scythe

I suspect that most of the people on here have someone who knows them as grandad. I certainly do! : o )

Yes, a delay is normal. The car doesn't blow air on you until the ac has time to cool itself down (ie it won't blow warm or hot air already in the car/system) - which takes a moment. Driving off quickly increases the engine revs and you get cold air a bit quicker. If you're desperate and have the proper key fob thing in your pocket, as you walk up to the car push and hold the unlock button. All windows and the sunroof will open, so you get ten seconds of convective cooling before you get into the car! Then shut them all when the engine has started and the cold air starts coming through. : o )

Picture attached

Take out the metal key (by sliding the little button) - I can see from your photo that you've done that already. Turn the key so the buttons are underneath, and the lexus L is upside down. Use your thumb to slide the piece with the L away from you. If you're still stuck I'll post a photo. Incidentally, if you're out and about and the battery fails, the key can still be used to start your engine. Use the metal key to get into the car - this is intentionally a bit hard, and the lock is made of 'sticky' metal to make it hard to tamper with the lock. Then hold your key with the L pointing away from you, use it to touch the start button, and push the button. : o )

In my 2007 460 the parking sensors don't sound above a certain speed. However, the car does like a bit of a beep. Beep beep means that you're using the LKA, and it's lost the edges of the road, so it's stopped helping to steer. On the display, the sides of the road go hollow. This happens at road junctions, or just where the white-lining is poor, or when the road surface is obscured. When it starts helping again you can often feel the gentlest of tugs on the steering wheel. About 5 or 6 beeps means it thinks you've crossed a carriageway line, accompanied by nudging on the steering wheel. The cruise control beeps when it needs help. 4 beeps and orange on the display means it's lost the car in front - it knows it's still there but doesn't understand what's going on, such as at a roundabout. (This doesn't happen when a car is faster than you and just disappears that way) The car starts to slow down, as well - no throttle, and I think it uses a bit of engine braking as well. There is also a yellow flash with some more urgent beeping if it thinks it needs some help with braking - it's only allowed to do about 30% braking, and if the car in front is decelerating more rapidly it lets you know. Be careful, because as soon as you touch the brake pedal it gives control back to you - you need to do the braking. It does have some other instances of normal beeping, such as if you're not looking where you're going, when it might choose to give the brakes a nudge (this hasn't happened to me in seven years), or when you don't make any steering movements at all yourself (ie take your hands off the wheel, which I don't do!) It also has a couple of more intense responses, if it thinks there's a chance of collision, but it's not just beeping it does then! Once you know what the car is communicating to you the beeps are a bit more intrusive than they need to be, but I'd not be without them now. Enjoy!

Well, not much to go on really. <wg> But, to anyone looking, click on the photo Carl has put on, and you'll be taken to his Flickr photos. I genuinely enjoyed looking through them - some good stuff there! : o )

Well, no one seems to have noticed that this is already a UK registered car. Northern Ireland is part of the UK - it's not like it's some sort of foreign place. The Republic of Ireland is a separate UK country, and there are issues with moving cars to and from there, but not from Northern Ireland. So the questions for me would be, when did the car move from south to north, and was this properly done. To answer my own question, the HPI check that he shows says it was registered in the UK on 30.1.2014. Also, is the car what it says it is? I'd be very keen to check the Vin numbers at the front and back of the car, and see what they matched up with. There is a VIN number on his hpi check, but I'd still want to do one of my own. The problem is that you don't know the car's history in Ireland. Where is its service record? Has it been crashed? Be aware that the spec an Irish LS is likely to be different - it's certainly not got the full SE-L equipment but has the SE-L's five spoke wheels. And why are the engine covers so dirty and marked? Take care!

For what it's worth!

Yep, June! Just tried to upload a photo, but it's too hard. : o (

Hiya, this is from 4 Jan 2009 - is this about the right sort of age that you're looking at? Be careful about the Irish Presidential version, it's specification wasn't quite the same, from memory, as any of the UK ones. : o ) (By the way, I love Co.Galway. It's my favourite!) LS600 BROCHURE.pdf

Yes, I leave mine on all the time too. The temperature it refuses to come on below is about 7 degrees, I think, rather than zero. It's to stop condensation freezing inside the condenser, and causing mischief. Though I had an early Volvo with air conditioning, that, if you fiddled with the controls in the right way could be made to blow a load of 'snow' into the car on a humid day. Gave the kids a laugh! <wg>

