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

North East Manchester - not far from the City of Manchester stadium.

Not the best areas in the world, but not the worst, either.

My brother and mother live around there.

Under £150k for a large 3-bed semi with garage and parking for 3 cars on the drive.

Reply to
SteveH
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I suppose I'm lucky that I'm more into comfort than outright speed. Best car I owned was a 1998 Senator, nice and roomy inside, 2.5 litre straight 6 & autobx did 40mpg on the motorway, felt like piloting a train. I think parts would be comically priced now though.

Don't think the new Omegas are quite as roomy at all, but are just about big enough. Another big bloke I know has a Signum diesel, very nice according to him. But he's not arsed about sporty cars either - he has a Yamaha 1200 for fun.

Mondeos - not enough headroom, Focus had terrible seats for me.

I quite fancy a 560SEC like wot Alistair Scottishbloke on here sporradically recommends, but I suspect one of these might turn into a wallet thief.

Reply to
conkersack

You could do worse than look for another. Sounds as if the one you had was a particularly bad example. The 1990 ST185 I've just sold was virtually faultless..Completely std apart from a turbo timer, and a CAT 1 alarm.

69k with a new belt fitted at 54k. No rust, body damage, oil leaks or mechanical faults. No oil req'd between oil changes, and.5-6mm left on the Bridgestone SO2's all.round. Everything worked as it should including the a/c. £1500 and I was probably lucky to get that. Mike.
Reply to
Mike G

How about an ovloV 760 Turbo? ISTR someone saying that they have independent rear suspension as standard instead of floating rear axle or whatever the other common thing is that 940s have, and as a result drive a lot better.

Could someone who aksherly knows what they're on about please take over at this juncture?

Reply to
AstraVanMan

They did one with the BMW I6 2.5TD, but they're abysmal on fuel for a diesel. Much better getting a V6 one, or possibly a slightly later 2.2 petrol one - they're chain-driven, so no worrying over Vauxhall's inability to design a reliable cambelt tensioning system.

Reply to
AstraVanMan

Let's say you average 22mpg in a Lexus and do 80 miles a day, 5 days a week - at todays prices, that's going to cost you =A370.09 a week.

I'm averaging 50mpg in the Golf at the mo, and that's on a mix of 80mph (where possible), and then a lot of stop start - the M25 is piss poor at the best of times, or to put it another way, what would normally take about 1hr 15mins on clearish roads is invariably taking between

2hrs and 2hrs 45mins at worst.

Anyway, as you can see, that's a fair amount of sitting around in traffic.

Based on the same figures, if you ran something along these lines it would, taking into account the extra that diesel costs over petrol at the mo, cost you =A333.04 a week to do the same commute unless you ragged it constantly, in which case given it has a tuning box upping the fuelling, it drops down to 45mpgish.

And then there's the lower insurance, cheaper servicing and parts etc.

Save the =A335+ a week difference and then spunk it all on a second rag wagon once you've saved a reasonable amount up - I hear big barges like Lexus's are cheap these days. ;-)

HTH

--=20 JackH

Reply to
jackhackettuk

There was a 2.0l petrol straight 4 and 2.5TD using a BMW straight six engine and there is a guy just back form a tour of spain who has a chipped one:

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Facelift ones have 2.2 petrol and TD along with the 2.6 and 3.2 v6's. Not sure if the BMW 2.5TD made it into facelift ones.

Reply to
rp

I like this

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Reply to
Elder

Pisstaking aside, a Mk3 Fiesta diesel is a good un if all you want is dirt cheap transport for commuting in - the seats are half decent as well on the later ones, and 60mpg is the norm.

Sell the Octavia, buy a sub =A3500 Fester... =A31500 to spunk on 'something for the weekend', Sir.

Jobs a good un.

Or, if your limits on taste know no bounds, a Maestro TD is both comfy and economical... and worth f*ck all these days.

Or... if outright economy isn't your main goal, my mate bought a pop up headlight 323F 1.6 off of a friend of Ashtraymans a month or so ago - I've used it for my commute a couple of times, and can't praise it enough - a bit noisy at 80ish crusing, but it's comfy, very well built and does 36mpg with me bollocking it from time to time and spending loads of other time stuck in traffic.

All that, and it's really well spec'ed - leccy windows all round, leccy sunroof, mirrors, ABS etc. - I'd happily have one even now, as my sole car.

--=20 JackH

Reply to
jackhackettuk

7**/9** have been considered. I know as standard they are considered boring, but I also know they can produce mega power as they are very strong and conservatively tuned from the factory.
Reply to
Elder

Heh, yeah, that's pretty smart. There's a tale I heard once about the Manx cops using rotary engines Nortons and they were so smooth that a

50p coin would stay on it's egde through the full throttle range.

Smooth = good.

Reply to
conkersack

I think one generally requires a moderate level of reliability, if one is buying a car for commuting.

Reply to
jackhackettuk

No, sorry, but commuting isn't fun unless you take the back roads. Unless you enjoy motorways, crazy company BMW drivers, idiots taking their little dears to school hogging the outside lane, so on and so forth, it isn't fun.

No but you shouldn't restrict your choice to ever increasing running costs...

