Teach Me: 07 Lexus 460

Kid #1, age 20 and with a full time job, wants me to go look at an 07 Lexus LS460 with him tomorrow. His choice, his money, and if purchased, mostly his problem. Do these things have any specific issues to be aware of? He found this last night, and this post is step 1 in my research.

RWD, supposedly 124K, grainy FB Marketplace images show stock wheels (a good sign), minor cosmetic damage on the rear bumper, and interior wear reasonable for age and mileage. Ad says clear title and no accidents. $8950. My feel from the ad is that the seller is a small-time dealer/flipper. We'll evaluate the car, not the seller. It won't hurt my feelings if someone else scoops it up before we get to it.

My older car evaluation skills are pretty decent, but a little bit rusty and fine-tuned to 60's-70's cars. I'll check the title first, and then move on to the car. I know these Lexi are great cars and very reliable in general, but 15 years is plenty of time to neglect one. Mostly what I'm looking for in this thread is issues that are specific to these cars.

I have to go look busy at work now, and won't get back to this forum until this evening.  I'd appreciate any thoughts.

I've seen them to be very reliable but they aren't super common so some specific parts are a little more expensive. They've got a multilink front suspension, so when bushings start to go your in for a job and decent expensive to get it back to snuff.

Hopefully a toy Lexus guy can give us more info

https://drivers.lexus.com/lexusdrivers/account

Make an account above at the Lexus Owners/Drivers site.  With an account made, and then insert vin, the site will return to you the details of every Lexus Dealer service the car has ever had, anywhere in the nation.  And, all that info is free!  No need to prove that you own the car.  You can then do the same thing with any other Lexus you look at too.  
Toyota and Scion offer this same free dealer service record.  With Scion ended, you just put the Scion vin into the Toyota site.  

Look for timing belt.  I think it is a 90k or 100k interval so it would be nice if your 124k was done.  But, this resource will only show you if the work was done at the dealership. 

Also, with this dealers service review, look for "the smoking gun."  As an example, what if the last service entry says, "customer states transmission shutters" and then the reply is "recommend trans overhaul."  
That's just an example but when shopping Toyota Prius that gives the same dealers service history, I have seen final entries of, "hybrid battery is weak."      

In reply to John Welsh :

I thought these where chain motors

Opti said:

In reply to John Welsh :

I thought these where chain motors

You might be right...chain.  I may be confused with L430.

Yeah, Rock Auto parts confirm that 460 is chain.  Older 430 is belt.

Timing cover leaks are something to look for, if memory serves there was a TSB on them at one point

multi link suspension, I believe the lower front ball joints require a special tool to do

I want to say the heater pipes under the intake were known for leaking after 100k miles ish but I could be wrong.

Most of my Lexus experience is with the 1uz / 2uz / 3uz V8's (LS430 is the daily) and the newer V6 ES / RX series. 

Thanks everyone.

Additional research reveals that the seller is an MB Tech who is obviously flipping cars on the side. The car received complete dealer maintenance thru 2015 / 93K.  Pricing is in line with online pricing guides. Car has always been in the greater DC metro area, so it's probably not a flood car and it hasn't been traded all over the country. So not perfect but not bad. We'll see what the in person inspection reveals tomorrow.

I'm a proponent of the Lexus LS cars if they fit your lifestyle. I loved mine but they were a generation or two back. Any experience is unlikely to directly transfer. But in general they're well built, resist rust, and are generally reliable. Most of them have at least one minor foible (like, say, a stereo amp that likes to go out) but no major flaws. LS specific parts are expensive but don't need replaced often. At 124k miles he's likely to get to experience a few but then not need to do any more for another 124k miles. 

We have an 11 awd 460. 

Great car.

Toyota brakes are not great but aftermarket rotors and pads are cheap easy and better for some reason.

The awd cars are not easy on tires, not sure if rwd is actually any better.

The rear brakes are actuated from the abs system so you need techstream to bleed or fix.

The brake actuator is expensive to fix if it dies, Toyota did an extended warranty but runs out in 10 years (after sell date I believe).

As mentioned these cars are notoriously hard on suspension bushings.

