Cotswold Pete

Never heard this before, is it supposed to blow the cobwebs out ahead of MOT, or do you only do this if it is a short run to the garage.

Aah, but what you forget is that I will be a toothless doddering old g*t, and I would probably not be bothered even if Jeremy Beadle himself was resurrected to sort out my rusting LS. Do agree that early Car SOS were okay, and I only leave it on the TV these days when I can't be bothered to change channel, or I suspect the cat sleeping on the sofa just needs some background noise when I leave the room.

I'll be aiming to keep mine for a while, it is such a lovely motor. Hope no one prangs it, as it is my every day car, though nearly got taken out by a truck (driver on mobile) back last month. The only other option is to leave it in a garage for 20 years, let it gently rot, and then get Car SOS in to sort it out (when I am a doddering old toothless g*t) and they may then see it as the classic it already is, but not recognised as such!!! The one flaw being I suspect an LS will not rot as much as a Golf GTI would do if put in a garage for 20 years.

Bob, Had the same thing happen to me two years ago when parked out back of my house, all along drivers side. I have left it as it, mainly due to the fact that I have not got off my backside, but also need to get a bat poo pock mark on bonnet sorted and in June I had a falling branch put a big dent in nearside rear pillar. The key mark has not gone rusty, even though deep, as they did not penetrate the undercoat. Also be aware if you report this to police then the insurance companies my invalidate your insurance if you do not tell them about any incidences. This will impact your insurance for next five years. One reason for not owning a really expensive car when you have idiots doing this kind of thing, and annoying that to get the LS back to looking good is going to cost a few quid.

Was the driver old so while listening loudly to Ken Bruce on Radio 2, not able to hear the sensors on his Merc. or Was he young, and listening to Kerrang music even louder and would have needed an atomic bomb going off to notice anything.

6 years does seem a little poor, could it be more cr*p on roads in winter is eating into the rubber quicker, or just a bad batch of rubber. Still 22 years for a car that no doubt feels better than most 2 year old motors, can't be bad. I bet if the LS had been invented in the early 60's (with valve radios) they would still be working, and even have the original valves???

Read this link, discs do not warp even cheap nasty ones. Vibration is caused by uneven deposits or something loose. I suspect you could warp a disc by getting it red hot and then banging it with a ruddy great hammer (but I usually have better things to do when I am waiting at traffic lights) The myth of warping

Agree most DJs drive me nuts (and they have been doing so since 1980) apart from John Peel when he was around. So I am more a Radio 3 and 4 listener, or play my own music via cassette, MP3(via cassette adaptor), CD. I use get_iplayer a huge amount - it allows you to copy radio programs direct off the BBC, so listen to whenever you like - they are in M4a format, so you need a MP3 converter if you need to have them in MP3 format. Link to get_iplayer You can also rip TV programs, and watch them months later (as this program ignores the time limit BBC places on you watching). That way I can listen to the best of Radio 4 when I like, and even download some of the (rare) excellent Radio documentaries when music was visercal Makes my drive to work so much more pleasant.

Agree blueprint are fine to about 10K, I have kept mine in for about 30K now (just to see whether they ever got better) , at 10K they vibrated like nutters, by 20K they were bearable and at 30K they are just gently vibrating. The one thing I have noticed is in colder weather they vibrate more, and clunk a little bit more on speed ramps, so assume the shoes shrink just that little bit more within the caliper (probably only a few thou difference in shrinkage) so they vibrate more in winter. My mechanic said at 30K miles the pads are still only 25% worn, which tells me another 100K miles on them is going to drive me nuts. As I only drive 10 miles to work I have lived with them, but time to get them out and replaced along with new discs.