First thing, don't panic. The refrigerant gas used these days is no long a CFC - those were the gases that remove ozone from the upper atmosphere. I've had issues with main dealers (Volvo, not Lexus) in the past with a leaking air conditioning system. They concluded that because they could hear bubbling noises from the evaporator (which is normal) then there must be leaking going on. No check with ultraviolet. I knew they were wrong, and took it to a specialist, who checked with ultraviolet, and sorted out the real leak very quickly, including vacuuming the system before refilling. There is some lubricant in with the refrigerant. This is absorbed by the O rings in the system, and this keeps the joints tight. That's why, even if you don't use air con in the winter, five minutes use every month is a good thing. Incidentally, using air con in the winter dries out the inside of your car, and keeps it that way. I recommend it. : o ) Good luck.

Too much loafing about in luxury cars? Park further away in Car parks! Hahahahahaha!

The change in width came suddenly between 430 and 460, I think - but only by just under two inches. I wish that my (personal) width had increased by no more than that in the last twenty years. < g >

Here's the lookup tool: http://www.lexus.co.uk/owners/your-lexus/#/RecallInformation. It is accurate for my car - ie, I still need the petrol pipe recall doing, but not the valve springs. As far as Cornish roads go, they aren't too bad in an LS. My 02 LS430 was a very manouvreable car, that could readily be turned, parked and squeezed into spaces, but they increased the distance between front and back wheels on the 460 (and its not the longer cars I'm talking about here), resulting in something that needs a bit more care with the back wheels, and a wider space to spin round in. You do quickly learn to feel where the mirror-folder button is when you drive on narrower roads! : o )

The valve spring recall will almost certainly have been done. If it hasn't then they'll do it for you for free. However, there's now a fuel pipe recall. This is a shorter job, but still takes about 3 hours. This, again, will be carried out free by a Lexus dealer. If you ring them then they'll sort it out for you, but they are probably hoping to stretch it out til your next service. I'm glad that you're pleased with the car. I've had one for six years now, the longest I've ever owned a car, and I have a strong feeling that there will never be another car built that I enjoy driving and using so much. : o )

www.howmanyleft.co.uk takes a bit of interpretation. Notice there's a few tabs on the pages, each filling in a bit of the story. It looks to me as though mark 1 to mark 3 are combined together under the heading LS400, and that Mark 4s are under the heading LS400 AUTO. To find the total number of LS400 these numbers need to be added together. Between 1990 and 2000 Lexus sold 8084 LS in the UK. In 2000, they sold a further 426. : o )

https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/ : o )

I know that this information is of little real use, but Lexus Manchester had the car for sale in November 2008: Model Lexus LS 430 4.3 4-Door Saloon Registration MH05AEJ Date Aug 2005 (05) Mileage 28,450 Colour Canterbury Blue Interior cream rutland leather Transmission Automatic Fuel Petrol Price £18,995 : o )

Hi Suman, just a word of support. I'd just like you to know that I've read your comments on here for several years, and watched your postings on youtube. I've always enjoyed reading them because you've been so open about your life, and have recorded both the good bits and the bad. I hope your experiences with some of the comments that you've had recently, that seem to come either from simple folk who don't think things through before they type, or from those from Scandanavian mythology, will not put you off continuing to record your life on here down through the years. Though it's obviously part of the wild internet, the people who are attracted to post on this site do seem to be particularly decent and likeable, the sort you could have a chat with in a pub, and mild skirmishes are no more than that. However, as in life, unpleasant solids sometimes float through, but if left alone they generally tend to just disappear! Failing that, just complain to the site moderators! All the best. : o )

Looking back at this, I can see I was wrong. The words refer to the blocks above them, not underneath. 7 degrees for castor sounds ok. As do the camber angles of less than a degree . Sorry!

