Clunkfish

I used vehicleclips.co.uk to look for these fasteners for my 2008 RX400h and these are an identical replacement for the originals: https://www.vehicleclips.co.uk/products/lexus-engine-cover-clips-plastic-trim-fasteners-for-engine-bay-shields-53259-48010 £3.49 for 10, £4.69 for 20.

Ah, thank you! I shall check with my local Lexus dealer.

I expect I am being really dense but... where is this deal available?

If they're the same as the 2008 RX400h, then these are perfect: Lexus Engine Cover Clips- Plastic Trim Fasteners for Engine Bay Shields- 53259-48010, SKU: FCP-0371-LE1x00050.

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2022/04/rare-rides-the-paul-mccartney-signature-edition-2006-lexus-rx-400h-one-of-one/

I think the disappearance of the HUD when using polarised glasses must be because light is polarised by reflection, and the HUD image is a reflected one and thus polarised. If the HUD polarisation is opposite to that of the glasses, then the image will not be visible. You can test this by viewing the HUD through one of the polarised lenses then rotating the lens - after roughly 90 degrees of rotation, the HUD image should reappear. That's because the polarisations are now aligned. (I knew that A Level in Physics would come in handy - when I took it 50 years ago!)

I must have forgotten to remove the gold bars from the boot 😀

Yes, I made that a condition of sale!

I joined this Club in 2013 when I acquired my first Lexus - a black LS400 Mk IV, with the gold badges and wooden wheel and everything. It only ever let me down once, though that was when I was on my way to my first Covid jab, which was a nuisance. A couple of months later I had a Morrison's home delivery and the first thing the driver said to me was "Is your Lexus for sale?" So I had a think about it and despite failing its MOT (needed new discs and pads all round), he was prepared to pay what I had paid for it back in 2013. So all of a sudden, I was Lexusless but with two grand in my pocket. So I started to look at other models in the Lexus range. Long story short - yesterday I bought a 2008 RX400h with 107K on the clock, full Lexus service history and everything tickety-boo except the wheels, which I will need to get refurbished. But right now, I'm enjoying being back in a Lexus, back in the Club, and gaining lots of information from all your expert posts.

Perhaps they've seen the state of our roads 😂

The disc has "Stationery" (in HMSO) misspelled as "Stationary". Perhaps they're all like that, but it does look a bit dodgy....

The kit I mentioned includes the UV blocker that stops them from re-yellowing.

I used this kit from Amazon. It worked very well - did them 2 years ago and they are still sparkling (this was on a Mark IV 1998 LS with plastic headlight lenses).

An update - the WD-40 method does work, so thank you C Mclean . I tried soaking a piece of trim (the surround to the switches on the driver's door that control seat memory etc.) in WD-40 in a plastic bag for a couple of days and that did make the glue very soft and relatively easy to scrape off. The plastic trim itself is unaffected. Obviously you have to be able to remove the trim to use this method so around the radio controls is still going to be a challenge, but I think all the rest of it should be OK once I've got the affected parts out of the car. The other thing that helps is a plastic razor-blade scraper jobby like this. It is a bit easier to get under the glue with this than using plastic trim-removal spudgers.

When I have the will to try the next stage of removal, I may well give this a go. If I do, I'll report back :-)

Yes I did try putting a heat gun on but when the glue remnants are stuck onto the existing factory trim, it's a bit nerve-racking. I didn't want to remove the glue but also destroy the original finish. The panel wipe seemed to hit the right balance between dissolving the glue and leaving the original finish intact.

Yes I tried that and it did soften the glue a little, but not nearly as much as panel wipe. I also tried oil, petrol and meths - none did anything much at all.

My LS had been "treated" by a previous owner to a big helping of wood (ooh-er missus). An after-market kit had been used to add wood trim where there hadn't been any before - around the air vents, around the navigation screen and radio controls - but also on top of the existing wooden trim on the centre console and other places. The after market stuff had not lasted well and was beginning to delaminate and unpeel itself, so I decided to strip it all off and return to the factory look. The first bit I attacked was round an air vent, stuck directly to the grey dashboard plastic. This came off very easily and left hardly any glue residue, which engendered a lot of false optimism that this was going to be a straightforward job. It bloody wasn't. The piece stuck over the centre console (i.e. the big bit round the gear knob) took about 7 hours to remove. Getting the lacquer and the after-market wood itself off was not too bad, but the glue is a bit like those foam sticky fixer things and almost impossible to shift. In the end I removed the centre console piece and worked on it outside the car, using a lot of panel wipe to soften the glue enough to scrape it off a fragment at a time, using a plastic spudger. Fortunately the factory lacquer is very good quality and is unaffected by panel wipe, so I was eventually able to get all the glue off and polish up the original wooden finish to a decent shine. I won't be attacking any other bits until my carpal tunnels have recovered and my liver has finished processing the hefty dose of solvents I got off the panel wipe!

This can sometimes just be the steering lock. I've done it myself - come out to the car, key won't turn in the ignition, panic, search online, find the "it might be the steering lock" post, go back to the car, turn the steering wheel slightly while turning the ignition key, and bob's your uncle: problem solved :-)

Steve, if you decide to replace the OEM wheels, I'd be interested in them for my 1998 LS400 (with slightly dodgy after-market alloys) :-)

As a repeated defender of Lexuschap here, I have to put my hands up and admit I was wrong about him.

See my post on LS400 headlight restoration, and attached photo. It worked very well. Feeling confident after doing this job, I then tackled the badly fogged headlights on my daughter's Hondo CR-V. The result was terrible. Those headlights were much worse than my LS400's, and it seemed like they had a particularly thick and soft top coating which was very difficult to sand off (it just kept melting and clogging the sandpaper). So I suppose the bottom line is that the 3M kit is great for moderately fogged plastic lenses, but be cautious on lenses that are very bad to begin with.

Many thanks for your response. I used to have, but then removed, a reversing camera kit, partly because it wasn't much good, but partly because I couldn't find a way to mount the monitor. Sticky pads eventually fail, and I didn't want to screw into the dash. If you find a good solution please let me know

A very neat job! How did you fix the monitor to the dash? Is it just stuck down?

I got my bonnet struts from cargasstruts as well - worked a treat, not too expensive.