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I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before (apologies if it has), but I came across this article via a link on another Lexus forum. It confirms what everyone who has been driven in my LS600h has said, i.e. something along the lines of - wow, this is really quiet! http://elevatingsound.com/the-price-of-quiet-driving/ For me, the quiet and refined environment inside the LS is one of the best things about the car. Great to see the LS at the top of the list!

Personally, I would congratulate your little girl on her keen observational skills and attention to detail

To me it says :- I can think for myself, I am not a sheep. I value reliability and customer service. I am not concerned with what people think of me, I am happy to be different. I value craftsmanship and individuality as well as luxury. I am not a petrol head but enjoy a comfortable relaxed drive. I am part of the enlightened minority.

A mini update... My self-levelling headlight sensor arm looked like this, on inspection: (yes, the bit 'pointing up' is sheared and is supposed to be 'pointing down', or at least connected to the bit that's to the right of it!) So my headlights were on maximum height and obviously going to be blinding everyone. Worse thing being Xenon, in conjunction with the height issue. I temporarily made a little splint to fix it in the short term, as I was going away for a week or so.. Having seen the costs of replacement, I pulled my finger out and fixed it for less than £2: Then refitted it for now. I gave the threaded bar a spray of copper grease after the photo, as it may well still need some adjustment I also replaced the NSR drop link and ARB bush, which has removed the ARB knock, but there's still something a bit worn on that side, only noticeable on a pothole/similar. May well be a bush on one of the rods, but it's less of a priority for now. I also finally got the camera working, but it involved a lot of trail/error. The first few attempts were using some rear dash cam cameras I had kicking about. The first one worked for a while, then stopped responding. The second one worked, of sorts, but seemed to only output in B&W, and with a "bad vertical hold" kind of effect on the screen, which was a bit weird: I ended up ordering another from Amazon, which I fitted tonight with more success. May need some tweaks and a tidier install. but it's now the correct image and in colour: (That's a bit of the drive and the garage door visible) So not bad for £10 or so. Certainly a lot cheaper than a Lexus one. I'm not sure why the first two had such an odd effect, possibly the difference between using PAL and NTSC. Who knows. Despite the other link suggesting so, I completely removed the old camera. The new one takes +12v and ground from the NSR reverse bulb, and provides signal via the yellow wire. The original black, red and white wires are snipped. Also managed to get the parking brake working. The old shoes were passable for now - the discs were a bit lipped inside though, so I adjusted what was there for now and will think about replacing the shoes (which I have) and pads (which I have) when I get a new pair of discs to stick on. I'm guessing the rods that connect to the hub (one just visible above) are connected to pressed in bushes? I'm considering changing them over at a point (for the bump/reverb over potholes) but can't quite see them on this diagram https://lexus-europe.epc-data.com/rx400h/mhu38r/5163/chassis/4804/?partno=9017912091

Here’s another good example of wax finish and how it gives a totally different result to a ceramic coat. Most o& the ceramic coats I’ve seen, as Rayaans points out, seem to just add an additional layer of extra water repellent temporary lacquer. With waxes my seemingly silver paint has a much more golden glow;

A bit off topic but, as an Eagles fan, if you are ever in Arizona you need to visit the 'Standin on a Corner' State Park in Winslow. I took this picture in 2014: The guitarist statue is generic. However, after Glen Frey died, they added a statue of the great man. I took this in 2017:

My 3 year old spotted it today as we were heading down Holes Bay Road around lunchtime. She shouted "Daddy that's the same as your car but silver". I thought it was gonna be a normal IS but no... Silver ISF. 1st one I have seen on road in UK apart from my workmates in about 3 years. Come on.. who was it? 🙂

I have bought & sold cars on eBay without any problems. I have only bought one Lexus on eBay and that's my love and cherished MK4 LS400. I only ever go for private sales and only if there is a good and thorough write up with plenty of pictures. I can't stand these people that won't put the mileage or MOT, previous owners details as far as I am concerned they have something to hide or just too lazy to do it properly. It's very useful these days to have the DVLA MOT checking on the Internet. When I sell anything online I always put loads of pictures which are hosted from an online album and with that I always give a good description. I have never had a deal fall through when I have asked if the ad gave them confidence and they have always said yes.

