Mattj

The amount of police around is quite amazing, in Englefield Green there were some in black combats with machine guns! Outside my house there has been at least half a dozen on the road stopping cars for the last few days. The other night they were making a right racket chatting away in front of my place, was very close to popping my head out the window and asking them to pipe down as I was trying to get some kip! Not really sure if I should be worried, or feel OK as I should be as well protected as you can be under the circumstances....

I went to Lexus Bracknell, I think there have been discussions before about price variations between dealers, where did you go? I am very suprised for any manufacturer having price variations of double for servicing in one country!

My 10k service was half that, without including my gold discount, sounds like you were had....

Perhaps your passenger should watch their diet, too many beans perhaps.....

I once drove a white diesel mondeo estate that was a pool car at work, probably one of the worst things I have driven in my life, absolutely no low down power at all, and it wouldn't even let you change into 1st if you were moving even slightly, design feature apparently!

Duff, I have a slightly newer IS200 than yourself, so yours might not be the same, however when you want to put a CD in, there are orange lights that flash on the side of where you put the CD into and the display will be saying something like "wait", when its ready to accept it they flash green and the display will say something like "insert disc". The dealer said its very important no to try and insert a disc before its ready, therefore when you are talking about delays, I hope you are following this advice, as perhaps if you haven't been it could explain some of your problems in the past!

I generally don't like hatchbacks, would never want to buy one myself, however I would say that the A3 is by far the best looking one. My parents have one thats a few years old, not too bad to drive, interior is OK too, Audi don't really make bad cars, but they can be a bit bland at times in my opinion, and the style of the TT just doesn't agree with me.... As far as the beemer compact goes, its just a stupid looking car!

I have a sport, and I was fine in the snow recently, although admitedly it wasn't deep near me (would have given up if it was), traction control seemed to work a treat, and doesn't really kick it that often. I was actually wondering if the LSD was helping matters as I certainly didn't seem to be struggling as much as other people were!

Ifraz, its bad to hear that Halfords haven't been good to you, my nearest ones are Slough and Staines, I would say that they have always been very helpful in both shops. When it came down to the wipers, they let me open the packets to inspect them, said that if they didn't fit I could have my money back, offered to help me fit them if I had any troubles, pretty good really! With my previous car, once had an adaptor clip break as I was zooming down the motorway in the rain, so that the wiper blade wasn't attached properly, stopped and tied in on with a bit of string, when I went to Halfords the next day they just gave me another little adapor thingy for free!

Tax disk arials aren't new at all, had one on my old car two years ago and it was fine, one advantage is that its generally going to be low down on the windscreen, so don't need to run the cable so far. In my IS200 they fitted a small flat stubby arial that was just taped up near the rear-view mirror at the top of the windsreen, pretty hard to notice it. Both seem to work just fine, and are quite subtle, probably not much difference in perfromance between the two types, the place that did my lexus didn't even do the tax disk type. If by the bee sting arials you mean the one that pokes out like the one already on the IS200, then I would imagine they are a lot more hassle and rather noticable, how many arials would you want poking out anyway??? Either way with the car kit you are going to be improving the radio performace of the phone anyway, depends how much you really think it needs improving......

I would go with Ricky on this one, I always find that program really good, makes me think I should have pushed harder too, I think its the way they go about it though, trade-in, extras, overall price, then finance, one of the guys at work here swears by!! Problem I have had in the past is although they really want to make a sale, they don't want you to walk out, I frequently find myself over a barrel as they are selling exactly what I want....

Right thanks a lot for offers of help, L3X JG particuarly, I rang up the shop again, it seems they were a little confused at first as to the price, apparently the lions share of the cost is for the part, very little for the labour. As they are going to be here anyway I am not being hit with the call-out charge, so have decided they may as well go and put it in for me, as Geoffers pointed out £30 did seem a lot for the work, however thats not how it works out. Apparently these cables are generally quite expensive for any car, and they seemed to think that they haven't been available for the Lexus for quite some time. Presuming people are interested, I can let you know what it sounds like after friday....

well let me know when you have found one and where it is, I can type the address into my sat nav and get there easily :P

OK, well thats nice, however I was hoping to get some inspiration before tomorrow as I need to let them know whether to order the part or not if I want them to fit it when they come to do the other chaps car... However having said that I have been reflecting on the subject and not sure I can be arsed to spend any money as the speaker provided with the kit sounds fine to me as it is really

