Damo2

22 hours ago, lexus22 said:

Hi, there is a chap in Birmingham who just breaks Lexus is models, give him a call on 07866104047, name is Ricky, I've dealt with him and recommend 👍

Hi Chris

Thanks for the "Head's Up" on Ricky... What a lovely guy and a great shout as he had one..

When I originally spoke to him he wasn't sure if he had actually got one, when I told him how difficult it was to track one down here in the UK and that I was looking at US or Japan for the part, then 3 weeks before it would arrive here in UK and the price, he said "don't worry about that, I will help to get you sorted out with one somehow". 

He then called me back after he had done a search and found one he had taken off a 2004 IS300 years ago, we then confirmed via photos that the part he had was the right one for my Sportscross.. job done... It will be delivered next Wednesday... Saved me about £400 versus buying a new one from the USA.

Thanks again for your help and the recommendation, I think Ricky will be getting more business from me going forwards.

Hi Guys..  

So I was just passing time this evening.. and thought I would read myself a bedtime story.. as I haven't followed up on this thread for such a long time, yet I still have my Lexie.. despite all her foibles, including this one we have all had and still some contend with.

So, to catch up, I never actually had the EBC Drilled and slotted discs and the Redstuff pads I bought (mentioned in a previous post) ever fitted, although I think they were / are good value for money for the spec.. I think what happened is covid came along and then time just stopped, so i never ever booked them in for fitting..  They are (as far as I know) still living in the box they came in under my stairs..  in fact my mechanic asked me about them just recently, as I think he was also wondering what happened to them.

That said, and I do remember this..  there was yet another wheel, steering, braking wobble problem.. who knows??  other than I am sure I don't know / knew what the problem was.. But my mechanic about a year ago swapped over my OSF disc with my NSF front disc as I had complained again to him that I had steering wheel wobble under mid speed and braking and he had only 2 months earlier replaced them both for standard OEM parts following a MOT and annual service where they came up as needing attention.  He road tested the car and said it was just the discs, he swapped them over from NSF to OSF and vice versa and told me to let me know how I got on.. 

It took about 2 weeks, but the wobble settled down and eventually disappeared...  I think I have next to zero wobble now.. 

My new problem is a Power Steering Pump issue.. and guess what.. There are no suppliers for spare parts here in the UK I need and Lexus have discontinued any supply chain or support for Lexus IS300 Sportcross parts for the UK..

I am looking at Japan and US for IS300 parts now..  unless they are a generic /Toyota part or after market.

Hey Ho.. I am still going keep the old girl on the road if I can..  but stupid quotes for old / used OEM salvaged parts and importing overseas parts may stop me.. As so far I have always used OEM parts for the old girl..

PS to last... NSF was also out but not as bad..

2 minutes ago, lexus22 said:

Have used the greenstuff pads in the past, downside was the cost, and found they needed a few miles to warm up before working properly, apart from that, great fast road pads. Gone back to Brembo pads now, find they do the job fine. I think the red stuff would be to harsh for normal road use, and yellow definitely just for track. Can't see that the heat is warping the discs, unless you're diving it at the 24hour Lemans! Have you worked out if it's the offside or nearside disc that is the problem??

Thanks for looking and advice... OSF / drivers side is the latest one that is the problem.. but as having owned the car for over 10years there is no rhyme or reason as to which one is the problem, as in the past faulty or problem discs has been measured on both wheels.. I will  add that this time though the slider pins were slightly rusty, and also the discs them selves showed rust spots (BTW they were brand new).. but that was maybe due to car not being really used due to lockdown??.. Prior issues though and current ones are the same..  Bloody steering wheel wobble.. currently around 40MPH and above.

24 minutes ago, Damo2 said:

Hi Guys...  any of you still running your babies... cos I am back here again lol.. I still have and love my baby but the braking steering wheel wobble issue is back again.. Aghhhhh.. Other than that she is perfect.. and not cost me anything in abnormal costs to run, other than annual service and tyres etc.. oh and fluids taet oily stuff.. and a few MOT's, and an exhaust back box, which is expensive.. other than that all good as not yet gone all electric myself .. lol.. once a petrol head always a petrol head..!!

Anyway.. I am now biting the bullet I should have done years ago and spending some money on an after market brake upgrade. As I feel the issue is excessive heat in the discs causing the prob.

So query is.. are EBC Slotted and Redstuff Pads the way to go.. has anyone any experience of EBC products.. ?? I was originally looking at Brembo, but my mechanic said they have stopped using Brembo due to quality problems..

I have bought them anyways.. so will do a bed and then report back.. eek

24 minutes ago, Damo2 said:

Any feedback appreciated..

