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I RECENTLY BOUGHT A MK1 GS300 SPORT 1996 BUT IT ONLY CAME WITH 1 KEY. THIS KEY HAS NO BUTTONS I HAVE TO OPEN THE DOOR WITH KEY. IT ALSO STARTS THE CAR SO DOES THIS MEAN THIS IS THE MASTER KEY? CAN I GET ANOTHER KEY SORTED? DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW MUCH OR WHERE I CAN GET IT CHEAP? EBAY? I WOULD THINK LEXUS WILL CHARGE £££ FOR IT? IS IT SUPPOSED TO COME WITH AN ALARM FOB TOO?

Shaz your in luck I'm in Essex too. A locksmith on Canvey Island got a blank and cut two keys for my Mk1 and can programme them from the original key cost me £50. Lexus Southend wanted almost £200. I had mine done about 2 1/2 years ago but I'm sure he's still there.

theres a special compound you can wipe the windows with that make water bead up so its more clear to view out from.

sorry i can remember what it is!

It's called Rain X comes in a yellow bottle

That is so true, the motor trade in general has a bad name, yet there are many in it who are totally honest and very competent but the bad ones get everyone else a bad name. What always surprises me is they will be happy to pay someone £50 call out to fix their washing machine, then fork out another £150 on parts and only wait a week for him to come. Charge them £150 for repairs to their car, that they need to get to work to earn money and your robbing them blind.

One more thing to make the 'blood boil'.. The Primary and secondary Geometry has a customer destination?

1: Primary is the 'dumb' customer version

2: Secondary is withheld unless requested and named the 'Technicians version.

very well explained but then you obviously know what your talking about. A lot of tyre shops can't be bothered to do it properly even if they have the right equipment. Or the 17 year old hasn't a clue apart from a rough idea of tracking. I just change all the shocks and lower arm bushes on the Soarer, no way can you get it back to where it was, so it had to have the full geometry set up again. Drives much better now.

A/C hasn't been very good at keeping car cold recently, and it almost sounds like there is something stuck in the ventilation system from the sound of the air coming through the vents.

Car went into service yesterday, thought it would need regassing.

However, pollen filter was clogged up. Now that's changed, AC is ice cold and air is blowing normally.

Just thought I would share in case anyone has a similar issue.

I had same thing, on Ls400 I just bought.thought aircon was not working but filter was changed & now im freezzzzzzzzing!

Does the Mk1 GS have a pollen filter and if so where is it ? I haven't seen one on mine

When I got my GS I only got one key and the valet key . I found a lock smith on Canvey Island who cut me a blank to go with the valet key and programmed another key from my original for £50. Now I have 3 sets of keys. A lot of lock smiths can now read the key programme and reprogramme a new key. I think Southend lexus wanted about £200 for the key and to programme it.

Before I retired I worked ( no honestly I did sometimes ) for Ford, a lot of their customer care like Harley Davidson's is contracted out. Most of the people working for these companies could be doing and possibly are also doing customer care for Hotpoint fridges or washing machines or any other business. Basically they have little product knowledge and at times I thought they were actually there to discourage customers as opposed to help them. After the original Mondeo BBC Watchdog farce, Ford would panic at the mention of Watchdog. I've lost count of the times I've had to go to dealers to look at disgruntled customers vehicles, when all that was needed was for the dealer to do his job properly. 9 times out of 10 the problem can be resolved by doing the job or repair right. The problem is most dealers work on bonus so the mechanics rush everything because they are on low wages, and if the jobs not right it rarely comes back to them. The dealer doesn't care because for the £100 an hour the mechanic gets £10 and they get £90.

Ever notice the service reception is nearly always staffed by women ? that's so disgruntled customers are less likely to shout and swear at them or worse. I remember one snotty bitch at a dealers near Southampton who was rude to me and the customer, so I booked her onto a customer care course at the training school in Daventry.

newport if you can spare the time I'd talk to your local citizens advice and or trading standards. I had some problems with three sofas we bought and the shop was giving me the run around. CAB gave me all the advice and info I needed to screw them. They also told me of how many other complaints they had about them. If trading standards get involved the stealer might just want to make you go away happy. I doubt Lexus will do much I know Ford and Harley Davidson won't until it gets to things like BBC Watchdog.

From the other post and this one it sounds like this "stealer" needs to be avoided. Did it look like they had a lot of work on ? wonder if they were fishing for work.

Glad you got your car back and didn't get ripped off.

Thanks ,very well written

This whole tale from the dealrs doesn't sound right, are you a member of the AA or RAC ? if so I'd contact them and get them to inspect the car before the dealer ripps it apart. Like others have said I never seen a blown head gasket cause an electrical fault, but then I've only been in the trade 33 years.

Has the battery been disconnected for any length of time?

No this problem just came out of the blue, started with a small hick up and got worse fast, Ive been onto Lexus and they are picking up the car friday morning. (cant trust my locals)

My old mark 1 GS did the same thing Lexus fixed it with new plug leads.

I will get them to balance the wheels at the same time as my locals cant seem to do it, Lexus charge £80 for this, they say they must do all four wheels.

Don't take this the wrong way, but your thinking of changeing your car because it has a fault that could be a sensor or plug leads ? If your Mk1 needed leads at 5 or 6 years old is that surprising ? how many miles had it done ? come to think about it how many miles has this GS done ? nothing lasts for ever and don't think a new Merc. or BMW won't or can't go wrong. Anything mechanical or electrical can and will fail, 20 years ago you would have expected it to, nowdays all vehicles are remarkably reliable. My brother in law has had 3 new Ferarri's in the last 4 years every one of them has had some minor fault and none of them did over 8k miles.

