ahmed24

Yes the part number is different because I think the ones sold on there are more universal D4S bulbs instead of the specific one with the part number you are looking for. But those are also D4S so that's the main thing. You could message them and ask them just to be sure. If you go to the IS second gen section on that website and click Interior Exterior and find the D4S bulb it takes you to the same bulb. Like I mentioned, the main thing is that you get a D4S fitment bulb from a reputable brand. I've used Philips but i've heard Osram is just as good too. Some go with the cheaper brand ones and dont mind swapping out when they fail. But I prefer to do it once and have it last longer.

Also, you have to be careful on ebay. There are a lot of fake products. There are lots of Philips bulbs that have chinese writing etc that are fake. The genuine Philips bulbs are made in germany if i remember correctly.

I got them on ebay for around £60 each over 6 years ago. So these genuine lexus ones for £70 seem good

I wouldn't go for unknown brands. I've owned my car for over 13 years. And there was a time when my HID bulbs needing changing I opted for different brands. I tried at least 4 different brands all of which worked for a while but within a year they all started doing the same thing over and over again. The bulb manufacturers kept saying it's my ballasts. But I then switched to original Philips product which you can get online much cheaper than the dealer and i'm still running those bulbs 6 years on. I'm not saying go for Philips but those are the OEM bulbs. But go with a reputable brand like Philips or Osram. Lexus Parts Direct seem to have a good offer on it: https://www.lexuspartsdirect.co.uk/parts/lexus-sc/lexus-sc430-2001-2010/lexus-sc430-exterior-interior/lexus-d4s-xenon-bulb/ Never used this site but it seems like Genuine Lexus parts

Another thing to keep in mind is that the transmission on our cars is the Aisin A960E. And if you look at Aisin recommendations, they actually say you need to change the fluid. There is no such thing as a fluid for life. They really should have called it long-life fluid (like what they call their pink coolant). General wear and tear and heating of the fluid in normal use will eventually degrade the fluids ability to satisfactorily lubricate and cool the transmissions internal components. Also normal build up of matter in the fluid will eventually impair the ability of the filter to maintain clean fluid. Dirty fluid can also end up causing solenoid failures as when the filter is no longer effeciently filtering the fluid, small particles can go and clog the solenoids. Regular maintenance can prevent premature wear.

I don't understand why people are hell bent on using non OEM fluids. The toyota WS ATF isn't that expensive. Stick to what is made for the transmission. I've always used Toyota WS ATF. Either use the Toyota WS or the Aisin WS. They are the same fluid. Our transmission is the A960E made by Aisin.

That is very true. It's very hard to know. But often you could ask them what procedure they will use to check the correct fluid level. If they describe it as bringing it up to the correct temperature and then removing the overflow plug, then usually that's a sign they know the procedure. There are multiple ways to check when the ATF gets to temperature. One method is using a procedure on the transmission level to make the lights on the instrument cluster light up in sequence to tell you when to remove the plug. The other is to just use a diagnostics tool that can read the ATF temperature. There is also the method to short two pins across the ODB port, but I use the Lexus techstream diagnostics.

Agreed, a basic drain and fill doesn't. Dropping the pan and changing the filter will help a bit more. I do a primary drain and fill and run up to temperature then do another drain and fill and then do the fluid level check using the Lexus/Toyota procedure. The filter and oil change isn't really rocket science. Any transmission place can do this easily. As long as you you use Genuine WS ATF. The main thing is that the correct level check procedure is followed. The key to checking fluid level is the oil being at the correct temperature so that the fluid displaces the right volume. Too hot and your fluid level will end up low. Too cold and its overfull.

The water pump job, that does sound like the dealer price. But it is very expensive. The water pump itself is a cheap part just the labour involved in changing it really. Depending on your DIY skills, it can be done yourself. I took the oppertunity to change the thermostat at the same time as the thermostat isn't an expensive part either. Depending on your mileage I would change the radiator pressure cap as it's quite common for the mechanism inside to break and fall into the pipework. Regarding transmission service. Sealed for life transmissions is a debate that is going on for ages across many forums and many car brands including BMW. I often recommend a read of the following post: https://www.baydiagnostic.com/bmw-lifetime-transmission-fluid it's an interesting read. I've been servicing my transmission ever since it hit 100k. But in hindsight I should have really started much before. My car is just under 200k miles now with the original transmission. If you look after your transmission it can last you a very long time. If you start servicing your transmission when things start going wrong then unfornately by then some damage may already have occured. I always use Genuine Toyota WS ATF fluid. The dealer prices you've been quoted are insane. But it is dealership price at the end of the day. In regards to coolant change. a full coolant change takes just over 9L of Toyota Super Long Life pink coolant. The process of draining inolves draining coolant from both banks of the V engine blocks too. So it is a little extra work. The pink coolant itself will cost you between £50-£70 depending on where you get it from. Then the labour to drain and refill and bleed depending on your garage labour prices.

