sorcerer

You haven't said what year the car is but with 100k on the clock I'd guess at about 2005? I seem to remember reading on these forums somewhere that the latest Nav disk available for the Series 2 RX300 is about 2011, which is hopelessly out of date anyway. Plus, being DVD-based you can't add in your own POIs which makes it about as useful as a chocolate teapot. Get a TomTom or some other dash/screen-mounted proper satnav, they're far better. I think Lexus charge £295 to change the timing belt but that doesn't include the tensioner/idler pulley or anything like that. Nor does it include the water pump, which you should do at the same time because 90% of the work to get to the belt would have to be done again to get to the pump if you did it at a different time. I got the whole job done for £350 at a local indy garage including all gaskets, pulleys etc., etc.

I would imagine most people get finance for a car and there's nothing wrong with that whatsoever. The problem comes when the owner wants to sell it before it's paid for and before the outstanding finance balance is cleared off.

I would have thought a company would be able to clear off (pay off) the finance easier than a private individual. My wife (a VAT Inspector) confirms what djkenn said above, ie, the finance goes with the car. If the current owner doesn't clear it, you become liable for it. Definitely something not quite right with this so I'd still walk away.

It'll be a long time before cars with adaptive cruise control come down to my price range but while I wait I have to say that I love the 'ordinary' or traditional version. Along with the auto transmission it ranks as one of mankind's best inventions. Plenty of opportunity to use it on the motorways and I just leave my right foot on the floor and/or stretch my leg as I feel. I can soon get my foot to the brake when necessary.

Very nice Alexander, your effort has been well rewarded, that looks superb! P.S. I have no idea why there's a blank quote box above - all I did was my usual general way of replying to any thread but it appeared and I can't get rid of it. I wasn't even trying to quote Phil

I'm with Mike on this, walk away.

It depends how much you want to do and how much you want to spend. From what I understand the car goes a flat, dull colour because the top clear coat oxidises. To get its true colour back you have to take a layer of the oxidised clear coat off by machine polishing or some such thing. Car detailers can carry out a 3-stage process of proper colour restoration that costs anywhere from about £150 to £250 (or at least it does around here anyway). Again, as I understand it, no amount of polish or wax will bring the proper colour back. They are used to seal the clear top coat and protect it from oxidising again once you've got rid of it. As Phil suggested above, search Youtube for videos of colour restoration. Sorry if I've got hold of the wrong end of the stick but I'm just toying with the idea of having our RX300 'colour restored' and I'm just learning about it myself.

I'd hazard a guess that it's the first position when you turn the key so that you can listen to the radio whilst waiting outside a shop for someone, for instance.

I'd hazard a guess that the battery terminals are still not tight enough. The battery is only used for cranking the engine - after it fires up, the alternator runs all the electrical equipment and the battery basically becomes redundant. If there's enough power from the alternator to run all the electrics and still have some surplus (which of course, there usually is), then that's when the battery gets charged up. If the connections aren't tight enough, the alternator output may be causing all sorts of voltage spikes and transient noise that could account for the weird behaviour. If you have a specialist battery shop in your area they'll happily test the battery for you by way of either a heavy-discharge tester or some computerised gizmo rather than just a standard multimeter. Also check the warranty on the battery, just in case it is faulty - the one on our old car (think it was a Varta) had a four-year warranty.

To be honest, I don't know. We only got it four months ago, an '05-plate with 79,500 on the clock that cost us £5,500. We had the cambelt and water pump done, a couple of tyres, changed all fluids and then had it converted to LPG because we intend to keep it until it dies (hoping to get at least 100k out of it on top of the 79k it's already done). Both the wife and myself are well chuffed with it though, it's excellent.

To be honest, I don't know. We only got it four months ago, an '05-plate with 79,500 on the clock that cost us £5,500. We had the cambelt and water pump done, a couple of tyres, changed all fluids and then had it converted to LPG because we intend to keep it until it dies (hoping to get at least 100k out of it on top of the 79k it's already done). Both the wife and myself are well chuffed with it though, it's excellent.

Never sat in an LS or owned one so can't comment on that but just wanted to say that the RX300 we bought in May is excellent and we're well chuffed with it. I suffered a back injury a long time ago, bad enough to result in medical retirement from my job as a cable jointer on BT, so comfortable seats and ease of getting in and out of a car are very important to me. I love the elevated seating position of the RX, the seats are very comfortable and it's certainly easy to get in/out - and it should meet your kitchen worktop requirement too, I would have thought.

