fil4362

well just to do a proper test i just bought 2 federals this morning to put on the front, i already have 2 federals for the rear i now have 215/45 vr17 on the front and 245/40 vr17 on the rear. All 4 are federals. The weather in Manchester is wet at the moment with chance of frost over night. I am up early in the morning for a drive into Wales on a scuba diving trip so will give the tyres a good test this afternoon and tomorrow. Will post later in the weekend as to the results.

Thanks Asi. you quite correct. this post is about budget tyres but yet again the post has come down to snobbery about "i wouldnt put cheap on my car" Most people would value the opinion of a honest mechanic who sees thigns inthe real world. 25 years a mechanic 20 years at the same garage 3 years as an apprentice so take your pick as to how long i have been in the trade. Seems to me this web site excepts you as an "expert" mechanic as soon as you pull on a pair of Lexus overalls so my yearsof experiance dotn count as i have never worn a pair of Lexus overalls. To some people on here i obviously dont have a valid opinion. The simple fact i am a mechanic on a number of years means i have done and been around people who do cars including tyres every day of the week and not just put tyres on my own cars every few years. I was recently "told off" for being abrasive on this site i know the comment made by james marks is certainly agresive. Theres no other way about it. Personaly i am not bothered in the slightest. If you dont like my post simply dont read them. I mearlypass on my experiances of many years in all aspects of the motor trade. As mentioned if you dont like my post dont read them. I never once said that the good year was a bad tyre just not as good as the other tyres on my car. I personally wouldnt waste money buying them and as this topic is about a budget tyre the good years shouldnt have come up there certainly not budget.

thanks for the suggestion but as a mechanic of 20 years i understand directional tyres and what they do. As mentioned in my post the car is set up correctly (including tyres on correct rotation). I was talking about tyres giving out on the limit when i am actually trying to get the tail out. When doing this i am sure your aware that most of the weight of the car is on the one tyre especially when a scandanavian flick is used ( ye i know not best practice on thte roads haha) . Also in a bend the outside tyre is rotating faster than the inside one, so the tyres are under diffrent weight loads and speeds so tread patern matching shouldnt be the problem either. Like i said not saying its a bad tyre just not as good as the check one on the other side.

Must disagree with the goodyear eagle tyre being good. I have a mark 1 rs200 (1969) i have a goodyear eagle on the back on one side and a motorway home brand tyre on the other side. If the car is going to slide its always the goodyear that goes first. The car is set up properly and i have swapped the tyres side to side to confirm this. I am not saying the goodyear is bad just that its not as good at the motorway home brand tyre on the other side.

I have had the same problem when welding in the past many years ago now. I use a leather dust cover now over any car that could come into contact from welding or grinding sparks. I bought up a load of old leather jackets from all charity shops inmy area along with a few old shami leathers and wrap everything up. If i wear a leather apron when weldign why shouldnt the surrounding cars. I have heard of this clay bar stuff a few times now but no one seems so knwo where to get it from, anyone have a source for the stuff a link would be good thanks

As the title says really. I have seen a couple of pics with bonnet struts on them with the standard bonnet prop as well. Is there a kit to be had or have people just made them up themselves. Secondly do the kits, if available actually work or do you need the bonnet prop as well.

Agree with kam05. mine is an s model has se wheels and tyres now and few other upgrades like leather and such but still has 205/55r16 in the boot as a spare

They're generally very hard rubber so not much grip but will last for years. As the others have said, your tyres are the only thing holding you on the road. Don't skimp on them. ok thanks mate, whats your view on the federals? priced federals today £36 or £38 depending on tread patern. +vat of course dont know how this compares to your price but this is what i can get them for. I fit loads of them to allsorts of cars wouldnt really put them onthe back of my Lexus though as mentioned somewere on here hard wearing low grip hard rubber compound.

