Dave M

I've got the 'big' service (cam-belt etc.) coming up soon and also I've recently noticed a worrying knocking when turning at full lock... I probably can't afford to use Lexus this year, and was wondering whether anyone knows of any decent independent garages around the St. Albans / Harpenden area that have some experience with GS300s. Has anyone got any recommendations, and also is there anything important that I need to watch out for if I get an independent to do it (things like the type of coolant for example). Cheers

Thanks for that - I'll give them a try.

One of the plastic clips on the windscreen de-misting vent has broken and it won't stay in place anymore. I don't really want to glue it back incase I have to remove it again... Anyone got any ideas on how I could keep it in place and still be able to remove it, or failing that, where I could buy a replacement?

Two things you can try: - There are two drain hoses from the sunroof, which come out by the rear wheels. They need to only just stick out below the bodywork, any lower and they transmit noise into the cabin. - If you look under the car, under the drivers (and passengers I think) footwell, you should see some 'drainage' holes with rubber bungs fitted to them. If these plugs are not fitted, lots of wind noise can get into the car under the carpets. Failing that, it could be a badly fitted windshield. I had to have mine removed and refitted twice because the bonding failed along the lower edge, which allowed loads of wind noise (and a draught!) into the car at speeds of over 40-50 mph. Hope you get it sorted.

I use Toyo PROXES T1-R - they get excellent reviews and I'm very happy with them. Excellent in the wet and fairly quiet - a big change from the stock Potenzas which are a bit too slippy when there's water about. I paid £166 for a pair (delivered) from mytyres.

Hi I've got a pre-facelift Series-II GS300 with Satnav. I had a bluetooth kit installed - the installer used a lead and relay-box which connects into the existing wiring loom. The handsfree uses the drivers side speaker. The box and lead provide an ISO connector which the handsfree kit plugs into. The only thing it doesn't provide is the mute, can be connected to (I believe) a blue wire going to pin 7 of connector S17, on the amplifier. The amplifier is located in the passenger footwell, on the left hand side. The installer put the relay-box and the cable harness in the space just behind the glove compartment - the handsfree unit was put behind the carpet to the right of the passenger footwell (there's quite a lot of space behind there...) I had a bracket installed in the gap between the surround and the stereo, on the left of the stereo (next to the 'audio' control) - it is pushed into the gap and held in place with a double-sided tape, so it could be easily removed without leaving any marks. The installer reckoned there was no problem using the stereo speakers on the GS300, unless you had a Mark Levinson stereo, which didn't provide a mute lead. Hope that helps!

Does anyone know what the service interval should be for a GS300 manufactured in 2000 (it's the pre-facelift version)? The service book I got with the car says 9000 miles (and cam-belt around 60,000 miles)... I thought the 2000 model had a 10k interval and the cam-belt didn't need doing until 125k or something. Any ideas?

Thanks Tony I've PM'd you. Dave

I've had problems with my Series II GS300 since I bought it second-hand a year or so ago (I posted a few times back then) - it was handling like a dog and chewing up the front tyres like there was no tomorrow. Lexus said there was nothing wrong with it and wouldn't do the tracking as part of the warranty cover, so I just put up with it for a year. Recently I took it to Tony Bones (wheels-inmotion.co.uk) over at Watford, as suggested here. He found that the geometry was well out of spec. and sorted it out for me.. it's made a huge difference to the car, no more drifting, no more hanging on for grim death when going over bumpy roads, and it goes where I tell it to rather than meandering off wherever it feels like. Bliss. Seriously - I can't believe what a massive difference it has made. One things he said was that he often saw GS300s and IS200s that weren't properly set up out of the factory - he also reckoned that mine had a manufacturing fault that meant he couldn't adjust it to the factory spec. He reckons that keeping the tyres slightly overinflated should sort it to some extent but I suspect it explains the really fast tyre wear (only on the front) that I've been having. I'm going to write to Lexus and ask if they can sort this for me as I thought there was something wrong with the car since a few days after buying it. What do people reckon my chances are of getting Lexus to pay something towards the extra tyres it's going to get through? Anyway, if anybody has got a GS300 that seems to have a mind of its own, take it to see Tony and he'll put it right.

Could be a cat (not the furry sort) has expired. Had it happen on an old Renault - sounded like a kettle full of bolts when accelerating..

