JohnyT

Just coming back to this any one around these days that might know a bit more?

Hello. It's sad to think about it but inevitably there will come a day when my IS200 will no longer be feasible to keep on the road. As I've enjoyed owning and modifying it so much I've decided to buy a few mementos that I can keep long after its gone. My most recent being a watch I bought from eBay supposedly made by Ebel. Can any one shed any more light on this particular watch? There is nothing on the watch as far as I can see that admits to it being made by Ebel whereas another watch I bought clearly says that it was made by House Of Watches. From my basic googling it would appear that there were 5 groups of 1000 of the Ebel type made: group A,B,C,D,E would this refer to each year the IS200 was sold? Is this also the case with the House of watches type? I understand what I'm asking may not be common knowledge especially for a very specific item that is now 10 years old, but any information any one has will be greatly appreciated.

Hello, long story short, one of the bolts on my NSF strut mounts have snapped off. It's been mentioned that the remaining part of the bolt can be "punched out" and replaced with another M8 bolt. Is this done with some force or are the bolts loose within the mount when unfastened. I'm guessing that the whole strut would need to be removed and the spring compressed to be able to get at it.

Hi just got my engine bay dressed up with an anodised cooling plate, battery bar an a shed load of dessing bolts.

Cool thank you for putting my mind at rest. I guess it makes sense, that spout there was obviously by design. Just never saw it before lol

Hi there just noticed a bit of a puddleof water just under the front passanger wheel. A bit strange as we've not had any rain for almost 2 weeks here. Jacked the car up a bit to have a look and seems to be coming out a lil spout. Whats going down there?

Hello, Today I fitted a blue LED dash kit and it looks great. While doing so I thought it would be nice to also change a couple of the other bulbs like the SNOW mode light. From reading around I know I cant make it blue because it has an amber lens, but it's said that a red LED would shine through ok. I took out the SNOW mode light thinking it was the same fitting as the blue LED's that I'd just installed to the dash but no they are a bit different. The bulbs don't seem to come away from the twist fit housing so I'm assuming I need to find a complete led bulb and housing like the Neo wedges I've had a bit of time searching on Google and I cant say I'm 100% sure what the fitting for the SNOW light actually is. Could some one please let me know the fitment I'm looking for so I don't order the wrong one. I took a pic of it here:

Yeah saw that one too, but he had already sold the spoiler from it. Though I have now managed to get hold of a boot lid with the same spoiler as that green one. It's a genuine spoiler and has a couiple of wires hanging off it for the break light. Hopefully it will connect somewhere on the loom, guess not hard to mod if not. Its silver colour and a bit tatty but the guy at the body shop said they can get it looking good as new. So I guess in a few days they'll have it painted and ready to fit. Ill upload some picutres once its done.

Did you guys have the meet already? From Weymouth here would be cool to hook up with other lexus people

yeah not a bad price that one but I would also need a boot handle as mines cracked plus the left number plate light is gone. Gonna hold out for a more complete lid and with spoiler if possible. Had a chance to call a few guys on ebay yesterday but most have gone already. I'll give it another week of being picky and if nothing turns up I'll settle for bog standard and just get it done. I'm still proper mad about it, just wish i knew who the bugger was who hit it.

Today I parked my car outside a clients house in a quiet residential area. When I came back I found a nasty dent in the boot lid plus a scuff on the top of the rear bumper. No one left a contact number or insurance detail, literally nothing. I've taken it to a body shop and they said I'm going to need a replacement boot lid. The bumper they can sort out but will cost £150, it will also be another £150 to respray the replacement boot lid if its not the same colour. GRRRRRR I've had a look around eBay and they seem to vary in price a bit. My IS200 is a 2002 SE model will any boot lid fit or were there any variations over the time of production? I have always wanted a spoiler on the back so the only silver lining would be getting hold of a boot lid from one of the sport models, if of course that would be possible. Here's a picture of the dent, I've touched up the exposed metal since so does not look as bad as it did:

I'll stick with the oem filter then I think, thanks guys

Hi there, While looking for some service parts for my IS200 that's coming up to its 60k I noticed HKS produce an oil filter that claims a 30% improvement. Any one used one and noticed any improvement?

Thanks :) yeah I'm really pleased with them, can't stop looking out of the window that faces our driveway.

Yeah dressing the tyres is a good idea might give it a go over the weekend. Our little Charlotte loves the IS, mainly because she can watch her Disney films on the head unit lol. I always try and get her involved she even helped me paint the callipers. She wanted me to show you guys the picture she took of the car yesterday.

A few months ago I had a chat with a few people here about after market wheels and every one was very helpful. I've decided to start a new thread on this rather than dig up an old one just to keep it fresh. Any ways the reason its taken 3 moths to get back on this is because I fell in love with a picture I saw of a graphite IS250 with a set of WORK Emotion CR-Kai rims. Those would look saweeet on my IS200 I thought so started to search for a retailer who stocked them. Turns out they're kind of a special order thing and I had to get them imported from the USA who in turn would have to import them from Japan. This took almost 3 months, but they're here now and finally got them fitted this morning. I went for the 18" x 7.5" et 42 in matte gunmetal and had Continental Sport Contact 5's 225 40 R18 fitted. This combo seems to fit perfectly on a stock IS200. I don't get any rubbing when going over bumps or at full lock. There may be a bit of room to lower the suspension but I don't intend on doing that. The down side to these rims is they don't come with any centre caps. The centre cap bore for the Cr-Kai is 70mm and I could not find any universals that would fit. So I bought some 75mm piping end caps that would fit this 70mm bore of ebay for a few quid. I cut off 2 ridges so they would fit properly as the full length hit against the spigots. I found a paint code for these rims off another site and had a spray can made up. But after all that effort I decided I preferred the uncapped look better. I got some blue Rays lugs and blue caliper paint to finish off the look. I found some Lexus calliper stickers off ebay too. So all in all quite pleased with how my IS200 looks with the CR-Kai Rims

Finally happy to report I got my IS200 back yesterday morning. Seems to be running smooth and happy to be able to drive it again.

