Finally had enough. Enough being in the shop. Enough ticking like a freaking 80's Mercedes diesel. Enough of the road and wind noise. Hated, hated, hated that car. With a passion. Fortunately it was still under warranty so the repairs were covered, but still a pain in the ***.

Found me a silver 430 with 70K miles, and I'm happy again. Like going home and getting in your own bed after being in hotels for 2 weeks. I traded by old 430 in on the 460, and grew to regret it after a few months. The "new" 430 is the same model year (2004), but I found one that had Nav and ML, neither of which were in my old car. Even kept my old Vaistech MML and it works perfectly with the ML system. Could not be happier.

Lexus absolutely ruined the LS with the 460 redesign in 2007. They should punt and go back to what made them great to begin with. Almost as bad as what Bobby did to Whitney. Almost as bad as what Kiffin did to Southern Cal football. Nearly as bad as what Scrappy Doo did to Scooby Doo. A travesty. An unforgivable injustice.

 

lol man , funny post.

Ive never been in a 460 but ive heard they have reliability issues , and don't have that bulletproof engineering the LS's were known for.

They also dropped the ball on the designing of them.

They did the same thing to the SC430's design.

Anyways wb

 

Welcome back!
To be honest I like the way LS460 looks and drives and at first i wanted to upgrade to the 460. But when I had someone drive me while I sat on the back seat I was very disappointed - I felt every little bump and road imperfection, the back seat was not so comfortable either. 460 has more power and newer tech but reliability is worse and much more expensive to maintain than the 430.
So sooner or later I'll have a dilemma of what car should I buy next. I'm not even considering BMW/Benz/Audi with their super expensive maintenance and even worse reliability than LS460. Infititi M45 has significant engine problems and is just plain small and tight inside. I'm looking at a 2008+ GS460 as a next car for me.

 

Welcome back.

 

It's too bad, as much as I love my LS430, at some point I'm going to want to sell and move on to something different. It would be nice to be able to just buy a newer LS.

I'll probably end up going with something like a newer ES, even though there's things about it I don't like about it.

I love the lines on the new LS, but my fear is "flagship" service issues.

 

Yea I know exactly what u mean, Lexus is by far the best brand out there, at leats in my opinion, but they seem to make some mistakes sometimes, like the ls460 for example, and then they stopped making the SC series, makes no sense to me.

My goal is to get a c5 corvette, and have the LS as a daily driver, I think that would be really nice.

 

Welcome back Bob04 ! My local Lexus technicians and parts manager tell me that the LS430 is the best car Lexus made. They all drive LS430's (not 460's). They'll take a LS430 with 100K+ miles over a lower mileage 460. The electronics (Nav screen in the 460 is nicer and is on a USB memory stick, not a DVD), but the cost of maintenance and reliability is too much - even for the guys who fix 'em full-time. They say they like the 460's 'cause it keeps 'em busy with work.

 

Glad you got back into a car you liked.

 

Do all LS460 models have issues? I recall someone stated that Mr. Toyoda admitted that 07-09 were bad years across multiple models. Are the 2010 and up models better?

 

No reason to give up LS430 - I predict the LS will go from being a great used car bought by folks that love great cars to a classic/vintage great car owned by folks that love great cars.. I might just keep the LS forever, If maintained and in rust free climate it likely will last 50 years easy before needing any serious restoration. And it has all of the modern safety systems in it so its not like driving a classic 60s deathtrap.

 

I don't know, but mine was a 2010.

 

How about some pics of the new 430.

 

I added pics in my gallery of all three.

 

I'm joining the ranks.

I sold my BMW 535i 2010 and am going to buy a 2005 LS430 UL tommorow.

Yes I know, the air struts will eventually fail, but I'm going to put money aside to replace all 4 if I have to.

 

Hi 'Bob04',

I don't know too much about the LS460, but I'm surprised Lexus would build as rough an engine as yours appeared to have had. Also, those sleek lines must be deceiving due to the wind noise that you mention.

Anyway, I'm very glad you feel better now (mine's a LS430 too). However, I wonder what made you trade-in your previous LS430 and upgrade to the LS460? I mean, what were you unhappy with then and hoping to improve on?