Has anyone else had rattling noises coming from the back sear area of a Mk-II GS300 - on the passenger side? It sounds like something flapping about when going over rough roads. I've had the back seats out and couldn't find anything - it's been there since I got the car and the dealer couldn't fix it... Any ideas (other than turning the stereo up!)?

Hope you get it sorted without too much expense. Let us know what happens!

It sounds as if one or more of the ECMs have been damaged by having the polarity reversed. Often they have voltage regulators inside them which effectively act as a dead short when the polarity is reversed, which is what causes the fuses to blow. You can normally tell if a voltage regulator has gone by the fact that it will be charred black and smell bad. If you're lucky the regulator will have blown the fuse before the rest of the ECM is damaged. If you're really lucky, it will blow the fuse before it gets damaged too. Unfortunately you'd need to take the affected ECM apart to see if there was any damage - I suspect Lexus would just replace the entire module though. Are there any warning lights on the dashboard when you try to start the engine? It's probably worth seeing if you can get a friendly lexus engineer to come out with a handheld tester, they might be able to read some fault codes and get a better idea of what's going on.

It was registered early 2000, it's only done about 36000 miles though. Any suggestions on what sort of shocks to go for? How much difference does gas filled make over oil filled?

Does anything else work in the car? Things like the radio, windows, mirrors, aircon & memory seats? Also, which fuses blew and have any of them blown again since you replaced them?

Has anybody compared the ride between the pre-facelift series II GS and the 2000 on model? How much of a difference do the gas-filled shocks make? I was wondering what could be done to improve the ride on an older GS without spending a fortune - I'd like to make the handling more precise and feel potholes (and small lumps of gravel, if we're honest) with rather less clarity! The shocks seem like a good place to start and I was wondering if anybody has actually tried replacing them on an older series II, and with what results. I've also been having a look at the Prolex braces. Has anyone on the forum tried these? What effect do they have on the ride (especially the GS' tendency to wallow into corners and generally wander on the road). I reckon it must be possible to knock some of the rough edges off the ride and make the GS feel more like the car it should have been!

I think Lexus would do the Yaw Rate sensor repair for free as it's a safety issue although it's pretty likely it's already been done I would imagine. It does sound as if it's the electronic throttle shutting down (there's a physical cable connected to the throttle as a backup fortunately). It's interesting you said that you'd just had the cambelt replaced as they'd have had to disconnect the wiring harness from the throttle body to do that. It might be worth checking the plugs to the throttle motor / sensor etc. are all seated properly and maybe clean the contacts up, just incase some dirt in there or something's loose. Hope you get it sorted without having to inject too much cash!

There was a recall on the yaw rate sensor for '98 GS300s - they weren't properly electrically shielded and could be upset by electrical noise. Apparently it was a problem if people kept a mobile phone in the center armrest. Might be worth checking that your car's had the mod. I was told the symptoms would be the system reducing power and possibly applying brakes on one side.

I've posted about similar things with my 2000 GS300 (17" rims). In the end I got the wheels balanced and put the tyres up to the correct pressure. That's made it a lot better - if you're doing a lot of motorway driving it might be worth putting them up to 34 or 35. The ride's a little less smooth but the difference it made to the feel of the steering was incredible - having the tyres at 30psi seemed to make the car wallow and drift, especially on motorways. It still tends to tramline a bit on bumpy roads - you'll sometimes find it seems to have an unnatural affinity for steering itself towards the ditch and you need to actively steer it straight - I put this down to the fat tyres and I reckon it's just something you have to live with. Hope you get it sorted Dave

Thanks for the replies. The tyres are the stock RE030s - I agree they're pretty rubbish in the wet, it doesn't seem to take much for them to lose grip and all sorts of exciting back end flipping out shenanigans to occur... Any suggestions for something with more grip and a less harsh ride? I noticed in another thread that the Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3 got a good write up. I am a bit worried that the strange handling with my GS300 isn't normal - it's a very harsh ride (can feel every bump) and it's best described as 'confused' - if you hit a bump or uneven road it can end up jumping off just about anywhere. I drove home in the rain today and in some places it was quite hard to see the road, which brought it home just how bad the car is if the road isn't completely flat - it won't drive straight unless you keep correcting it and doesn't seem to react predictably to steering inputs at high speed. I've also noticed that it tends to 'wobble' when joining a motorway - feels as if the car is shaking left and right slightly as I come off the slip road. My wife has said she can't stand driving it because of these problems but she reckons it didn't used to be like this. Any ideas what could be causing it? Could it just be the alignment? I've actually taken it back one already and Lexus said they couldn't find anything wrong with it (hence all the questions before I take it back again) I can't believe it's supposed to be like this. What are other GS300s like?

