Mikaelse

Where I live ( Sweden ) no problem at all. About 2 km from where I live helpfull chaps open all day and on saturdays accept oils , glycol and paint etc for appropriate destruction for free from non businesses. ( We pay with taxes surely) Leaving 20 litres at once is no problem. They want to know what it is approximately . "OIL " seems fine.

Yes. I have use that method once on a 4 speed LS400. Definitely faster . I am not clear on if that method changes the oil more efficiently when it comes to getting rid of the old stuff. I ended up pumping out about <1 liter at the time and filling upp approximately same to a total of 12 liter or so. I have since realized that it might pose a higher risk if you have really old fluid beacuse the big dose of fresh detergent additives in the New ATF suddenly present may make gunk in corners and on surfaces dislodge more effctively in a short time and go to new places clogging stuff up. I do not know it this is a significant risk or not.

Just remember that the drain and refill method only changes a fraction of the oil. The total volume is 9.4 US quarts or 8.9 liters in the 5 speed trans. However it is only possible to drain out about 2 liters at any one time due to that much of the ATF is in the torque converter which can not be directly drained. HOWEVER I notised that if the car is lifted up in the front ( for a DIY job ) for a few weeks you get a lot more out. Up to ballpark 4 quarts. I was surprised ! IF you do the common drain and refill thing and drive around a bit to mix the ATF between you will need to do a number of drains and refill to change most of the ATF . Every time you do it you will reduce the amount of old oil to (8.9-2)/8.9 => 77.5 % of what it was before the last drain/refill . Hence if you do it 6 times you will still have 0.775^6 = 21.6 % of the very old fluid left. One drain and refill every year or engine oils swap after that 6 times routine should be good enough and not so much work. I use the method of weighing exactly on a kitchen scale what comes out and refilling exactly the same. That way I do not need to fiddle with getting the exact right level which is a bit time consuming since the level should be checked following a certain procedure. AND my probably never trans fluid serviced at the time 20 year old LS400 1995 with 90k miles started to shift smooth and nice again after changing the dark and somewhat dirty Fluid. Only problem was the old fluid. I use MOBIL ATF 3309 delivered from Germany which is equivalent enough to TOYOTA IV according to what I have found . The MOBIL ATF can be had for less than half price ( about 8£ per liter) and I have used a total of more than 30 liter in my two LS400 so it did matter cost wise.

I think they may have a point even If their explanation sounded like disinterest. Explain the risk and give advice but let the customer decide if he/she wants to take the risk would have been more appropriate. IF the oil has not been changed for a very long time and many miles there may be a lot of wear particles collected here and there in the corners and on surfaces. If you do a oil exchange this gunk can come loose and get stuck in new sensitive places due to the cleaning additives in the new ATF. Gumming up Solenoids and what not. Same thing can happen if you change engineoil in a very neglected car with cheap and old oil in it hence plenty of gunk deposits everywhere. I can imagine that the dealer had one experience too many of customers saying. "You worked on it , now it does not work, fix it ". I heard about this nasty risk only after I changed very old ATF (probably 20 years) in my LS400 at 90k miles. It went well. Luck or normal, No idea. . After the exchange I do the 2 liter drain and fill every year. Works well.

I am 6 foot 5 inches. My LS400 1995 has enough headroom . A good car for tall people. Lots of leg space also.

I strongly recommend AGM (Absorbed Glass Matt ) type batteries these days. I use a "shopname" brand with a 4 year warranty. In my two LS400. a 70 Ah works fine. It is the cold start spec that tells you how it will manage the really cold winters here in Sweden. A bigger 95Ah standard type battery is typically inferior. The AGM batteries typically have several times faster charge rate hence will accept charge after start fast instead of slow. They also discharge slower when left idle and survives deep discharge better. An AGM battery typically costs more but also lasts longer.

Sound very much like the not so uncommon transcooler failure affecting the LS430 where coolant from radiator enters the transmission. perhaps some of the forum members knows what to expect in detail. I would guess you need to react and stop driving very quickly after suspicious transmission behaviour to be able to save it.

