OldTrout

Mike, Much clearer thank you. I assume you can get the rest of the toothed strip out by turning on the radio. If so, what happens if you push the end of the new one down into the hole* until it will go no further and then turn the radio off? I think from memory then when it has pulled in as much as it can i.e. the is aerial fully retracted, it just stops pulling. John * the teeth on the new strip have to face the same way as the old strip teeth.

Hi John, I have already bought one of those but the end is different. See picture. Because it has this end on it makes the original 1" longer and means you cant fit the ebay replacement as its to short or am I missing a trick? Mike. Bluesman, I can't get to grips with this picture. The pig and hen are fine but the aerial bit has me stumped. I can't really remember mine Is the brown stump on the left the broken tooth strip? Is the other bit of the strip still in the motor part? If the eBay aerial will mount the fact that it is 1" shorter may not matter. I know that originally the aerial length depended on the state it was trying to pick up. I don't know how much difference this ever made to reception. John

Assuming you just need the sticking up bit this is what you need: http://www.ebay.co.u...0-/360518336788 I bought one for £20.40 inc. P&P last year for my old GS300. It came very quickly. It comes with full instructions and you will have it fitted in minutes. There are even YouTube videos showing how to do it. John

Delighted to hear it worked for you even though it didn't for me. You seem to have lost fewer settings too. What is this "hybrid reset"? J

I hope it works for you. It may help to have all windows up and roof shut as i think this saves having to reset their five limit switches. Put the front seats into the positions you most want not to lose before disconnection and after reconnection save the settings of your front seats. You can only save one position per seat but at least it better than having to do them all again. I think you will lose all the radio and other audio settings but you may not lose any phone settings. Don't know about satnav destinations and things. Good luck and do tell us if it works. J

Yes disconnecting the battery, removing the fuse were the suggestions I followed from the other seller in my 2007 450h. Disconnecting the battery didn't work and I also tried pulling the audio fuse in the front passenger box but that didn't work either. I hope you can get your money back. J

AmbroseJohn I'm pleased you had no hassle in your 2008 GS450h. Mine is 2007 and passman53 is also a 2007 model I think. I wonder if something changed on 2008 satnav unit. The supplier you referenced is not same as my supplier but the website design and some of the words are so similar I wonder if they are two faces of the same organisation? The disc is another £10 from your supplier but for a working disc with no hassle I would pay that. If the two suppliers are the same they will not want to do business with me though. J

This sounds just like the trouble I had. I wonder if your disc came from this outfit: http://www.satnavdvd.co.uk/2015-lexustoyota-gen35-tns600700-ea1e20-sat-nav-map-update-disc-470-p.asp I returned my disc but they refused a refund (despite their "full refund no questions asked" guarantee and now have an ongoing claim against Paypal to recover my money. J

Zotto, Informative as ever. Thank you. With your link and Wikipedia entry I think I now understand a little better than before. I wonder what the CVT arrangement in that Williams F1 car was. The present F1 cars have energy recovery and extra drive from electric motor when required but I assume that both of these are not integral with the engine. Or are they? J

The lifting toothed plastic strip in the aerial of my 1998 GS300 broke last year. I bought this one for £20.40 inc. P&P. It came very quickly. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LEXUS-AERIAL-ANTENNEN-MAST-LS400-LS430-GS300-RX300-/360518336788 Though SC430 is not mentioned in the title, the description says it fits the SC430 up to 2003. It comes with full instructions and if your damage is only on the sticking up bit you will have it fitted in minutes. There are even YouTube video showing ho to do it.

Having just acquired a Lexus with a CVT I was interested to read about CVTs in a book by L.J.K. Straight published in 2003. "DAF did it delightfully in small cars from 1958. Evolved versions have been given scant attention: in the mid-1990s a steplessly variable transmission was installed experimentally in a Williams F1 racing car, and in the hands of David Coulthard it lapped the Grand Prix circuit at Silverstone two seconds faster than the same care fitted with the standard gearbox, open of the most modern of its kind. By prevailing standards this was an enormous improvement - but when word of it got out, the regulatory authorities had it and all other fully automatic transmissions banned. In the advancement of technology, racing can be remarkably counter-productive." I wonder how similar that experimental transmission was to the Toyota product then and the Lexus product now. Can anyone provide more details? J

Thanks Zotto, I will look on eBay for alternatives unless there are readers from Europe East/North/Central who want to join me in buying a new set to split. I returned the disc but the vendor has refused to refund me in full. I pointed out his "If, for whatever reason, you are not happy with your purchase, we offer a 'no questions asked' money back guarantee. We accept returns for up to 30 days after the day you purchase." and said if he did not refund me I would raise a claim with Paypal. I have now raised the claim but have not heard anything more from him. I will not be buying anything else from his site or the one that looks like it. What a load of hassle. At the living wage up at Lidl I would have now earned enough to buy the Lexus disc. J ps Never having had a satnav before I was amused to see a little digging person in a triangle appear when there were road works. The little person was quite still but at least they were there which is more than can be said for lots of road works round here.

