scythe

http://www.rrg-group...exus-ls-46-se-l

I've known that it existed, and waited for it to come out of the woodwork. Now I see it, I know that it's the wrong colour for me - I much prefer darker colours. I believe it's the only one of its kind in the UK, and was sold just at the point that Lexus stopped selling us the 460.

If you look through the spec, it's got something that no other 460 on British roads has. I could tell you, but I know how much everyone likes a good puzzle. But here's a clue. If you look at the DVLA page you'll notice that its CO2 figure is 274, more than any other LS. They've also had to reduce the power of the engine, compared to a standard 460, to stop it doing too much damage.

: o )

Hi Erik, sorry to hear about your problem. The good news of course is that you're alright! As for the car, it's a tough old thing, but yes, there could be other problems. A common one is that the engine mounting blocks, the thick dense rubber blocks that hold your engine to the chassis, can fracture. Not a difficult problem to solve for someone who knows what they're doing to solve, but an irritation.

My first step would be to look on www.askmid.com to check that the person who struck you (and who is entirely responsible) is insured. If they are, then everything will be ok either way.

What you do after that is up to you. I'd try to sort out any cost implications with the person who collided with me. At the other end of the scale you could release the dogs of war, and ask your lexus dealer for details about accident management companies, who will try to extract as much money for themselves from the other person's insurance, and possibly sort your car out too - but this would leave you feeling ..... well, not good, anyway! If there is damage, the other person's insurance company will pay, and you can even deal with them directly.

Good luck.

Hi Mike,

Sorry to hear you've had so much trouble.

For me, the question would be 'why is one tyre different to the others?'. My guess would be that the original one was badly damaged and punctured - and the thing I'd be asking myself is whether this has affected the geometry of the steering.

Certainly mixed tyres on the same axle are a problem, but as a minimum they should be taking the car to their favourite tyre centre to get the geometry checked as well.

Incidentally, be careful about which tyres you have - I think that all variants of the 600 need a load rating of 102 (rather than 98), and you should know whether you've got run flats on or not.

I've chosen not to have run flats on my 460 on the basis that I've got a full sized spare.

Anyway, good luck with it all.

Well, your satnav has two ways of knowing where it is. One is that it uses the GPS signal, and when that's available, there's nothing better. Drive through tunnels or trees or anything that restricts the signal, and most sat navs will show you as stationary. However, your car knows which way it's pointing (just!), and counts turns of the wheel, so can have a pretty good guess as to where you are - and so will continue to work.

Change the tyres, though, and you might change the rolling circumference. Your sat nav would like to know so it can recalibrate itself.

Clever stuff, eh? <g>

Hi

What were the original tyres on a 2001 lexus ls430? Were they dunlop or michelin?

I had one with Dunlop SP Sport 270

Please accept my condolences for your father.

The car itself sounds great. If the tyres are original, do get someone to look at them, cos though they may not be worn out, the rubber itself will start to flake after a few years.

Good luck with it.

Brrr!

Oils and greases become very viscous and can even freeze at low temperatures. Maybe you should ask locally for some advice about suitable low temperature lubricants? It would be a shame to damage the rack or a greased joint by forcing it accidentally.

Me, if I look out of the window and can see the windscreen is frosted up, I just stay in til later <wg>.

got a mid frequency droning noise which is most noticeable at 70mph and can be made worse by a a long shallow right hand bend. Sounds like it's coming from the front offside but might not be. Any ideas? Thanks Mike

Well, in my LS I sometimes have a similar droning noise, though mine goes from mid to quite high frequencies. It can be quite persistent, often gets louder as the journey progresses and seems to be independent of either rate of turn or speed..

On other days, I leave 'her indoors' at home.

I'll stop this now, because I'm beginning to sound like something from Monty Python, but things keep coming into my head. Not just headphones, but make sure you get all the DVDs for the sat nav, not just the one that you're using. There should be two or three extra DVDs to cover the whole of Europe, should you ever need to go to Poland or Italy or whatever.

Headphones.

Mine came with two pairs of infrared headphones. This means that people in the back can watch a DVD, and hear the soundtrack, and you can listen to the radio.

