noby76

yeh Hybrids are growing on me now dont know why am still not sold on diesels i dont know its just something about how they sound and drive although my mate took me for a blast in his M Sport 530d and that car shifts..but then i think its a BM too common for me. was at the garage couple of weeks ago having a new rear silencer fitted to my IS and this lady came in with a Toyota Prius and as i havent seen one up close i looked inside and must admit it looked quite nice with some funky lookingdash interior and as she drove into the garage there was no sound from the whole car.. the thing was quiet which made me think its running on batteries. thought that was cool. prices of GS450h's are coming down most could be picked up for around £8k now so another year or two they might drop to about £5K then i can pounce on one if i consider a hybrid motor. :) those GSh's are rapid beasts with manners to much.

yeh was in New York and Boston summer last year and in my two weeks there, I saw a lot of Lexus , Infiniti and Acura's than I have in UK . the only ones i didnt bump into was the IS-F and LFA. I did see the usual German brands but the BMW's and Audi's were quite rare. infact I have never seen so much Japanese cars compared to UK . the common ones being Honda's and Toyota's the Americans love them and they all seem larger in size aswell. the US Honda Accord is about the same size as a Lexus GS same as the Toyota Avalon which was a car i really took a liking to including some Acura's and Infiniti's . they in US seem to have a lot to choose from with regards to the cars and models compared to the limited ones we have here which brings some varieties compared to the same models and colours we drive here. and the mercs i saw was the C300 4MATICs those ones looked really nice i dont think we even have this model in UK. I dont think the americans drive Lexuses and Infinit's because BMW and Audi's are not affordable as they can finance a car like we can do here its just they not badge snobs like us here in UK where as already confirmed most not in the know think mmh its a BMW its a Merc so it must be good and only people who have 'made it' drive them and they follow the herd. . The Americans know a good thing when they see it and they tend to look past the badge thats why Infiniti's Acura's and mostly Lexus's are doing well there than here. talking about autoboxes, I always thought autoboxes were boring and not much fun until i bought my IS and its opened my eyes about how fun autoboxes/tiptronics can be in that one can leave it in D mode when they cant be asked during start stop traffic or relaxed driving and have it in M or S mode to select gears for twisty A B roads and up till now i have never had a situation in my IS where i thought geez only if it had a manual box. becuase i can put it in 2nd or 3rd gear same as any manual car can when se both approaching a corner ;) . IS350 would have been my next Lexus but will settle with either a GS430 or get that Infiniti G37 when the prices are within my budget.

the interior light would come on if the car is unlocked from outside or when door is opened when you set the switch to 'door open' option. I believe there are three modes, off - on - door open. and my seats are all ok except the drivers side which has a penny size cut thanks to the sharp metallic buttons on my rear jeans.

thats an idea will try this tomorrow Petay and yeh if in N you wont be able to take the key out. nice safety feature to stop your car rolling if one forgets to activate the hand brake whilst in N and turn the engine off. it wont release the keys for you.

15 months on and I still look forward to driving it.. i some times take a longer route home just to enjoy it more :) .. its cool yours pops out when you turn the key might be a feature on the last models being an 05 as i have to activate mine manually by the mirrior button but its no biggie.. couldnt believe i managed to fit a mates apartments stuffs including a 40" plasma in the saloon version. well except his bed, fridge and washing machine...

cus everyone wants to be seen in a BMW, Merc or Audi :lol: .. on the flip side we wont like to see every man driving a Lexus and his dog driving a Lexus too so best not to tell your mates how screwed together a car it is lol..enjoy

Just look in the owners manual when you pick the car up Peter and it will state the minimum octane fuel to run in the car. e.g My previous V6 ford cougar 's manual stated the engine was designed and mapped to 95RON fuels so using anything higher than that wont benefit the engine. Lexus states "95RON or more" for the IS300 so i alternate between the Shell normal and Shell V power fuels and noticed there was not much of a difference between the two fuel formulations in normal driving but where the V power comes alive is when the engine is nice and hot and operated within higher revs. I have noticed the engine is still happy to rev quickly when it hits 5000rpm to redline when in higher gears compared to when running 95RON. I have switched to shell normal unleaded after running its high octane for over 6 months continioulsy and am now seeing the difference in the engines behavior when operating it in the higher rpms. am noticing a slight slugishness at higher rpms on normal unleaded which makes me think if one will be subjecting thier cars to higher rpms most of the time then they might benefit from high octane but for day to day driving i did not notice any difference in lower rpms only diference was at higher rpms where the engine feels a bit strangled and unwilling to rev faster to redline although it does get there, it does it in a sluggish manner compared to v power. main reason for me running high octane is they include higher concentrations of engine, valves and exhaust cleaning aditives which cleanes the engines systems as one drives and a clean engine will always perform better. only way to find out if 450H does benefit is to run normal unleaded for a while stick it on a dyno to see the power and tourque curves then dyno the car again after running high octane for a while and compare the results.

