johnatg

I think all these explanations are too technical. It's simple - if you apply very light pressure to the brakes when there's a bit of drive from the engine/transmission, the pads vibrate and cause the noise. If you apply more brake pressure, the noise stops because the pads no longer vibrate (and the car doesn't move). If you apply less pressure the noise will also stop, again because the pads don't vibrate - but you might move forward more than you want.

If the battery really is running out so fast it has to be a faulty fob - the battery should last 2-3 years. Have you got and tried the other fob? Or, could the fob be being shielded when it's in the car - too much metal around it in your pocket perhaps - other keys on the ring with the fob?

Talk about words of one syllable! I suppose it shows you how to do it. Removing the engine cover like that is likely to break it - lift at the back first, then the front. As the header tank easily lifts out, it's easier to empty it by removing it than pumping it out. You don't need to mess about removing part or all of the undertray - you can reach the 'petcock' from the top and there's a hole in the tray to allow the water to flow out. You might need to arrange a bit of a deflector to guide it through the hole rather than flowing all over the undertray. If your coolant and header tank is clean, as it should be on well-maintained IS250s you don't need to flush with 'distilled' water. It will just dilute the coolant. (And BTW - it's best to buy readymixed coolant - that way you get the correct mix and there's no risk of tapwater contamination should you plan to use that rather than deionised water.) The description of warming up and circulating the distilled water/coolant is plain wrong - that is not how temperature control of coolant flow works. No mention of the cylinder block drains! Apart from that....a useful guide.......

The drain valves were just plain not there. And yet you think 'well, they must be.' Mystery - maybe it 's me!

The specified coolant is Toyota Super Long Life Coolant Pink - the capacity is 9.1 litres and the change interval is 10 years to first change then every 5 years. I have to admit to using Comma X-Stream G30 instead. The workshop manual specifies Toyota SLLC or similar high quality ethylene glycol based non-silicate, non-amine, non-nitrite, non-borate coolant with long-life hybrid organic acid technology (coolant with long-life hybrid organic acid technology consists of a combination of low phosphates and organic acids). The procedure is to remove the radiator cap and drain using the drain valve at he bottom of the radiator - it's towards the offside of the rad. And the two valves on the cylinder blocks. Hmm - what two valves? Try as I might, I couldn't find them and I posted on here to try and get help identifying them but no-one admitted to having actually found them. i got about 4 litres out of the rad and the header tank and replaced it (at ten years). I now intend to drain the rad and header tank every year and replace what I get out. That way it should stay reasonably refreshed. I changed about another 4 litres this year. After refilling you need to make sure there are no air locks - any there will eventually dissipate but you need to do several short journeys (5 miles?) and after each let the engine cool and check the level, both in the header tank and in the thermostat housing (remove the rad cap which is on the thermostat housing). You can help by squeezing the hoses which can help to work any air out.

Don't you just know that however good a deal you think you've found, someone finds a better one! Congrats, Ishaq! Had mine done today by ATS Knutsford - perfectly OK professional job, although to be fair it is a largely automated process - they hook the system up to the machine and it does it all automatically. The guy did say that the 'computer' gave the wrong location for one of the valves when he put the reg number in - showed it at front offside when in fact it is near the nearside back corner of the engine. Now the strange thing is that my system was well overcharged. I, nor anyone else has touched it since I bought the car five years ago. ATS took out 590g of gas, pressure checked it and replaced the specified 430g (that figure came from 'computer' and is also in my workshop manual). So it had been 160g or so overfilled! Wonder if that was from the factory, or had someone been in there during the first 6 years of the car's life? It took a little over an hour, but I left the premises before the job had been started so who knows. Before the job, the temperature from the vents with the temp set to 'Lo' was 8 deg C, afterwards it was 6 deg. So there you go!

Aha - that will be why the offer says 'no hybrids' (or electric vehicles) As Keith says, regular usage of aircon is important to keep the seals in good condition, but the gas can leak away over time even with good seals. If the seals have deteriorated the system may fail the pressure test - then they can't regas and you have to get it fixed - expensive. And it's not just the gas - I guess the lubricant oil (which is carried in the gas) will deteriorate over time.

We don't seem to talk much about aircon here (especially routine service) - maybe it just works and we forget about it? Anyway, you are supposed to have it checked every two years, but I don't think mine has ever been done (in 11 years). It still works OK though. Now ATS Euromaster (tyre place primarily) have a discount offer - 40% off, so they do a pressure check and regas for £28.79. Seems like a good deal, so I've booked in for Tuesday. They also offer a bacterial clean, but that's not discounted but it's easy enough to do yourself with a 'bomb' can you can buy from Halfords - I have done that occasionally. The offer is only for April, so you only have a few days if you're interested. Only applies to vehicles with R134A - I think most of ours will have that but later cars may have moved on to something else. There are terms (eg no hybrids) and the offer isn't immediately obvious on the web site - do a Google (or alternative) search for 'ATS aircon discount offer'

Excessive crankcase pressure - worn engine/piston rings - probably.

Maybe it's a LF model. The tappets are buckets which sit on top of the valves, then the camshafts are directly on top of the tappet. There are shims which sit in the bucket to adjust the valve clearance - if they need adjustment you have to measure the existing clearance and the shim, then buy new shims of the new size you've worked out. It is sometimes possible, with an arrangement like this, to winkle the shim out whist you hold the valve compressed with a special tool which presses on the edge of the bucket. The official way is to remove the camshafts - you don't need to remove the timing chain but you do need special tools to lock it all up whilst you remove the camshafts. And I reckon changing the valve stem oil seals is going to involve removing the head. As you say, pretty major job. If the oil isn't leaking it must be being burnt. Most likely past the piston rings if it's done a high mileage. Either live with it or budget for a pretty major overhaul. Or there is some stuff advertised in Car Mechanics every month which claims to restore engine compression and improve oil consumption, especially for the Mazda RX8 which has a ****el (edit - oh - ridiculous - that's a rotary) engine and it is notorious for high oil consumption (in fact it's designed to burn oil to save the rotor tips). I can't remember the name and I don't have a copy of the mag to hand, but it might be worth a try (but it could well be snake oil). I'll try and remember to send you the name when I get home towards the end of next week.

