John N

It wasn't the EU who created the unavailability it was the ISO (International Standards Organisation) who set an agreed standard for a 50mm ball coupling and the strength of the towbar mountings. It is a world wide standard that means a car from any country can tow a trailer from any other country anywhere. Except of course in North America (USA) where they still use a 2" ball, and have different regulations in different states, which can cause chaos! Lexus were in a situation where they had the LS400 due to go out of production in a few months, and in it's main market (the USA) it would not be affected by the new ISO standard. So they did nothing, just told customers outside the USA they could not fit a towbar to a LS400. John N

Phil As I said when I had the same problem my wheel bearing checked out ok, but it was only when I changed them that the problem disappeared. At £32 each it's worth a try. John N No I got a local trusted mechanic to fit them, it took him less than an hour for each one. They are straight forward to change, the only problem being the old bearings become solidly sezed in, and are hard to remove. The mechanic had to use a blow torch to get them out. You could try soaking them in Plus-gas for a few hours. John N

Phil As I said when I had the same problem my wheel bearing checked out ok, but it was only when I changed them that the problem disappeared. At £32 each it's worth a try. John N

Sorry, just realised your question was about a 1998 LS400. That was the year the Type Approval regulations came in, and applied to any vehicle registered after 30th July 1998. If it was registered before that date you can have a non- aproved towbar made and fitted. After that date you have a problem! John N

With an LS430 because your car was registered after July 1998 the only type of towbar you can legaly fit has to be a European 'type approved' one. (Type approval 94/20/EC Regulation 55 applies.) This involves the design going through a costly 'type aproval' test. Lexus did supply one that was made by Brink, but my understanding is that:- Brink made it for Lexus and they would only supply it to Lexus not to any private buyer. When I tried to by one direct from Brink my order was stopped and I was simply told they could not supply one. It is still not listed in Brinks' catalogue. I had to order my towbar through my Lexus main dealer, but that was 11 years ago and I don't know if they are still available. If your Lexus Dealer can't supply a new one your only legal option is to search car breakers listing (Breaking Lexus LS430) and ask if a car they have has a towbar. The id plate on my towbar is marked:- LEXUS, pe.nr. 3291, er. nr. 0034825MN, Coupling Class. A50-X, Aproval No. ell 00-2750, part No. PZ 408-F1550-00, Made by Brink Europe The good news is it was straight forward to fit, and the LS430 with its' self leveling suspension is a brilliant tow-car Beware, towbars sourced from America etc. are available but not legal here and will fail an MOT. John N

Paul I can't understand why you have had trouble finding new caliper bolts. I phoned the spares dept. at Stockport Lexus (my local dealer) this morning and was quoted £9 + vat each. The strange thing is though they are on a weeks delivery, but spares that are regular consumables are normaly next day delivery. This indicates there is not much demand for them, probably because people like me keep re-using the original ones. Beware of shopping round for cheaper simple parts like bolts for brake calipers. Bolts can be made by any back street or garden shed workshop anywhere in the world where 'quality control' is an alien concept. Are they using the right high tensile steel? Are they using the right anti-corrosion treatment? Are they checking the dimensions are within tolerance? And even if you save £5 a bolt is it worth increasing the chance of an accident that could cost you far more than money? Thats why I always buy parts like that through Lexus or Toyota main dealers, it's worth the peace pf mind. John N

I'm in the same boat as you! Just finished paying off the £2,900 credit card finince for the LS430 I bought last year. On a serous note. If you had bought a Merc S class, I would advise you to trade it in before the manufacturers warrenty expired, and I'm speaking from personal experiance! Having had a Lexus LS for over 11 years following my S Class disaster, my advice is keep it. They are by far the most reliable luxury cars on the road. (Watch Scotty Kilmer on You Tube.) John N

