AndrewSavage

Congratulations on the new car! Love mine 😍👍 (pic from when I bought it lol)

Looknig forward to more updates 🙂

Great work. 🙂

I had a towbar fitted to my 01 GS430 just over a month ago at David Murphy just outside Belfast. It was expensive because it needed imported from Belgium, £450 fitted I think for a standard bar. I went for a detachable with the 2nd grey electric socket and it cost over £500. I towed a large caravan with an 98 GS300 for years with no problem and hope the 430 will be the same. My parents have towed a caravan for about 7 years now with their LS400 and have had no problems. I emailed Lexus UK when I had the towbar fitted to the GS300 "Dear Mr Savage. Thank you for your email to Lexus GB Ltd. Yes, Mr Savage your vehicle should be fine. When the tow bar is fitted, your vehicle will be capable of towing a maximum load of 1,500 kg. There is also an additional upgrade kit that will allow you to tow a greater load if needed which would allow a maximum tow load of 2000 kg. I hope this is of some help to you and if I can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me. Kind Regards Tyronne Springer Lexus Customer Account Manager 0845 278 8888" Here's a link from when I was having the towbar fitted to the GS300

It's still making the noise but hasn't got any worse. From reading the links above, the GS430 only came with the uprated pump. I had it up at Charles Hurst Lexus and spoke to a mechanic who thought the pump was just noisy. Not going to do anything about it for now. I've been searching for rust, the worst I've found so far is under the car below the spare wheel where there is a lack of underseal, also the front lower edge of the sunroof and a small surface patch beside the battery. I've been reading up and think I need to rub the rust off with a wire brush, treat with rust converter & paint with something like Zinga. Can't help thinking I was a bit mad to spend so much on a 19yo car LOL Not worked out the MPG, but it's not good 🙂 Andrew

Hi, my 2001 car is listed as a sport on the service records from the dealer & when I went to insure it they called it a sport from the reg no. It has the sport logos on the side rear windows and 18" wheels, but also on the sticker on the drivers door pillar it says sport. The car looks to be sitting at the same height as my old 98 GS300.

The car covered about 3000 miles over the last year and the owner lived less than a 5 min drive from work and had the use of a van. I'm heading up to Charles Hurst in the morning to get a switch bulb replaced & will talk to them about it. I know its a bit early to be buying replacement parts, but there is an Aristo for breaking locally on Gumtree and they would sell me the unit for £80. I Andrew

Do I get an award, or a slap for digging up this old thread? 🙂 Thought it could be useful to someone. I had a Brink detachable towbar fitted to my 98 GS300 about 12 years ago at David Murphy Towing in Belfast but sadly sold that with the car a few years back and the towbar is now out of production. Anyway I phoned them again today to price one for my 01 GS430 and they have quoted me £450 fixed or £550 detachable fitted, shipped from Belgium with a lifetime warranty. They can make a towbar for cars registered before 1st August 1998 however after that date they have to type approved. My old GS300 was fantastic for towing our 6 berth caravan over many years, though awful on petrol at about 15-17mpg. As Towing is something we don't do every day then this isn't too much of a problem. 🙂 Here is a thread from when I ordered the towbar for the GS300 Andrew

Yea, the car didn't make the noise on the test drive and the brakes do work well. In reading some threads, people are saying they wouldn't drive the car until it was fixed. If Lexus are OK with the noise then I will continue to drive the car and see if it gets any worse.

Hi, It is a chirping noise. I have no lights on and the noise isn't there on every drive. I paid about top price for the car because of it's condition so I'm pretty annoyed. The soonest I can get to the dealer is Friday, not sure how the car got through an inspection with noisy brakes. Thanks Andrew

Thanks 🙂 Went to pick the car up on Friday night, sadly it hasn't had the valet and it spent yesterday ferrying dirty kids between football games, football training, and parties. I can't wait to give it a proper clean, but sadly we are out in it again all day today. 🙂 I had to drive home from buying it in our other car as my wife can't drive a manual. In my first drive after getting home it's obvious he car has an issue with the brake booster or ABS pump which I hadn't noticed on the test drive. I have read plenty about this over the years and my old 98 car was noisy. but this sounds different from that one. On phoning the guy I bought it off he seemed surprised I was asking about it and says the cars always don it since he bought it. Here's a video of a similar sounding car. Needless to say I am sick with worry. The car was serviced on Friday and they gave it a clean bill of health, but has to back next week for a bulb in the heated passenger seat switch, so I will talk to them about the noise. There are 15 stamps from the original dealer in the service history and the first owner had it up until last March, the latest owner has only added 3000 miles since then and was keen to point out he's spent over £700 in the last week on tyres and servicing. Hopefully I'll get the car polished up soon and can add some better pictures 🙂 Andrew EDIT Here is a quick video I made before going out.

