Scribe

On my Mk.IV you can set the 'Mode' switch on the steering wheel to change the trip display, one of the settings being 'remaining miles'. Don't know if yours has the same facility. I think when the low fuel level warning light comes on, the display says about 60 miles remaining.

Thanks for the advice. If my brake warning light comes on I won't immediately panic but check the bulbs.

P.S. Glad you're still chuffed with your LS, Stuart. I'll look out for you when I'm west of Brighton!

I agree that the Lexus effect is calming. I think it's to do with the quietness, smoothness, sense of insularity from the road, the power (if you need it), and the general feeling that the car's never straining. I rarely do more than 2000 r.p.m., and that sort of speed it's barely any noisier than at idle. Add auto transmission and cruise control and you have the recipe for a very relaxing drive. Putting your foot down to overtake quickly is useful and satisfying, but I tend to keep my trip display on 'current mpg', which keeps my right foot as light as a feather...

While the price of fuel is becoming rather worrying, it's only part of the total cost of running a car. One of the biggest factors is depreciation, and most of our LSs aren't going to lose much more of their value. (On Autotrader at the moment there's a 2008 LS460L Hybrid (new cost approx. £100,000) for sale at offers above £36,000; that means it's depreciated £25,000 per year!) On a long run, driven gently, I get more than 30mpg from my LS400, and I'm not sure that a smaller car, with an engine having to work harder, would do significantly more than that. And then there's the comfort: as I get older, the ability to do a long journey without feeling totally knackered afterwards seems like more of a necessity than an extravagance... All of which are excuses to keep my LS, and I hope I'm never in the position of having to consider getting rid of it. So good luck with your decision-making.

Now why didn't they print that picture? I'd have paid more attention if they had...

This morning's mail included a leaflet about the Co-Op's wills and funeral planning service. Thank you, Saga. (The cover girl is Elsie, who makes 'the best scones in Little Sutton'. It doesn't say whether she's a Lexus owner, but I'd guess it's unlikely.)

Well, there are discrepancies within AA Insurance itself. For the last three years running it was much cheaper for me to take out a new policy with them than renew my existing one - it seems their business is geared up to attract new customers rather than reward loyal ones, despite all the extra paperwork that must be required. When I pointed this out, they price-matched the premium to the 'new customer' rate, thereby saving everybody a lot of kerfuffle, but they wouldn't have done if I hadn't told them I wanted to cancel.

The same thing happened to me - Saga were way cheapest (half what the AA were asking). It's a bit depressing, and I'm now getting lots of junk mail about old people's cruises, stair lifts and walk-in baths, but I reckon it's worth the sacrifice.

If it were me, I think I'd try to cost all the work that's necessary to make the car sellable at a decent price. Even if I didn't make much profit, I'd prefer to do that than scrap the car, because in most ways it surely must have lots of life left in it.

Congratulations and welcome to the forum. It looks a lovely car.

When I told my local garage that I'd got rid of the Citroen they used to service for me and bought an LS400, they said, 'Oh, we won't be seeing much of you in future, then...' Not quite true, because all cars need servicing and MOTing, but it shows what a reputation for reliability Lexuses have.

Belated welcome to Lexus ownership, Stuart. I'm still amazed by my Lex (similar age to yours but higher mileage) and don't regret taking the plunge. I'm not a practical type so use an ex-Lexus/Toyota mechanic who has his own business in Hove, in case you need any advice or work doing.

I've recently insured my LS400 as a second car (5,000 miles per year). I tried NFU as a lot of other members recommend them, but they weren't competitive for me because they favour rural postcodes. In the end Saga were by far the cheapest - but that's a sign of my age I suppose... In general, third party insurance isn't much cheaper than comprehensive these days. A relative who works for a big insurance company says this is because the sort of people who traditionally buy third party insurance (young, inexperienced drivers of cars that are worth very little) have a lot more accidents, and so the companies end up paying out a lot (in third party claims) anyway. Now that my LS is 13 years old it's likely to be written off after even a minor accident, but it still seemed worth paying a little more to get comprehensive cover rather than TPFT.

