Lanson

From a reliability standpoint (which my company pays particular attention to), the 95-97 models have the best overall reliability and design.

You can validate this by checking out Edmund's reliability charts, which happen to come from the company I work for.

LexFather

My 2 cents.
What the LS did in 1989 simply will never be replicated again and that is something no other LS or any other car can say. Without a doubt the LS has gotten better over time even if you feel differently. The LS 600h L is by far the greatest LS even made, with only a few dedicated people working and building it. It still is the only AWD V-8 hybrid in the world. Leather dash to a computer looking at your eyes to make sure you have not doze off. LEDs in the headlights and a paint process so precise its uncanny.

That said the 1LS simply is one of those rare vehicles that truly shocks the entire industry and makes an everlasting impression. Mr. Suzuki and Mr. Jimbo had one of the hardest tasks given.

Create not just the finest Japanese car but the FINEST car, period.

http://toyota50th.com/pdf/ls.pdf

This was a project that needed someone so passionate and possesed they would not take a no for an answer. Mr. Suzuki was that man. He DEMANDED it have
-lowest CD
-Highest MPG
-Performance
-Quiet
-Luxury
-Touch of sport
-top speed
-new features
-low curb weight

From the ground up! Unheard of! The 1LS hit the metric on all counts. It completely changed perceptions on what a luxury car could be. Lets not forget European cars at the time had BLACK RUBBER BUMPERS!!

So for me it is not the best LS when I take features, power, luxury into account but it is THE BEST LS and best Lexus in regards to what it meant to the brand.

Case in point, we heard over and over the current LS was going to be a throwback and "shock the world" like the first gen LS.

I tip my hat to it!

Och

iTrader: (3)

Well that I can respect and agree on, in fact I probably argued pretty much the same thing over and over on these forums. The first LS simply set the new benchmark in the luxury car game, and who knows when Lexus or any other company will make a similar impact.

Och

iTrader: (3)

Well, that applies not only to the early GS, but pretty much all of the early Lexus models.

They all suffer from burnt out clusters, cracking/loose wood trim on center consoles, lower quality leather, so-so door seals, loose seats, weak seat motors, and so on. All of these have been fixed and improved in newer generation models.

Asia-H.T.

iTrader: (9)

I like the first LS styling a lot, especialy the 93-94 with some improvements. that's why I bought it. Didn't buy it for being the best Lexus ever, because the newer are better.

If I was to buy another Lex, I probably have a much newer GS300/LS430.

But I would never part with my 1st gen LS when that happens

Kansas

My 3 cents:

The gen 1 LS400 was an incredible car in its day -- small crowds gathered around mine at lunch time in the company parking lot in the first few weeks after I purchased it in early 1990. It was a continual "show and tell" letting people look at its engine and interior. It was like a rerun of what happened in 1979 when a Car & Driver magazine article proclaimed the Mercedes 450SEL the "Best Car in the World" and it seemed like every kid in town wanted to crawl over my 450.

By the 10 year mark our 90 LS seemed very dated. After 10 years my wife was still complaining about the loss of the passenger side temperature control she had in our last Mercedes. The headlights of the 90 LS had always been pathetically weak and mainly lighted the treetops when the car was loaded with four adults and luggage. My wife is short, had to sit close to the steering wheel and never felt safe driving the 90 LS with its old style high power airbag. And she complained about not having modern front passenger front and side airbags like her 98 Camry had. The interior of the 90 LS was cramped and her Camry had more rear legroom. The brakes on the 90 LS were pretty bad -- auto magazines showed it having one of the longest stopping distances of cars sold in America. And it wasn't a particularly easy car to drive in the snow -- and I always used four snow tires.

Our 2000 LS400 is now at the 10 year mark and still seems like an up-to-date car. My wife has her passenger side temperature control. Its auto-leveling HID headlights are wonderful compared to the 90's awful headlights. The interior seems huge compared to the 90 LS and the specs show over 2 1/2 inches more rear legroom than in the 90. My wife has her own passenger side air bags and is comfortable driving the 00 LS with it's lower powered drivers side air bag. The 00 LS with it's VSC stability control is a joy to drive in winter snow. And, as silly as it sounds, it has been a big deal that the 00 LS has rear cupholders.

At 115,000 miles, our 2000 LS400 is still on its first A/C compressor, power steering pump and alternator -- sure couldn't say that about the 90 LS at that mileage. Our 2000 LS400 has yet to meet a tow trunk -- our 90 LS had to be towed several times by 115,000 miles.

I suspect the LS430 will "age" even better than the 98-00 LS400 if only for it's electrical system that allows easily adding electronic gadgets ... MP3/iPod, sat radio and the like. Of course, the LS430 has an even bigger interior and even more rear legroom. I especially like that its rear side windows roll down all the way instead of the dorky, crooked, partial roll-down of the LS400. I'm surprised I like the LS430 as much as I do now since it didn't appeal to me when it was first introduced. My limited experience with a short wheelbase LS460 has helped me appreciate the LS430 more. I find it funny that Lexus omits information on its website about rear seat legroom in the LS460 -- I assume they are embarrassed that the short wheelbase LS460 has less rear legroom than an LS430.

Maybe I'll warm up to the LS460 someday. The 00 LS isn't going to last forever and will eventually have to be replaced with something.

Amskeptic

I need to try to nudge some of the immediate reactions away from the typical positivist arguments that I tried to pre-emptively address with the Rolls Royce examples (of course the 1950 Silver Wraith did more things than the 1910 Silver Ghost, but the 1910 is a LEGEND wholly respected today.) to ask if (over time) the LS 400 is going to find that niche spot in history above and beyond the obvious improvements like the Silver Wraith had over the Silver Ghost, that I must mention again, never broke in the sands of the Sahara even used as wartime troop transports and supply trucks in WWI.