I am not a lawyer but the way I read that is that if, whilst they were carrying out the MOT in February, it was discovered then that the shocks had completely failed, then it would be a warranty item. However, they had not completely failed at that point in time and were still functioning and continuing to do their job, so they notified you of the "light misting of oil" and it became your choice to continue using them rather than replace them, ergo wear and tear rather than failure covered by warranty. As I said though, IANAL and may be talking complete rubbish. Also, as Shahpor said you'll lose nothing but time in fighting them so I sincerely wish you well and truly hope that you win your case.

I don't think there is a 'right or wrong' answer to this one, it's just personal preference really. We also have three double sockets just like you Geoff and we just moved them higher up the wall. We have solid floors so in our case the cables drop down from above and moving the sockets up meant that we had enough length to reterminate easily. If you have a void under the floor and your cables come up from there, you may have to get under and extend them to move them up the wall - in which case you may think the multi-way trailing socket is less hassle

Well worth converting to LPG. I've put a couple of pictures of our RX300 LPG conversion in this thread but (as I also say somewhere in there) rather than getting bogged down in MPG figures, let me give you a real-world example. We've not had chance to do a European road trip in the Lexus yet but when we had our old 3.0 V6 Nissan, we would usually drive from our home in Preston, Lancashire, to eastern Europe for our holidays and have done for many years. Last year we drove through France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia, covering about 4,000 miles for the round trip. Doing it on petrol would have cost us over £900 for the fuel, whereas doing it on gas actually cost us £437. Ok, it's just cost us £1,300 to have the RX300 converted but we'll soon recoup that cost and start really saving substantial money on fuel costs.

Be careful what you wish for. If EVs really took off we'd be up the proverbial creek without a paddle faster than you could blink. We just have not got the generating capacity to provide for what we have now, let alone thousands of EVs being charged. The lights WILL start go go out in the not-too-distant future - well before the new nuke at Hinckley comes on stream.

You're very welcome Geoff

Right, easy bit first - a patch cable is just a piece of ethernet cable with a plug already terminated on each end. It gets its name because they're used to patch circuits from one piece of equipment to another piece of equipment. The other way to buy ethernet cable is just as a cable where you have to terminate each end, either in an RJ45 plug or socket, which means you have to buy the termination tools as well (crimpers for plugs or an IDC punchdown tool for sockets). Ethernet cables have 8 conductors in them in the form of 4 twisted pairs of wires, then the 4 pairs are also twisted around each other along the length of the cable. As the signals travel along the cable they generate electromagnetic fields that would cause the signal to be lost in the 'noise'. This 'noise' or interference would be worse if the conductors were just laid out straight and running side by side which is why they are twisted, not just in pairs but also around each other. This is the reason why your flat cable is not a good idea. This Youtube video may help to explain it better than I can, especially as I've been on the beer tonight

It seems strange to say that just 10m of flat cable could make an undesired difference to the operation, especially considering how far the signal travels from the exchange - but it can, for the reason Bob mentions above, ie, crosstalk. It's all to do with the number of twists per inch (or some other unit of measurement that I've forgotten for the moment). I'd definitely stick with the proper ethernet cable rather than flat. It's just my opinion but I speak as a BT telephone engineer (cable jointer) of over 17 years service and now, after a back injury and medical retirement from BT, as a self-employed computer technician.

Very plausible. I once had the misfortune to have a gust of wind blow an errant carrier bag under the car once as I was driving along. It obviously got caught on the exhaust and melted causing a right stink. If I ever see one blowing about now and it looks to be coming my way, I'll do all I can to avoid it - only when it's safe to do so though!

Well I'm no mechanic so take from this what you will, but many moons ago when I used to enjoy working on my cars, warped or worn discs would always be the first thing I thought of if I ever experienced any brake judder, so in the absence of any more knowledgable replies I'd say yes, you're right.

Well, as usual, Google is your friend - or at least it may be. Seems to be plenty of references to this problem and a lot of potential fixes but, as I've never tried any of them I can't personally vouch as to their efficacy.

Quoting from the RX300 Owner's Manual, it says: If "ERROR 3" or "ERROR 4" appears on the display, it indicates there is a trouble inside the system. Eject the CD. Not too helpful IMHO

Wow, now that really does defy all logic. Now I can truly appreciate your frustration because there are many, many times when I listen to music while I'm parked up and waiting for something/someone. What an utterly crazy situation!

Do you mean that you can't just sit there listening to the radio, while (for instance) waiting for your partner to come out of the shop or something, if there happens to be something in front of you?