jmuk

Not one for spreading rumours, however it does say at the end of this months (September issue) article on Jaguar diagnostics that next month will be the LS400. October issue is due out on September 15th, so worth checking just in case. Jim

Just spotted this:- http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/quentinwills...name_index.html Halfway down he says.... I JUST LUV THE LEXUS! So quiet all you hear is engines of OTHER cars THE world's most sophisticated luxury car goes on sale next January at £60,000. The Lexus LS460 is a technological tour de force like no other car before it. As well as all those familiar Lexus virtues we now take for granted, this new LS has its own Driver Monitoring System that will sense if you take your eyes off the road, while rear bumper-mounted radar will make sure your headrest is adjusted to prevent whiplash in the event of a collision. It'll park itself (literally) and stiffen the suspension and steering the faster you drive. There's an eight-speed auto gearbox coupled to a quad-cam 4.6-litre V8 that will hurl you to 60 in five-and-a-bit seconds, romp all the way to a limited 155 and return 25 mpg. The LS460 is so quiet you can actually hear the engines of other lesser machines around you. They did it in 1990 and they've done it again - Lexus have re-written the luxury car rule book, creating a benchmark for engine sophistication, transmission refinement and almost total lack of noise, vibration or harshness. But I can hear the dissenters now. Is being as quiet as a church mouse in carpet slippers a good thing? Are the virtues that the Japanese hold so dear considered a disadvantage among European buyers? I would say that if you want something that sounds like a BMW M5, you should buy a BMW M5. But if you want a car that rides as smoothly as unrolled silk and is quiet as a monastery, you should buy a Lexus. Of one thing I'm sure. Sitting in my drive is a 1995 Lexus LS400 with 100,000 miles on the clock. The Mercedes, the BMWs and the Range Rovers come and go, but the Lexus stays, because it is quite simply the most reliable car in my life. In all those 100,000 miles, nothing, absolutely nothing, has ever gone wrong. It's still as quiet as the day I bought it, still as refined and still a source of silent amazement. And the LS460 will be exactly the same. The luxury car with a refinement that never goes away. ENGINE 4608cc V8 POWER 375 bhp TOP SPEED 155mph (limited) 0-60 5.3 secs PRICE £60,000 CO2 261g/km WHO'D DRIVE IT: Pop technocrats who favour silence

Feel free to shoot me down but be wary. It's a very useful article but is should be stressed that it only applies up until 1997 and not the 280HP 1998 onwards engine, (which probably needs a different procedure anyway as it's a different engine). The technique used to remove the crankshaft pulley is... Remove crankshaft pulley bolt (22mm), I used a breaker bar and braced it against the floor like in the picture...then cranked the motor for like a second to get the bolt loose: This is after the timing belt has been removed. if the engine was of an interference design then cranking the engine would very likely cause pistons to hit valves causing a fair bit of damage. I believe the 1998 onwards engine has an interference design. Jim

Hi Chaps No photos, No car! May have been a bit premature (No more sarcastic comments please Wife). Was supposed to pick up the car Saturday but the guy range Friday - said he couldn't get it out of Park. I've a copy of the maintenance CD so I suggested he checked the brake light fuse, the brake light switch and the lever lock solenoid - he said not to worry - his mate who works at a Lexus dealers would pop around Monday and sort it out for him. Fast forward to today - his mate has a look, can't fix it and car gets towed to aforementioned Lexus dealer. Guy who's sold me it is off on Holidays for a week so I won't know what's happening until next week. I still pretty open minded it all - these things do happen, and I suspect he got carried away with the cleaning and ended up spilling something down the gear lever, or blowing a fuse. As long it can get into gear, runs with no faults, and he's got a receipt to prove it was fixed at the dealers I'll still go ahead with it. Just a bit annoying having to wait longer - mind you the guy selling must be pretty ****** - he may have needed the money for his hols. Just hope that this is not going to be a jinx car. Any thoughts/comments? Jim P.S. Never joined the Autobarnstormers - always was going to but never got around to it. P.P.S. That Rover was a great car - I clocked 100,000 files on that engine and never had a problem. The guy who I sold it took the ehads off and said it was as good as new. Shame the rest of the car didn't fare so well though - got rusty very quick.

Hi All Another new member - should be picking up my LS400 on Saturday, so thought I'd say hello and introduce myself before I get my car and start asking questions about problems with it (touch wood their will be no problems - but it's an unseen e-bay buy so time will tell). This will be my first Lexus, previous cars in reverse order are Carlton 2.0i, Senator 3.0i, various Carltons, Rover 827 Vitesse, various 2.0 Cavaliers, Various MKII 2.8 Granada's and MKI 3.0 Granada's, MKI 3.0 litre Capri (great fun), PB Cresta and Wolsley 16/60 (complete with starting handle) - so its my first Jap car - I've given up on Buy British and fancy a bit of reliability, I also fancied something with a bit of guts as well as being comfortable - so I've a done a fair bit of browsing on this forum and others over the past couple of months - hence my LS400 decision. I've also got a yank (1956 Mercury) which I've been restoring for 6 years, so I don't expect the size of the LS400 to give me any problems. First project for the Lexus will be to integrate my Dension DMP3A hard disk MP3 player into the stereo system - I'll post my success/failure if anyones interested. Jim