Well, my problem's finally cured. I took it to Lexus in Lincoln. The rear NS height sensor, which I'd previously had straightened and welded, had come away from the car. They fitted a new height sensor (the old one had also frozen completely). They also reset all of the suspension heights back to the original settings. Now drives like a dream and the suspension works as it should - apart from a wheezing/graunching noise coming from the front NS suspension arm - or somewhere around the wheel strut. This only occurred after they'd carried out the work. I'm taking it back to them this next week for them to take a look at. Total cost to date for peace of mind: £777.

Just covered 3000 miles on my new crossclimates fitted in October. Highly recommended

BE AWARE EBay item number: 39217878643 ENQUIRED AS TO WHY THIS IS SOOOO CHEAP HERE IS THE EMAIL I RECEIVED AS THEY ARE DEAF AND CANNOT ANSWERT THE PHONE ... I CALLED EBAY TO TELL THEM AND THEY WILL INVESTIGATE IN THE NEXT 24-72 HRS .....!!!!!! Michelle Precious 6:00 PM (6 hours ago) to me Hi again, Like i said in my previous email the car is at the AJ Long Transport Ltd company ( www.ajlong-transport.co.uk) and it will be better for both if the transaction will be done through them, due to the fact i'm overseas and I can not meet with you in person.They will be the third, objective party involved in the transaction. This way you will actually pay for the car after you receive and test it, because the shipping company will hold the funds in an Escrow and release it to me only after you receive and decide to keep the car. You will have 5 days of inspection period.After the inspection period if you decide to keep it they will release the money to me and if you decide not to keep it they will come to pick it up and give you a full refund. I'm sure this won't be the case because the vehicle is flawless.Along with the car you will receive all the documents including the V5,keys, owner's manual,MOT certificates and a bill of sale signed to a legal attorney. If you decide to buy the car,please include the following information in your next email. -Full Name; -Shipping Address (postal code,full address) -Phone Number Let me know if the above return policy is acceptable and if you want to purchase the car. Thanks for understanding, Precious Michelle Tina

My second best ever concert was Dire Straights. The only thing with the Eagles new tour is there's no Glenn Frey, not sure how I'd feel about that. I'm not generally a fan of tribute bands but we saw the Illegal Eagles three weeks ago, and eyes closed you'd think it was them.

According to the Lexus UK site, https://www.lexus.co.uk/owners/servicing-and-maintenance/, it’s £265. beaten by 20 seconds....

I don't think there's any option on that car to adjust the height for any reason at all . it comes as standard with conventional springs etc Malc

Nice one Stu! She was still in bed while I drove to discover that my long standing appointment had been cancelled and no one had informed me. Could have been worse I suppose, I could have been in England !!

When I'm driving mine with no music on I can hear my watch ticking!

Thanks for that update but my audience's are convinced I make it the longest or so one or two at the end do.

Click destination, then move to page 2 on the input page, the icon is there

try following this link for jp-carparts you get exploded views so you may be able to see how things are put together https://jp-carparts.com/lexus/cartypelist.php?maker=lexus&type=242130

Most modern cars seem to be built to sound quite (ish) up to about 40mph, and then after that you have to crank up the stereo and forget about having a chat with the passengers. Done to Stroud to Gatwick run a few times at 70+ and with mother in law in back (deaf old bird), and me (deaf old g*t) we can still have a chat. Try that in any other car! My next door neighbour as Hyundai Tucson, at 70mph, there could be a pair of mating elephants in the back🐘🐘, but you would never know for the cabin noise.

