Steviewevie

inicol, thanks, yes, I think someone else suggested that Kenwood unit. Personally I don't really like the look of it and think the Pioneer one looks a lot better. I'm definitely getting the Pioneer double-din (same as Johnboy), went to a local car audio place yesterday and told them the sort of prices I've seen on the Internet, waiting for them to get back to me to see if they can get anywhere near that price. So hopefully I'll be ordering one very soon. Will have to start sorting out prepping the fascia.

TheDon made his one. I'm guessing that he also made Bazza's one, since it looks quite similar, but I'm sure someone will confirm/deny.

Would you put LEDs in for dipped beam ? No. They're not going to be bright enough for fogs, only for looks. Having said that I think that the IS200 fogs are useless anyway, even in actual fog, so personally I'd be happy to replace mine with LEDs since I don't actually need them to light up the road.

The standard procedure in the manual involves draining the coolant, so I imagine that's what most garages would do. Can you not ask the garage what they did exactly, or has the guy who did it left ?

According to the JAE forums they are looking at several different date/venue combinations. Shame it's not going to be at Mersea again, hopefully it'll be somewhere even better !

What Wozza said. If it's running fine then hopefully it's something minor and maybe even just a false alarm. But you really need to get it checked out ASAP and the dealer will soon be able to tell you more once they can take a look.

You've got two separate problems there. The ERR3 means your CD mechanism has jammed. This seems to happen to all the head units eventually, they're notoriously unreliable. You might be able to get it working again but I would suggest just getting an aftermarket head unit. Don't buy a second-hand OEM head unit because it will end up going wrong in the same way at some point. I'm in the process of replacing my head unit. There are details on the Audio/Video forum about what sort of fascias you can get for this, and what sort of cable you will need to make it work. Don't know what the aerial problem is, could be a problem with the aerial amplifier, could be just it's not plugged into the back of the head unit. What sort of aerial do you have, is it the standard OEM one or has someone put a smaller "fin" type aerial on there ?

It's all Wozza's fault !

The organisers haven't announced the dates yet. If I'm reading the JAE forums correctly (only had a *very* brief look) then it looks like they're looking for a venue as well as a date, sounds like we won't be back at Mersea Island

The MIL light coming on might just mean that a sensor is faulty, i.e. that it's a false alarm. However, it could also indicate a real problem, from something very minor to something very serious. Your dealer will be able to find exactly what the fault is from their diagnostic equipment, then they will be able to say whether that's something covered by the warranty or not.

ok thanks. Although if there is a "SportCross" engine on eBay, the original poster needs to check that's from an IS200 version not IS300.

Isn't the SportCross an IS300 though, not an IS200 (i.e. completely different engine) ?

Further to the above, ToyotaGT are telling me to use red coolant for top-ups. So I should be able to get hold of a small bottle for that.

Just phoned my local Toyota/Lexus parts department. Apparently the red and green coolant is available in small bottles (e.g. for top-up) but the pink coolant only comes in 5L containers ! The guy I spoke to said since mine was a 1999 model I'd have red coolant in, and the pink started being used from 2003. Think I will speak to ToyotaGT who will have replaced my coolant when I had my cam belt changed, to check exactly what they put in it.

Although the Altezza AS200 has "BEAMS" on its engine cover (with the same engine underneath as the Lexus IS200), it seems that usually enthusiasts reserve the term "BEAMS" for the 3S-GE engine in the Altezza RS200 and a few other motors. e.g. there's a BEAMS Owners Group and this seems to be centred around the 3S-GE engine. My impression seems to be that "BEAMS" doesn't really mean a lot, but is mainly used to refer to specific variants of that 3S-GE engine.

Do Lexus/Toyota sell small bottles of the pink coolant for top-up purposes ? I would assume they do

Can you get photos of it already on an IS200 ? Would be good to check how well it fits.

They're the prices for the later models but the years are missing. Cars registered up till 1st March 2001 will be slightly cheaper, as per my post above.

Coolant. Don't know if it's safe to top up with plain water or not

There are duplicate threads on this subject, look down a couple of threads :winky: Edit - duplicate thread now deleted by the mods ! :D

For the IS200, rates from 2009 will be £190 for cars registered up till 1st March 2001, £215 for later models. Similarly, for 2010 it will be £205 for cars registered up till 1st March 2001, £245 for later models. So later models are still more expensive but the increase is much less than originally proposed (was going to be around £400 in 2010 for later IS200s). It's all here

Blimey I'm not suprised you get a nice courtesy car when the dealer charges you that much ! Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to go to an independent specialist and hire your own courtesy car for the day ?

I didn't realise either till someone told me. It's actually behind the radiator, you have to lean over and look behind the radiator to see it and to see the transparent section with the empty/full gauge on it.

The HSD coilovers do sound good. No option for something like EDFC as far as I can tell though.

1G-FE Look here for more details on the variants of the 1G engine.