sir john

Thanks for all your responses guys. I thought i was being a bit of an arse about it but it seems im not the only one who thinks that things should be put right. Cheers guys.

Thanks for that guys. No it wasnt a Lexus dealer. My insurance comp arranged for teh car to go to one of their approved repairers. I will definately have to get my insurance company involved again because i left my car in the pub car park on saturday night as usual. When i went back to collect it yesterday the battery was flat. This is a new problem. 100% reliable pre repair, battery flat when i went to collect, and a load beep when ever i turn on the ignition.

I only have an LS400 so my learn'd friend I rest my case. Lexus v Tesco im not legally minded but i think that; * if a person or company purchases hundreds of wheeled trollies, * without brakes or other means of stopping them traveling around freely. * knowing that their some of their customers will leave them outside unattended. * where they are free to roll about * sometimes at the will of wind or gravity * in a place where hundreds of thousands of £s of other peoples cars are parked * does not employ enough staff to collect said trollies to return them to a safe area then they should be held responsable for any damage caused by their trollies. It would seem to me that Tesco know that their trolleys will be left outside in windy conditions and that at some time, someone elses property will be damaged. My point is that they know that it will happen and they should take steps to mitigate the danger. Try leaving your car parked outside Tescos front entrance with the handbrake off. (just summising here, not a suggestion) When it rolls into the store crashing through the front entrance door who do you think will be to blame? Probably the fool who left an unbraked, wheeled vehicle unattended. I think that it is shoddy that supermarkets treat customers in this way. If your golf trolly or your little daughters toy pram rolled into the car of Tescos Chief Executive im sure me would hold you responsable to pay for the damage. PS. i am in no way suggesting the anyone should leave their vehicle unattended without applying both the hand brake and park brake.

1 month ago an elderly gent drove into the back of my 93 LS. I was stationary. he was doing about 10 mph and didnt attempt to brake. "I must have been watching the car in front of you" was his excuse for not seeing me. Easy thing to do, big silver Lexus, about 2 tons, sitting in the middle of the road, starionary. The damage was a crushed rear bumper, a bent boot floor pan and a boot lid 1/2" higher than it should be. Its just come back from the repair shop. brand new bumper, nicely sprayed the correct colour so everything should be fine. But im sure that the boot floor is still higher than it should be. I seem to remember that the boot floor trim lay flat over the spare and rubber thing to the right. Now it seems to sit up by a 1/2" or so. Lower than after the accident but still higher than pre-accident. The boot lid is also a mil or 2 too high and the OS front of the lid is a couple of mil forward of where it should be. Am i being too picky or should i take it back and demand that these faults be put right? the accident was not my fault and in my opinion my car is not as straight as it was before. The other niggle is that when i collected it the battery was flat and now, when i turn on the ignition, i get a loud beep from a speaker in the rear. This hasnt happened since i took the Lexus cell phone out 12 months ago. The OSR chassis leg or strengthener has also still got a crimp or crease in it. When they inspected it pre-repair they said it didnt need a new floor but would pull the damage out. Apart from the asthetics im planniing on getting it converted to LPG and the tank for that sits in the spare well. Should i take it back or be glad I have a nice new bumper?? Does your boot floor mat sit flat??

Welcome to the group Kris, thay are wonderful cars. Afraid I have no idea how to help, except check the fuses! What fantastic taste you have in cars....pitty it took you so long. anyway, welcome. I think your luck that the buttons on the key lock and unlock. Mine is a 93 reg and the remote key has never worked wjhile ive had teh car. and yes i have changed the battery. While im on teh subject of keys, if you need a spare you will probable be told by theh Key Bar man that they have a chip in them and one of theirs will nopt open your doors. This isnt true for your car. A simple spare key will work and they are cheap as a spare. Heated seats; when i first got my car i thought the heated seats went working. But in the winter or in cold weather you can feel the heat. So maybe your are the same, you just cannot tell in warm weather. Good luck mate and enjoy the best car in the world. PS. check that the Power Steering fluid isnt leaking from the pump. Its a common fault and it knackers the alternator.

ON a single point an omvl reducer/vapouriser is the one to have, See if he can fit a small filler behind the petrol flap & screw on an addaptor. they are readerly available & less hastle all round than on the bumper ( not legal anyway unless its secured to the bodywork), Also make sure he fits an in line blow back valve as close to the inlet as possable & fit a secondry one in the airbox. £900 is a fair price for a reasonable single point closed loop kit. You would normally pay up to £1200 for it depending on how much they are chargeing labour. I think this guy in preston also fits multi point kits for £1300 & advertised on Ebay a few months back I asked him about putting the gas filler under the petrol filler flap but he said that to do that he would need an adapter and fitting one is illegal. Something about being affiliated to the LPG thingie. Im now wondering if it could go on the back pannel along side the rear # plate.

