nigel883

Hi everyone, I have just had a set of GS300 mk1 18" alloys refurbished, standard fronts (8.5") and deep dish rears (10"), they look great. The intention is to put them on my 2010 IS220d F-Sport. Any advice welcome, will they fit?? Many thanks- Nigel.

I have just had the timing belt done along with the water pump and bypass hose, spark plugs, oil and filter change, air filter all bought from Lexus Birmingham. All the parts came to about £375 and when I asked Lexus Cardiff for a quote for labour only on the timing belt and water pump with bypass hose to be fitted, they quoted me £320. Phoned my local Toyota dealer, Bassets in Swansea and I was amazed when they came back with a price of £410 - told her that they should be cheaper than Lexus and she then said they may be able to match the price at which point I told her where she could stick it. Wanted someone I could trust that could do the job , so ended up getting my brother-in-law who is a workshop senior technician for a large independant to do all the work and was charged £120 total labour for the timing belt along with the water pump and bypass hose, spark plugs, oil and filter change, air filter. My IS200 has 40k mile and would recommend the genuine parts, but the labour charges are a ripoff, find a good independant and keep the receipt for the parts for any future owner to be assured of the car being looked after.

Fitted an armrest to my wifes IS200 two weeks ago. I've been looking for one for ages and noticed an interior on Ebay from a breakers, the picture showed the armrest but the listing did not mention it, so I gave them a call to see if I could buy it and they supplied it for £129 complete. I did notice that at the same time there was another listing which has now finished for a complete leather interior which included the armrest and that went for £170, but postage and packing was a further £60 - not bad and I would have gone for that if I had the room to store the interior. Just keep an eye out on Ebay as they do come up, but not very often. Very easy to fit the armrest as there is a guide on LOC which I followed and took me about about an hour an a half. Good hunting.

Forgot to mention, the above post is for my wifes IS200 52' plate.

Hi, I have had my new water pump along with timing belt, tensioner and idler delivered and upon inspection of the leak by my mechanic (who's my brother-in-law), the leak that I have is not only from the pump but the thing that the pump is attached to. Can anyone help with the name of this part or a part number as I now have to get one of these along with all the seals/gaskets. Many thanks.

Forgot, all the above are for my wifes 52'plate 40,000 mile IS200 Sport

Well, i've eventually bitten the bullet and ordered my parts, and the cheapest place was with Lexus Birmingham. Emailed them and a lovely women called Jo handled my enquiry, sent me prices and answered my queries. The parts ordered were: TENSIONER (13540-70021) & TIMING BELT (13568-79235) - £87.00 OIL FILTER - (90915-YZZJ3) - £ 9.99 SPARK PLUGS (x6) - (90919-01210) - £40.99 WATER PUMP - (16100-79285) £120.60 IDLER - (13503-70080) £69.75 AIR FILTER - (17801-70050) £19.98 Water pump Bypass hose, gaskets & seals £19.55 Postage and Packing £7.50 Total £375.36 They were cheaper than Lexus parts direct by about £30. Hope this helps anyone who is possibly thinking of purchasing any of the above - Jo's email address is jo.mitchell@lexus-birmingham.lexus.co.uk

Hi, I have most of the part number, the only ones I dont have are the bypass hose and the seal - the following I got from www.lexuspartsdirect.co.uk in december, so the prices would have gone up slightly due to the increase in VAT. Drop them a parts request for everything and they'll send you an email with all the part numbers and prices. Product Name Part No Price Quantity Total water pump 16100-79285 £119.97 1 £119.97 coolant long life 5l 08889-80002 £15.25 1 £15.25 timing belt 13568-79235 £31.95 1 £31.95 tensioner 13540-70021 £58.95 1 £58.95 idler 13503-70080 £61.95 1 £61.95

Seen that you want to put Falken's on your car and I would recommend them. I put two on the rear - Falken ZE912 and have had no problem and they are quieter than the Bridgestones I had previously. Paid £138 fitted and balanced.

