is200 Newbie

I checked this - only camera is in a Pizza Hut doorway pointing to the immediate area just outside the door. No car park cameras installed. I remember reading a post a while ago about taking up two parking spots at the far reaches of a car park (where there's never anyone parked) - might adopt this !!

Thanks Normski - have downloaded it. I like to keep the PDF's on file for instances like this... Will put it back in place for the time being - will probably look to get it re-sprayed or to get a clean one from Ebay. Looking at the actual damage, I was lucky as the spot light is also marked so I think I got away lightly, although not my fault !!

Ouch ! - but it looks like the bumper done its job

Also check your brake fluid level

Its all moving mechanical parts - they need to be looked after and on a regular basis. If you have worked on brakes before then its a simple process to strip down / clean / re-grease and put back together again - should be a regular inspection and grease at the minimum of once a year. Especially the slide pins which are prone to seizing. Sounds like its either your caliper pistons sticking or pins sticking - you may be lucky at this stage and be able to quite easily clean them up but if you leave them longer you may find they seize up - its a good idea to get to know how to re-grease the pins as they will need to be done at some point during ownership (per year) All 4 corners will need to be done and the job, if taking your time, should take no more than an hour MAX to do.

250

Gutted 10 years old and not a mark on it (until now) - parked in B&Q car park - out of the way I might add - at the other end of the car park, not one car near me at all and came back to this. !! I was only in the store for 5 minutes max, took longer to walk from the car to the store door than I was in the shop....Looked on dash cam footage as it had kicked in when hit but there were a few cars driving off, could not catch the number plates as bushes obscured the view. Guess its lucky really, damage to the bumper only so could have been a lot worse - the bang pushed the bumper out of its securing clips. Managed to get it clipped back in but there is still a gap. No one gives a **** these days !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The scratches on the bumper are not seriously deep but they wont polish out - a couple might but its a paint job to get back to good. Would like to get the bumper back in line though. Anyone know how the bumpers come off. I plan on keeping the car - its 10 years old and I will get the bumper back in line but thoughts on getting it re-sprayed? With it being a front bumper will the paint last what with the stone chips etc?

REEEEZULT !!! Road closed for 3 weeks from 24th This month If anything its being repaired - need to chase insurance company now.

also consider when you eventually come to sell it (if you did buy it) how do you explain the mileage to interested buyers. Also - Its easy to check the model of the car as there is a label stuck on the inner door but again, I guess this can be forged or removed.

Do you have a paper licence or a plastic photo id one?

I am hoping it is the wheels - quite an easy repair and wont cost £1000's I have seen these style before, come up from time to time on Ebay. They are a nice style.

I have bottomed this problem out (hopefully) Thanks for the pointers to the wheels being imbalanced – it was a part of the issue but not one that noticeably stood out, I took the plunge with one of the first jobs I had on my list to do to see if there were any issues. I had the rear wheels removed, one by one, and had the tyres removed to check the inner alloy for corrosion. Found the inner rim where the tyre sits and seals to the rim was corroded badly on both but worse on one. Had the front tyres removed and the same, one was bad and one not too bad. Tyre pressures – I regularly check the pressures and top up as required. I generally use the car around town – small journeys with the occasional long one – when I noticed the shudder more it was over two months where I put quite a bit of motorway miles on the car and obviously at higher speeds than that done around town. I didn’t check the pressures during this time as there was no air machine in the petrol garages I used to fill up in.. When I checked the pressures when used around town they were all within a couple of psi tolerance – I set the fronts to 35 and the rears to 38 so I was happy with that as it allows for the cold weather conditions and the wheels / tyres not coming up to temp. When I measured the pressures after the long journeys they were all over the place – measuring at rears, 20psi / 30psi fronts at 30psi and 32psi. So I am thinking due to the wide varying difference between around town driving and the motorway driving then heat will have been the indication in possibly relaxing the seal of the tyre on the corroded wheels as it lost pressure from when it was being driven over a long distance (1 x 800 mile round trip and 1 x 700 mile round trip) The inner rim has been cleaned up as best as can be for now but am expecting it not to last. I will leave it for a while just to see if that was actually the issue – it seems to be behaving now with no shudder on a short run I done. Am not ruling out the shafts as the issue fits with the symptoms of a failing one but if the wheel rim clean has cured it then I think I will be changing the wheels – may keep these for winter tyres to go on. If I am looking for new wheels I will be putting on 18”s – what wheel sizes should I be looking for and ideally the tyre size?