Omri you must not have read any of my previous post on here mate. I have argued tirelessly that Lexus is nothing special an many threads. The only thing i disagree with you on is the Altezza. Firstly i have never seen one over here although i know there are some, secondly my post did say English market. Apal of mine has the Toyota Aristo twin turbo so i know there are a few of the Toyota versions of the Lexus over here. I knwo when ordering parts for imported vehicles most dealers will list the part and order it for us, with the understanding if we order and its wrong in anyway, tuff its ours we bougth it. Ah just a thought to see how good you are, and why toyota dont always come through. A customer of mine has a Toyota vigo, imported from Vietnam. The hot/cold air control button is broken. The frame number of the vehicle wont go into any Toyota system i have tried. I have rang 3 diffrent Toyota dealers. They all say the Vietnam versions didnt have hot air just cold and realy cold. No toyota dealer i have been to can even show me a picture of what it is i want. THe uk spec Hilux ?? has an electric switch, this vigo has 2 cables. If i can get hold of the customer and get the frame number for you can you have a look, as mentioned no dealer i have spoken to even has the frame number listed for the vehicle. so back to the post, i have argued tirelessly that Lexus is nothign special and Lexus mechanics are therefore inturn nothing special. So why pay more for you Toyota service/repairs. My local Toyota dealer doesnt do Lexus either, when i ring and say do you do Lexus i get a firm "no we dont". I have been working as a mechanic and mot tester for 20 years so i know the score as well as you do but actually getting Toyota to order a Lexus part is a diffrent story. I used to have an estima (import)and it broke a diesel injection pipe Toyota did get it for me over night so i know they can get non standard stuff its just getting them to do it. Maybe its a case of right guy in the right mood on the right day.

The dealer who said Toyota dont use the same engine as Lexus is partly right. I cant think of a Toyota made for the English market that comes with the Lexus engine I could be wrong but i havent seen a Toyota for many years made for the English market with a straight 6 engine. Lots of the other parts used in both Lexus and Toyota are the same and most of the stuff that isnt the same is labeled Toyota anyway. Have a close look at your back lights, they certainly only fit the is200 (English market) but certainly have Toyota molded into them. As for service currently the law says any v.a.t. registered garage can service your Lexus, or any other make of vehicle, and it doesnt invalidate your warrenty. As long as the service steps are followed IE if you need plugs on that service it has them. If it needs brake fluid change on that service it has one. As long as o.e. spec parts are used this is also ok. There is no need to use Lexus/Toyota parts.As for your spark plugs i always use irridium plugs in a Lexus i think they were standard they are 3 times more expensive but will last 3 times longer then a standard plug. Note i did say currently any garage can service your car. Under the current climate the government are looking into returning all cars to dealers for service so as to give the dealers some money back to keep the money to them as it were. This is how it was years ago and many people still believe this to be true. I even know of one or two dealers who still tell customers they have to take the cars to them. hope this post helps solve a few of the queries.

82 is standard to be exact. As 82 is not available 80 is the excepted standard profile. The tyre sizing is the stupidst most random colection of numbers on the planet. For example 215 45 17. the 215 refers to the width of the tread area in milimetres. 45 is the height of the side wall its 45% of the width of the tread area. The 17 is the diametre of the tyre measured in inches. So metric and imerial measurements on the same tyre. Hope my explanation helps

I have 245 40 17 on standard rims. This size was recomended to me by my tyre supplier (national supplier to the trade) who has a is200. He spoke to a bloke at Lexus who wears a suit and has meetings, between them they came up with this size. Recomended Yokohama tyres as they have stronger side wall and stop "loading lag" when cornering. Loading lag being, when in a corner the car feels loose until the flex in the side wall has flexed all it will flex then the car grips. I bought a budget tyre in this size to try as yokos were 100 quid each in this size. The budget tyres were real bad loads of loading lag. I ran them at 50 psi and i cured it handles better on the wider tyre. I have now bit the bullet and bought the Yokos there superb.

Good garage scheme. have a look online will give you choices and feed back on each garage so you can make a choice based on other customer experiances

Nope not me but i have emailed the guy to ask where hes getting them i am in Manchester and in the trade i can only get them for £47 so i want to know were hes getting them that he can afford to sell them at £40

Seen this for sale should anyone need one ebay item number 190349861963. £40 sounds cheap to me will see if i can get one cheaper but sounds good money to me.

My company has many cars the usual courtesy car the one thats usually used is a 04 plate punto. This is because most of my customers dont need anything more than this. I do have a Lotus esprit turbo which has been used as a courtesy car if i get the ferrari in i cant give him the punto can i. To be honest if the punto is out i use what ever i have shoul di need another courtesy car. I have even lent out my personal cars in the past. Its just good busyness to keep the customer happy. As for comeback i recently sold a car onbehalf of a customer who bought a car from me. They didnt want to trade it in so i offered to help sell it for them. That was 2 months ago, I towed it in last week with diesel pump gone. £450 for new pump plus labour. the car only sold for £800. The guy is currently driving round in one of my cars while i find him something else. The car he bought was nothing to do with me i sold it on behalf of a customer, but i am standing buy it and helping the guy out. will get him a car to suit at cost. I dont even want the guy going in his local telling his mates he bought it through my garage. I could very very easily walk away from the problem after all its not my problem. So there is come back from even back street garages even when there isnt any. Not all garages are as good as mine but then again theres still trading standards when it really does go wrong