This confirms something I’ve thought for a long time. The VW golf is an over rated, under engineered piece of crap. Look at the noisiest cars and it’s there. Personally I’m sick to death of hearing about how “complete” a car a golf is and how it provides “premium car refinement” I can assure you from driving many models of these over the years they are a totally lousy car with no appeal whatsoever. Cheaply made, noisy (in a way that a cheap car is an an expensive one isn’t) and generally an all round pile of crap. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Owning a Lexus says I value quality build and reliability I don’t need to point and squirt to get from A to B fast, relaxed does the trick I value comfort and luxury I “get” what a hybrid is and does, plus I don’t do diesel I love the pre and post sale service offered by Lexus, making me feel valued to them I can think for myself and don’t aspire to 10 a penny German cars I can feel a bit smug knowing all these things and still the British populace, apart from an enlightened few, want BMW, Audi and Merc. It gives me a more special car that I might see one or two of in a day, rather than hundreds of the others.

We just put crossclimates on our 450h, noticeable quieter on the motorway. There is a promotion on to the end of the year as well, we got a £100 pre paid credit card for purchasing 4 and a really good price at F1 autocentres ( worked out £200 cheaper than Costco). Not snow tested them yet, but where we live they better be as good as they are advertised....!

Not sure I’d agree with that, the water beads evaporate onto the wax coat so unless you live in the acid rain area of downtown a Manhattan the contaminants will never touch the paint. Yes you are left with water marks but the wax coat means they just wipe off with some Quik detailer or waterless wash and wax and you are good as new. Ceramic coatings and Sealants etc that promote sheeting are great if you just want pure long lasting, low maintenance protection but neither give as good a depth of colour or shine as a good Carnaube based wax would provide. Just come back from a 2 day training course with a UK distributor for a major car care brand and the messaging there was very clear; Ceramic coatings and sealants give great sheeting and long term protection to get dirt and water off the car as fast as possible but neither enhance the depth of colour or level of shine above what the factory paint had. Wax products and synthetic polymers give a greater depth to paint finishes, enhancing colour and shine to show car levels providing prior compounding and polishing has prepared your paint properly (neither of which you want to do if you had a ceramic coating in place). The downsides with Waxes are as you suggest, water beading and evaporation. Waxes also won’t last as long as sealants or ceramic coatings but the two are not designed to do the same job. Ceramics etc are long lasting protection, Waxes are enhancing paint colour and shine along with more limited lifespan protection. NemesusUK and Raayans have the best sheeting, agreed, but if you are going for show car shine then a wax would give a better result, it would just require more maintenance. One very interesting thing I learned is that, at present, most aftermarket waxes and retailers will attack a ceramic coating and erode it over time so if you’ve had you car ceramic coated you should not use any other products than a coating specific wash fluid and water to keep it clean. Anything else will be slowly eroding away your very expensive sheeting product. If you like tinkering and rebuffing every weekend Waxes may be a better bet for you. If you want to treat and forget other than the occasional wash and dry then get you house remortgaged and get a ceramic coating on. I’m a very active weekend tinkerer so it’s waxes for me.

Electronic door mirrors (nearly showed my age by saying "wing mirrors") will doubtless be a fashion thing, if it catches on. The only advantage I can see is it makes a handy supplement for a dashcam, should any sort of blackbox recorder become mandatory. You know, when all those corporate lawyers are trying to sort out litigation in a crash involving an autonomous car... I know LMP and GT3 cars have been using cameras to replace rear view mirrors for ages. These are augmented with graphics to highlight cars behind and if they are closing or receding. As demonstrated in this video, which if nothing else has a wicked soundtrack: I imagine how useful this would be on your road car. Red arrow for the drugged-up gym owner in their Range Rover Sport, Amber arrow for the junior 'executive' in their first company car Audi A3 1.6TDi, Green arrow for any Lexus driver... 😁

I leave it to you to imagine what having a red LC500 says about me! ☺️ ☺️

Quality inspectors like them 😂

You youngsters are so impatient 😄😄

Funnily enough, I had a set of CrossClimates fitted to my GT a fortnight ago. Bit early to say about how they perform in the cold (only had a few sub zero mornings since, and no ice or frost to speak of) but feel perfectly competent in the high single / low double figures we've had recently. Certainly quieter than the tyres they replaced (which had about 4mm to 5mm left), the 'hiss' you get with many summer tyres has gone but there's none of the 'brrrr' you can get with proper winter tyres. Also seems to be a nit of extra spring in them when going over expansion joints, etc.

