Steviewevie

Tommy, I was suprised, I really didn't notice anything different in the ride comfort at all, still as good as ever. I was taking things pretty easy since I wanted to get used to how it felt, so can't give a full report on it yet. It felt like it didn't dip so much under braking/accelerating but still rode nicely. I will get used to it over the next few days and see what difference I can notice.

Sorry, I'm not sure what you're saying. You said all the sunroof electrics are disconnected, so doesn't that mean your sunroof won't be functioning ? I've probably misunderstood, sorry. Was the sunroof fine before you started taking everything apart ? If so then surely it must be to do with something that you've disturbed. The sunroof motor is up there in the headlining.

Got my TTE lowering springs fitted today, thanks to the WIM boys. Here's a pic of how it looks now (looking not so bad as a few days ago since a large part of the dent at the rear has been pushed out) : Measurements of the ride height are now as follows : Front approx 40mm gap Rear approx 55mm gap Compared to previously (1999 Sport), that's a 20mm drop at the front and a 25mm drop at the rear. I expect that to increase a little bit as the springs settle over the next few weeks and months. I'll measure it again in a while.

I'm not 100% clear what the question in the original post is asking (sorry Rabster, probably just me thinking too hard about it), but as someone that's moderated other forums in the past, here are my views on related questions : Should mods be voted in/out by the members ? No, I don't think so, I can't really see that working, based on experience of choosing mods on other forums. Mods could be suggested by members perhaps but it should be up to the management and existing mod team to decide if they're be suitable, based on what kind of stuff they know goes on (e.g. there might be various deleted postings which very few members ever get to see because the mods have already acted). e.g. just because someone seems like a nice person doesn't necessarily mean they'd make a good mod (making a *very* general point here, nothing related to any incidents/members on LOC) Should mods be accountable to members ? Yes, absolutely. But the main way to do this should be for members with complaints about any other member (whether a mod or not) to take this to the management who can then see if action is necessary. Should members be told why action is taken against a moderator if that happens ? No, that is between the management and the moderator. The moderator of course deserves a full explanation of why action has been taken, just as a regular member deserves to be told why he's been banned/warned/etc. If the moderator chooses to share this information with other members then of course that's up to him. Should mods set a good example in their postings ? Yes, absolutely. If, say, a member is rude/agressive to a moderator then that's wrong. But it doesn't justify a moderator being rude/agressive in return, that's much worse since the moderator should be setting a good example. Otherwise it looks like "one rule for mods, another rule for the rest". Do mods make mistakes ? Yes, of course they do, just like any other human being. Being able to say sorry when you make a mistake should be one of the prerequisites of being a mod. Just my 2p's worth. Thanks for the voice of sanity in your posts on this Steve, and good luck on the job front ! :D

Here are some of Chris's excellent pictures which show Wozza's wheels :

You mean wet & dry paper (silicon carbide), used wet, rather than actual sandpaper, right ? Might just be different terminologies in different countries.

33-2170 is the correct part for the IS300.

Personally I can't see the point of taking a 10-year-old car to the main dealers to get it serviced, you'd get it done for less at an independent specialist. Don't know what part of London you're in, but I'm planning on taking mine to ToyotaGT when it needs servicing - they're West of London, near Hook.

I would try and sort water ingress ASAP if I was you. Several members have had problems with leaking front windscreens playing havoc with all the electronic items under the windscreen.

Mac, the guy was working in the area and was trying to walk home, and the police wouldn't let him go certain ways so I don't think he had much choice. Once I was in London and managed to quite accidentally get caught up in the middle of the poll tax riots and it was one of the most frightening experiences in my life. I wouldn't have been ambling along in front of the police myself, but to say it's justified to hit him with a baton and shove him to the ground is completely wrong IMHO.

