daxilic

Yea charged it up for an hr and now its all fine :) just dont understand why it was reading 14 volts on the voltmeter if it was dead?! said on the voltage indicator on the dash it was about 13 odd volts aswell

Earlier today I changed the front passenger side brake caliper and now the car wont start, before the caliper change I had moved the car so it was working fine then but now it's not even turning over. All I get is a loud clicking sound, I've also noticed the interior lights are a bit dim although the radio works fine and lights on instrument panel are full brightness. I've had a look around and saw a guy with the exact same problem although he had a dead battery. I've used a volt meter to check the battery terminals and its 13~15volts so that cant be the problem, also checked the connections to the battery and getting same voltage. When I jacked up the car I used a trolley jack in the middle of the front axel, the problem to me seems like an electrical problem so I thought a lead has come loose or plug has come out etc but I've looked thoroughly and checked and everything seems fine. The starter motor isn't turning at all, it seems to get a bit of power then loose it completely then the clicking starts. If anyone could help that would be brilliant as it's important I need to use the car tommorrow :shutit: **UPDATE: It's definately not enough power, the exterior lights are extremely dim and now the clicking has stopped and nothing happens at all apart from a relay from the main fuse box (HEAD LP/cyan coloured one) clicking away (different click from before) **

So it's OK to mix them? I suppose I could although it was back in October, not sure they would remember lol

Tommorrow I'm going to replace one of the front calipers and need to get more brake fluid to top it off after bleeding. I've never brought brake fluid before so I read in the handbook it says to get No. 116 SAEJ1703 DOT 3 FMVSS. I went to a few places around including halfords and it seems DOT 3 isn't available anymore as DOT 4 is much better, so where can I get some? or can I just top it off with DOT 4? Also a few months ago I got the other front caliper changed - a garage did it that time and charged me a fortune (hense why doing this one myself), maybe they bled the whole system and replaced the old fluid with DOT 4, is there a way to find out if its DOT 4 in the reservoir? Thanks in advance :)

How do you get the piston out? hmm well I'm completely new to this so I dont want to risk messing it up, think I'd rather go for the £40 caliper if theres no free way of doing it lol

I've had wheel wobble for a few months now but it's completely random and comes and goes so I couldnt be bothered to fix it but recently it's got really bad and feels too dangerous to drive. After I got home after a trip of particularly bad wheel wobble I thought maybe the nuts were loose on one of the wheels (BTW I had already previously checked the wheels when I first encountered the wobble) so I checked and found the front nearside wheel was red hot! was so hot I burnt my finger. Today I took the caliper off and after pressing the brake pedal all the way down and found one of the pistons was working fine and the other wasn't shifting at all. So I'm guessing the wheel wobble was caused by the knackered piston moving out then getting stuck causing the friction. Heres a pic of the caliper after the brake pedal was depressed: what would be the best option at this point - trying to fix the piston or just get a new caliper? Ideally I would like to fix the piston (I'm guessing I would need to somehow get it to come all the way out then grease it up) than get a new caliper although I got a quote from 247spares for a scrap one for £40 Much apreciated, Mark

thank you for all the advice, I've found using the air replenish button on with A/C on but heater on too does seem to stop the windows steaming up. If only there was a way to clear the rear side windows with vents lol. I've got no leather or half leather seats there entirely fabric, dont think I've ever had a car with full leather seats so cant comment on that. as for the bad smell kelscot I had the same problem over the summer, seemed to only smell when I put the aircon on. I sprayed loads of febreeze in the intake vents (where the windscreen wipers are) and it pretty much got rid of the smell, it's not completely gone but definately helped a lot :) failing that you could see if theres any blockages in the drip pipe from the evaporator. where would I find the heating matrix?

where would water be getting into the car?

yea I use that button and the other one for air circulation inside the cabin only. doesn't make any difference :duh:

OK so it's winter time now and my windows keep steaming up, no problem...turn the demister on for a few seconds and it clears, but after I turn the heater back on the windows immediately steam up again, like literally 5 seconds after I just cleared them. The only way to keep the windows clear all the time is to have the demister/aircon on all the time while driving, but having to drive all through winter with the aircon on full blast and getting hyperthermia isn't something you should have to do. I've never had this problem in any other car, normally after demisting it wont steam up again. Is this some kind of design flaw or is there a problem with my car? its extremely annoying. thanks.

how do you mean flatten it down? i sanded between coats of primer but didn't think you would need to do that with the black paint. and I'm guessing cutting polish is different from normal car polish?

Thanks for the tip, got the astral black and the colour matches perfectly, only problem I've got now is i cant get a good finish. infact the finish is terrible looks like a 3yr sprayed it. i put the paint on and it looked pretty good wet but once it dried it went all matte and non-reflective, some bits were reflective but it was like a cloudy reflection and didn't blend at all to the original paintwork. I'm spraying the can at the right distance and spraying in lengths distributing the paint evenly so what am i not doing? someone told me you have to let the paint dry in warm conditions and it might be the cold that's making the paint dry differently.

oh I see, yea I've been to that halfords a few times but not for a while I'll check it out :) ah right didn't know that, forgot about the Altezza. Have you used this before? I'll definitely give it a go thanks a lot man

what they have a section in the store where they can mix up specific codes?

well that's what I would have done to start with but I've checked halfords and they dont do Lexus paint, I heard halfords dont stock Lexus and Toyota and that you need to get them directly from the dealers. Well I've not done it before but I know what the process is and I have a friend who's a mechanic and has done a lot of respraying before. I'm trying it myself first cause I cant really afford to pay someone £150+ to do a professional job. So I don't know how it will turn out but if it's not noticeable then that's good enough for now B)