james2210

Drastic measures....there is a plug in the boot behind the right hand piece of carpety trim which could be unplugged to permanently disable the aerial. Don't think there is an easy way of disabling it just when listening to CD's/tapes cos the RDS part of the radio still uses it even if you are not listening to the radio. I had a pioneer radio in the days before RDS and that retracted the aerial when I was listening to a tape. On my next Pioneer unit that I bought after RDS had been invented, the aerial no longer retracted when listening to tape or CD.

Fuses can be found everywhere.... Engine compartment just above the front left wheel in an oblong box with kind of a octagonal bulbous end on it (oo er missus) By the accelerator pedal On the passenger side in the same place Where abouts in Bristol did you get it done?

No, mine does not seem to do much either. I suppose in a car that quiet, you probably dont need to raise the volume up too much anyway. I drove a Mundano once which had a similar thing and that was really noticable. Just interested to find out where it gets it's input(s) from, and also slightly relieved that there are some other like-minded people out there too

If I try and lock my GS with any of the doors open slightly, it beeps. Maybe it's one of those settings that a dealer can tweak for you.

I find mine particularly useful for checking whether the VSC light on the dashboard still works. With the system switched on, you can supposedly do anything you want in the car and it will prevent you from crashing it. To test it out, I went for a spin down a nice twisty road and kept accelerating and completely let go of the steering wheel. When I came to a corner, the car started braking and turned round the bend as if it was on rails. Once round the other side, it accelerated back upto the speed I was going before. It was so good that I even managed to have a little sleep and the VSC system seemed to know exactly where I was going and I arrived safetly at my final destination.....the hospital.....in an ambulance Seriously though, I think it just applies braking to a wheel if it detects it losing grip and modulates the throttle (eases it off a bit) until the slipping wheel regains some grip.

I took my mother and father in law out for a ride in my old Civic VTi when I first got it. My father in law stupidly asked exactly what the VTEC did. I knew that saying it altered the timing of the engine by way of an electrically operated solenoid which connected the main rocker arms to a third that switched the cam profile to one that had a longer opening duration and lift to create an air swirl in the cylinders would have been like trying to explain how the Honda VTEC system worked to my mother and father in law. So instead I chose a more practical demonstration by selecting a lower gear (2nd) and then VTEC'ing it along a nice twisty road. It was fun to watch my mother in law fumble around in the back of the car trying to find something to hold onto My father in law usually has his car in 5th gear by the time he's reached 15MPH so it came as quite a shock to him that you can rev a car past 1000RPM!

I was having one of my bored stuck in traffic thinking moments today, and being an inquisitive, likes to take things apart, kind of guy, I started wondering how the ASL (automatic sound leveliser) works in my GS300 Sat still in traffic - no nuggets on the display Moving along above about 10-15MPH 1 nugget on the display Moving along above about 60MPH 2 nuggets on the display I noticed that if I drove along at a speed where only 1 nugget was being displayed and then I opened either of the front windows (even just slightly), then another nugget appeared on the display. I therefore deduced that there must either be some sort of microphone to pick up noise, or that the car knows that the window is open. I don't know how the microphone could distinguish between the noise of the music and other noise because otherwise, the stereo would always be trying to turn itself up. Does anyone know how this system works?

Who pays for the police? We do, so why the heck don't they help us when we need them. Rest assured, if you're doing 30.000001 MPH down a section of dual carriageway in broad daylight on a sunny day with nobody else for miles, they'll pull you over and give you a ticket. Some daft drunken renault idiot decides to save on brake pad material by using your hard-earned Lexus to slow himself down and the police act as if he's done nothing wrong. The police in the UK need to have a good sit down with a big box of donuts and have a think about their priorities. Next time you are contemplating phoning the police, try calling Domino's pizza-at least they turn up (eventually). Found a smilie of a policeman without his hat on.....

Correct me if I'm incorrect, but the SE and Sport both come with sunroofs don't they? So what's the problem then? :D

I'd hold your horses if this story in the AutoExpress is correct.... Chancellor Gordon Brown might scrap LPG's 40p-per-litre tax break after environmentalists said it should go to 'greener' sources like biofuel and hydrogen. Good old Mr Brown. I think I might ask him what his bank account number is so that I can get my salary paid directly to him, it would save a lot of trouble every month.

Hows about some sort of rainbow effect? It would either look really B) or really

Spose you've checked into whether you could now extend the warranty for another year (probably cheaper than the repair) and get it done under that?