My experience is that the FM Head End in the Mk4 LS radio is not that brilliant and it needs a good strong signal. I believe it is a Pioneer unit in reality, and in my 35 years experience of being a radio nut, Pioneer are not up there with the best (especially with cars), though the Pioneer F656 Home tuner (1986 model) is pretty darned good. It maybe that Mark Levisonson use a Nakamichi FM Head End (they were great a cassette decks - but not a lot else) I have always found my LS rubbish at keeping a signal (which is why I have just invested in a Sonichi). I have cleaned all the aerial connectors and it makes naff all difference to FM quaility in those dips on the way to work. I would say my wifes Jag X-type is nearly as sh*t as the LS. But I also think that the BBC have been doing some tweaking on FM, which seems to mean that they have been adjusting the radial beaming of signals. What (IMHO) seems to be going on is that where DAB has been put in place they tune down the transmitter to not beam quite such a strong FM signal. As with any high frequency radio, the weather (especially high pressure systems) causes signal to be less strong which when on the margins of range causes more hiss & drop out. If I could I would upgrade the LS to what is called a SDR (software defined radio) which is way better at extracting signal even when it is weak, but not sure if there are any SDR is car systems, and certainly not from the year 2002. On my roof I have a large 5 element FM rig plugged into a £300 Sony tuner, I can see that BBC have been fannying about, and I assume it is to save money on powering transmitters, and FM is now seen by the politicians as the way to go, but any engineer worth their salt will say FM is a better compared to DAB. I would suggest that as Suffolk is sort of flattish, then a DAB unit is better bet for keeping the music flowing, although the DAB bit rates are so low (Classic FM at 80K/bits per sec - which is frankly not much better than playing an old audio cassette through an old sock) at least the music does not hiss and spit. Though you get some weird squelching on DAB when signal is a bit iffy.

Garry, Just from experience of owning company cars over the years, and doing 70,000 miles a year, the wear on pads (and sometimes disks) seemed a heck of a lot quicker than ever experienced with both LS I have owned. It might be that I drive a lot slower than I did years ago, but where I live I end up doing a lot of braking and that seemed to eat through pads on my Omega (and VW) in the past. Cannot recall what the manufacturer was - but not original parts on Omega. I currently have blueprint pads which were fine for a while, but I now find they are inconsistent in the way they behave, and yet some people on this forum say blueprints are just fine, it does seem to me that different experiences even with same pads, so maybe down to manufacturing changes now and again. I do wonder if the issue with the LS is that because it is such a well balanced and quite motor, any issues with brakes seem to get noticed more easily. Not a problem with some of the heaps of metal I have driven over the years.

I would think another £2K+ spent on it and it might be back to what it should be. But does sounds like a really good poke about underneath is called for. Not so sure I would take it on, and why would a low mileage model have corroded brake pipes etc, seems to be in worse shape than my Mk4 was when I got it 4 years ago, and I have had to spend about £1500 over last two years getting suspension, exhaust sorted, but it has done £170K+ I quite like the typo (126BHP). If you do go and have a look Qamar, be interesting to get your report on it, as good LS series are getting harder to find.

If it were me (and I have to get my front brakes looked at), I would go with Lexus parts if possible. The original pads and disks last a heck of a long time, so in long run probably cheaper, though I might investigate Brembo as Steve suggests, as previous experience of them has been good.

I doubt it is the fluid causing this, even when my ATF was really smelly and very worn out the gearbox worked well enough, never went into limp mode. You can drive a long way in most cars in limp mode it just mean using more fuel and annoying other road users. There should be nothing in the gearbox that is going to get damaged on the way to garage. You could prove it's not the gearbox just by leaving it to warm up on the drive (your ATF is going to cool even then), and I would guess if it still goes into limp mode, then it is some sensor, but you need to take it to a garage that can get codes off ECU if poss.

The lexus route is a new programmed key, I guess £200+ or more. Maybe worth trying this ebay Key repair have thought have using one of these services for one of the keys on missus jag, just never got off my backside and sorted.

I live in yogurt knitting, Lycra wearing cyclist country, we all rub along nicely - so maybe best time to be getting out of London. I assume old Sadiq will not be banning the filthy dirty buses/lorries that seem to get away with pollution murder despite being one of the Euro compliant models. I also guess they will not stop the air being polluted with all the sh*t they spout out every day from their ivory towers. And one last point, if we do a Brexit then we need our own Bulldog standard, none of this Gauloises smoking, Herring Loving, Bratwurst admiring, Champagne socialist Euro Standard nonsense! I am sure The Pub Landlord would agree.

