HD462

Hi Jim, it may have been, but I don't have the car now, sold it in the summer. That's why I've been looking at them again lately as missing it. I just left the pic on my avatar for now. Washington is only about 25 miles from us, so could have been our old car. He doesn't work at Nissan though, he lives in the town, and had had a stroke, bought it because he liked the car, and the tilt wheel, electric seat, and memory made it easy for him to get in and out.

I was thinking that too, just got it in my email. It was a on a private plate when I mentioned it. Thing is he says no relaxation pack in the description, the other one did. Only way to tell for sure is to do a text the reg, but don't want to spend another £3 to find out when I'm not interested in it. Wouldn't touch him with a bargepole now...lol

Yeah, i know that mate, I just meant he doesn't help people who live around there to sell their cars, as his actions will make people cautious of adverts in that area in case he has multiple ebay accounts, probably has...lol Good luck with the sale. :)

Shocking Bluesman, only one word for him, conman! Yeah, I saw after I posted that Ifty, the one with pics taken in a car park. It is the one I thought was him again, not wanting to be biased against Dudley...lol :) He doesn't help genuine people trying to sell a car around that area. :)

Yep, that's what I said, plus he has another one on now, an LS400, looks quite nice actually, and good price, but wouldn't touch him now. He's obviously dishonest even though he makes a big thing of checking his feedback, leaving out that it had been a write-off from the advert is deceitful, and wastes everyone's time. Is Ifty your name on eBay, I think I've come across your ad when I've been looking, but dismissed it thinking it may be that sonofadam using another name, with it being in the same region. Obviously not. :)

I''ve been looking for another Lexus after regretting selling our LS400 earlier in the year. I rang that seller called sonOFadam last week about an LS430 he had advertised, looked very good, low miles at 68,000, sold with a private plate on it. I asked a few questions, tyres, exhaust ok, asked no dents dings etc, as they're normally in very good condition. He said it had had a pair of new wings on before he got it. I said could it have been in a frontal impact as they don't tend to rust, and both wings would indicate a frontal impact, rather than one being bumped in a car park. I said has it been a Cat C or D, he says yeah, I think that was it. I did a basic textthereg on it, and it came back as having been an insurance total loss. It's not advertised now, so looks like someone bought it. He sounded quite young an nervous on the phone, spoke very fast. He told me it was his dads, and he'd been using it, and was getting a LS460 as his reason for sale. He's obviously a trader by the amount of cars he lists.

Seems expensive for what if does. I have an afternarket radio in my Pajero form Aldi that does all this stuff for £50, they work very well. mp3 on memory car, usb stick, or cd, bluetooth connection for your phone, stream music over bluetooth to radio etc. But probably like me, you wouldn't want ot change the Lexus radio as they look nice, and integrate into the dash well. Another option if you have a cassette slot on the radio (have to see on that small photo), is a cassette adaptor. It fits the cassette slot and has a pick up head where the tape would normally run. The cable has a standard 3.5mm headphone plug on it which you plug into your iPod, Smartphone, mp3 player headphone socket. Turn the volume down stighly on you mp3 player to revent feedback, and use the volume on your car radio. We got one for the mx5 when we had it last year, and have tried it in the LS400 we've just got, works fine. They're very cheap on eBay, don't think you've allowed to put a link on here, but if you go on eBay and put this item number in the search box you'll find them. Item No: 150775916487 It's a much cheaper option to do the same thing, and no worse than the trailing wire you on that adaptor.

I'm late reading this thread I know, but of all those brands you listed I've only heard of Apex and Eibach. Our local motor factor that we all use for parts at work when working on cars, consistently supplies Apex more than any other. I've never heard of any problems with them, over any other brand. It's the speed humps that;s the problem....lol Is Stein a shortened name for Bilstein, as I've never heard of them, but the Bilstein name goes back years.

Hi Norman, I know what you mean the "Lexus rear light" look started it all off some years ago, and all the manufacturers seem to have gone that way, clear lenses with coloured bulbs. They do look nice, but to my eyes I find them harder to see flashing in bright sunlight compared to the old style lenses. Can't seem to see anywhere on ebay doing them apart from foreign sellers, China or US, I did look after I saw Edd China fit them as they do make the car look younger.

