Haylands

Totally agree, use the wrong offset with spacers will ruin the suspension geometry that Lexus spent millions in developing, uneven tyre wear and undue stress on suspension components will happen. Not to mention ruining the ride and handling... Just do a google on failed wheel spacers and see how common it is.... do you want someone with them driving past your childrens school...??? You also HAVE to inform your insurance company of ALL modifications. They will not like it..... Have an accident with an undeclared modified car and you will end up paying the whole claim yourself when the insurance company refuses to..... Just my 2p.....

It's another reason not to spray any more than you need... the shop who did it may have done it completely right but it had been painted in the past and not prepared properly, flaking is usually caused by not flatting or cleaning the panel properly, it usually occurs where they don't repair and the area is just covered in a thin layer of colour and the clear coat, tends to be worse on plastic panels.... It's one of the reasons my shop sands most of the paint off the bumpers, they then don't get so many comebacks.. Every paintshop will get comebacks, mostly down to other things beyond their control.... My guys painted a Yaris for me well over 8 years ago and it still looks great.... I see bodywork as a service item if you want to see your car at it's best.....

It was just the door panel, above the plastic panel at the bottom, that was painted to blend the colour in, to do the whole car you would have to strip them down, and paint the plastic panels and then the sill covers, plus the roof which painters really hate painting as they are awkward... it's an awful lot of extra work for no real improvement, you can't tell which panels have been painted and which haven't. It would more than double the cost... Thanks, get it done, it'll look great..... I know what you mean but I sort of like it, it looks better in the flesh than pictures. I'm going to mockup the chrome tape and see which I prefer... I had a fight with the painter as his view was the same as yours but even he said it looks good...!!!

Cheers, they painted both front wings, bumper and bonnet, both rear wings, one rear door, boot and rear bumper, you get the car back filthy inside and out and the paintwork has been flatted and polished but will be covered in swirl marks from the rubbing compound, it then needs further polishing and a dam good clean up... BUT, it is cheap at £400, especially as it's mica paint... I prefer it like that as I'd rather do it myself... The bodyshop does mostly trade work from local car retailers but will do work direct from the public.... I have used them for years so get the rock bottom trade rate so if you want something done PM me and I will introduce you.. they are in Hull... Thanks, looking good for 13 years old... Thanks, yes, I was surprised, they are well painted and there was no sign of rust around them after 13 years so guess they have it sorted... makes them real easy to fit, no hours of measuring and tape...!!!

Got the 430 back this morning, then spent several hours with my machine polisher, and finally a good polish by hand and the paintwork is pretty good now... I shall let the pictures do the talking... One thing I did do was get the bodyshop to paint the chrome strip on both bumpers, these are plastic inserts and after a few years go dull grey instead of chrome, I bought some chrome vinyl tape to redo them to original but I'm liking them body coloured at the moment, think I will leave them for a while and see how it goes... That rear arch came out well... Not too much more to do now....

The 430 heads for the paintshop tomorrow... it does look nice but 13 years has taken its toll in one way or another.... The worst bit is the nearside rear wheel arch (car is on a wheel free ramp hence the big gap!!) The rear bumper has a dink top to bottom in the middle And a dig in the corner... Bootlid has a big scratch down the edge here (touched in) And more scratches and chips here.... it also has damage around the number plate area where various different plates have been put on in the past... The front has lots of rash that always shows more on the darker colours, difficult to see much here but it annoys me... The front bumper has been painted before and the quality is a bit suspect, the paint is very flat with little shine and the lacquer is peeling in several places... There are also some large chips out of the bonnet and boot.. So not that bad and yes it's what you would expect from 13 years and 130,000 miles but I'm sad and want it looking the best it can... so bonnet, both front wings and the front bumper will be painted as well as both rear wings, the boot lid and rear bumper, the nearside rear door will get painted to blend the colour in.... There is not much in the way of repairs, most is just flatting and painting so it's only £400 for the lot so for a small outlay it will be near mint bodywise... As you can see I took the rear badges off to clean them up before they go back on the new paint... you can see why you don't see debadged 430's... they still have locator holes for the badges... virtually unheard of these days... They would look something like this if debadged... Think I prefer it with badges.... I also took the grille off to strip it down and give it a good clean... looks weird without one.... More to follow....