One of my collegues is now getting his nokia car kit fitted by the people that did mine, however he is going one better and not only getting the speakers muted, but getting the audio through the car speakers too. I can't remember seeing this pop up in the forums before, they can supply a cable for the IS200 at a cost of £20, but they want another £30 to fit it, which I think is a lot of chops for that. I thought about trying to do it myself, buy it looks quite tricky and I don't have much experience of that sort of thing, I had a quick look behind the glove box, but couldn't even find where any of the stuff for the car kit has been hidden. My collegue had a leaflet from qubit which makes me think that there isn't a lot of difference between muting and having the audio through the front speakers. Does this sound quite expensive for the part and fitting? Has anyone tried this? Would it be hard to do myself? If I came along to the brooklands meet (which I am thinking about anyway), could anyone lend a hand?

I agree it is expensive, for sure in 3 years time it won't be worth much, so go and buy a 3 year old car with it in then for a bargain! Otherwise if you are prepared to spend about 20k on a car, which is a lot of money, then stretch a little more and get the sat nav! Regarding using other systems, the newer DVD based systems in the is200 do have all of europe in them. Its a fairly valid argument for the ipaq route, considering you get a PDA for your cash as well, however its a pain in the bum to remember to bring all its bits with you every time, plug it in to the lighter etc, so much simpler when you just press a button and there it is! I can well understand that not everyone is willing to pay for it, I certainly don't use it every day by any stretch of the imagination, however the arguments that I listed were enough to sway me, it might not be the case for everyone.... If you are a poser though its good, everyone who has been in my car is well impressed by the bird I have hiden inside reading out directions for me :D

Lazy is one thing for Bosch, but the Halfords own brand one wasn't listed as fitting the IS300 though! As Zee said though, the guy let me try them, said I could take them back if need be, was a very helpful chap. He also said that what can trip you up is the adaptors, so Ricky is on course in that even if it is the right size, if the adaptor is wrong its not going to work, however luckily it did!

Blum - Matthew has described the way it works very well, its downside is that its not perfect and does some rather strange things at times in terms of the route it wants you to go specifically. It may well not direct you the best route at times, but its a lot simpler than other alternatives, unless you have a really good map reader in the car. One thing you can certainly guarantee is that you will never be lost, the route might be funny but you can always decide to go another way instead, but you will never not know exactly where you are! Also bear in mind its a factory fitted option, so once you have made your mind up you are pretty much stuck. Its expensive, but since I was spending a pretty huge amount of cash anyway, I made sure I bought a car that had it.... Best thing to do is take one for a test drive!

Might have been a pun, but I wouldn't reccomend giving up the day job quite yet

Bosch / halfords - how I spent my early evening: went to halfords, according to index of cars, no bosch for IS200 or IS300 so rather disappointed, checked standard halfords product index - IS200 listed, however noted that according to that index nothing for IS300 in that product range either! Looked at packet for wipers, noticed dimensions are on packet, picked up bosch wipers that are same dimensions and fitted to car after talking to helpful halfords dude. So question is - what on earth is going on??? Surely the wiper blades can't be that different between the two cars, why on earth do they think the bosch won't fit the IS200, and what are you supposed to do if you have an IS300??

Not that I would like to see a picture of a bloke with his legs spread like that, for your sake I hope its not your wife Anyway when shopping today and opening the boot I noticed that the spoiler light on my 2002 sport is clear if anyone is still interested in lights...

I have what could be regarded a as bit of a strange request, the thing about my IS200 that gets on my wick the most is the volume control on the stereo. Its just too sensitive, since I drive most of my journey to work on the motorway, I have to adjust the volume every time I get on and off it, but because its so sensitive its really annoying me. Anyone know if there is a way to make it less sensitive, or preferablly make it capable of discrete level adjustments like the knob on the left that controls the other levels???? Cheers Matt

Well those of us with sat nav at least can see where the nearest petrol station is :D Handy for those panic moments.....

Chrispy, I don't know about more people having CDs, but I wouldn't be surprised, the only tape player I own is in the car, haven't got one in the house, in fact I listed to CDs so much I haven't a clue how to operate the radio in the car and haven't ever tried the one thats part of my home cinema set up.... Anyway enough about me being odd :duh: , follow this link for security world, the people that fitted my Nokia kit, finally managed to find the credit card bill they were on!! They seemed like a pretty good bunch, came out to the office during the day and did the job without a fuss.