I've just checked the maintanance manual for the LS430 and the two bolts that hold the calliper to the hub are marked as non-reusable. But I must admit I've taken the calipers on and off 4 or 5 times in the last 11 years, when I've replaced brake discs, and never changed the original bolts. 150,000 miles and the brake calipers have'nt fallen off yet! If you realy must replace them call the spares department at your local main dealer, simple things like bolts are not that expensive even at Lexus. Note, the other thing the manual tells you to replace is the tiny stainless steel clip that hold the wear sensor on the brake pad, and I would dvise you to replace that, I always do. John NFront Caliper.pdf

Phil The problem does sound exactly the same as I had with my present LS430 which I bought in early 2019. It only had 95k on the clock but it had been off the road for 5 years and one of the issues it had was a front wheel vibration at 70 or 80. I tried all the normal things, tyre balance, wheel tracking, suspension bushes etc. all ok. Naturally I did the normal wheel bearing checks, jack the wheel up, hold the wheel top and bottom, and left and right and pull hard to check for free play in a worn bearing. Nothing appeared wrong and the wheel turned freely, which left me scratching my head! But I did notice I could faintly hear the bearing turning, so I did the same test on my old LS430 (which had a major engine problem but no suspension issues) and I found the wheel on that car turned in absolute silence! Because I couldn't find anything else wrong I decided to fit a new wheel bearing, although I was put off by the £354 + vat quoted by my local main dealer just to supply a new bearing! Ebay though when I searched for, - Fit For Lexus LS430 LS 430 2000-2006 Front New Hub Wheel Bearing With ABS Sensor - , I found Titan Autoparts in London selling German made bearing units with a 2 year guarantee for less than £40 (£31 now) so I fitted one of their bearings and the problem went away. After that solved the problem I chanced the other bearing as well, both bearings have now been on the car for 15k miles and work fine. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fit-For-Lexus-LS430-LS-430-2000-2006-Front-New-Hub-Wheel-Bearing-With-ABS-Sensor/282998928611 John N

It may sound silly but check your wheel nuts, had a similar feel to mine that turned out to be wheel nuts not as tight as they should have been! I also experienced a similar wobble at around 70 mph that I couldn't trace, but I cured it by fitting new front wheel bearings. Paid less than £40 each for some from Germany on Ebay. John N

The fashion industry knows. All fashions end in excess and a fashion will attain its end of life once it reaches its extreme level in styling. People get bored with the fashion and they start to look for a different style or look for what may be a new fashion. I personally classify the LC styling as 'Micky Mouse - Star Wars', I prefer things to have functional simplicity and work well, and not be over stylized. I know 'fashion' sells cars but there are certain features that would put me off buying any car:- A ridiculously over stylized front grill that serves no purpose, the current Lexus grill just looks stupid! Over sized wheels and very low profile tyres, that make it very hard to produce a comfortable suspension. The low profile tyres don't grip as well in the wet, they cost a lot more and wear out faster. The alloy wheels are also more susceptible to catastrophic failure when hitting a pot hole. I would not feel safe driving on them, racing cars don't. Blacked out rear windows, which are pointless. I like my children to be able to see the world outside, if I didn't want people to see my passengers I'd buy a van and put seats in the back! (I don't need to keep the sun out, the air-con works in my car!) One of the reasons I'm still driving an LS430 (my second one, the first only lasted 10 years) is the styling of the later cars just didn't appeal to me. Or it may be I'm getting old! John N

Sorry that link to my search results doesn't seam to work. Just go to Mytyres.co.uk and search for Winter tyres in your size, specifying Nokian as the manufacturer, the search pulled up two tyres available in your size. JohnN

