Dodgydave

I've just had that letter too. Unfortunately I've only just had my car serviced last week, I took Lexus Canterbury up on their offer of 10,000 mile service half price. It cost me £124, the last 10k service I had done was nearly £260. On the free oil & filter change though we had my wife's Yaris T Sport done last December when Toyota were doing the same thing, free oil & filter and safety inspection. I was very impressed, there were no problems reported and no pressure what so ever to have any other work done. Dave.

You would have been better off going to Lexus. I replaced my battery two weeks ago. It cost me £60.01 from Lexus Canterbury (Motorline Toyota) and that was fitted; they also obviously dispose of the old battery too. Dave.

If you don't want to travel too far I would recommend a drive down the coast road from Calais to Boulogne, the D940. There are a number of small villages where you could stop for lunch etc. such as Escalles and Wissant. Just before you get to Boulogne you come into a small village called Wimeraux, I have stayed here before in the Hotel Atlantic. The Hotel Atlantic is quite famous in the area for its restaurant, but very expensive. Wimeraux itself is like being on the French Riviera, with long sandy beaches and a promenade, very nice if the weather is good but can be a bit bleak if it's raining and windy. or There is a small town that I have visited before inland from Le Touquet, called Montreuil. This is a very beautiful little walled town with restaurants etc. Of cause you could always drive a bit further into France, the choice is yours. Hopefully I have given you some ideas. Dave.

Well I managed to find the time to swap my wheels around earlier this evening. First I swapped the fronts from side to side. Took her for a drive and this had made no difference at all, the steering wheel was slightly offset. So I decided to swap front to back, back to front again so the Lexus specific Dunlops are now back on the front. Having done this the steering wheel has gone back to it's original center position, as it was after taking to Tony for th wheel alignment. I haven't had a chance to dive it far enough or long enough yet to see if the wandering back end has come back. I think probably the only long term answer is to swap them back and then get the tracking adjusted so that the steering wheel is straight again. The only thing is I'm a bit reluctant to have this done cause I don't know if I can trust anywhere local to get it correct. Dave.

Don't be fooled into thinking that if you drive a pre-2001 car you are going to get out of higher car tax. I'm sure that once the heat has died off from this present hike they (this government) will start to look at the older cars. All they need to do is seperate the cars ito more bands based on CC and tax the arse off the ones with the big engines. Dave.

Thanks for that Tony. I will swap them side to side as a test and see what happens. I'll keep you posted as t othe results but it may be a little while cause I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to swap them. Thanks, Dave.

I don't know whether anyone on here will be able to help with this, advise, explanation, whatever. I think it's probably a question for Tony (WIM) really. I hope he reads this. I had the 2 front tyres on my IS200 changed in October/November last year as the existing ones were suffering from the usual inner edge wear. I bought 2 Dunlop SP9000, the Lexus specific ones, and direct replacement for the ones that were on. In December I took her to Tony at WIM and had the wheel alignment done and I must say everything that I had read about him and his service was so true. After wards she drove and handled brilliant. In April this year I needed to get the rear tyres replaced so I went back to the people who supplied and fitted the fronts, Etyres. Now I must say I can't fault Etyres, on both occasions they have been faultless in their service and price, but on this occasion they couldn't supply the Lexus specific SP9000s so I had to settle for the standard Dunlop SP9000s, they are different, believe me, and Tony confirmed this when I visited him. After having the rears changed I became aware of a strange sensation of the rear end wandering, even on a straight high speed road. So after about a week or two of this I decided to swap the front and rear tyres around to see if I could cure it. Having done this all is well again, no wondering, strange feelings nothing. But, and this is odd, after swapping the wheels around I discovered that my steering wheel is now slightly off center (not dead ahead), it's now about 2 degrees to the left. I can't see how what I've done can have effected the steering wheel position. I haven't had the tracking altered or anything that I would consider would effect this. Any help would be much appreciated, or has anyone else experienced the same problem? Dave

Yeh, the only thing I'm still not too happy with. Looking at it from the angle that I took th photo, the top very thin strip of the fascia you can see is bent upwards. This appears to be because of the lug that's on the heater controls panel that clips under here. There are three of them that normally hook into the top of the Lexus HU. Every time I see it I think I must take the HU back out and trim the center lug off the heater controls panel. But then you probably don't notice it unless you know it's there; but that's the problem I know it's there.

No problems matey, did you take any photo's of your completed facia ? Yes I took quite a lot of pictures. I'll post some up when I get a bit more time, it takes me ages. OK, here's some pictures of my installed head unit. First with original fascia, as it comes out of the box. And after smoothing filling and painting a la Wozza.

No problems matey, did you take any photo's of your completed facia ? Yes I took quite a lot of pictures. I'll post some up when I get a bit more time, it takes me ages.

Yeh, sorry about that Wozza. I've seen your name so many times when I've been on here but when it came to typing it in the message I got it wrong. Dave.

