One Centre Hub Cap Needed

[mikesands]

Mine are the ordinary wheels so the centre hub cap thing looks like a stubby spoked thing abot 6 inches in diameter. If people only have 4 to sell, I might buy the lot just to get the missing one

Thanks

Mike

[abs66]

Which wheels Mike? I might have a spare one if its for standard mk3 16 inch wheel.

[cruisermark]

Mine are the ordinary wheels so the centre hub cap thing looks like a stubby spoked thing abot 6 inches in diameter. If people only have 4 to sell, I might buy the lot just to get the missing one

Thanks

Mike

alright mike - long time no see?

hows the car? settled down?

sorry cant help with the hubcaps

[mikesands]

Yeah Mark, unbelievably it has settled down. Very little has gone wrong in the past year. Still disappointed with the gas conversion but hey I'm still getting the equivalent of 35mpg petrol so one day it will pay for itself. Just getting the wheels refurbished - not because they look bad, but because they have started to do that Toyota thing where they all start seemingly having slow punctures.

Lexus Teesside have quoted me £30 for one hubcap so I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet.

Mike

[thewelshman]

Hi. I've just bought an ls430 and got one centre cap missing. Found this on eBay http://www.ebay.com/itm/LEXUS-LS430-WHEEL-CENTER-CAP-2001-2002-2003-2412-2450-74159-/110951067513. It's in California, so i mailed him for P&P to uk, he replied saying it was $16 but would reduce it to $12 and send two caps for the price of one. So $32 = £20 for two inc p&p. Hope this helps.

Phil

[mikesands]

I spoke too soon about the car having settled down. I ordered a couple of centre hubcaps and went to collect them from Lexus Teesside on Monday on my way to Cardiff (320 miles). Driving away from the dealership, the rear suspension collapsed. I knew straightaway what it was (height sensor), as this was my 3rd sensor failure. So straight back into Lexus who quoted me £310 for the part and £70 to fit it and arranged for a hire car to be delivered within the hour. I got to Cardiff just 15 minutes late, and when I got back Lexus had fixed the suspension without having to buy the part. They had found the mounting bracket had broken, so they rewelded it.

Full marks Lexus Teeside

Mike

[Bluesman]

I spoke too soon about the car having settled down. I ordered a couple of centre hubcaps and went to collect them from Lexus Teesside on Monday on my way to Cardiff (320 miles). Driving away from the dealership, the rear suspension collapsed. I knew straightaway what it was (height sensor), as this was my 3rd sensor failure. So straight back into Lexus who quoted me £310 for the part and £70 to fit it and arranged for a hire car to be delivered within the hour. I got to Cardiff just 15 minutes late, and when I got back Lexus had fixed the suspension without having to buy the part. They had found the mounting bracket had broken, so they rewelded it.

Full marks Lexus Teeside

Mike

Well done them, so often you hear only the bad side of dealers but this goes to show that there are decent honest people out there doing an honest days work. Mike

[Malc]

Mike, do you think the mounting bracket was rust , age related, or maybe high mileage and use, structural and inherent failure related ?

Either way, and this is your 3rd experience with this specific issue ......... it's not sounding too good.

Malc

[mikesands]

No you are right. I can't fault Lexus Teesside but I am annoyed at Lexus. This is poor design and quite a few members have suffered these failures, Lexus should have stepped up to the plate and designed a permanent fix for this. Mine has averaged a failure every 30k miles which is not what you expect from Toyota/Lexus.

As I understand it, it's a corrosion problem caused by them sticking a sensitive moving part right where it's going to get covered with everything the back wheel throws up. I got them to give me one of the failed ones a while ago to see if it could be repaired rather than replaced, and I couldn't see how to do it, but I ain't no engineer and I bet Lexus could , if they could be bothered. In this case I think the sensor movement had got corroded and stiff then the unfinished road outside the dealership fractured the mounting bracket.

Mike

[Malc]

Oh my, there's not a lot of confidence given to me to ever want to trade up / down to a LS430 at some time in the future; what with all these woes on design issues causing, what to us old fashioned LS400 owners, is tantamount to catastrophic failure ........ does the LS400 ever go wrong !!!!!

Malc

[brendangeorge]

Hi Mike

I have put 203K on a LS430 and never had a problem with the ride height sensors or any other part rotting off every 30K miles so you need to clarify your comments. My car is still incredibly solid after 10.5 Years ( ***** I hope I have not just screwed myself :) ). On the hub covers one of my pals at my golf club owns http://www.pristinealloywheels.co.uk/ who will supply what you need at a very reasonable price (I think) without you having to mail order them from the US. They also refurb the wheels for Lexus under warranty so are good to deal with.

Cheers

Bren

[mikesands]

I got mine at 75k and in the next 25k miles had two wheel bearings go, two ride height sensors, boot stays, front disks, power steering unit, rear aircon, drivers electric window, and a few other things I can't now recall. then I've done another 22k miles without a single fault. Go figure.

Mike

[steve2006]

It sounds like the previous owner knew something you didn't, mind you now it's all been sorted it sounds a good buy. :D

[mikesands]

Fortunately I bought it from Lexus and most of the faults were fixed under warranty. I think they had looked after the car for the previous owner so if it was a Friday car you'd think they'd have known.

Mike

[brendangeorge]

I got mine at 75k and in the next 25k miles had two wheel bearings go, two ride height sensors, boot stays, front disks, power steering unit, rear aircon, drivers electric window, and a few other things I can't now recall. then I've done another 22k miles without a single fault. Go figure.

Mike

Sounds as if the Lexus dealer had a bit of work to do because of consumer right legislation.

I have had to replace one wheel bearing and some suspension bushes, Lambda sensors, steering column motor, all 4 callipers and a shock absorber on my 2002 version. All brake disks wear out so having to replace them is not a big surprise. Power steering unit - the fluid cooling pipe that runs in front of the RAD corrodes (after 200K in my case) and will leak but the unit would make a ton of noise before it broke because of low fluid. The rear aircon pipes that run over the back axel (I think) corroded and were fixed by Lexus for free. The boot stays are rubbish – my boot was replaced because of a speck of rust (under warranty ages ago). The new boot lid is much heavier that the original and the stays are not up to the job - even the new ones crapped out after a while.

I have a 2002 model and I have heard from mates that the ride height sensors give trouble on the updated models.

After all the work it looks as if you are now set for a 100K – good luck.

Bren

[mikesands]

update - the welded bracket that Lexus teesside did for me, broke again yesterday. So it's a new rear suspension arm this time, but they think the reason it's breaking is that the ride height sensor is corroded (and presumably stiff), so it's a new one of those too. £600 all in I think.

I have asked for the old parts, and I will get the arm rewelded (again) and I will spend some time attempting to make the sensor usable. (then I will carry these in the car in case I break down in some distant place where hopefully any decent auto engineer aought to be able to swap them.

Mike