If you need to put in spacers you will shorten the number of thread turns that are engaged on the wheel nuts. I put in 10 mm longer studs when I put in a 5 mm spacer on the front wheels. It was very easy to buy aftermarket longer replacement studs for my LS400 . It can surely be done for LS430 too. Buy quality brand!. They have to be pressed out of the hub. Hammer them out is not something I would do. The wheel ballbearings may get some damage. ( simple puller did that job easy )and the new longer ones pressed in easy with a bigger nut spacer and a wheel nut. I bought also aftermarket extra long nuts to avoid any hassle also since It is a good idea to keep the longer studs even if say winter tires does not use a spacer.

I am no expert on ATF oil coolers but if I added one It must be one with a thermostat valve only sending oil thorugh cooler if oil is warm . 85 C at least. . Here In Sweden getting engine and oils varm fast is important. Overheating is not a common issue.

When I did my cambelt I notised on both my 20+ year old LS400 that the rubber hosing ( all hoses) felt really good still. Soft, springy and fault free. I did not change mine. Perhaps swedish climate helps. 25+ years now on my oldest and stil all original hoses

LEXUS has been reported saying when asked that they "promise" to supply spare parts to when the cars have been out of production for 8 years. Hence if you can buy OEM parts for our old cars depends on many factors like if there is an old stock left or not. If the part lived on in newer cars , Are present in other higher volume cars ( I guess) Or volumes of some part stil is high enough to be interesting in itself( I guess ). Brake pads, filters reasonably. It can be useful to also look at Toyota parts. Hence for our old cars do not be surprised if any part stops being available from LEXUS at any time. Some car manufacturers have other policies. Some try to provide parts even up to 30 years. Other manufacturers may at some time send all not very old parts to the crusher. Storing costs money.

Google "bleeding ls400 cooling system" and choose "images". On top of the thermostat housing there is a screw you can remove and ad coolant . I could fill almost 1 liter there when the system looked full already after changing coolant. Seems air gets trapped there otherwise.

I am guessing 4k£ for the auction car. It looks in good shape on outside. That is very important theses days. New or good used external stuff is starting to become very expensive or close to be "nonobtinium".

If it was my car I would not drive it another meter , I would expect that the ATF fluid is greyish? if you have a leak from coolant to transfluid. Drain and see. I would in any case think about changeing the radiator with the known unreliable trans cooler. People do it premptively since the problem is common. A new radiator can be had for around 100£ + shipping and fitting . If you have coolant in the transfluid getting it out completely yourself without driving is not so easy. Contacting a specialist is a good idea here. On my LS400 I could get 4 liters out when lifted high in front for a few weeks. That is about 45 % of the contents. A simple quick drain and fill only yields around 1.6 liters. And those drain and refills has to be repeated with some driving between. Not a good idea. Use the correct fluid...

Any see the price it went for ?

I have 17" inch wheels on my two LS400. one for summer and one for winter. The 16" inch rims where rotted to junk unfortunately. I have looked for descent looking 16" aftermarket rims because I like lots of soft rubber softening the ride. On my Ls400 the brake calipers in front seem to not allow most 16" inch rims . They are huge. Any tips on 16" that works.

The printout supplied of the manual should give clear indication if the belt and the tensioner are as should be . The 10 Kg test can easily be done with a luggage or a fishing scale for 10£. If that goes well I seriously suspect some of the rollers or the driven stuff are having a serious problem. See tip how to check in earlier post. To be clear. MOST of the stuff in front of the engine here is using rubber lip sealed high grade japanese ball bearings that will last a very long time unless in case of very bad luck. Hovever 26 years is already a Long time and then some. I have taken apart some of these bearings from 20 year old rollers and the grease looks more like black semisoft chunky cheese and lubrication is running on overtime for sure. I have exchanged two of these ballbearings in question on my 1995 with 120kmiles beacuese they were easy to exchange and I am listening carefully once in a while for the hissing sound from a badly lubricated bearing. Only takes a few seconds. The typical way of failing is making more and more noise over some time. . When really bad it might have larger defects and run very badly and may cause a belt jumping off. I would though expect very bad noise and running lumpy when rotated by hand before that happens.