Hello all, Have been on the forum for a while now and posted a couple of items but thought it was about time I introduced myself, well my Lexus really. It's a 2000 W plate IS200 SE. I bought it in March 2006 from a main dealer and fell in love with it straight away, I just love driving it and am known to find any excuse to drive it. I've only done a couple of mods since I've had it, preferring to keep it as standard as possible. I had to put in an after market head unit in February this year because the Lexus CD player came up with infamous ERR 3. I must say a big thank you to DJ wozzer for his advise posted on here as I followed this advise to smooth and paint the fascia plate like his and it's turned out brilliant. The only other things I've done is painted my calipers red with white decals and replaced the grill with a sports one. I've had a fairly uneventful 2 years as far as reliability goes apart from the CD player the other things I've had to do is replace the lower front ball joints and I took it along to WIM for the four wheel alignment. Anyway a picture's worth a thousand words as they say and I know you all like pictures so I posted some below for you. Dave.

You could try this place http://www.breakeryard.com/. I used them to get a gearbox for my daughter's Yaris T Sport. You can put you request in and they will put a request out to all the breakers that are registered with them. If you get lucky you will get a number of emailed quotes from the breakers direct. Dave.

I've had my IS200 SE for nearly 2 years. Bought it from Lexus Canterbury and had good tyres on when I bought it. They (Lexus Canterbury) noticed that the front tyres were wearing badly in March last year when I took it in for 70,000 mile service and they suggested that I needed a four wheel alignment for which they quoted £123.37. Fortunately I had read on LOC forum about this problem and after renewing the front tyres with another pair of Dunlop SP9000s I took it to Tony at WIM just after Xmas. I probably haven't done enough miles to see if I still have the problem but I do keep a close eye on them and I can say that there doesn't appear to be any significant wear yet. Dave

This is the reply I got from the seller:-

The item I'm looking at on ebay is here: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...A:IT&ih=021 I have emailed the seller of this item to asked if it's compatable with my radio/CD and given them all the details including model number etc. They have replied that the correct item is currently out of stock but will let me know when they have it. What do you think? Dave.

I've now given up with the CD Changer in my Lex and fitted it in my wifes Yaris T Sport. It works fine, she's happy, job sorted. I now realise that the CD Changer is a Matsusita and the Lexus Radio/CD is a Fujitsu Ten, so maybe they are just incompatable, the radio/CD in the Yaris is also a Matsusita. I don't know what to do now. I'm in two minds whether to go for the Grom Audio Ipod interface, but as I don't own an Ipod it would mean buying one adding more cost, or buying another interface that I've seen on ebay that has a SD card slot. I will still keep my eye out for a working Radio/CD unit on ebay, although the bottom slot ones don't seem to come up that often, or I will have to keep looking for an external CD changer that's compatable. Any thoughts anyone?? Dave.

Hi again, I posted on here a while ago now but didn't received any replies!! Well I went ahead and bought a Toyota 6 disc changer from ebay chancing that it would work, I thought there should be a good chance that it should work as it had the same 12 pin connector and after all the socket on the radio is itended for an external changer. I received the changer today and connected it up but although there is power onto the CD changer and when I insert the magazine loaded with discs the changer unit scans all the discs and seems to be OK, when I press the CD button on my head unit twice to select external CD changer (CD1) it doesn't seem to recognise it. My head unit is the earlier bottom slot one, number 13902 and although I have extracted all the discs from the unit it still thinks that it is full of discs. Any ideas?? Any help would be much appreciated as I am pulling my hair out here, and I haven't got much left anyway. Thanks, Dave.

Hi all, This is my first post to this forum although I have been a member for some time and I have read with interest and gained a lot of useful information. I have owned my IS200 SE for just under 2 years and absolutely love it but just last week my radio/CD came up with dreaded ERR3. I have stripped it down and managed to extract all 6 discs, my unit is the earlier bottom CD slot one!! Now I have searched on here and read just about every post on the ERR3 saga and have come to the conclusion that there's not a lot I can do with my CD changer but I read with great interest the post from Sonnet on connecting an Ipod using the Grom Audio interface. My question is:- As this unit plugs into the empty socket on the back of the head unit which is meant for an external CD changer or mini disk has anyone investigated fitting an external changer? I have searched the net and on ebay and there are several options for CD changers both aftermarket and Toyota ones. I have found this site for example http://www.caraudioplus.co.uk/Changers/Fac...yota_CD_Changer who can supply various CD changers including an adapter to fit most Toyota head units that have a 12-Pin (2 x rows of 7 & 5 pins) CD socket. Now looking at the empty socket on the back of my head unit I'd say that it's the same. I know a lot of people will say just change the head unit for something else but I would rather keep the original unit as I want to keep the original look. If anyone has any info or advise it would be much appreciated. Thanks, Dave.

I have just replaced the 2 front tyres on my IS200. I replaced them with the same as the origonals, Dunlop SP 9000 Lexus. Got them from etyres who sell the standard SP 9000 or the SP 9000 Lexus. They were £102.50 each all in, fitted and balanced etc. and etyres come to you and fit them!! Brilliant service. Dave.