I think Yellows are what you need Stevet if you gona get EBC's below is a quote from the link I posted on the yellow stuff. "EBC yellows are ECE Brake safety tested which means they must work perfectly from cold at least as good or better than stock pads" the reds are for cars 200bhp and above so but not sure about 420bhp cars tho.. I think difference between the two is the Yellows are good for streets,track days and drifting were as the reds are good for streets. apparently they need a minimum of 1000miles to brake in. and both are hard wearing pads so should last but red ones cant be used for track racing tho only for streets.

they will do you if they can get away with it..90% of the time they know the public just leave any policy to roll on and the British are known not to be very good hagglers and this plays in their favour aswell.

I am running Pagid discs and Pads all round in my 300 and they are doing a good job to stop the car effectively. but everyone knows Brembo is king when it comes to brakes that's why high performance cars and even F1 cars run them as OE equipment. Pagid's are a German brand and their site confirms BM's , Audi's, Merc's and Porches have their braking system as OE equipment from factory. check one of your pads to confirm if the US guys are right..if they are, you don't have to worry about fitting Pagids. as confirmed they stop mine good. :) http://www.clublexus.com/forums/is-f/453781-our-brembo-brakes-come-with-pagid-pads.html have you considered yellow stuff pads from EBC?? I am looking to try the red stuff pads as both Red/Yellow stuffs ones are said to have ceramic blends in the pads. its more curiosity as I want to see what the fuss is about.. http://ebcbrakes.com/product/yellowstuff-street-and-track-pads/ http://ebcbrakes.com/product/redstuff-brake-pads/

am all in for supporting our service men who put their life's on the line to keep us safe. but I always ask the question, what's the point in fighting a war we cannot win?? its been 10 years since our service men were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan to fight terrorist and 10 years on we are still not safe in our own country. Terrorists are all over the world and unfortunately its difficult to take them all out as new ones keeps cropping up once 1 terrorist organisation has been defeated. so our service men need to come back home to their kids and families the war has been going on for way too long and no progress has been made only British lives being lost every month in these countries. and most of the attacks we have faced in our country so far has been from citizens of our country converting to terrorists and carrying these out its no longer carried out from terrorists outside of our countries. same as the Boston attacks. although they migrated when young, they were all citizens of U.S as they carried US passports . so our service men need to come back home for good and fight a war worth fighting because terrorist are not a bunch of 100 dudes you can just go and take out in their country. unfortunately they are spread all over this world. as sad as it sounds its a pointless war we have been fighting and its costing us lives every month in these countries and has cost us billions if not trillions of pounds its now costing us lives in our own country. no human being should experience this but unfortunately there are crazy people all over this world. my prayers goes to the victim soldier and his families.

all here

that's why I went the IS300 route I knew I would be bored of 155bhp after a while. better to have the IS300's extra 60bhp power in reserve and not need it than not have the power and wish you had it in some situations.

sad thing is Lexus/Toyota should have kept on producing the Super Charger kit for the IS200. I mean most engines like the Toyota 3S-GE, 1jz-gte, 2jz-gte and even the old 4A-GE engine used in the 80's AE86 Corrolla's have tuning parts being produced till today so not sure why Toyota shelved the supercharger kits for the 1G-FE engines. most people want the superchargers but are just too rare to find.

my guess will be it will depend on how the car is driven after the charger is installed. you cant have an engine generate more power without sacrificing fuel or engine parts. even diesel drivers who chip their cars might get mpg improvement but they are sacrificing turbo and injector life to achieve this. fuel is burnt to make power so if you floor it every time it will drink and if you don't use boost most times it will consume like most 200 -220 bhp cars.

same here mine had Pirelli Rosso's on when i got them and to be fair i wasnt sure how many miles it had done but had enough treads on them and the car tends to lean to to one side when driving stright, handling wasnt that grippy and wet driving was all over the place and i hardly push it when its wet as i dont see the point in doing so in a rear wheel driven car infact my previous V6 ford Cougar handled better in corners than the IS so took it to WIM to have steering and geometry adjusted which corrected the handling round bends but car still leaned to one side when driving straight and since i got used to it i left it that way. after 14K miles i have since changed from the Pirellis to Falken Azenis 453's and noticed the Pirellis had suffered inner front tyre wear even after WIM adjustments.. Falken's are not household brands like Bridgestones, Continentals ,Michelins or Dunlops but they are big in the drifting scene and Le Mans and being Jap brand they will know a thing or two about designing a performance tyre.. and I am not sure if its the fact that i now have more tread on compared to the Pirelli's but the car now grips like crazy not once has the traction control light kicked in brisk during acceleration, the car rides more smoother, brakes better, shorter and icing on the cake is more improvement in mpg still not sure if this is the fact that i have moved from Shell V power Nitro to Shell Fuel save unleaded as i alternate between the two formulations every couple of months but i ended up doing 100 miles on fuel which normally gives me 75miles.. still testing to see if its the Tyres or the fuel. my control arm bushes needs replacing so once thats done, i will get WIM to check it again and adjust. looking to rotate them round every 5K miles after WIM to see how long they last will be happy if i get 30K miles from all sets. whilst minding those UK pot holes in the process to keep my geometry intact :)

