Purchasing An Ls430 With Possible Problems?

[cleo23]

I'm new to the forum and was hoping I might be able to get the help of some of you who are more experienced with this car than I am.

I have found an 02 LS430 with 47k miles at a very good price that I would like to buy. The car seems to be in very good shape; it rides and drives really well and everything seemed to be in order, but, when I went to take it over to a local independent mechanic for a once over to make sure everything was kosher, the check engine light came on.

This happened as I was fiddling with all the buttons to make sure everything worked. I pressed the "VSC Off" button and found that the VSC would not come back on when I pressed it again or when I turned off and then restarted the car. And as I mentioned, the check engine light came on also.

The mechanic hooked it up to the diagnostic computer and a code (I wish I had the actual #, I forgot to get this) came up as something to do with a valve in cylinders 1 and 2 (I want to say it was something to do with electronic variable valve timing, but I don't remember exactly) which he said could have to do with anything from a computer module, to a relay, to not having had a prior code reset (i.e. nothing wrong at all), to a bunch of different things.

I went over to the Lexus dealer to get the service history and the history I got is kind of vague and abbreviated, but it says that an engine light came on at about 46k in January of this year (I would guess for the same thing?). Other than that, they had basically done nothing other than standard maintenance.

At the price I'm getting, I'm thinking it would almost be worth it to try to deal with the problem, but I'm also very wary of buying anything that has something wrong with it. The mechanic I took it to didn't charge me to check it out, but now with this potentially larger issue, I'm thinking about shelling out $300 to take it over to Lexus for their very thorough 3 hour inspection. But I'd also hate to shell out the money for them to say, "well duh, the car is broken, don't buy it.

What do ya'll think about the car?

[SKperformance]

Get the previous invoices from the owner

[cleo23]

Get the previous invoices from the owner

Unfortunately, it's at a dealer and there aren't any invoices with the car.