On any "normal" car if you loose coolant and see no visible leaks on ground you suspect that you have a coolant leak into cylinders or to oil channeling. I have had both a few times on non lexus cars. Best case due to defective head gasket OR much worse a cracket head which can happen if low coolant level is not noticed in time and head is overheated. I have been told these problems are very uncommon on our LS400. The airlock etc thing. I have drained and filled most of the fluid at one time and did not follow prcedure and was wondering why I did not get same in as I drained out... After extensive adling and a little revving with full heat on etc. Found after looking in instructions that I could fill another liter at the fill hole on top of the engine. Solved. Have no idea what would happen to that airpocket if left in there.

Ouch. I have changed this belt on LS400 a few times. I have done also changed the tensioner on one LS400 due to that I did not realize that there was a left hand screw attaching the tensioner wheel. The tensioner seem to be a spring only device. No damping of any kind. On A SAAB 9000 I did the tensioner had a serious oil damper and after experencing the belt jumping off several times I checked what was going on and saw that at some high rpm the belt started to vibrate violently and jumped off. Was fixed good with a new tensioner with a new good damper was fitted. On the LS400 the cam belt tesnioner has a oild damped tensioner It is typically a matter of actual tension and length of free belt between pulleys what happens if you consider the design of the car. It seems the LS400 normally does not have this problem. What could be different here is reasoanbly lower or higher belt tension or some of the pulleys having a defect or a serious bearing problem or a drvien device with a serious pulsating problem. I would take off the belt ( takes 5 minutes to take off and put back ) and feel all the pulleys for anomalies . You could also look with a flashligth at what the belt is doing if you slowly rev the motor. A guess is that if it starts to vibrate violently at say 5000 rpm the belt tenions is too low. This could happen due to a long belt ( there are indications on the tensioner were it should be at concerning spring tension) , there are variants out there of different length OR a out of spec tensioner.

There is limited need for rocket science and exaktness here unless you are an engineer like me. IF you can see what happens with the voltage after starting and it goes up after a few minutes to say 13.5V or so at least that is reasoanbly ok concerning the charger function. Then the question is if the battery is recieving charge descently fast or alternatively is damaged or tired so that it des not perfrom even if it is fully charged as far as it goes. You can have any of those problems. 1. Charger weak, 2. battery recieving charge slowly or 3. weak even if charged for a long time. If it sounds tired when running the starter from cold even after say an hour long trip at least previous day it is probably time to change it. You can also of course charge it with a charger over night to be sure it is full. In the SAAB cars ( for engineers and nerds , now gone mostly) in the dash display they showed lowest voltage during start for a few seconds. There were indication in manual what was OK depending on temperature. I seem to remember 8,5 Volts if it was very very cold - 20C perhaps. 11 V or so in summer.

I can recommend putting in a combined battery voltage meter , phone charger in the cig lighter socket. cost 10 £ or so and shows you what is going in. Strongly recommend AGM type battery if you need to change. A 70 Ah one is fine if it has got start spec. They cost more but charge up several times faster after start and self discharge more slowly. Last longer and tollerate deep discharge better. My oldest car battery of that type is more then 10 years but I guess that is not to expect.

I got several small pinholes under the heatshield . Removed shield and wrapped on plenty of thin stainless steel sheet metal with some compound and plenty of stainless hoseclamps, That fix has lasted three years now.

Hi Howplum. I have had the same thoughts as you. Time to exchange bushings in rear? I have a 1995 and a 1998 LS400 with about 120k on them both. I would not exchange any of the bushings until they show evidence of perishing or gives other problems. Rubber ages sure but it depends a lot on the stress and strain or lack of it, My rear suspension have not had any bushing changes at all yet and I do not se any need any time soon. OEM from AMAYAMA or some US sites OR aftermarket simmilar from a few acceptable suppliers like FEBEST seem to be the options available. Unless you go polyurethane which seems uncomfortable. I have so far onlu used OEM (in front) .I have though expereinced an acute need to adjust wheel angles in the rear since it was wearing tires fast. Adjusted to OEM spec myself Ok four years now. I had problems with seized bolts through the bushings. This may actually warrant new bushings by itself since adjusting to spec may become impossible,

My swiveling stopped working reliaibly on my 1995. Just unplugged the motor connector when in the position I like. Not a problem. No real need for the up and down.

I did the plugwires and the caps , rotors and one coil where I could get to all the screws . A few bits to take apart and Very many wires and fiddly to get everything nicely in place. It was a full weekends reasonable dose of car work for me to be honest.