There should also, as well as whatever other controls you have in the back, be an infrared remote for the in car entertainment.

My 460 has a selection of sockets, including an audio input, concealed in the centre console between the front seats. There is even a power outlet in there for a charger or whatever.

I think the best way to listen to music though is directly with an iPod. I'm a firm believer in copper wires. Your dealer, for about £100 or so will fit a thing behind the centre dash, that has an iPod type plug on a wire going into the glovebox. You can attach an iPod, and then have access to all the playlists on the iPod through the centre console radio thing.

Incidentally, check all the bits are there when you collect the car. The spare wheel, for instance! The tools. The torch. Make sure you get the right number of keys. My 460 came with two remote control type keys. There should also be at least one key card - that's a bit of plastic you can keep with your credit cards, that means you don't need to carry a car key around with you at all.

Each of the keys you have - including the key card one - has a hidden metal key inside, which you'll probably never need to use. But do check that these physical keys have all been cut, and match the ones on your car. The keycard one takes a bit of winkling out.

Good luck, and enjoy!

Well, Mick, you'll be paying £2k on a warranty that will give you a total of three years further cover, with the warranty you're already being offered, on a car that you're paying about £30k for. I agree that it's well worth it.

The way, of course, to recover this money is to haggle over the price, if you aren't part exchanging. There are plenty of cars about, so look to see what other dealers are offering, and just drop it into your conversation that you're in no hurry, and are prepared to travel to get the right car at the right price. Certainly I'd be aiming at £3k off, as you're not doing part exchange. And don't worry, you'll not offend them, even if they do splutter on about never reducing the prices of their cars. <wg>

Good luck!

Well, this sounds like a typical Lexus dealership. They don't make a great deal on many sales of cars, and try other ways of taking your money. The price of the treatment will come down to about £300 if you say "no, sorry, that's just too much".

Slightly but I don't think that you are being very fair here to single out Lexus dealerships. Over the years we have been offered this sort of thing on various marques both new AND used. I think that the majority of dealers want their sales staff to try to sell add-ons which they make money on and also pay commission on to their sales force.

Hi Dave. It wasn't my intention to pic on them! I was talking here about Lexus dealerships cos this is (I'm presuming)where Mick is buying his car from, and is one of the types of dealership I'm most familiar with. I know that other dealerships try to sell you extras along with your car.

Well, this sounds like a typical Lexus dealership. They don't make a great deal on many sales of cars, and try other ways of taking your money. The price of the treatment will come down to about £300 if you say "no, sorry, that's just too much". Whether it does do any good or not I just can't say. I had it done to my 460 three years ago, and it still seems to be having a positive effect on how easy the car is to wash - though I can't say whether it's an improvement on how good the paint would have been anyway.

The warranty you're talking about I assume is a proper Lexus warranty, the one that lists the things that aren't covered, rather than the sort of warranty that lists what is covered? £2k is about right for that for 2 extra years. I've had one of those off and on for last 13 years on different LSs. (I buy year old cars, that have automatic warranty til they are 3 anyway, then have a few years with warranty). I suspect that without the warranty, I might have saved some money - but it does give peace of mind, does cover stuff, and when you have a problem (like one where a gps sender seemed to have failed, your local dealer is very happy to do a lot of dismantling to sort the problem, whereas if they weren't sure that they could find the problem or charge you for it when they found it, they might not be prepared to - so I'd not be without it. If it's not a Lexus warranty, you'll find that when things go wrong they aren't on the list of what is covered.

The other thing they might try on is GAP insurance. Better to sort that out for yourself if you want it.

Good luck!

Lance and Mick - I don't want to offend either of you, or any other 600 owners on here!

Sorry!

Let us all know how you get on.

I'd tend to agree with NeilP1960 - get a LS460 SEL. You'd save about £10k on a like for like basis. Admittedly, you'd lose a slighty better mpg, and the short-term fun of playing with hybrid, but the 460 would probably suit you better as a retirement car - plus, imagine where you could go and what you could do in the car with that 10k!

