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The first prototype has arrived and looks very good, needs a couple of tweaks prior to actual production the throttle body end is a little too tight for comfort and we had a little miscommunication around the oil breather stubs, so these are likely to change to aluminium.

Grom audio is your best bet for bluetooth audio retrofit costs about £130 but well worth it.

Hey Lee, Love the GS. Coming from a diesel jeep, really enjoying how smooth and quiet the GS is. Can see that the car was made with comfort in mind. Thanks for the advice on the A/C - I tested it out earlier and there actually is a small bit of a musty smell but nothing serious. I'll be looking at this next week. Was that the only issue you've had so far? Small update - checked the car out earlier, and it seems like the smell is the strongest in the boot which is quite strange. No inherent foul odor coming from the exhausts. Anyone ever experience this previously? Can the smell be coming from the batteries? Hybrid system seems to be working fine, and batteries are charging well. Thanks, D.

That's my aristo [emoji16] I'm not a gold member so couldn't advertise it on here, that pic got it some interest but no buyers The original Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

I'm looking for a better hiding place so can you tell me what your special secret place is so I can get some ideas ? And what was your Reg number again?

The battery I used was not an AGM. The particular battery was a sealed deep cycle marine leisure battery although it would be reasonable to fit any lead acid chemistry battery. There are AGM batteries sale on Ebay, but they tend to be more expensive. I did notice a BMW, Range Rover start stop AGM at 85 AH priced at £65 for a 1 year guarantee or £97.50 for 5 year guarantee. These are slightly shorter batteries than the battery I fitted at 310 mm against 330 mm, but would still need the tray modifications. If you wish to use an AGM battery I would use a "mobility" battery of 110/120 AH capacity There is no reason to use an AGM battery in the GS range since the battery is in the boot, and there is no chance that in an accident car occupants are going to get covered in acid. The OEM battery does not appear to be an AGM, and had no markings to show that it was. In the case of the Lexus CT200h, and the Prius where the battery is in the passenger compartment "although well covered" it is perhaps desirable to have an AGM battery with no free liquid acid to spill. Using a higher capacity battery means that any given number of AH's discharged against the 70 AH OEM battery the % discharge figure "depth of discharge" will be lower. The shallower the discharge cycle the longer the life of the battery. John.

The bushes , one on the cross member was a little loose so it may have been that but wasn’t but the bush on the offside rear wheel that was the problem. Smooth and quite now.

I have had a long string of BMWs (company cars and also cars purchased myself but used on business) before moving to Lexus (which I purchased myself but use for business) - including more recently a BMW 330i and going back a few years the legendary BMW E39 528i (I put 200k+ miles from new on that car I liked it so much). Much as I liked driving all the BMWs I had become rather bored with them - as the generations moved on it felt like same old, same old. After a lot of consideration about what I could change to, I decided to make a break and go with something left field and take the plunge into hybrid with an IS 300h. I was sold on the IS 300h after a 24 hour test drive (I bought a 2 year old used one from a Lexus dealer to get into the car quickly and also in case I wasn't convinced longer term to minimise losses). Yes it hasn't quite got the raw power of my previous 330i and the E-CVT is a little different to the conventional auto (but not in a bad way IMO), but for everyday driving (so not lapping the Nürburgring!) which let's face it, as you live in the south of the country like me, other then the very odd occasion, is a life full of road works and traffic, it is one of the best cars I have driven. I liken it to my E39 528i for the serene way in which it just eats up the miles in silence and comfort - more of well mannered and nicely handling long distance tourer than a point and squirt. I look forward to undertaking long journeys of a few hundred miles again now and get out at the end still feeling refreshed - similar journeys were starting to feel tiresome in the BMW 3 series (to which the IS 300h compares - not sure how a new BMW 5 series would feel). In terms of my best cars ever I now have the BMW E39 528i and the IS 300h in top slots! I had a Mercedes C class for a couple of months last year as a hire car (due to an accident in mine meaning it was in the repair shop for quite a while) and I was so glad to get out of that car and back to the IS 300h - the Mercedes just did not live up to any expectation I had of the brand. And I have a colleague who has had a couple of recent BMW 335d's - again a lot of raw power but just sound so agricultural - and the stop-start system was just tiresome. On your question of the foot operated parking brake, like Bruno it really isn't needed much as the car has hill start assist which works perfectly and on the flat I also just leave it in P (as I used to do with conventional auto boxes) - I only use it when parking on a hill and then it works fine. Simply press to engage it before moving into P and press again to disengage with right foot on the foot brake while in D or R and ready to move off (hill start assist holds the car once the parking brake disengages and you move from the foot brake to the accelerator). As you have a 3 day test drive that should give you a chance to feel the car in your normal driving routine. With a short test drive it's all too easy to drive the car in a different way to day-to-day and then take away a wrong impression - and this IMO is where a lot of the journalist reviews fall foul and why the IS 300h tends to drop some stars for the drive train as they generally expect every car they test to compare to a track car... floor the throttle everywhere! Whether you love the IS 300h or not will to a large extent depend on your driving style and needs and so assess it against that - if that's like lapping the Nürburgring assess it on that, if it's soldiering along the motorways and A roads in long distance driving comfort or stop-start through the cities day-after-day assess it against those criteria. Good luck with the test drive.