Cheers - I am having the tyres checked tomorrow Since I have owned the car the diff oil has not been changed (not sure if it was done before either - (I have owned it from 60k miles) - I was not aware that this was part of the schedule although it was my intention to do it a while back as I looked into getting the drain plug washers but I am sure there was a reason I never done it. I think I brought it up on the forum but there was a reason why not to do it? It can be checker or rather changed as part of the process of finding the issue - can ask the garage next week to do this as don't expect it to be a big job.

Says a lot on how the council value life over money ... Another two accidents on this stretch of road today - both resulting with cars ending up on their roofs !!!. One approx. 30 metres from my lads original accident and the other at the exact spot. No information on injuries or the causes but passed police my contact details for one of the incidents for them to contact me. Just hope no one was injured and hope they now realise this is a dangerous stretch of road and get it repaired !!!!

I have seen these separate guibo's available for BMW and other makes - Its not been diagnosed as that being the problem (yet), the issue I have fits with a lot of other makes of cars with their owners experiencing this. Guess I have my negative head on. It may be worth keeping in mind to try the closest fit or like you said, trying a scrap dealer. Will keep you posted

Thanks Peter A lot of people have suggested tyres - its not that sort of shudder and noise I would associate to tyres but for the ease of checking it I will get this done in the next few days as theres an ATS near where I work. Regarding the associated noise - its a dull low down noise which I would expect from rubber hitting metal - the shudder it there in low speeds but you have to really know its there and listen/feel for it as its not that obvious. The garage is going to check all the moving joints that they think it could be coming from - easier for them as they can get it on a ramp to do this. One thing I did notice a while ago and I thought about it today, there was a feeling the back end was going out when cornering more than it should (when turning right), maybe associated to a worn drive shaft? or some other associated gearing?. How noisy would it be if it developed the noise first. I have the music on not loud but loud enough not to notice outside noise. Coming home today I put the car in N when I was stopped at lights and revved it a bit and it was very smooth - at the weekend I drove it on the motorway and placed it in N but the shudder still happened. Seems to indicate its while its being driven / moving under load that the shudder is happening - rules out a few things I guess, I am just hoping its not the torque converter else I am afraid it would be a scrapper as I would not really trust an indie to do this work in replacing gearbox parts to do the work on one of these cars and the dealer cost (I have not even considered)

Car is booked in next week to diagnose this , booked into a local indie I trust. I am hoping its the drive shafts and not the main prop .... cost for the rubber disc is ..... wait for it ........ wait for it ........ £1048 !! ... + VAT (so £1257) !!! (OEM part supplied from Lexus) But on the upside that does include the shaft as well !! - pretty useless when all that could be required is what is basically a rubber washer !! I could use the prop shaft as a washing pole I suppose tho!

Its only applicable within a small RPM band due to the speed it happens at. I cant associate that to anything. Exhaust is all good. It actually started before I done my new exhaust so cant associate it to that unfortunately. Tyres are good all round - its not that sort of shudder that I can relate to any tyre condition I am coming to the conclusion that its an issue with the drive shafts (don't know which side yet but I will replace both sides I think as they are both as old as each other) It needs to go on a ramp to see if there are any issues associated to the shaft first but it does make sense thinking its one of them (or both) There is however a rubber flex disc (guibo) that I "think" could be worn and associated to the shuddering as the associated noise with the shudder is muffled (not metal on metal) indicating it could be rubber banging around, this looks to be connected to the main drive shaft - i think its worth a go to get it checked out ? HOWEVER - CAN I FIND ONE OF THESE FLEX DISCS/GUIBO - CAN I HELL.. ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE !!! DOES ANYONE KNOW A PART NUMBER? (EVEN SOURCING FROM THE STATES) Picture of another cars is below...