I can certainly believe some rich old bodkin from Knightsbridge bought it to drive to Harrods every day to get a pint of milk, and on Saturdays off to Richmond Park to bag a deer. So the car needs a darned good run up to Inverness and back to blow the cobwebs out. I would have thought bagging a deer and strapping to to the roof every weekend (redneck style) would have lowered the suspension a bit more

I find the whole compliance thing interesting. In theory a good idea to know what whatever your buying is of a certain standard. However my experience of seeing the rise of compliance since the mid 80's is that it seems to allow decision makers not to actually apply good old 'fit for purpose review'. They just want to see a compliance document, so if it all goes t*ts up they can blame someone else. A decade ago I tried selling engine oil by-pass filters, fitted a number to coaches, diesel cars, etc, and the owners were blown away with 15% fuel savings, but when I went to talk to bigger boys they wanted to know where my compliance document was (never mind the heaps of evidence I had from Sheffield University - and a fair few references. I did not have the money to go get Mira to lab test it, yet a colleague in South Africa got some local compliance testing done, and job done. Was that good enough for the UK, was it heck, so I decided to not bother saving lots of money for UK truck owners (could have saved the Post Office around £4-£6M a year on fuel, but I guess they need that bit of paper). Be interesting to see what Brexit impact is, but given it was the Brits that really took the idea of modern standards and compliance to the rest of the world, we only have ourselves to blame! C'est la vie.

I always find oil a bit confusing in terms of will one manufacturer over another do more harm or more good. Found this link interesting, and written in a style I could get my head around. http://www.carbibles.com/engineoil_bible.html What I find interesting is the the LS temp gauge never budges once the engine is warm, no matter in a queue on a hot day or pottle-ing about the country lanes, so I assume the LS being well engineered does not suffer as much from extremes you get in a Ford Focus RS on a night out in some car park. Also as the LS has turbo no components there is none of that high RPM stuff going on (and subsequent lubrication stress) so the oil just gets a nicer life in (I assume) the lazy LS. My LS at 170,000+ barely uses oil between it's service intervals (and about 10,000 miles) and, but I have been know to top up with half a litre of Halford semi-synthetic (10/40 I recall). I also never buy oil or such like from eBay, just in case, I am sure most sellers are fine, but (to quote keybasher2) I have a 30 bob head, so a 25 bob ebay helmet is a step not worth trying.

If ever I open the boot, I always check (at least 5 times) I have keys about my person before I shut the boot. Did something similar with Vaux Omega years ago, and the AA sorted it out quickly. Makes you wonder if an AA man ever went rogue, they could get away with anything!

Went out and bought the Sonichi S100 from Halfords, nice little unit works well in the LS400. Mind you it is clear - even to a deaf old g*t like me - that FM is better (when you can get a signal). I bought the Sonichi external aerial, which worked okay placed on rear parcel shelf, until condensation on rear screen yesterday made a mockery of the radio. So I tried last night on way home with the aerial mounted on roof (by nearside front pillar), but above 20mph, you get this annoying whistle (and what the LS being quiet even at 60mph - this noise was a pain), so I now have it mounted at base of window pillar (on nearside - looks a little heath robinson) and it does not whistle. Living in the Cotswolds there are some spots where DAB will not work (and FM is poor) due to the depth of the valleys, so would be nice to see if just using FM aerial would be better or worse and save on having the little whiplash stuck to front wing. I am not keen on having a rear mounted roof DAB aerial, as would like to make sure the LS400 can be kept as original as possible, while making it accept all this new tech. So I have got to thinking whether it might be an idea to split into the FM aerial, and wondered if anyone has tried this, and what the results were.

John, Driving like the vicars wife should see the pads last a lifetime. I had new ones fitted 40,000 miles ago, and they are still only 30% worn, and every day I have to descend a 600foot (1in 7) hill and probably drive more like the vicars wife when she is late for the ladies lunch, so I am surprised they have not worn down a lot more. As to a Range Rover 4.6, lovely cars expect when they go wrong, which from my bosses experience is reasonably often. Mind you nice and high up, and as quite as LS (maybe more so on rough road surfaces).

I think we used to be in this thing called the EU, and everything went metric!!!! 35Kw is 50HP. I assume capacity is not the measure, as fitting a supercharger to a moped would make that 50cc beast a lot of horsepower (or kw if you like). This must mean that the LS400 is a 200Kw motor, but the romance of 200 electric fires is not the same as 300 healthy four legged mustangs under the bonnet.

Flooded mine twice (Mk4) my own stupid fault, and easily done. If you start and then drive less than about 200 yards you find fuel is still running a bit too rich and so the chambers are a little flooded, and you have to floor the pedal on a re-start. Otherwise if you really have to only move a few yards and then shut off engine (coz you do not want to be breathing in fumes while loading the boot), then just let her tick over for about 30 seconds at stationary, move it and then you should be okay (well from my experience). In the winter if you do flood the beast, even leaving the car for 24 hours is not enough to let petrol evaporate.

Does look good, might look at getting mine done when I get around to tidying up my LS. Was it a one day job or longer