I just took my wifes IS200 Sport 2002 in for its MOT and the one thing I wanted was to keep the advisories to nil as with the previous four, but that was not to be. The tester came out and told me that the nearside rear tyre was worn but legal and this was put on the advisory sheet. I suppose its my fault as I hadn't checked the rear tyres - I had checked the fronts a month ago and put two new Bridgestone Potenza's on. I had a good idea that the car would go through its MOT okay as it has only done 32k miles and if that is all I need to do, its not too bad.

Hi, I am biting the bullet at last and doing a few jobs on the GS300 Sport which I have put off for a while. I am firstly going to replace the exhaust from the cat back, and the only price I've got so far is from a local Longlife dealer for £463.00 - is this good or can I get a better price than that. I am then going to replace the shocks and springs all round as I noticed on a trip to Ireland recently that when the boot was loaded up, the rear wheels were well inside the wheel arches and when I checked the difference between the top of the tyre and the rear wheel arch when the car was not loaded, there was quite a difference (one finger one side and three fingers the other) - I can only assume that the springs have gone a little soft. Does anyone know or has anyone bought replacements which they can recommend. Lastly, there is movement in the front wheels which was not even picked up on the last MOT but have since been told are down to the bushes on the suspension trailing arms - the wheels move slightly backwards under braking causing a clicking/banging noise - does anyone know were to get these apart from Lexus. Many thanks for any assistance.

Thanks for that - when I used the car this afternoon the smell had all but gone, but will still give the air intake a spray.

Hi, was wondering if someone could please assist - I have been getting a funny smell coming through the air vents whether it be just the fan or the air con that is on. Today I replaced the pollen filter behind the glovebox and also use a can of air con bacterial cleaner (the one which you place in the rear passenger footwell with the air con on full and recirculating and you leave for ten minutes). Just wanted to know if there were any other air filters I need to change for the cabin air supply, as I went in the car tonite and there was still a smell, but not as bad. Many thanks.

The same happened to key for my wifes IS200 and I bought a key off Ebay and went around all the locksmiths in South Wales more or less and could not get it cut anywhere. Even lexus in Cardiff ( the nearest dealer ) could not do it themselves and was told they are ordered from a central location which is the same for all Lexus dealerships. I live in Swansea and ended up contacting a locksmith business called Caboodle in York ( Telephone number 01904 788346 ). I took the electronics out of the key and sent it to them and they then supplied a new key complete with casing which had the lexus logo on the back and cut it, then phoned me to pay over the phone with my debit card, and they then posted it out first class all for £31.00. When I received the key, just popped the electronices back in and worked a dream. I have noticed that the spare key which I use for the wifes car is starting to go the same way with cracks in the casing, so will be getting another one soon. What they told me on the phone was that the machine used to cut the key was so expensive that they will only cut thier own sourced keys as there are a lot of blank keys being sold which have been produced in China and the steel composition isn't the same which may damage the machine when cutting. For £31.00, I was delighted and ended up selling the blank I had bought on Ebay, on Ebay.

Hi, I have just renewed the insurance on my wifes IS200 Sport and even though I got cheaper quotes on Confused.com, I ended up taking it out with Tesco for £307.00 as there was a free pressure washer included. I think the cheapest quote I got on Confused was about £260. That was with full 6 years no claims and no points/convictions, but declaring that I had a 'Not Drivers Fault' accident last year where my sister-in-law drove in the back of my GS300 Sport. We even took out the Protected No-Claims which we haven't in the past as there as so many uninsured drivers out there and did not want to lose the NCD we'd built up. The one thing I couldn't beleive was that Tesco wrote to me to arrange the collection/delivery of the free pressure washer and I decided to collect, but then changed my mind and opted for delivery and had it delivered a few days later. I then had a call from Tesco to come and collect, so ended up with two free pressure washers - result.

Hi, Just had my aircon recharged on my GS300 Sport mark 1 by Kwik-Fit - cost me £45.00 and what a difference. They take the temperature of the garage, the temperature that is coming through your air vents and then once they have recharged the aircon they take the temperature from the air vent again. The day I went the garage was 24 degrees and my vents were pumping out 42 degrees - but with the recharge the temperature went down to 10 degrees. You get a report to show all the figures and I stayed with the car while they did all the work which was about 40 minutes.

