TimUK

I certainly can't fault their service - caliper arrived in less than 24 hours! Unfortunately their supplier doesn't have the L/H caliper. So I'll just keep my fingers crossed that my L/H caliper doesn't start sticking, at least not until I've had some decent wear out of the new set of discs & pads. At which point I will probably have to go back to the refurb option unless in the meantime I get lucky and find a caliper elsewhere (eg eBay).

Thanks a million Paul! I've just bought the RH Caliper (luckily that's the one that's currently sticking), and have asked about the availability of the LH one. There was also a £36 surcharge on the old caliper, however, I would've thought they might be worth a bit more to someone whose willing to refurb them with one of the cheap kits on eBay. Anyway, the main thing is it prevents the car being off the road for too long as although I don't use the car daily, it is my regular transport.

Thanks for the reply. No front calipers on Autodoc are showing as in stock. However, I did contact BCS who have quoted a similar price to Big Redd. So it'll come down to which one I think will offer the better service.

Well, my car has a mere 160K and pretty much a complete service history, so this could well be the original caliper. However, I doubt very much the calipers have been regularly checked over, other than when pads have been changed. So maybe the extra diligence has paid off in your case. Or maybe it's the higher mileage that's meant that your calipers have never remained still for too long 😀

Thanks for the replies. Not noticed any heat/pulling, but I think that will just be a matter of time. The past month I've been getting a slight vibration under light braking at high speed, so suspected a disc issue. Local garage has just confirmed this, but said the root cause is a sticking offside caliper because one of the pads is more worn than the others (rather annoyingly the discs & pads were only replaced 10K ago). Also, I can now see a build up of brake dust on the offside wheel. Rebuilding the calipers is definitely beyond my ability, so I'll leave it to the experts! I did see those rebuild kits on eBay, but the garage have said they would prefer to use a rebuild service.

Front caliper on my '97 LS400 is just starting to stick slightly. Seems like new calipers are unavailable, so will have to get them rebuilt. Big Redd charge £220 for a pair, but I recall someone on here had some problems with them in the last few years, although they do seem to have generally good reviews. Anyone else used them in recent years, or can recommend anyone else?

It's actually Crystal Quartz (4N1 paint code) over Dark Taupe. Identical to mine except I have tan rather than black leather. But I agree it would look better with original wheels....or even better with some decent 18s 😁

Gutted 😀

Might not be his car. He might just be doing a bit of chauffeuring on the side 😀

Just stumbled across this LS400 at an auction in Sweden which was originally owned by Björn Ulvéus. https://bilwebauctions.se/en/augustiauktion-2022/lexus-ls400-51279 Unfortunately for any Abba LS fans out there it has just been sold. The final price works out to be just under £5k, which seems high but not crazy money. I guess there's not so much of a premium to be paid for a car that was owned by someone famous after their height of fame. Anyway, this got me wondering, has anyone else owned an LS with a famous former owner?

Similar place to mine then. So either you're lucky and this is just rust from a previously repaired scrape, or it's rusting from the inside of the arch, in which case I'd say it's inevitable that the inner arch will also be affected. My inner arches didn't actually look rusty, it was only when I started poking around that I discovered the weakened metal.

Doh! I just realised that using a clock to describe the position of the bubbling was pretty stupid given that it depends which side of the car you're looking at! Basically it's at the top of the arch, and in front of the wheel just above the plastic trim.

The rust bubbles on my Mk3 are in a different position to what you describe for the Mk4 as they are at 1 o'clock and 9 o'clock. So I don't know if this is the typical place or not for a Mk3? Either way, the bubbling only appeared after the issue was identified in the inner arches, so I agree that there are probably plenty of owners that haven't noticed the issue yet.

My understanding is that rust in the rear inner arches is a very common issue (a quick Google brings up plenty of references to it). I had exactly the same issue as the one described in that post from 2020, except my car had done 150K. It wasn't an MOT fail, however, it was starting to let water into the boot, which is how I first discovered the rust. I had exactly the same work done as the original poster, except I had the whole rear end Waxoyled as the subframe is also vulnerable to rust. I can't remember the exact cost but I think it was around £700. That was a few years ago and the inner arches are still solid, but there are now a few slight bubbles appearing on the outer arches. So at some point I'm going to have to decide what to do next. I did briefly chat to a guy who used to do full classic car restorations and he said it could easily end up being £1500 per side if you wanted the inner/outer arches repaired to A1 with fabricated repair sections and the rear quarter painted. He assumed that new repair sections wouldn't be available. Obviously this is a lot of money, but with the value of the cars going up, it could eventually become viable in those cars (like mine) where the rest of the car is rust free.

You may struggle to find a new left hand cable. I had to replace both sides earlier in the year and had to resort to a good used one for the left side as I couldn't find a new one in stock.