Mike_B

That's a good point, Parthiban. The OP has a GS430 - which have HID lighting as standard, as far as I know. So yes, would be a like-for-like swap, not much point!! The ad is wrong too - it suggests that 6000k is the recommended road lighting colour, this should be 4300k.

No, they're not the same thing at all. HID bulbs produce their light in a completely different way - they may well both have xenon gas inside the glass enclosure, but a standard xenon bulb still uses a filament which is heated white-hot to produce the light. A HID bulb uses very high voltage electricity to excite the electrons on the gas atoms, which then produce light directly from the gas - no filament involved here. In the standard xenon bulb type, the xenon is used to stabilise the metal atoms in the filament to prevent them boiling off, xenon being both very heavy and almost completely inert.

Ewww, that tongue pic made me feel How did you do it - a series of ever-deeper cuts, or one big snip? Can you anaesthetise a tongue properly (and for long enough to let it heal up on the cut surfaces?) Each to his own, though!

A biot of googling threw up that Is200 calipers and GS300 calipers are the same.........does this hold true to GS430's as well ? Maybe I could use an Is200 brake upgrade kit.........*scratches chin* The whole braking system is the same, at the caliper/disc end anyway. So I can't see why a kit for an IS200 wouldn't fit on there...

Could be a slightly buckled rim, too. Sometimes these balance OK (well, almost) but will cause a wobble. The rim currently sitting in my spare wheel well is one such...

Same reply as I got for my colour. :(

Dunno. But dynomometers measure torque, and then apply conversion factors that 'take account' of drivetrain losses to approximate horsepower and torque at the flywheel. Thus, depending on the conversion factors used, you can get different figures from identical cars when they are measured on different dynos. Not saying the engines/exhausts really are identical in this case, just that unless you know for a fact that the measuring equipment and procedures are identical, you can't read too much into the figures as quoted - especially as one set of figures is expressed in different units.

I've got the double-stitching on the seats in my 430, which is a 2001 car. It also has vent holes in the leather on the main centre panels, ie the central part of the base and the part of the back which is 'surrounded' by the row of stitching each side. No contrast piping though, but I'm not sure what you could use to contrast against pale cream/grey colour. They are damn nice seats, it must be said!!

I think you'll find the US ones are listed as having 300hp, not 300bhp. i.e. they are being measured in subtly different units...

I have, in the past, made a plate out of a piece of wood. With a six inch length of 4x2, I cut out a thin slot on the wider surface that the rail fitted into. That gave a wide area top and botton, and the wood protected the underside of the sills from the sharp edges of the cup on the jack. The slot kept it stable on the car, and the edges of the cup bit into the wood and kept it stable underneath. Worked a treat - wish I could find it again now, it's a lot easier lifting the car with a trolley jack than the scissor one that came with the car!

Seen this before - it's a trojan that does it. First thing you should probably do is take a copy of any important files you've not backed up; stick them onto a CD-R or something. From another computer (ie one that works!) go to here and download the latest version of the program. Save it onto a USB pen-drive or similar. Make sure you download the latest update for it too. Copy these files (ie the mbam-setup.exe and the mbam-rules.exe) onto the hard drive of your own computer. Reboot the computer into Safe Mode - to do this, shut down, turn it on again and then tap the F8 key every second. Although there is a clear-cut window of about 3 seconds in which you need to do this, it's easy to miss it so the most reliable means is to just keep tap-tap-tapping away on the F8 key from the start. You will get a menu that includes the option Safe Mode. Choose this one and let the system come up - this might take a few minutes longer than normal, and the screen will look a bit different once you're in. Find where you saved the MalwareBytes install file (mbam-setup.exe). Double click it and let it install. Then double-click and install the update file you also downloaded... Run the program, chances are it will find a load of stuff. Let it do it's thing and have it remove anything it thinks is dodgy, this will probably include reg keys as well as files.

Mine does it too - though it's not a Mk III model. Seems to only happen when it's both cold and on full lock - I guess on full lock the tyre is effectively being dragged partially sideways, and the cold rubber protests audiobly because it's much harder and less flexible than when it's warmed up a bit!