Thanks 

Damo

Hi Guys...  any of you still running your babies... cos I am back here again lol.. I still have and love my baby but the braking steering wheel wobble issue is back again.. Aghhhhh.. Other than that she is perfect.. and not cost me anything abnormal costs to run, other than annual service and tyres etc.. oh and fluids.. and MOT, and an exhaust back box.. other than that all good as not yet gone all electric myself .. lol.. once a petrol head always a petrol head..!!

Anyway.. I am now biting the bullet I should have done years ago and spending some money on an after market brake upgrade. As I feel the issue is excessive heat in the discs causing the prob.

So query is.. are EBC Slotted and Redstuff Pads the way to go.. has anyone any experience of EBC products.. ?? I was originally looking at brembo, but my mechanic said they have stopped using brembo due to quality problems..

Any feedback appreciated..

Thanks 

Damo

I promised once to upload some pictures.. so here we go...

This is my Baby.. I am the same as most of you on here, we all love our babies...!!

I will keep this car on the road and with me always, regardless of owning any other car in the future... 

.

Hi Guys...

Just thought I should check in again since my last post with an update... All good so far since the new discs and pads on the front end were fitted last month, I have done approx 1000 miles on them so far and have had no problems, i.e. steering wheel judder.

The only thing I have done any different to previously is to bed the brakes in following the advice on this site 

The advice makes sense and is not something as a process I have been told to do before, other than to take the first couple of hundred miles easy (which I always did anyway).. but I was not being told why or how to do that... It makes sense though when you read the advice in the link, I am sure many of you already know this process for bedding in new brakes, but for me it was quite a revelation.

All the best

Damo

Hi Guys .. and a happy Bank Holiday to you all!

UPDATE FROM ME. In case it helps anyone??  for context I first posted to this thread back on the 1st October 2015 , after having gone through 3 sets of new discs and pads on the front end of my Sportscross in about 2 years, but was still having problems, then in desperation I had a big investigation done last year that threw up a problem with worn LCA's as well as faulty discs. So after getting that all fixed thought that was the end of my  problems, However please see my update below.

Since I had my LCA's replaced and other work done on my car which also included new front discs and pads almost a year ago to the day (24th August 2017), . All was good for the first 2.5k miles, then a approx 4 months ago the wobble started to return. Indistinguishable at first but gradually getting worse as time went by, even at 30mph.

I therefore last week returned the car to my local garage that done the work last year, as I wanted at least to be able to get any parts they had fitted if found to be faulty to be replaced under warranty. However it transpires after they road tested the car and then checked it out, that the wobble this time was an issue with the front discs only, FYI they had only done approx 4.5k miles since being fitted last August. 

Diagnosis was - "Serious judder on steering wheel when braking - Very Bad!" That was there own diagnosis, but exactly  the same problem as previous issue I had had before they made the repairs last year, and also before then on other occasions since owning the car which I had tried to get sorted out previously and had always been diagnosed as brake disc issues by various mechanics.

Fault Description was - "Disc run out of 0.06mm on outside face of O/S/F  disc. 0.01mm on all other faces of both front discs."

To cut a long story short they have replaced the front discs and pads, but also checked out the front suspension and LCA's to make sure there was not any other issues, and since getting the car back all is good again. 

To invoke the warranty on the parts (discs), they had to make a claim to the parts supplier which was ECP and send off the faulty discs for them to validate the claim.. Anyway 2 days later I got a call to say the claim had been accepted and a refund was made back to me.. BTW I always have OEM parts fitted to my car, most of them have been supplied by Lexus direct.

As an aside, the faulty disc according to my mechanic had a blue spot on it, i.e. a hot spot from overheating on just one spot (and as measured by the DTI) which meant the disc was warped / had a high spot in just one place causing the judder. That said they could not find any issue with the calipers, slider pins or anything else with the brake assembly or hub that would have caused this.

This link may be of use to explain it better than I can https://www.championautoparts.eu/technical/light-vehicles/brakes/technical-tips/brake-judder.html 

If I have another problem then I will post again, but if it transpires to be a brake disc issue I will probably go for Mtec Performance drilled and grooved discs rather than OEM ones. https://www.mtecbrakes.com/  - My thoughts being that having only done 115k miles approx and being on my 7th set of front discs already there must be an issue with the OEM parts.

Anyway, just posting as an FYI - not sure how helpful it is to anyone, but I definitely share your pain!!!

Best wishes 

Damo

So here I am back here again....... I went online originally to check my thread on a car I bought back in 2010 with hardly any miles on it as I bought it off a mate and it was his wife's ride...

