Chris Skelton

:mat: Two on Autotrader today; one with no mileage given, Oxford, at £19,999.; other with 132k miles at @£17 (too many miles?)

:P it's the great ***(G.O.D. seeing as the censor put ***here!) of lexus telling you it was just a bad dream, and that getting rid of a LS400 is a sure sign of early dementia? Unless you move on to a Series 3 of course! etc! You'll miss it, if you DO sell. Get a nice little Nissan S-Cargo to be SEEN in, and a SER 3 to be cool in? :zee:

:D I seem to recall not TOO long ago on here that someone said that the specific tyre for the LS400 was actually the Dunlop as mentioned, but one actually made in Japan, NOT the (german?) one. There was a small difference. But generally, yes, agree with what's said here! We buy the car for comfort and silence. How can I listen to Bossa Nova with tyre noise! I'd be interested in anyones other experiences with alternate tyres. Michelins always used to be good, so it's good to hear about them. LOW profile, Mr Man-e? Where's the comfort in that? Nice big FAT tyres needed!

No problem at all. But they charged tax (11 Euros in Gemany) for carparts. Bought a set of 12 IK20 from this guy: LINK Just look forward in a LOC-Groupbuy. Never mind. Will never use NGK again. I had to change them because one plug looked like this: LINK.plug#6 after 90.000km (NGK IFR6A11) Plugs went after 'NINETY THOUSAND KILOMETRES!!!!???' Is that right? I'd change once per year myself!! Keep it sharp!

96 is Series THREE!!! Yes, it's much better. Better brakes, bigger, less consumption, more speed.....thicker glass....the list is rather long. Get one.

:D Yes, please!! And, does any one know the difference between the Air-con radiator and the Water radiator? I'm guessing that the air-con one has smaller tighter (screw on?) fittings as the sealant is under pressure-well more pressure than the water. I hadn't realised until recently that there were two parallel rads; presume not welded together!

I read a guy saying that he ran his air-con at 20 all year round. You're supposed to run it regularly-year round- to keep the seals (-tempted to say FED here...seals/fed ...YES? )no! the seals need to be kept lubricated. Yes, the gas WILL leak out. There is no such thing as an airtight seal. Even at one molecule at a time, gas will escape! One thing I DIDN'T know is that the (Ser 3, but poss your old banger too! ) has TWO radiators! Twins. The front one, which unfortunately gets any damage from grit etc!- is the air-con one. If it looks a bit scrappy-say near the bottom, its possible that the gas can get out. Look back at other topics on this subject (cos I've written this before!!!) :yack:

:) I wonder how long the other ancilliary items will last? I have the same idea as you, mr Man-quiche, as I bought my Ser-3 for the same reason, with -currently- only 58k miles, but all the little bits-electric bits and bobs, the screen (speedo, etc,) may go in time? Let's hope Lexus/Toyota continue to support the older models (us connoisseurs who helped to establish the marque?) The 430? Well, it looks EVEN fatter/more imposing-I thought yesterday as one slipped by me as I was walking along......faster, more economical....but I'm not a Sat-nav fan (my lissome partner likes to navigate!). BUT a built in Speed camera detector would be a great help. 30 seems to be stationary!Foot off accelerator and it STILL does 35! I share your concept of keeping the car going though, even at some cost; in time you'll have a rare early LS!

B) The dash is on a sensor; at night (or under a bridge!!)the dash dims a bit so as not to dazzle the driver. In daylight, it's brighter. :zee:

Seen today in Shirehampton Bristol: a stretch Hummer!!! Now we have some strange cars in OUR club but? Surely not? What next? A stretch double decker bus? :yack:

While trying to save money is one thing, spoiling t'whole thing for a h'apporth of tar is another! Cheap is cheap for a reason. Ford plugs? Drive an Escort! The Lexus engines are the best around, so put the best plugs you can in them! (Just find the best deals within those parameters

B) B) B) Hey man-eesh!Don't forget, I run Bristol's best/only Veggie cafe. You ain't chilled 'til you chilled at Royce Rolls Cafe, Bristol. Just find the market....great music-Brazilian/Spanish/ garage/--hip hop DJ works Sat..... :zee: :zee:

B) B) B) B) B) B) B) B) B) B) B) B) B) B) B) Subtle colour again, huh? But...can you get your golf clubs in the boot? (Or your boots in the trunk?) I share others view that you really need a saloon as well, for those 'quiet' days! A Passat!!? Come on!! An LS400/430? I have a friend with a Porsche Carrera who loves my LS...mainly because its so comfy after his go-cart!

