Tony1M

Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it. I'll post what happens.

I am seriously considering buying a 1995 LS400 that has, believe it or not, about 48 K miles. I've verified the miles by CarFax and dealer records. The car is a day's drive from me, so I haven't seen it yet. The seller knows where I live. The owners' son (the person who is conducting the sale on behalf of his parents) says the vehicle's interior and exterior are "showroom condition" because it has been spending the vast majority of its life sitting a large garage. The car has never been driven in snow. The car has never been in an accident. After I heard his description of the car, I again told the son what I meant by showroom condition - "no damage or rust of any kind; if you wash and wax the car, it looks like a new car in a showroom". He said "yes, that is exactly what the car looks like". Now to the reason I posted. Assuming that the vehicle is in the condition claimed by the son (that is, after I personally examine the car and determine that the son's claims are true), what is the maximum I should pay for the car?

Blake and Steve, thanks for that information on the photos I posted of the seats. Blake, have you ever tried removing your shoes to give you more legroom. When I do that in our Honda, I can then slide my foot right under the brake pedal and I can stretch my right leg just about as flat as you show yours in one of your photos. For any trip over an hour, I always remove my shoes. Pathetic what we long-legged folks have to go through, eh? Here's a tenative, very rough, not-to-scale drawing of what I had in mind: If the head of the bolt securing the front of the OEM braket interferes with the slide of the seat, no biggie, the adapter can be "dipped" at that point to more closely match the original downward curve of the OEM bracket and this allowing the seat slider to slide over it. To tighten the bolt that secures the rear of the adapter to the chassis, a hole large enough for that purpose can be drilled through the portion of the adapter that extends beyond and above the bolt. (To make the hole in the adapter as small as possible, I'd probably change the rear chassis bolt to an Allen-head design.) Again, no biggie. 1/4" stainless steel is so strong that I believe the rear end of the adapter (where the OEM bracket bolts to it) does not have to be welded to the chassis floor. I think 3" more travel rearward is going to be just fine for me, so the force required to bend 1/4" ss plate, 3" long, would be astronimical - several tons, at least. The "brake" that the place uses to bend the plate exerts a force of 150 tons. (Before my body exerts enough force on the seat belt, or seat, to bend that adapter, my body will be doing one of those Terminator II, "metal man" maneuvers - the one where the bars of the security door go THROUGH Mr. Metal. Ufortunately, I won't be recovering from it quite as well as Mr. Metal.) For added strength, if necessary, I could "box in" the end of the adapter from the downward-sloping portion of the adapter at the rear (where it is bolted to the car) to the very end of the adpater - where the bracket bolts into it (where it is "hanging there"). I could either use two separate adapters for each side of the seat bracket, or, after fitting them to the car, weld them together with one or two cross pieces. In the latter case, the then-one-piece adapter will probably weigh ten or 15 lbs. The sheet metal prototype will allow me to "iron out the kinks" with something easy to bend before commiting to the SS final product. I figure the thing will cost a total of about $250 and a fair amount of labor for me to fit, but it will be well worth the trouble. Should work. All I need to do now is convince my wife that it's time to get a "new" car!

Hold the phone! I just did a search and found Blake's fantastic thread on this subject: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...hl=seat+bracket The photos of the car with the seats and carpet removed are exactly what I need. Thanks Blake! I hope the arrangement is the same on 90 or 91. I've taken the liberty to copy Blake's photo here and I've added arrows to what I think are the threaded holes that accept the bolts that hold the seat brackets to the car. Unless there is something poking down from the seat brackets, I now believe it would be quite a simple matter to fabricate an adapter exactly as I described above. The front of the OEM bracket would be flattened and bolted to the adapter. The back end of the adapter could be curved down to meet the floor of the car in the same way that OEM "rib" does. The back end of the OEM bracket would then bolt to the adapter exactly as is does to the chassis. As I said above, I'd use 1/4" stainless steel plate for the adapter. (This would probably be several times the strength of anything on the car.) To ensure that the adapter will be exactly the right dimension to fit the car, I'll use the chassis floor as a template, or "form", against which I will bend a prototype that would probably be a piece of heavy-gauge sheet metal. Once the prototype is perfect, I would take it to a place I have used in the past for similar work. Speaking of which...........I made a custom seat for our 84 Yamaha Venture Royale motorcycle that had been both raised and moved rearward about 4". Here's the process I went through to make a custom adapter out of 1/4" ss that raised the passenger foot pegs: (The three bolts at the bottom of the adapter are where the peg could normally be bolted) The seat adapter will take a little longer and cost a bit more, but it will be far more rewarding than foot pegs for my wife. I won't bother making an adapter for the passenger side.