Weekend without the phone ringing sounds great to me!!

As long as it's fairly quiet (ie you can't hear it if the radio is on) then that's normal. The 'brake assist' system relies on having a reservoir of compressed air available - the system simply charges itself up every few minutes.

Link :lol:

Could be something up with the system that controls revs when the air-conditioner kicks in. When the compressor starts, power is taken from the engine and the revs tend to drop. The ECU then allows the engine to rev higher to compensate for this. If this system is faulty, perhaps it could be applying too much extra throttle and causing a surge?

Yeah that's true mate, trouble is I'm not all that familiar with the sizing used for wheels. I kinda get the meaning of the terminology, but am not quite sure what I'm actually looking for! For example, I've seen that my car has a stud pattern of 5 x 114. i understand that this means 5 bolts are used to hold it on, and I think the 114 refers to the diameter of each of the nuts, but are the holes always the same distance apart? And I know that offset means that the back of the central point of the wheels, ie the part that actually contacts the hub, is the specified distance from one of the edges of the wheel. But I've seen a pretty large variety of offsets and it seems to be up the buyer to know what it is he's looking for!! So would any wheel with a 5x114 stud pattern and an appropriate offset fit? :unsure: Hijacked the thread a bit here, sorry Dave1!!!

The wear on the tarmac is the biggest problem with them - in the UK we tend to get untreated side roads, and fairly clear main roads. Going from one to the other would have you either 1) getting the tyre socks ripped to shreds on the first journey, or 2) pulling over to remove them or put them on again, every time you wanted to join or leave a main road. I suppose it depends where you live - for the guys in the countryside who may have to travel 10 miles to work on icy, untreated roads, they might make a lot of sense. For someone like me, who lives in a built-up area and would be unlikely to do more than a couple of hundred yards at a time on snowy roads, proper winter tyres are a better bet. Also I guess if you are driving to the Alps for a skiing break, you could pop them on once you get halfway up the mountain, and you'd be fine until you can back down below the snowline again. It is my intention to purchase a set of scabby old alloys and fit them with snow tyres, probably during the summer. They should last for years, if they only get a few weeks use every winter, and will be far safer!

Yeah, I've seen those, and also there's chains of course. But the conditions we have right now are icy as hell in some places, and almost clear tarmac in others. Winter tyres cope fine with that, chains/socks are not meant to be used on tarmac and will quickly break (and in the case of chains, probably flail the wheelarches to pieces at the same time). Anyone know if IS200 wheels will fit on a Mk II GS? My gut feeling is they will, since the braking system is identical...

Anyone know a good source for some cheap, spare wheels? Want to put some proper winter tyres or chains on them, and leave them in the loft or garage until they are needed. Don't care if they are kerbed or generally scabby, as long as they aren't buckled... Spent 30 minutes trying to get the car out the car park yesterday, didn't get more than 6 feet backwards, let alone turned out to point towards the exit :tsktsk: Gave up and (eventually) got it back into something resembling a 'parked' position. Would have taken less time to change the wheels over, and would have been a lot safer once out on the roads as well!

Got a foot of snow outside and it's still snowing hard. Bit of a bummer, car was due for service and MOT today but that won't be happening now. It runs out on Friday and I need it to go to Plymouth this weekend!! Looks pretty though!

Nice piece of kit there Aido, the KI signature stuff is superb. Jim, I have an Arcam Alpha 7 CD player, you can pick them up for not much money these days and it will go well with the Arcam amp you have. I'm not sure that CD players of today are really all that much better than CD players of 10 years ago - the technology was already well matured by then anyway. With a decent amp and speakers such as you already have, I'd have thought any decent player would sound nice. If you want to buy new, and you really want to be fussy, see if you can get your dealer to loan you a player for a day or two so you can hear it at home, with your own cables, amp and speakers?

2 aerials? Where is the second one?

You're right, actually. It's not that different now. Will still get it painted though!

If you removed the silver paint down to the bare metal, and then polished it, you'd end up with the wheels we're talking about... It's a mirror finish on all visible surfaces of the wheel.