Paradroid

I have had something really strange that has been around for about a month now, getting fed up with it to be honest!

It started off like a cold, really runny nose. That went but I've still got a sore throat, feel run down, and have this weird thing where my face is red and blotchy, and I've had to really avoid caffeine and alcohol (my two favourite things!) because my body can't seem to cope with them.

Looking forward to feeling normal again, it's been ages!

Bumpity-bump :)

No-one able to find me a Lexus gearstick boot?

I think you got a good price there. I paid £7850 for mine back in July (before the credit crunch got really serious I think), it's a September 2004 IS200 Sport. 53k miles.

As it is the cold time of year try and take the car for a drive before it has warmed up. This way you will be able to tell if there is any clutch judder and if the gear box is stiff getting into 2nd. My car has this when it is really cold but its not a major headache really, but again something to negotiate the price down with. In the summer i dont really notice these things only seems to happen when realy cold.

To be fair, you can check for these things on a test drive but they are fairly typical of the car.

The IS200 seems to need a few more revs to pull away than other cars to avoid clutch judder - well mine does anyway and it's a 2004 model.

Sometimes mine won't start on the first turn, but always starts on the second. It's rare though and in fact hasn't done it for ages despite it getting a lot colder.

It's not down to temperature or anything like that, in fact I can't seem to find a pattern to it.

I've wondered about spark plugs too.

That's a big improvement. When I look at the current RX only the front end has dated slighty, the rest still looks really smart, so at least they've fixed that :)

anybody have any luck with this :)

Not me, busy sorting other probs at the moment :)

I might get round to it in a few weeks.

What's people's suggestions for what to use. A metal polish?

Yay for you, well done ! :D

I started with some HIDs and a Sports Grille too, now I've done quite a few small mods and still planning more

Yeah. I wish you'd change your avatar picture, I want your dials!!!!

I'm a little worried!...... Can you post the printout so i can see the final positions?

What worries me is if all was "green" before then i don't understand why you now have the OSF wheel set back. My procedure for the calibration moves the wheel forward not back.

Don't think you need to worry mate, only three corners were green beforehand. One corner was all red!

My car is now set up to your spec apart from the offside front which they couldn't get right because of the bent suspension arm. I do think the wheel is further back than it was because it never caught the arch before I took it in, but I'm guess that the adjustments they have made have exaggerated the problem with the bent arm. They made quite a few adjustments because they managed to get all but the castor angle correct.

I'll PM you the report :)

Maybe he will kill two birds with one stone, and not finish by taking Lewis out.

F1 needs to get it's act together soon, the way they run the sport makes the problems bad referees in the premiership look like nothing!

I'd rather watch the BTCC, but it's harder to catch on TV and it doesn't get promoted enough.

Cheers Wozza. I know all cars cost money, it's just what's got me a bit annoyed is that it's not the car's fault it's the way it was treated before I got it. But that's always a risk with buying a used car I suppose.

Anyway you're right about the handling. It's loads better already - with a bent suspension arm! I never really noticed before but it felt a bit lively at higher speeds, now it feels a lot calmer. Steering feels much better, and the handling all round is a step up. But there's more to come when I can get the suspension arm sorted :)

I went to get my geometry done today (at Drury Lane Garage in Oldham, WIM is too far for me). Got to say, they did an excellent job, and were very helpful and professional. In anyone's in the wrong part of the country to get to WIM, I would recommend Drury Lane. Can I just say thanks to Tony for putting me in contact with them :)

But it's not all good news. When they first did the geometry test, everything was highlighted green (within tolerances) on three corners of the car but the printout was showing red on the offside front. It was looking fairly certain there was something not right there. I then went off for a couple of hours while they set the geometry to Tony's spec. Anyway when I came back, they'd not been able to get the front offside right, and had found a bent lower suspension arm. With the car back down off the ramp, it's bloomin obvious as well. The wheel is too far back in the arch (towards the rear of the car, not the inside). It's funny, I've sometimes looked at the front wheel and thought something looked odd, but could never work out why. Wish I'd spotted that sooner.

So the upshot is I've had the full geometry done, the car drives much better already, but obviously there's more to come when the arm is replaced. A slight downside is that in trying to fix the geometry on that corner the wheel is now slightly further back than it was before I took it in, so it's catching the arch liner when I do a low speed turn.

I'm planning to go back to Drury Lane for then fit a new arm, because they can then finish off the geometry on that corner of the car and finally get it 100%. I'll get it done ASAP before the tyre gets damaged from catching the arch.

Previous owner of my car sure was a careless git - I spent £150 the week before last getting new parking sensors because he'd reversed into something and knackered one of them. This car is costing me a fortune.

What an absolute nightmare. You need to know your car is going to be there when you get up in the morning, but that's a vast amount of money to be certain that the stolen keys can't be used.

The only other option I could think of is to try an independent place like a key cutting and alarm programming expert in case they're any cheaper, but they might just refer you to a Lexus dealer.

Wow look at those prices.

Having said that, there's a reason the IS250SR manual is so cheap - the tax band. Any ideas of the price of an auto?

I don't know why I'm asking though, I shouldn't be!

only 507 odd miles away from me then

Give Tony a call, he's a great chap and might be able to recommend somewhere local to you. That's what he did for me because I'm in the north west, so I'm going to a place about 30 miles away.

I do wish I was going WIM though really, feels like I could be more certain of great service, but the place I'm going to should be fine and it's about 180 miles nearer.

