Newbie - My First Ls400

[NormLS400]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the forum as I just bought a mk4 Lexus LS400 (1999) on Friday. I've been really impressed with it, so silky smooth and powerful. I was looking for something that can carry 4 adults in comfort for long distance journeys and the LS does that so well! It's the reliability reputation that convinced my to go for a Lexus as opposed to a 7 series or an XJ8.

The car has a good service record and seems to be in excellent condition. It feels like a band new car! The only thing I have noticed is a slight clunking sound when driving over a pothole for example in town. Nothing too bad though.

In terms of maintenance, is there anything I should be looking out for in particular? What type of engine oil do you guys recommend?

Also, can anyone recommend a good parts suppliers? Although I hope not to need many parts of course, but every cars needs a few bits and pieces from time to time.

Thanks

Norm

[celssior]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the forum as I just bought a mk4 Lexus LS400 (1999) on Friday. I've been really impressed with it, so silky smooth and powerful. I was looking for something that can carry 4 adults in comfort for long distance journeys and the LS does that so well! It's the reliability reputation that convinced my to go for a Lexus as opposed to a 7 series or an XJ8.

The car has a good service record and seems to be in excellent condition. It feels like a band new car! The only thing I have noticed is a slight clunking sound when driving over a pothole for example in town. Nothing too bad though.

In terms of maintenance, is there anything I should be looking out for in particular? What type of engine oil do you guys recommend?

Also, can anyone recommend a good parts suppliers? Although I hope not to need many parts of course, but every cars needs a few bits and pieces from time to time.

Thanks

Norm

getting parts for 1999 ls400 is nightmare.soon you'll need exhaust and/or cats[cost you fortune].make sure cambelt has been changed ,otherwise put aside £1500 for replacement engine.car doing just 18mpg on average but can do up to 30mpg on motorways.obviously your car has been neglected if you getting suspension noises.

[Malc]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the forum as I just bought a mk4 Lexus LS400 (1999) on Friday. I've been really impressed with it, so silky smooth and powerful. I was looking for something that can carry 4 adults in comfort for long distance journeys and the LS does that so well! It's the reliability reputation that convinced my to go for a Lexus as opposed to a 7 series or an XJ8.

The car has a good service record and seems to be in excellent condition. It feels like a band new car! The only thing I have noticed is a slight clunking sound when driving over a pothole for example in town. Nothing too bad though.

In terms of maintenance, is there anything I should be looking out for in particular? What type of engine oil do you guys recommend?

Also, can anyone recommend a good parts suppliers? Although I hope not to need many parts of course, but every cars needs a few bits and pieces from time to time.

Thanks

Norm

Hi, glad you've bought a LS400. Just simply wonderful cars. I've had two now and been driving them for 8 years.

Issues depend on mileage and maintenace, pity you didn't tell us the mileage on your's !!!

You're never going to have too many problems; problems aren't the norm by any stretch of the imagination.

Cambelts do need changing; maybe at 100k miles. And on the early cars are " non-interference " i.e if they snap, won't bugger the engine. Don't know what engine urs might be tho'.

Any good oil should do, after all, these are well tried and tested 4 ltr lumps that are just about indestructible.

The clunking can't be anything too serious if it wasn't mentioned on the last MOT Advisory !

Benfur, on here, they say is a supplier of good 2ndhand parts .... in north Kent they say.

Drive it steadily and the mpg will be ok 'ish ! I love these cars, just so much comfort and general reliabilty and for a car that costs just about zilch 2ndhand and might cost the best part of £80k new today, well, wot a bargain !

Happy driving.

Malc

[NormLS400]

Thanks for the replies Devon-ls and Malc. The cambelt was done before 100k, currently the car has 117k on the clock so no worries there. Certainly not a neglected example!

I agree though, they really are great value for money these days! I guess it would have cost about £50k new!

Can't wait to take it on a longer trip soon! Nice bit of long distance cruising!

I noticed that Euro car parts also do some Lexus parts now too.

[david_hornet27]

Norm

getting parts for 1999 ls400 is nightmare.soon you'll need exhaust and/or cats[cost you fortune].make sure cambelt has been changed ,otherwise put aside £1500 for replacement engine.car doing just 18mpg on average but can do up to 30mpg on motorways.obviously your car has been neglected if you getting suspension noises.

What a negative post!! I have had little problems getting parts for my Mk4, and worst case scenario is that you have to buy from Lexus if all else fails which means you have the peace of mind that you are buying quality parts that will last.

Exhaust is stainless steel which means it should last forever, you may at some point need to weld the flanges at the join from the cats to the rest of the system. Not a hard job to do and reasonably inexpensive.

All BIG cars suffer from suspension noises after a while, unfortunately that is the laws of physics, big heavy objects create stress on moving parts. It is certainly no indication that a car has been neglected!! If you are prepared to get your hands dirty it really isn't rocket science to sort yourself relatively cheaply and suspension parts are widely available as stated above.

You say the cambelt has been changed which in my opinion would indicate the previous owner certainly spent money when neccessary and had longevity in mind.

As for fuel consumption. mine averages 25mpg around town and 35mpg on the motorway at 80+ miles an hour. And I guess you wouldn't have bought a 4 litre car if you were too worried about fuel consumption.

Fortunately most of the members on here are ready to help if you have any problems rather than being as pessimistic as 'celssior' (spelt wrongly)!

I guess 'celssior' has never owned an LS judging by his very inaccurate claims.

Enjoy your new purchase and welcome to LOC.

