donkmeister

Also, possibly a daft question but... Does an LS460 SE-L have one Battery, or is there an auxiliary Battery elsewhere?

In its life before me, my LS460 seemed to have suffered at least one hamfisted oaf who broke plastic engine covers and replaced push clips with random plastic clips they found lying around.

I've replaced one of the broken engine covers (not the silver one as I've not found one in better condition than mine yet!) and the push clips, but I appear to be missing something around the Battery for the passenger-side cover to clip onto. Does anyone know what should be here? 

I'm going to replace the Battery, so if it's something that needs fitting whilst the Battery is out this would be an ideal time. 

This might be useful information for anyone who would benefit from using the rear-seat entertainment on journeys but doesn't want to buy the official Lexus headphones for £110 a pair. 

My LS460 was missing the headphones when I bought it... TBH no great loss as I didn't fancy wearing 15 year old second hand headphones anyway 😆

From some investigation I learned that the signal is transmitted via IR, and uses a standard modulation so you don't actually need specific Lexus headphones. So, as an experiment I bought some cheap eBay IR headphones, £15 a pair. They arrived this morning and sure enough, they work. Stereo sound, sat in the rear of the car only. 

So, any generic dual channel IR headphones should work but the ones I bought are on eBay as "XTrons Dual Channel IR Headphones".

If you were to get the same ones as me; what are they like? Well, unsurprisingly for £15 they are not going to be scaring Sennheiser and Sony. But, I think on the whole I'm very happy with what I've got for £15. Sound quality is decent enough; I watched a few minutes of a DVD, listened to a few minutes of FM radio and then had a few minutes of some bass-heavy music, and they handled it all just fine. The highs weren't sparkling, the bass didn't grip me, but I don't know how much of that is the IR transmission system and how much is the headphones. The spec sheet appears to be honest, which is refreshing too. I'd say they are more than adequate for watching a film during a long car journey. For £15 I'm not going to be precious about them either, whereas the official Lexus ones being £110 a pair I'd be a bit dubious about letting some people use them.

They sort-of fit in the rear door pockets when folded; they definitely don't fit in the remote control compartment but I tried!

Is it possible to disable the AM radio modes so that when you press "Mode" you only switch between FM and CD? I have Carista if it is a codable function.

I've had a look through the menus and the manual so either I am daft or there's no way to do it. This was something I found handy on my old Merc as I never listen to AM stations.

Righto, it seems to be a relatively straightforward job, one for the list!

Any ideas on whether the OEM part is best, or if there's a more durable version that is recommended?

On 2/3/2022 at 2:05 PM, Cotswold Pete said:

74db is permitted as okay, anything more and it is a fail.

I assume this is from 1meter away, from end of pipe.

A conversation is typically 60dB and truck is 70dB (that is the noise of the truck engine, rattles and bangs (not it's exhaust)

80db is a freight train at 100yards.

So 74dB not that loud in the scheme of things, but sure as heck hear many a car/bike exceeding that.

There are ideas that speed cameras for the future would listen to noise, but given they are not at ground level not sure how that would work

For Type Approval, yes. For an MOT test, no.

For the MOT test it's a subjective test as they don't have an SPL meter. The details are in the link below under "Noise", but anecdotal evidence suggests a TVR is expected to be loud and gets an appreciative nod, but a Fiesta with a fart-cannon is clearly worthy of a finger wag or a fail.

Noise cameras would presumably be a vandal-proof and highly-directional version of the noise monitors we have around race-tracks.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/mot-inspection-manual-for-private-passenger-and-light-commercial-vehicles/8-nuisance

"Exhaust noise from the vehicle must not be unreasonably above the noise level you’d expect from a similar vehicle with a standard silencer in average condition."

I've spotted on a US forum that a radiator change on the LS460 is something that seems to be a necessity due to it being a single rad for ATF and engine coolant, and eventually corrosion will allow the two to mix and ruin the gearbox. However, when I look on LOC I've not found anything about this problem on the LS460.