No problem. Sorry I think I said that using the only relay method with the capacitor and the diode filter gives you about 20-30 seconds of the relay staying on after the puddle lights turn off when in fact it's much less. It's probably more like 3 to 5 seconds. So just to summarise: with the relay method the relay will activate only when the pwm voltage gets closer to the 12v so you miss out on the few seconds when the puddle lights are fading in. When the puddle lights start to fade out the capacitor will allow the relay to stay on for about 3-5 seconds but it won't be the 20-30 seconds that I quoted. The 20-30seconds is for the board method and that's 20-30 seconds after the puddle light completely fades out. So overall the board method you get a much more reasonable time delay that the lights stay on for. Also, the fact that the capacitor drains it's charge much quicker on the relay method compared to the board method demonstrates that the board is drawing much less power than the relay. Hope that helps.

Yes that's the board you want. I didn't post link as links to that auction site if I'm not mistaken are not allowed on the forum (I could be wrong 🙂 ) but they are out of stock of the 12V version at the moment it seems. If you get that, you can ask them to sell you the version without the LEDs on it, this will reduce the current draw. It will require constant power but without the led the current draw when I did a bench test was very minimal 1 or 2mA if I remember correctly. I've had my car sitting for 3 weeks at one point during the lockdown and no issues. The board will need to be housed in a abs plastic project box. Regarding just using a relay and using a capacitor and diode to filter and smoothen out the curve, yes in theory that's possible. Either with the board or without the board you will need to create this filter. The difference is with the board without a filter the buzzing will only occur for a split second as the voltage fades in and out between the 3-5v range and doesn't buzz on the higher voltage. With a relay without a filter it will buzz all the time. If you use a relay and make the filter, yes in theory it's fine but your relay will only kick in when the puddle light circuit reaches closer to the 12v. Because the filter has a big enough capacitor it will keep the relay on for about 20-30 seconds even after the puddle lights go out. With the board, it is activated as soon as a signal is detected and also stays on for the 20-30 seconds after the voltage is completely gone. So I find the duration of how long the lights stay on with the board much better overall. Hope that helps

As mentioned above, the puddle lights are powered by a square PWM signal. If you try to energise a relay coil from that PWM signal you will get a constant buzzing sound which is the sound of the metal contact opening and closing at a very fast rate as the pwm pulses. In most cases you may not notice a problem and it may work but it will cause the relay to prematurely wear out. It may cause flicking of the source that you are trying to turn on in the first place and most importantly if the relay draws too much extra power or develops an issue, the body ECU may see it as a problem and you may experience other issues as the body ECU shuts things down because the readings are not within its defined parameters. I did explain how I did this with a optical logic board. Even with the logic board which is designed to detect voltages from 3v onwards, as the signal fades in and out on the lower end it pulses a lot more and I've had to smooth that out with a diode and big capacitor. It's a fair bit of circuitry involved. My drawing above explains the setup. I created the diagrams above originally for User @G10RRE (John - hope you don't mind me mentioning you here) He successfully did the mod on his ISF. Below is a video link to John's amazing ISF with this mod.

I changed my digitizer probably over 6 years ago and still going strong and cost was something like £9 or something round those lines for the digitizer from Hong Kong. Well worth repairing it. If you're doing it yourself just be very careful with the sharp metal frames at the back of the unit, one slip and it will cut you bad. While removing one connector my hand slipped and had a nasty cut that needed stitches lol Here are some pics from when I installed it

On the topic of Lexus dealers being more reliable, I feel like you really need to be on top of them too because they also can take you for a ride. I've always used Lexus Woodford when my car was under 100k miles, after that I started doing all my work myself and started noticing things they had broken over the years while working on my car. Clips, tabs brackets broken etc. On one occasion it went to them for a airbag recall when I got my car back the centre console was scratched like crazy and the two side silver trims were badly scratched that the black plastic was showing through the silver. They did agree to replace the silver trims but i've since refinished the centre console. These are just small things ofcourse but surely we should expect much better from a dealer. The worst experience with Lexus Woodford was when my brother took in his RX450h for a service part of his service plan. They advised that the rear OS shock was leaking and the brake discs were near minimum. So I told my brother not to get it done by them as the quote was too high and that I would do it for him. So I changed his discs and shocks and all was good. After about 8 months his next service was due part of his service plan and Lexus Woodford were telling him the exact same thing again. Discs and Shock need replacing, he was a little confused as this was done less than a year ago. They were insisting it's correct and needs changing. He was insisting it was done and that they inspect properly as this is cheating if they are going based on old information and have not checked it. And guess what? they checked it and said they were sorry it was a mistake. That really annoyed me as I would not have expected this from a dealer at all. So what i'm saying is just because you go to the dealers, don't always expect them to be 100% truthful either :)

I was so used to folding manually using the switch inside before switching car off that after I did this mod, a few times I did so then when I come back to the car it wont unfold automatically because I manually folded it. But i've got used to not touching that inside switch anymore. Yes I also use the door handle procedure to unlock and lock my car. Just in the video I demonstrate with the key fob. But I don't actually ever take my key out of my pocket 🙂 it works from the lock and unlock signals from the door actuator.

