Just Bought 1990 Ls400

glenmore · December 23, 2003

Hello All,

Just bought a 1990 LS400 with 130m. Unfortunately not the color combo I would have liked, burgundy/burgundy and the stock rims have been replaced with some unknown chromes but the car has been mostly dealer serviced and the price was within my budget of $3000. I also pretty complete service records which might be interesting to all of you. Some of the highlights:

12/22/89 Car bought new, $41,074.

1/8/95 Second owner, 34137 miles.

Brakes: typical wear, huge repair cost difference between dealer versus your corner gas station.

Batteries: seemed to go thru batteries, 4th new one 11/18/03, but the owner was the type never to check his battery. This last time when they tried to jump the near dry battery #3, it exploded! (they aren't kidding with all those warning labels on batteries!!)

Timing belt: 83500mi, $500 at the dealer for belt, idler assembly.

Fuel pump : 62,000mi, $440/dealer

Lower ball joints: 127000mi, $500/dealer

Water pump: only one water pump at 127,000mi!!, $1000/dealer for belt, pump. Radiator cap $32!!

EGR pipe : cracked, finally addressed at 103,000mi. $125 part but $610 labor!!!

I saved the worse for the last. As indicated by the several threads on power steering, this seems to be a weak and very expensive system to fix:

68,000mi, noisy p/s, new pump assembly with pulley $627, pressure line $327!!!, labor $329

101,000mi, p/s rack leaking, tried installing new vsv valve in p/s pump, $225 part, $180 labor, still noisy

103,500mi, p/s noisy, low fluid, leaking, new p/s gear (rack?) $1305 plus $180 labor

The last bit of news the owner got that prompted him to sell the car was a loose connection at the cam sensor. The dealer just used a ziptie to hold it on but then recommended new engine wiring, which I gather is very expensive.

glenmore

1991 MBZ 300CE

1990 LS400