i have used a product called Zaino for years. Love their stuff. I actually use their full line of items on the outside as well. It has the perfect smell for their leather. It's not vey strong and yes I'm very very particular about that. It's cleaner is very mild and the conditioner leaves a nice matte finish. Never shinny

 

Also, one more tip I thought of:

register on Lexus Drivers website, http://drivers.lexus.com/lexusdrivers/

On there, you can keep a running log of all maintenance, dealer service visits and anytime a reputable shop does any work, they document the labor with the VIN allowing for a digital paper trail of all records.

 

I tried that last night my browser isn't supported so it keeps going to a goofy page when I try to read the terms. I'll have to wait till I do a Linux box.

 

Sorry for the extremely late reply...I lost my password and had a hard time resetting it. Thank you for everyone who went out of their way to help out a noob like me. I asked many of these questions because my vehicle didn't have a manual in it and I couldn't find it online. I've already been implementing some of the advice that was given to me.

 

Another point that can be a safety thing on an old car . The lower balljoints in front are of a type that potentially can wear until failure with little warning .
I have echanged these once with oem parts on one LS400. Very little wear after 20 years. Not really needed. The other LS400 i Own I now check carefully once per year for play. On some other make cars I have seen several instances when the balljoint has failed. , Very scary. Hopefully uncommon on LS400.

 

The 2-GS had a catastrophic failures in that design. Would be good measure to check in any case to prevent basic wear issues.

Here is on thread with the 1-LS:
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-...all-joint.html

 

The thread you posted may be a good argument for a OEM lower balljoint or at least a good brand one. I bought mine from JAPAN . AMAYAMA.
The material in this should be high alloy , high strength , fine grain, surface hard and tempered steel. A good guess is that the cheap ones may have saved on design, process and quality control. These high stress and "no warning" things and brake parts and some other stuff I only buy from trusted brands.
I have a friend that had a nasty experience where the lower balljoint (A well used german brand SUV ) gave up completely setting the wheel at a crazy angle when parking the car . He had just driven over the numerous very high four lane bridges through Stockholm with the family.