FastLemon

Steady on chaps !!! The string method will only give you the circumference of the pipe not the diameter.

Go to the following website to find out how to calculate the diameter from the circumference:

http://www.ehow.com/how_5130961_calculate-diameter-circumference.html

Hope this helps.

Does anyone know of a reputable repairer of plastic bodywork? An unfortunate collision with a large piece of wood (probably dropped of the back of a lorry) has damaged the front spoiler on my 2000/2001 Series II GS300 Sport. It's not badly damaged but the cost of a new spoiler from Lexus will probably cause my car to be written off !!!

Can anyone help? Or does anyone have a secondhand spoiler that they want to sell?

Hi Folks - If you need a new exhaust for your Lexus, this could be useful for you...

I recently needed a new exhaust backbox for my 2000/2001 GS300 Sport (Series II). First off, went to KwikFit. They quoted £400 plus VAT and fitting for each backbox - Ouch !!! Apparently they can't get any aftermarket systems for old GS300s so have to get their exhausts direct from Lexus.

Then I found via the internet, Longlife Stainless Steel Exhausts who quoted £499 (inclusive of fitting and VAT) for a full tailor-made system from the catalysts back. This price was further enhanced by an additional 10% discount if I booked the car in within 14 days. Brilliant !!! Total price £449 !!! Not only a great price but it's backed up by a no-hassle lifetime, fully transferrable guarantee.

Needless to say, I took the deal. They did a great job with which I'm fully satisfied. It's a superb piece of engineering and looks and sounds great too.

Highly recommended. They have fitting centres country-wide - I went to the Birmingham centre.

They can be contacted via their website www.longlife.co.uk or by telephone on 0844 800 2960.

Hope this helps.

Well, Well !!! This topic has certainly backed up my opinion that Lexus Wolverhampton are more than a little expensive. I took my newly acquired GS300 Sport Series 2 to them and the first service bill was near £1400 !!! Ouch !!! :tsktsk:

Since then I switched to my local Toyota dealer who was perfectly happy to do the regular services at well under half the costs quoted by Lexus Wolverhampton. The car has run perfectly and the bills have been similar to the 5 series Beemer I had before.

Like you - I'll never go back to Lexus Wolverhampton.

I'm not sure turning off VSC would achieve anything really. The Lexus GS is a large, heavy car with wide tyres, so there is lots of grip available at the rear that the braking system can use. Combined that with the ABS to allow as much braking effort as possible before skidding, and you have a recipe for worn brake pads.

With compensator systems the rear of the car does very little braking, as only a certain amount of hydraulic pressure is allowed through to the rear calipers to avoid skidding in poor conditions. So this newer method provides more even braking on all four wheels, but still without the risk of skids.

At least rear pads are quite cheap (look for Mintex ones on ebay) and you can fit them yourself fairly easily.

Hi Mike

Thanks for your reply and apologies for the delay in responding. I've been out of the country with only sporadic access to the internet, etc.

I reckon you're right and it's simply using the weight of the car and consequently more bias to the rear brakes. I'll just have to make sure that I check the pad state more often.

As you say, the rear pads are relatively cheap.

Thanks for the advice.

Cheers... Fast Lemon

can you please explain what exceptional means? how many miles before they wear out?

Hi Maneesh

Thanks for your reply. By exceptional I mean that the rear pads were totally worn out before the fronts were even over 50% used !!!

In terms of mileage, I can only guess but it would probably be around 15,000 to 18,000 miles. I am still using the same front pads (they are still ok) and my mileage since they were new (at the same point as the original rears) is now circa 25,000 miles.

I just had a chat with a helpful chap at the Lexus Contact Centre. He tells me, on advice from Lexus Technical, that there is no brake weight compensator fitted on the GS300 Sport - so it's down to the traction control. His recommendation - take it to the Lexus service people. I.e., just what I'm trying to avoid !!!

Regards,

FastLemon

The old Ford Scorpio's wouls always wear out the rear pads before the fronts, and always the outer pad without the wear indicator first :tsktsk:

Can you turn off the traction control ? If you don't drive the car too hard do you need it ?