The best winter tyres I have found are Nokian. They are not widely available in this country as the company is based in Finland, they were the original inventors of winter tyres, and the first people to develop studded tyres. Google - www.nokiantyres.com and read the reviews on Tyrereviews.co.uk You can easily buy them through mytyres.co.uk this is the result from their site https://www.mytyres.co.uk/cgi-bin/rshop.pl?dsco=110&sowigan=Wi&Breite=235&Quer=55&Felge=20&Speed=&kategorie=6&Marke=Nokian&ranzahl=4&search_tool=standard&rsmFahrzeugart=&tyre_for=PKW&suchen=Search+for+tyres I've been using them on my LS430 every winter for the last 10 years and I've never been stuck in the snow, although I passed many 4 wheel drive SUVs that were. I fit them for the winter every year because I live at the bottom of a hill and my only way to leave home is up the hill which is never salted and defeats most other vehicles when it snows. You will probably find their tyres are made in Russia, this is because they are one of the biggest selling high quality winter tyres in Russia, which is a vast market. I think I read that they sell over 70% of their annual production in the first 3 weeks of it starting to snow in the Russian winter! I acquired a spare set of wheels for mine through Ebay, which cost me nothing because the tyres they were fitted with had so much life left in them they were worth more than I paid for the wheels! John N

I've always suspected the engine covers are purely cosmetic for the benefit of customers who purchase the cars new from the dealers. The people who buy these cars new don't buy them with the intention of doing their own engine maintenance! They buy into the concept of having a luxury car with everything taken care of by the dealer, and the sight of a complex modern engine that needs looking after can be off-putting to them. These cars are sold by the driving experience, comfort, technical toys and dealer service, not by the mechanical bits under the bonnet. In fact I would be surprised if many potential buyers ask to look under the bonnet before signing on the dotted line. There is nothing wrong with this situation, the new cars have to be presented in a way that appeals to new car buyers. If they weren't they wouldn't sell and I wouldn't be able to buy an LS430 with 95K on the clock for £2,900 ! John N

I had the same problem with rain water getting into the boot on the 2000 LS430 I bought last year. I bought a non genuine replacement seal to replace the old original one. I don't have a garage to work in so on a dry Sunday afternoon I set about changing the seal. I cut the original seal cleanly in the middle near the lock, and pealed it away very easily as the original sealant had perished. Then fitted the new seal, first without using any sealant to check it would fit properly, it didn't! The new seal was too big a section and the boot wouldn't close. It then started to rain! So I quickly cleaned all the remnants of the old sealant from the boot lip and the old seal, and pressed the old seal back in place. That was six months ago, and despite all the rain we have had since the boot has stayed bone dry! I think the old sealant that had perished was acting like a wick and allowing the rain water in, because all I have done is clean the existing seal and the boot lid and replace the original seal. It's a zero cost option that might work for you John N

Yes there is another earth to check. I had an intermittent misfire on a Lancia Thema I ran for a few years, which turned out to be the earth connection between the engine block and the chassis. It is just as important as the earth from the battery to the chassis. If you are getting misfires, use a diagnostic tester to read the fault codes. If all the misfires are from the same cylinder, it will probably be a fault with that cylinder, eg. spark plug, ht coil or fuel injector. If the misfires are coming from all the cylinders at random it will be an electrical fault like a bad earth. John N

The dipped beam bulbs on an LS430 are HIDs. The original Osrams on mine lasted 16 years and 150,000 miles. The details are in the handbook, you can get ones cheaper than Osrams but if you are keeping the car they are worth the extra, I got a pair off Ebay and they are easy to fit. Just be careful if you find some very cheap they are probably fakes. If the price is too good to be true beware! John N

You are right about the older Honda Jazz being targeted, my daughters' 2004 car was parked outside her house over night. She didn't know a thing until it sounded like a tractor when she started it up in the morning. She phoned the police who gave her a crime report number! It cost us about £500 in the end. A close neighbor of mine had a similar car so I spoke to her to warn her. "Oh mine was stolen from the shopping center car park in broad daylight last week" she said! The garage we took my daughters' car too said they had just replaced the cats on a dozen Mercedes Sprinter Vans that had been parked in the yard at a local transport firm. They were all taken in one night and cost over £1,000 each. This is all in a small area of North Manchester,so how big a national problem is it? It could help if there were a few police men with some spare time! John N