This morning I did a little searching for some illustrations or photos of LS400 seats. Here's one of the front: As far as I can tell, I could quite easily make an adapter whose front end is similarly-downward curved in order to bolt to the car. I'd then flatten the rounded front part of the OEM seat bracket, slide the OEM bracket back two or three inches and then bolt (or weld) the OEM bracket to the adapter. Very simple. However, the rear part of the OEM bracket, and how it attaches to the car, is more of a mystery to me because I cannot as yet find a good photo of it. Here's the best I've found so far: From the lower photo, if what I can make out is correct, the "outer" side of the seat bracket is similar to the front. The front part of the metal bracket- where the hole is drilled -is curved a bit downward - probably fitting over a similarly-curved "beam" on the chassis of the car. Again, this would be an easy place to fit the back of a custom adapter. I'd flatten the curved part of the OEM bracket, then slide it back and bolt, or weld, it to the adapter. The inisde of the seat bracket (pointed out by the red arrows) is where I cannot make out enough detail to imagine a design for an adapter. They're a sort of weird shape for a reason that I also cannot imagine. At that point do the brackets sit relatively flat on the floor? At the same location, how many bolts hold the bracket to the floor? Thanks.

Well, this afternoon I finally got to sit in a 1994 LS400. It was a very luxurious car and I'd really love to own one. Rather than continue the thread about replacing the air suspension with a steel suspension, I figured I'd start a new thread about the possibility of modifying an LS400 driver's seat postion rear-ward. To make a short story shorter, I extended the steering wheel all the way "out" and tilted it almost all of the way "up" and I was then able to get my right knee somewhat under the wheel - enough so that I could have driven the car. But I did not drive the car because I had already decided as soon as I saw it that I would not buy that particular vehicle under any circumstance. I was in the vehicle for a total of maybe 5 minutes. Believe it or not, our 92 Accord has more leg room than the LS. In order for me to buy an older LS, what I really need to be comfortable is another 2, perhaps 3, inches of leg room. Head room and cabin room were just fine and I very much like the way the cabin looks and is arranged. I've seen many interior and exterior photos of the LS400 model and to me it looks great. I believe that I could alter either the actual place on the seat mechanism where it bolts to the floor (cut it and weld in appropriate extensions at the front and back), or fabricate a custom adapter to relocate the seat rearward. The adapter would bolt to the floor where the seat normally would, and then the seat would bolt to the adapter, but 2 or 3" back from where it would normally be. (To be as strong as possible, I'd make the adapter out of 1/4" stainless steel.) To do this modification, however, I need to be able to see exactly how and where the seat bolts to the floor, so does anyone happen to have a photo of how and where the seat attaches to the floor of the car at the front of the seat and at the back of the seat? (I don't care if a passenger has zero leg room. In that case, I can put the seat forward enough for a passenger not to suffer too much. My wife doesn't put the seat all the way forward even in our Accord, so likely she'll still be fine in the modified forward-most position.) Thanks for any help on this, folks.

