matt-c

Just been out in it again, and whilst they are awesomely brighter than standard, I think I'm gonna grab a set of 4300k bulbs and try those out. The 5000k's I've got are just a little too blue for me. Will report back when I've done a swap - might even do a side by side video comparison

Didn't understand a word of that!

I think the lowest you can get is 50mm - to go lower than that you will need coilovers. Bear in mind that for 40-50mm you'll need new shock anyway, as they won't handle such a drop. Also you'll have massively bad camber, you'll need a camber kit and a full geo set up to make it drive properly

Send five minutes on Google and you'll be glad you didn't spend any money on that turbo kit ;)

Strictly speaking they aren't legal; as Patrick says, they actual headlight units aren't set up for them, so you get what's called scatter. Whether it will fail an MOT is more down to the MOT tester. But the kits are so easy to install, it's simply one plug to swap if you want to change by the standard bulbs, so if you're worried about it, keep the standard HB4 bulbs in the boot (you can use the handy protective cases the HID bulbs come in to house the original bulbs), and when it comes to MOT time, just pull out the HID bulb, slot in the standard one, swap over one plug, and you're all back to standard.

Well, took it out in the dark and what a difference! Massive improvement on illumination! Light output is a little more blue than I'd expected / had hoped for - maybe I should have gone 4500k instead of 5000k, but I thought it wouldn't have a blue tinge till you got to 6000k upwards. Not the end of the world, but I'd prefer a more solid white I think. Typically, soon as I got out onto the main road, the second car coming towards me flashed me, probably because he thought my hi beams were on! I set the headlight angle to 2.5, so hopefully that won't blind people now. But through the country lanes, the difference in visibility was just immense compared to the original bulbs! Just need a set of fog lights to match now; at least colour wise - I don't really want to put another set of HID's in there, so might go for a pair of SMD/LED HB4 bulbs in the fog lights, so they at least match in colour. Something like this; http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/320896981224?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649 Worth it? Or are they crap? (can they also be used as high beam, or no?)

Really pleased with my Grom that I installed a few months ago - specially since it was such a bargain at £35 delivered! So easy to just whack my iPhone4 in for short journeys, or my iPod Classic for long journeys However, I'm upgrading to iPhone5 (when they eventually send it to me) and a bit worried that it will make my Grom redundant (obviously I'll still be able to use it with my iPod, but 90% of the time I just use my iPhone, since most of the time it's short journeys) thanks to the new connector. Now I know there's an adapter to turn the 30pin to the new 8pin, but I have no idea if it will work with a Grom - Apple says it will allow "analog" audio output, but nothing about whether it will allow control such as skip forward/back, playlist selection, etc etc. I've mailed Grom, but only got back "Sorry we don't have any immediate news on an iphone 5 cable but are currently keeping an eye on it." Has anyone with a Grom upgraded to an i5 and tried it with the adapter?

£20 eBay specials turned up yesterday, from HK, so set about fitting them this morning. Took about a half hour, 20mins of which was spent figuring out where and how to mount the ballasts, and route the cabling. Decided on the suspension turrets like most; As per the norm it seems, I had to reverse one of the two pin connections to get them to work, which is a little annoying because the catch on it is on the wrong side to the notch now. But hopefully it will all stay watertight (how safe is the engine bay from water? Just always wary of new connections, and these aren't OEM quality, so a little unsure of how water tight they are going to be...)

I'd give that a go first, as it's a lot cheaper than new ECU's and locks etc. However, you may find you need a fully working key (ie, not just the transponder, but working buttons on the remote too) to programme the key, as it's done by a button press sequence (and pedal-dancing) procedure. However, Lexus may just be able to do it all via a computer, eliminating that part, so fingers crossed they'll get you a new fully working key. For the sake of it, I'd get them to do two keys, so at least you have a spare.

1 - then everything you have said is moot 2 - manufacturers quote specs to impress people that rely on specs and figures, or those that are impressed by them. Doesn't mean they actually mean much. Take computers; PC's love to quote how much this that and the other they have, how fast the processor etc it. Yet a Mac, with "half the performance" on paper, out performs them every day. 3 - No one is saying you should bottle up a point of view. However, most of what you are saying is pointless and irrelevant, and has nothing to do with a "point of view" - it's just wanting to have the last say, regardless of 1) knowing what you are saying and 2) actually having anything to say Thank you for your concern, but I'm perfectly chilled out, and definitely not taking anything you say seriously, in the slightest. But if you want me to take your view or comments with a pinch of salt, then there's really no point you posting them in the first place, except to try and be on the windup and/or get a reaction. so for the 4th time, enough please.

Mine idle's at around 600/700 I think (definitely between the 0 and 1000) - I remember thinking it seemed pretty low compared to cars I've had in the past, but it's super smooth, and not lumpy or anything. I think that's where they are supposed to idle

Doesn't matter what car you use for everyday real life driving; that has nothing to do with your barrage of numbers, figures, specs and stats - all of which are irrelevant. You've proved so far 1) you don't know a lot about cars or engines, 2) you are obsessed by pointless specs and stats, and 3) you seem intent on "having the last word", which when your last words are pointless and irrelevant, really don't account for much. For the third time - enough now please...

Is the topic of the discussion about what car you'd be tempted to sell your Lexus for? No, it's not. It's a barrage of numbers, figures, specs and stats, all of which are not only irrelevant to this thread, but more or less irrelevant in real life too. As I said, enough already......

