New Member With Is200!

[Bruceis200]

Hello There!

My name is Bruce, I am located in Buenos Aires, Argentina and I buyed an IS200 with 50.000 Kms on it.. its in very good shape and mechaically prefect!

The deal was that this unit has some electrical problems and i registered the forum to see if I can get any help from you guys!

I am a electronic technical (or electrician,?? ) and feel pasion for cars and mechanics.. In our familly we have an GS300 and now this beautifull is200.

here are some pics of my ride...!

Only 13 units were sold in Argentina so its like a exotic car here! Its a shame lexus isnt any more in my country.. so Its very difficoult to find information about this car. (toyota dealers dont have much clue about this beauties)

I hope I can share my experience with other cars and get some advice from the forum and also improve my writing as you can imagine English is not my natural language.

I will write a post in the lexus is200/ lexus is300 section to see if I can get these little problems solved..

Thanks in advance..

Bruce.

[IHgs300]

Welcome to the club Bruce, sure someone will be able to help with your problems.

[petayV8]

wow it looks bran new! welcome. any interior shots? do they cost alot over there?

[HoodRich]

Wow! That car looks brand new! What a fine example of an IS200! And only 50000kms ! Bruce - you are the luckiest guy on this forum ;-)

What kind of electrical problems does it have?

[ChrisIS200SportTTE]

Great looking car. Welcome :)

[Bruceis200]

Hello!

Thanks for all the answers!

Here in Argentina the cars are in some ways much expensive than other countries. The trick is that here we have restricted acces to foregin currency as there is a very strict fiscalisation of the economy and money transactions. That give us a black market of dollars that difers a lot of the "oficial" currency parity between pesos and dollars. So its a little tricky to stabilsh the value of the car.. LOL

But to give you an idea.. this car cost me something like $10.000 Dollars (mix between the two dollars price).

The car has 50K on it, and it was always attended in the official Toyota dealer`s shop.

So i have record of all the issues that were none till 2012.

Last year, apparently (talking with the last owner), the car was in a garage affected by a little flood and humidity enter into the car and generated some electric problems.

I checked all the harneses and wiring conditions are perfect. All the electric wiring has not been touched at all .... but when i bought the car it cames with the following problems:

1) The passanger power window not functioning.

Cause: Motor was "stuck" as the mechanical system was jammed.

Solution: WD40 and some little hits of my rubber hammer

2) Front low beam Lights didnt work

Cause: Problem with the rear fog light switch

Solution: Contact cleaner for the switch

3) Stereo doesnt work

Cause: Faulity unit (does not power on, and too complicated and old to waste time on it).

Solution: New stereo, Also discovered that the stereo comunicates digitally with the power amp so I need a special intarface (TYTO-01 harness)

4) Inalambric unlock/lock system doesnt work

Cause 1: The key runned out of Battery

Solution1: Battery replaced

Cause 2: The key didnt work either

Solution 2: Make pre check to analyce if the key is recoginced by the reciever: Status YES!

Cause 3: The pairing procedure didnt work

Solution 3: The problem was in the lock motor of the the driver side. The pairing procedure senses the locking status of the driver door but the procedure said that you must use the central lock/unlock button to make the procedure. Isntead I used the switch of that particular door and the key now works. The locking system and the truck opens and close perfectly. but the lock motor isnt working for the driver door. So I will dis assemble it this weekend and try to figure out why the motor isnt working.. it should be a piece of cake.

5) Climate control "air exit selector" doesnt work.

This isnt solved yet, basically the climate control works perfectly but the servo that moves the air exit doesnt operate. This isnt very important for me yet, so i will analyze this problem later.

As you can see this car have several electric problems, some easy some not. But the car is almost impeccable and mechanically faultess.

As you can imagine i have investigated almos all funcions of the car including mechanical services and repair and i can say the car is very clean. I was told about some of this issues when i bought the car. The last owner had 5 cars, this was like a "spare" for him and when the car started to have this problems plus nobody with time to get things done the car stoped to be used.

Mechanically speaking, I will only change the timing belt for the years that belt is in the car. 10 years can affect the belt almost like Kms..

Oil change will be next month.. and in January i am planing to change gearbox and differential oil as I asume that it is not trusty with 12 years inside the car.

I will post some more pictures later!

Best Regards---

Bruce

Edited November 15, 2013 by Bruceis200