Whether the customer has a vehicle to trade is almost always one of the first, if not THE first, question a salesman asks, because its answer determines the entire course of price negotiation. If your friend is really a friend, then ask him to first negotiate the best price he can WITHOUT telling the salesman that he wants to trade, and THEN, after he has negotiated that price, he should announce that he has a vehicle to trade. He can do this by telling the salesman that he already has sold his present vehicle (not far from the truth), or he is selling it privately (also close to the truth), and then, after the lowest selling price has been determined, he then says that the buyer of his car changed his mind, or your friend has decided, for liability reasons, not to go through the hassle of a private sale. This strategy will no doubt give the salesman a heart attack knowing what he has to then say to his very-serioius potential buyer, but this is the only procedure that will give him the true trade-in value of the car at that particular dealership, and that value will almost certainly be a gigantic disappointment for your friend.......... and put a very big smile on your face. Unfortunately, what it may make your friend realize is that he'd be much better off selling the car privately than trading it in on another vehicle, but who knows, maybe he won't want the hassle and you'll get the car at a very good price. Good luck.

It snowed here today and I couldn't get to the car, so I still don't know if I fit. I can barely drive the Passat and Beetles of the years you mention. I can do it, but it's very uncomfortable for me. If the 400 is even smaller, it's probably out of the question for me. Nevertheless, I'm still going to try to sit in a 400 in the near future and I'll post my findings. The 92 Accord is our one and only car. It has pretty good leg room - unlike the generations of Accords that came after it. I can fit in the new EX, but it has only about the same room as our present car.

Blake, Yes, prepare yourself to smile and be amazed by the amount of leg room and cabin space in a W140. A 1992 500SEL was the one and only car I ever sat in whose seat I did not have to put all the way back to its rearward limit. Although I could have easily driven the car that way, I felt more comforable by moving it FORWARD maybe an inch or so. But whatever you do, don't try to manually adjust the rear view mirror in a W140, because that little slip-up is going to set you back about $400. From your photo and your description of how cramped you feel in your car, I'd say my LS400 advernture is about to come to a screeching halt. Thanks for letting me know how you feel.

Blake, thanks for the reply. You're right, I did not consider the typical time limit on timing belts, but if the owner of the vehicle had followed that requirement, he/she should have changed the belt probably twice by now, if the limit is 7 years, that is. This should be an easy thing to determine from the car's maintenance records. I think what you say about the suspension bushings may not be true, however. Rubber that is shielded from the elements - sunlight and heat, in particular, should not harden or deteriorate with the mere passage of time. The heat and constant stress of miles are what kill rubber. But maybe I'm all wrong on this, and the bushings on even a zero-mile, 15-yr-old car would also have to be replaced and, because you have pointed it out, it is now something I will certainly have checked out on any older vehicle that I'm thinking about buying. Thanks. What you say about the 400's leg room causes me some concern. I have very long legs (38" inseam), even for someone of my height. I'm normal height from the waist up, so headroom is almost never a problem for me. I was very comfortable in the 02 LS430 that I sat in a while back, but maybe the model's leg room has improved over the years. Tomorrow I'll be able to tell in about two seconds whether the 400 will be suitable for me, and I'll report it here. I fit quite well in the W126 chassis, but the W140 that replaced it was a dream come true in the leg-room department - the best I ever had. Unfortunately, it was a nightmare in the reliability department so I wouldn't touch one with a ten-foot ................. thick wallet!

SRK, thanks for that offer to keep your eyes open. As far a right hand drive goes, it's no big deal. My wife and I drove a manual-transmission car through London and the English countryside and it didn't bother either of us. Of course we were driving on the Left side of the road. There is one advantage to right hind drive - parallel parking! Maybe my wife would finally have to courage to re-learn how to parallel park. Before writing this post, I took a look at the strutmaster conversions for the LS. I think they're a remarkably good price and, if they actually work well in the car, they look like they'd be a snap to install. I hope anyone who has used them chimes in to report how they like them. On Monday I'll probably be going to look at a high-mile LS400 just to find out if it is as comfortable as the 430. In a way I hope that it is not, because that would put a stop to this madness for a few years.