If you had a 600, you'd probably have to have a 30 cm longer 600L- there aren't many short wheel based ones around. This gives you a car for those who like to be chauffeured around in. Sadly, though, as well as being harder to park, it also has only two seats in the back instead of three. There is then the boot size issue, the issue with what happens (and how expensive it is - another 5k, perhaps?) when the batteries fail, what happens when the car catches fire (they let it burn), the lack of LKA on any but a handful of cars, (a subtle but majorly effective toy in reducing driving fatigue).

On the plus side, the 600 is an all wheel drive car. However, it is also significantly slower to 62mph than the 460, and being 200kg heavier, is presumably a bit more difficult to stop.

I hope that I don't sound too biased? <wg>

Am I the only person on here who watches the US version of Top Gear (presently available on iPlayer)? And am I the only person who is starting to enjoy it, though only a bit?

Anyway, this week they have a decent looking LS400 from about 1982, but they aren't very nice to it.

Please don't tell me how sad I am. I know already.

Hi,

I don't think this is the answer you really want - but ...

When you tried fitting your new child seats, did you raise the head rests (done with buttons in the rear divider?) They should move far enough out of the way not to be a problem.

To get them in easily, first fit the tube guides that come with the child seats. Then slide the car seats forwards, slip in the isofix bars, and holding the child seat on the car seat, slide the car seat backwards. Wiggle as necessary, and the seat will clip on. Put the car seat all the way back, and that should be that. Obviously, check for the green indicators on each side of the car seats.

I've currently got a Britax duo plus isofix seat, and a Britax Kidfix Isofix seat in the back of my 460, and they slot in and out easily enough. A thin adult can just squeeze into the centre gap in the back.

The only problem they cause me is that sometimes I look into back of the car and wish I could just get into there, sit in a cozy seat, and have a nice sleep myself.

: o )

I think you're right.

That original wheel really does look a lot better than the aftermarket ones.

Thanks all for your wisdom.

Going to buy a mint ls400 mk1 on Sunday. At least I hope it is as its over 500 miles from where i live. Its a 94 with 60000 miles, full history, no body damage or rust anywhere.

Very likely, it's a great car that you're going to see. I found it easily enough on autotrader. I did wonder why someone who was selling his father's car would be selling it as a trader rather than privately, so I googled the trader's phone number. When using Google, I often look at the cached results as well as the ones that are still active.

One problem with buying a car on a Sunday is that you can't ring up Lexus or an independent specialist to confirm a car's service record, but I'm sure the trader would be happy to forward you details in advance.

I'm interested in how you get on here, and I'd like to know what happens, in case I'm in your situation. My insurance policy directs me to Autoglass, and I have to pay shedloads to go somewhere else, but, probably like you, one of my worries is the quality of the bit of glass they bring along to try to fit - like, who made it, and will it have the same infrared and ultraviolet properties as the one they are replacing?

If it helps, I think that because the SEL has a rain sensor, that in itself is enough to make sure they bring glass along with that already fitted. What happens with the cameras I don't really know. Probably what I'd do myself is to give them a ring, and discuss the problems with them - tell them about the rain sensor, see what they say to that, then mention the cameras and see how much of a suprise that is to them.

Do let us all know how you get on though, and good luck!

Surely the US market is still big for LS models?

I believe it is. I don't know how many LS exactly are selling in the USA, but last year Lexus sold a total of 230,000 cars there. (Their best year ever in the US was 2007, when they sold about 330,000 cars) This compares with the total 6300 or so cars they sold here in the UK in 2010. Incidentally, only 64 of those UK cars was a LS. As I said before, they're just too expensive. It makes me sad.

Sorry to have to break this to you Steve, but the LS460 has been discontinued in the UK for a couple of years now! And they aren't selling many 600s either - I think they've overpriced them so they can phase them out.

I fear that the day of the LS is coming to an end.

I'm hanging onto mine, though!

DVLA shows this as being a 1996 manufactured car, first registered in 2000, so yes, you're right!

In the past, when there is a model change, it has sometimes taken Lexus a while to shift some of the old models, but this does seem a bit extreme.

Do let us know what you find out about it.

: o )

I wonder if people have misunderstood jsj24uk?

http://www.injen.com/

Maybe they have mixed up a person who is into extreme modification with someone who simply cannot spell?