The ASC was definitely off. I don't know what tyres were on the IS. I don't claim that my readings are absolute but the comparison will be valid. i.e. the new IS300h was 5dB louder than the 1998 GS300. I did discover something about the 24 hour test drive offer which nobody has mentioned. There was a limit of 150 miles during which you pay petrol of course. After 150 miles you pay 15p/mile plus VAT as well as the petrol. (This was down in the small print - I'm pretty sure it was 15p but I could be mistaken.) When I queried this 150 limit because I was just about to do ~350 the sales executive agreed to waive the charge. J

Many thanks Connoisseur and Zotto. This is a wonderful site for finding out things. I have contacted the donor of the disk and it came from http://www.satnavdvd.co.uk/2015-lexustoyota-gen35-tns600700-ea1e20-sat-nav-map-update-disc-470-p.asp This web site has a very similar design and in places identical words to the site suggested by Connoisseur http://satnavdiscsale.com/lexus-2015-e19-sat-nav-update-for-all-generation-3-and-5-tns600-and-700-126-p.asp This suggests to me that these sites are slightly different faces of the same trader. Since the £30 disk from the former did not work in my GS, I wonder if the £40 disk from the latter will. The latter site does say the disk is part number PZ445-X03EU-0G which the former site never claimed, but Zotto suggests that a GS satnav will not be able to read it. What do others suggest?

Thank you for swift response. The new DVD has the number 86271-60A194 but no PZ number. It has "TOYOTA/LEXUS MAP DVD EA1" Does this suggest it is not genuine? The disk looked very clean but I cleaned it anyway and tried again. I still get the unable read message. I tried on my computer and it can read it. I've put the old disk back. J

Thanks Zotto. You offer hope when I had all but given up. However I am a new to all this. Could you explain more please? J

Thank you. I wondered if this might be the case. The old DVD is marked 86271 53031 86271 60V661A 2006-2007 Ver.2 The new one is 86271-60A194 Is this a wasted present? J

I was given a 2014-15 SatNav DVD for my car which has a 2006 map. Alas when I eject the old DVD and insert the new one it reports "Unable to read DVD". The old disk is back in for now but is there anything I can do to make it read the new one? J

If you have an iPad it is easy to make the measurement I did. There is a little app "Decibel 10th." It was free but might not be now. (I can't tell as I have it and that stops price being shown.) Whatever it should be less than £1. Get a passenger to lay the iPad on the central armrest and measure away. You really should be at the same speed on the same road surface for the measurements to be valuable but they are interesting. I don't know what the variation on the same noise might be from one iPad to another. The lower the profile the more the tyre noise. Run-flat are even worse. There is a big difference in the level from different road surfaces. The ability to filter out the background noise diminishes with age. J

Back in August I rang Lexus Swindon to ask for an IS300h for test drive the following Monday. This was arranged immediately and on Monday I picked up the car. As soon as we got onto the M4 heading west we realised it was too noisy - I couldn't hear my wife speak. We made some sound measurements at steady 70mph and recorded levels between 75 and 80dB. The noise was tyre roar. I could not hear the engine. We took the first exit and went back. I don't think anyone had ever taken a car back because of noise before. It was on 17" rims and the low-profile though not run-flat tyres are noisier than tyres on 16" wheels. (The added noise though the speakers was off.) We got back in our 1998 GS300 and continued west. On the same stretches of M4 at same speed the GS measured 70 to 75dB. The old GS was also more comfortable! I do have hearing problems so noise is an issue. I guess I am the wrong demographic for an IS. I should have asked for a GS and indeed I now have a 2007 450h which is even quieter than our old GS. I don't have dB measurements yet as I've not been down that bit of M4 since. J

Thank you for your welcome and your swift answer. Losing phone numbers is a bummer as I have only just put them in - one by one - as neither my phone nor my wife's phone will not do transfer. J

if eBay charged by the word that add would cost more than the car! Where does seller get VED for £118.25? Mine costs £255.

I replaced a 1998 GS300 with a 2007 GS450h back in August. There are plenty about and all the ones I looked at were in good condition. The one I bought can from a Lexus dealer, looked new despite 104k miles (there were lots of 65 cars ready for September its on the forecourt) but the clincher for me was the Lexus warranty. I guess we all worry about the hybrid technology and its longevity and the warranty should take care of these worries. I got 39.8 mpg on the slow journey home - heavy traffic on M25 and M40 - and I got onto back roads for the last few miles. So annoying it wasn't 40. I am getting about 35 on each tankfull. I am not heavy footed anyway but find that with all the extra power the any need to rush about that I may have had in the past has gone. Does that make sense? You should get a cracker for £12k. Good luck.

Hi, I recently replaced a 1998 GS300 with a 2007 GS450h. It is great - quieter, more powerful, lots more gizmos and the hike in mpg is very welcome. I wish to change the 12V battery before it dies. This operation in the old car would lose the radio code, the seat settings and the radio presets. From these forums I have read that Lexus don't code the radios any more and that I will need to reset the windows and roof. Nobody mentioned radio, seat settings and all the phone settings. Will these settings be lost when I disconnect the battery? Thank you.