It is now my daily ride and I have personally put 100K+ miles on the clock  since I bought it....

I have had some issues since then, so see my related posts, but all is good now...Touch wood as they say...

The wheel wobble, steering, brake issue. brakes and hubs??? seems to have all been down to LCA's... appreciate that was my cars prob and not yours..... but my advice is to still check out any suspension parts before or part of brakes renewal. I have now done 3K on the car since all the work I had done last year and it is a joy to drive... Like Brand new!!

Best wishes to all on this thread.. it has been very helpful and def helped me to narrow the issues down..

Have a great 2018 all..

Best

Damo

My son had one of those IS 220D... total crap..... cost lots of money as he bought 2nd hand... and he ended up scrapping it as it wasn't worth fixing in the end... He now drives a VW golf GTi...I can't change his mind anymore because of the crap the lexus diesel gave him at the time..

Best car.... My Alfa Romeo Alfa 6.... rare as rocking horse ****.. less than 500 RHD one's made worldwide-- Mine had twin round headlights though.....

It was a mafia staff car... 

front end looked like a BMW 3 series of back in the the day, and the back end of a Cadillac... Drove down the M3 just after I bought it and pulled into a petrol station to fill up and and never had so much interest from people for a car I had owned... Apart from my Sportcross now that is!!  

Sold it years later with 6 leaking Dell' Orto Carbs and body rust on it,  and apparently it was going to be shipped to Japan for loads of money!

Quick update from me for those that requested I post back ...

I have now done just over 1000 miles since my last posts on this thread and all is still good since the work that was done on the car in August, with no return of the dreaded steering wheel wobble issues under braking. 

In fact the car is driving just as good now after 112k miles, as when I first got it with 12k miles on the clock..... That said and fingers crossed, I hope this post doesn't put a curse on it!!

As an FYI - the last 1000 miles undertaken have been a mix of distances and duration, including both local and motorway miles.

Quick update..

only just hitting 200 local road miles since all the work done as above, but all good so far.

I have really concentrated on wearing in all new parts, especially the brakes, as I used to do a 110 mile round trip daily on mainly the motorway, so very hard to look after new brakes then. You know the scenario, some prat sticks the anchors on and you have to do the same...!

However all seems fine at the moment, I will give it a little bit longer and then go for a proper long test drive.

I still feel though that there was a couple of probs and not just brake's, and that the worn LCA's as found by my garage, were maybe a part of that.. And since they have been replaced the car is brand new.. Will report back later this month as I have a few trips to do which will test the car.

Correction, meant to say on my last post.. "even though the bill was a fortune".... but I expected it to be... For those interested the LCA's  i.e. the complete replacement Lexus OEM arms with factory fitted bushes, to buy in cost £160 each plus VAT, so times 2.. then fitting them was on top, although my garage are very competitive and fair when it comes to labour rates and the time they spend.

That said the rest of the front end, as I had asked them to do, was totally scrutinised and checked out, and apart from the brake discs, pads and new tyres needed was given a clean bill of health. So my fingers are still crossed, but all the work done pushed the final bill up somewhat as it also included a new O2 sensor, bank 2 sensor 2!!

Being a novice, as you all know i am! I am just re-iterating my own findings on this dilemma in case it useful?

I have been through multiple discs, always as a pair front and back  (handbrake disc /drums), tracking, wheel balances, new wheels, tyres etc. again always as a pair and all round (4 corners), But I always felt that the underlying issues was something to do with the suspension as well as the brakes.. And TBH.. I was so glad that the garage I took the car to just recently actually found a fault with the lower control arms as I now feel vindicated., even the bill was a fortune...__  BTW-- I had 2 new front shocks fitted less than a year ago as well.

This might not be the end of my issues, although all good at the moment, but I feel better for the fact that was was another problem other than nothing else being found!!.. if that makes sense?? Especially after I trusted the car to an independent Lexus Specialist for the first 4 years of ownership and they never worked it out.

Just to be clear, I am not putting any miles on the car at the moment, I only just hit 50 miles or so since it was in the garage last week, that's just my beer run over a week.. and also the Supermarket shop..! but I will report back when I have more to add.

Check all your suspension parts on your motors is my advice.. But as I said at the start... I know nothing really..

Best

Damo

yeah got genuine Lexus OEM parts... not cheap, but I feel happier that they are, as I have always so far stuck to original parts for the car. Just my preference rather than a roadblock for using alternative parts. 

Thanks Phil!