It's a good idea to get all four wheels balanced, I find it hard to believe a good tyre shop can't do it, my local one charges £3 a wheel and I've never had a problem yet, although they never inflate the tyres with "that special Lexus air".

I know it's annoying and frustrating when things go wrong, you probably heard me shouting at the Harley dealer earlier in the week :tsktsk: but at the end of the day it's only a minor hick up

Thanks for the reply. I think OBD2 became mandatory in '96. Although mine is first registered in Aug '96, it doesn't neccesarily mean it was built then unfortunately. Is the plug under the dash concealed behind anything or is it obvious if you find it?

That's the problem just about every vehicle has the plug in a different hiding place. Most Vauxhals are in the centre console, Fords hide them every and anywhere depending on model

What year is it ? last of the MK1's registered 98

milage 24k ( I'm worried it's wearing out )

How long have you owned it just over 2 years

came with partial Lexus history DILIGAF

No problems at all ( but after saying that )

I understand how you feel mudz, but all main stealerships are the same. I'd advise you not to buy a Harley Davidson.

Why not take the 3rd one? 5k miles is nothing on a Lexus and IMHO I don't think you are legally justified in rejecting over a paltry 5k miles. And they have offered you the SE-L which is the top spec. Go for it. Life is just too flipping short!!

I can see where you are coming from Cliff BUT if PQuist is anything like me he won't be happy and the SE-L is pre owned even if it was by Lexus. This experience will leave a bad taste and probably the best thing to do is go for another make for a while then try Lexus again next time.

I had a lot of problems with the wife's Galaxy as it got into it's second year. Even though I was employed by Ford at the time the dealer constanly lied to us and failed to solve the problems. Eventually I went to BBC Watchdog, one printed off e mail on the service counter resulted in the dealer rolling over and doing more than I asked.

I'd contact trading standards and Watchdog, Lexus pride themselves on a good reputation, the last thing they want is to be on TV with this sort of news. Even your local citizens advice might be able to help, they will certainly know if others have had similar problems. Even the small claims court which you can do on line can get things moving in the direction you want to go.

I have a Legatto , one of the very last Mk1's. I believe the Legato was the base model with cloth seats, but several dealers had them recovered in leather and fitted boot spoilers. Mine was done by a dealership in Liverpool, who didn't own a drill because they butchered the inside of the boot lid to fit the spoiler. Took me ages to correct it and fit some rubber bungs over the holes. They forgot to remove or disconnect the brake light in the rear window too, so I have one in the window and one on the spoiler.

I have one of the last Mk.1's a basic Legato . I was told the supplying dealer had it retrimmed in leather and fitted ( butchered ) the boot spoiler. Mine has the brake light in the spoiler and one in the window that they should have disconnected.

tap it out from the front and hammer it in dry from behind

Knock out the broken stud, place the new stud in the hole, put a few washers over it so the wheel nut doesn't bottom out and pull it in .

I find the parking brake on my GS difficult to use, but your right dave 1 they will eventually sieze if not used. I always slip mine into N or P when I'm stoped at lights or in traffic. All the time D is engaged the torque converter is trying to creep the car forward cauing heat wear and using more fuel. I know this doesn't make much difference to fuel consumption but every little helps

I changed the Battery on mine and it din't lose the code or pre set stations, guess I was lucky

I had the names of two companies that sell tow bars for the Mk1 GS but they wern't cheap, can't seem to find them at the moment. I know most of the firms like Tow sure don't sell them, think I got the info via a Google search

In fairness, you'd be better off replacing them. If you're getting them out to clean, you're just as well spending £35 on a new sensor and knowing it's in perfect nick.

£35 :o I ordered one for a Yaris today £114 plus Mr. Browns 17 1/2%

So with my filling up at either Croydon, Chelmsford or Pitsea with SUL puts my 300 at risk then.

I put in £30 at Tesco Pitsea last night on did about 20 miles but so far so good

Just that we only supply BP outlets with BP refined fuel. The supermarkets buy from the cheapest available, but as you point out this can easily be Esso/BP/Chevron if there's more than enough in the market. In the case of the contaminated fuel it looks as if it was supplied by their usual supplier, Greenergy, whose main fuels storage facility is at West Thurrock, Thames, but they also have product availabilty in the following locations:

Grays, Thames;

Dagenham, Essex;

Immingham near Grimsby;

Eastham and Stanlow, on the Mersey estuary; and

Kingsbury in the West Midlands.

Greenergy also supply the 99 Octane to Tesco with the additives package.

We were at a wedding reception last night and I was talking to a friend who's a tanker driver and it would seem Tango is corrrect, the dodgy fuel did come out of Greenergy at Furrock ( it's against the law here to use TH ). He said Tesco still ocasionally still get petrol from Coryton but mostly from Greenergy now. I wonder how much longer they will ?

Sorry, but why do you think Tesco fuel comes from BP?

one of my friends was a manager at BP Coryton until last April and my wife works for Tesco, plus I've seen the tankers coming out of there. BBC news this morning claims the affected fuel is from the Esso terminal at Purfleet. As Mike B points out they will get their fuel from the cheapest source, and it's possible Tesco did a deal with Esso recently as BP are in the process of selling the Coryton refinery. My friend was telling me last week he's glad he's out of it, he gets two pensions one from Mobil oil and one from BP. He said some of the workers there will now end up with three pensions.

Back to the BBC they had some expert from who knows what organisation on this morning saying the problem appears to be excess silicone in the fuel and that's what's destroying the oxygen sensors. I spoke to my mate with the workshop last night he said all of the problem cars ran a lot better as soon as they disconnected the oxygen sensors. Probably not a good idea long term as it could / will damage the cat, but for a quick fix and find out a good idea.