Been a long time since I did a door glass on an IS, but from memory it's a simple straightforward job - the only problem I can remember arising is the autoclose on the drivers side; when the window is broken, it often goes into whats called "safe mode", which is where the mech doesn't know where to stop, and because of the anti-jam, it isn't sure that when the window reaches the top of the frame, it's at the top of the frame, so to be safe, it jumps back down again (the anti-jam kicks in, just to be on the safe side incase it's a set of fingers it's hitting, not the door frame). The remedy for this is to remove the entire mech from the door, fully extend, fully contract, and repeat, then refit (I can't remember if that's the exact proceedure, but it's thereabouts, since it's been such a long time since I fitted one - probably 4 or 5 years). However, none of that should come into play at all if you were simply removing the glass and replacing it with new glass. From memory, to remove the glass, the door card comes off (I think it's three, maybe four screws - door catch handle, door pull handle, maybe one behind the light, and possibly one somewhere else), and the glass is mounted on the mech bar using two 10mm bolts, which can access with the mech most of the way down. Then simply lift, tilt and take the door glass out. Refitting is reversal of removal. All in all, shouldn't take more than 10-15mins per door, but if you've never done it, bank on the first one taking a little longer, just as you 1) find the screws etc to remove and 2) get used to the feel of pulling a door card off - those poppers can be very deceiving, making you think something is going to break!

Jesus wept... You really cannot be so naive, or blinkered, to think that because the engine is "Japanese engineering" then that's why the car is faster? This is why I don't try to have sensible conversations with you anymore, because you can't type sensible sentences or statements.... Enough now, thanks for completely derailing my thread btw......

Nice. Mature....

Where's the smiley for shaking your head in dismay? Oh, here it is -

Glass doesn't distort through heat - well it does, but not through ambient temperatures in even the hottest countries. Tempered glass (which is what your door glass, rear windscreen and sunroof is made from) has to be heated to about 800 deg c (as high as 1500 deg f) to shape it, and you aren't gonna get ambient temps that high. So, either the glass has a manufacturing defect (which isn't uncommon; I fit probably over a thousand bits of glass every year, and I've seen many that are distorted or rippled - some so bad they look like the fun-fair "crazy" mirrors), or it's an illusion to do with the tint applied. If you can actually feel "waves" in the glass (on the non tinted side, i.e. the outside) then the glass is physically distorted, and will be a manufacturing defect. Only option for that is to change it. But unless it's restricting your view (ie, you can't see clearly out of it) then I really wouldn't bother.

Yeah I know, but at £20+ for the bit that actually holds the phone, they're a bit too pricey to change out every year or two

Could really do a phone holder, probably to put on one of the centre dash vents, but need one that really low mass, inconspicuous looking, while still being able to support my phone properly I know there are the awesome Brodit moulded holders out there (I've got two in my work van for the company issue handsets, and I had one for a Nokia years ago) but 1) they aren't cheap and 2) I change phones fairly often, so don't want to be paying out £20+ every year or two for a new holder, so I don't really want a tailored, model-specific version. I don't need charging built in or anything, but it does need to have enough room on the bottom for me to plug in a dock connector (phone is an iPhone 4, which in a couple weeks will be replaced with an iPhone 5, but I also use an iPod classic in the car too, so it'd be useful if I could use any of the above in the holder - the iPod is only a few mm wider than the iPhone(s), and about the same thickness. The iPod isn't major concern to be fair, because when that's being used it can sit under the centre console in front of the gear shifter... The only real reason I want/need it is when I'm using Maps on the phone to navigate somewhere, which isn't massively often, hence why not wanting a great big clumsy bit of kit. Something nice and svelte, and unobtrusive would be great, and easy to get the device in and out of is a must too I've looked all over ebay, and unless I'm putting in the wrong search words, all I seem to be able to find are big, bulky, crappy looking things, that look like they came from the 90's!

40 might be a tad too low for the shocks though, sure I read that somewhere, and produce excessive camber.

*sigh*

They weren't options, they were changes. up to 2004 (I think) all IS200's had chrome lights (front and rear) and from 2004-2005 (might have been 2003-2005) they had dark (grey) lights front and rear.

Ok, you're clearly still missing the point.... 2L Turbo Diesel BMW engine - standard 2L Turbo Petrol IS200 engine - MODIFIED The above cannot compare - you cannot do a like for like comparison between a stock engine and a modified engine (especially a hardware modified engine) 2L Turbo Diesel BMW engine - standard 2L N/A Petrol IS200 engine - standard The above cannot compare - you cannot do a like for like comparison between a forced induction engine and a naturally aspirated engine. Likewise, a diesel engine, turbo or N/A, is different to a petrol engine (turbo or N/A); Me : "A turbo diesel engine is completely different from a turbo petrol engine" You : "Not it's not, it's the same" You later : "A diesel engine is different from a petrol engine" Hmm....... Otherwise lets compare a Supra to a Micra - I mean they both have 4 wheels, so why can't we compare them directly? Or lets compare a Ford Transit and a Yamaha R6 - they are both RWD, so why can't we compare them directly?

No, you were specifically comparing a two litre turbo diesel against a two litre turbo petrol (320d against a modified is200), and said they are both the same. Now you recant and say they are different. I'm beginning to think you must be on the wind up, as no one could be serious while contradicting themselves so...