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I'm a new member on the forum, Only had my IS200 for about two weeks, and I'm very happy with it in general. There's a few niggles to sort out, but as I consider the car was a bargin I don't mind spending some time and a little money on putting it right :) One reason the car was cheaper than usuall was its lack of service history, but after a test drive and a good listen to the engine, etc, I decided to go ahead and take a chance So, one of the first jobs on my list was to change the timing belt, It'd done 89,000miles so well on the way to the 100.000miles recomendation which most people seem to go by, but over the "or 6 years" which seems more realistic! So as I'm pretty handy with my tools, and an engineer of sorts :D I decided to do the belt myself and change the water pump at the same time, the job was fairly simple and I must say that the quality of engineering on the car was fantastic. Note, there was no unusual noise coming from the engine and no lack in performance. This is what I found when I removed the top timing belt cover, Wow :o Yes the belt should be twice the width! and with the bottom cover removed, The remains of the other half of the belt are plain to see. The tensioner pulley had worn and gone out of line and was trying to throw off the belt, luckily the guard was close enough to stop it coming off in one go. You can see in the next pic how the tensioner pulley on the left is out of alignmentcompered to the others, The old belt and its remains! The problem it seems wasn't the belt at all, Half the belt was still doing the work fine, but the tensioner must have been worn for ages, so even if your belt looks good, you could still be in for a supprise! So if your belt has never been changed even if your car has low milage , do it! You may not be as lucky as me!

Thanks for all the input guys. Appreciated. I guess I am SOL. Matt - yes, the car would scrape on certain (really bad) driveways once in a while before I lowered it. I knew It had a low ground clearance. I went ahead and lowered it anyway....I absolutely hate the big gap between the wheel and wheel arch! I think it just kills the sporty look of the car. Besides, I didn't exactly "slam" the car - it's only a 35mm drop which is the bare minimum to get rid of that 4x4 look. Guess I will have to live with just driving carefully ....no way am I going back to stock suspension :-)

The battery if you're interested is a Varta E44 silver dynamic. All you have to do is cut off the edges if the battery tray with a hacksaw or dremmel and bobs your uncle, you'll have all the power you'll ever need :)

Welcome to the club Adam. With an offer like that don;t think it will take long to get some replies.

I'd have a lot more sympathy for some poor sap who'd written off his old LS than for this mega-rich Merc owner.

Sadly you might just have to live with it,sacrificing practicality for looks like a lot of things has its down sides.

Never a truer word spoken,an old friend of mine,became a millionaire overnight,by selling at a crucial time,land he'd bought,just off the M4, near Reading,he'd bought it in a 50% share with a business partner,a couple of years previously,for a relative song,they set up a Property Management company with the proceeds,my friends business partner promptly went out and bought a late model Astin Martin with his small change,my friend,more cautious and far-seeing,bought an older Volvo Estate,stating that one of the first rules of business,was,do not show off your ostentatious wealth,keep your light under a bushel,etc,he went on to bigger and better things as time went on,whereas,his business partner -a Jack the lad anyway, went under,spending all his dosh on flash cars and coke,( not the diet kind,I might add) some kind of lesson to be learned possibly.

The other way I used to look at it was if someone turned up at one of my small business's in an expensive car I knew the only person to pay for it was me so they never got the business. Never flaunt what you think is your wealth in the face of a prospective customer. Mike

I am also in France with a RX350. I contacted Lexus about the lights and was advised that all that needs to be done is to switch off the AFS as the low beam lights do not have any asymmetric cast so no deflectors or blanking spots are required. See below for the text of the answer : "I can confirm that the HID (High Intensity Discharge) headlamps on the RX 350 do not need to be converted for travel on the continent. The set up of the headlamp is such that the light shines in a horizontal flat beam which has no kick up and as such is not dazzling to drivers of oncoming cars. As you have suggested, we would recommend that the Intelligent Adaptive Front-lighting System (I-AFS) is switched off when travelling on the continent. Yours sincerely Claire Newman Customer Relations Executive"