Why not ask the question on a Mazda3 forum? I look after one (which is perfectly reliable) - but the answer to your question depends on the year and exact engine - most have Zetec-derived engines but there are several different capacities etc and recent ones don't have Ford engines.

Those plugs look pretty well used to me - I'd say 92K rather than 32K. But still more or less serviceable - (I assume no particular starting or fuel consumption issues?) - which lends credence to my theory that these plugs are good up to 100K miles. I say 'up to' because it will depend on driving conditions - motorway cruiser or town traffic crawler - not sure which will last longer! My car passed 60k miles today (during a 350 mile trip to Scotland) - I intend to leave the plugs until 80K - 85K and then assess how long I intend to keep the car (if indeed I keep it that long - I only do about 7K miles a year in the Lexus. So my personal advice is - if your car is passing 60K save your money on plugs until another 25K miles have passed and then see how long you'll keep the car! (so long, of course, that you don't meanwhile have issues such as starting, emissions or fuel consumption or other obvious signs of worn-out plugs). Nothing sudden will happen - and they last 100K miles in California! ('Cos they are emissions related and all emissions stuff has to be warranted to 100K there)

Actually a diesel with blanked off EGR would probably pass the current emissions test. But if they somehow bring in real-world emissions testing (as seems possible) it would likely fail. EGRs are there to recirculate exhaust gas at high revs/load which reduces combustion temperatures and hence NOX emissions.

That all sounds as if it's operating correctly - I doubt that changing the thermostat would make any difference. It's not just a lot of coolant to heat up - the engine is pretty big, with two cylinder blocks etc - that's a good lump of metal to heat. And there's a lot of oil - that is important for cooling too - it takes time to warm up. IS250s don't operate at best efficiency on short journeys - they need 10 miles or more. I use the Mii when I can for short trips of less than ten miles or so - it's easier to park, too!

You check oil with the dipstick, not with the dash lights!

I wouldn't say 'any other car' but it's pretty normal for a IS250 - there's a lot of coolant to heat. My temp gauge starts to rise after about 1½ miles then takes another couple of miles to get to the normal half way mark. My wife's Mii gets to full temp within a bit over half a mile. My MX-5 is somewhere in between. I'd say nothing to worry about.

No probs, Normski - pleased you got sorted! Maybe you should just have taken the whole mounting bracket from the scrappy!

Hi Normski I've got one of those slider bolts that you can have - if it's not too late! Send me a PM with your address. It's not quite as pristine as the RockAuto (?) pic but it's perfectly serviceable.

That's all true, but it would be interesting to know if there have ever been any prosecutions for using non-e-marked bulbs on a car (except possibly stupid colours, like blue led sidelights - plenty of them about), or any refusals to pay insurance claims. The most that's likely from the police is a 'get it fixed' directive (I forget the proper term!) which is how (along with MoT failures) they have got rid of number plates with fancy scripts (although there are still plenty of incorrect spacings around)

HID conversion kits are illegal in UK for the simple reason that the bulbs are not e-marked (and all bulbs used on the exterior of a car must be) Having said that, I have them - and with no problems - including not getting flashed and passing MoT. But legality of bulbs is a 'Construction and Use' issue and MoTs are not designed to check for compliance with that - just for roadworthiness, so as long as the bulbs are lighting up, are even between both sides and the beam pattern is correct - that's it. The beam pattern is correct when HIDs are used in our reflector beam headlights - the foglights are not checked for beam pattern. You could theoretically be prosecuted for using any after-market HIDs but the 'law' would have to carry out a detailed examination of your car. How likely is that?

There's plenty of space around and behind the light units.

You don't need to take the bumper off to get to the fog light bulbs. On the nearside there's a hatch under the light fitting - you can get to the bulb through that. On the offside, undo the two clip things holding the wing liner to the wing, then bend the wing liner back a bit - it's tough but it will bend. then you can get in behind it and get to the bulb.

The pin isn't actually fixed - it unscrews from the carrier (there's a hex socket in the end into which you can insert an allen key). You don't seem to be able to get replacements easily though, so maybe academic. There is a consequence though - on the nearside, if the caliper is stuck on the pin you have a chance of rotating the caliper to free it. But on the offside a well stuck (in the caliper) pin is liable to just unscrew from the carrier if you try and rotate the caliper, so that you can only apply force in an outwards, rather than rotational, direction. That tends to be harder to do without damaging the caliper. The caliper will only rotate a certain distance before it comes up against an obstruction.

Nothing to do with Lexus per se - it's the usual thing with all number plates these days. You can buy the special adhesive tape from Halfords - it has a green protective layer which you remove, then it's double sided black foam.. It is extremely strong, but you do need to have thoroughly degreased both number plate and whatever you're sticking it to. Yours obviously wasn't properly prepared.

It's not really snapping that's the issue at big mileages (although it can happen) - it's stretching of the chain, along with corresponding wear of the tensioner and the sprockets. That leads to excessive noise. This problem will rear its head more and more with stupid extended service/oil change intervals - the wear is largely caused by ineffective lubrication when the oil gets contaminated. I'll say it again - frequent oil changes! (BTW - IS250s have three chains - the main one which drives the intake camshafts and two small ones, one for each bank, which drive the exhaust camshafts from the intake ones.)