Yeah, my old Merc CL500 had significantly wider and taller rear tyres than front, this has 225/45/17 front and 245/45/17 rear so a massive 20mm wider...!!! I think it is the SE-I SE-L and the ISF of course, the IS350 is the same but we don't get that (shame)....

Nothing done on the 430 but the 250 is done and finished... Bought it for my good lady, it's a 2006 Lexus IS250 SE-L with Nav, we have the original bill of sale at just over £33,000, we paid a lot less than 10% of that for it...!!! It is a one owner full service history vehicle but had some cosmetic issues... It has now had a front end respray, along with the rear bumper, the wheels have been refurbished, it came with a nearly new set of four matching tyres but the front nearside had got too friendly with the curb and had various chunks missing, none were to the cords but I wasn't happy with it, it would have been OK on the rear but the 250 has larger rear tyres..!! So a new matching tyre was fitted... a 2017-18 sat nav disc and a dam good valet and it is looking like a 2 year old car... It has been serviced by a Toyota and Lexus specialist for a number of years and has had all the fluids changed recently and new discs and pads all round, it drives spot on and hopefully will give years of use... That bonnet looks better... Rear bumper looks new and is a closer colour match than the picture portrays.... The rest of the paintwork responded well to a good polish.. The wheels were very poor, now looking new again.... The inside was pretty grubby but responded well to a clean and feed, new genuine mats fitted... 430 hits the paintshop Monday.....

Just noticed this yesterday..... If you look at the US spec water rads you will see that they supply them with or without the "Tow Package" The Tow package will be an external oil cooler for the gearbox, so it appears that they just fit them as standard here... as I said on the other thread.... "The replacement cooler will cool the gearbox oil to a sufficient degree, the ideal gearbox oil temperature will be around 90c, it can reach 170c+ inside the torque converter when doing grand prix starts or driving up steep hills for a protracted time, or towing a heavy trailer or caravan (Not likely in a 430..!!) Most of the time the gearbox oil will be within spec and no cooling will be needed, Lexus have to respond to all sorts of abusive driving as well as very hot climates so they fit a rad... Is it really needed by "most" drivers in this country...??? probably not... The replacement coolers can be screwed to the bottom of the front aluminum bumper support, this gives them a very large heat sink and they will dissipate the heat just fine. The only downside I can see is that the original system will actually heat up the oil to operating temp quicker in the depths of winter whereas the replacement won't. I think the difference would only be a few miles of driving though..." Sitting in traffic inching forward doesn't heat up the oil much... it's loading that heats the oil...

The oil cooler was less than £20 off eBay and I had some pipe and clips already. I've heard that the pipes/rad can fail in less than 7 years (although most last a lot longer) so set yourself a reminder....

Paul at Lexus spares direct bought an awful lot of bushes direct from the manufacturer in the USA, they are genuine bushes pressed into genuine (second hand) carriers. You even get some money back if you send your old ones to him... He has sold over 100 sets.... stack em high and sell em cheap...!! If yours look like this then they need changing, in fact any small split and they are toast... This will be the cause of your wheel wobble when braking, guaranteed... don't bother doing anything to the discs until you have done the bushes... You will be amased....