Just a quick note to let you all know that I have posted the installation guide on my blog now. Apologies for the delay. Better late than never 😀

Thanks for the mention of my post. I will be posting my write-up within the next few days which will be for the IS250 but I will be explaining the installation process that applies to any car.

The one time mine froze up I just pushed it open manually then pressed the fold button and unfold button and it was back to normal. A friend of mine had this a few times and he just pours a little water over the house joint (not hot but not super cold, a little warm)

Apologies that I haven't posted the guide up yet. It's been really busy. I will post it up very soon. Before Christmas 🙂

With the mirrors folded in really cold freezing conditions, yes there is a chance that the housing freezes with ice and trying to unfold it with the motor, the motor will struggle. This makes no difference whether you have this auto-folding mod or not because even if housing was iced up and you went in and pressed the button to unfold it, the motor will struggle to unfold the mirror. I've only had the housing freeze once in my 12/13 years of ownership. When I go to the car, if it's iced up I would just check to see the housing hasn't got iced up. If it has then before unlocking just free up the ice. Other option is just manually fold the mirrors with the switch before turning off in cold weathers if you don't want it to attempt to auto unfold.

Anyone who may be interested in doing either just the rear VLAND full L activation on braking or both including the puddle light activation. I have provided some notes and my wiring diagram for reference below. *DISCLAIMER* Use the guide at your own risk! modifications to any electronic systems that are not done correctly can pose a huge risk, so if you are not confident in electronics please do NOT attempt it. I accept no responsibility for any damage to your vehicle or personal injury as a result of following any guides. Important: Make sure you use heat-shrink tubes and insulation tape. Preferably glue-lined heatshrinks. Below is my diagram followed by some notes. R1 sends power to front LED when ignition energises the coil. This is because my LED headight is retrofitted so there is no OEM wiring for DRL. R1 is not needed if you already have OEM front LED wiring (only need R2 and R3 for puddle light activation) R3 serves 2 purposes for retrofit and 1 purpose for OEM wiring: 1: to cancel out the rear lights from turning on when ignition is on through R1. 2: to prevent flickering of front LED due to reverse leakage current from signal diodes that is enough to cause the front LED to start flicking on & off. R2 is needed to isolate the dim circuit from the full brightness circuit on the headlight just incase the two lights were on at the same time. If you have OEM front LED headlight wiring then you only need permenant power going to the COM of the optically isolated logic board. You dont need power to R1 as R1 will not be used.

Will post the guide up soon. Hopefully sometime this week. Just been a bit busy lately.

Looks great. +1 for powder coating. Makes a huge difference. Had my 13 year old ones powder coated too to Anthracite earlier this year and makes a huge difference. Few pics of my powder coated wheels below:

You can buy it from many different sellers. I think there are a few variations manufactured by different companies. But the one I bought looks like the following pics and the colour code of the wires are also shown in the pics below. My install guide when it's written up will be based on this module and so the colours will match this module. But technically any of the systems will work as they all work on the same principle.

So I recently managed to source a set of rear VLAND tail-lights for my IS250 for a very reasonable price. I didn't like the idea of how when the parking lights are off and you apply the brakes, only the outer section lights up. This is how the factory connectors are wired up, so it's not really a VLAND issue. On the normal OEM tail lights it's not a problem. But the VLAND design is more of the L shape and it seems incomplete when only the outer part of the L shape lights up. Ofcourse if the parking lights are on then there is no problem. But I cannot be driving around in the daytime with parking lights on and even if I did, that will cause my front LED's to be dim. So I did a 2 part modification. Part 1: If parking lights are off, make the inner part of the VLAND tail-lights light up when applying the brakes. Part 2: Use the puddle light circuit to light up the entire VLAND running lights and the front LED running lights. The puddle lights are powered by a 'square PWM signal' controlled by the main body ECU wth a MOSFET circuit that fades the puddle lights in and out. So it's not as simple as just tapping straight into the puddle light circuit. You can't just put a relay on it either because 1. power draw 2. it will cause the relay to buzz and wear out prematurely because the circuit is a digital ON/OFF signal to the puddle light bulbs without any analog smoothing. I used a logic board with a relay that has 'optically isolated' inputs meaning the current draw should never exceed 20mA so there is no chance of overload. Below are a few pics of my VLAND taillights installed and a video demonstrating my 2-part modification. In the two pictures below, the boot is not closed so it may look like the VLAND's are not aliged because of it.