Nick US

I agree the IS is aging very well. I was shocked when I moved to the US at how boring all the US cars are. They all have Sierra jelly mould styling. Only the very new cars in the last 2ish years have any kind of features. The only exceptions are the imports from Europe (BMW etc), the Acura TL (actually a Euro Honda ?), and the Lexus IS. I can park my seven year old IS300 in any car park, and it looks the most modern car in the place. Plus all the boy racers with sad Hondas and Chevys with retro-fit clear lights are jealous of the real thing !

As said before, keep your windows clean on the inside. Check the filter on the air supply is good. Don't use re-circ if fogging up, and put the air-con on even if cold. Air-con also dries the air - that's why the car drips water in the summer when you have the air-con on lots.

My IS300 Auto is the same. It doesn't creep much forwards, but loves running off backwards. Especially when cold - like many cars, revs are a bit higher when first started to avoid rough running and to warm up the cat quickly to meet emissions standards. Again like many cars, I think reverse gear is lower ratio than first gear. All this can get a bit hairy when I reverse down my sloping drive in the morning. Plus the brakes are less effective going backwards due to smaller rear disks...

Hallo Sonnet. Danke fuer Deine sehr hilfreiche Hinweis. Ich lese nicht der LOC US Forum, da es voll von Unsinn ist, also es war sehr gut Deine Nachricht hier zu finden. I fitted my adapter today. I ordered it last Sunday, and it arrived on Wednesday. Fitting it was no problem thanks to the good instructions posted here, and it works perfectly. My unit is a 16819 - I guess this differs from the UK units in some way. Interestingly mine had a "Remanufactured" sticker on the back, so has obviously has had some run-ins with Lexus in the past. It also has two aerial sockets & wires - why ? To save postage I also ordered one for my wife's Honda Odyssey at the same time. Again works perfectly, the iPod even responds to the steering wheel audio controls. Now i just have to buy myself an iPod. I had planned to borrow my wife's, but now that it works in her car I can't have it ! :tsktsk:

Don't block the air vents in the boot. The boot will fill up with moist air, which will condense onto anything cold in there, which will lead to rust and mould...

How long does it take to get warm ? Straight after start up, or sometime later ?

Yeah, go for it ! I just paid my annual road tax on the IS300. 85USD. About 42 Quid. It would have been even cheaper except I pay 10USD extra per year for having personal plates. Registering your car in another EU country shouldn't be too difficult because of EU standardisation of norms and standards for cars. In most countries you will probably have to show residency in some shape (borrow a mates address), and if the car is in any country for more than six months it is supposed to get re-registered there (pop over to Calais twice a year to avoid UK registration). Plus you would need to take it back to the registering country regularly for the equivalent of MOTs (every two years in Germany). If you are prepared for hassles with the scufflers, just tell the DVLA you are exporting your car. You keep your plates, but don't pay tax anymore. One of my mates drove his UK Volvo in Germany for three months in this status until he got around to getting a German registration. No-one cared. I also knew an Italian who drove his car in the UK for four years on Italian plates without problems.

I'm not getting this snow mode thing. In snow and ice it's very useful. But if you want to save petrol why not just buy a Toyota Corolla in the first place

Stick it on bricks and work real quick :winky:

All our cars get names. The IS300 is called Charlie, as in Champagne Charlie (cos somewhere Lexus gave the official colour as Champagne Silver...) I thought there was an unwritten law that cars under 2 litres are female, and over 2 litres are male

Sorry to be negative, but I don't believe the starting story in this thread about a guy in the US getting a new car for doing 250000. The Americans live in their cars, do everything in their cars (yes, everything, usually all at the same time), and drive everywhere. 250000 will not be that unusual. There was a story recently of a pickup (possibly chevy) that had done 1,000,000 miles. The manufacturer did nothing to recognize this. Oh yes, 2001 (no age plates here) and 52000 miles Nick