I cut the middle bar with a pair of clippers (side cutters), and then filed and sanded down the remainder to get rid of any trace of it. As for how much to sand it down, well, that's up to you. What I did was sand it down then prime it and check how it looked. I found it much easier to see how it looked when it was primed as opposed to when I had just sanded it. What happened was then I sanded it down some more, primed again, checked it again, still wasn't happy to sanded some more, etc, etc ! So the grade of paper (use wet and dry, not sandpaper) isn't critical, a coarser grade will sand it more quickly and remove more at once. Use a relatively fine grade before you paint to get a nice finish. If you still feel nervous about it, you can always have a bit of a practice on one of the pieces that you aren't going to use for a double-DIN unit, and see how that looks. I presume your unit has a screen that tilts. You need to carefully check how the fascia will fit on that. There might be problems with the bottom of the screen tilting out when it has to get by the fascia, it could get caught on it. So try fitting the fascia on and see if there's enough clearance. This could be tricky though without powering up the head unit to actually get the screen to move. It's possible you'll need to cut away some of the bottom of the fascia.

You can get them diamond cut again with the refurb, but it's harder to find people that do it, it'll cost you more and it'll probably shorten the length of time they stay looking great.

I'll take a pic tomorrow. Was very very easy to make the clip, just a few seconds. Not too hard to take the trim off and feed the cable up there, though if you've got airbags in the pillar you need to be a lot more careful (I don't have airbags there).

Might be an idea to edit out Wozza's mobile number, since this is a public forum :)

Sorry I thought that by using the word "price" in your thread title, you were asking about it being included in the price of the service ? The cam belt change interval is 60K miles or 6 years, yes, but the dealer won't necessarily automatically put it into the 60K service because, for instance, someone might have just bought the car and it had already been changed at the last service ? Yes, you are strongly advised to get your cam belt changed at either 60K miles or 6 years, whichever comes first. Sorry if I got the wrong end of the stick.

The clip that came with my Pioneer head unit was massive, it's designed to go onto the sun visor and was no good for attaching to a pillar. Don't know if yours might be similar.

Depends how much they quoted you ! Lexus UK dealers are franchises, so can do their own thing. What happens at one dealership might be totally different at another.

Unfortunately this is extremely common on the OEM head unit, I have an IS200 and it happened to mine. Basically the head unit is on its way out. You might be able to give it a whack and get it to work again, or take it apart to get the CDs out, but the unit is very prone to this sort of failure. There are lots of threads about getting aftermarket units and how to install them, fascia adaptors etc.

I put the mic at the top of the driver's side A-pillar (i.e. by the sun visor). Following an excellent suggestion from Johnboy (his idea, not mine), I made a clip for it out of a cable tie, tied around the mic, then a little stub left which was poked down inside the pillar trim.

Yeah I phoned around a bit, I even phoned Lexus UK. I'm coming to the conclusion that probably the only Lexus-approved bodyshops are their own body shops, or if they don't have a body shop themselves, the ones they send their work too. Given that my car's corrosion warranty has less than 3 years to run, and all the body shops that I've spoken to offer a 3 year warranty on their repairs, I don't see it's going to make any difference to me. For instance, if a non-approved body shop repairs a rear panel and then a front panel started rusting, I don't see how Lexus could get out of that front panel still being under their warranty, with the repaired one being under the body shop's warranty.

Yeah but I'd be suprised if the insurance company would agree to get Toyota to do the job when others can do the same for half the price !

Some diagrams and info on the central locking is in the online manual here and here, including detailed troubleshooting/diagnostic procedures. The links I have posted are for pre-2001-update cars. The remote locking is detailed here, here and here.

Also on washing your car, a decent snow foam is a good first step in washing your car, in that it loosens the dirt and gets rid of some of it. So then when you do the actual wash (using the two-bucket method), you're already reducing the risk of inducing more swirl marks (due to less grit and/or looser grit) to start with.

It should be easy to get a garage to check the discs to see if they are indeed warped.

Well I sincerely hope that they're not going to write my car off ! Don't really know what it's worth, it's 1999 but it hasn't done big mileage, only 58K. I will have to give the quotes to the insurance companies to get them to decide on it. Some good news for today is that I took it for another quote, and the guy pulled back the boot lining and pushed out the majority of the huge rear dent. It still needs fixing there, but it looks a *lot* less bad. I think that Lexus/Toyota were just taking the p**s and wanted to do the maximum amount of work on it that they possibly could.