I don't know enough about the workings of our club; but, in the Citroen Car Club, they have a system of 'Official valuation' from the club, which helps in cases like these. Aimed mainly at older cars that heve no commercial value, but have been renovated etc. Do/can we have an equivalent scheme here? Otherwise, do what I did once; gather evidence of other values from ads on E+Mart, Autotrader....Lexus Owners Club...and send to Ins co?

:zee: ...as someone who remembers the sixties, (well, vaguely, through the haze!) I can't approve of the tone you youngsters are using! Or is that Toner you're 'using'? Don't toke and drive chaps!

Come on 'Dipstick' With a name like yours? In the 'olden days' one used a dipstick! (What was the answer anyway, to this filling and subtracting?) :winky:

You could just beg/borrow a battery charger? Then see how it is; BUT the best way? Take it for a 60 mile drive...which is what you really want anyway! A garage can check your battery to see if it's holding charge OK. If battery is like LS400, costs about £60. (Bristol Batteries 2004)

:P my old 2CV van had two handle shape bumpers at the back-made of metal; you got the nose in to a tight space then 'lifted' the back in!. But yes, in the old days, when bumpers were metal not 'crumple zones', you heard the clang... and then forward-clang; FINE! The old DS had quite a rounded front so it was easy to pull the front round-no corners of bonnet to worry about-take a look sometime! (And rubber pointy bits to bounce you off other parked vehicles!) France is great for big LSs; lovely long sweeping, unpopulated roads! Lucky JJF1312! Am planning to go camping in my LS400. plenty of boot space for tent etc, PLUS table and chairs! French campsites, ANYWHERE, seem to be good! Even little villages have one, with hot water AND a bread van that calls in the morning! Fresh sticks and croissants with your coffee out in the countryside! Bliss! :D

:D Only trouble with RED coupes is they are police magnets! (Well, the other trouble is that it's so easy to cruise at excessive speeds!) Will you guys STOP posting pictures of gorgeous Soarers here! I'm getting tempted to sell my nice conservative LS400 and go for one! Same engine, cooler car! There'ds a nice one on e-bay now....if I had a spare space.....

B) good guy in Longwell green,Bristol. ask me for details. :)

:zee: Well, Marcus Miller records usually have him playing Bass with a super-low bass UNDERNEATH as back-up. Or Stanley Clarke. One track that once had MY neighbour hammering on MY floor in protest was the Pat Metheny Group title track on ' As falls Wichita, so falls Wichita Falls'. It starts quietly and goes on for a while; the suddenly in the middle this huge bass comes in which, (with my horn speakers going down so low!) literally shakes the room-if you'd turned the quiet bit up too loud. :zee:

:P IBIZA? That's SOOOOO last year! It's the Dalmatian coast now! (And Lampedusa; you heard it here first!)

:o ....and e-bay for a variety of choice? Trouble is; we live in an age where we feel we've got to keep consuming in order to feel we're alive! DRIVING is what cars SHOULD be about, not posing with what (you think is) 'cool'-this week. Next week, not? You could enjoy two weeks in the mountains in Spain, sampling the fresh air and fine food for £800! (Well, I would!) Get yr wheels refinished? Yours, sounding suspiciously old and cranky, Chris!

Nah! You've just washed the protective wax off and you want to put the dust and dirt back on? I think some of you've missed the point. If you rinse this way, it's quicker to chammy 'cos there's virtually no water left. Hence you don't get water spots at least not from washing. Whoops! Sorry! I tend to be TOO flippant sometimes! ( But my method DOES bring out the FLOTSAM___ha!) You're quite right of course! (Plus, if the car is waxed, it'll be smoother, and thus GO FASTER!) Scorpion is right about waxing. (doesn't his car look great, and just a wash down!) The Spritz seems as if it's like the Armourall stuff that you use on INTERNAL plastic, with plasticiser in. Acrylic does dry out, so you have to 'soften' it with plasticiser (I tried Armourall on my partners Ren-5, which had NEVER had its plastic done, for 14 years! STILL did a good job! I even have to apply plasticiser to my WATERBED every 6 months!) I guess the basic answer to all this, as Scorpion says, is that you only get out what you put in! There's no substitute for the hours it takes! I'm going to try the BIG WAX on my LS400, (after stage 1/2 etc!)and then rinse/ spritz occasionally. (Graphite doesn't shine as much, visually; but the 'upside' is that it doesn't look dirty as much as black, even when it is !)

Ho, ho, Tony Goose! Was it a --wait for it------- GOOSE EGG? that hit your car :yack: Come on, you must have expected THAT one!