Silly Questions

[Nick US]

Hiya

I finally got to signing up after living with my 2001 IS300 for almost year. In that time I have gathered various questions, that some surfing around the forums didn't produce an answer for (maybe I just didn't look hard enough )

1) My CD player seems to work fine (none of the ERR3 stuff that everyone else has), except when it's cold. Then it gives me ERR1 on all six CDs. So in summer I can enjoy CDS, in winter I have to do without. Why ?

2) The cassette player also seems to be seasonal. When cold it ticks whilst playing a tape, in summer it is perfectly happy. What is going on ? ps winter here is really cold - the IS often sits outside at work at -20C, so has plenty of time to cool down.

3) The auto gearbox seems to get caught out sometimes. My biggest gripe is when powering away from lights at about 3/4 power, then when I come off the gas at about 45mph it suddenly upshifts and gives a big whack up the a**. Mostly this is just a bit uncomfortable, but once on a wet road it kicked the back end out enough to almost hit the SUV I was undertaking at the time. Luckily the TSC just caught things in time. Does anyone else have this ?

4) Does anyone else find that the headrest doesn't have enough backwards adjustment ?

5) Finally how often do you change your oil in the UK ? Here in the US I keep getting told to change every three months or 3000 miles. This seems nuts to me when using a decent oil. But most of the oil sold here is mineral based c**p originally formulated by Fred Flintstone that I wouldn't even use to oil my kids bike chains. I've currently had Mobil 1 in for almost a year/6000 miles, and it still seems like new. What does the Land of Sense say ?

[dazz32]

Hi welcome to LOC..

As in regards to the oil well the service is every 10,000 miles or 1 year.....i believe its fully synthetic....as you are using good grade oil anyway just change it in another 6,000 miles or 6months time..... a thing i used to do to my old car before my lexus, was to change the oil every 6,000 miles anyway but that had done over 100,000 miles just something i used to do.

[Nick US]

Thanks for the confirmation of the 10000 miles. That's what I was used to with all my cars in the UK, then I got used to 15000km as standard in Germany. Now everyone here in the US keeps telling me 3000. Even my independent Lexus repair place wanted to tip in mineral rubbish last time, only admitted to knowing what Mobil 1 was when I threatened to bring my own oil in, and then still insisted on slapping a "oil change due in 3000" sticker on the windscreen. Eventually you begin to doubt yourself...

Does no-one else have problems 1-4 as well ? Do I have a uniquely erratic IS, or is it something to do with me ?

Nick