GreyBeard

these's no LS400 with a 2.5 engine, is there?

must be tyres on wheel arch liners, or wheels on calipers, or something. can't you load it up, then feel around tyres and wheels?

NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Attach one end to battery negative terminal and the other end to the ENGINE BLOCK! select a suitable lug, bolt, etc but it must be substantial and bolted to the engine block without anything insulating it. i can't tell you exactly which point cos my LS400 is still in the garage (i feel like one of the members who's joined up but hasn't got a lexus!)

sometimes it's the simple things make me laugh! :P

and anyone who says "electric? i thought my lexus was petrol?" can go to the back of the class!!

re-read my last post cos i've edited it. however, the electric starter motor draws a huge amount of power when it starts. possibly 600 amps or so (a headlight bulb draws about 5amps by comparison). there is an earth (negative) path from the battery negative terminal, usually to the body/chassis of the car, and then on to the engine block. these are very thick, short lengths of cable. if any of the connections are corroded, rusty, loose, or worn, then their ability to supply a return path for 600amps is much reduced. effectively this means that the poor connection is probably able to carry enough electricity for all the normal functions, but when you switch on the starter it can't cope. thus, a jumper cable could 'bridge over' the poor connection and make things work. it's a simple, quick test. i hope i've explained it better this time!!

it won't be krud in your starter then, if it's only a year old. usually that applies to 14 year old starters that haven't been touched for 125 thousand miles! is it possible the bolts used to hold the starter in place were not properly tightened last year? they are very hard to get at and it's possible someone didn't do a proper job. this could allow the bendix to miss the flywheel teeth, or simply make for a poor earth. as i recall, you can't easily get to the starter to see if it's loose. have you tried for an ordinary earth fault? i would use one jump lead (jumper cable) and go from the negative terminal on your battery to a good earth point on the block. then try starting it. if not, then hope the garage can fix it!

so what happened about your overheating?

just a whine sounds like the bendix is not engaging. there's a great article somewhere about repairing the starter motor (which is buried between the heads) and when it was taken off it was full of carbon and metal dust. a long weekend job.

if you're on AOL, then download (or get the disc) AOL 9 cos it doesn't block spam (or perceived spam) it sends it to a spam box that you can look at, then mark the legitimate items as non-spam so that the anti-spamming software can easily learn what you want delivered and what you want blocked. it works a treat for me, better than the old system of just bouncing what it thought was spam.

what an amusing, interesting, informative read! glad it cleared up, as predicted by the more serious members! next time i have a heart attack, i must remember to post it before the ambulance comes!

i guess the reduced understeer is more to do with the lower profile than the wider tyre. if i put wider tyres on my std rims, i would think understeer would be worse. i'll have a think about new alloys tho, but having spent more than the national debt already, it'll have to wait a while!

it comes in pre-washed and pre-shredded! so, dole queue for you then! B)

i thought these little lexuses were supposed to be quick!! i once did scratchwood services to M6/J28 in 104 minutes (in the days when getting caught at over a ton only cost £100 and three points!) in a citroen CX25 (non turbo).

a likely story!! a good chance to give it some welly! :P

it was a gold member who'd seen my pic of the 'gaydon ticket collectors' and was looking for them! ^_^

the book said i should have 205/65/16R s on mine, so i fitted four new uniroyals, but the front still understeers like mad. what make are yours?

go here: http://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/forum/ind...=0entry126798

this comes up so often that lexus ought to repair it for free! i'll try to find the last thread for you.

great picture; well polished dark green always looks good - although mine's been re-sprayed and oven baked, because it's the original silver colour, it'll never look as good as yours! i see you've got clear lights; i have the front bumper ones, but where can i get the indicator side repeaters from?

it may have been, but i used to like sitting on the solid fuel boiler in the kitchen (cos it was warm and cosy) and every time she saw me, she used to have a little go about 'farmer giles'!! she was right of course, took me ages to get rid of them!

Didn’t your mum ever tell you that sitting on something warm for too long gave you haemorrhoids?

why didn't you just PM him?

do you want to take the wheels off, or do you want to raise the car up to get underneath?

how old is your new drain on your wallet?? as toyota seem to have problems with the electronics on the early ones, i guess colin's observation is the most likely. if it were mine, i'd be looking for a small connector under the seat, or an interconnecting wire in the region of the rear of the squab and the bottom of the back. but as mine is a 1990, they don't have heated seats, so i can't offer any more. but i'm only in hungerford, so if you want a meet up, PM me and we can swap 'fishing stories'. <_<