Although I do drive quite hard, I can turn off the VSC (traction control) but would prefer not to as, during the recent extreme snow / ice conditions of 9th Feb, it worked fantastically well when all others around me were falling by the wayside and parking their cars. Can you tell me what you think switching it off might achieve?

Thanks again.

Regards

FastLemon

can you please explain what exceptional means? how many miles before they wear out?

Hi Maneesh

Thanks for your reply. By exceptional I mean that the rear pads were totally worn out before the fronts were even over 50% used !!!

In terms of mileage, I can only guess but it would probably be around 15,000 to 18,000 miles. I am still using the same front pads (they are still ok) and my mileage since they were new (at the same point as the original rears) is now circa 25,000 miles.

I just had a chat with a helpful chap at the Lexus Contact Centre. He tells me, on advice from Lexus Technical, that there is no brake weight compensator fitted on the GS300 Sport - so it's down to the traction control. His recommendation - take it to the Lexus service people. I.e., just what I'm trying to avoid !!!

Regards,

FastLemon

:duh:

I am experiencing exceptional brake pad wear on the rears of my GS300 Sport (Series 2). Checks have confirmed that the calipers are not seized or sticking nor is there any fault with them (either rears or fronts). My local (and very helpful) Toyota dealer has suggested the possibility of a fault with the "brake weight compensator", but they don't have the capability to fix it.

I am trying to avoid going to Lexus Wolverhampton without some advance knowledge of what needs to be done.

Can anyone shed some light on this? Any help or advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Fast Lemon

:duh:

:duh:

I am experiencing exceptional brake pad wear on the rears of my GS300 Sport (Series 2). Checks have confirmed that the calipers are not seized or sticking nor is there any fault with them (either rears or fronts). My local (and very helpful) Toyota dealer has suggested the possibility of a fault with the "brake weight compensator", but they don't have the capability to fix it.

I am trying to avoid going to Lexus Wolverhampton without some advance knowledge of what needs to be done.

Can anyone shed some light on this? Any help or advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Fast Lemon

:duh:

The bias is not adjustable and the braking force is distrubited via the ABS system. So that will not be your problem

Maybe the rear calipers may be binding or sezed, with the wheel off the ground, do the wheels spin freely?

Hi Paul

The calipers are all fine - all checked by a friendly Toyota dealer. However they mentioned something about the possibility of a fault with the "brake weight compensator" causing unequal braking between front and rear, which they couldn't check. Do you or does anyone out there know anything about that?

Looks like I'm being forced to go to a Lexus dealer for the usual high cost affair!!! :duh:

I hope not...

Cheers...

:duh: Hi

Can anyone shed some light on a problem that seems to be happening on my 2000 GS300 Sport (Series II)?

Both front and rear discs were replaced and new pads fitted in May last year. After a gentle bedding in period, the brakes felt ok but are not particularly exceptional. However, the rear brakes pads wore out far sooner than the fronts, which still had around 50% left. Also, the rear tyres showed significantly more wear than the fronts again, both were replaced at the same time.

Is there any form of adjustment that could explain this imbalance, i.e., bias to the rear brakes? Has anyone experienced the same problem? If so, how can it be fixed?

Hoping someone knows the answer.

:duh:

Beemers have it, but the Mk2 GS300 does not. Get some reflectors from Halfords or AA for a couple of quid.

Thanks Maneesh

That's a bummer

I'll see what I can pick up at Dover.

Cheers... Fast Lemon

Hi guys

I may be going to look at a 97 P GS300 Sport at the weekend and I would appreciate any pointers as to what to look out for on these cars. It has 67k miles, 2 owners from new, full Lexus history and just had the cambelt done. It is described as being in immaculate condition inside and outside. It has the 10" rears with new tyres all around and a new MOT.

I think I can get it for £4.5k, does this sound right?

Any thoughts/advice welcome.

Cheers,

Gavin

Hi Gavin

At that price, it sounds like an amazing deal especially if the cambelt has just been done (coz that costs a bundle). However, I would also check the discs. I bought my X reg'd (2001) GS300 Sport for £11k. It had 66k on the clock and the front discs were totally knackered which the dealer replaced. When I had it first serviced I found that the rears were also around 95% worn - so another bundle of dosh went out of my bank account !!!

