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So due to circumstances I've had my first day off today. By 10am boredom got the better of me. Therefore the is got its 6 month major clean 4 weeks early. Washed!, hoovered, windows cleaned, de-tar, polished, leather feed, tyres jellied, and the hybrid fan motor got a clean too. The wife being a nurse on the front line I done the curtisy thing of hers before mine! Volvo may get the same tomorrow if I don't start boredom boozing tonight. If I don't have work by Monday I'm gona be out of things to pollish🙄 Wishing all the best of health

i thought a bit of humour during these times wouldn't go a miss i know it cheered me up at work today

I have now finished refurbishing the calipers: I am awaiting the brake hoses and a few other important bits, which hopefully will arrive in the next few days. At least then I can put the system back together and put the car back on its wheels. I did spend a lovely hour or so under the car this afternoon scraping off the flaking paint and loose rust, so hopefully that's one advisory I won't be getting. I have also ordered 4 new Kuhmo tyres, but have no idea yet when they can be fitted. I'll just have to wait and see. I also ordered several service items from Car Parts 4 Less, so they should be here next week. There are a few bodywork trim pieces that need replacing, namely both offside wheel arch trims and the lower corner trims under the front bumper. I rang Lexus Swindon and they quoted £120 and £150 respectively for the front and rear wheel arch trims. Ridiculous. The bumper trim pieces are much more reasonably priced at £27.46 each. Mercedes-Benz's parts pricing strategy is equally inconsistent. One job I do need to do is remove the wiper arms and plastic scuttle cover to investigate where the water has been getting in. Hopefully it's something simple like a blocked drain hole, fingers crossed.

Nice work! Looking forward to hearing the results of the water test. I am also beginning to see some glimpses of hope. I thoroughly laid sealant on the body seam from under back of the roof rail to boot opening. Also lifted the boot gasket, so the whole seam was covered. This really did help. Just small drops of water at this point. Other things I have done is putting sealant under the gas strut, laying sealant around all plastic clips, removing the two screws on the bumper and taped the holes up instead and laying sealant around the ventilation boxes on both sides. This have made the leak much less. also I talked with my local Lexus workshop, and they were aware of the water issues with the rx400h. They said that most rx400h, will have this problem at some stage because the “glue” they used in the body seams seemed to be of poor quality. Their solution was to do a very thorough water test and then to weld the seams together. He also had some bad news. Because of the crispy seam glue, the pin hole drops can appear in just about any of the body seams.

I have been trying to establish the correct paint code for the lower panels on my black LS400, which proved elusive. Even the helpful Daniel at Lexus Swindon couldn't give me a definitive answer, My colour and trim code is 202LE13A02AA342E, and I have established the 202 is the main body colour, which is Black Onyx. However, no part of the code is for the lower panels and bumpers, which is frustrating. Eventually I found a US website which helpfully lists the main body colours and the corresponding code for the lower panels, so hopefully this will help someone: http://importarchive.com/lexus/ls/1995-2000/paint

Hi Andrew, There is probably a member on here that has done it and can provide the answer. All I can do i'm afraid is give you want the manual says about installing the pipes: As you can see, you need a special tool to torque it down properly so I am not sure if there is another way around this. I would suggest just tightening it further, but it is a high pressure system, so that may not be the best idea. Perhaps a local garage might be able to help?

Most likely the 12V battery going bad. Either give it a proper charge overnight or replace it and I reckon that'll solve your problem. If you have a multimeter it might be a good idea to check the battery standing voltage and compare it against the chart below. If you can get the car into the READY state then you should be able to measure about 14.5V across the battery as the system attempts to charge it.

There we are, I said the scuttle needed cleaning: I had some deliveries today. Firstly, a pukka Lexus battery and terminal cover. A perfect fit: Secondly, flexible hoses, brake disc screws, pipe unions and clips: All being well the car should be back on terra firma, with working brakes, in the next couple of days, but first I need to dig out my thermals! PS: For the eagle eyed, yes I do have the missing trim joint cover for the rear window.

Work today, rear bumper removed which took me a couple of hours. There are 2 x nuts holding the rear bumper on (plus all the others in the boot) which are in the arch, plenty of patience needed to get them off without snapping the bolts. Plenty of Plus Gas, undo until it stops, wind back in and repeat until they come off. This took the most time. Degreased the bodywork underneath once bumper is off and washed. Scraped all the rust off that I could from the bottom of the arches, cleaned and rust treated. I’ve got the stuff I need to repair the holes into the boot and the other side. Aluminium mesh, body adhesive/sealant and a glass fibre kit if needed. Pics below.

