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  1. If your like me, the best part about owning a Lexus is the nice toys and technology that Lexus offer. I've recently swapped my IS220D SE-L for a IS250 SE, The SE-L was fitted with the illuminated door sills that light up "Lexus" when you open the doors, a really nice feature which should be standard in my opinion. Unfortunately my 250 SE only had the basic plastic sills that look a bit cheap on a Luxury car so i pulled off the plastic ones to find that the cars are fitted as standard with the plug for the illuminated sills, so I thought I could just buy the illuminated sills and plug them in. Unfortunately it turned out that this is not the case, all the cars do indeed have the plug however the plug is only wired in on the Luxury and sports spec models, to get around this problem you need to do some basic home wiring which I will show you now. Please note: I take no responsibility for any damage done to your vehicle while following this guide. For this modification you will need the following: 1-2M of Auto Wire 4x Scotch Locks A Pair of Bull Nose Pliers A Pair of Snips Stanley Knife/Craft knife Step 1: Remove the existing door sills to reveal the wiring loom underneath ( A bit of brute force pulling straight up will remove the sills) Step 2: Using a Stanley Knife or Craft knife, carefully cut away the electrical tape that covers the wires that go into the door sill connector (Be particularly careful not to cut into any wires in the loom). Step 3: Take your Auto Wire and 1 scotch lock and Scotch lock your auto wire and the White wire going into the Door Sill Connector together (Leave the blue wire as it is). Step 4: Remove the interior trim that covers the seat belt tensioner system (to aid this process put the seat in the fully back position and the backrest all the way back, and open the rear door. Again some force will release the clips holding the panel on). Step 5: Locate the wire that connects to the Door switch, it sits on the inside of the pillar behind the switch. (A White Wire on the drivers side and Purple on the Passengers side, shown in the image above). Step 6: Trace your auto wire around the current loom to reach the Door Switch wire behind the seat belt panel. (when doing this ensure that your auto wire cannot rub on the seat belt as it moves back and forth during use). Step 7: Take a Scotch lock and scotch lock the Door Switch wire and auto wire together (Ensure you don't short out the wire on the vehicle's body work while using metal tools. I also wrapped some electrical tape around the scotch lock to ensure nothing metal would contact the bodywork in the future). Step 8: Plug in your illuminated door sills to ensure they are working correctly, when you push the Door switch the Sills should shut off and then light up when the switch is released. (If your Sills don't light up please check to see if you have your interior light switch set to come on when the doors open). Step 9: When you are happy that everything is working correctly, push the interior trim panels back into place. Some pressure on the areas should clip everything back in to place. Finished Product. I hope this guide was helpful, if i've missed anything or you have any questions please post here and I will endeavour to help the best I can.
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  2. Brief story how did I fell in love with Lexus: Back in 2013 i switched from smooth 6 cylinder petrol BMW to 4 cylinder petrol turbo. Despite that car was mechanically reliable and relatively cheap to run, i didn't like it, because it felt like rattling diesel Peugeot. Once I was passing through Bratislava (200km from my home) and stopped at the only Lexus dealer in our country. IS300h was brand new car then. I was surprised how nicely it is put together, it didn't felt one class lower but at least the same level like 5 series. Dealer offered me a test drive and i was impressed. IS250 was favorite... But my BMW was still almost new and i had to wait. Last summer i read about new turbocharged IS and my dream about smooth Japanese V6 was gone. Dealer told me, that they have one promo car, but not a new one. Unfortunately otherwise beautiful car smelled from cigarettes. I tried later also 200t and it was much better than BMW in terms of NVH, but still a 4 cylinder. After long consideration which would be the best i made myself a small pdf from site configurator: 1, RC300h Luxury must be red only 2, IS300h Luxury black 3, RC300h Comfort Navi must be red only 4, GS300h Comfort Plus Leather black 5, GS450h very basic black 450h was included only for 6 cylinder smoothness, not for power. 300h is just enough for me :) GS300h I've chosen was the closest to no. 4 from my list and available immediately. Dealer has also IS300h exactly what i want but he told me it is sold. One RC was available too, but it was white. For other cars i had to wait. Lexus_uzsi_vyber.pdf
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  3. Yes you can get diamond cut alloys re-cut but only a certain amount of times as they shave so much off at a time.... I had my wheels refurbed a couple of weeks ago and was speaking to the guy reference a spare set of alloys I have in garage which need re cut
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  4. I'll confirm what previous owner told me when I get it up and running. He suggested a bit of drone at motorway speeds, so closes the valve if it gets too much. In town, its valve open all the time :)
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  5. An interesting point raised by Mike - the ML stereo in my previous GS450h was a class above the ML in the ISF. Bit of a shame, but there's a different type of music to listen to now... :-)
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  6. I would imagine the discs are something that needs to be done ASAP to avoid over-wearing the pads so I will do so; are the rear ones likely to be affected as well? Interestingly you don't read much regarding the rear discs but I guess they do get affected by warping, although braking at the front end will always be heavier. I would however change the pads as well if you put new discs on, even genuine Lexus pads are fairly cheap-ish. One of the few things that are! Plenty of discs available on the net but I would avoid the cheap ones, I bought some for my LS400 and they warped again within 3 months. The wobble can also be caused by a sticking caliper but less likely on a MK4 which I believe doesn't have the front caliper slide pins, although I'm guessing yours is a MK3 so I'm not sure if it has pins.
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  7. "Piers, Many thanks for the recommendation. Before buying my car I just happened to see a Lexus Soarer in my local supermarket car park. I got talking to the owner and he said he uses DS Automotives in Aylesbury but they are a bit further from me than Japex so I may well try Japex first. You may well have saved me some fuel! ;o)" My pleasure. I used to own a Soarer 4.0 V8 - best car ever! [ Apart from in snow ]
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  8. It could be an injector playing up, or a coil pack, but these would normally trigger a fault code and you would typically notice when accelerating. May be worth trying a strong injector cleaner to see if that helps as a starting point.
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  9. Hi Rob and welcome to the LOC, we are a friendly bunch and some of us even know how to pull them to bits and put them back together again, with of course the one bolt and washer left over. We recommend you spend a couple of mins looking over the rules of the LOC, we will be asking questions later. http://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/terms-conditions/ Regards Mike
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  10. Japex in Kings Langley might be able to help... Enjoy!
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  11. Welcome to the LOC Rob. The steering wobble is common, usually caused by warped discs, and usually felt over 50MPH when braking, easy and fairly cheap to replace. Not a bad idea to take it to someone you can trust for a general check, but they need to be familiar with these cars really. The main concerns will probably only be suspension parts, but if you don't have any knocks or creaks you should be OK. Have the exhaust Y piece checked for leaks. Enjoy!
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