The Road to Change - Part 4

You are joking, aren't you? You're buying a LS400 Lexus?

That was the sentiment - sometimes spoken, sometimes bitten back - of a whole range of people.

But the more I thought through my decision, the more complacent I was about it. Most unusually when buying a car, I had little of the agonised uncertainties with which I am often afflicted. Yes, the LS400 is a big car with the styling panache of a fridge. But in its driveline, performance, comfort, handling and equipment level it does exactly what I want a car to do.

Well, maybe it'd be nicer with just a smidgin more bias towards handling than ride, but you can't have absolutely everything...

Buying

As I have previously recounted, on the one afternoon I drove a Lexus LS400 and a BMW 540i - both 1998 models. After that I also approached two wholesalers to see if they could dig me up a LS400 deal. So in addition to waiting for return phone calls from the BMW dealer and the prestige caryard that had the LS400, I also waited to see what the wholesalers could come up with for an Audi S4 trade-in deal.

And I waited... and waited.

The yard that had the Lexus rang with some figures - less than I really wanted on my car but probably fairly realistic. And the others? The BMW dealer simply never called me back - as he'd promised to do - with a valuation for the Audi being traded on the 540i, and the other people chasing on my behalf all had the same story to tell. Apparently getting rid of the Audi was gonna be hard, hard, hard. In short, few dealers knew what it was, and those that did were unhappy being saddled with a car that they thought could prove hard to shift.

(And as an interesting lesson for everyone looking at buying or selling rare-ish prestige cars, simply don't believe Red Book and Glass's Guide numbers on cars where only a handful are sold each year - realistic selling prices are often way below the figures stated in these publications!)

After a week I realised that people weren't going to be beating a path to my door with Audi trade-in figures - so I'd better have a close look at the deal I had been offered. In fact, best to go back and eyeball that LS400...

While I hadn't initially intended buying that particular car - I just wanted to drive a LS400 to see what they were like - my memory of the Lexus on offer was that it had been pretty clean. A further inspection showed some small dents (easily taken out by a paintless dent removalist), 60,000km of full Lexus service history, slightly scratched alloys, immaculate interior - the car was fine.

The finances were arranged, the dents completely and superbly deleted, the car detailed (the MD of the dealership had been driving it), a new battery replaced the item that was looking a bit hesitant at times, and the car was mine to drive away....

On the Road

I'm not going to go on an endless rhapsody about how the 1998 Lexus LS400 is simply mind-blowing - to regale you with an overwhelming surplus of hyperbolic and extravagant praise.

In fact, as I write this - two days after its acquisition and just over 1000km of driving later - I can pick out a number of key excellent aspects, and of course some negatives as well.

Firstly, the engine/trans combination is quite superb. The variable valve timed engine (it also has a variable intake manifold and a host of other changes over the earlier 1UZ-FE V8) is very much better than the original Lexus V8. And considering the praise that was heaped on the first Lexus engine, that's saying something! Its ability to perform belies its relatively small 4-litre capacity; instead it feels almost as if it is supercharged, such is the surplus of torque developed so sweetly right across the rev range. Without any doubt the 5-speed auto substantially helps it - when there's a fifth ratio, the gearing can be made 25 percent tighter in its spacing. But it's not just the fact that there are five ratios - the driveline's control electronics are also worth specific praise.

Because you see the engine uses an electronic throttle, where the relationship between the foot position and the throttle blade opening is not fixed. On the Lexus the ETC button on the centre console not only alters the trans from Normal to Power modes (plus there's a third 'snow' mode), but flicking this switch also changes the electronic throttle responsiveness setting.

Floor the throttle with the rocker switch in the Power position and the car scorches away from the line like a scalded cat; put the switch into its Normal position and the car becomes simply nicely progressive.

The engine is sweet, strong, responsive, refined - and economical. In fact in that first 1000km I have averaged 10.8 litres/100 km, and I'd guess that the consumption will remain within 10 per cent of this during my normal driving.

The car is also uncannily quiet. It takes only a little time to get used to the silence - to always speak in soft tones, to be used to the idea that you can have the sound system turned down quite low but still be able to hear many nuances in the music. Then after a while you realise that at 100 km/h you can literally hear a passenger's sleeve brush another garment as they move, that a plastic bag of groceries makes a loud and irritating sound as the plastic crinkles with the movement of the goods in the bag, and that you can hear the click of the brakelight switch as you come to a red traffic light. Another indication of the extraordinarily effective soundproofing is the complete lack of engine noise as you down-change to engine brake.

And the bad things? Well, I think that the damping is just a little soft. Not much, mind you, but at - say - 150 km/h along a narrow and bumpy secondary road, the car can float. It's probably a mixture of aerodynamic lift and the damping rates; enough to make the driver wonder if the car is as securely as one with the road as they'd like. Adding to this is the fact that the steering at speed is a little light - put some weight into the steering and the float wouldn't be a problem; take away the float and the steering could stay as it is. Note that even when going very quickly indeed the car feels quite stable on smooth roads, and on rougher roads at slower speeds it's also fine. But a good large European or Australian car is more reassuring in these difficult fast/bumpy/narrow conditions.