Hi, I had an accident last year when my sister-in-law drove into the back of my GS. I was insured with swiftcover and even though it was not my fault and the other party admitted liability, my provider was expecting me to pay the excess and I would lose 2 years no claims bonus. Before I went through my insurance, my sister-in-laws insurance provider contacted me and they recommended a third party firm called HELPHIRE, and this turned out to be the best thing I could have done as they arranged to take my car in to an approved local repairer and cover the cost of all the repairs to my car along with delivering a like-for-like replacement car the same day - I got a brand new IS250 with multimedia and sat nav/reversing camera, the works. My car took two months to repair as some of the parts came from Japan so was well chuffed with having the IS for that time - if I would have gone through my insurance I would have ended up with some crappy little courtesy car from the repairer. HELPHIRE highly recommended - the only thing to make sure is to take out the indemnity policy with them which cost me £10 and this covers you in the event that they cannot recover the costs from the other insurer.

Hi, my wifes key disintegrated and I have bought a spare from Ebay, but have taken this to three local locksmiths/key cutting establishments and they have all said they are unable to cut the blank - it needs to be done by someone with a laser key cutter. I contacted my nearest Lexus dealership ( 40 miles away ) and they said that they can only do it if the key is bought with them which includes the transponder costing £90 and a further half hour labour for programming the key - total of approx £150. I have now resorted to finding a firm that uses a laser key cutter, which is in North Yorkshire, but he will not cut the blank I have but will supply a blank key with three button casing cut for £29.00 plus delivery costs. Obviously I'll have to send my broken key to him first, but once he receives it he will cut it and then phone so that I can pay by credit/debit card. I would not bother buying a blank off Ebay as no-one will cut it for you.

My wife has got the IS200 and it's got 25,000 miles on the clock and it's on a private plate but registered on a 52' plate. Full service history by previous owner and HPi confirms this. Travelled a long way to get a low mileage car and as the wife only does around 4,000 a year, the car should stay that way.

I had the same problem with judder under braking on my GS300 and the simplest way to find out is to take your car into your local MOT station and ask them to put it on the rolling road. If you have a warped disc, it will show up on the display as the needle will go back and forth. Dont forget to do the back wheels as well as the front. In my case it turned out to be just one disc on the nearside, but always advisable to change in pairs, which I did along with new pads and this was carried out 6 months ago and no problems since.

The aerial on my mark 1 GS300 Sport only goes up half way on some radio stations, but I found that if I tune into Radio 2 then the aerial extends fully.

My wife is the registered keeper and I arranged insurance on her IS200 Sport 2002 with full no claims discount through Kwik-Fit Insurance and it came to £288 fully comprehensive. Included in the deal were two vouchers, one for a free MOT and the other for a free oil/filter change. On my GS300 Sport 1998 with full no claims I have just swapped my insuance to Admiral and it came to £320 and going through the TescoCompare website I got 1000 Tesco points included.

As chrisis200 mentioned, doing a HPI report can clear up any confusion when buying a car and also protects you up to a certain value if something they have quoted in thier report is actually wrong. With regard to the company HPI, they charge £19.00 or thereabouts for the report but HPI are owned by the RAC and if you go onto the RAC website and ask for thier vehicle check which is exactly the same as the HPI report, RAC only charge £5.00 - bargain. This is what I did when I bought my IS200 Sport 4-5 weeks ago and will definitely use the RAC vehicle check again.

Congrat's on your new IS200 Sport. Picked mine up last Monday and it is also in Platinum Ice - great colour. I am chuffed to bits with mine and the unbeleivable thing about it is that it's only got 24,000 miles on the clock and it is a 52'plate, but have changed that over to my private reg. Have been thinking of painting the calipers myself. All the best.

I had a wobble on my '97 GS300 Sport and it turned out to be a warped disc on the near side front - had both replaced last week and the car is a lot better. Turned out that while the work was being done, the mechanic noticed that the bushes on the lower suspension arms had gone and I have ordered these and will be replaced next week - but had to replace the front tyres as they had worn on the inside edge due to this. Just like you, I'm skint Nigel. As for insurance, I currently use Swiftcover and they charged me £360 for the year fully comprehensive.