I moved from a 2013 F31 320i to an IS300h Exec (now have an Audi A4 tdi btw) and here’s my pros and cons: Pros Better quality interior. More relaxing drive. More luxurious and upmarket feel,even compared to my Audi. Very smooth around town. Much better standard audio system. Great dealers. Petrol engine so no need for Adblue (PITA) or feet covered in diesel. Very quiet at speed. Very reliable. My bmw broke down and had loads of trim issues and road noise was terrible. All I had on the Lexus was a buzzing cup holder. High quality paintwork. Sound insulating glass as standard. Very economical, averaged around 46mpg in mixed driving. Good standard kit : keyless entry, folding rear seats (Audi also have this), folding mirrors. Cons Expensive servicing. Felt a bit unstable at high speed (probably a good thing as it made me slow down on the motorway) Not enjoyable to drive on a country road.....just relaxing. The gearbox is not really connected directly to the wheels (eCVT) and doesn’t compare well to the 7 speed ZF auto that BMWs use. However, that does make the Lexus super smooth. Infotainment is way behind but tbh, that is probably a good thing as there’s too many distractions in modern cars. High depreciation and dealer pricing for used is way too high. Check the price against webuyanycar and you may be surprised as the premium is often 4K above the trade in price. I’ve looked at going back to an IS a couple of times as they’re very nice, compared to the BMW, and the foot brake is no problem I only used it twice in a journey due to the hill start assist. Reading the above list, looks like I’ll be looking at one again soon as diesel rattle is jarring. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There is a sealant on crankshaft to keep oil inside an engine block 🙂 It should be quite far away from where bolt is as you got pulley between them. Here is example photo form some Lexus engine: If nothing will work I would try to heat up the bolt. Before heat will propagate from bolt to crankshaft and then seal you got some time as those are quite chunky piece of metal. Seal itself should be fine with a bit of heat as it is keeping hot oil inside plus there is some friction with rotating crankshaft. Of course don't go crazy with blow torch. Start slowly and monitor temperature next to the engine. Eventually if you are afraid of open flame next to engine especially if space is tight - you don't want to start fire from any oil leak - you can use heat gun. Those can reach 500C plus temp too.

Car is 10 years old. If the rust at top of the windscreen is coming from behind and not surface it's worth checking if it is covered under the anti perforation warranty as a repair in that area could be very expensive as the windscreen will possibly need to be removed /replaced. Also rust there may affect structural integrity of car.

Toyota spent years selecting leather from cows kept in barb-wire free environment (no scars). Get Yamaha to select special wood....... But they STILL paint cars black! Lots of good work here though. I found a great low mile (original) Smart Forfour recently. It was ....black! Still looking......

It was for a while, and then the land crabs sued for diffamation. Sent from my LG-H930 using Tapatalk

I will be looking to replace my GS450 for LS500h in 2020/2021 area. Hopefully early models will drop to 40k area. Luxury trim on LS will be something like premier on GS. Both cars got almost the same engine and LS and got similar feel on the road. Where LS is a bit more on comfort side rather than GS trying to be more sporty.

So Friday was meant to be new car day but there was a problem processing the paperwork. Sooooo tomorrow should be new car day. Also paid for the Nextbase dash cam. Cant wait to pick it up 😬😬😬

was this it Dan?

And so are the bums!

I leave my keys by the front door, if they are that keen to have my car and break in, I would rather they do that without disturbing me and the missus