ahmed24

I changed my digitizer probably over 6 years ago and still going strong and cost was something like £9 or something round those lines for the digitizer from Hong Kong. Well worth repairing it. If you're doing it yourself just be very careful with the sharp metal frames at the back of the unit, one slip and it will cut you bad. While removing one connector my hand slipped and had a nasty cut that needed stitches lol Here are some pics from when I installed it

On the topic of Lexus dealers being more reliable, I feel like you really need to be on top of them too because they also can take you for a ride. I've always used Lexus Woodford when my car was under 100k miles, after that I started doing all my work myself and started noticing things they had broken over the years while working on my car. Clips, tabs brackets broken etc. On one occasion it went to them for a airbag recall when I got my car back the centre console was scratched like crazy and the two side silver trims were badly scratched that the black plastic was showing through the silver. They did agree to replace the silver trims but i've since refinished the centre console. These are just small things ofcourse but surely we should expect much better from a dealer. The worst experience with Lexus Woodford was when my brother took in his RX450h for a service part of his service plan. They advised that the rear OS shock was leaking and the brake discs were near minimum. So I told my brother not to get it done by them as the quote was too high and that I would do it for him. So I changed his discs and shocks and all was good. After about 8 months his next service was due part of his service plan and Lexus Woodford were telling him the exact same thing again. Discs and Shock need replacing, he was a little confused as this was done less than a year ago. They were insisting it's correct and needs changing. He was insisting it was done and that they inspect properly as this is cheating if they are going based on old information and have not checked it. And guess what? they checked it and said they were sorry it was a mistake. That really annoyed me as I would not have expected this from a dealer at all. So what i'm saying is just because you go to the dealers, don't always expect them to be 100% truthful either :)

I was so used to folding manually using the switch inside before switching car off that after I did this mod, a few times I did so then when I come back to the car it wont unfold automatically because I manually folded it. But i've got used to not touching that inside switch anymore. Yes I also use the door handle procedure to unlock and lock my car. Just in the video I demonstrate with the key fob. But I don't actually ever take my key out of my pocket 🙂 it works from the lock and unlock signals from the door actuator.

Just a quick note to let you all know that I have posted the installation guide on my blog now. Apologies for the delay. Better late than never 😀

Thanks for the mention of my post. I will be posting my write-up within the next few days which will be for the IS250 but I will be explaining the installation process that applies to any car.

The one time mine froze up I just pushed it open manually then pressed the fold button and unfold button and it was back to normal. A friend of mine had this a few times and he just pours a little water over the house joint (not hot but not super cold, a little warm)

Apologies that I haven't posted the guide up yet. It's been really busy. I will post it up very soon. Before Christmas 🙂

With the mirrors folded in really cold freezing conditions, yes there is a chance that the housing freezes with ice and trying to unfold it with the motor, the motor will struggle. This makes no difference whether you have this auto-folding mod or not because even if housing was iced up and you went in and pressed the button to unfold it, the motor will struggle to unfold the mirror. I've only had the housing freeze once in my 12/13 years of ownership. When I go to the car, if it's iced up I would just check to see the housing hasn't got iced up. If it has then before unlocking just free up the ice. Other option is just manually fold the mirrors with the switch before turning off in cold weathers if you don't want it to attempt to auto unfold.

Anyone who may be interested in doing either just the rear VLAND full L activation on braking or both including the puddle light activation. I have provided some notes and my wiring diagram for reference below. *DISCLAIMER* Use the guide at your own risk! modifications to any electronic systems that are not done correctly can pose a huge risk, so if you are not confident in electronics please do NOT attempt it. I accept no responsibility for any damage to your vehicle or personal injury as a result of following any guides. Important: Make sure you use heat-shrink tubes and insulation tape. Preferably glue-lined heatshrinks. Below is my diagram followed by some notes. R1 sends power to front LED when ignition energises the coil. This is because my LED headight is retrofitted so there is no OEM wiring for DRL. R1 is not needed if you already have OEM front LED wiring (only need R2 and R3 for puddle light activation) R3 serves 2 purposes for retrofit and 1 purpose for OEM wiring: 1: to cancel out the rear lights from turning on when ignition is on through R1. 2: to prevent flickering of front LED due to reverse leakage current from signal diodes that is enough to cause the front LED to start flicking on & off. R2 is needed to isolate the dim circuit from the full brightness circuit on the headlight just incase the two lights were on at the same time. If you have OEM front LED headlight wiring then you only need permenant power going to the COM of the optically isolated logic board. You dont need power to R1 as R1 will not be used.