Had a little play this morning... fitted the separate gearbox oil cooler to eliminate the chance of the dreaded cooler failure wrecking the gearbox, as I've said elsewhere this is the preventative measure I am happy with, there are several ways to preempt this problem and deal with it, whichever way you chose is the best way for you... It's a simple process... remove this panel, there are about 6,534 10mm fixings.... You can then see this at the bottom of the rad the two pipes coming out are from the internal cooler They go into two metal pipes and are held on with those constant torque clips, remove the pipes from the metal pipes, cut them short, shove a bolt in the shortened pipe and secure with a jubilee clip, this ensures that should the rad fail internally then you won't lose coolant through the oil cooler... I forgot to take pictures of the next bit so adapted this one, I drilled four holes in the panel below the aluminium crash bar, two for the pipes (Red)and two outside ones (Yellow) for the purpose of fixing the rad. The pipe holes line up directly with the strengthening ribs... Then dressed up the rad with the hose tails, went under the bonnet, plenty of room to get the rad in position, I used a piece of wood to wedge it in position then used these self drilling and tapping screws, they are designed for roofing sheets but are handy for loads of things... Fixed the cooler in place with four of them using a 10mm socket on a 1/4 drive extension bar in a cordless drill... Cooler now fitted very solid and in good airflow under the front number plate.. Then just a case of cutting the pipes to length and fixing them on, then replacing the undertray. The old cooler only had about a quarter of a cupful of oil in it and as I plan to change the gearbox fluid soon I didn't bother topping it up... Job done... I then sorted out the electrical socket for the tow bar, the old one was hanging below the bar and got broken when I reversed out of our drive and up the neighbour opposites drive, there was a van in the way to stop me turning up the road as I usually do, this meant the front was going uphill as the rear was going down hill.. a nasty scrape and the socket was toast... it looked awful anyway.. Here it is before showing the extra reversing LED's I removed earlier... I bought a black one and a stainless steel plate to secure it, the type that sits behind a normal tow hook, as mine is a removable one I cut down and bent the bracket to fit the socket flush with the bottom of the tow bar, i had to remove a semicircle of the bumper edge to get it in, I have mounted it sideways as this meant I didn't have to remove any more bumper as it would start to show... That looks better if I do say so myself..!! I'll probably paint the stainless bracket but I didn't take any paint to the garage.... It's getting closer to where I want it...... Went to visit the IS250 we have just bought for my good lady. It is in the paintshop, ready for primer, it's having a full front end repaint and the rear bumper, it will then be mint body wise... The bonnet looked like it had been cleaned with a brillo pad and acid, the bumper and front wings had a few stone chips and the rear bumper had a scuff on one corner and a ding in the middle.... (Don't people use the PDC...!!) It's difficult to photograph but it looks awful in the flesh ( We got a lot of money off because of this ) You can see it's a different colour, the headlights are very faded as well, I polished them before it went in, came up like new.... It has to look worse before it gets better.... The back half of the front wings will be flatted with very fine grade paper and the area will be used to blend the new colour into the original, this should make the repaint virtually imperceptible... The bumper had a lot of stone chips.... Old wheely bin makes a great bumper stand...!!! Should be finished Wednesday....

The facelift just has a few more gadgets, I like the front lights more but think they should have left the shape of the rear lights alone... The reversing camera is worthwhile and the bluetooth works very well, the quality is better than any Parrot I have ever had... it's got a bit more wood if you like that.... It's slightly faster because of the extra gear and does a few more MPG... Shame they added an inch to the wheel diameter as that makes it less comfortable but I think the facelifted wheels look better... All in all I'm happy to pay the bit extra for the facelift. It's just my opinion, I like lazy cars and giving the 460 100bhp more than the 430 and a couple of extra gears has taken it too far away from Its roots.... an LS that is closer to a BMW than a Mercedes... I'm not having a go at it, it does what it does very well.... Drive a 400 or 430 blindfolded and you could be driving a Mercedes... they all waft.... drive a 460 blindfolded and it's far more like a BMW..... BMW call it the ultimate driving machine.... personally I find them annoying to drive as you can't relax, they constantly need input from the driver... I wanted to like it, it wasn't until returning home after many 100's of miles one weekend that my wife made the comment.... "You don't like this car do you..?" She could tell by the way I was driving that it was annoying me, I knew something was wrong but I liked the car so much it took me a while to realise what the problem was.... I'm sure there are thousands out there who will like it as there are who like BMW's, I was just trying to share my own experience.