I too had a squeak on my GS300 which turned out to be the main drive belt that runs the power steering, alternator etc. Lexus Swindon waxed mine which sorted out the problem. I dare say Tony's was also waxed rather than being oiled. From what I can gather, as the belt gets older, it starts to get shiney and glazed, the wax just quietens it down again. You can apparently achieve the same results by holding a bar of soap against the belt while it is running. Sounds like a recipe for reducing the number of fingers if ever I heard one. My dad had a problem with a chirping belt on his old Merc that started about 15,000 miles. The belt was waxed and still showed no signs of breaking or chirping when he sold the car with nearly 50,000 miles on it. The head gasket blew, but that's a different story!

I think you can program them to unlock and lock the doors by remote, but I don't think that they will work in the door or ignition locks themselves because they would have to be re-cut to match your existing keys. I've seen posts here before about how you program the keys, from memory it's something simple like this...... 1-Open all the doors 2-Put a knotted hanky on your head while holding down the brake pedal 3-Tune to radio 2 while operating the windscreen washers for 3.7493 seconds 4-Flash out "I want to program this key" in morse code on the headlights 5-Lift the bonnet and whisper "I want to program this key" three times down the dipstick tube 6-Get back in the drivers seat within 0.22 seconds and the key will be cooked :D You think I'm kidding, do a search on the board and you'll see what I mean!

I don't see LOC stickers, or many places that you could stick them either come to think of it! I saw a really funny bumper sticker on an MGB in the USA once. It read, "The parts falling off this car are of the finest British quality"

Check your membership card carefully. Mine had 3 mistakes when it arrived.... Name spelled incorrectly Wrong car GS300S (should be SE) Wrong expiry date 25 August 2003 (should have been 25 January 2005) I'm not saying that Lexus warranties are like all the others, but usually, if there is any technicality that will get them out of having to pay a claim, they will use it. I also had to get my car re-RAC inspected because the registration paperwork got "lost" between the dealer and AON I've had tons of trouble since I bought a lexus back in December, so much so, that I wrote a letter to Karl Schlicht (MD of Lexus GB). He got one of his executive assistants to contact AON (the warranty company) and it's all hopfully being sorted out now. Looking forward to getting my new warranty card and then never having to use it :)

Cisco can't be beat, you need pretty deep pockets though! SMC barricade routers are reputed to be pretty good for home/home office use.

A friend of mine bought a 2.0SLX Primula from a main Nissan dealer and happily drove it for a year. When it came to renew his tax disc, he studied the form and found that the garage had in fact sold him a 1.6 instead of the 2.0 :iraqi-info-minister: He took it back to the garage and they did him a deal on a 200SX which also came with a free dusbin lid sized gold medallion. At least both his Nissan's had a reverse gear and he also saved 0.4 litre difference in MPG for a year!

I've got some news for you.... That smarmy ex-Beeb presenter Angus Deaton has an SC430 and twice as smarmy Quentin Willson has an LS of some description. Funny, but smarmy is one of those words that the more you say/type it, the more you wonder if it is really a word.

You don't leave anything shiny like keys, change, cd's etc on the seats that could be reflecting sunlight do you? Bit of a long shotbut you never know.

Findit are pretty good. I had a lot of enquries when I was selling my old Honda-nobody bought it but that is another story! They used to let you have a photo for free, but I think they charge about £5 now.

Looks like the Irish Mafia have struck again Apologies to any Irish watching this

I heard that they are losing about £1,000,000 a day. Is that in addition to all the letters, parcels and packages that seem to go astray? Still, can't really complain. Since Monday, we've received about 45 cards from friends and family to celebrate the birth of our first baby. Chuffed to bits does not even come close :D :D :D :D Well OK, perhaps I was not quite so chuffed at 3:30am this morning Waaaaahhh :duh:

I find that the following settings work best.... Music that my wife likes (Birtney Spears, Wham! and Christina Aqualung) Bass-Doesn't matter Mid-Doesn't matter Treble-Doesn't matter Fader-Doesn't matter Volume-0 Music I like listening to Bass-6 Mid-2 maybe 3 for a live Pink Floyd concert Treble-4 Fader-1R or 2R if people with fat legs are in the back (they obscure the door speakers) :D Volume-Really loud I rate how good the music is on the POWER scale. If the line on the volume control knob is below the P on the word power, then it is probably just OK background music. The further up the scale, the better the music will be. For example, I would probably give the extended guitar/drums introduction at the beginning of Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing", a rating of 'W' on the POWER scale!

Just doing some idle surfing and found this on the Japanese Toyota site. Does anyone know where I could get the part number for the surround so that I can fit a double din stereo when mine no longer cuts the mustard?