Had the same problem on our is200. Rattle at 2200 rev/min but only when accelerating. It was the heat shield around the exhaust-about half way down under the car. Cured by clamping the heat shield to the exhaust pipe with a large jubilee clip. Hope that helps.

I've got Goodyear Vector 4Seasons Gen 2 on my RX450h. Not cheap at about £180 each for my size but simply fantastic tyres.

Michelin Cross Climates seem to be a favourite at the moment. And I had good experiences with the Pirelli Scorpion Verde All Seasons on an XC90. The Pirellis can be had for about £130 a corner on a 235/55 R18 which I assume your 400H is.

Hi all, Some great feedback here - a lot of it very relevant to my own issue actually. Update: stripped the boot on Friday, and ran some tests. Smell seemed to have been coming from the original Panasonic 12v battery as opposed to the other batteries. Removed it, and it was very slightly inflated on one side. Furthermore, the extraction tube that plugs into the battery vent was missing. In a nutshell: this meant that the battery was somewhat damaged inside, which was giving off the disgusting egg-like sulfur smell. And because there was no extractor tube linked to the vent on the battery, the smell was going straight into the boot, and then making its way into the interior of the car. Solution: removed the original battery, and replaced it with a temporary 12V 50AH AGM battery. Will be sourcing a 70AH battery this week. Note - the replacement battery didn't have the temperature sensor, so I removed the one from the original and simply stuck it on the side of the new one with some heat-resistant tape. Lee - I am definitely going to be running my own diagnostics from now on, seems to be the only way of avoiding changing half of the car for no reason! John - hit the nail on the head pal, seems like that's exactly what was happening. The battery was damaged and was simply being overcharged, causing overheating, giving birth to the smell. The lack of a venting tube made the whole situation much worse. Malachy - located in Cork, Ireland. Thanks for all your help folks! D.

I think it's a case of Lexus just wanting to make things interesting for us - the seam welding around the rear panels is a bit substandard to be totally honest. You really wouldn't expect it to happen, I run a gen1 RX and it's built like a tank in comparison! As you will need to remove the roof bar for access you could grab a fresh set of seals from Lexus (I did this, think they were around a tenner) to fit. Mine were fine but I would rather be looking at them than for them. The end caps pry off and the bars are held on by 2x 12mm bolts at each end. The seals are handy to replace once the bar is out of the way.

Had mine for over 10yrs, surprised a few who don't know what lies under the bonnet. Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

Nice car, looks like the twin of mine 😍! In the absence of reliably precise times, I'd largely agree with the above statement, certainly in terms of driver impression, though my own observation would be that, in Sport or Sport+ with the accelerator floored, the rate of acceleration tends to stabilise about halfway to the 100kmh mark, and does not perceptibly start to dip away do until you reach somewhere around 140>kmh. As well having sometimes done so myself, I have had passengers time me with the stop function of their wris****ches, and while the results have inevitably been distorted by inconsistencies if pedal pressure, personal reactivity etc. the RC has always clocked 0-100kmh times nearer to 8' than 9'. But although I think I have come close, I have never broken 8'. I should add that, in the interests of sparing the tyres, I've never tried to launch the car from a standstill with the loud pedal floored, preferring to roll for a few metres before stamping on it. I don't know what method or techniques Lexus and other manufacturers adopt for their declared results. Be all this as it may, my liking for the RC derives less from the quantification of performance, which is far from inadequate, than its nature, which is never less than pleasant. To this day, even though logic tells me that the IS300h declaredly beats the RC300h by 0.2' to 100kmh because it is a lighter car (a fact also reflected in better fuel consumption), I have not ceased to be amazed by the impression of superior dynamism and balance the RC transmits to the driver.

In my experience 0-60 times declared by Lexus (but also Toyota and Hyundai) are prudential and to be intended as max values, provided that tests are done with driver and another passenger. Expect at least 0.5 seconds less. Not an exceptional result, but neither "slow".