I searched a while for an AWD car with non air suspension thinking reliability and useability. If I were to go back in time I would buy a high mileage ls600 hybrid for similar $ or gone with a higher option car with air suspension. Still would have got one, but I wish I wasn't scared of the tech they had.

I only hear great things about the 8 speed auto, I think mine is faulty (have read about phenolic pistons warping and losing line pressure) but it has been acting odd for 35,000 miles so perhaps I am the faulty one.

Also, this is a safe car! Lots of crash tech, airbags and mass.

Good luck :-)

We went and looked at it. It was cheap for a reason, but we expected that. Inspection revealed:

• It's been hit and fixed and hit (lightly) again
• Four mismatched, worn out, and out of date tires, including one with tread separation.
• Brake pulsation
• Exhaust leak
• Somewhat abused interior. It looks like people had scraped stuff against the corners of everything every day.
• Leaking oil from the back of each cam cover.

On the other hand:

• Runs smooth, no funny noises, plenty of power
• Seems to shift fine
• Everything works. (So far anyway; this thing has more gadgets and gizmos than I've ever seen)
• Looks great underneath
• Recent rear struts
• New front brake pads
• Suspension and steering seem to be tight
• It's a decent 20 footer, except from the rear. All the panels are super-straight, and all the panel gaps are even.
• Despite the interior damage, it's not filthy, and the ash tray appears to be unused.
• This thing is seriously over-engineered.

I wasn't thrilled with it, but he struck a deal for well below the asking price, so that left more space between purchase price the cost of a decent one, so off we went.

I followed him home. And then my heart sank. There's major blowby / oil smoke whenever he backs off. DAMN! I though about following him on the test drive, and decided against it because these cars have such a great reputation. That was stupid. I'm clearly way out of practice at evaluating older cars. My first thought was valve stem seals, which are cheap parts plus hours and hours of labor. A friend suggested it might be the PCV system, which is probably easier to fix, and the leaks at the cam covers might sort of support that idea.  Anybody have any thoughts on this?

At home we got it up in the air and more trouble. All 4 cats are gone and replaced with fresh, new, pipes, sloppily welded in. No, I didn't notice the smell, and I have no idea why. Looks like we might be able to fit new aftermarket cats in place using the stubs of the new tubes, but we need to take some measurements. This will likely work for the rear pair, but will be a tight fit up front. New aftermarket manifolds with integral cats are $$$ and there are none used on eBay right now.

He has ordered tires, rotors, and rear pads. He's planning a trans fluid flush, and we're researching options for the cats and oil burning. Also ought to check filters and plugs.

Additional thought appreciated.

In reply to Uncle David (Forum Supporter) :

You state there is blow by smoke and then you state there are no cats.  Could it be that it's not blow by but rather the lack of cats (which more super burns emissions) is then giving you more of a tailpaipe smoke like you might expect for a 1960's V8?  

I was going to chime in with "spend the same money and buy a nice LS430", but looks like it's too late for that. Several system are regulated by "modules" that can go bad to the tune of $3000-5000 each. Only solution is to replace them. It's certainly a more refined car than the LS430, but much, much less DIY friendly.

Shocked the lack of cats didn't trigger a CEl....

In reply to John Welsh :

Nah. Properly running 60's cars don't smoke. Cats might clean it up some, but I don't want to rely on them for that. It smokes a lot.

In reply to calteg :

The CEL was present when we checked with a code reader, but not showing on the dash.  Lesson: bring a code reader and use it.

It is 100% not legal for him to sell that car, so if you wanted to return it, you can. He might put up a fight, but you can force it. 

Steve_Jones said:

It is 100% not legal for him to sell that car, so if you wanted to return it, you can. He might put up a fight, but you can force it. 

I think it was said somewhere that you thought he was a MBenz mechanic.  I'm not sure what state you are in but in many states it's illegal for mechanics to send out customers with straight pipes welded in place of cats.  Threatening his ASE Certification or a chat with his employer might give you some ammo for refund.  

In reply to John Welsh :

Yeah, I did say that, because he said that, but after dealing with him, I doubt it.  Besides, hustling cars is a side job for him.

Uncle David (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to John Welsh :

Yeah, I did say that, because he said that, but after dealing with him, I doubt it.  Besides, hustling cars is a side job for him.