Thanks. Bought the original Dark coloured GS430 Sport 🙂 (It's green but looks black in the pics) I've been looking at LOADS of cars but I couldn't find one with as good a service history, this is 100% Lexus and up to date.. I can't pick it up today as it's in Lexus for a service & valet so will be getting it tomorrow. 😄 I rang the insurance (LV=) and surprisingly they've refunded me £15 on changing over from the 2005 E270 Diesel? 🙂 Happy days. Will post some pics when I get it. Cheers for the advice.

Your car is FAB, especially after the work you have done to it. Not sure about that GS430 and how that might cause insurance problems. My last GS was hit while parked & written off Cat D I think, I bought it back from the insurance company and kept it another year. Might get a quote out of interest.

Thanks for that info!. I've had my heart set on a 430, but the GS300 I had was quick enough, so I would consider another. There's one for sale locally, 2001 140,000 for £1200 but it's no mention of service history etc, think I could do better for the money. This GS300 in Kilmarnock looks far better, & would be easy enough to bring home and the ferry is cheap to Cairnryan Full MOT 95,000 miles looks in really good condition. If it's in as good condition as it looks then I'd be very tempted. I'll give him a ring 🙂

I'm still looking for a car 🙂 I offered £2700 on the dark car, and got rejected, I know it's beautiful but it's pretty expensive for the age. I'll be gutted if someone else buys it, he's just put 4 new tyres on and it's booked in for a service at Lexus. I noticed the pics he used in the ad are from the dealer he bought the car from last year, I've gone off the lighter one as I found out the car was sold on Ebay last year for £1800! There is no evidence that it has had so much as a service since then so I've completely ruled it out. He was asking £3500 for it at one point. I noticed this GS430 in Liverpool, 66,000 miles and LPG for £1500. Short MOT and looks a bit rough. I'm only a few miles from the ferry and bringing the car home would only cost about £170 for the day out and I could bring the wife with me 🙂 Considering the lack of GS430s around I've started to look at LS430s thought I'm a bit worried about the extra gadgets and possible air suspension problems, Gas converting is something I would really like to do, & I need a towbar. There is an LS430 with LPG and detachable towbar on ebay for £3500 which seems better value than the local GS430 Sport There is also a 06 LS430 with LPG in NI on Gumtree for £3950 which looks fantastic , but being 06 it'll probably cost about £550 to tax. Looking forward to updating this post with pics of a new car, I wouldn't rule out ending up with another GS300 🙂

My old GS had surface rust under the sill just in front of the back wheel and suffered the same problems above with the rear brakes. I never got them properly repaired, each year for MOT the cables would have seized & would take a bit of work to get them moving again & the metal piece in the rear backing plate had broken off. I tightened up the cables and they worked enough to get the car through MOT. Other faults were leaky radiator, throttle position sensor (replaced the whole throttle body for £30) worn suspension bushes, broken spring. Not bad for 8 years of driving. Took the reliability for granted in the end and moved to Mercedes which hasn't been so good 🙂 As for viewing any car, I live 10 miles away from the dark green car in Belfast and have been to see it, the light green car is a few hundred miles and a ferry away, I would be buying it blind. The guy in Belfast with the higher mileage wants £3200 and the English car can be had for £3000. Thanks Andrew

Thanks for that. My 98 GS300 had a wet floor in the rear passenger footwell. It really spoiled the car. I read somewhere that it was caused by the heater matrix or aircon. I did look at the sunroof but probably not closely enough 🙂 I've lost my login details from my original account

I didn't realise it was 10 years, that's pretty good news and a plus for the Sport 🙂 The only other thing is I love the reg on the English car.

Both cars are beautiful, I know from the standard stereo in my 98 GS300 was great, so the Levinson must be really good. I must admit I prefer the idea of the sport and i've been to see it in the flesh but it probably makes more sense to buy the younger car with fewer miles and I'd regret not having the better stereo. The sport is really dark green, looks black.

Hi, I had a GS300 for about 8 years from about 2007 and loved it, stupidly moving to Mercedes when it came to replacing it. I've fallen in love with a local (Belfast) 2001 GS430 sport 89000 miles, full dealer history, 18" Sport alloys etc, car looks totally immaculate inside and out. The timing belt was last done in 2004 but the seller assures me this is good for 10 years... I'd have thought 6 years.. I also need clarification on the service history as I only see stamps up to 2017. The original owner had the car serviced from new until 2017 at the supplying dealer. The car was up for £3400 when we went to see it, the seller told us he wasn't fussed if it sold or not so we didn't make an offer. I've noticed he's now dropped the price to £3200. Looking around I see another GS430 for sale, 2002, 63000 miles, not a Sport but has the same wheels and boot spoiler for sale in England. This car has the Levinson stereo with sat nav which the local sport doesn't. Other than lower trim below the bumpers is there much difference? I'm tempted to buy the English non sport car which would also then involve the cost of travelling over and back, But the car would be a year younger with 20,000 less miles. What's your thoughts? Not sure if I'm allowed to provide links to the adds. Thanks Andrew

Great work. 😉