Good morning to all of you! I am new to this forum and just want to be part of this great website. I bought a 98 LS 400 3 years ago with 140,000 on it of a private seller for $6500. Older lady wanted 8000 but was able to talk her down. My wife and I had been looking for a while but all the ones we looked at were in pretty bad condition but this one was pretty darn nice! Gold/brown two-tone, straight body(minor dings), interior was pretty nice with not bad wear on the leather so i think i really lucked out on this one. I ve always wanted an LS 400 because I love the body style and the classy elegant look. Ive babied her to this day. I currently have 182,000 and shes still running like a champ!
Time for some maintainance though. Ive always heard a clunk in the front end and after checking different sites and research i found out that the strut rod bushings go out in these about 75,000 miles. A few mechanics confirmed this so i ordered the whole rods from a Wholesale Lexus Dealership for 103 a side. I will be installing them soon along with some new Megan EZ coilovers. To keep the cost down I will be installing these myself to save some money and I was lucky to find 98 lexus repair manuals vol. 1&2 on E-bay for $120 (great deal i thought!)to torque everything back down correctly and for a step by step. Timing belt, Water pump, tensioners, pulleys,gaskets is next on the list but im taking this one to the shop being its such a big job. Is there anything else i should consider for maintainance with this many miles?
Finally, a few upgrades to my Lex is my new wheels and tires. I bought some chrome Mrr H-3's staggered fit 20x8.5 front and 20x10 rear with some Faulkin 452's. Sitting a little high right now but after i install the coilovers i will lower it 2 inches in the front and 1 in the back. Hopefully this will sit right to look low but not too low. I also buffed out my headlights, painted my grill black with the chrome accents and got LED bulbs for the front halo/parking lights and license plate lights. Fog lights were upgraded to HID 8000k also.Do any of you have any other ideas?
Anyways, sorry for the long post just very excited about owning a Lexus and finally getting close to fixing it up the way I want it.