Mikaelse

If you read up on LS400 there seem to be some that do report tapping noise from some valve clearences that has become a bit large over time on high mileage vehicles. Often from only a few valves it seems. In engine design for the last 30 years the valve seats are a very hard ring insert and the valves also have a hard wear layer to cope with unleaded fuels. If all contact surfaces are hard material adjusting valve clearence may never be needed even though there are no self adjustment in the LS400 at all like many other cars have these days. Adjusting valve clearances on the LS400 is a camshafts out job... No fun at all and you need special shims with custom thicknesses. Slight tapping noise within reason is not risky for the engine. The opposite, Too little clearance is much worse. Then you can ruin things fast and you will get no early warning. I have the impression that too tight clearance very sedlom is a problem hence slight tapping as a warning can be expected if attention is needed. I have never checked clearance on my two LS400 with 200.000 km.

I have parked LS400 for several years about 6 months per year both summer and winter. Dry garage with +7C to 25C or so. Always with 55% humidity or less. Average probably 45% Driving out of garage 5 meters and running varm and braking and running stuff about every 1-2 months. No issues at all so far. Hope these cars will last forever.

Hmm. To be expected really. I exchanged my idlers bearings ( Press needed) when I bought the car. They where 20 Years old by then and sounded very "dry" . I opened one bearing and the grease looked like black dry cheese , no major damage yet but life left was not long for sure. If you have old rubber lip sealed bearings like this 20 years is about what you can expect in my opinion. More than that is a bonus. IF not exchanged premptivley highway fails are a clear risk if you do not keep an ear on bearing noise. The bearings tend to rumble for a while before giving up. It is also possible to use a simple device , a "Motor stethoscope". You use it very carfully following the instructions . That will make a bearing in trouble stand out being noisy longer before it fails. You can find that tool for about 10£ inkl shipping and up. Also If you have done it before releasing the belt tension is easy and done in minutes and you can then spin all the bearings and feel and listen. I have still pushing on 26 years on my 1995 LS400 original bearings in Alternator, Servo Pump, Fan pulley, AC compressor bearings. They all passed the spin test 6 years ago and are not making noise. They could give up at any time but I do expect say a few weeks noise warning me before it happens . Spin test or Stethoscope is "better" but listening close up with open bonnet for a few seconds is quicker .

Sounds like the sensor you removed is working. I have never had any sensor problem with my LEXUS cars. However on a VAG car it took me a long time to understand that they actually use 2 separate sensors and one was giving me intermittent problems. Changing the OK one obviously did not help. Eventually I exchanged the failed one for a non oem sensor (inexpensive one) and it worked but was so so within spec and stopped working after about 2 years . Buying OEM or a well trusted brand at least is a good idea. I often buy brands I trust. BREMBO brake stuff , NGK, Nippodenso, Some Bosch stuff , SKF. Mostly much better prices compared to OEM. Most Suspension bushings I have bought OEM .

Experience varies . I have a 1998 LS400 with 120 k miles and airsuspension and it has never been serviced it seems ( have service records) and stil works fine and does not leak at all. My 1995 with coil springs on the other hand had a rear broken spring. I replaced both springs at about 100 k miles. (Quite a lot of work. Had to remove back seat etc). I can feel no real benefit with the air springs . Boths cars ride fine....

I have had to exchange the cable coil in the steering wheel that handles airbag etc at 95 kmiles on my 1995. Bought OEM from Japan. Also expect to change some multirib belt wheels with bearing or bearings only with some work . relatively Inexpensive and easy fix.

Hi All. Already decided not to go look at this one. Was a 5 hour one way drive to go see it here in Sweden. Price expectation less than 3000£ IF I had a protected space to put it as a longer term project perhaps I would have gone to have a look....

Reason for the question is that I am contemplating taking a roadtrip to look at a LS430 that the owner says that he has not serviced much last 10 years. Filter a few times and new motoroil once. He has probably driven 80k miles over ten years. Now at 130k total. He says motor sounds ok and does not use any oil really. He has kept paint and interior in good shape . As you might expect no cambelt , coolant , brake fluid swaps either. What happens to a service neglected LS430 that may have done 40k miles and 5 years on same motor oil twice?. Cool climate and driven year round. The car is priced reasonably low and buyers seem to hesitate as you may expect. Is the engine bound for the scrapyard soon or could it be ok? Are there any LS430 specific tell tale signs too look for. Valve tick, blue smoke, black sludge? Is it worth the trip?

Yes thes cars are getting more expensive but say 9k+ is ridiculous for a 1994 in my opinion. They really do not suffer much from miles within reason. Paying a high premium for very low miles is not a good idea I think. Are you not planning to use it ? My 1995 with 90kmiles I paid 1600£ for in 2015 (Sweden). It needed overdue service for say 800£ just in parts. Now at 120k miles and I drive it mostly wintertime. The miles does not wear these fast in my opinion.

Fuel pump often draws quite a lot. 10-15 A perhaps. 2 hours or 100 miles or so if the 95Ah battery i descently charged is my guess if ligths radio, wipers etc are off..

Old locks seldom used may need a drop of thin oil for locks. Small physical pins in there that may stick a bit if not used. .