In early May I bought two of these from Ebay, German made, and they solved my problems with a car that had been stored for 5 years. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fit-For-Lexus-LS430-LS-430-2000-2006-Front-New-Hub-Wheel-Bearing-With-ABS-Sensor/282998928611?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649 Open this link in a new window. Before buying new bearings though just check your wheel nuts are tight. I had a similar problem that was caused by the nuts not being tightened correctly. John N

When I was looking for a replacement for my first LS430 radiator, I found there were two versions of the radiator available from Lexus. The spares manager at Lexus didn't know the difference between them! What I found was that on my radiator there is a connection for a small bleed tube from the top of the radiator to the water reservoir, this make the radiator "self bleeding". If you take the air intake box off the top of the radiator you can see it clearly on the same side as the water reservoir. On the other version of the radiator this bleed connection is missing. (This is the cheaper version of the 2 radiators available from Lexus, which I bought first, and then had to send back because of the missing connection!) I think there was a version of the car made with a non-pressurised cooling system, but the version sold in this country used a pressurised system and the self bleeding radiator. First check the top of your radiator to see if it has a bleed tube connection, and if you buy a replacement on-line check the picture or drawing of the radiator to make sure it comes on the radiator you buy. John N

Do a quick check of your tyre pressures, and check all the tyres are the same size. Had a similar problem that turned out to be a rear tyre with a slow puncture. The tyre that is going flat has a smaller diameter, so the wheel has to turn faster than the one on the other side of the car. This confuses the Vehicle Stability Control system that expects to see both wheels turning at the same speed! I fixed the slow puncture, cleared the 'fault log' and I have not had the problem again. John N

Paid £188.50 earlier this year for one off Ebay with a 2 year warranty. I think that's about half the genuine Lexus one costs. John N

It does look a little smaller than the one I have fitted, but mine was bought 11 years ago from Kenlowe, and it wasn't scientifically sized, it just looked about right to me! Kenlowe appear to have stopped making them now and the current ones come from China. If you are concerned give Paul Frost a ring at Lexus Spares Direct, he puts that kits together and sells them. He is very knowledgeable about Lexus. From the feedback ratings he gets on eBay he doesn't appear to be doing anything wrong. His mobile number and E-mail are at the bottom of that eBay advert. john N

Eleven years ago I bought an LS430 and used it to tow a large caravan, and anyone who has used an LS430 to tow something big will know it's wise to fit a transmission cooler. The coil in the bottom of the radiator is just not big enough for towing. I fitted the transmission cooler in line with the coil in the radiator, for extra cooling, and had no problems with the system over the 10 years and 140,000 miles I had the car. The secret to having no problems with the transmission cooling on an LS430 is to make sure the anti-freeze is up to strength and is less than 5 years old at all times. The anti-freeze contains the corrosion inhibitor that stops the cooling pipe in the radiator rusting through and filling the gearbox with water! Earlier this year I replaced that car with a lower mileage LS430 (I couldn't think of a better tow car to buy!) and transferred the transmission cooler and tow bar. Then because I didn't know the history of the anti-freeze in the cars' radiator which was starting to corrode, I fitted a new radiator and filled it with new anti-freeze. If you have bought a 14 year old car and don't know the history of the anti-freeze in the engine, I would advise you to replace both the radiator and anti-freeze. If you do want a transmission cooler try:- LEXUS LS430 GS430 SC430 Auto GEARBOX OIL COOLER UPGRADE NEW!!!! This is the kit supplied by Lexus Spares Direct on eBay. John N

I replaced the big rear bush on my lower front offside wishbone the other day, and I've had no problems. The wishbone pivots on the front and rear rubber bushes, so in a way they act as rubber torsion springs. Like your mechanic I jacked the car up with the wheel hanging down, but when I fitted the new bush I didn't tighten the nut on the wishbone that clamps the center of the bush. I then took the car off the jack and drove round the block with the suspension height set to normal, so that the suspension was at its' normal ride height before finally tightening the nut to clamp the bush to the wishbone. If your new bushes have been fitted with the wheels hanging down, they will be acting as extra springs which will put a strain on the bushes and will upset the suspension settings. John N