It is a strange one It will shudder over 60mph when accelerating and gets worse with speed over that point. It will also do this when decelerating from this point up to 60mph then stop, by decelerating I mean taking foot off gas so letting the car slow itself down. That was why I was thinking torque convertor as the engine is using the convertor to slow as its not under any pressure from the car in forward motion (if that makes sense?) I checked the bearings when I first experienced this and no play at all. Its not a bearing noise to be honest so I am confident its not those. When decelerating (as above, foot off gas) it will disappear at around 60 to 70 mph. It can be felt very very slightly but I guess I know its there so I am looking for it. Thanks for the diagram - the part I am suspecting is below - not sure on how this puts out movement to the wheels though - I guess all the joints and stuff are within the rubber boots so its not hard to see them unless the boots have split. A recent MOT would have picked this up but it didn't and the shudder has been going on prior to the MOT. I am thinking that, when accelerating, the shaft is constantly in "drive" so its pushing on other parts and so it wont create a shudder vibration as its in continual pressure on these parts but when decelerating it wont be under as much pressure pushing on other parts so effectively it will be "loose" a bit and can create the shudder? but this does not explain why it happens noticeably worse over 70mph Best guessing this --- I am not a mechanic and i know its hard to diagnose things like this by not experiencing them - it kind of makes sense really as to where the shudder is coming from but if anyone can explain how these drive shafts work then that would help - I believe there is one on passenger and one on driver side. Not sure of the front sides. It feels like it is coming from the front but I know that can be deceptive. No shudder from pedals or steering wheel also. I guess if it was any issue with engine or tranny mounts then that would be obvious at any speed but its on my list to check. I have no distance to do now in it, just local driving and have time in a couple of weeks to look at it so will do a bit more research to see what it could be - indications from other sites are suggesting this shaft so will look at that first but a bit more info would be helpful.

One more point - MPG is not down either

1. There's no indication as to where the vibration is coming from 2. It happens when decelerating (foot off gas) when going downhill or even down a gradual incline when your foots off the gas with car still running 3. Doesn't matter if its in Auto or manual (car is an autobox), the vibration happens in each setting 4. Cruise control on and when the car is (as in 2. above) decelerating it will happen then. 5. Acceleration above 60 it will vibrate but not noticeable in the lower gears. Best way I can describe it is that its a shudder (felt throughout the car (front and back passengers can feel it.) and more pronounced when at speed. Its slowly getting worse but I have done almost 2k miles in it this week which doesn't help so I have managed to have a good listen and feel to see whats going on. I have the following thoughts... Carbon build-up - car is on 103k miles now, can do with a clean I reckon and was thinking along the lines of a terraclean to see if that helps Spark plugs - is my next job when I get a chance. Not sure if the plugs can get to a state where they can cause a vibration - possibly not burning fuel correctly or causing a slight missfire? There is a slight roughness at idle when starting from cold in the morning and the exhaust tips are sooty There are no fault codes being thrown up - none stored. Torque convertor - have read about issues in the states where this is a symptom of it starting to go. Universal joint - (U-Joint) is how an issue is described on a forum for Chevys http://forums.trailvoy.com/showthread.php?s=b79b3e6af7daae129a278b2173ea03e8&t=64409&page=2 Its comes across as a rhythmic rotational vibration so I am certain its mechanical and happens when at speed and decelerating. Tyres / wheels / brakes / exhaust / fluids are all ok. I cant narrow it down any further than that - I can check the U-Joint for excessive play quite easily (I will check the drive shaft coupling which is a better word for the U-Joint) These are not too expensive to replace. The spark plugs and carbon clean I can get done which leaves me with the torque converter - if that's the issue then the car is scrap. I can throw £1000 at it for all of these bits (apart for the convertor) to see if it can be resolved but after that its not worth it to carry on and will be a sad day to see it go. I am sure the convertor is around £2500 to replace (fitted) if that's the issue.

Has anyone experienced a Universal joint failure (driveshaft) I haven't pinpointed which side yet (passenger or driverside rear) ... are there any on the fronts as well? Looking to diagnose a vibration and may have possibly found the answer - would a failing joint cause vibration and to what extent?

The car will lock itself - if you unlock the doors using the fob but don't open them after a length of time, they will auto lock again I guess this is a security feature to prevent accidental operation of the button on the fob. Mine does this, 2007 model