Initially I had the brake pedal down as a question mark - but I think that with more familiarity it can be taken from the negative list. The pedal travel during the actual braking process is longer than in many cars (note: not the travel before the brakes start to work, but instead the travel during which retardation can be varied), but you soon get used to this and appreciate how easily the pedal can be modulated. And stand on the centre pedal and the car stops very hard - almost at Mercedes big car levels, I'd say.

With my own CDs in the stacker, the Pioneer-based sound system is excellent, though not up to the extraordinary standard of some recent factory systems like the Harmon Kardon equipment in the current Saab 9-5, for example. On FM the sound is also markedly inferior - more than you'd expect even given the different source. But the radio does do something that is downright tricky - it automatically trims its aerial length according to the FM frequency that's selected...

Hmm, other bad things? Well, while unless you're a giant there's plenty of room inside the cabin, the space utilisation still isn't very good. For example, rear passengers can't place their feet under the front seats, so foot-room is much more limited than you'd expect given the external dimensions of the car. In my car the sunroof also eats into headroom - there's not heaps and heaps.

But I gotta tell you that I love all the bullshit gadgets. Like, the left-hand side rear vision mirror that dips to show you the kerb when you select reverse, like the way you can open all the windows and the sunroof with the remote key, like the lights in the seatbelt buckles that allow you to easily find them at night, like the fact that everything that opens - from glovebox to coat hooks to coin tray - does so with a damped motion. The multifunction display in the dash tells you about doors being open ("LEFT FRONT DOOR") and can give a host of other warnings, as well as being a comprehensive trip computer. The trip computer's got a few tricky functions, too. For example, it automatically detects that the tank is being filled and gives you the distance and fuel consumption since that occurred. It's therefore very easy to have an on-going fuel consumption average in addition to a 'this tank' fuel consumption figure.

Handling

Handling: thought you'd never ask - after all, isn't that and the steering the major reasons I farewelled the Audi? Well, since I've no intention of charging off into the scenery in just the first two days of ownership, I have explored that area of the LS400 with some circumspection. However, as you would expect, the '98 model has more grip than Georgina's '91 LS400 - and that's before any of the electronics come into play.

The traction control system can be provoked into action relatively easily when you're tossing the car around and/or it's wet, however - at this stage at least - I don't feel that its intervention is either too eager or too harsh in action. And, of great surprise to me, at the time of typing, I have made the Auto Stability Control System work only twice - once when deliberately trying to unstick the car around a tight second-gear bend, and another time doing the ol' skidpan test around a medium-sized roundabout.

It's easy to differentiate the action of the two components of the electronic handling control systems - while both flash a 'skidding car' emblem on the dash when operating, only the Stability Control activates a dash beeper as well. And the beeper operates very rarely indeed. So, while obviously as the kilometres pass I'll be able to pass a more detailed judgement, at this stage the electronics seem to be working for me rather than being over-eager to stop fast cornering.

And through the 'big dipper' - that corner that I explored in such detail in earlier stories in this series? As expected, the Lexus is fast and stable, the suspension working hard and moving a long way in bump and rebound, but the car staying composed. I've been through at 110 km/h - the same speed that had the Eibach-and-Bilstein-equipped Audi dragging its body on the ground - and the Lexus didn't even operate its Stability Control.... there's still more in it.

The steering? As mentioned, at speed it is a little light, but it is consistent in weighting and feel from lock to lock. However, I think perhaps my car may have a slight bush problem - the left-hand front suspension is noisier through a bump than the right-hand front, and also there is some jarring of the steering wheel when a left-hand pothole is encountered - but not when the right-front wheel falls into it. There's also a faint touch of nervousness at the straight ahead position - I wonder if the toe is a little out? But there's certainly none of the ghastly Audi steering kickback when going hard over short, sharp amplitude bumps... something I don't miss in the slightest!

Summary

If I am less than extravagant in my praise, it's because the car is very much as I expected. The engine/trans combination is even better than I thought it would be - in fact, it's right up there with the very best naturally aspirated engines I have ever driven. (The others? The Audi S6's V8, Honda Odyssey's V6, and the import Cyborg R Mirage's MIVEC 1.6-litre.) The Lexus gadgets - like the excellent climate control - work even more sweetly than I expected, but the handling, ride, economy, trim, build quality and so on are all as-expected excellent.

And isn't it ugly? In looks I actually prefer the very first model LS400 - a sweeter shape than this slab-sided, goggle-eyed lump. But I can't see the outside panels when I am driving it.

And that's what matters to me - driving...

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