goldtop

Out of interest, what is the starter issue on the Mk4? I ask as - for the first time ever - my 2000-model didn't start on the first turn the other day. It turned over and seemed to fire, but then stalled. And then it took a lot of cranking for 4 or 5 times before it did start. Luckily I had my sunglasses on so my embarassment was easily hidden.

Can tell you that there's no EML light to check. Instead you would be alerted to engine problems by the digital display under the speedo (same one that tells you if a door is not properly closed). Typically, the light that stays on when it should go out is the washer level warning (a design fault that's well documented around here).

This might be like the Mercedes W124 thing: had a few and they are famous for it (not quite as famous as they are for the rusty front wings). The springs can break but leave enough compliance in the chassis that it feels OK. You may not know until MOT time rolls round.

Does the 100k-mile service include the cambelt, too? If so that's a pretty good price. If you look at the Lexus site, they do discounted servicing for old Lexuses (Lexii?) - from £155 for routine fluids and filters. Thanks for the Opie tip, though. :)

My info is old, but the last time we went via Calais, there were a lot of migrants along the road paying attention to every vehicle going past. We didn't expect them to try to jump in of course, but wondered if there might be hassles/delays caused by incidents with trucks/etc. So for the next trip, we went via Dieppe - totally clear of any signs of trouble, fuss-free and a bit "quaint" as both ports are a bit old-fashioned. :)

Go via Newhaven-Dieppe ferry. Not that much longer and you avoid the potential dangers of Calais et environs.

Curiously, I just switched to TO esure, after morethan bumped my renewal from £150 last year to £260 this year (no changes at all apart from more grey hair). Esure were £200 via one of the comparison sites.

Had a quick look. Seems there are scammers and chancers operating in this particular market... :-/

Yes, that's bookmarked. Haven't found a specialist in the UK yet. Seems a lot of hotrodders using this engine are skilled DIYers. My spanner twirling skills are sorely lacking! :-/

As mentioned in passing on A N Other thread, I've got a vague plan to get someone to put a manual gearbox into one of my Mk4 LS400s. As the 1UZ-FE engine is a popular one for transplants into all sorts of hotrods/etc, I'm sure there are guys out there with experience of mating this engine to all sorts of manual gearboxes. (I gather there's a popular Toyota gearbox and at least one BMW box that's been proven.) But my Google-Fu is weak, and I haven't been able to find anyone specific. Has anyone here heard of a modding garage that knows the 1UZ? Any other pointers or ideas? (Alternatively, if you know of a wrecked IS-F and a genius who can squeeze the whole engine and transmission into a Mk4 chassis, let me know!)

Spend a bit of time enjoying it as-is. Then decide. FWIW, I refuse to think of it in those terms - wasting money is what you do buying a £15000 car that will be worth £11000 next year, and £8000 the year after that. But don't listen to me, I'm genuinely considering putting a manual gearbox in one of mine... :-/

Not sure if serious! Can you really not identify plenty of reasons for the price difference? Stuff like materials, manufacturing tolerances, MTBF requirements, complexity, cost of tooling per unit, reseller margins, likely time from manufacture to sale, possibility that a unit may never sell due to diminishing demand, etc. To the OP on the shimmy thing, I may have missed whether you've had the alignment done, but my Mk4 LS400 needed it at 100,000m. This was also due to a shimmy, which was like an asymmetrical 'wiggle' on hitting some holes/ruts. I took it to a local specialist with the latest gear, and they acctually made it worse. So I took it all the way to 'Wheels in Motion' (who I think gained some priase for sorting out bad tyre wear on IS200s). They had the exact same gear, but sorted the shimmy completely.

No, the posher steering wheel was a separate option, My '98 non-DHP has one, but my '00 DHP doesn't.

Congrats and welcome. :) I didn't know the Mk3 had the DHP as an option. I can see the DHP wheels, but it has the DHP springs, too?

Shirish, my LS400 only does it when cold (ambient under 8 degrees or so) and only until the temp guage has started to move. After that it's fine. And as one of the guys posted above, cycling from N to D and back a few times before driving off and at the first couple of traffic lights stops the problem from occuring. I presume that gets some trans fluid moving around inside the autobox. But it cannot be normal behaviour as Lexus intended it. So for now, I treat it as an age-related issue that I can deal with. A transmission fluid service might cure it, but then that seems tricky to do fully/right.

The initial price shown was £395 for the water pump (still showing under the LS430 column). I went in to have that done - they initially quoted quite a lot higher until I showed them this figure. Then the service dept called to suggest changing the cambelt at the same time as it has to come off anyway (yes, please!), and then they suggested the aux belt, too. They also sent me a link to a video of the mechanic checking the car over. The bill's at home so I can't remember the details on tensioner/pulley - is that a standard part of the cambelt change?

Did you ask about Lexus' own advertised fixed-price figures? It's there on the Web site. My £501 total for the same work was without any club discount/etc. Lexus Cambridge did quote higher until I showed them the Lexus page.

Well, that's not my car/wheel :) Mine - condition-wise - are way worse than that. But I'll only think about swapping when I've got all the mileage out of this set of tyres. They are a fairly tricky size/profile (I went for 235/55/17) and not so cheap, ISTR. The Big Nerdy Spreadsheet tells me that I've had 12000 miles out of one pair, and 21000 miles out of the other so far... methinks that it's probably time I checked them! :-/

The DHP wheels are all 5 the same, so when looking at them, the elongated bit of the 7 cut-outs is towards the top-right/bottom-left (which keeps things simple, but sets off the OCD in me). So they all look like this: Any notions of 'improved airflow' are marketing BS or wishful thinking. I have them on mine but don't like them (for looks nor tyre choice nor alloy quality), and next time that it's tyre change time, I may swap to non-DHP wheels.

Lexus Cambridge did my water pump, cambelt and aux belt all for £501 (inc) last summer. But I did have to point out the price given on the main Web site before they managed this - £395 for the water pump, on the LS430 (mine was a 2000 LS400).

I wasn't sure if the pink OATS stuff was chemically the same as the genuine Toyota stuff? Has anyone ever found authoritative advice on this?

Alas, the LS400 box is one of the not-so-smart ones. When you drive enthusiastically, it will always change down long AFTER you would have done in a manual. Typically, on the exit of a corner for which you've just braked hard, and are now accelerating out of, causing the car to unbalance itself, lurch and ponder as it tries to catch up. Impossible to be as smooth and quick with the LS box as a manual. Plus, it saps power and economy (less of an issue) but most importantly, if turbo/supercharging the car, it becomes the weakest link.

For what were originally sort-of-sensible reasons, I've got two LS400s. Both Mk4s, with 110-120,000 miles and recent cambelt/WP/etc work. I bought one as a Plan B should the first one failed its MOT just before a big European road trip. It didn't, and its mechanical condition was much admired by the MOT tester, so Plan A is working out just fine. So it would be very sensible to sell the second one, you'd think. But somehow, I can't - it's too good to sell. Stupid, as I can't drive both and the Other Half doesn't drive at all. I'm just working out if I'm daft enough to do a manual conversion and perhaps a supercharger to one to make it a bit more fun... That's how bad this bl**dy addiction is. :-/

70bhp seems a bit low for all of the work you'll be doing, no? Of course, if you're also putting in a manual gearbox (which one, out of interest?), it would be a completely different drive over the LS with slushbox.

The other symptom of air collecting in the matrix is intermittent loss of heating into the cabin. Right now, you're probably not trying to get much heat into the cabin, so you may not have noticed, but as Winter approaches, you might find this.