Go on then... my 2p... I've owned three 430's both pre facelift and post, and a 460... my view, you need to drive them to make your own mind up... IMHO The 430 is very much the younger brother of the excellent 400, you can tell Lexus bought 10 Mercedes S class cars, ripped them apart and then built the 400... to me it drives like an S class and I've had three of them as well, I like the S class and I like the 400, and the 430.... Someone at Lexus has been out driving a BMW though...!!! to me the 460 is like a 7 series and I hate BMW's it feels like it is always trying to get away from you, the 430 feels like an old boat to drive, it will waft around all day long but if you want to give it the beans it picks up it's skirt and will show most things a clean pair of heels... the 460 constantly wants to be in front of the next car, it doesn't waft, it goes balls out after everything, it's like taking an excited puppy for a walk, always pulling on the lead.... To me it was no good, the technology was impressive but the build quality was yet another step down from the 430 (which is a step down from the 400) It is the last good looking Lexus though... For me the 430 facelift with an extra gear, reversing camera and bluetooth is the ultimate Lexus, a big old ugly bus that does just what I want it to do and is ignored by 99% of other drivers... What a shame they have made the new crop of Lexi look like they were designed by Zorro, hardly the understated vehicle Lexus owners were used to... Back to an S class next then...!!

It costs 1056 Polish zloty, about £215 (change the language on the site and it gives prices in Polish) so with postage both ways nearly as much as getting Arnotts from Rock Auto £372.59 with postage but they only do the fronts...!!!

Missed this post... sorry for that... I am sure your box will be fine and have no lasting damage, you were lucky that it dumped all the oil out of the box, the issue that ruins the box is when the coolant from the radiator enters the gearbox and gets pumped around for a period of time (maybe even 100's of miles) reducing the ability of the gearbox oil, the clutches will wear rapidly and you lose drive due to an inability of the clutches to supply drive, the gearbox is then toast. You lost drive because the torque converter ran out of fluid and stopped turning the gearbox... IMHO the "BEST" answer and prevention for this is the one you are happy with... change the rad and the pipes and you are good to go for another 8+ years....or..... add a remote cooler.... The replacement cooler will cool the gearbox oil to a sufficient degree, the ideal gearbox oil temperature will be around 90c, it can reach 170c+ inside the torque converter when doing grand prix starts or driving up steep hills for a protracted time, or towing a heavy trailer or caravan (Not likely in a 430..!!) Most of the time the gearbox oil will be within spec and no cooling will be needed, Lexus have to respond to all sorts of abusive driving as well as very hot climates so they fit a rad... Is it really needed by "most" drivers in this country...??? probably not... The replacement coolers can be screwed to the bottom of the front aluminum bumper support, this gives them a very large heat sink and they will dissipate the heat just fine. The only downside I can see is that the original system will actually heat up the oil to operating temp quicker in the depths of winter whereas the replacement won't. I think the difference would only be a few miles of driving though... A replacement radiator, keeping on top of coolant changes, and regular checking of the pipes is fine as well, and keeps the car original BUT... if left alone the original setup will fail, if you are lucky it will cost you a radiator and some pipes, if not you are looking at a new gearbox... some have stated the engine could overheat and be damaged as well but I think that is not going to happen, you will lose drive because of water in the gearbox before the reduction of water in the engines cooling system damages the engine. So... what to do... as I said earlier the best solution is the one you are happy with.... Me? I have a replacement oil cooler and lines sat in the garage that will be fitted next week... Just my 2p...!!

Booked in on June 25th for respray of Both front wings, bonnet and front bumper Both rear wings, N/S rear door, boot and rear bumper The roof and other three doors are fine... I am being a bit fussy, one rear wing only has a small mark and a few chips on it's edge but it is right where you see it, the rear door is getting painted to blend in the rear arch repair where it has been scratched and the front isn't too bad until you open the bonnet and look around the grille, someone has been doing some tailgating and it shows... I'll do some before and after photos when it gets done... I've also dropped off the spare wheel to get refurbished as it's doing my OCD in...!!!! Sad and expensive but I do like a car to be the best I can get it..........