Does your wife do the miles to justify the extra expense of a diesel? Not all motoring needs are suited to a diesel car - particularly one with particulate filters such as those fitted on the Lexus and newer Audis. If you don't do the longer journeys regularly the filters get clogged and the soot never gets burnt off by the 5th injector and you can get numerous problems. Also diesel is 10% more at the pump. I'd get her an IS250 auto - still cheap to tax and she'll love you for the ease of driving the thing.

Since the introduction of diesel particulate filters on Audis in early 2006 they have had so many complaints of poor mpg, cars going into "limp" mode, poor performance they now do a pre-qualification questionaire for all potential diesel buyers to see whether the car would be suitable for their needs. My wife is currently negotiating the buy back of 2 diesel Audi A4s by Audi Germany and putting the owners into petrol models because they should never have been sold a diesel in the first place - they were doing local trips and low annual mileages and getting crap economy and clogged filters. Newer Skodas are suffering too.

That's very interesting mate. It does annoy me when people insist on a diesel because they think it'll hit their wallet less than a petrol car, without even doing the sums to workout whether it will actually save them money. But I didn't know about all the other problems with doing short mileages in new diesel cars.

One other small but annoying thing that puts me off diesel cars altogether is the fact that every time you fill up, the pump handle is always covered in diesel and makes your hands stink. There is the option of the plastic glove but that's not good for the image either!

Dee, glad your car is sorted now mate :)

My car is getting close to 60k, it's just over 4 yrs old. I was going to leave it till 70k till doing the cambelt, based on the fact that it used to be 100k so down to 60k might a bit conservative.

But after reading this I don't think I'll risk it.

well to a certain point. i use tyres quite hard to be honest but touch wood never crashed apart from a motorbike. but shedding tyres could be allignment problems with caamber/castor.

That's what I was referring to, not driving. I was saying that a IS200 with standard geometry can eat through tyres.

I can see this thread seems to be turning into people thinking driving styles are to blame, all I'm trying to work is how good should the handling be on a 100% IS200, and how many people could have cars that are below 100% for whatever reason. I know of 3 people on this forum who have not been happy with IS200 handling (including myself), but after a full set of new Vredestein tyres my car is now fine.

I'm getting my geometry done to Tony's spec on Saturday, so will let report back with an update about how different it seems.

Doesn't sound good, with me being not very patient. Might just ask the guys at garage to fit it

I didn't mean to put you off!

It's not that bad, just the centre clip is a bit tricky, but you should be able to do it yourself :)

No doubt i will run into some kind of problem

Funny you should say that, I had a hell of a time fitting the sports grill actually!! What should be incredibly simple turns out not to be quite so simple.

The way you fit it is very simple, but there are three clips on the bumper which must go through slots on the grill. The middle one turned out to be very difficult on my car, it was back in summer and I ended up covered in sweat and cursing lots.

I don't know if there's an easy way round it, but I seem to remember brute force didn't really help :)

Well I bought an Elgato EyeTV DTT Deluxe, it was £60 delivered, and I'm blown away.

So far it's working a treat with just a small telescopic aerial which is hidden behind my iMac, and as I type now I've got a little TV window in the bottom corner of my screen. I really wasn't expecting much with the supplied aerials and thought it would need a proper roof aerial connection which would have been a right pain.

Tried recording, it works a treat, and am currently testing exporting to a H264 file to see how well that goes.

Only trouble is I might have to buy a copy of Toast to be able to rip my shows to DVD and watch them downstairs...

When mine is all sorted and on the road then I wouldnt have an issue comparing the handling with yours mate. Where abouts in the north west are u?

Wigan mate - not too far from Manchester at all.

I hate the handling - it always feels wobbly into corners and feels like the car is lifting when you slam it into a corner really hard.

I had a peugeot 406 sri turbo before this and i can honestly say the peugeot would out handle the IS200 in all conditions.

Pity you don't live a bit closer, I'd be very interested to compare your car against mine. Like you I was worried about the handling of my car to start off with, and my previous car definitely outhandled it. But now the gap is a lot closer.

I think what happens with some IS's (not saying this is yours) is people get the tyre wear problem and after a while get sick of paying a fortune for expensive tyres that get shredded in no time, so they end up buying budget tyres. This then ruins the handling of the car completely. This is what happened with my car anyway.

If anyone in the North West is not sure about the handing of their IS give me a shout, I would be interested to compare to see if mine is spot on now or whether it could be better :)

It's been a bit worrying reading about quite a few IS accidents recently on here. I guess the worsening weather conditions has a lot to do with. Sorry to anyone who's had an accident in their Lexus :(

Anyway, I was wondering how people rate their IS for handling i.e. grip, especially in the wet - in particular, if you've had a spin or scary moment in your IS?

My reason for asking is that going off my experiences the IS200 seems very sensitive to the type of tyre fitted and having the right pressures. When I got my IS it had a weird mix of cheap and decent but worn tyres. I thought handling was poor, it pitched in corners a lot and it was quite easy to get the back out in the wet - and I wasn't trying. I changed my tyres all round for new ones, and run them at a higher than normal pressure, and I have to say my car feels very stable. It's very well balanced and doesn't seem obviously RWD. Sure if I boot it mid corner, the back pushes the car round the bend, unlike FWD, but it hardly ever loses traction.

Since changing the tyres I don't get any unexpected RWD handling nasties. Have I just been lucky so far though? I know it's a mix of the car, the road and the driver, but I was just wondering how much difference things like tyres make. What about sport vs. SE suspension - is there much difference?

Good luck, sounds like a great move :)

Wish I was going...