I had the opportunity to buy a 1997 LS400 to go along with our 2008 RX350. It was owned by a professional car detailer for the past year and it showed. Interior, exterior and engine were all 9.5-10. Seats were in great shape and super comfy. My intent was for an additional car for tooling around at work. Short distances with an occasional 30 mile freeway trip. Total of less than 5,000 miles a year. The car had just over 200,000 miles on it and had been well maintained by the previous owner (a realtor) at an independent Lexus specialty shop. We passed it up thinking that at 200k miles, we would start to have alot of components that would need to be replaced pretty soon.

He has asking $2500. Was I an idiot to pass this up?

 

yes, I'm afraid so

LS400 is the one car that routinely goes 400K-500K miles or even more, almost trouble-free

the thing is, three systems in a car are notoriously expensive to repair or replace - engine, transmission, and air conditioning - extremely rare for an LS400 to have any issues in these three major areas

and by the way, no reason to baby that car, after a bit of routine thorough maintenance of a few things, let's call it a 200K service (spending less than 2K), I would jump in this car and drive it across the country with confidence!

 

Yeah I had a feeling we should have gone for it. We're new to the Lexus world and aren't used to the legendary reliability. We're coming off of owning two Jeeps, one of which we had to replace the engine in at 187,000 so we're still a little gun shy for something with 200,000 on it.

Thanks for the input.

 

Funny how that works huh?

I had owned nothing but Toyota's for ages (as it the only thing my family has ever purchased) and am very mechanically inclined, so i got rather used to the small amount of problems and downtime they ever have.

Then in 2012, I was feeling patriotic and ended up Buying a 2003 Cadillac Escalade, and I honestly could not believe how poorly engineered and problematic that vehicle was.

After owning it for 10 months, spending countless hours in the garage with it, and racking up the credit cards up on new parts, i was done when the engine started having oil pressure problems and promptly kicked it to the curb. Replaced it with a Lexus GX, and all is well now.

And meanwhile, my 95' LS400 i bought the same year was chilling in the backround (even after being totally neglected by the prior owner) not making one bit of a fuss. I could of sworn it was laughing at me as it sat and watched me toil away on that wretched truck...

 

This is so true!

 

Keep watching, it's not the last time that same deal will come around, but hold out for the beautiful creampuff in like new cosmetic condition - 200K is fine, but keep it at that

 

When these get regular basic service, the main systems in the car are excellent. Other fixes include suspension bushings and the other rubber components that tend to become hard and crack. Engine & tranny mounts, hoses...etc.

Super clean ones come by now then but these can be a tough search when you settle on hunting them down in excellent shape. How many has Billy had?