I have now completed swapping everything over from the old one to the new one and given the interior a good clean and fed the leather, the inside is now looking near new, just a few small marks on the leather to repair, I have sent a piece of leather to Furniture Clinic https://www.furnitureclinic.co.uk/Leather_Colourant and ordered 250ml colour matched to the grey. Any marks or dark areas are just shading, it doesn't photograph that well, all the leather has cleaned up well and the rather grubby carpets have cleaned well to... the drivers footwell was rather dirty all around the edge of the floor mat... now looking good.... I ended up with a set of black and a set of grey genuine floor mats, I jet washed both sets today and got a lot of muck out and did fancy having the grey but alas they didn't clean up as well as I'd like so I've gone with the black, at least they will stay looking clean longer... Some areas where the grey has gone sort of beige... (If anyone wants a set of 4 niceish grey mats, let me know, going cheap...) The edge binding of the mats gets worn and frayed over time, the black set wasn't bad, just a bit of hairy edge... A quick run round the edge with a hot air gun and they look a lot better.... If anyone wonders what it looks like under the rear seat it's pretty packed with goodies...!!! And one of the last things to swap over was the filler cap for the screen wash That is rodent teeth marks!!!! the little blighters love chewing a bit of hard plastic... So the list of swapped bits reads like this 4 wheels and tyres 2 Front discs and pads 2 Lower wishbone rear bushes Front seat Rear seat swab Center console Sat Nav surround Rear door card Boot floor Outer chrome door trim Screen wash cap Next job on it will be to book it in for some paintwork soon.... Next job for me is to find my good lady an Is250, found one 3 hours away with the spec we want SE-L with nav so a trip south is in order....

Each to their own, boring if we all liked the same thing...!! lol Lexus did it themselves on the SC430.........

Finished off swapping stuff over today, one rear door card had a mark on the speaker panel so I swapped it, the wood doesn't quite match so I swapped the wood which involves loads of screws to take apart the door trim... swapped a door window trim as one was dented on the new one, small and not very noticable but why not seeing as I had a good one... It is fortunate that the small cosmetic damage on both cars were all on different parts, the new car now has a near totally immaculate interior and with a small amount of paintwork will be near mint outside. it now drives just as it should so it's getting close to where I want it... Couldn't resist a bit of bling for the expanse of wood on the center console, my brother bought some of these a while ago, they are lazer cut stainless, incredible quality and look near original... Before... After.... Not very photogenic it certainly looks better in the flesh, I like it as it breaks up the large blank panel.. Next job is a full deep clean inside and out...

John, it will be fine it's just not a good idea to use an abrasive on painted leather, it will not take too much to remove the surface of the leather, a stubborn spot of dirt and a good rub with the magic eraser and you can do permanent damage. I love the magic erasers, they are brilliant but not for repeated use on anything delicate...

I have used several over the years, they all seem to be similar, anyone will do, just make sure to feed the leather afterwards, the cleaner will open the pores and if you don't fill them with feed you will fill them with grease from your hands and although that is a pretty good food it will have dirt in it as well.

No no no...!!! don't use a magic eraser on painted leather (which the steering wheel is) yes it will clean it well but it is an abrasive, try one on a polished or painted surface and see what it does, you need a proper cleaner, wipe it on thick and let it soak in then gently rub it off. Magic eraser is good for hard grained plastics and other synthetic material but not leather....

I put this on my build thread but it applies to all cars so thought I'd stick it here as well.... Have you ever sat there in traffic and looked at the steering wheel and thought.... "why did they make it gloss leather when the rest is matt" Well actually it isn't gloss... it's the proverbial polished turd...!! Get yourself a mild leather cleaner and get to work on it, only takes a few minutes but look at the state of the cloth you use, you won't believe how much dirt is on there..... Now sit back and look at your new wheel...!!! It really does make a massive difference, treat it with some leather food and wait for it to dry or you will get fingerprints on it... It now matches the airbag...!!

Have you ever sat there in traffic and looked at the steering wheel and thought.... "why did they make it gloss leather when the rest is matt" Well actually it isn't gloss... it's the proverbial polished turd...!! Get yourself a mild leather cleaner and get to work on it, only takes a few minutes but look at the state of the cloth you use, you won't believe how much dirt is on there..... Now sit back and look at your new wheel...!!! It really does make a massive difference, treat it with some leather food and wait for it to dry or you will get fingerprints on it... It now matches the airbag...!!