So, statistically, the 95-97 models are the most reliable according to fourthmeal. That is a good mathematical proof, I guess. I had hoped that the original ones were the most reliable to justify my cheerleading, but hey.
Your personal comparison of the 2000 versus 1990 LS400 is anecdotal. I bought my original 1990 LS400 at 77,000 miles, drove it 110,000 miles, sold it for 9K less than I bought it, and it never broke down ever. Ever. So what do these varying anecdotal accounts mean? I might venture that mine was maintained in a superior way to yours (uh, I did all the maintenance : )) but it truly wowed me with its thorough Toyota engineering. I look at Toyota now, and it appears that they are getting stretched a lot more broadly with the expanded Lexus line-up than they were in 1989 when they were deeply f-o-c-u-s-e-d. I love these workshop manuals for example. 1990 manuals that were amazingly thorough. What does the current LS460 manual look like, does it even exist?
Colin

slvrboolet

Interesting opinions but a good read in this thread. I have been looking at buying a 1st gen ls i currently own 2 is300 one is turbo with lots of mods the other is stock. THe LS seems like a good option because i want something bigger that rides smooth and is quiet. Also they can be had on the cheap since they are older and that means no more car payments!!

A friend of my dads that we have known for along time has a 93 ls400 which he is still driving everday and its got close to 300k miles he loves that car and recently had it repainted it might be the highest mileage LS still on the road soon enough lol.

Lanson

Well being the most reliable doesn't mean its the best. I just wanted to put that as a factor into any considerations.

I think the pinnacle of anything great is the one step before cost-cutting measures are placed in line with the master plan, and those measures detract from the overall vehicle. And that might also be the 95-97 line but it might have gone all the way to the '99. Most people who own an LS430 love it but agree that there were some beancounter measures placed in the car, so Toyota could make a bigger profit from the vehicle. Nothing wrong with profit, but it cuts into what you get for the money and how good the final product turns out. If we were going solely by crank connecting rod thicknesses, the 89-94 wins, for instance.

Kansas

Doubtful. My next door neighbor bought his 1990 LS400 in fall 1989, a few months before I did, kept it until 2002, one year before I sold mine, and his experience mirrored mine.

Both his and my cars were maintained by the same people. We both used the same Lexus dealer until our warranties expired and then used an indie shop that a Lexus dealer service writer started while taking the dealer's best mechanics with him.

Both me and my neighbor are "car nuts" to say the least and both of our cars were in perfect condition and looked like they had just rolled off the showroom floor when we sold them in 2002 and 2003.

I think what you are missing is that there were a huge number of what I would call silent recalls on the early gen 1 LS400. There were no TSIB's issued for this work. When I took my car in for maintenance or minor warranty work, there would be a fairly long list of coded entries on the invoice -- work that I did not ask to be done. I once asked about the entries and was told something about them being for product improvement campaigns. A few times the Lexus dealer called me and asked me to bring my car in for some of this work to be done.

I suspect that by the time you bought your 1990 LS400 used at 77,000 miles, all this "product improvement" work had been done while your car was with previous owners.

My "favorite" early product improvement experience with my 90 LS was when a Toyota van filled with non-English speaking Japanese Toyota/Lexus engineers came to the Lexus dealership to look at the A/C compressor that seized up during the first summer I owned the car. My car was kept for quite a few days that time and I was given another new 1990 LS400 to drive while it was out of commission.

I don't mean to make it sound like my 90 LS was an unreliable car. Hey, I had been a long time Mercedes and Volvo owner and the problems I had with my 90 LS seem minor compared to the grief I had had with three Mercedes and three Volvos.

As I've said several times on this forum, I might have kept the 90 LS longer if only it had much better headlights -- that was the straw that finally broke the camel's back. It was never the same after driving a couple of 1998 LS400's at a night time invitation only event in fall 1997. One of the 98's had HID, air suspension, nav and toys to the max and the other had halogen headlights and was more modestly equipped. The headlights of both the 98's seemed incredible and knowing what I was missing made it hard to continue with the 90 LS -- life is hell when you have a CPA for a wife! Actually, if the 90 LS didn't still look and drive like brand new back in 1997, my wife might have been fine with me buying a new 98 LS.

Attached is a photo of my 90 LS a few days before I sold it to a friend in 2003 at 183,000 miles. When I last saw it a few months ago, it was still being driven by my friend, looking and running great and had passed 275,000 miles. I really did love that car.

KA8

iTrader: (1)

I've never driven the 1 gen LS but I've driven 99 model and that thing was solid. Recently I test drove 05 and 03 LS models and the 05 was nice with new tech features but it didn't feel as solid as the 03 and the 99 model. Out of all of them my favorite was 99 model. So smooth and quiet I couldn't hear the engine even at WOT. 03 was better than 05 as 05 model had rattles and squeaks that weren't present on 03's and 99's.

My dad is picking up an 03 LS430 tomorrow and I told him to test drive the 99-00 model. He didn't believe me when I told him 99 model will blow him away.

AlexusAnja

I must say, the 1st gen LS was the car that got me through college. I got me to strive to one day be able to own one. It took over until last year to finally get a LS430, but it was well worth the wait... with no regrets whatsoever with the vehicle.

The 1st gen was obviously the first and probably best conceived automobile in Toyota's history up to that point, and it's definitely a classic in my opinion. If I wanted to spend the money, I would probably find a low mileage 1st gen. to own and admire...

With all this said, I think the LS430 is the best overall package of the LS to date. The LS460 has more electronic goodies, the LS400's were more simple and elegant, but I think the LS430 has the best combination of both.