Thanks for the confirmation of the 10000 miles. That's what I was used to with all my cars in the UK, then I got used to 15000km as standard in Germany. Now everyone here in the US keeps telling me 3000. Even my independent Lexus repair place wanted to tip in mineral rubbish last time, only admitted to knowing what Mobil 1 was when I threatened to bring my own oil in, and then still insisted on slapping a "oil change due in 3000" sticker on the windscreen. Eventually you begin to doubt yourself... Does no-one else have problems 1-4 as well ? Do I have a uniquely erratic IS, or is it something to do with me ? Nick

Snow mode doesn't help downhill - the auto will happily change up and roll as normal. You need to either pop the gear lever down to 3 etc, or better switch to manual and choose 4,3,2 depending on the conditions. I've been using snow mode a lot recently - we've had over 50 inches of snow this winter. I agree with Durg, it's all about throttle response and no influence on the gearbox. I wish it would influence the gearbox, being able to start in 2nd or even 3rd would be useful at times. I also use snow mode sometimes on the I-94 during the morning rush hour crawl - it makes the car much smoother in slow traffic.

Hiya I finally got to signing up after living with my 2001 IS300 for almost year. In that time I have gathered various questions, that some surfing around the forums didn't produce an answer for (maybe I just didn't look hard enough ) 1) My CD player seems to work fine (none of the ERR3 stuff that everyone else has), except when it's cold. Then it gives me ERR1 on all six CDs. So in summer I can enjoy CDS, in winter I have to do without. Why ? 2) The cassette player also seems to be seasonal. When cold it ticks whilst playing a tape, in summer it is perfectly happy. What is going on ? ps winter here is really cold - the IS often sits outside at work at -20C, so has plenty of time to cool down. 3) The auto gearbox seems to get caught out sometimes. My biggest gripe is when powering away from lights at about 3/4 power, then when I come off the gas at about 45mph it suddenly upshifts and gives a big whack up the a**. Mostly this is just a bit uncomfortable, but once on a wet road it kicked the back end out enough to almost hit the SUV I was undertaking at the time. Luckily the TSC just caught things in time. Does anyone else have this ? 4) Does anyone else find that the headrest doesn't have enough backwards adjustment ? 5) Finally how often do you change your oil in the UK ? Here in the US I keep getting told to change every three months or 3000 miles. This seems nuts to me when using a decent oil. But most of the oil sold here is mineral based c**p originally formulated by Fred Flintstone that I wouldn't even use to oil my kids bike chains. I've currently had Mobil 1 in for almost a year/6000 miles, and it still seems like new. What does the Land of Sense say ?

On my Auto the Snow Mode doesn't seem to do anything to the gearbox. It still seems to start in 1st gear. I think it just makes the ECU less responsive to the gas pedal. I seem to get about half the power for the same pedal movement. This makes it much easier to dose the power for smooth starts on ice. It does help to make the wee beastie into a go anywhere 4x4 supercar. A few weeks ago I was driving uphill on one inch thick sheet ice and happily passed a Jeep spinning all four wheels and slowly sliding back down the hill. The TSC, top notch winter tyres, and the sandbags in the back probably helped too!

If you have an automatic, forget the handbrake, it's redundant. Here in the US the strange lever thing in the middle of the car is often referred to as the emergency brake, and that's how often they get used. When you park the car, put it in P. You have to anyway to get the key back :winky: The gearbox has a brake built in every bit as good as the handbrake, plus it won't seize on when your car sits in an ice storm at -20C. When you stop at lights in D with the footbrake on, you will put some stress on the car - the engine and gearbox are trying to push the car gently forwards, and the brakes are stopping it from moving. But this is minimal compared to the stress of a full power launch once the lights finally go green, and the screaming stop at the next red light. I do pop mine into neutral if I know the lights will be red for a long time (some around here take forever to change). But I keep my foot on the brakes - I need somewhere to rest it, I don't want the car to roll away on a hill, plus I don't care about blinding people when everyone else is standing on the brake anyway.