I have 3 OBD code readers. Each piece of kit is better on some makes of cars than others. Over the weekend my engine management light came on. I plugged in both my expensive bits of kit neither would comunicate with my Lexus. I plugged in my cheap Argos piece of kit, bingo fault code and description. Heater curcit bank one sensor one lambda sensor. Bank one sensor one is the front one of the 3 sensors. Becarefull if your buying expensive kit. Some kits are better then others on certain makes of car. I have a Bosch made kit that interfaces with a laptop. KTS550 is what kit it is. There is a 650 version which is a hand held totally contained piece of kit the only diffrence in programing is the 650 has an oscilascope. Cost diffrence was about £1000 at new. The updates for the system is also about £650 a year. This system is great on german made cars and most european made cars but is carbage on jap stuff. Depending on what kit you buy depends on what cars and what "stuff" it will do. My cheap argos kit will only do engine fault codes on most makes of car. My Bosch kit does engine, traction control,airbag, tyre pressure monitering, imobilizers,service light reset, dash board reprograming just about everything. Like i said make sure what ever kit you buy does actually do Lexus would be a shame to buy kit that wont do your car but is great on the neighbours

What case?? Every dealer sends all the mechanics on courses. They do courses to keep up with the new stuff coming out. So a mechanic starting now will be ok on the new stuff but have nothing to do with the old stuff. I bet any dealer mechanic and i do mean any dealer i bet non of them under the age of 25 has got a clue about how to set tappets or even how to fit a set of contact breaker points how to recondition an alty or even a gearbox. Points condenser are not fitted to any car any more so no one teaches it. No one actually repairs anything any more its all remove and replace i know it is as i cant usually but the parts i need to recondition a gearbox or even a real simple job like re bushing an alty. Any monkey with a bag spanners can strip and refit most parts of a car, repairing it when its of just doesnt get done any more. As for a slightly more complicated job like a timing belt, simply mark the pullies and put the new belt on in the same place the old one came of not a difficult job. Car mechanics isnt a difficult job, diagnostics and repairing is the skill, anyone can be a parts fitter. If your refering to Lexus inparticular then i would say their even less of a mechanic as Lexus dont break and so most of the work to do will be simple stright forward servicing. If you want to keep going to Lexus mearly for the experiance be my guest i wont stop you infact as of tomorow morning i am a Lexus specialist, £1000 for service and timing belt bring it on will give you a Lotus Esprit turbo as a courtesy car with a full tank of fuel. I forgot no use to you that car is it i built it myself, using my experiance, i have never worked at Lotus so i am probably not good enough for you to trust yourself driving one of my cars. Tell you what i will talk nicley to one of my customers maybe he will lend you his ferrari 355 i did the timing belt on earlier this year of his Lincoln Navigator i service every 12 months. I could get you a Moris minor if you like i still do loads of them or a Reliant Ant i maintain or better still go Isle of Man Motor museum have i look at the Peel P50 i sold them last year. They bought it of me as they didnt have one in their collectionAnd afterall they were built on the Isle of Man. (its the orage one i believe they have 2 now i thought it was fun to paint it orange you know an orange peel). I bet any Lexus mechanic wouldnt have abloody clue of what half the cars i just mentioned are let alone know how to repair them Do i need to go on, 1897 Dedion 1937 Crossley (ex raf staff car) 1912 model T and no it wasnt a black one Bond micro car porsche 911 this is some of the stuff i do regulaly what does your Lexus mechanic do 5/6 models choice of 5/6 engines? good mechanic or one trick pony. As i have mentioned before doesnt bother me in the slightest what a guy has on his overalls i couldnt careless

I recently had a classic 83 Lotus Esprit turbo listed on ebay. Had a buyer from Norway contacting me, and one from Australia.The only reason i didnt sell is it didnt meet the reserve. Wouldnt bother me who was buying it i wouldnt release the car until i had the cash. I saw the car listed again a week after, someone had used my pics and listing wording again not my problem i did message a few of the bidders out of courtesy tell them to be aware. Bottom line if you think its a scam dont releasethe car without the pound notes. Personally i have heard more bad stories when buying a car. i heard a customer who went to buy car when he arrived the guy was in the front garden he said "the cars round the back" when they went round the back 2 other guys appeared with bats and told him to hand over the cash. They knew he had the money he was going to buy the car.

I keep mentioning Vauxhall ford and the other dealers because they are all the same. Still a man in overalls. Like i have mentioned many times a mechanic is a mechanic doesnt matter what it says on his overalls.

Way over the top for diy,er. Argos do one for a third the price. Allthat seem to be to me is a codereader. You will plug it in and it will give you a meaningless code. Does PO314 mean anything to you. MIsfire cylinder number 4 (vauxhall coding) but if it came up with just the code PO314 it wouldnt help you much at all. Even if it did say misfire number 4 cylinder, wouldnt tell you why it was missfiring. Leave the code readig to the pros mate unless your going to spend real big money. One of my bits of kit cost me £3400 and it still doesnt do everything.

Doesnt sound like a problem to me, you said yourself thecars going nowere without the cash in your hand.I wouldnt worry about it. Until you got the cash dont hand over the keys. Like a merecat once said "simples"

It is personal choice at the end of the day who you take your car to. Bottomline and what i am trying to get people to see is that just because it says Lexus or any other dealer name on the lads overalls hes still just a mechanic. Why pay more for the same service just because of a name. I can understand buying a better brand of product, i personally buy nescafe coffee rather than the super market own brand buthtis is something i am going to comsume. Paying in excess of 70 quid an hour just for some grease monkey to undo a few nuts and bolts and put them back in again makes me cringe. The dealers up here charge 70 quid an hour as well so its not just the north south devide. The point i keep making is a mechanic working with/for me gets paid £10 an hour. I charge the customer £36.75 an hour for his services. The dealers charge £70 an hour and still only pay their mechanics £10 an hour ( just refering to my area). If the dealers pay their mechanics the same as i do then they only value their mechanics as i do. I know most of the garages within a 10 mile radius of where i am and non of them pay their lads more than a tenner an hour. All the indies in my area communicate with each other we borrow/lend kit of each other specialist tools such as certain timing belt pin setting kits. we use each others diagnostic kit my kit is a bosch kit so i great on german car but not so good on french stuff. The garage round the corner has a french diag machine so we each borrow each other kit. Its just an unwritten rule we dont activley nick each others customers. Most of the dealers in my area have either gone bust or closed down the branch and moved on. We have a ford dealer and 2 mercedes dealers and that about it. Rover gone anyway but nissan subarua vauxhall skoda all moved or shut down. The nearest Volvo dealer we have is 35 miles away and they charge for delivery now.Honda has a dealers about 9 miles away renault have a dealers as do citroen but there both on the otherside of Manchester city centre.Besides most of the "dealers " are not dealers they a franchised. The ford dealers near me is owned by the Pendragon group and is only a franchise as is the honda dealers. come t think of it there isnt even a fast fit tyre and exhaust centre near me ( not within 10 miles anyway). maybe its just the indies taking over in my little corner of the world and i only live 2 miles east of city centre Manchester.

Still dont agree most mechanics i know never spend more than a few years at a dealers. One of my contract company customers own everything from a skoda to the bosses porsche. The boss even owns a ferrarri 355 and a lincoln navigator i work on all of them. I still say experiance in the trade is more important than badge on your overalls. If i was to pick a builder to work on my house i would rather pick a builder who has lots of good reviews but has a bit of a scruffy van and cant squeeze me in for a fews weeks because hes buzy than a builder with a spotless van and can do it tomorrow. Seems to me your paying for your beliefs of getting a proper job under the Lexus badge, when in reality all your getting is any random mechanic with Lexus on his overalls. All mechanics start somehwere i would be suprised if any of the mechanics at your dealers started there and stay there long term. Your trusting Lexus because they are called Lexus when the only diffrence in the work is the price. Theres no such thing as a "better job" a job done right is a job done theres no way of doing it "better" A mechanic is a mechanic doesnt matter what it says on his overalls. I dont care where a guy has worked, when its employment time all i want to know is how long he was at his last place and why he left what his qualifications are. Names on overalls dont impress me bottom line its all nuts and bolts doesnt matter about the badge on the overalls or the bonnet a car is a car a mechanic is a mechanic. You only see the customer side of the trade i see mechanic side i hear the stories you dont get to hear, believe me dealers are no better than any other garage the only diffrence is the name on the overalls