krisby1

hmm, the wife has been saying her car is noisy when cold too, so tonight I went out and had a listen, and sure enough there is a noise, wouldn't describe it as a squeal though, but definitely disappears when clutch pressed, and apparently stops when cold, so she tells me. I don't think clutch is end of life though as the bite point is mid range. Having the car fixed over christmas whilst we away though, had a failed attempt at the timing belt in August, so leaving it with the mechanic again to try less common ways of getting the crank bolt off, but will get him to replace fluid with MT-90 whilst he has it, I'm hoping that will get rid of the whine and smooth out the 1-2 notchiness, but I don't expect it to get rid of this odd whine at idle in neutral, but I'll let you know if it does.

£30 from empty might show as just below half, but the way gauges work it won't be half, put it this way, £1.40 ish per litre, on a 70 litre tank, means 35 litres is half, so £30 is only getting you about 21-22 litres, way down on half a tank. The wife puts £50 a time in hers, thats about 36 litres, and she only gets about 160-180 miles, about the same I get from my 528, if she was getting near 28mpg the guy above claimed we'd be over the moon, that would save us about £50 a month.

Wasn't directed at me was it? I didn't use Tony, I went to a local garage, they had all specs on computer, more than just alignment, I believe they did caster, toe and camber, took them just over an hour as everything was so far out, I don't know how the previous owner put up with it, unless they only did town driving where it was not as noticeable. I'm just surprised it is so hard to find a tyre shop in the UK that does a full wheel alignment, in NZ that is all we have, I was astonished when the first 2 garages said they only do the fronts. Unless its because NZ has a higher proportion of RWD cars with the myriad of Falcons, Commodores, Skylines, Chasers etc, but then the UK has more than enough Lexi, BMW, Mercs etc as well, so go figure.

I might be able to find the print out at home, but any decent garage should have it on computer anyway. Plus, garages do a 4 wheel alignment, the 1st two places I went to only did fronts, but as its RWD I really wanted the backs done too, and just as well, as the fronts were turning the car left, and the backs were turning the car right.

Of a smaller capacity engine you mean? I've not driven a supercharged engine, I was considering a Merc CLK with a supercharger for the Mrs, but reviews showed the Mercs to be woeful on reliability and rust, so opted for the Lexi instead, but yeah, I do understand that the power delivery is meant to be constant with a supercharger, unlike the sudden woomph of a turbo. My Cedric Cima turbo was awful, either on or off, as was my Skyline GT Turbo, but my old Ovlov 850T was pretty progressive through the whole range, those Swedes know how to tune a turbo.

To be fair though, that is not supercharging, that is just induction. And of course a bigger engine should produce more power, all depends on how efficient the engine is in converting the mixture to heat, i.e fuel and air detonation, air mixture, spark plugs, fuel quality, exhaust tuning, ECU mapping, compression ratio, rev limit, all play a big part. Heck, in NZ I had a 2.5L V6 in my 1995 Mitsi Diamante, put out 200bhp, and later I had a 1998 Mitsi Legnum 2.5 V6, but different engine, this only produced 160bhp. Some engines are tuned for low torque, some for top end power, some mid range punch, my 1999 528i seems to be progressive everywhere, low, mid and top end is all strong, the wifes IS quite weak low down, my old 2.3 V5 Toledo had 170bhp, not much more than an IS, but it was soooo much quicker, poop off a shovel in every gear. The wifes old 1.8 NA Seat Toledo was gutless everywhere, and drank petrol worse than the IS, obviously hugely inefficient in power and burning fuel. Had a Honda Inspire 2.5 straight 5 in NZ too, more low down power than the Diamante V6, but crap midrange, and once up and running, way down on power compared to the Diamante. Another comparison is my 1998 1.6 Vitara jeep I had at work, pulled harder and faster than my colleagues equivalent 2.0 Vitara, but then I think his had been molly coddled as it struggled to rev beyond 5000rpm, as did mine when I first got it, but after a daily push to redline eventually the engine freed up and my Vitara was a much better car to drive, I reckon even since I've had my 528 it has freed up from daily visits to 6k. Engines are funny things, and how they are tuned, as well as numerous other factors all impact their performance and power delivery. But please, saying that your bigger bore cylinders in the 300 is like a supercharger is crazy talk, its the way the engine was designed, and your car would be no more a supercharger than an is200, just because it is compressing more at combustion than an is200, does not make it a supercharger. Superchargers run an intake powered by the engine off the crankshaft that draw air in and direct, or squeeze the air between spinning rotors to compress it, increasing the density of air over what standard induction can do. It does help the 300 that is has the Supra engine though, but I suspect at a lower compression ratio, as I believe the "GL" models had the non turbo, and faster models with turbos, I haven't looked into it, but I would have thought that turbo'ed versions would run lower compression ratios than turbo ones. Out of interest too, the toyota altezza with the yamaha tuned red tops are only 2L fours, but they rev to 7500 and make 209bhp.