I am not at all technical when it comes to motors. My garage originally said when they called me it was control arms, so you are right, and then on the invoice it says "tie rods"... however they were clear on the parts they replaced when I picked the old girl up, and they provided the schematics to me as I told them I wanted to post on here. So confident all is good on the actual parts they replaced as they also got the schematic and retails costs from Lexus MK. Although they said they had to spend 4hrs sourcing them elsewhere, apparently the whole rod assembly is as rare as rocking horse stuff in the UK!!

Interesting that you did get replacement bushes though for the rods on your car, but I am not going to pursue as I am just happy that the car at the Mo is driving fine... so fine I am back in love again, as everything else with the car is spot on.

PS. My garage said they had so much interest and comments on her while in the workshop, people love them but are not familiar with them. Will post some picks soon as she is in such good nick, mint actually, but needs a wash.

Hi Guys

My car, fingers crossed, may now be sorted at last, very early days yet but thought I would share.

This week, as my MOT is due at end of Sept anyway and I knew it would be a fail because of the steering wheel wobble under braking, which over the last 6 months has got progressively worse, even at 30mph. I have now had the car looked at by my local garage who work on all car types, and which is a different place to where I used to take the car previously, which was an Independent Lexus outfit! 

First thing they did was take it for an MOT and guess what it failed, which we knew it would, but they wanted to make sure there was no other work needed for the MOT before starting work on investigating the wobble. "Front brake excessively fluctuating" was all the MOT station put, nothing else.

Anyway, I asked them to check over the whole front end suspension, bearings and braking system, including checking the run out of the discs while on the hub. Findings for the run out were both sides were way out, one side read 6 thousandths of an inch and the other 4 thousandths. They called to say the discs were warped and they would need replacing, but they knew from what I had told them they needed to carry on checking for what the root cause of the wobble issue was, as they agreed with me that it was probably suspension related and not just the discs / brakes, as they had had previous experience of a similar problem on BMW's many many years ago, which they identified as suspension bushes.

Got the car back today after 3 days in garage with new MOT and wobble cured. They found the bushes on both front suspension tie rods had gone, proper split, however they had to replace the complete rods as the bushes are not available separately apparently, they spoke to Lexus Milton Keynes who confirmed this. Next challenge was actually finding the parts, Lexus / Toyota don't stock and lead time was going to be about 4 days to order in. However my garage did eventually manage to find a set with another parts supplier who had a pair in stock which had been sitting on their shelves for a few years, they were ordered in for a client who then never purchased them.

I attach some piccies of the culprit... along with schematic of the front axle arm and steering knuckle. the circled part is what has been replaced.

To cut a long story short, I have also had fitted new front discs (tolerance now both sides is 0.001), new pads, 2 new front tyres Continentals (as one was near the limit), and the tracking done as well which was also a bit out. Car is a real pleasure to drive now, so I am hoping that at last the problem is finally resolved, only time will tell so I will post again when I have done some miles.

Hope this info may be of some use to everyone else, at least it is another are to look at in finding faults on your own cars.

Best

Damo

Hi All..

How weird... I didn't think that this thread was still going since my last post in Oct 2015, (I basically gave up myself !!!!). but bizarrely I only received the latest updates today on my mobile, however it appears like the dreaded wheel wobble is still an ongoing issue though for quite a few of us.

My own personal experience for my ride is that (since my last post 2015) I have had a further set of new front discs and brake pads, rear drum (handbrake) discs and new brake pads all round as well, new tyres all round and always the tracking and balancing done at the same time (this was done again last year). However nearly 12 months ago when it went for it's last MOT I was told I had a leaking front shock absorber, which I never felt any issue from when driving or had seen evidence of either, as I park my car in the same spot at home every day so would think I would notice a leak, however as you do I had them both replaced as a pair  with OEM parts at the same time.

So where we are now is everything was fine for a few months.... For context, I also no longer put hardly any miles on the car like I used to, in fact I have only done 3k or so far this year, but I have had for the last 6 months an incessant steering wobble when braking anything above 30 miles an hour, literally just going down to the local shops. The car is due an MOT in Sept so I have been holding off till then to have it looked at. If they find the problem all well and good and I will get it sorted, if they don't, then I will need to start my own investigations as it is really bloody annoying that everything else about the car is so good and I love it. 

I wonder if it is anything to do with broken suspension coil springs, anyone?? I had a few go regularly on my V6 Vectra, but they always got picked up up when the car had an MOT, even though I never knew there was an issue myself as the car still drove OK.

BTW... my Vectra ate front discs every 30K or so (I just renewed them and the pads and all was fine again), so I always have thought that the issue with the Lexus since having owned her at only 12.k miles on the clock was brake related, but it is definitely not.... 