I'm not up to speed on the fineries of the LS engine yet, having only had ours a couple of weeks. But if it has hydraulic tappets like most engines nowadays, it was probably just a sticking lifter. We had this happen to our mx5 last year after it had been stood a couple of weeks, sounded like an old sewing machine, but sorted itself out after about half an hour running, never did it again. It's usually when the engine stops in just the wrong spot leaving the valve lifter under pressure so it slowly squeezes all the oil out, sometimes takes a while to prime itself with oil again. Re flushing fluids, I've never used them, and we never use them in our fleet vehicles at work. The rule in the trade with worn engines is the carbon build up etc may be compensating for wear in the engine. If you remove the carbon then you may introduce slack into the engine and cause burning oil etc. If you use good quality oil, and do regular oil changes any build up should be minimal anyway. I think they're more of a placebo effect than genuinely useful. I've always been told not to use synthetic oil in an older engine, because of the seals in older engines being made of a different material to newer seals, and the synthetic oil would damage the seals in older engines causing leaks to develop. At work we have two different oils that have to go in certain vehicles depending on the age due to this. It's ok saying we have filters, loose deposits need to get to the filter first. It they snag up in an oilway, some of which can be quite narrow, it can cause a blockage leading to reduced oil flow and even seizure (think blocked arteries in your heart stopping the blood from getting round properly).

Thanks Mark. The touch screen is good, though I don't even want to think about it going wrong, but the satnav is outdated and clunky to use. I'm not sure if it can be updated usefully, or what it might cost (think we can safely assume not cheap!!), but I just plug my old tom tom one in on the rare occasion I need satnav. I know what you mean about the satnav, from what I've read they moved from a cd based system, to a dvd based one, so probably not possible to update. Although the touch screen functions look nice to have for the radio, climate control etc. I guess you'd have to come from the angle of just enjoy using it while it works, and it it breaks eventually, just don't repair it, due to the value of the cars now. Enjoy. :)

Hi Norman, I noticed the clear lenses after I sent that last post, so thought you must have done the conversion. I saw Edd China do it on the LS400 episode of Wheeler Dealers, he also fitted different alloy wheels, and it does modernise the look of the car. The only thing stops me doing it, as although they look good, I'm not a fan of clear lenses with coloured bulbs on any car, to be honest. From a safety point of view, they're much harder to see in bright sunlight than amber lights. But all the new cars seem to be going that way, style over function maybe?

I see in now Norman, looks very nice. Where did you get your chrome tailpipes? I've been looking for some, but you can't fit normal ones with the ends of the tailpipes being curved, unless you chop the curve off, which I don't really want to. Although looking at yours pointing down rather than straight out, have you just fitted them to the curve at the end?

Hi Mike, looks very nice. I see you've got the in dash satnav / control centre with it being the later model. That's something I would have liked being into my gadgets. :)

You could just put a link to the album on Norman, then we can click on it to go to the album. One we can see them, we may be able to link back to them for you. We've had the car two weeks today, and done 600 miles already. :)

Host the photos on a photo sharing site, such as Photobucket. Then copy the url of the photo, then come here to post and paste the url with these tags in front and behind it, like this but without the spaces. [ img ] myimageurl [/ img ] There's also an 'image' button at the top of this text editor, but doesn't seem to add the link properly, that's why my photos weren't showing at first. I had to edit the post and type the links by hand.

Yeah, I've been reading about that on here a few days ago, the place in Leeds? Have to think about it, best done soon after getting it if possible to maximise savings, but not sure how long I'll keep it. I worked out the other day it would take a year to pay for itself with the miles we do. We do a fair few miles as we like to go on roadtrips (did all round Scotland in the Pajero last year, and Devon and Cornwall later in the year in the mx5). You'd be unlikely to get the money back on selling the car as it'd make it too expensive, so would have to be done on the basis of more than covering the cost just on fuel savings.

Really good shine you've got there, looks like it's just come out of the showroom. Re Pajeros, yep, the 2.8 is the one to go for, more power and torque, great for towing. I thought that was luxurious with all it's toys, until we got the Lexus, the Paj can go off road too though....lol :)

That's exactly how I get my head around the fuel costs, same with the Pajero. When people looked shocked at the mpg, I say yes, but I've got a car that the depreciation is virtually nil on, a car I could never afford to buy new, where on their newer car they're losing £50 a week before they even turn a wheel. They seem to conveniently forget that. One of the lads at work was looking at it at dinner time today, you could tell he fancied one. He'd got rid of his 51 reg Rover 75 for and 08 reg Megane because he wanted the cheaper road tax. I said to him, you've paid out an extra £5,000 to save a bit on road tax...lol When he was looking today, I said see, you could have got one of those instead of your Megane, and had £5,000 left over. He said yeah, but more tax and fuel. I says, yeah, but you can buy a lot of tax and fuel for £5,000 :)