Well, I'm no expert, but your chart seems to be showing a lot of red readings - ie wrong. In particular, seven degrees seems to be a lot of camber on the front wheels, and the chart is showing this setting as being wrong. I'd have expected a lower value for this. I am aware (being careful here about libel!) that there are tyre selling chains with great laser kit for four wheel alignment, but who don't have anyone trained properly to use it. I think that's the thing. Why not ring your local Lexus dealer and ask them who they use? (They won't be doing it themselves round the back, whatever, they may pretend!) Or just ask on here who people would recommend. : o )

Hi Dan, I've got a lexus ipod kit on mine. It integrates with the in-car stuff, showing what's playing, and allows you to cycle through your playlists. It does mean that anything you want to listen to must be in a playlist, but you can make a playlist the entire contents of a CD, or even a particular artist or group. There are other ipod kits around, some do more than the lexus one, and maybe some do less. Maybe you should ask your dealership? The gearbox thing - it does have eight gears, and with the ect in 'normal' the car does leave it too late to deal smoothly with gearchanges. I suspect that the 'normal' position is there to maximize the car's apparent economy for it's carbon dioxide figure, but it isn't very pleasant to use. My advice is to keep the switch at the sports setting. The gear changes are then always spot on. Some people with LS430s have said that they get better economy with the sport setting, but I've not tried measuring this. Certainly with this setting the car cruises in as high a gear as possible - giving suprisingly low rpm at motorway speeds - but quickly drops down when you need a bit of extra power. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the car. I suspect that, in time, you'll look back on it and remember it as the last great car you ever had! : o )

Hi Nige, what you're describing is the front pre-crash system (PCS) fitted to some cars. In the LS460, for instance, there is a pair of near-infrared cameras behind the centre driver's mirror, which, along with two infrared illuminators that help it at night, creates a 3D image of what's in front of the car. This, along with radar data, is constantly monitored by a computer, which, if it thinks that in the near future you are going to attempt to occupy the same region of space as another object or vehicle will respond in a number of ways. It's gentlest response is, when in adaptive cruise control, it realises that to avoid a slowing car in front a greater brake force than about 20% of the maximum is needed. The car beeps at you, flashing yellow, basically asking you to assist with the braking. Next level of response involves the car flashing red at you, when it thinks things are getting serious. This doesn't require the cruise control to be activated. The car flashes red at you, beeps continously, and gives you a nudge by doing a bit of semi-serious braking. Third layer of response is when it thinks that collision is a real possibility. First, the doors unlock. Second, the electric pretensioners wind in the seatbelts. Third, the response of the brakes is increased - only a small brake pressure will result in maximum braking force. Fourth, the steering ratio is changed to give maximum steering response. Fifth, the suspension is hardened to its stiffest setting. The doors unlock to make it easier to rescue you after an accident. In the LS460 they are normally set to lock automatically when you first set off. The pretensioners are not like the explosive ones found on other cars. Explosive pretensioners are designed to tighten the belt in that tiny fraction of a second after collision has begun. They will hurt you, and they only have a very short time to reel in your seatbelt. Electric pretensioners have a longer timeframe to operate over, in the region of 1 second. They have time to wind in a lot of belt. They don't damage you, but for the five seconds or so until they release you, breathing will become a thing of the past! And being an electric device, once they have released you, they are ready to be used again and again - they don't need replacing like explosive ones do. The brake force is increased to the point of stability control being needed. This is because, just before an accident, people often don't brake as hard as they could, and when they do, the braking force and/or the noise feel of the ABS makes them stop braking. The LS460 has a variable steering ratio. How much the wheels turn when you turn the steering wheel (and how much force you need to turn it) varies with a preset program. However, in an accident, people often don't do enough to steer around an obstacle, so in the pre-crash situation a smaller turn of the steering wheel gives the largest possible steering effect. Hardening the suspension has two effects. First, it improves braking. Second, it makes it less likely that the car's nose will 'dive', causing it to underrun another vehicle, increasing risk to you and your passengers. Incidentally, there is also a rear crash protention system. Under the rear bumper there is a second radar unit, measuring speed and distance of the car behind you. If it thinks a collision is possible, it responds by rapidly moving front seat headrests til they make contact with the driver and passenger's heads, locking into position for about three seconds, then returning if not needed. If you weren't aware of this system, you might not realise that it had activated itself. Both my rear and front pre-crash systems have each activated twice. The rear one activated each time in a traffic queue, when the car behind approached too rapidly for comfort. The front system activated once at a roundabout, where, at the last moment, I decided not to go onto the roundabout because a car was coming more quickly than I'd initially though from the right. The other time it activated was, a lot like your situation, Nige, where a car pulled out and I had to stop very quickly. This is all great technology, I think, that Lexus should be encouraged to continue to develop.

Interesting! Can I say, though, that it wasn't my thread - I was only commenting in the thread someone else had started.