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Good day all, new member here really trying to buy one of these cars as they are a bucket list car for me.
2005 LS430, 108k miles, from the Rhode Island area. Extensive service history at the Lexus dealership there.
I unfortunately don't live close to the car. So had the seller take photos for me.
How bad would all of you consider this rust on the pinch weld areas, and other areas on the underside of the car.
I will add, I am mechanically inclined. I have a full 3 car garage (basically a shop), with my own 4 post lift with 2 post air jack mounted on it. I restore vehicles and build engines and swap motors, but my experience is all American cars and trucks, and mostly classics.
I have the ability to quickly chemically nutralize the rust after grinding all the scale out. I also (if needed) can weld and have a mig and a plasma cutter. Though I'd rather not. My lift is also occupied for a bit longer until I finish up some punch out on my 67 bel air.
Are these vehicles prone to rusting through in those areas? Most of the rust seems surface, with some scaling. My first task would be to chemically stop it all and grind out any scale.
Any advice would be welcome, as you all know these vehicles incredible well.
Last edited by UMDSmith; Apr 25, 2024 at 08:23 AM.
Reason: More descriptive title.
Someone bent the crap out of the jack point and never got it fixed leading to rust. Hard to say exactly how extensive it is the metal looks *okay* but not great. Might be able to straighten that out or when you try it could reveal deeply embedded corrosion.
My rule for any used car is if I see rust I keep looking.
Thanks. Given that this car also has had a "minor" accident repair according to carfax, there may be a lot of things not pictured. I've been guilty of abusing a pinch weld or two in my days, but I always fixed it and never left bare metal. Signs of neglect could indicate neglect elsewhere. Guess I'm back to the search. There is a suprising lack of these cars local to me for sale.
I've been hitting up the ones on carsandbids. I'm mid-atlantic, about 30 miles from the ocean, so shipping a car back across the country adds about $2k, which cuts from my budget quite a bit (trying to stay around $15k). I can try and hunt around that area and see if anything nice shows up.
From what I can see almost all of that is surface rust and can be brushed down and treated with a decent rust killer and a coat of stone-chip.
What is more difficult to see is the internal rust and you will also want to get it on a lift and get the belly covers off to get a real look.
It might be worth while at the right price but that depends on how hands-on you are willing to be.
My 2004/145kmiles looks similar to yours (without the damage to the lift point) but mine also has rust along the trim line on the left front door.
Here in the UK we get some salt on the roads most years, but not a lot, but then we cannot get more than 72 miles from the ocean so salty air is always going to cause more rust.
Compared to most other 2004 cars she is immaculate and at the annual inspection I always get comments on how little rust there is.
One of these days I'll get her up on a lift and treat all the surface rust.
Considering buying an 005 LS430. Too much rust?