SRK, Thanks for taking the time. I'd just love to be able to get a low-mile BC car in great shape in the price range you mention, but I have been checking AutoTrader for quite some time and, from what I have seen, almost all BC 400's of around that year are either very high mile, or very high priced. Unless the engine and transmission are new, or very low km, I will not buy an LS unless it has low kms. If you happen to run across one, please post it. Although I'd certainly try to determine that the oil had been changed regularly on a car having 30 or 40K miles, I must say that if a 91 LS that has never been driven in the harsh Canadian climate, or road conditions, is in need of much more than oil changes or brake pads, I would probably conclude that I'm considering the wrong model vehicle. Theoretically, at least, a car having that mileage (other than a Benz, of course) should not need a single drive-train or suspension repair. A Honda of that year and having that mileage almost certainly would not need a thing done to it, other than brake pads. I know this because I've been driving one, in and around Edmonton, for 15 years and 200K km. Hell, I just changed the power steering and alternator belts for the first time a couple of months ago and I've changed the pads only twice. The first 8 years of its life were in Grande Cache, where it never was garaged. Any car would consider Grande Cache a frozen hell on earth. Anyway, although our car still runs great, and will probably go at least another 4 or 5 years after the work I've done to it, I'm 6'6" tall and I made the mistake of sitting in an 02 LS430, and, unfortunately, I was extremely comfortable in that car. The entry fee was way too high, and that's why I'm considering an older LS. Here's a link to the car I am/was considering: http://www.terra2imports.ca/import-japan113207576990436.htm Do you happen to know anything about this company? Do you happen to know anyone who's imported a vehicle from Japan, and, if so, how did it work out for him or her? Again, thanks for taking the time a trouble to reply, SRK. I appreciate it.

wandawoods, Thanks very much for that information and that link. I appreciate it.

This is my second post. I'd like to thank the forum's creators for giving me the opportunity to learn so much about Lexus vehicles. My wife and I once owned an 88 Merc 560SEL and the thing was a money pit. We don't want to experience that situation again. I am carefully considering importing from Japan a 1990 Celsior that has 43000 miles on it. It is supposed to be in "immaculate" condition, and that's the way it looks in the photos of it that I've seen. Before buying it I can pay for a professional inspection of the vehicle in Japan, and I will do that if I get more serious about the vehicle. The price of the vehicle to our driveway, even including taxes, safety inspection and registration, is about $7000 CAD. (We live in Canada and we understand that US residents cannot import these vehicles into the US, but I may be wrong on that.) Year-for-year, Lexus vehicles are much more expensive than their US counterparts, and to get a vehicle of this year and miles one would have to spend between two and three times this amount of money in Canada. It would be more reasonable to import even from the US than buy locally, but likely the miles would be much higher on a US vehicle. I am 56 years old and I am a do-your-own-car-repairs person from way back. My wife and I own a 92 Accord and I've recently replaced all of its struts and springs (I own a spring compressor), upper arms w ball joints, lower ball joints, inner and outer tie rods, several bushings, timing belt, balance belt, tensioners, water pump, and various seals. I have also had the dash apart, repaired the daytime running light module and fixed the heater temperature control - a job that even a Honda "technician" could not successfully perform. If we purchase another luxury car, as the need arises, I fully intend to personally do every repair to it that I can. Finally to the reason I'm posting - The car I'm interested in has air suspension and I have learned that the replacement components for this system are very expensive. I checked some on-line vendor prices of the "regular" suspension components - struts springs, etc. - and they seem to be quite reasonably priced. So, if I buy an older LS400 that has air suspnesion, when that system needs repair, can I simply remove the struts and springs and replace them with the "regular" struts and springs that would be on a car of the same year, but one not equipped with air suspension, and is this a job that the DIY'r can perform without special Lexus-only tools, and without modifying the suspension of the vehicle in any way? I have learned from this fourm about the power steering pump and lcd issues. I certainly will have those specifically looked at before purchasing any older LS400. Is there any way that the original lcd could still be functioning properly on a 1990? That is, if the lcd is in fact still working properly, is it likely that it is still original to the vehicle? Thanks very much for any information. :)

Unilateral, I have also been thinking about buying the Celsior. I also live in Edmonton. :) Now that you've had you car for awhile, what do you think of your purchase? Would you do it again?