I got a custom setup made with remote control valves and high flow cats no drone at all and almost as quiet as standard when valves are closed but sounds like a super car when there open I do have ppe headers fitted also though so I should expect the sound would differ slightly if your running standard headers,cost me cheaper than the h&s system but that was with four round black tips which I ended up hating after a month so had some carbon fiber oval tips made up which put the cost up a bit more that's a company called STG performance a guy called shane, he knows his stuff works on race cars and bikes the welds on the exhaust are a work of art shame there not visible.

I also connected to the battery terminal points, absolutely no problems

I don't know how much adapters are but there's no need to go to the expense of buying two - just cut off the original ones if they're the incorrect size and just crimp or solder new eyelets of the correct size on. Yes, perfectly fine and acceptable to connect both positive and negative directly to the battery - that's exactly what I did in my RX as you'll see below:

If you do use wire wool or emery cloth to clean an electrical contact then it is good practice to treat the area afterwards with some dielectric grease to protect the surface as you may have broken through the bright protective coating on the part and exposed the underlying copper, and if exposed to atmospheric conditions this may well corrode and become a future problem. paul m

Hi all. Thanks for the info Herbie problem being to get to the indicator it is a bumper off job so will have to leave it to dealer as i don't fancy taking that thing off.😩 65mike

Thx guys, just changed the oil and filters today, new spark plugs, put fresh petrol with injector cleaner in it, but there is still 2 things on the car that the check engine light flashing on dashboard and the car is shaking on idle eve. The engine it self

I once drove from a motel in San Francisco to Yosemite. We left in the early morning in the dark. The sun rose over the Seirra Nevada mountains and as it did, they went from black to deep purple, then pink and then yellow. At dawn break Hotel California was played on the car radio. It was heavenly and surreal.

Any theories on 9/11 while we're here?

OK Folks, I think its fixed! So sealing the smaller of the bumper brackets did nothing (Well it might have done something but there was still a leak!) With the bumper off, lights out and trims removed I tested areas independently and what I hope is my final leak was the only seam I hadn't sealed. Please see the photo below for where it was, When I looked at it, it was obvious the black paint was cracked on the seam and there were lots of tiny pin holes. there was also a little bit of metal at the bottom sticking out just right to catch water and allow it to pass if not sealed, it was only like this on one side as well which explains why I only had the water on one side. (I've sealed the other side as a precaution just in case!) I've done extensive water testing today with it still stripped and all OK, but I will put it back together later and continue testing to make sure.

Stupid thought for the day - why can't we just GLOBALLY suspend the use of all money? We go to work so that we have money to spend on various things including our bills. That money goes to someone else so that they can repeat the process and pay their bills etc., etc., and on and on, ad infinitum, all the way up a huge chain. If I don't get any money I can't pay my bills, but that should work all the way up the chain too, so that the next in line can't pay his bills and so on, ad infinitum. If no one uses money, no one needs money and so no one owes anyone anything for a temporary period of time. We all have whatever we have and the world financially 'holds its breath' so to speak, for, say, 12 months, and then begins to breathe again and we all still have what we had before. After all, it's not like these businesses were failing due to a bad business model or bad management. Why should a virus put a good viable business to the wall? The vast majority of the global population will come out of this at the other side and will still want to travel; still want to go to the pub; still want to buy furniture and so on and so on. If there's a need for a business now there will still be a need for it after the crisis - only the banks and stock markets will make these businesses fail, not the virus. We're talking of governments borrowing hundreds of billions of Pounds/Dollars - surely it would be better to use no money rather than going into a century of debt? And just who is it that has all these eye-wateringly vast sums of money to lend to us anyway?

Already on it, out with the PCP earlier today. 2 pigeons and 3 rabbits in half an hour. Already in the freezer. Like being a sixteen year old back in rural Cumbria again. Might get the deer lamp and shotgun out later. 🦌🦌 #reallifewalkingdead 😂😂

i had the aerosol system but have now replaced it with a space saver wheel, the lexus parts are readily available and is a simple fix, includes the boot trim

Thanks James for your case study. I am considering using a seal product just to chance some success. I got it a year ago and it has cost me 2500. Will be gutted. Oh well. You win some and you lose some. If it does die, I will be looking to strip it as much as poss including the 18" alloys with brand new tyres. Wish the mechanic had picked this up before charging me 500 for new radiator and waterpump. Heard great thing about the Auris hybrid. Sounds like you got a good car. Wishing you all the best with it.