twozero3

According to the service diagram, that ventilation panel is held in with 8 clips. One in each corner of the main panel and one roughly at each corner of the clock square. It appears that you should be able to release the clips and prise the panel out with a prise tool.

Yes, my car has a six speaker system. It has plenty of room for improvement in my opinion and I suppose that's why Lexus sell optional upgraded systems.

Thanks! It is one of those things you've really got to want to do because you think the end result will be worth it.

Hi, I don’t think I’m the only one that considers the overall sound quality of the standard audio system in the IS300h to be disappointing. Upgrading the speakers can result in an improvement in sound quality in just about any audio system and that’s what I’ve begun to do with my IS300h, starting with the dash speakers. Unfortunately it was not a straight forward plug in and bolt in job, a bit of tweaking and butchering is required. I replaced the stock dash speakers with a pair of Pioneer TS-E1002I. The stock speakers have standard bolt spacing and that is the only part of the fitting that was right from the start. The stock speakers are unusually small for what are essentially 10cm speakers. I measured the speaker cones at less than 5cm! Some headphones have drivers that size, they really are feeble, nasty things. The Pioneers are deeper and wider than stock and it was necessary to use a stanley knife to trim away some of the internal plastic of the dash to make some space for the Pioneers. More of this trimming was needed for the passenger side than the driver side. The speaker space is not symetrical between left and right, indeed the speaker grilles are different sizes which I didn’t notice until I had them off. Luckily the plastic is quite soft. Because the Pioneer speakers are deeper than stock I had to mount them 5 or 6mm higher up to clear some of the ventilation system ducting that runs close to the speakers. I used rubber grommets as spacers, If I had some washers of the right size at hand I probably would have used a stack of them instead. I might go back and do so yet. As a precaution I also trimmed away some plastic from the underside of the grilles to create a little more clearance above the speakers. The biggest fiddle was electrically connecting the speakers. I scoured the internet for ready made IS300h dash speaker adaptors but couldn’t find any. That left two oprions, cut the existing plug off and use crimps or make my own adaptor using the sockets molded into the stock speaker. Although crimps were my first choice I decided against them because the loom wires feeding the speakers are short and you have very little working space with them tight into a corner. So I carefully cut the sockets off the stock speakers, filed them down into neat pieces and then soldered on the wires supplied with the Pioneers. A lump of epoxy putty at the back of the sockets sealed the connections in. All in all a bit of fiddling and faffing about but the result was worth it. The improvement in sound quality is substantial. Front doors next

I seem to be over achieving. Currently indicated fuel consumption for my 20 mile round trip commute, which constitutes the majority of my driving is 50mpg. In summer I'll see 56-58mpg. Back in October I drove 208 miles from home to Heathrow airport that single journey indicated 61mpg. My best ever for a single journey of any length (93miles) was 63mpg a fair part of that was on the M6 speed restricted to 50mph All done with a smooth driving style in normal mode. Just to add another angle to it, I only ever use "premium" petrol, Tesco momentum 99, BP Ultimate, Shell V Power etc.

I'm one of those that has found the DAB radio in my IS300h to be utterly useless. All I ever get it "no signal" despite livng in what is generally a strong signal area. So the other day I decided to make it really easy for the Lexus. I went to my local supermarket and parked with the aerial/rear windscreen directly facing and in clear sight of Winter Hill, which is the major transmitter site for television and radio (including DAB) in the north west of England and attempted to refresh the DAB stations. Guess what I got... yep, no signal! Absolutely abysmal. Lexus really need to sort this out. FM/AM was fine.

Whoever it is they need to go back to primary school and learn English. Can you trust buying a car from someone who seems to be under the sad impression it's cool to write and spell like a retard.

Kristor, The 3 litre Soarer is just as much a quality car as those with the 2.5 litre or 4 litre engines. I would suggest it is also the least expensive Soarer to run with the most readily available engine parts since the same engine is used in offcial UK model Toyota's and Lexus's. [yes the 4L V8 is used in the Lexus LS400 but you're still paying Lexus prices] I would also suggest the popularity of the TT and V8 over the 3 litre, in the UK is due to the fact that the 3L was not introduced until 1994 so the first reasonabley priced Soarers to be imported from Japan would have been the early models, ie. the TT and V8. As time goes on I think we may see more 3 litres being imported. The first 3 litres are now 10 years old thus negating the need for an SVA.

I'm having my odometer re-counted to miles from Kilometres pretty much as I write this by Protech near Bristol, www.protech-uk.co.uk I'm being charged £70 but that's on top of other work that requires the dash to be taken out. Not sure if the price would be any different for it to be done as a single job on it's own.