Will post the guide up soon. Hopefully sometime this week. Just been a bit busy lately.

Looks great. +1 for powder coating. Makes a huge difference. Had my 13 year old ones powder coated too to Anthracite earlier this year and makes a huge difference. Few pics of my powder coated wheels below:

You can buy it from many different sellers. I think there are a few variations manufactured by different companies. But the one I bought looks like the following pics and the colour code of the wires are also shown in the pics below. My install guide when it's written up will be based on this module and so the colours will match this module. But technically any of the systems will work as they all work on the same principle.

So I recently managed to source a set of rear VLAND tail-lights for my IS250 for a very reasonable price. I didn't like the idea of how when the parking lights are off and you apply the brakes, only the outer section lights up. This is how the factory connectors are wired up, so it's not really a VLAND issue. On the normal OEM tail lights it's not a problem. But the VLAND design is more of the L shape and it seems incomplete when only the outer part of the L shape lights up. Ofcourse if the parking lights are on then there is no problem. But I cannot be driving around in the daytime with parking lights on and even if I did, that will cause my front LED's to be dim. So I did a 2 part modification. Part 1: If parking lights are off, make the inner part of the VLAND tail-lights light up when applying the brakes. Part 2: Use the puddle light circuit to light up the entire VLAND running lights and the front LED running lights. The puddle lights are powered by a 'square PWM signal' controlled by the main body ECU wth a MOSFET circuit that fades the puddle lights in and out. So it's not as simple as just tapping straight into the puddle light circuit. You can't just put a relay on it either because 1. power draw 2. it will cause the relay to buzz and wear out prematurely because the circuit is a digital ON/OFF signal to the puddle light bulbs without any analog smoothing. I used a logic board with a relay that has 'optically isolated' inputs meaning the current draw should never exceed 20mA so there is no chance of overload. Below are a few pics of my VLAND taillights installed and a video demonstrating my 2-part modification. In the two pictures below, the boot is not closed so it may look like the VLAND's are not aliged because of it.

Thank you @normski2 Will do the write-up very soon. I've got quite a few videos and write-ups coming as i''ve done quite a lot of electronics mods in the past weeks

The second generation IS250 equipped with auto-folding mirrors does not allow for folding the mirrors once ignition is turned off. This is because the switch is wired via the ACC +12v supply going to the mirror motor. Power folding mirror motors regardless of brand all work in similar way. They have two wires going to the motor. It folds and unfolds based on the polarity of the power supplied to it. The internal switch that folds the mirror basically flips the ACC +12v and ground around going to the 2 wires of the mirror motor. I initially did some testing and was able to operate the mirrors independently using +12v I was going to build my own polarity switching relay circuit but then came across these readily available "Intelligent Universal Auto-Folding Mirror Systems". They sell on the famous bay auction site for as little as £5 from chinese sellers. I purchased mine for £6.49 as that was the cheapest seller that had UK/EU stock which came in a few days. £5 one would have taken 20-30 days to arrive from china which wasn't a great option for the price difference. The price of buying components and prject box etc and making my own unit would have cost me more than £6.49. This system is universal and works on the same principal. As long as it's wired correctly, I had no doubt it would work. The internal mirror fold switch still works just like normal. The module is marketed as being a intelligent folding system. This is because if you fold your mirrors using the internal switch and then turn off the car, the system will not do anything when you lock or unlock the car. It's because lets say you parked in a really tight spot where you had to fold your mirrors with the switch, and then if the system just unfolded it when you unlocked it, that would be a disaster. So the system doesn't operate if you fold the mirror with the switch before turning ignition off. If you leave mirrors normally unfolded and turn off ignition then system operates normally. The system works great. Below is my video demo showing the end result. I will write-up a installation guide in the coming days and post on my blog and on here for anyone who is interested.