Been on the net this morning and found an LPG conversion specialist. LPG North West at Preston. Says he can fit a single point kit with 70lt tank for £900 all in. The filler goes in the NS rear bumper. About 3" x 3" and sticks out about 5mm. The only extra cost will be £35 to have the filler point sprayed to match the car (its black when fitted). He gives a 2 years guarantee and says that it will be a OMVL reducer and all the other bits are common to all the kits. He also gives a certificate for the insurance. He is LPG affiliated or something. This sounds really cheap to me. At that rate i will be even within 9 months and saving money by the next MOT. Does it sound about right to you ? Is it too cheap ? Is the OMVL kit the correct for my model, a 93 MKll ?

The more i follow this thead, the more it seems to me, that there is more to this than meets the eye. For 1, 15 and 16 mpg on LPG is a bit scarey. I know that the roads and how you drive will make a massive difference to mpg. I live in the Lake District which you might think would use a lot a fuel climbing all those hills. But the extra fuel you use climbing hills is saved when you go down the other side. And there is little traffic around here so we dont have any sitting in traffic jams wasting fuel. the other thing is that everwhere i go will be 20 miles+. I get about 23 just driving round and 28 ish on motorway driving. Best ever was 30 mpg on a 330 mile trip, 70-75 max. Now i know that LPG lowers the mpg but 15 to 16?? And it seems that it also depends on the type or make of system. It would be really interesting and useful to have some feed back from lpg users as to exactly what mpg they are getting and from what system. So far i have read mpg from 15 to 25 and thats just this thread. Im really keen to get converted but im equally keen to get the best system for my model which i think is an August 93 MK11.

Hi. Really interesting reading all this. I have an LS400 registered August 1993. Its got 168,000 miles on it and im getting it back from the repair shop on Wednesday after a rear end shunt. The thing is I normally do about 15,000 miles a year but this will increase this year to about 20,000 to 23,000. Im planning on keeping the old bus for as long as she keeps going through the MOTs. so im thiinking of converting to LPG. Would i get away with a single point system and if so are these cheaper than the multi point? My rough calcuations suggest that if i do 23k per annum and get 25mpg on petrol and 22.5 on LPG i should save about £1600 a year. what are your thoughts?

THANKS FOR REPLY - WHAT MPG DO YOU GT WITH YOUR SINGLE-POINT? tHEY ARE ALOT CHEAPER TO FIT THAN THE MULTI'. I DON'T KNOW WHETHER A SINGLE POINT IS AN OPTION FOR MY '98 PLATE LS 400? Hi you have to go for the multi point on the vvti engine, I tried the single point it wouldn't have it. ( I was with the guy driving around for about 3 hours trying to set it up, it would run then cut out when you lifted off. Belive me they really did try to get it to work. It cost them money in the end when they had to fit a BRC plug & drive multipoint system, which it runs perfect on, No loss of power & all the mpg computer system works with it aswell. The mark3 & earlier will run OK on a single point (with a risk of blowback). As for mpg £ for £ I can get 60+ mpg on the run in the UK if I really try & 40+ around town, If I drive it without economy in mind I get 30 in heavy stop start round town & 50 on the run. Going to Germany cost me £39 for 650 miles not hanging around by any means ( cruise control on at 110mph on the German autobahn), due to LPG being so cheap in Belguim. If you google LPG FORUM you will get a wealth of advice & info on there (Prins or BRC seem to be the kits most suited to the Mark4 ls400) You will also find a good installer on there as there are a lot of cowboys about. Also go for the biggest tank you can get in the spare wheel well 86litres I believe mine is only 70 which means a 56 litre fill 10 litres more would have been perfect for me ( but due to the delay trying to fit a single point system I didn't have time to wait for a larger tank to be ordered)

Had the same problem with my 93 LS400 recently. The FNS upper suspennsion ball joint was shot. Had it replaced and 90% of judder is gone. I think that there are times when, as a car gets older, a few things start to get past their best. As for warped discs, my understanding is that it is usually caused by hard braking and then keeping your foot on the brake pedal for a while. The pads clamped around the super hot disc doesnt allow the disc to cool down inn a localised area. This will warp the discs.

Thanks for that Steve2006. The flanges are so eaten away by rust that there is little left of them. The nuts and bolts are nothing more than sharp points. If i didnt know what they had been i would not have believed that they were nuts and bolts at all. I know that the only way to get them off will be to cut them with a fine disc. But there isnt enough metal in the flanges to take bolting back together. Its a shame because its a stainless system. but the flanges have somehow rusted away.

I have a 93 LS400. The exhaust is blowing at the flanges of the Cats and the pipe to the 1st box. i keep repairing/filling them up with prepriety exhaust paste but it always brakes up and drops out after a couple of weeks. I have used a 2 pack paste in the past and that seems to last longer but im looking for a longer term solution. Any ideas? The flanges are really badly corroded. So much so that the metal part of the gaskets are coming out when i wire brush the krud off before repairing again. Ive seem new cats on e-bay for about £150 each and i suppose a front pipe will be about the same. I know that would fix it for sure but its a bit expensive for me right now.