Just noticed you mentioned a slight knocking noise too - would you believe I was investigating this as well at the same time as sorting this leak? There's quite a few rubber bushes on the rear hubs, four or five on each side. My noise was caused by excessive movement on two of the DSR hub bushes. Had one replaced with a cheap ebay which quietened it down a bit but there was still movement in another bush. Could probably have just replaced the rest of them with ebay sourced stuff but I threw the head up - ended up replacing the whole assembly with a new genuine Lexus one. Pricey but at least I knew it was sorted once and for all! If you crawl under the car with a pry bar and test all the rubber bushes you can see for movement it will hopefully help track the culprit down.

I had a leak in exactly the same place as that on my 350: Had to take the passenger side roof rail off and find the rear most seam on the roof has the slightest of nicks in it. Whenever the rainwater was rolling off the roof into the 'gutter' it was running right over the pinhole creating my issue. I've attached a few pics in case anyone else encounters the same. I checked the driverside and the same thing has happened there although the leak was nowhere near as bad. It really doesn't look like much but the amount of water that this tiny crack in the seam was letting in was shocking. I applied some seam sealer all along the welded seams that I could find on both sides. A good heavy instant gasket would probably do the same job just make sure everything is dry before application. After sorting this I still have a slight weep from the rear lamp gaskets but that's a side effect of looking for leaks - you always find more! You should strip the boot floor storage out and clear it of water before it starts to smell too much too. Leave it stripped until you are happy the leak is fixed.

I got one of these... https://www.amazon.co.uk/iLC-Bluetooth-Diagnostic-Scanner-Reader/dp/B01N30RQNH

Seems like it's been pulled by eBay. Well done you for the heads up. It never ceases to amaze me what some people will do to get a dishonest £. It surely must be easier to get a job which pays a weekly wage and on top of that, you could sleep at night and not have to worry when the doorbell goes.

Not sure if this will help but it shows a 'Standard Value Table' (although it's not as easy as measuring centre of hubs to wheel arch):

