Paradroid

Take Martin "Moneysavingexpert"s advice on car insurance.

He says something like do a run through Moneysupermarket.com (or another price comparison site), then check Direct Line as well because they can be the cheapest normal insurer but refuse to put themselves on the price comparison site.

Also personally I'd check Privilege and/or Tesco.

I went with Privilege in the end, put a quote in direct on their site, it was about £10 cheaper than Direct Line but the policy cover seemed better

My recommendation would be to check the specifications of the different models, you might find the fuel economy and emissions might be different between the models which might make a difference in todays climate! I'd guess that the 6 speed would be more economical.

My door cards have a few minor marks on them. The passenger side has a fine scratch about 3 inches long, the drivers side has a few small cloudy marks.

Since mine is the late model with the leather trim, getting replacements could be tricky, so I've been trying to think of alternatives.

One idea I had was this (see eBay item 250304843621)

It's basically a polish (but more like a shoe polish). It's intended more for leather but I was wondering if it would work on a door card. What do people think - or has anyone got a better idea?

Yeah. Also is there a possibility of selling it out there when you're finished and making a few quid? Then come back here and buy another, and pocket the change!

Mine is a 2004 Sport and doesn't have a chrome tipped exhaust. Was it supposed to? It looks like the standard IS exhaust, which seems to have a matt black finish.

Question is, is this black colour just dirt that will clean off or is it intended to look like that?

Reason is that I've got some silver overspray on the back box from where the bumper was painted by the previous owner. I was going to get some thinners and strip the silver paint off, but I'm not sure how it will look afterwards.

Looks great, nice job :)

not as quick as you'd think. the supercharger works off a magnetic clutch and has a mind all of its own

I seem to remember reading magazine reviews and they said the same. Why was it, was the engine not the kind to take a lot of boost. Would the supercharger be active right round the rev range - or was it just for torque until the VVTL-i kicked in?

Looks smart though, especially the back end :)

On my IS200 the leather around the gearstick is really manky. It's cracked a lot, and for some reason one section has worn completely smooth and looks strange. Does anyone have one in better condition? Colour = black.

By the way I tried the replacement ones off eBay and to be honest the quality of the leather is poor (very thin) and doesn't suit the Lexus interior at all.

P.S. If anyone has the chrome ring that goes with it I could do with that as well as mine is cracked.

Really I thought all the IS's had the same very close gear selection. Thought that was why they had the reverse alarm because 1st and reverse are so close together.

Must say though the gearstick doesn't travel much at all on my 54 IS200 Sport.

Good choice, I like the IS250SR and the auto is supposed to be better than the manual from what I've heard :)

By the way, you asked an interesting question right at the start, about whether RAID is worth it.

I decided RAID was a must-have, which is why I went for the D Link box. But thinking about it, I don't think it's worth it. The thing with RAID is it doesn't protect you against an accidental deletion, or a file or disk partition getting corrupt. If it happens on one drive it will be mirrored to the other. So all it does is keep your files available in the event of a hard drive failure. But if you're using the drive as a backup solution, you've two copies of the files already anyway, one on the computer, the other on the backup drive.

Another thing that's bothered me about my NAS is that Apple's Time Machine backup doesn't support network drives, so I ended up buying a cheap Firewire hard drive enclosure just so I could back up my Mac files properly.

So again the NAS drive has been less than useful!

I've just been back out and had another look, and double-checked the clip at the back of the seat as you suggested. That seemed ok (I was able to see between the cushions on the other side and check how it was supposed to go). So I gave it another go, put the hook in the clip and pushed it down. That didn't work again, but then I sat in the seat and jumped up and down and it finally clicked in place

Seems like there might have been a bit of leather in the way around the hook on the seat, and that was stopping the clip working.

Seat it now locked into place :)

Cheers Wozza!

I got some new parking sensors fitted to my IS200 over the weekend, and the fitter needed to unclip the rear seat bench so he could bring a wire in from the boot compartment.

Today I've noticed that the bench is loose, you can just lift it away from the base it sits on. I can see the clip on the bodywork that the bench fixes to, and I can see the small metal loop on the bottom of the seat bench that goes into the clip. Trouble is, it's not engaging and locking into place, even with some weight on it.

Does anyone have any ideas what might be wrong? The clip has yellow plastic parts inside and doesn't seem broken in any way.

Is there a knack to getting it to lock into place, or do I need to try and get a new clip?

I bought a D Link DNS-323 and put my own 500GB drives into it, operating in RAID mode.

I've been very disappointed with it to be honest, had a few problems with the onboard software especially with the iTunes server so have not used it that much. Also the D Link support line are useless, I've complained to them about the problems the box has and they did nothing.

Wouldn't recommend at all. I saw a few La Cie drives that looked smart before i bought by D Link.

Must admin I'm well impressed with that, the device itself looks like a cool pocket computer or something!

My old tomtom is a big chunky thing, it's so deep it looks like it's got a tv tube in it, not an LCD screen

While we're talking about it were the Sport's available right till the end of production?

When I looked around on the web there seemed to be very few of the Sport model around with the later 2004 spec.

Probably because the SE/LE models had so many extras they would have been better value to buy new?

I got my silver sports grill from the dealers about 2 months ago, think it was about £40.

Are you thinking of the LE?

It was the SE with full black leather interior, both front electric seats, and 11 spoke alloy wheels. The LE was also available in some very nice colours, and you could have anthracite wheels to match the darker paint jobs.

My spec is a bit like that, it's a 2004/54 Sport, has the full leather and electrics, but is in silver, and has the plain silver 11 spoke wheels. To be honest I was a bit thick and didn't know the Sport was still made as late as mine, thought they were all LE's, which is why I bought the car really. Since then I've seen a few more for sale though.

Very nice, what insurance company are you with!?!?!?!

I like those, especially the ones with the sport grill, they look stunning.

I've been wondering this too.

My IS has the occasional iffy startup, reading on here, they seem to have it quite a bit. Was thinking spark plugs might help.

Round Lancs I've also seen an Octavia vRS, and few Volvo S60's.

To be honest when I'm on the motorway and I see a Volvo I assume it IS a rozza car until I'm satisfied it isn't!

Nokia 6300. Stylish and not full of stuff I won't ever use. One of the best Nokia phones I've ever had.

Downsides: everyone seems to have one these days

I've considered getting the Iphone but I've realised that eventually it would annoy me, with not having simple features like profiles and I don't like the keyboard for texting. Also at the moment I don't want to shell out for an expensive monthly plan too.

He only paid about £140 plus £20 postage for them though and sold them for £225 on a buy it now plus £40 postage.......

I know

Stevie I might be interested in those centre caps, how much do you want for them? Are they the grey/black ones?

Yes those are the 11 spoke alloys off later models. Not just the LE though, SE and Sport models came with them too.

There are two finishes, plain silver and the nice anthracite ones you've found on eBay.

Which were you after - the darker ones? There is a set of those on eBay at the moment (think it's a forum member) for £250.

Welcome to the forums, looks like a smart car does that :)

Is the grill standard it looks a bit different to how I think the LS normally looks. I like it though.