rich1068

Downsizing? lol OK. I find inventing irritating but vague faults with an existing car works well. Oddly, appealing to SWMBO's financial side seems to go a long way when wanting a change. Makes no sense (existing car will cost X to get right so we should spend Y on something else) but there you go. All this is assuming that she actually listens to me. I have a feeling that as long as I'm not bankrupting us then she just goes along with it. Keeps me out of trouble etc

It's pretty much my view on many of these late 90s/early 00s Lexus. IMO still at the proving themselves stage by building well engineered but not overly complex motor cars that stand up well to age and mileage. The electrics alone are a reason for choosing Lexus over its European rivals. I do love German/other European cars but at these price points I don't think I'd ever really consider one again. I'd have to spend quite a bit more to get quality equivalent to my IS but the chance of something going pop would still be higher. Does that make sense? lol

Great stuff. Obviously jumped straight on Autotrader and started looking!

Just been looking on Wikipedia, when you LS owners refer to a Mark 4 are you talking about the 1997-2000 XF20? The facelifted second generation LS?

Call it a ghetto repair. Somehow sounds less of a bodge.

Ha! It's a good look. I've been so close to doing this sooooo many times on my IS. It's only a matter of time I reckon. And of course I won't be at home with the spare.

Not going to pretend I'm an expert (welcome btw ) but I'd guess the disadvantage of doing a fix with super glue is potential damage if you ever need to remove that particular bit of trim. Obviously super glue does have a permanency about it! But I'd be lying if I said I'd never used super glue on the car. If it's a small fix to maybe a much larger part then I'd probably use it. When I first got my IS there were small gaps in a couple of areas where the body kit met the panel and I used super glue then. On my last car I used super glue to hold back some rubber door trim that had obviously come away years ago. Job done. I suppose part of this is how precious you are about a nearly 20 year old car.

I can beat that Used to have a '65 Beetle with drums all round which needed regularly adjusting just so you could stop the damn thing. I was doing the rears, put the wheels back on to test, got halfway up the road and one of the wheels fell off. I'd forgotten to tighten the wheel nuts up. Luckily the wheel wedged under the wing and kept the car upright and all I needed was a new wing. Never found all the wheel nuts though. I may have mentioned earlier in this thread that I know my limits!

I know my limits Keith. I would royally ____ this up. My problem is that I like older cars but I'm not very handy. But it's an interesting thread and the advice is much appreciated. I'll pop in to my local garage and have a word. I'd rather not leave it for another 6 months when my next dealer service is due and get an unnecessarily high bill.

What's a slider pin?

Is this something 1st gen IS owners should be aware of? I recall someone mentioning brakes when I asked what to look for last year before picking mine up.

I ran those year round on my XC90. From Oponeo too. Excellent tyre and didn't find the wear that bad. Though I'm north of the wall I think All Seasons are a great compromise for the UK. I was a little skeptical when I swapped the Nokians for Pirelli Scorpions but I've had absolutely no issues with the last few lots of snow. And I go looking for it. At other times of the year I don't drive like I'm lapping the Nurburgring so grip or stopping is never an issue.

Agreed. Thule aren't cheap but a re-badged Thule is even more!

Pretty bad here in Sheffield. I look forward to going out in a bit in the Volvo Last night when it started. You can see my IS just a little out of its comfort zone. It's now about 6-8" on the sideroads and the kids are having fun.

We live in an area where everyone is forever on some sort of home improvement exercise and there are skips outside houses regularly. When the skips are picked up there are always nails and screws left behind by careless builders.

Bloody hell Malcolm. That looks nice

Luck of the draw isn't it? After one or two balancing issues but largely because of the sheer number of nails and screws I seem to pick up I'm on first name terms with my local Protyre staff. I'm always happier with a spare. And in my IS it's full size too so even better. I think it's because after a tyre change I can just carry on with what I was doing or where ever I was going. Limping to a garage with a tyre full of goo or having to wait for recovery seems an enormous inconvenience.

I don't have your model but if a spare is an option then I'd certainly go for that. Apart from the ease of changing quite a few repair places refuse to touch a tyre once you've fill it with goo.

Sounds like he's already there.

Ah! Very good! What a clever forum this is.

Expanding on NemesisUK's point, sign up to somewhere like Imgur. You can upload images from your phone/camera/PC to Imgur and it gives you a link such as [ img]https://i.imgur.com/tWzCx08l.jpg[/img ] (I've broken that link to show you what I mean) When you post the link on here it looks like... ...a minidisc player!

Agreed. TG just tries so hard and it shows while Clarkson and the other two muppets are like fingers down a blackboard. I jumped ship to YT years ago. Now when I need a fix I just watch car reviews from the likes of Carwow, CarBuyer, Autogefuhl (all basically the TG format in its William Woollard days) and for entertainment I'll watch far more interesting presenters such as Carpervert, Sniff Petrol or Smith & Sniff. The Sniff Petrol/Smith & Sniff videos I can thoroughly recommend. Just two blokes driving round talking about stuff. Brilliant. I now palm while maneuvering and always put my left arm behind the passenger seat in reverse.

Nothing wrong in feeling smug. You can have a sense of achievement with the simplest things. And if your RX is engineered anything like my IS (I'm guessing it is) then something that adds to the feeling is the realisation that someone at Lexus knew the bulbs would need changing at some point and made them accessible. You haven't known frustration until you've tried to change the tail light bulb on a 2000-2007 Volvo V70.

M8? Where? Behind that Lexus?

I could collect from Dumfries. I'm in Sheffield.