Have a good look at the underside and check the exhaust - it's not all stainless steel. The heat shields are prone to rattling.

Good luck.

Cheers... FastLemon

Hi All,

Can anyone advise me how (if indeed it's possible) to set my headlights for European night driving. I have a 2001 (X reg'd) GS300 Sport with HID (Xenon ???) headlights which are self adjusting for level.

On my previous car (a Beemer 5 Series) there was a small lever that was moved left or right to reset the lights for driving on the right.

Does my Lexus have anything similar?

Hope someone can help.

Thanks in advance.

Best regards,

FastLemon

Thanks for all replies to date.

From my Googling to date it looks like tramlining is a "feature" of wider tyres, with some makes particularly worse than others.

Looks like I need to book a session with the legendary Tony "Doctor" Bones of Watford.

Perhaps I exaggerated slightly when I described the twitchy steering as "bucking bronco style" but you do need to actively grip the steering and make corrections when driving over uneven roads. The steering sometimes seems to have a mind of its own when the road is uneven. Even though I haven't been in danger of running of the road, the twitching can be unnerving.

I'll have a play with the tyre pressures as well.

Peter

Hi Peter,

I have a 2001 (X reg'd) GS300 Sport and it's on Pirelli P-Zeros. I have the car regularly serviced and the steering is tracked absolutely as standard. I have never yet experienced any tramlining whatsoever, and the tyres seem very good all-round, wet or dry. When they come up for replacement it will be the same, i.e., P-Zeros again.

I tend to drive quite quickly and the cornering grip is top notch. One very minor point, I do find that it's easy to spin up the rear wheels when making a brisk start in the wet.

I use tyre pressures of 36psi front and rear and it is a bit better than 32psi, more stable and less sense of lateral tyre to rim movement under hard cornering. It hasn't increased the tyre noise which is quite high but pretty much normal for such low profile tyres.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,

FastLemon

Hi all,

Hopefully one of you most knowledgeable folks can help me.

I own a 2001 GS430 Sport (basically one of a limited number of GS430 SE's with the sport styling kit). The car came fitted with 4 x Dunlop SP Sport 9000 245/40/ZR18. The tyres all have good tread and are relatively new but I've noted that the offside rear tyre has two puncture repairs.

Anyway I have handling problems when the road is uneven or rough - unfortunately this is the case with a lot of the roads in my area. Basically the steering twitches like a bucking bronco, and needs constant minor adjustment. If you come to a stop on a sloping road the steering turns gradually in the direction of the slope. The car handles quite well on flat roads and there is no steering "pull" when braking except of course if the road happens to be uneven at the time :)

I did take the car in to my Lexus main dealer, and they checked the suspension and shocks (all OK - phew!) and did a 4 wheel alignment (over £100 quid - ouch!). Though the geometry was slightly out, the alignment has has not cured the problem :(

Now I understand from reading the board and Googling that the symptoms I've described are the classic symptoms of tramlining, and tyre pressures could be the problem. The tyres on my GS430 are all set to 32 psi. The owner manual has a printed sticker in the tyre pressures section which states a recommended pressure of 32 psi front & rear for up to 4 people for speeds of up to 100 mph.

Now I notice from the knowlegebase that the recommended GS300 pressures for 245/40/ZR18 tyres are 35 psi front /32 psi rear for up to 4 people for speeds up to 100 mph.

Before I try these pressures, could any one advise whether they are running 245/40/ZR18 tyres on their GS? If so I'd appreciate if you let me know what pressures you are running at and whether you have any tramlining issues. Is it worth having the repaired tyre replaced?

Any help/advice much appreciated.

On the bright side the tramlining is keeping me honest. About a month back I was treading cautiously along an uneven stretch of the A30 (dug up by the cable TV installers), and I came upon a speed trap around a corner. If I didn't have tramlining issues I possibly may have been issued my first NIP ever! I guess every cloud has a silver lining :D