[steve2006]

Hi and welcome to the LOC

Engine oil is normally 5w-30 I use fully synthetic from Morissons Petrol stations (Texaco Havoline at 16.99)

The clunking noise can also be caused by worn top suspension wishbones.

If you didn't get the owners handbook they sometimes appear on eBay but I also seem to remember they can be downloaded free somewhere but I would get one as there is all the information in there you will need regarding fluids and controls.

[bazgtr]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the forum as I just bought a mk4 Lexus LS400 (1999) on Friday. I've been really impressed with it, so silky smooth and powerful. I was looking for something that can carry 4 adults in comfort for long distance journeys and the LS does that so well! It's the reliability reputation that convinced my to go for a Lexus as opposed to a 7 series or an XJ8.

The car has a good service record and seems to be in excellent condition. It feels like a band new car! The only thing I have noticed is a slight clunking sound when driving over a pothole for example in town. Nothing too bad though.

In terms of maintenance, is there anything I should be looking out for in particular? What type of engine oil do you guys recommend?

Also, can anyone recommend a good parts suppliers? Although I hope not to need many parts of course, but every cars needs a few bits and pieces from time to time.

Thanks

Norm

getting parts for 1999 ls400 is nightmare.soon you'll need exhaust and/or cats[cost you fortune].make sure cambelt has been changed ,otherwise put aside £1500 for replacement engine.car doing just 18mpg on average but can do up to 30mpg on motorways.obviously your car has been neglected if you getting suspension noises.

£1500 for an engine. That must be in dollars.

£450 in the UK for a V8 engine at most as there's no demend for them as they don't break down.

Don't worry about parts until you need them. Just get the noise from the front checked out at a local garage up on the ramp and then come back to us and let me know what they say. Suspension noise is never alot to fix so don't worry about it.

If you did need parts then just check your local motor factors(Various), eBay and a breakers yard.

[NormLS400]

Thanks again for the replies. I'll have to take some photos and post them.

To be honest, the clunking noise I mentioned really only happens when driving over large potholes, but not always, and even then it's only quite minimal! However, it's probably worth getting a garage to take a look anyway.

Not too worried about the mpg really. It's certainly worth it!!

[SteveLS400]

Norm

getting parts for 1999 ls400 is nightmare.soon you'll need exhaust and/or cats[cost you fortune].make sure cambelt has been changed ,otherwise put aside £1500 for replacement engine.car doing just 18mpg on average but can do up to 30mpg on motorways.obviously your car has been neglected if you getting suspension noises.

What a negative post!! I have had little problems getting parts for my Mk4, and worst case scenario is that you have to buy from Lexus if all else fails which means you have the peace of mind that you are buying quality parts that will last.

Exhaust is stainless steel which means it should last forever, you may at some point need to weld the flanges at the join from the cats to the rest of the system. Not a hard job to do and reasonably inexpensive.

All BIG cars suffer from suspension noises after a while, unfortunately that is the laws of physics, big heavy objects create stress on moving parts. It is certainly no indication that a car has been neglected!! If you are prepared to get your hands dirty it really isn't rocket science to sort yourself relatively cheaply and suspension parts are widely available as stated above.

You say the cambelt has been changed which in my opinion would indicate the previous owner certainly spent money when neccessary and had longevity in mind.

As for fuel consumption. mine averages 25mpg around town and 35mpg on the motorway at 80+ miles an hour. And I guess you wouldn't have bought a 4 litre car if you were too worried about fuel consumption.

Fortunately most of the members on here are ready to help if you have any problems rather than being as pessimistic as 'celssior' (spelt wrongly)!

I guess 'celssior' has never owned an LS judging by his very inaccurate claims.

Enjoy your new purchase and welcome to LOC.

Our "friend" celssior joined last month, posted maybe 18 comments in an hour and a half and then left, only to reappear here!

I would ignore any comments as they appear to be malicious to me.

Normls400 will be fine with his new baby.

[BodgerBen]

Hi Norm,

Good choice.

My wife has been running a 1998 MK4 LS for the last 18 months, it now shows 175K miles.

Like you we bought a good condition car with FSH - and I've been doing most if the maintenance myself - I was not happy with the rusty rear disks, I also was not happy with the lower rear arm bushes (MR2 bushes fit) and slight play in one of the front wheel bearings.

After getting a new hub and bearing I found it had been replaced in the past - on the car, and not fully tightened.

I still replaced it off the car so I could torque it up properly.

Our car had the DHP - but with a broken front spring so I replaced with coil overs.

Anyway - the last service I could not be bothered to do, not that I expected much, so I put it into Lexus Guildford for a B service - £300 later they gave it a clean bill of health and said what a lovely car it was, they were very happy with the coil overs as they could not get the DHP springs for me when I asked and thought the coil overs were great.

Lexus Guildford will be getting the car for most general service jobs from now on. I'll continue to do the brakes and easy bits using Lexus parts from Chris at cheap toyota parts.

If you look after it - you'll get at least another 100K without much bother.

Oil - Lexus put Castrol 5-30 in, I'd been using Mobil 1 15-50 which they were fine with, but said they still use 5-30 on 200K+ cars with no bother.

I'm happy with using what they say.

Cheers,

Ben

[BHT]

Hi Norm and welcome to the LOC. Great choice. You'll love the car. You want to get it out on a long run, they drive brilliant. Even better if you can get somebody to drive you :)

I have so far only done one oil change and used 5w 30 Fully synthetic GM oil (from Vauxhall Dealers). This was just to get the old oil out because it needed changing, quick.