Steviewevie

Southampton folks, where can we meet down there ? Perhaps a decent pub with a good-sized car park ? Anything like that near the water ?

I've found Ormi's thread on serving the calipers. I'm just wondering whether it's worth doing an overhaul on perfectly good working calipers, or whether it's just as well to wait until they have problems. Wondering whether an inspection and re-greasing (and possible cleaning up of the pins and pistons if corroded) could help extend their life at minimal cost ? i.e. not replacing parts yet.

Following on from the other thread about brake calipers, this got me thinking. Now it seems that the IS200 is quite prone to brake caliper problems, e.g. sticking calipers. When that situation arises then there are options such as replacing the whole caliper/cylinder assembly, or perhaps fixing the problem by using Lexus's kit to overhaul it. So, I was wondering. Is it worth considering doing some sort of caliper servicing at some point, as a pre-emptive method, to hopefully keep the calipers working properly ? I was thinking that perhaps you could just take apart the calipers and re-grease them, and perhaps that will help ? i.e. minimal cost of spare parts (just some grease). Obviously you could go the whole hog and use the Lexus kit, but this seems a bit OTT if the caliper isn't exhibiting any problems. Stupid idea ? Worthwhile ? Easy job ? Difficult job ? What do you think ?

Someone got a bargain there, £60. Who got it ?

Ooh, looks like you've got competition !

I freely admit to misunderstanding due to ignorance. I assumed that the brake "caliper" consisted of more than just that one piece of metal. I now understand it a bit better. It also makes me think that if you hit the "sticky caliper" problem, you're probably better off just fixing the caliper with the service parts (the kit that Lexus sells) due to the large cost of replacing the whole thing.

So the turbos are right at the back ? How on earth does that work, wouldn't there be huge lag ?

Haven't done it yet, it's still in its box in my lounge. I was going to get the rear lip then get them both painted at the same time, then try and fit them myself with (hopefully !) some help. Lexus quoted me a ridiculous price to paint them, so I'll be shopping around for that.

989,501

FYI, I paid approx £121 for mine, after Gold discount, from Toyota.

ok, I found it, you're right, it's a proper Toyota/Lexus one. Good luck ! :D

Just to try and help further, the cap that you should be using is the one labelled "16471" in the diagram below, on top of/behind the fan assembly :

If it's the £49.99 one on eBay, then it's fibreglass (Lexus one is plastic) and is different from the TRD one. So it's not that much of a bargain. I might be looking at something different though.

Anything happening on this ?

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I do end up changing my mind on things, I'll probably start loving them at some point myself !

Sorry to disagree but I don't think the definition of "brand new" (as they're labelled) is an open one, and unlike what some might like to think the Sale of Goods Act definitely does apply to eBayers who are commercial sellers ! I emailed the eBay sellers of these items (A to Z) and asked exactly what they came with, e.g. whether all the caliper internals were included (e.g. slide pins, pistons, dust boots etc). They replied and said the following (their capitalisation, sorry) : So you only get the pistons, not all the other stuff. So that's very very different from what you get if you order a complete "Cylinder Assembly" from Lexus, which does come with the torque plate (carrier), pistons, dust boots, slide pins etc.

Can't wait to see who's right ! :P

Wheel styles/colours are a very very personal thing. What looks very cool to one person can look horrible to another. Personally I don't like dark wheels on a silver car, but as I said in another post, each to their own. I've certainly seen several Platinum Ice IS200s with anthracite wheels, and it does look distinctive. You could always get a side-on pic of your car and then play with a photo editor to change the wheel colour to get some ideas ?

Do you mean the TRD front lip ? Just being pedantic :P , but it's not really a splitter. They cost over £100 new from Lexus/Toyota.

Genuine question here, but what is it with these wind deflectors ? Maybe I'm showing my age here, but they remind me of very old cars from the 60s which used to have these. Is it a JDM-look sort of thing ? Personally I think they look awful, but each to their own and it would be very boring if we all liked the same things !

Maybe you just need to put more in ? I don't think you can do any harm, if you put in too much it'll just run out onto the floor out of the overflow pipe. It probably just needs more. Although I just re-read your post and you said it only took a little bit to fill up. Where are you filling it, in the expansion tank or the radiator itself ? Fill it up via the expansion tank (the black plastic cap).

Yeah I emailed him and pointed out it was an AS200 not as RS200. I could be wrong but I think all those details like bhp etc get automatically picked up from some eBay database, so maybe it gave him a choice of Altezzas and he just picked the wrong one ? He obviously just made a mistake (bit silly), rather than trying to deceive anyone otherwise he wouldn't have shown a pic of the engine bay.

I'm only guessing here, so could be wrong. But maybe the manufacturer of the shocks changed part-way through the life of the car, hence the part number change for the OEM shocks ? They may well have been identically-specified though, the parts diagrams don't make it look like there's a specific part for earlier cars, which usually means the part is essentially the "same" just with a different part number. Let me see how well my deduction is working here, are those shocks from an early IS200 Tony ?