Lexus LS400. Ruinous or bargain?

[itz_baseline]

So I have just sold my car and after a bit of a stop gap before committing to something fast and longer term. I have a bit of a hankering for a gen 1 Lexus LS400 and they can be had for under a grand. I get that they will still have the running cost of a £50k car, but I'm reading they are pretty bullet proof and built to last.

Has anyone run one for any length of time and how did you find it? I'm think 6 months of depreciation barging whilst I find what I want could be fun. But will it be ruinous for my wallet or good reliable fun? I have heard of plenty going well above 400k miles, so getting one with 150k miles that has been looked after and doing only a few k miles over 6 months might be a good itch to scratch.

Appreciate thoughts and real world experiences.

[itz_baseline]

Thanks all for the replies, think I will lull the trigger on one as soon as I find something suitable.

dbdb said:

It may well be reliable, but there are more interesting and characterful big cars out there.

I'm sure there are more interesting and characterful cars out there, but I'm after reliable as a stop gap (feel free to suggest a car that ticks all 3 boxes for under £1?) whilst I find my more interesting and characterful car long term car (thinking along the lines of 996 911 turbo or Noble M12).

[itz_baseline]

Soooo, just to add an update to this. I pulled the trigger on a 1997 LS400 over the weekend. Took me a while to find a good one as most of them had either lots of rot, issues with electrics or were gold in colour (not for me :-).

Picked one up with 89,000 miles on the clock, 12 months mot and full service history, not a spec of rust on it and baring a couple of stone chips and a little trim tidy up is in really good condition. Wafted along on the 4 hour drive home and it was impeccable.

Will treat it to a full detail, a new set of car mats and a bit of leather treatment and I really can't see it losing any money. Everything is tight as a button and not a creak in site....a couple of little things I hadn't really noticed before such as electric head rest adjustment, electric seatbelt adjustment are really nice touches.

Truely happy with it (once I found the right one!).

[itz_baseline]

TrivsTom said:

A mate has a 1998 with around 130k on it. He had the backboxes removed and replaced with straight pipes which is a worthy mod! Great cruiser, puts up with many burnouts and town driving alike, enjoy!

lol....there does seem to be a modifying culture for the LS400 for some reason (VIP stance??) but I'll be keeping mine as standard as possible. I even like the way the 16" almost look too small for the car....it's all just really pleasant.

Will start a thread in readers cars and look to get a few pics up after a detail this evening.....

[itz_baseline]

muppets_mate said:

Sounds like a tidy example. Look forward to seeing a few pics after you've cleaned it up.

Was it for sale from a dealer in East London somewhere by any chance? I thought I saw a car that sounds remarkably like yours on AutoTrader. It looked good for the money they were asking.

Yep it was from East London....kind of in a midnight blue over dark gray (I'm sure someone will correct me on the official colour names :-) ) There's not too many around at that mileage so it probably is the one you have seen.

[itz_baseline]

Here we go.....a few request for pics so created a thread.....

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...