I guess the question is, do you want to keep it and fix it, or do you want a way out?

Right.  We're moving ahead with keep and fix.  Potentially a bad decision, and there's some risk, but it's a cool project and the kid could end up with a fun car. Gotta have some fun and try some stuff.

Try to get a techstream or equivalent scanner. You need to read the trans temperature to set the level and they are very very picky. Just buck up and buy Toyota fluid for the trans, I have a theory I caused my shifting issues with "compatable" synthetic valvoline fluid. 

Glad you got new rotors, Toyota rotors are notorious for warp/pulse etc.

If/when you get techstream and are doing brakes do a full system fluid flush. You cant bleed rears traditionally you need to activate the pump with the obd. As the brake pumps have a bad reputation I think it's probably a good idea to keep fresh clean fluid in the system and this is the easiest way.

if you or a friend have motortrendondemand look up the "all girls garage" show: they did a tuneup on a 460 including valve cover gaskets.

the PCV is very involved and essentially non servicable. If you are considering valve seals you could do the pcv and ca m covers at that time.m

what about a dry/wet leakdown and or compression to check rings vs valves?

pre-pandemic dissassemblers  had very reasonable prices on 460 parts including engines and transmissions. Perhaps if this one is neglected a n engine swap would be the cheapest easiest fix?

Also, perhaps just 10 quarts of fresh fluid, don't look in the rear view and don't let friends follow you and drive as is for years to come.

I found alldata subscription to be useful, there is not much diy  stuff posted but some jewels in the ls  forums.

God luck and have fun.

Time for an update.

New tires, rotors, and pads fixed all the bad vibrations.

Four new cats installed, and we fixed about three leaks in the fresh test pipe welds. Still louder than I expected, but in a totally good way.

Compression test completed. Most cylinders are between 205 and 215, with one at 195 and one at 240. We think the high one got a little bit of oil in it, because the spark plug well was nearly full of old oil (from leaks at the back of the cam cover from what we think is one of the VVTi actuators). We squirted a little MMO in another cylinder, and it went from 210 to 270, so we're probably right.  But what is the right range of values? I searched and searched online and could only find one reference to 190 psi for a version of this engine with lower compression (static compression ratio for this version is 11.8:1 (!)). I found two videos of two different shops doing compression tests on these, which were apparently engines for sale. Both of those had values similar to ours , 210-230 psi.  So I think, tentatively, compression is OK, which implies rings are OK. I don't have a leakdown tester, and since the compression seemed OK, I didn't buy one this weekend.

Since I'm facing potentially $xK to replace parts, I told the boy we're gonna try some snake oil solutions first. First up is Marvel Mystery Oil (MMO) in the spark plug holes. I'm starting there because even though the smoke signals and compression test are telling me valve seals, the Toyota/Lexus shop that my son called insists that it is always rings. According to The Internet, the MMO contains solvents that will wash away crud that keeps the rings from doing their job. The MMO went in on Saturday and we (95% him) buttoned it back up tonight. Plugs were uniformly cruddy but not worn. They got wire wheeled and reinstalled. I was told to expect some smoke after we started it. Tha dense fog that covered the Mid-Atlantic this evening between 6:30 and 7:30 was us. It smoked and smoked and smoked. Finally I had him take it for a ride and 99% of it went away in 10 minutes or so.  Sounds fine, runs fine, and drives fine, but it did that before too.  At least I haven't made it worse, yet.

Snake oil #2 will be a Rislone product that also has solvents in it, but is, according to The Internet, much better for crankcase use than MMO. The theory here is that the solvents will do what the MMO does, but slower, and also swell the seals. I get that this is long shot, but this stuff is cheap, so we'll give it a try.

Snake oil #3 is another Rislone product that is essentially like the other "rebuild in a can" products that have been around for ever. These products supposedly seal things up for 1000 miles or so. I wasn't interested in this one, but he bought it by accident, so we'll give it a try if the other stuff doesn't work.

I'm hoping for steady improvement in oil consumption. If that doesn't happen, next step is to get a pro mechanic friend of ours to do a real diagnosis. I've noted the comments about the Tech stream, brake bleeding, trans fluid, and PCV. We'll get to that.