It looks amazing. No wonder you can't part with it. I always thought that colour really suited the LS. Anyway, nice to still have you on board with us.

I would honestly rather have a late, low mileage, mint condition LS400 than anything more recent that cost twice as much to buy. New cars don't interest me like they used to. Which I suppose is where the problem is - what do we replace our LSs with, when the time comes?

Seeing as the most recent LS400 I could replace mine with would be only 2-3 years younger, and would cost a lot of money, it doesn't seem worth contemplating. I suspect a lot of us are in this position. Better to stick with what we've got and be ready to spend on maintenance. Reading about other members' problems with their LSs sometimes makes me worry, but I try to remember how much car I own and how little I paid for it. There's a certain satisfaction in owning a £50,000 car that someone else has lost all the value on. And for every post on here about blown fuses, idling problems etc. there's one about cars that are passing their MOTs without advisories at 200,000+ miles. A 430 would be the obvious step up/forward, but although it's a fabulous car it's never had the appeal of the 400 to me. The cheapest 430s now can be had for 400 money, but part of the worry for me would be that there's a lot more to go wrong with them - or am I wrong?

Well, apart from anything else, we were going to miss your posts on here! (Not that selling your Lexus means you couldn't still log on, but...) Anyway, who knows, maybe your temporary loss of mind is a warning to all of us. Maybe we will all, at some point, feel that we want to sell our LS. And at that terrible moment we'll think of you and remember your example.

Don't forget, Mike - we're all here to support you through your time of weakness. "My name is Mike, and I wanted to sell my Lexus." (All) "Hello Mike..."

You know you're getting old when the best insurance quote is from Saga... Well, Direct Line was £7 cheaper but with a very high accident damage excess. I did try NFU, as recommended by other members, but they couldn't compete. Apparently they favour rural postcodes, rather than mine (Brighton), but it was worth a try.

My LS is a second car - only for long journeys (I have a smart for running around locally). When I was looking for one last year I was advised to buy the newest example I could afford because even with a quality car like the Lexus, things wear out with age. But even the youngest ones are now more than ten years old, and knowing how much to spend on an LS is difficult. I've seen cars like mine (same age, similar mileage) on Autotrader/EBay for anything between £1500 and £5000! Higher mileage with lots of maintenance is probably better than lower mileage with no history - as with any other car. Mine's done 141,000 but feels like 100,000 less than that. My mechanic said I could run it for ten years if it's maintained properly... Anyway, while I was looking at cars last year I put together a sort of checklist which I'm going to e-mail to you (through the messaging system on here). Maybe it will help?

That's probably good news then, because repairing/replacing a starter motor isn't cheap. Hopefully it's just a battery/electrical problem.

Hello Simon and welcome to the Club. Did you have this problem before charging the battery? If you didn't, someone else on here may have an answer, but intermittent starting problems often point towards the starter motor beginning to fail - I had this problem last year, and wondered at first whether it was due to a poor connection somewhere. Unfortunately it wasn't.

I know how you feel. My car's done 141,000 but runs very well, and it's hard to see what point there would be in spending more than twice what I paid for it in order to get a newer one. Even the last of the LS400s would be only 2-3 years younger, and if it had done a low mileage it would cost a lot of money.

I agree with all of the above. In the past I've probably been guilty of posting a question rather than using the search facility, partly because of impatience/excitement/anxiety and partly because a search didn't seem to bring up anything relevant. It was also because of the friendliness and helpfulness of other members, and I wouldn't like that camaraderie to be lost. It's why I log on regularly even when I don't have anything to ask. So far (for the last 5 months) my Lexus has been great, but to be honest I'm sometimes still a bit intimidated by it. And unlike many members, I don't do any maintenance or repairs myself. But the search function IS there to be used, so I try to use it as a starting-point before I ask anything.