The machanic that fitted it said it went in with no problems. I havent noticed any noises yet and its done about 1000 miles since fitting.. I have, however, noticed that the steering wheel is at a slight angle to the left. That it its not level when im going down a straight road of motorway. other than that im very happy with the service i recieved from A2Z parts. :P

The reason i had to charge the alternator at christmas was that it was soaked with PS fluid. Throught id fixed both problems. The machanic changed the alternator on tuesday this week and all is well again. The supplier of the original recon unit was fantastic, i phoned him on friday and the replacement was in the post the same day and arrived on tuesday. Im planning a complete strip down and overhaul of the PS pump at the weekend. Do any of you have any pointers as to teh best way of getting the thing off the car? I alread have a Lexus repair kit. PS.. still the best car in the world. I keep dreaming of Jaguars, Lotus or even a Maserati 3000 but then i think about the 700 mile round trips Suffolk and sitting in a cold car on a dark wet night waiting for the AA. Dreams to nightmares. Thank goodness for Lexus. Or should that be Lexi ?

Thanks for all the ideas guys. The machanic put a guage on the battery with the engine off and then running. It didnt register any charge even at 3000rpm. Could this be the regularor? and if so, where is the regularor and how do i check it?

Sorry. Meant to mention. Nice is200 Kam05. look the business. Love black cars. well cool.

Phoned the suppier today. Hes sending a replacement ASAP. but i wondered if there is anything else it could be. Im good with the spanners but the modern electrics have me baffled. I needed to get my old Landrover Series 111 going today so me `ant whife can go to the pub on saturday night (we live a mile down a rough farm track, then we walk the 15 minutes to the pub, have a few drinks and zigzag the 30 minutes back to the old landrover and drive home down our farm track) the petrol pump had siezed after being stood for 6 months. I gave it a few wacks with a hammer and away it went. But you cannot do with the best car in the world. The Lexus i mean.

had a problem just before christmas with all the lights coming followed by totally flat battery. Changed the alternator for a recon item and everything was hunkidoory. This morning the problem came back. Machanic says the battery isnt getting a charge. Any ideas other than the alternator??

Bad news in deed. The good news is that if the accident is the fault of a 3rd party you have the right to insist that the other parties insurance company repairs the damage to your car. Not just write it off. If the accident was the fault of someone else and you would rather have your own car back, write to your insurance company and the other parties insurance company informing them that you insist on having your car repaired and returned to you in its pre accident condition. You have the right to this even if its not economical to repair in teh opinion of the insurance company. If you dont want your original car back dont accept the first offer they give you. It will almost certainly be too low. A friend of mine, some years ago, had his knacked old vauxhall smashed up by another car (probable value a couple of hundred quid). He rejected the initial offer the insurance company made and put things in the hands of a solicitor. 12 months later they paid out a massive sum for the car and the time delay in settling his claim. He used the money to buy a 3 or 4 years old vauxhall. Result!! PS. grit your teath about the merc. you`ll soon be back in a proper luxury car.

Hi the hunting could be down to a dirty maf sensor, I took mine off & cleaned it with some carb cleaner cured the slight hunting I had. thats realy interesting. Where is this filter and how do i get at it. When it passed the MOT last week the only thing the machanic said he had problems with was getting the imission down. I suppose that could have something to do with it.

The gearshift (the gear stick if you like) on my 93 l400 has suddenly got shif and notchy. Its always been okay until now. Its worst when im moving it out of PARK. Its almost as if theres a bit of plastic somewhere underneath that stopping it moving. I have to give a good pull. Its also a bit notchy around the other gears. Feels sticky. Is there any way i can get the walnut pannel out to free it up.??

Thanks for that. I think a service is on th ecards some time next week. Ive always liked castrol Magnetec. Ill let you know if it runs any better after a service. at the no its hunting a bit.

Seems we all have the same experience. We drive around in our fantastic Lexus thinking they are getting slower and something is the matter. I have found the answer to this malaise........i get into my wifes Landrover Disco 300TDI. What a bag of *******. Its noisy, slow and wallows about on corner like theres a double wardrobe filled with water strapped to the roof. Then i get back into my 93 400 and all is well agian. what a wonderful thing is the Lexus 400. Wouldnt be without it. I would like to give it a service though, so what spark plugs, filters and oil should i use. any info?

i have the same problem with my exhaust. Leaking from the rear flange of both cats. And mine are so rusted that the faces of the flanges have rotted away to the extent that they only meet where the bolts hold the joints together. I say bolts, they are no more than pointy bits of metal. I tried Metal Putty. Its a 2 pack thing you get from Halfords etc. it works for a bit then breaks up. Ive also tried Gun Gum. Same thing. The whole system really needs taking off (cutting disc the "bolts" off) and new flanges welding on. Probable to cats and exhaust pipe flanges. Has anyone tried this? Dont want to replace the whole lot as only the joint is shot and the system is Toyota stainless steel exhaust system. PS. i have alraedy bought the new gaskets from toyota. £4.11 each. ... Quality!