Is this a problem with UK model LS460s, or perhaps was it an issue on an earlier model of LS that was resolved by the time the Mk 4 came out? If it is an issue on the Mk 4, is there a particular part revision or age we should be looking out for? Is there a better version of the rad that can be fitted? Any warning signs to be aware of that the rad needs to be replaced or is it an age/mileage thing?

ETA I just looked in the main bit of the LS forum and sure enough someone is talking about a leaking rad on an LS460, so that's at least one. I'd still be grateful to know if this is something that simply will happen and is better treated pro-actively.

On 2/1/2022 at 6:48 AM, The-Acre said:

I don't think the silencer part of the exhaust would be a failure unless there was nothing there at all, the cats on the other hand would. A few LS owners have had custom exhausts made to enjoy the V8 sound, personally I prefer the silence!

Agreed; I have another V8 car with a slightly raucous exhaust (standard manifolds and cats, then a custom system back from that with X-pipe and "sports" silencers). It isn't ridiculous, but it is louder than standard. It's never failed an MOT. On one occasion an MOT tester said that if it was much louder he would have had to fail it, but on balance I've had several other testers making appreciative comments about the sound.

Watching with interest 😀 

Generally, N/A engines don't have much left to give... I'm new to the LS but in general terms you might get a small improvement from having it optimised for 98-RON (seeing as we can't run on E10 anyway). I saw a 10% power improvement on the rolling road when I had a respected Mercedes tuning outfit remap an N/A 5.0 V8; on the road the difference was not really noticeable. 

28 minutes ago, The-Acre said:

I was talking to a local car dealer that I know and he rightly pointed out that everyone is trying it on with used prices, right down to the cars that are only worth hundreds.

Can't blame them, but I'd be interested if they're not making a rod for their own back when customers expect a similarly inflated price for their trade-ins 😀 

I went to look at a fairly mundane car years ago. The dealer offered me a trade-in value straight out of Parker's, but as soon as I offered him the Parker's price for his Mondeo minus my trade-in he got shirty. Apparently price guides aren't accurate reflections of what a car is worth (at least, not when the customer is referring to one).

I paid not much more than that for an LS460SE-L with similar mileage just last week, from a dealer...

It's possibly the condition and service history on this 430 are absolutely mint, which would no doubt help the value on a car with a keen following.

Also what someone asks for a car and what they get are two different things (having recently seen some "is it 1st April?" prices on eBay for a car that I'm selling soon)

After reading numerous accounts online that the LS460 is not approved for towing, the manual for my 2007 LS460 has an extensive section on towing, towbar placement, nose weights etc.

This would be handy for me as I have a towbar mounted bike carrier and may want the option of a small trailer later.

Has anyone got the part numbers for the official Lexus parts, or a recommendation for a towbar and wiring kit for an LS460 (preferably retractable!) I've fitted towbars and CANbus interfaces before so am open to doing it myself.

Thanks all for the greetings 😀 

We picked the car up on Sunday, and first did a 2 hour hack across London to show it to my family followed by an hour motorway trip to get it home, and it never skipped a beat. It's a wonderful car!

Indeed I have had it up to 70mph (ish 😉 ). Today I had the opportunity to try out the automatic parking and it's better than some much more recent systems I've tried.

Once I've given it a proper birthday (it's at used car dealer standards of clean, I need to do more!) I'll get some pics up.

Hi all,

This weekend I'll be picking up my first ever Lexus; an LS460 SE-L (with the one optional extra; a heated steering wheel!). My test drive never went over 30mph due to being in a city centre but it felt wonderfully smooth. I've budgeted for some repairs and maintenance, there's no warning messages, so hopefully it won't break my heart 😀

I've had a variety of cars in the past; Mercedes, Vauxhall, Ford, Renault, Fiat, plus some 2-seaters from Mazda, MG, Honda. I've always found that good owners' clubs are an important part of the ownership experience and from some lurking I've seen your forum has a lot of knowledge sharing and helpful members. Hopefully I can contribute as I inevitably tackle some jobs in mine too.

Cheers, 

D