I don't intend to and don't really need to. It's just that niggling thing in the back of your head that keeps telling you that something's still wrong! Not sure if your Techstream explorations are in search of air suspension adjustment, but if they are, here's something borrowed from a sister site which helped me a lot: This has taken a few weeks to get right, but I think I have it. What you need: Techstream 10.whatever is the common one A cable, which is USB to OBDII (the above come as a set on eBay for under $20) A laptop (as long as it's a Windows OS, XP or later, it doesn't matter...I run it on 64-bit Win 10 machine, no VM, no dual boot, nothing special) Patience Some gasoline in the tank A notepad if you don't want to take notes on the laptop (paper and pencil may be easier, in fact) Fire up your TS and connect it to your running LS. Double-click Air suspension Live. Give it a while to figure things out... Eventually, you'll be able to go over on the left side of the screen and select Data List. There's going to be a bunch of stuff in there you don't care about, so at the bottom of this window, see the field with the drop-down arrow, the one to the left of the graph button? Yeah, that one. Hit the drop-down and choose Only Suspension Height. Now you have only the fields "after height adjustment" and "height adjustment". The corners are labeled FL for Front Left, RL for Rear Left, FR for Front Right. RR is the only one which looks normal. Take a freakin' screen-shot of this before you change one damned thing! I didn't, and regret it. I have no idea where I started, but would really like to so I have a better reference. In fact, if a few of y'all could PM me a screen shot of your un-modded height at 'normal' ride height, I'd really appreciate it. I think my first foray into the suspension was lowering one inch, just to see how things may change. Oh, there's also "Height Offset Max" as a field, but what I did was use that one as a separating field with "After Adjust" above and "Height adjust" below it. I haven't figured out how to put them on the same line, left and right, but I found it's easier to track changes if they're in the same order. Height Offset is how far the car will rise when you push the Height High button. I wish it were more like 2 of travel available, but Ill take what I can get. Im one of the very few who uses Height High daily, because its easier for my crippled self to get in/out. That 0.8 makes a very noticeable difference. This is even more true since Ive dropped it a bit. Be aware...changing the left front, or the front left in this case, WILL change the right front and probably the left rear a little. Might even change the right rear if it's a large change. The first two times I did this, I measured from the floor of my garage to the edge of the wheel well, going through the center of the wheel. This way every corner is measured identically. You'll very likely find if you measure with a yardstick or the like, yours may have two matching corners...if you're lucky. I had none. In playing with heights, I found that, for freeway travel, because the air suspension lowers at speed, I couldn't dial it in as low as I wanted. Once on the freeway, I'm pretty certain I feel the bump stops and the ride was choppy (though still not at all 'bad'). It's been 25+ years since I owned a lowered vehicle, and even then I did bump stop trimming so as to have as much travel as I could, so I'm a little rusty on what feel is what. This is where I'll save y'all a ton of time. A ton of it. Now, instead of measuring every corner every time you adjust one, use the TS to bleed all the air out of each spring. Select Active Test, and a new window will appear. Double-click one corner of the car, let's say RL, and you'll see yet another, smaller window appear at the bottom-right. It'll say, for example, RL wheelup/down (S307-24). There will be "OFF" and a left and right 'button'. Pressing and holding those buttons either releases air, the left one, while the other adds air, the right one. When the solenoids or compressor are doing something, the OFF becomes ON. In the main screen behind where the button is, you'll see the data readout. Choose the left or "down" arrow and watch the real-time data stream. See how it's dropping? -0.3, -0.7, -1.3...eventually you should get to around -1.6. Might be -1.9...every car should be different, but just a little. Get out and just look at where that left rear tire is sitting in the wheel well. Awwwwwww, yeah, buddy! Repeat letting air out of the springs until your numbers on the TS stop dropping. You should see the front has much more travel than the rear...like an inch or more, more. I think this is why some people, including me, see the LS460 and think it looks low in the rear. It's because the front rides a little higher. After you lower every corner, go around them, again, and press the down button for 15 seconds and see if you get any closer to the ground via the TSs data readout. Might be only a couple tenths of an inch, or a few MM, but you need to have everything bottomed-out for this to work. Just to have it, Id go around an measure the height at every corner. I found, when bottomed-out, there was still a variance, which is important, or youll never finish. Here are the actual measurements on my 2008 L (attached picture). Please note, even with seemingly no air in any springI went corner-to-corner, around the car, twice, and held the bleed arrow for 30 seconds on each corner, just in case, but nothing happened after the first time I went around it. Its as if air can move around a little in this system. Not much, a couple tenths of an inch in height here and there, but it all adds up. If you look at current normal, thats normal ride height after me playing with it a little. You can see, I managed to get it mostly level, though the rear behaves strangely when changing pressure (hence, height). Sometimes youll get a huge change in the RR when youre working on the LR. Small changes in any other ones are to be expected, but the large swings are frustrating to work around. We, however, are interested in the bottomed-out number. In this case, about 25.75, with two outliers. We can deal with them, later, if need be. As she sits, my car has 2 of compression suspension travel before she hits the bump-stops. I learned this is about 1/2 too little for 70 MPH (posted) freeways here in Fort Worth, Texas. I went, after my first adjustment last week, from about a 1-1.5 drop to an even 2, and that was about ¼ too much, maybe the full ½. So today, I went out to my car, laptop under my arm, and what I did this time was re-bottom it out, then from there, did some minor maths to bring the whole vehicle up 2.25 from as low as it goes. I guess I cant see 3/8 when eyeballing the tire-to-fender clearance, cause they all look to be the same distance. I also tweaked the front height to be more in-line with what the rear looks like, because to my eyes, every LS460looks like it has a couple of bags of concrete in the trunk. Back to getting it mobile Lean your drivers seat back, back, get in, put the laptop on your lap, engine running, and make quick notes about how much air to put back into each corner so theyre all at about 28-28.25. At this point, in Techstream, choose Active Test again, but this time add air and watch the numbers on Height Adjust change. What youre shooting for is X added to the bottomed-out number. So, if you want 3 of travel because your roads suck, on my car, Id have to put air into the LR spring until it read about 1.3 higher than it is, now. When adding or removing air, I suggest you stop a couple-few tenths of an inch from what you want the final reading to be, until youre on the last spring, because changing the pressure to any of them lessens the load on the rest, so the whole car moves a bit. I may add to or change this, depending on what I find or remember.

If they have never performed with Dolly, then I do not rate them. :):):)