Dean1309

If it was me, I would get the car up on axle stands and have the car running, while its still cold, get under there and listen for any rattling at the cat. Even give it a bang and see if you can hear anything loose/breaking down in the bottom. I would rather take some time to investigate first before parting with £400 for a new cat. I will be honest, I had a rattle with my car, you know what it was, there's a few bolts around the cat for the heat sheild. a bolt had sheered, i put a new bolt in, problem sorted. no rattle.

£280 for a sensor, yeah right, I paid either £60 or £90 for the sensor think the part number is DOX-0205 which the denso OE part number, you havent got to have the removal tool, i dont mine with a pair of mold grips / mole grips what ever their called, and used WD40 around the thread. Unscrew the sensor and screw new one in.

Hiya mate, when I was going through this problem and had a new cat fitted, mine cost me £400. Are they having a F**king joke, £900 to replace the heat shield, WTF!!!! its held on by 4 bolts. Source one from scrap yard and fit it yourself.

Hi Rich, I had this on my previous IS200, I will start by saying this was a nightmare for me. I changed the O2 sensor on the manifold in the engine bay, the one nearest the front of the engine. This didnt resove it. I then changed the cat converter under the floor, this didnt solve it. For me it was a simple case of i had just done an oil change but used castrol magnatec grade C3, which was not burning right. I done another oil change and used magnatec A5 which i have always run my car on and this sorted the problem. Have you just had an oil change done? If you havent, then best advice i could give is start cheapest option first. Take out the O2 sensor and check the condition of it. Is there any discolouration to it? Grey/white? I think the part number for the one i changed was DOX-0205. Ideally you need to check if the O2 sensor is doing its job by getting a read out of the O2 sensors fluctuation. I cant advise what is correct here but a garage with the OBD computer could tell you. But using the wrong grade of oil was the cause of my problem. There is a post on here somewhere, when i had the same issue.

Hi Ratt, Yes there are 3 o2 sensors on our cars, there is 2 pre-cat sensors which are location on the exhaust manifold in the engine bay. Then there is one on the middle silencer undermeath the car on the exhaust. Will be on the drivers side of the silencer. You are correct wire for the sensor runs up underneath the passenger seat, if you put the passenger seat forward as far as it will go and take out the air ducting you will see the wire for it.

It's not too bad. The bottom of the rear seats lift up and out. The back of the rear is secured with 4 13 or 14mm bolts and then lifts up and out. The rear shelf then just slides out. And you then have 4 10mm bolts holding the rear speakers in. Can all be dismantled within 15 minutes. Maybe 30 minutes if first time doing it.

No worries. Always happy to help if I can. Yes I am referring to the bass as it is now with the Lexus standard head unit. The rear speakers have a built in 2 ohm sub which I think gets lost as it no longer gets the 2 ohm feed from the amp as it would take 4 ohms from the new head unit. The only way to get back the bass would be to fit a new set of 6x9's that have more bass and operate on 4 ohms which normal 6x9's do. Or fit a sub in the boot. Please bear in mind if you replace the speakers you will need spacer rings to mount the new speakers on to. Unfortunately AutoLeads do not make them for the IS200, or at least they didn't 3 years ago when i fitted mine. I had to make mine out of MDF and mount the new speakers to them. The same goes for the rear speakers.

Yes you are correct. The standard head unit uses a separate amplifier and you will be using your new head units built in amplifier. As for quality I cannot comment on whether it would be the same as this is down to your head unit. I removed the amplifier and run all new speakers and cabling into both doors with 2.5mm core vann damme cable, new DLS performance 6.5" components and DLS 6x9's in the back running off a 5 channel Genesis amplifier in the boot. You might lack some bass as the standard amplifier and speakers are run at 2 ohms and normal car speakers run at 4 ohms. And I think by using the bypass lead you lose the 2 ohm subs which are built into the rear speakers. This is why I decided to install a whole new sound system. I'm sure if any info I have provided is incorrect someone on here can clarify this.

Hiya, Yes when fitting an after market stereo to the IS200, the factory amp becomes purplus to requirements. This only applies to I think the SE, LE and Sport models. The base S model has no amplified stereo. You can either remove the amp completely or leave it there and just leave it unplugged. If I remember correctly there are two plugs that go into the amp, one of which is connected to the bypass lead, the other if left unconnected. The other end of the bypass lead runs behind the glove box to the headunit. Dean

Hi, that is bad advice from halfords, you need this stereo facia: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lexus-IS200-2001-2005-Single-or-Double-Din-Car-Stereo-Fascia-Facia-Fitting-Kit-/201512923501?epid=0&hash=item2eeb1b316d:g:46MAAOSwSv1XkgTf which comes with the amplified bypass adapter. Remove the glove box and there will be an amplifier to the left of the glove box, if i remember correctly its 3x 10mm bolts to remove and then unplug both leads into the amp, connect the larger cable to the bypass lead and run this to the headunit and connect it all up. Hope you get it all working soon. Dean

Hi mate there is no auto changer in the boot of the IS200, the standard stereo has a 6 CD auto changer built in the head unit. The wiring that may be in the boot would be for the sat nav DVD unit. This is located to the right of the boot floor next to the spare wheel and storage compartment

Hi Ratt, That's perfect, thank you. I hope changing this sensor fixes my coolant temp going to cold and back up to normal temp issue. Hope you sort out the problem you was having with coolant temp. Dean

Actually Britprius is correct, I was referring to the fan sensor switch, I stand corrected my mistake. i would also be interested in where this is, my temp gauge has been playing up since my car over heated, temp gauge gets up to normal temp, but after long drives 50 ish miles, the gauge goes right back to cold again, and then goes back to normal/middle again, I have bled and bled the system and cannot find any bubbles/ air locks in the system. Really hope its not head gasket. As stated above I replaced the thermostat, fan switch, and rad at the same time.

