Lexus LS400? Luxury everyday or money pit waiting to happen?

New job? Either way, keep the Octavia, it's a perfect commuter hack. You don't really wanna pile huge piles on summet you care too much about.

I'd have thought ovlov was a good bet given people's comments on how the seats are. But... 20K miles year. 2000 quid diesel, 4000 quid petrol in the things you're talking about. Worth considering?

cheers, clive

Should be yes.

80 miles round trip a day, maybe longer days, but on the plus side, once the first 3 months is up, 8k a year more than the old place in manchester I was at, and 5k a year more than the last place that had to let me go after 2 months because the cheques were bouncing.

The Octavia is OK, but the seats can be quite uncomfortable. Not bad while moving but if you get stuck in a jam the back gets sore pretty quickly.

Thing is, the octavia is tidy enough and solid enough to not want to mess with it and I can see an 8v 2 litre being worth bothering with the tuning. But a nice LS400 is still catered for by TRD and Toms, as well as people like Apexi. So it would be possible to tune/modify/improve it without having to bodge stuff. And the Nakamich premium sound system is tempting. I just like the thought of owning something luxurious and powerful and with a V8. I guess with the Saab vert I got a taste for nice things with the heated leather and electric toys. I could fit better seats from a VAG group better model (I believe the leather 5 door Leon seats are the best for comfort and support) but I don't reckon it is worth the bother and there is too much expensive trim to break clips on. I did think about doing some cosmetic/comfort mods to this one. But in the end decided it was OK as it was, even if it doesn't excel at anything.

I don't know. How much do you value back comfort? I know the M6 can grind to halt for hours. I just don't want to have a bad run in one day and be crippled and in a bad mood. Having been so bad it hurt to stand and it hurt to sit, and only keeping walking helped, I know I don't want to be back in the position again (no pun intended). I loved the layout and feel of the old Celica. Everything was great but when I sold it it was drinking/pissing oil, the rear diff was clonking (had a spare thrown in), it needed rear Z rated tyres, but should ideally have had a set of four because of the 4wd, and the cambelt was near due. It was quick, smooth, solid and reliable, even when bad it always started. I guess I'm shortlisting now to a Volvo saloon for cheap comfort and reliability and to be different. Or a Lexus saloon for cheapish luxury comfort with reliability and "status" with the knowledge that when it does break I'm back to badge tax again unless I source my own parts and get non dealer garages to fit parts that need a lift (essentially what I did with the Celica but never didn solve the oil issues).

I remember a What Car article from around the first launch where the headline question was "Is This the Best Luxury Car in the World?" and which pitted it against the *then* new Roller. Can't remember any of the text but the conclusion was a resounding Yes. I'd say they are likely to have been unstressed in their lives (apart from one I know of located in the bowels of Derby which I pass (no pun intended) almost daily - big square skirt kit (complete with part of front spoiler broken off), black windows, 4 x 4" exhausts, massive chrome wheels and full size "Lexus LS400" script down the flanks! It's actually longer than the width of the terraced house that it's parked across the front garden of!

Is an 'end of line' w202 C class an option, up to X reg(?) They were quite well built and are reasonably priced now and not badly kitted if its the Elegance or Sport trim level

Don't be so bloody stupid.

Lets say you can average 20mpg in the Lexus, that's 4 gallons of petrol per day - 16 quid a day.

Fuck that, it would be half the price in some kind of oil burner - and this is before you've priced up service and consumable bits for the Lexus. Tyres will wear quickly and be expensive to replace, if anything goes wrong with it you'll need a second mortgage to sort them.

They're cheap for a reason - and that is that no-one wants a £2k barge that does sub-20mpg.

Might be worth a look. But =A31500-2k will get a early to mid 90's lexus.

Seems for a lot smaller engine I could get a C class of a similar age. but the one thing that drives me bonkers on the Octavia is that at=20

3krevs (about 70 on the motorway) it is so intrusively annoying, just=20 that little too loud, but at a really whiney pitch. So much so that you=20 can't hear the factory stero until you turn it up to distortion, and=20 when I stuck in the goodmans one, it is better but the factory speakers=20 let it down.

What can you get in RWD black or dark grey, with a dark leather interior=20 that might have depreciated as far as it will get, have fun performance=20 when you prod it with a stick but be civilised when not. I know they will drink fuel, I know they will be expensive "if" they go=20 wrong, and I know the insurance will be higher, but not as high as a=20 "sports" model.