I've got a couple of months warranty left on my '99 GS SE. There are a few things that worry me a bit about it and I just wanted to see whether you guys reckon it's worth taking it in before the warranty runs out. The ride has always been a bit twitchy with the car tending to tramline and follow the camber of the road - recently though I've noticed that the back end is losing grip at quite low speeds, when cornering in a housing estate for example (eg. a hard left turn at anything above about 15 to 20 mph), or when pulling out onto a main road. The car seems to wallow into a corner and almost feels as if the back end is rocking from side to side - this sometimes leads to the back end trying to overtake the front which is pretty unpleasant! When driving over a bumpy surface the steering doesn't feel very positive and needs a lot of correction to keep it going straight and at high speed the steering seems to float a bit and isn't very precise. The tyres are Pontezzas (17"), with plenty of tread left - the pressures seem okay. At first I thought I just needed to get used to rear wheel drive but now the warranty has nearly run out I'm worrying that there might be a problem with the car. The only other thing is the noise from the engine - with the bonnet up there's a lot of valve noise and sometimes a high pitched squeeking noise (sounds like something needs greasing!) Is this normal for a GS? - I'm a bit paranoid about getting stung for loads of work when the warranties gone! Cheers Dave

Thought I'd reopen this thread... I've got a 2000 GS300 with exactly the same rattling / creaking noise coming from somewhere at the back of the dash. The dealer claims to have 'insulated' everything but in cold weather it always seems to come back. Recently it's started to do it more often, even when the car's warm. I've been lookg at a US website http://www.clublexus.com - there are lots of people with similar problems there but unfortunately no solutions. They reckon the problem is much worse with cars build in 1999/2000. There are some excellent articles on fixing other rattles / wind noise etc. though, if anyone's interested! I've tried everything I can think of - even WD40 down the back of the dash where it joins the windscreen but nothing seems to help. Any ideas? And does anyone know if rattles are covered on the approved used vehicle warranty?

It's fixed! I noticed that the rattle went away if you pulled down hard on the 'lip' at the front of the sunroof, just behind console with the sunglasses holder on it... I took it back to Lexus Hatfield and one of their technicians (Mark) came out for a drive. He reckoned he knew what the problem was and it took the morning to fix it - they had the roof lining out and I suspect drilled out some of the rivets in the sunroof frame (well I suspect that's where the rivet I found on the back seat came from anyway). They did all of this for free as I'd only recently bought it. They've stopped most of the other rattles too while they were doing it and the sunroof rattle hasn't come back since. I'm really impressed - I'd definitely recommend them - excellent service when many other dealers would have walked away from the problem.

I've just found the rattle is still there when the roof is half open - definitely think it's temperature related though, seems much worse some days than others. There seem to be loads of plastic mouldings in the sunroof area that rattle when you push them, I guess it could be any of them. Pushing the sunroof glass up seems to make the rattle less bad although I think it has less effect than it did before Lexus adjusted it... Opening and closing the roof doesn't seem to help unfortunately. Turning up the stereo and drowning it out is a pretty good solution, but I'd like to fix it eventually. There's another rattle from the sat nav area - I think this is one that's been mentioned in another thread - very loud but tends to go away once the cars warmed up a bit. Might have a go at fixing that this weekend... (Hope it won't lead to loads more rattles though!)

I've got a 2000 (pre-facelift) GS300 SE which is completely great apart from an annoying rattle from the sunroof. I know that sunroofs rattle and I've never had a car where they don't, but in the quiet of a GS300, the noise (which sometimes sounds like there's an agitated hamster stuck in the roof) is driving me mad. I've taken it back to the Lexus Hatfield as I've only had it a month or so, and they had a look at it, altered a few things, but haven't cured it. They reckon it's normal for a car of that age and isn't covered by the approved used car warranty. I've tried sticking felt onto the places where the wind deflector comes into contact with the inside of the roof opening, and I've put some rubber dampeners under the center of the wind deflector. It still rattles like a rattling thing. I suspect that the noise is coming from the two 'rollers', where the front edge of the wind deflector is anchored to the inside of the roof opening - but have no idea how to stop it. If anyone has managed to cure a sunroof rattle, it would be great if they could post a note on how it was done - photos would be even better. Cheers Dave