My 'Wheeler Dealer' LS400

[tombar]

I've taken a bit of a gamble with this one. A bit of back story first. As a lurker in the Barge 1 to 5 thread for many years, I never took to the endless E Class Mercs and shabby old Jags too much, but was always intruiged by the big bland Lex. When a late Mk4 came up for sale on Anglesey, not a million miles from me but far enough from any other potential buyers, I couldn't resist. There followed a 4 year love affair with the car- like most of the best love affairs, totally unforseen and hard to explain in rational terms.

The LS400 is, for a massively large barge, a suprisingly subtle car. It wins you over with refinement, proportionate engineering, total thoughtfulness, and dependability. It also drives really well, fast and economical with slightly detached but accurate and faithful steering. It also has an ace sound system.

4 years, 100k miles, an LPG conversion and lots of fun including being one of the first cars let back onto the Porsche Curves after the end of the 2015 Le Mans 24h race, I'd taken the car to 210k miles and started thinking about an affair with an LS430. This was, as most affairs are, a disaster. LS430 was rough as a badger's backside, and I ended up with a Toyota Avensis estate (admittedly immaculate) for the last 6 months. The LS400 is a tough car to trade down from.

Anyway, back in February I noticed a gold LS430 for sale in Montgoneryshire, a sleepy part of the Welsh borders. It was high miles but cheap so I phoned the owner for a chat. He casually mentioned that he also had a LS400 with 78k miles that he needed to sell as he'd lost his storage. The only issue was that the car hadn't been MOT'd since 2012.....with an airbag light on and an estimate of £650 for Lexus Wolverhampton to fix it.

I went to see the car. it was the best LS I'd ever seen. Immaculate. We agreed a price, but there was a problem with the V5 (he'd never registered the car in his name) and when I casually mentioned this and that it had been off the road for 4 years to my wife, she did her nut. Man maths let me down.

Six weeks later, I decide to call the guy back. He's got someone coming to pick up the car to strip it's interior and gearbox. He's upset about this as am I and I decide to hold my nerve, make him a daft offer (£500) and argue the toss with my wife later. The Avensis sold in a day. So on Monday I arranged a Shiply collection and the car is delivered to my garage to assess the cost of recommissioning. Some pics:





So - the car - it is stunning. The interior is perfect - as new. The paint is a slightly weird purple-y silver called Amethyst Pearl, the leather is black. It even has wheels that aren't corroded at all!

So what recommissioning work did it need? 4 new tyres and an alternator. That's it. It drives perfectly and everything works, even the A/C. There are a couple of tiny, tiny stone chips that have gone ferric. That's about it.






Wth the V5 issue (it passed a HPI and DVLA seemed chilled) I bought the car for £475. MOT and tyres and alternator a further £670. I'm going to give it a couple of long runs and a service soon, but all fluids are clean and correct levels.

It is so lovely to be back in the fold!

[TVR Sagaris]

Following this with interest. I've been considering one of these for a while - they're unbelievably cheap for such a lot of car.

What happened with the airbag light?

[cat with a hat]

What a bargain, looks brand new!

[tombar]

New alternator sorted it - must have had some electrical gremlins from being idle. It has only done 7k miles in the last 10 years. In fact this is an issue - the cambelt was done 10 years ago but has hardly been used and I can't bring myself to have it changed. Am I daft?

[exelero]

The belt might fail due to age, it's about 600 money to get it sorted, with labour and everything. Would you risk it? Up to you

[DoctorX]

Unbelievable bargain. Looks great.

[tombar]

exelero said:

The belt might fail due to age, it's about 600 money to get it sorted, with labour and everything. Would you risk it? Up to you

All I can say is the last belt I changed on one of these looked perfect when it came off. Very over engineered.
Maybe I'll change it later in the year.

[confused_buyer]

You should be able to get the belt done for less than that. They book at about 3.5 hours Labour so, say, £50 an hour at middling garage £175 should sort it plus about £125-150 for the bits. Add a bit more if you do the waterpump and the hydraulic tensioner is at the end of its travel.

That looks really nice - the interior looks like new. Low mileage, good condition LS400 are going up in price and you'd get £3k for that all day long advertised well so it was a bargain. With the belt done it is probably a £4k car.

Edited by confused_buyer on Friday 7th April 22:05

[tombar]

confused_buyer said:

You should be able to get the belt done for less than that. They book at about 3.5 hours Labour so, say, £50 an hour at middling garage £175 should sort it plus about £125-150 for the bits. Add a bit more if you do the waterpump and the hydraulic tensioner is at the end of its travel.

That looks really nice - the interior looks like new. Low mileage, good condition LS400 are going up in price and you'd get £3k for that all day long advertised well so it was a bargain. With the belt done it is probably a £4k car.

Edited by confused_buyer on Friday 7th April 22:05

Yes I agree, last one I had done was under £400. They are going up on price, which is why I'm so excited at finding this. Just don't tell my wife or it really will be Wheeler Dealer time

[bob-lad]

Excellent purchase.

Don't forget to check the brake fluid has been changed.

[ALTO77]

I owned one very similar, identical interior, mines was silver externally, fantastic cars, when i bought it i drove it home the 200 something miles and it averaged around 35 mpg, they are economical on a motorway run. The general average in my ownership over a couple of years was just under 19 which isn't too bad. I bought it with the belts already having been done so i cant comment on the price to have them changed. In general very reliable cars but i ended up scrapping mine which in hindsight was a mistake. Mines developed a gearbox fault at 155k, (it wouldn't change up to fifth) it was solenoid number 2 and 4, their are 4 solenoids in total, i was quoted £275 per solenoid for parts alone, then adding labour it was going to be a big bill, i would have went ahead but the gearbox specialist said he had done one LS400 gearbox before and even after changing the solenoids their was still a problem and it could potentially require a full rebuild. Very rare problem he had only ever seen one LS with the problem before. I would have another one in a flash fantastic cars, when you go from the Lexus to most other cars you really appreciate how refined they are. Good luck with yours i think you have got yourself a real bargain.

[exelero]

confused_buyer said:

You should be able to get the belt done for less than that. They book at about 3.5 hours Labour so, say, £50 an hour at middling garage £175 should sort it plus about £125-150 for the bits. Add a bit more if you do the waterpump and the hydraulic tensioner is at the end of its travel.

That looks really nice - the interior looks like new. Low mileage, good condition LS400 are going up in price and you'd get £3k for that all day long advertised well so it was a bargain. With the belt done it is probably a £4k car.

Edited by confused_buyer on Friday 7th April 22:05

I recently saw an invoice for a GS300, 550 all together I think it was. That's why I said around 500

[0a]

Wow that looks mint. I must get an LS on the fleet at some point - I now have a non Merc position

[slippery]

Nice purchase, looks a cracker.

[rallycross]

Good purchase and you'd have been daft not to buy that just because the log book was not in his name (makes no difference).

[hidetheelephants]

Mega barg, and indeed mega barge. I was taken for an extended ride in one of these by a work colleague in the mid-1990s; the impression it left on me was that it out-barged the contemporary Merc S class by some margin.