Only thing I cant remember is what size bolt the temperature sensor is, think it might be a 18 or 19mm but dont quote me on that.

Hi Ratt, Back in June I had the same issue with my lex, the car started to overheat, the cause of it was a blown radiator, I had to change out the radiator, the temperature switch and the thermostat at the same time. It is definitely at the bottom drivers side of the radiator, you can unbolt it, plug the hole with you thumb and screw the new one in, top up the coolant and plug in the connector. job done :)

Hi ratt, The temperature coolant sensor is located on the drivers side of the radiator, at the bottom of the rad, it has a white plug and is clearly visible if you were to look down behind the radiator.

Hi Mate, The wing mirror wont be useless, this is just going to be very time consuming. Remove the existing mirror from the car (3 bolts under the tweeter) unplug the connector and remove from car. Now the fun starts, you need to GENTLY prise the glass from the mirror, now I cant remember if it is top or bottom of the glass first that you have to prise it from, you the glass will pop out of the casing. Remove the wire to the demisting glass and remove the glass. Now you need to remove all screws that hold in the motor and remove the motor. Do the same to the new mirror and transfer from old mirror to new mirror, and put all back together, It is a pain, but unless you send the mirror back (if bought brand new) and order one for the year of your car (which is personally what I would do) then that is your only choice. I have done it before when I bought another mirror for my IS, but this was over 2 years ago now. I couldn't tell you every step. Dean

Hi mate, I've recently had issues with my cooling system too, the rad went and needed replacing. I also replaced the temp sensor, this was £15 from SC Motor Factors and works like a charm. The fans are supposed to cut in at 98 degrees C. You can bypass the fans by putting a piece of wire in the connector, bridging the connections, this will bring the fan on all the time to test if the fans are working. Although this should not be a fix for a faulty sensor. Watch out as SC's sold me one listed for my car and was too small, there are two sizes for the rad and you want the larger size sensor. Not sure which colours are which but this can be identified with a multimeter once the sensor has been bypassed. My radiator i just replaced had done 147,000 miles. If your replacing the sensor and rad, you might as well replace the thermostat too at the same time, two 10mm bolts and just pops out.

Hi Dinho, this was 2 years ago I lost that car, they denied liability for causing the accident and tried to blame it on me, yet I had to settle for part blame just because I needed a pay out to get another car, made no difference to my insurance as I protected my no claims, my insurance didn't go up at all so I wasn't bothered about it as long as I got a pay out as I needed a car straight away. Although my IS now is no where near as nice as the one I had but never mind. As for the person texting and driving she got the book thrown at her by the police, prosecuted and then tried to claim personal injury to pay off the huge fine she was hit with for texting and driving. Took a year to be settled by insurers for her claim. I still don't know if she got anything.

Hi Mate, Yes the blue IS200 in my display picture was my first IS, was on the motorway and someone drifted into my lane while they were texting and driving, I swerved out the way before they hit me and i ended up in the central reservation barrier and a complete write off, the boot was squashed right into the back window, the bonnent and front passenger side wing was pushed back on itself. The car bounced off the barrier a few times. They are fine as long as you don't get water on them, had mine in that place for 2 years now. I've always run HID's in halogen housing, I can understand why they are saying that as the beam pattern will be scattered rather than directed light. But just see how they are when you put them in.

Hi mate, Mine are just checked in, a rush job after losing my previous IS200, the passenger side ballast I have placed between the ECU box and and I think its the fuse box, where the washer fluid reservoir is. As for the drivers side I have just placed the ballast against the flat body work of the engine bay behind the headlight and tucked it under a wiring harness. I couldnt be bothered with tucking them out the way as it was a rush job to get all parts back on the new IS200 after losing my previous one in a crash.

Hi Mate, No worries, I'm running the cheap ebay bulbs with the HIDS4U ballasts at the minute and they seem perfectly fine. I'm sure all will be fine mate. Dean

Hi Martinez, The HID kit you are looking for is 9006 for dipped beam, 9006 for fog light's, and 9005 for main beam. https://www.hids4u.co.uk/HB4-9006-HIDS4U-Stealth-35W-Xenon-HID-Conversion-Kit.html

Hi, Funny you should post this, I've had the exact same problem Friday night and have just fixed the car yesterday. If the fan is not coming on, pull the connector off the coolant temperature switch which is located at the bottom drivers side of the of the radiator. To prevent over heating as a quick fix get a small piece of wire and strip the ends. Then insert the wire into both pins on the connector, switch the ignition on and the fans will come alive. If they come on then the switch is faulty. £10 from motor factors store. This was not my only problem, I by passed the switch but my car still over heated, I also replaced the thermostat as this was also £12. The main problem was my radiator as I refilled the radiator after replacing the thermostat I noticed water pouring from the bottom, so I had to replace the rad as well.

Aren't the cambelts supposed to be changed every 50/60k? If its only had one cambelt at 80k, it would be overdue a cambelt change by nearly 40k. I would pop the cambelt cover off to inspect the belt to make sure its not about to go and get it booked in for one as soon as you can