and have had it topped up 5 times, so I have it topped up every 2 years. It's not faulty or leaking but at the end of the two years there is a definite drop in how cold it is. I do use it all the time even in winter. I'll be having mine topped up again in the next few days to keep it nice and cold. The specialist I have used said topping it up every two years is about right.

Thanks John-it's not like those wheels, mine are the older wheels. Thanks Mark-my wheels are like yours in the picture (car looks in amazing condition!!). The part number on the back is 8325 and it is 190mm across. i know there is another one that looks exactly the same but is only 160mm across so too small.

I have lost one of my centre cap hubs (went on a trip on Saturday and it was ok when I left but when I got back it was missing-I assume it has worked its way loose ) so now have only 3 on the car so are now trying to get a replacement. I've got the original 16" wheels on it still and they are immaculate as I had them refurbished last year. I've been on ebay without any luck as most of the cars being broken up are from newer models and they wont fit (they are 160mm but mine are 195mm ). The only place that I've found that has got one is JapParts but they want £30 for one!! Any suggestions where I might get one without being screwed over by JapParts??

I've bought a lot of stuff from RockAuto in the past for my Cadillac and they've been good and reliable. The thing that put me off using them again was when I wanted to order a seal off them for about £1.00 or less and the carriage was £20!! The seal was so tiny and light they could have posted it easily for a fraction of the cost but they totally refused to do so-they insisted on charging me £21 for a £1 part!! Needless to say I didn't order the part from them and have not used them again due to their attitude and poor customer care on this occasion.