Hmm.

Nah, I'm sure it's not all it's cracked up to be.

This is *precisely* why I'm running the Saab, as I'll digress.

I took a long, hard look at my options when changing the Accord.

My heart wanted something small, lightweight, challenging in the wet, rear wheel drive and simple to maintain. Thinking: older Caterham. Mark one Toyota MR2.

Read up. Research. Start to discount the Caterham. Sure it would look

*hard* pulling up in the office car park every day but it requires real effort and weight loss to be anything like viable as an all year everyday machine.

But I'd do it heh.

Thus the need box came out. Long haul comfortable, so, good seats given my back was still occasionally hurting after rolling the Ka, air conditioning too. Enough room for the cat boxes when we take them to the cattery and enough luggage space for at least a weekend suitcase. That rules out the two lightweights above.

I really didn't want a BMW simply because every other car at the office car park is a black or silver diesel BMW. It's a massive prejustice of course. The 325tds is a fine piece of kit, even if finding a nice specification, good condition, non-butchered example was challenging. The 325td is a bit inert, the 318tds is slower and less refined than the mark one Mondeo TD.

Ultimately I couldn't reconcile the difference between what I wanted and what I needed, 'cos like you I can't afford two cars from a cost, space and (now heh) security aspect. So I decided to opt for the comfortable motorway cruiser. Something that probably isn't enjoyable but instead excels at the bread and butter motoring I have to do day in, day out.

The usual suspects came up. Passat. 9-3. 9-5. S40. S60. Mondeo. 406. Xantia - only the VSX, lesser models' seats don't work for me. You get the idea.

Now? I bought the Saab for its excellent seats and turbodiesel economy. I miss the Ka almost every darn day I think about a B-road. But, heh, I live without it. The 9-3 hunkers along the motorway just fine and at every opportunity I can, I borrow something I really want. Or at least something fun.

One day, yeah one day maybe I'll have a toy car, but for the time being and given my restrictions and unwillingness to compromise on other stuff*, it's the 9-3.

I don't regret buying the 9-3, not in the slightest, but I do wish that berk looked before pulling out in front of me on the 29 November, 2005.

*being married to an American, we try to go back to the 'States once a year. Oh and paying the rent in York, that sort of thing.
Reply to
DervMan

Me too.

And mine...

So I rearranged T D and I and came up with... T then the i, little case yeah I admit, and finally the D. :)

Reply to
DervMan

Enough to get something Swedish.

I'd have a perfect back and still be in a foul mood. :)

[snip]

Do you *know* that the Lexus' seat is good? It may _not_ be.

It ought to be. But it might not be.

Seat comfort is always a personal choice. And some seats wear so need re-bolstering.

You may find the Octavia's seat has sagged...?

But, Volvo, Saab are reputed to make the best seats.

Reply to
DervMan

She could sell it on eBay or leave you.

Or both.

Don't break the missus' rule on cars...

Reply to
DervMan

Maybe worth looking. Still have a couple of years mortgage lock in=20 (normal 5 years). Then we are tarting up and moving on. It is a 15 year=20 repayment mortgage so we should have a nice bit of equity and some=20 improvent in worth by then as the building site across the road will be=20 replaced by nice middle class starter homes at 3 times the price, half=20 the size and prettier looking than the old coragated steel factory wall=20 that used to be there.

We were value at =A395k by the mortgage company when we remortgaged. We borrowed =A365k to pay things off, fit double glazing and refit the=20 kitchen and bathroom. And we took the mortgage over 15 years to cut down=20 the interest. Add the improvement, and the change of mixed use area to=20 purely residential and the value in a couple of years should be=20 significantly higher. And if it all crashes we will just wait until it=20 climbs again. one thing I've learnt about property, be prepared to play=20 the long game.

--=20 Carl Robson Audio stream:

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Playing at home:EA80-Kamaki

Reply to
Elder

Well, ~36 mpg, but they sound good and go respectively well for what they are (a non-VAG, non-Merc, non-BMW large diesel).

And the 2.0 petrol, the rare 2.0 DTi plus the 2.2 DTi as well. The 2.5,

2.6, 3.0 and 3.2 V6s. The 3.0 I borrowed managed 30 mpg and that's with Captain Slow Dervy driving here.

No Omega is all that with fuel consumption, though - but they're fun to drive in a big rear wheel drive car way.

Reply to
DervMan

If I was to go for the boring box pov spec TDI to save money to spent on=20 a fun car for the weekends. The room I have will just about fit in a=20 Smartcar or a Fiat 126. It might be a little tight for a mini or an imp.=20

That is why I would be happy to have one "slightly" excessive compromise=20 car for fun and the commute.

It is a shame really that the MK1 Octavia never came in a 4x4 TDi saloon=20 model AFIAK. That probably would be ideal and as about as compromised as=20 I could find. 4x4 for playing, TDI for economy and the option of=20 "chipping" to test that 4x4 at weekends.

--=20 Carl Robson Audio stream:

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Playing at home:EA80-Kamaki

Reply to
Elder

I think we know who wears the trousers in your house.

And when she's out, you try them on.

Reply to
SteveH

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