Inside the Lexus LFA Centre of Excellence

Inside the Lexus LFA Centre of Excellence

The Lexus LFA is like no other Lexus – and, in many ways, unlike any other supercar – so Lexus make sure the 38 LFAs in Europe get the specialist care they need. Lexus has established a Centre of Excellence for the LFA in Cologne where a team of LFA experts make sure that every LFA in the UK and Europe gets treated just like a Le Mans car when it comes in for servicing.

That means removing body panels to get access to the suspension, steering and subframe, every nut and bolt double checked, fingertip inspection of the discs and pads, x-rays to check for wear and detailed inspection of the CFRP bodyshell as well as normal stuff like oil and filter changes.

When the LFA specialists have finished their work the car is then subjected to three road tests, with the first a test without underbody panels inside the facility, the second over a 2.5 mile route and a longer run on the Autobahn at high speed.

Peter Dresen, workshop manager at the LFA centre, said:

We treat an LFA more or less like a Le Mans car. The servicing principles are the same as for a normal Lexus road car, but it’s much more complicated to do certain things and access certain parts, which makes the LFA closer to a racing car in terms of how we take care of it.

Of course, LFA owners don’t have to send their cars to Cologne for servicing – the LFA team will fly to a local Lexus dealers to do any work required – but it most give owners a nice fuzzy glow to know their car was serviced at the LFA Centre of Excellence.

By Cars UK