Kiriyama

Thanks all, that's everything I needed to know :)

I stuck my head under my IS200 to investigate a rattle and found that the heat shield(?) above the rear exhaust box was barely hanging on. Without dropping the exhaust down, I couldn't get to the bolts to remove them and fit repair washers so it was easier to pull it off for now. Trouble is, I make a lot of long journeys on a regular basis and I'm not sure what effect the missing shield will have. With the fuel filler cap being on the passenger side, I'm ASSUMING the petrol tank is also on that side and therefore not directly above the exhaust so it's not to stop the fuel tank from getting too hot.... right?? If it simply stops heat from radiating into the boot then I'm not too bothered. Hope someone can put my mind at ease so I don't drive up the M6 expecting my car to explode at any moment! PS - the rattle is still there! :@

I started using this on my way to work (dual carriageway) and it did make the car more economical but then an ignition coil blew. May be just coincidence but then again, you're not really supposed to do 80mph in the snow are you?

Niiice B)

It got worse. I had a go at scrubbing the the paint off with some turps and a brush yesterday and it didn't do much. I saw how much it stood out today and decided that I needed to get rid of it so I got the pressure washer out and gave it a blast.... removing a layer of tarmac all around the stain! Not only that but the stain is as bright as ever! Looking up and down the street, the pathway is pretty much unblemished so my old man will not be pleased! I called the council to see what could be done but, true to form they didn't answer and I had to leave a message.

Painted mine today. Hardly original but I went for red on my blue IS200 Sport. Took me pretty much all day (and 6 cups of tea) to apply 3 coats of Hammerite and I've still got the chrome decals to put on! I was sat in direct sunlight all day so I'm slightly burnt and was sweating my taters off but the paint dried really quickly so that helped, though I had to keep stirring the pot and dropping the brushes back into turps when not using them. Everything went brilliantly until right near the end when someone shouted to ask me a question. As I turned to answer I kicked my tin of paint over and the path outside my house now looks like the aftermath of a gangland shoot-out! :duh:

I believe so yes but I'm sure someone will come along with a definitive answer very shortly (now the Holland v Italy match has finished). Welcome to LOC :winky:

I'm aiming for a darker finish anyway, anthracite possibly.

Glad you got it sorted, mate :)

Did you have the wheels done for you or do them yourself? If you did them yourself, any tips? I'm going to have a go at mine when I've got a bit more time and money. They're standard at the mo and pretty battered but I want to go for an anthracite kind of shade.

Yellow on black looks great to me. Not sure if it would look quite as good without the black wheels though.

They will as long as the tyres are new, they won't fit used tyres. Pricing is around £40 / tyre though (including balancing and new valves).

lol yeah, strangely addictive isn't it?

I have ordered a similar one ebay item no 170224456974 £37.99 to your door. I know at least one other member has bought this one. Will find out what its like when it arrives next week hopefully. It seemed like a cheap HID conversion to me. That would be me. I've had these in for about 3 months now and they look great. Very simple to install and as I went for the 6000k ones, they are almost pure white in colour and make my oem main beams look very yellow in comparison. I've never had a more expensive set to compare them with but to me at least, they are excellent lights and I'm happy to recommend them. I really do think the price of such kits has just come down to that level now.

unless you are in meir Hahaha, I try not to venture there too often. There's even a tunnel nowadays so you can sneak underneath the place when you drive through!

Yeah, that's the look I was after.

E-bay matey about £8 and you get spares in case you f :tsktsk: k it up but there really easy to apply :D Linky: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...rksid=p3907.m29 Sorry :) should of mentioned that they are available through LOC, the ones on ebay are slightly curved to follow the line of the caliper and the LOC ones are straight like the Lexus badge so it's just a matter of preference. If you PM sorted vti on here, he can provide them for you. I just took delivery of a set of curved, chrome decals for £8 which arrived within 2 days of payment. May as well keep it 'in-house' and help a fellow LoC member out :winky:

Haha, no, that was 2 or 3 years back and on my Audi. No Wozza, it was just standard nuts. I'll get locking nuts again when I've got some free cash but I'll risk it til then.

Thanks for the tip, TigerFish. I the end, neither were needed. I figured that as the key was pretty knackered anyway, I needn't worry about breaking it so I had a go at smacking it onto each nut with a large hammer and after half an hour of sweating and cursing, I managed to get all 4 out! Obviously the second garage hadn't overtightened them like the first. Got 4 nuts from a breakers yard (£4) so it's all sorted. Now I just need a nice dry day when the kids aren't around so I can commence caliper painting :D

Just had a look on the Halfords site to see if they do them and found these Impact Socket Set Funny thing is, I automatically typed Halfrauds into the search engine! I blame you lot!

Oh I didn't know that, thanks. Although it would probably be cheaper to ask a garage to take them out, I'm sure a new socket set would come in handy so I'll give that a go. Yeah, on the 2 wheels I tried to remove, I only managed to get ONE nut loose. There's surely no need to tighten ANY of them to that extent.

Not just my opinion, advice given to me by someone working for a company that could easily have let me fork out for locking nuts. Until today I've found the members of this forum to be nothing but polite, helpful and generally good natured. I think I'm done with this thread.

I'll take the risk, the market for stolen alloys is not what it used to be given that most new cars nowadays are sold with them.

Not sure, all the damage seems to be at the base of the nut. Rob's suggestion sounds familiar, sure someone mentioned that method before, might give it a go.

Thanks for the lecture but it's not this garage that I'm ****** off with, it's the previous garage (North Staffs Tyre & Battery) that must have damaged the key but as it was back in March, it would be pretty pointless taking it back to them now and trying to blame them. The key is not shattered or anything, just a little warped and I hoped that todays garage would have managed to use it by knocking it on with something (no miracles expected). I couldn't do that at home because even if I had managed to get the nut out, it would no doubt be wedged tightly into the key and I have no clamp or anything to remove it again. I knew there was a strong possibility that they would have to take more drastic action, whether I told them about the key or not and I have no problem with them doing it, again, it is the previous garage that I am annoyed with. OK, I could have explained the problem to them but I know from painful past experience that SOME garages will simply tell you they can't take them off but as I was desperate to get the new discs on, I hoped (correctly) that they'd just get on with it once I'd left the car with them. All I want to know now is how to get the nuts out, not to replace them with more locking nuts but to replace them with standard nuts that I hope to get from a breakers yard that has helped me in the past and I only gave the background story to save people asking me why I have no key. Being called 'stupid' is neither helpful nor appreciated. Thanks to those with actual suggestions, I'll try to get hold of some nuts within the next couple of days then set about getting the old ones out.