--=20 Carl Robson Audio stream:

Playing at home:EA80-Kamaki

He has a valid point. Steve's right, get a Mk1 Mondeo TD. Good idea Steve ;-) And a nice big box of Dihydracodeine - trust me, if it stops my back hurting, it'll stop yours.

Cocodamol worked for the pain. but it made me sleepy (not good for driving)

So maybe a Diesel disco that might roll on high wind motorway sections or an older diesel merc with all the driving fun of a flacid c*ck, or a=20 newer diesel merc that will cost a mortgage to buy but break down worse=20 than an old one then?

Or I could go finance like my brother and get one of those stupid Mitsu=20 Animals that are build with a 7.5 tonne truck transmission and a tractor=20 turbo diesel engine inside a pretty pictured body.

Even Tatra/Skoda didn't try that trick on the western world.

--=20 Carl Robson Audio stream:

Playing at home:EA80-Kamaki

A Volvo 940 turbo would just about do all of that. It's not that quick but it's got enough power (around 170bhp) for overtaking and is quite comfortable. Handling is much improved on post '92 cars but still not that good but that adds to the enjoyment of thrashing it and the looks of surprise on the people I overtake can be quite amusing. Fuel consumption is poor at around 25mpg for normal use but I've had it up to

35mpg on a long gentle run. You'll be able to get a reasonable one with highish miles for a few hundred quid so if something major goes wrong with it it's easy enough to get another one and swap any decent bits to that one.

Why are you looking at shonky old tat? - even a Disco oil burner will burn fuel quicker than a modern mid-sized petrol car. Oil Mercs can be good - W124 shape E-Class diesels may not set the world on fire, but they're tough as old boots.

There's loads of diesels out there worth looking at for what you want - start with PSA group stuff for comfort. But VAG stuff is obviously worth looking at and even JTD engined Fiats will be in budget.

Why do you always look for the most ridiculous option when buying commuting hacks?

That was why I included the Volvo 7/9 on my maybes. purely for cost of buying.

The only driving I tend to do is motorway stuff these days. With not working the car hasn't been used at all, but when my mum was bad before and just after she died I did three trips (NSL A road/Motorway/Dual carriagway) to Oswestry and back and a trip over to my brothers in Crewe to sort out the flowers over two weekends.

That was on 3/4 of a tank, and 365(ish) miles. I can't remember the exact mileage but the tripmeter said 39MPG and my calculations said

38.5MPG. I was surprised at that.

Because I enjoy to drive and the only driving I get to do is commuting these days.

Should I buy myself a hairshirt to make the econobox run more painful?

I have one car to do all jobs. There isn't room to store old car and have day to day car, and old car wouldn't be trusted for day running. So it has to be that little bit better.

If I could afford to store a fun project/track/weekender and have a boring plodder for day to day I would. So I can't. What I drive to work I need to drive for fun. you are so lucky having the fleet of fun car, your car, missus car and bikes. I really wish I was in that position.

I actually do regret selling that old Silver Saab. The gearbox and body work would have eventually needed work but not structural body work, but the engine was rock solid and I found where the oil leak was the day it was collected. That car never let me down once.

Which is no reason for looking towards expensive to run old clunkers or obscure stuff.

If you can only afford / have space for one car and need to reliably do

80 miles / day, then you'll have to relegate 'fun' to the very bottom of the list. Much more important is that you have something that won't drink fuel excessively, won't cost stupid amounts of money to fix when it goes wrong and won't potentially break down.

Sometimes you have to forget about fun and go practical.

Or just get a bike as well :-) Accept the dull commute in the winter, bike in the summer. Ta daa. Although to be fair, how much fun driving can one do on the M6 heh. I can see Carl's point re: comfort though - it's the reason I'd never own a Focus - I'm not saying they have bad seats, but I have a very odd back heh.

I didn't know Derby had bowels. I thought it was all bowels.

What's that got to do with the fuel? Seats != fuel tank...

Sounds like it's

First priority : get the seats right. Second priority : something which doesn't cost a fortune to run in fuel and maintenance Everything else should really come after that. Especially "status". And really, an old Lexus doesn't say "status" so much as "pikey".

A nice diesel hydropneumatic Cit? Suits me, but I don't know if the seats would suit you. My BX is IMO more comfortable than a modern octavia though..

Ovlov do make diesels - the S40 must be getting towards that price range now? Or there's the Tim Kemp solution - how much can you get an A series D for these days?

cheers, clive

35mpg if you're gentle is a bit s**te for 170 horses. Go for something lighter and smaller that needs less horses to pull it around. Knock the RWD on the head because you won't get a decent RWD car for f*ck all, because the only people who make RWD cars are in the business of sports cars and luxury cars.