Thanks for the replies guys, and to mikey for sorting the photos out, dunno why they wouldn't show, but I know some forums say you need to have ten posts or something before you can post photos. There was a couple more pics I think, I'll see if I can sort the first post out, or copy and paste the link to get the photo up. I know what you mean about car magnet, I always park away from other cars so you don't get doors whacked into you (I do with the Pajero too), but you always come back and people have parked around you, even when there are loads more spaces they could have chosen. Those photos were taken at a classic car show we went to on Sunday. The guy waved us in as we were going to the public car park. I stopped saying did you think we were going into the show, as we hadn't booked (and it's not really old enough). He said yes, you can just pay on the day, so we put it in....lol We had a 1991 Eunos Roadster last year (Mazda mx5 import), which we put in shows, it was just old enough at 20yrs old. The LS certainly turned heads anyway, saw a few people giving it the once over. :)

Hi Will, Yeah it's pretty tidy, the odd scrape and a couple of small dents here and there, but nothing for it's age. I'd rather see it original like that than just been painted and not sure what's underneath. Yep, the front heated seats both work, the rear ones too, burns your backside off. Not something I'd probably use much really. I think I've checked everything electrical now, and all seems to work fine. It was for sale for £1690 originally ( at a used car dealer), then he reduced it by £100. Then just before we bought it he reduced it again to £1290, which made it more interesting re a possible swap. What we paid depends what you valued the wifes car at, as it was that, plus £300. We paid £1200 for it last October, so I'd say it was worth £1000 to £1200, so for the LS, roughly £1200 to £1500 with the extra £300. I have seem them cheaper on eBay, but with more miles on, but this has none of those dreaded car park dings down the panels, and the interior is really good too. With 11 months mot, and full history/bills too, I felt it was worth it.

Hi Oliver, I work on heavy vehicles, and they're used on them to hold access panels up. A mate had a few that were obsolete stock (nothing they fit anymore), we compared them and found a pair the same size, so didn't cost me anything. Before I mentioned it to him, I was going to get them from eBay, they're about £50 a pair on their and a fiver delivery. I won't post a link as it's probably against forum rules, but if you go on eBay and put "Lexus LS400 bonnet struts" into the search box you'll find them.

Hi all, Just a bit of an intro, as a new LS400 owner. I hadn't really considered one before, or actually seen one. But when I was looking for a car for my son a month or so ago I spotted this LS in the traders yard. Joked to my son, "what about this one then", to which I got the reply, "yeah as if I could afford the insurance on that". I said, "I didn't mean for you, I meant for me....lol" First thing I noticed when I opened the door, was the deep pile carpet, leather seats that looked in really good condition for it's age, and a pretty much as new looking interior in general. I put it on my eBay watch list when I got home, and kept looking at it. Problem was I have an Older Mitsubishi Pajero too, that's done me well for two and a half years and 28,000 miles without missing a beat, so reluctant to get rid of it, especially with any new car being an unknown quantity until you've lived with it for a while. On paper the running costs looked good, similar mpg to the Pajero, but didn't really want to lay out any extra money on a car at the moment. I'd shown it to the wife, but saw no way to get it and keep the Pajero for now (at least until the LS proved it's reliability). But I had mentioned to my wife that the car tax on her Daewoo Tacuma was more than doubling, thanks to the budget (going up to £460 a year same as large 4x4s and the like). It was due the end of April so she suggested getting rid of hers now as they reckon prices will nosedive when people realise about the car tax increase. So I said I'd been watching the LS and he'd reduced the price a couple of times and it was now somewhere near what her car was worth. I suggested we see if he fancied a straight swap, as he might fine the Tacuma easier to sell than a car with a 4 litre engine the way fuel prices are. So we went and had a haggle. Didn't get a straight swap, but a swap plus £300, which wasn't too bad. It's a 1996, 11 months MOT, just under 100,000 miles when we got it, now just over, full history right up to 95,000 miles, with bills showing work done, including timing belt kit at 95,000. Been on a private plate until 2009. I always thought the gearchange on the Pajero was smooth, but the LS is in another league. You don't even feel it, and so quiet, even at 70mph. I spent 4 hours washing, polishing, nourishing the leather, and cleaning the engine bay on Saturday ready for a run out yesterday. You certainly noticed it turning heads. Seems a really good car up to now, loads of toys, and everything seems to work, even had the original Lexus "Welcome to the LS400" CD in the autochanger. I've found a few things need doing but nothing major, the stalling thing coming off a motorway, did that a couple of times, but found the answer on here (thanks), the bonnet struts were weak, changed them already. Brakes need looking at, but would do that anyway with any new car I get. Also the rattle that I've read about on here when cold, but goes once warmed up (shield or idler pulley bearing, haven't had chance to have a good look yet). But nothing major, drives like a dream, I won't mind putting a couple of hundred quid into it to sort the minor issues out. Here's a few of pics after polishing it, if they show, not sure if new members will be able to post photos. I know some forums don't let you: