The Swede

Are there IS's that have Isofix fittings? I got a seat for my terrorist but didn't click to it there might be ISOFIX's If you get a seat that does birth til 3-ish (never seen 0-4), make sure you can recline it sufficiently to lay the little one down the first 6-9 months.

Just a sec'... 330K GBP ??? :duh: So I can get a Merc SLS for my daily commutes and an LP640 for the weekend for that price??

Interesting. So what kind of glitches di you have and do you think they were more specific to the 430 or simply because you couldn't be as picky when selecting a GS? On dealers, I couldn't say. The Merc always goes to the main dealer and the Evo is serviced by the Ralliart dealer locally. The Lexus needs a service soon and I haven't decided yet whether to take it to a dealer or doing it myself. It does surprise me that that garage didn't want to deal with Lexus V8's. Did they deal with Lexus's at all?

It actually ensures you always start in second or third and avoids changing down until the very last moment. The objective is to be as smooth as possible with the power. I did notice though that the difference between the normal and snow programme on the lexus's is much smaller than e.g the difference on a Merc. As mentioned elsewhere, I'd always recommend good wintertyres between end October and end March. Priceless.

Do we also have a logic for this ? ;)

Looks like the topic opener wants a 5-speed auto, so that should work. How does the auto actually fare in the 200? I heard that the 200 needs a bit of working on a smaller road. So I was wondering if the auto hence is not shifting up and down a bit too much in a 2.0.

Thanks. Seen a few 430's for sale. Any more opinions?

Because Tony/WIM have spent many years investigating/correcting the inner tyre wear issue that have affected most IS200/300's. The Lexus OEM geometry settings are wrong and local geometry specialists/Lexus dealer can only set the IS up to the factory settings (which will cause inner tyre wear). I believe LOC asked WIM years ago to investigate and re-write the geometry settings in order to eliminate inner tyre wear. WIM has set the geometry on a lot of IS200's (including mine). Inner tyre wear says negative camber to me and sharp handling... Ours does NOT eat the inside of its tyres and does not handle sharply I assume Tony knows how to set it up that it does not its tyres but does not feel like it's been set up by a plonker. Will give him a shout. TX !

So does the GS430 simply do everything the GS300 does with the advantage of some extra power? Or were there any other drawbacks than the higher pricetag when new? Reliability? Does it need more maintenance? I don't want to buy a car where I need to replace half of the parts during the first 6 months. As said, it's supposed to be a no-trouble runabout. (As said in the opening post, I got V8 power already available for myself. 6.3 liter and 525bhp will do ;) )

Thanks. Pardon my ignorance, why go to him instead of the local geometry specialist or the local Lexus stealer ?

I'm considering replacing my girlfriend's IS300 with a Mk2 GS300 or GS430. - Prices seem fairly similar. - I know the 3.0 and like the engine as it's supersmooth and super reliable - Fuel consumption is not really important (she only does about 3-4000 miles per year) - Performance is not really important either. She doesn't use it and if I want performance, I use my car(s) Any advice on which one to go for? Are they both as reliable ? (reliability is imperative !) Are the GS430's better spec'ed than the GS300 ? Thanks for your opinions.

I had this problem on our IS300. There was actually no issue with the gauge in the tank. A low battery charge (we mainly drive short distances with that car) turned out to be the culprit. I put the car on a charger for a night and the problem got solved.

Where is this Tony based? I got a feel the geometry on ours isn't 100%. The car does not pull to any side, but it feels quite heavy on the road and a tad slow in its reactions. I never had the opportunity to compare it to any other IS but I would expect this car to be more lively and light how it drives.

Can I fit a SC to the IS300 for a similar cost? Who can fit these?

I'm no expert either but it seems that the rust ate in a bit deeper than just giving a bit of colour on the surface. That being said, the rear brakes always apply much less pressure than the front ones and when it's cold and slippery, you're not tempted to really brake hard enough to use them properly. I would just take it for a proper drive and REALLY hammer the brakes so they get very hot.

There is a guy near Windsor, Warfield to be correct. I think they're called Warfield wheels or something and based in the centre of the village next to the car wash (you can't miss them).

There's a modfication & tuning sub-section under the main IS200/IS300 section And if you do not modify or tune your IS but simply want to keep an update of the car regularly? Some fora have a "garage" section where you keep a thread of the car(s) you got. Hence my question.

It should indeed be legal as long as the brightness etc is OK. The brakelights on my Merc start flashing if I brake really hard and here it's not just a "2 seconds flash" but they keep flashing as long as I keep hard on the pedal. The question I got here though is whether the system described above is sensitive to the power used to brake, i.e. only the normal brakelights are activated under gentle braking and if you brake hard, the fogglights come on too??

Is there any area on this forum where members put a thread about their car and update it regularly with pics and news on what is being done to the car as maintenance or modifications?

That is an excellent point. I would love an IS300 with the 5-speed auto, but I was mostly concerned about the running costs of a 3.0 I6. As much as I want a nice comfy car to cruise about it, my monthly fuel budget isn't exactly extensive What sort of MPG will an IS300 realistically get on a mixed tank? I mostly do cruising up and down the A14 to work in Cambridge, with a little backroad driving too. I'm not an aggressive driver. Kamo, thank you for the input. I'm not inherantly scared of high-milers being a big Honda fan, but I know some cars like it less than others :) Well, I was exactly in your position a year ago when I was looking for an IS200. I was looking for a safe, comfortable, reliable and somehow stylish runabout for my girlfriend. She doesn't do mega miles so it did not warrant buying a diesel en she doesn't drive fast, so we didn't need a BMW 335i. I found our IS300 for similar money than a similarly tidy IS200, but it had the advantage of coming with the autobox as standard, the IS300 always came full spec and... it gives considerable better performance making for real effortless driving. Fuelwise, we're running at approx 26-27mpg, which is really good as the car either runs fairly short distances (driven slowly by the GF) or it drives longer distances when I use it but a very 'fair' pace ;) Insurance-wise, we pay 330,-GBP fully comp. Insured in my name (I'm 35, +5 yrs NCB and she's 26 but only drives since 2 years). From a point of view of maintenance, a 300 shouldn't cost more than a 200. Oil, filters etc are approx the same anyway.

I always love this urban myth. The UK must be the most backwards country of Western Europe when it comes to driving in and dealing with winter conditions. Mainly because neither the people or the government actually know what the right equipment is they need or calculate how much (or actually little) it costs. On wintertyres: wintertyres are NOT only meant for driving on snow ! :tsktsk: A wintertyre for our countries will mainly be designed for wet and colder weather. (You don't need studs !) Cold: - Under 7C the rubber of summertyres does not work well anymore. Wintertyres have a softer compound and provide considerably more grip than a summertyre on cold roads, especially when it is wet. The downside is that a wintertyre will wear more once it gets warmer. Hence why you want to put your summertyres back on in April if you want to manage costs. Wet: - Wintertyres have a much more open tread pattern and can deal way better with standing water than summertyres. I only need to go back two days to remember a car stuck in a hedge in a straight line just few miles down the road. The 'culprit' was some standing water reaching 4 feet onto the road. He clearly went through it and it thrown him off course. We might not see snow that often here, but - we get got the low temperature (take Oxford as an example: temperatures are below 7C average for 5 months per year. Nov-Mar) - we got the wettest roads of any country around (while the engineers designing roads clearly never read the chapter "evacuation of water" during their studies) Economics: The classic excuse not to get wintertyres is cost. :tsktsk: 1. You only run either summer or wintertyres under your car ! So instead of doing for instance 1 year with one set of summertyres, you'd drive 2 years with two sets of tyres. The cost at the end of the road is hence exactly the same. 2. True, there is a bit of an extra initial outlay, but the ineterst you'll lose of not having that money in the bank is nothing compared to the cost of an accident or the safety of yourself and your family. We all are prepared to pay a (often hefthy) premium to buy a Lexus because we want a superior car that does everyting better than a normal car... But those few extra hundred quid we got 'tied up' in an additional set of tyres always seems too much...

Given that you can get an IS300 for virtually similar money than an IS200 and that they are not really more expensive to run, why not get an IS300??

I'd have them back to original. A Lexus needs to look original, not like a cheap boy-racer conversion. 250 is steep though. I paid 160 to get ours refurbed last year.

I do not agree with that. In the old days when law, order and democratic systems were not as established, religion provided a kind of 'guideline' for people to teach them how to live together with eachother. Whether one reads through the Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Buddist or any writings, they all are about respect for others. Unfortunately, many people have used the interpretation of religion for a war of power. 700 years ago, we (I am Catholic), went to the Muslim world to go and teach the Turks they should live according to our rules and how we thought you should think. Nowadays, things have not changed. Religious rules have been replaced by the 'democratic' idiologies (idiocies ?) and some, e.g the US, find in that ideology a reason to go to other countries and invade them because they think their ideology is more right than the one the people in that country live by... Unfortunately, there are many stupid people on this planet, especially those who feel threatened by others because they are ambitious but too intellectually challenged to live with their own limitations.

I just had my wintertyres put on our wheels without balancing. No single vibration. Could work without rebalancing.