I also think that the LS400 is a very nice daily driver. 6 years now. I own two, one for winter and one for summer. Inexpensive too. Paid 1500£ for the 1995 winte r car. Seem to increase in value a bit every year now. Very good reliability , smooth and silent. Only one recent problem. My rear window shattered where parked . A Stone thrown by someone it seems by marks etc. Very difficult to find a new rear glass window for a 1998 LS400 it seems. It is 5 mm thick. weighs 12 Kg

Perhaps at some point on a very short cable. Here in sweden with sometimes -30 C (rare but I rememeber winters with weeks duration, 1986/1987 even here in Stockholm). puting grease in a often rather long cable at low temperatures would make brake grease near solid and impossible to operate. Light grade Oil should be used here at least.

Yeah mee too. Those where not better days. I did the misstake of doing the parking brake on my 1995 and not properly oiling the cable (Original cable I think) . Only very limited attnetion with a few squirts of WD40. It became not very cooperative again quite soon AND it did not always release well. I wore down the new set of parking brake shoes in under a year. Probably not very healthy for the bearings either to run warm from time to time, Replaced the brake shoes one more time and this time i exersized the cable and gave it squirts of WD40 MANY times. Felt that was needed. Has worked well since. I do use the parkingbrake from time to time to keep it working but quite sparingly. I also check that it is not dragging when I have used it. Ok so far. Neutral when rolling real slow will tell. Feeling center of rims will also tell if it is dragging badly for a while (warm).

Yes. You could think that a modest crack in the rubber should be ok for a while still. and that something else is the culprit. However also my experience that these are often reason for slight shudder when braking at speed and low speed clonk over bumps. Exchange for new OEM fixed it on two LS400 at about 100 kmiles

On my 1995 with coilsprings I had one spring snapped of and sagging a bit in 2015 ( corrosion caused in probabaly ) . Not expensive . 50£ each for the springs and a few hours DIY to swap them both out. Put back same shock absorbers. Stil going strong. Needed to take out rear seat for access.

I got a number of small pinholes in the Y-part of my 1998 LS400 exhaust. Fixed them by taking off the Stainless heat shield and patched over holes with thin stainless steel wrap sheet metal and some seal paste and a number of stainless steel hose clamps . That was three year ago . stil works fine. I did this when the car was new to me. If it happened now I would probably have bought a new after market Y-pipe from US.

I think that my 1998 LS400 air suspension works just fine. I have 17" inch wheels. Used to have 235/50 tires but now have 225/55 on and that feels fine. Leans very little when cornering and damping is still good after 124 kmiles . Feel no need to change them as long as they stay leak free.

Yes. This is the AISIN kit for 1998-2000. I have put in AISIN Kits in my 1995 and 1998 LS400. Felt like good quality. Can be bought in several places. It is smart to use well known brand stuff. If belt or waterpump fails suddenly engine will be severely damaged on 1995-2000 LS400.

We will see .. They may double or tripple or worse in value like some old Porsches and old Volkswagens.

I definitely agree. However I am partial . I use my LS400 as daily drivers and I have these days difficulties tollerating modern cars lack of long term quality, plastic smell and often noisy ride on lower profile tires. Value of the LS400 cars being stable or even rising over time does not hurt either.

Expect good things. The brakes on these are very good quality . I would be surprised if they will give you problems. BUT if they do bind . Do not drive it with binding brakes since you will overheat stuff quite fast. I would not expect the cam belt to develop a problem by standing still 3 years. Should be not be much worse than using the car. I would run low load and rpm until varm just to be safer first time .

I agree. I have two LS400. One with air suspension and one without. No noticeable difference in my opinion other than Air suspension handling load without sagging. The air suspension on my 1998 is problem free and it seems it has never been repaired. BUT if it starts failing I will consider doing the swap to coil springs.

Great. These bushings are a bit strange. Looked ok ish on both my LS400 when i fiddled with a crowbar on them but Advice from this forum was that they are the shudder and clonking culprit and they were!. I am not surprised that people describe that even experienced general car mechanics have a hard time finding the problem. Good advice is NOT to spend money changing out old but perfectly good LEXUS parts for new 3d party cheap stuff unless needed. This forum is a very good place to ask for fair advice in my opinion. On my 1995 these are the only rubber bushings I have changed . Every other rubber bushing OEM to my knowledge and works fine. I have though changed lower balljoints in front to new OEM (from AMAYAMA) after a friend had a scary expereince with an older (non Lexus) SUV where the balljoint snapped with the family in the car in traffic folding wheel to an impossible angle. Extra scary in a high SUV. A lot of pulling going on on these lower balljoints. You may not notice it is going bad. I once exchanged one on of my cars that had 2 to 2.5 mm play in it. It did not really warn me much that it was going bad.

When you get it done . Have the mechanic "feel" and listen to the poly-V belt tensioner and idler. . Spinning the alternator , fan bracket and AC - compressor freewheel too . I have done the cambelt on two LS400 . the poly-V tensioner and idler was really dry sounding when spun. Grease in bearings looked like black dry soft cheese. Really needed changing after 20 years of service. IT is important that the mechanic has done a few cambelts and waterpumps on these cars. Not really difficult with instructions but a lot to do correctly and cables and hoses MAY be a bit brittle.