you wont find a V8 in an RX model so you looking at the wrong car to start with. if it has to be primarily V8 then BM, Merc , Audi, Range Rover all come in V8 models so thats where you should be looking but i would skip them and go for a sleeper like this.. just cus its rare on UK roads and almost 400BHP. http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201211204301613/sort/default/usedcars/engine-size-cars/5lplus/model/fx/make/infiniti/onesearchad/used/onesearchad/nearlynew/onesearchad/new/page/1/radius/200/postcode/lu63hp?logcode=p

will be worth it if these tuning companies can hack the Denso ECU code and overwrite it permanently..last time i checked no tuning company has managed to hack it completely and the ones that managed to found out the ECU overwrote thier programming a couple of miles after the remap so most dont bother with it as the ECU will overwrite what everremap program is there after a couple of 100 miles so waste of money. not singleing you out here stoo_pee but this has been asked a lot by others aswell..not sure why most buy the IS200 knowing it only makes 155bhp then expect it to be as quick as a Civic Type R or Clio Sport from its modest engine... you can fit a performance panel filter/induction kit, and cat back exhaust system and if you lucky you might make 5-10bhp on the dyno depending on engine health of course and call it a day.. but for anything 170 -200bhp and above you need the forced induction.. i found it cheaper getting the IS300 for more oomph.. you can also upgrade things like Tyres, brakes and suspension so what you dont have in straight line speed, you can make up in late braking and carrying more speed around the corners with grippy tyres and sticky suspension..but for out and out power, you can boost the standard engine with a supercharger which is very rare to find, you can swap the engine to the 3S-GE engine from the Altezza model which makes 210bhp standard and can be boosted for 300 bhp , or you can swap the engine to the 1JZ-GTE/2JZ-GTE engines for anything 300+ bhp but downside is, they dont come cheap and some might require ecu or wiring fabrications to make it work. so the options are there to make the IS200 a sleeper car .

mmmh am still confused about the idea... read some articles online that are for tyre rotation and other articles against it.. with most against it saying rotation causes all four tyres to wear out faster.. i have never rotated tyres in my previous cars. but kinda considering it now as my IS worn the inner part of my previous front tyres.. strange thing is i have had the geometry altered at Wheels in motion but dont think it made any difference to the inner wear problem. maybe will have to get them to re-check it again as I am now running new sets all round...once I have had it checked again and adjusted, will rotate them every 5,000 miles..to see how long they last.

so during the process of having my Falken's fitted I asked the mechanic after how many miles would he recommend me pop back in to have the tyres rotated..?? he turned around and said its not advisable to rotate tyres anymore on cars like BMW's, Lexus's, Merc's and Audi's..i was like WHAT?? ..yes he confirmed these manufactures do not recommend tyre rotation anymore as the cars mainly 'rear wheel drive' ones tend to be setup in a specific way and rotating front ones to rears and vice versa will cause the car to ride and handle like a dog, I know most modern and mainly high performance cars like IS-F's wear different size width front and rears but i was under the impression cars that wear the same size all round should be fine for rotation?.. I then mentioned to him the Falkens are Asymmetrical treads and not directional tyres so can be rotated at some point.. he confirmed it doesn't make a difference if its a directional tyre or not he just wont recommend rotating in a Lexus IS due to the cars setup.. bumped into this guy when i was having mine fitted, so we got chatting about cars and he confirmed how nice my IS300 was and how nice Lexus cars are in general as he drove the LS460 once when he had to deliver it to Bournemouth and is the best car he has ever drove/delivered.. any way he confirmed his Michelin tyres are 12 years old yes you heard that right 12 year old tyres and only having two new fronts fitted as he suffered a puncture so best practise to replace two at a time. i still thought 12 years on the same tyre is unbelievable but took his word for it all the same.. now I am looking to extract as much mileage from my new sets as much as possible and was considering doing the rotation every say 5k miles so is this mechanic right by confirming its not advisable to rotate tires anymore on our cars or is he just talking bull? has anyone been rotating theirs if so are you getting a lot of life out of them by doing this or do you just stick to replacing the worn ones if and when they due and not bother with tyre rotation?

nice nice nice... just by looking you know it will take corners well... :)

haha used to sell PC's years ago lol.. Yes I believe the 255/35/19's at the rear is to make the car sit well when cornering and more stable if travelling at 170mph round the ring :) as 255 is more wider width against the front which needs slightly smaller width 225 for sharper steering.

I personally wont let things like usb ports, aux ports and dvd stop me from getting an ISF those toys can be integrated into the car using aftermarket kits. the V8 sound and driving experience will make up for it lol.. if I had the money sitting in my bank I would grab it.. if even I end up owning it for 12 months...

same here IS250 or more so the GS300 next time as MPG is pretty much the same for both cars but the GS will ride and go better as it packs more punch.

congrats Gary, the Diesel engines are not Lexus's strengths but should give good service all the same. :)