toast

I'll get it to my mechanic next week and find out about the sensor situation. And yeah, I watched that video, it doesn't look too bad, although the back ones seem harder to access with the back seat situation.

Thanks for your replies. Mark — I do agree that air is objectively preferable. The ride has been a hugely impressive part of what I love about the car. I've also got two old Jag XJ models which have a reputation for wafting nicely, but the LS is just on another level. After quickly poking around the internet earlier I had a notion that sticking with air would likely mean brand new parts from Lexus or nothing, hence investigating springs, but if other options are available that's a different matter. Damian — ah, thanks for that link. I'll get the car to a mechanic and find out which bits are broken and take it from there; £185 certainly is easier to swallow than ~£800 a corner! Will report back once I know more. I've been slumming it in various other cars for a month now and I'm getting fed up with having to pull the doors all the way shut myself... plus the air con vents don't even wiggle from side to side in the car I was driving today, how primitive :D

ha, no, it righted itself after about three days. i just wanted to say thanks to everyone who replied before as i rudely neglected to do so at the time. still not sure what prevented it from working in the first place but thinking about attaching my keys to my person with string, the way kids do with mittens.

Hi all. I have a 2002 LS430 UL. I love him. About a month ago as I was getting into the car I noticed that the ride height looked abnormally high — like, significantly higher than I'd ever seen it. Not quite Monster Truck level, but not far off. I drove the short distance home with no issues, but over the next couple of days the ride became very bouncy. "Better get that looked at immediately" I thought, and proceeded to ignore it and just use my other car instead for a month. So last night I went out to run the engine for a while just to keep the battery from going flat... after about half an hour I remember thinking "hmmm, is that the compressor I can hear? I'm sure it's been running for longer than normal if so?" and just at that point there was a very loud noise like a rifle being fired and the rear of the car immediately dropped right down. So whatever issue there formerly was, I'm guessing that was a bag bursting or something? Joys. Anyhow, I read a bunch of threads about air suspension issues. Obviously it can be very expensive to fix and I'm leaning towards looking at converting to coil springs. Seems these have to come from America, and one of the ebay links in another thread lead me to these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Touring-Tech-2001-2006-LS430-Air-Suspension-Air-Bag-Conversion/291818943480?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160908105057%26meid%3D08bd35d4852f49339a5e812d265d8e1b%26pid%3D100675%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D15%26sd%3D291818943480%26itm%3D291818943480&_trksid=p2481888.c100675.m4236&_trkparms=pageci%3A9e72e664-329b-11e8-b918-74dbd18043e1|parentrq%3A6d32a8f11620abc1f8a2eec3fffc2b1e|iid%3A1 which ***LOOK*** to me the same as what other people have successfully used, but seem to be much cheaper? The car has almost 140,000 miles on it and so while it's in generally good condition, it might be hard to justify the expense of sticking to air just because the car isn't worth that much now. (Which seems wrong, cos it's awesome.) If anyone has any comments about what might be likely to have been wrong before last night, and what that explosion-type noise was, and whether I should just buy a bicycle instead, please do voice them :)

thanks everyone for your help; in fact driving around did eventually shift the keys to a position inside the boot where the proximity sensor detected them, and the normal boot release button worked! it was a stressful time... apologies for not thanking y'all before now, i think i was too traumatised from the whole experience to type! the sneaky electrical fix is good to know, as i'm pretty sure i'll be dumb enough to do this again!

Mark: yeah, that definitely happens with the doors — i've tried to lock the doors using the button on the door handle with the key on the passenger seat, and had the beeping. In this case I guess the key isn't quite within range of the sensor cos the bootlid button doesn't work; I actually considering driving around vigorously to try to make the key move around inside the boot, and then trying the button! May yet resort to that. Dave: yup, I can get into the passenger compartment with my other, two-button key so if you do have a technique I'd love to hear it! Thanks everyone for your help, even the humorous remarks are helping me through this difficult time 😂😂

thanks all it's a fridge not a ski hatch :( and yup, valet key with only two buttons so no joy that way, and it doesn't physically fit into the keyhole under the steering wheel or under the boot lid either. and even if if i CAN somehow get into the boot via the back seats, there's a bunch of crap which would make finding / grabbing the keys a challenge. but short of using dynamite on the boot lid that might be the only plan? does anyone know if, on cars without a ski hatch, there is still a gap in the structure somewhere? fully expecting that fridge-equipped cars have an inconvenient petrol tank in the way or something :/ a

Hi all. First post, long time lurker. I've just locked my key in the boot of my LS430, BUT getting into the cabin won't help because the boot release under the wheel is disabled with the little lock next to it. I do have a second key but I *think* I remember that the second key doesn't unlock the boot via proximity at the back of the car, does that sound right? I can't check just now cos that key is locked inside my house. *cries*. I'm sure it doesn't unlock the boot lock under the steering wheel at any rate. Any thoughts / suggestions / words of consolement? Thanks in advance :/