Noby does, atleast his signature says he has a TTE installed. He has an IS300 with a TTE bodykit on it, not a TTE supercharger (and correct me if I'm wrong someone please, the TTE developed supercharger kit only fits the 1G-FE in the IS200, and not the 2JZ-GE in the IS300) my apologies, you are right, and it does only say TTE kitted, not a TTE supercharger...and, no TTE s/c for the 2JZ, my haste caused me to go stupid momentarily.

Noby does, atleast his signature says he has a TTE installed.

Hahaha knoby. You are too funny! (ps, I'm not a mechanic, so there's no danger of me replacing valves on a customers car - but your concern is sweet) Ok, tell you what - if you want to feel that your car has a supercharger "like" engine, then please do so. It actually only makes is funnier to me! :D I don't quite understand your animosity regarding this, he was only pointing out what Lexus said, whether he believes it is neither here nor there, he was just passing on what they say about their own systems, whether the two systems are similar or completely different is irrelevant, lexus made a simile to try and make people understand in a very basic way how the effect of the potential increase in induction may feel, they were not quoting it as fact or describing exactly how it works. Besides all that, he does have a supercharger on his car, so I would hope it does feel like he has a supercharger. But I would disagree with Lexus anyway, not based on your reasoning though, I would not choose their term to explain the increase in power, instead, it is what I would expect as speed and engine speed increases, more air is sucked in naturally and power is increased, that is how BHP is achieved. This car feels no different in its power delivery to any other NA I've owned, from 1.6L 4s, to 3L V6s, or even my current 528, which has a very progressive power delivery, I don't feel the effect that the double vanos offers, or atleast, there is no sudden increase in power as is normally claimed on this type of tech, the only time I've felt a kick in the butt is on turbo'ed cars (never had the pleasure of owning supercharged cars.)

defo geometry, my wifes IS200 had the same thing, following it in my car I could see it was crabbing. I had a full geometry done on it and £125 later it is set up beautifully. Everything was out, and some things were WAAAYYY out, like negative camber on one side and positive on the other, like it was set up for Nascar.

I would say it will probably settle down after you next drive it. I wouldn't worry too much, just wait until the light comes on, until then enjoy the free fuel. :P My 528 did a similar thing this week, even though I parked on a level surface, it doesn't seem to have gone down much, or what I would expect, in the last 52 miles, and I am sure what I saw when I got to work yesterday and when I left last night, it was slightly higher, but then I know it will catch up between now and empty, as it normally does. OBC saying 150 miles to empty still, which is unbelievable after 78miles and only £50 of super, unless the cooler weather is giving me a significantly better mpg.

my wife only gets about 22.4 mph in her manual 200, over a 5.5mi journey through traffic and atleast 20 sets of traffic lights, so perhaps not so bad, but still pretty poor from a 2.0L, when my 528 auto gets 24mpg on my daily commute into London.

This happened to me in the wifes car last month, but the mat was not near the pedal, the pedal on our car doesn't even touch the mat. The pedal stuck down for a good few seconds before popping off itself again, by then I had turned the ignition off though. I warned the wife and told her to be careful, but she said she doesn't generally put her foot to the floor anyway. Then, the week after it did happen to her, same thing, it stuck down after she floored it to get ahead of some ***** head, as she was slowing down to the side of the road the pedal popped off and back to normal of its own accord. I've had a look and it appears all fine, but I did spray WD40 on the pedal shaft and let it seep through the firewall. Its not happened since but then I don't either of us have floored it. It does appear to be a recall, or atleast something to do with the brake pedal sticking, I did email Lexus Twickenham, twice, but have not had a reply from them (so much for legendary customer service), so I will get wife to call them in a vulnerable and scared way.

Was looking forward to taking the wifes IS200 Sportcross to Cornwall last Saturday week, I fuelled up the night before, checked all fluids, read for any codes with my bluetooth OBD2 reader, all sorted, and left OBD2 plugged into monitor the car on the way down. So Saturday morning, loaded up the car, locked house, all set, started car, and ABS light was flashing, drove it up the road, still didn't clear, read for codes, nothing coming up, damn it! so we swapped everything over to my car for the trip instead. Been bugging me all week that I would have to get an ABS sensor, but for which wheel? checked again when I got home, still no codes. Removed ODB2 bluetooth reader, light still flashing. Turned off engine, restarted, no light, when round the block, no light, hmmm, so it seems the stupid reader seems to conflict with the ECU and cause the ABS light to flash, atleast if left in for extended periods of time, maybe just leaving it for that night caused problems. Oddly though, I leave my ELM327 plugged in all the time in the Tolly V5 without issue (except last winter when I went on holiday and came back to a flat battery, doi!). So anyway, just a wee story in case anyone else gets ABS issues and has a bluetooth OBD plugged in constantly.

only name ours if the number plate allows it, unfortunately my Toledo V5 and the wifes IS200 have crap plates that don't really allow anything. Stepsons focus is called Bottom though.