Hello sorry for the late replay been busy with easter holiday and what not. Any way since my last post the garaged has requested a diagram of the rear suspension from Lexus Poole. They kindly sent one across but it took yet another day for the garage to act upon it. In the mean time I personaly spoke to the parts guy at Lexus Poole who was very helpful and was able to put up with me phoning up every day to make sure the garage had been doing what they had said. It was the easter Saturday that I finally got a price. As the parts man at Lexus told me to expect, the hub along with a new bearing needs replacing, along with 4 other parts like the wishbone arms and so on. Total price for the repair is about £1500. I know from speaking to Lexus the bulk of that price is actually the cost of the parts. I'll need to use the spare wheel for now as the existing one is no good. Probably get one from ebay. I tried to get the insurance company involved but a day after starting the claim I had to call them back as I did not get a call from their claims team. They said that they would have to take the car away some where else and decide if it was a write off or not. I thought bugger that so canceld the claim. Though the message obviously didnt get passed through because I got a call from the garage this morning as a lorry had arrived to cart it off. I said tell them to bugger off I canceld that claim days ago. So as it stands I'm going to pay for it myself, the parts should be here by Friday and I should hopefully be on the road again shortly after that. Its an expensive repair but its only done less than 55k. If I had got it written off I would be hard pushed to find another like that for the price I paid.

Well I had to hire a car today as I need to keep mobile because of various commitments: Any way during lunch I drove up to the garage where my car had been recovered and no one had checked it out yet. Though the guy at the front desk was already talking about sourcing a new wheel from Lexus. So it's beginning to sound a bit expensive already. I was told he would try to get someone to look at it in the afternoon and they would give me a call. I was real busy this afternoon and was well after 6pm before I realised I hadn't got that call. So with this talk of sourcing a new wheel kinda makes me think they're gonna try and pull one over on me. The spare wheel in the boot is still good and I'm pretty sure I can get a cheapo space saver from somewhere just to keep me legal for the time being. I've seen full sets of refurbished Lexus alloys for about £400 without tyres. So I'm wondering about the other parts that you guys mentioned and how much they would cost from one of these parts companies. On the assumption that it is only those that need replacing, how much would they cost and what would be a genuine labour cost that I could expect? I've only had my IS for 3 months and only has 54k on the clock so I kinda want it back in working order rather than being written off. I'm feeling really quite depressed about it all to be honest.

I gave them a call yesterday afternoon but no one had got round to looking at it. I guess I'll find out on Monday but spending the whole weekend not knowing the situation has been doing my head in.

Yesterday afternoon I pulled out of a wet round about a little quick but not much quicker than usual. I lost the back end of the car and it span 180°. Though a bit shaken no one was hurt but the car had hit the kerb and the rear drivers side wheel is now at an angle. I had to get the car recovered which was a bit of a task as the car always wanted to steer from the back. Any ways I've still not heard what the exact damage is or how much its going to cost. I looked behind the wheel it didn't look like anything had snapped off but that's as far as my observations could tell me. I know without seeing for your self its hard to tell, but has any one had any experience of what parts are likely to be damaged and the likely cost. I'm sure I'll find out from the garage this afternoon but yeah gutted!

Hi Ally thanks for uploading those pics, makes me want to go for it even more! Love the look of your IS. I can see by your signature you've done a lot of work to it. A friend of a friend has some 2nd hand CR-Kai's 18x7.5 with a 42 offset which should also fit. But I prefer to buy new plus 18" tyres cost more. I said I would take a look any way. Either way looks like I'll be upgrading real soon, I got in contact with my insurer to ask about their policy on modifications. Its gonna put the price up but not by much, best to be safe than sorry for such a small increase. I'll upload some pics once its done.

Some pictures would be great if you can sometime :)

Thanks for the reply guys. Hey ally just noticed you have the rims I was first looking at but I figured 8" might have been too wide. How do you get on with the OZ ultra's could I get away with the 235/45/17 on the rear wheels?

Hello The stock alloys on my Lexus IS200 SE are looking a bit shabby now the bubbling has gotten worse and there's a load of curb marks from the previous owner. So have been looking into getting them changed out for something new. I want to keep the rims 17" but maybe make them a bit wider. I've been looking around and I found a set of OZ's that I like: OZ Superturismo Le Mans Graphite Alloy Wheels 7.5x17 Offset 45 Rim Width 7.5J http://www.ebay.co.u...=item5ae83d8b7c I looked at a chart that said the 7.5 rims could fit tyre widths between 215-235. So I was hoping to fit a pair of Eagle F1 225/45/17 on the front and 235/45/17 at the rear. Would this work out ok on a stock IS200 without rubbing and the need to mess about with the wheel arches? I'm not planning to lower the suspension or any thing like that.