Now I am back here again on this thread, I will however read with interest what your collectively thoughts are on this problem.... Hopefully we can solve this....

Best Damo

Hi Guys

Happy New Year to you all!

I have a IS300 Sportcrsoss and love it... it's not 4x4 though.... and never will be.

All 2 wheel drive Lexus's are, shall we say, as far as I know from other owners, challenging in the snow (unless you are used to rear wheel drive motors, which they are) and ice and snow ... but they are great fun..!

That snow mode button is just there to fool you.... lol..

Keep it in ECT or sport mode and enjoy - But be careful of ice or snow on the road. It does make a difference and the switch actually does dial it down when you change mode.. so is not a gimmick.

However that's my view....

Best

Hi Guys

Just thought I would also respond to the query from Ken re. changing the back discs and pads and if it had any impact.

All four corners on mine were replaced at the same time as the 3rd set of replacement front discs and pads were installed, this was not done to resolve any issues on the front end, just that the rear ones were the original ones from new and were worn / corroding on the back of the disc and therefore needed doing as well. I was putting approx 22k miles a year on the car back then and it had done over 50k+, so it didn't seem unreasonable that they needed replacing.

Current status of mine is I notice it only intermittently now at around 70mph if braking hard to come off a dual carriageway on my way home, this is when the discs have had chance to get warm - as per my previous post it is not aggressive as it used to be and as I am not doing anywhere near the mileage I used to, 30miles a day on average tops which in the main is my round trip to the station, I have decided to live with it for now.

As a point of interest - All the wheels on my car were replaced a few years back with a replacement set from Pristine alloys near Milton Keynes (highly recommend these guys), as the original alloys had corroded and let the car down in the looks department and I was going to get them refurbished. However this would have meant Pristine having the car for a couple of days which was not convenient for me, so they found me a replacement set and refurbished them instead and took mine in exchange, the caveat being that my set could be refurbished and weren't buckled.

So I have experienced the juddering issue with two different sets of wheels on the car, so don't think it is due to a buckled wheels/s although I suppose you can't totally write it off. However as an aside, the tyre wear has always been even on all the wheels, and I have had quite a few sets of tyres over the years and always have the tracking checked at the same time when I have new ones fitted and there has never been issues there.

PS. I only feel the judder through the steering wheel, but haven't tried driving in my socks, I have though on a number of occasions taken my hands of the steering wheel to see if the car pulls to one side when braking / juddering and it just keeps going straight as an arrow. It's definitely a puzzle!

Hi guys - I have been following this thread for some time now as I also have the same issue with my IS300 Sportcross. I bought the car from a mate of mine as it was his wife's ride but she hardly ever used it as she would drive their Range Rover and my mates a builder, so he hardly used either of the cars as his daily ride is his van. It was one owner from new, full history and had only done 12,500 miles when I bought it in Feb 2011 - so was virtually as brand new when I got hold of her.

Since then I have had 3 sets of front discs and pads replaced - everything was ok for approx the first 20k miles when I first bought the car off my mate, then the dreaded juddering started. I took it to an independent Lexus specialist (fully Lexus Trained and the right equipment for working on them). I had sort of diagnosed it as warped discs myself having had experience of this on my Vectra V6 SRI which used to chew front discs up after about 30k+ miles (I stuck 180k miles on the Vectra before selling her on, so had gone through quite a few discs by then, it was never anything else). Anyway my mechanic also concluded the front discs on my Lexus were warped and on inspection this was the case, so they installed new OEM parts to both corners.

Less than 7 months and approx. 15k miles later the same issue returned - my mechanic no questions asked replaced the discs and pads under warranty and at the same time comprehensively checked the front end, suspension, bearings etc for other issues but found nothing un-towards. However you've guessed it, the new ones lasted less than 7k miles this time before the juddering started again, so I took it back to my man again who was at a total loss and said he would take it to the main Lexus dealer who supplied him the parts for them to look at it, which he did. After waiting 2 hours for them to actually do a road test and some cursory checks with it on the ramp and expecting them to do further checks with a dial gauge for run out etc, which they didn't, they concluded the issue was at the back end and said he would need to bring the car back again for them to look at it closer!!

However neither my mechanic or I could afford the time to go back to Lexus again for them to investigate further and quite frankly we both thought they were off their heads to suggest the issue was at the back end, plus I couldn't afford to have the car off the road as I needed it for work and public transport was not an option for me as it involved a 12 mile drive to the rail station and 3 trains to get to the office. So we went with another set of discs, new pads and my man also checked out the front end again but still found nothing amiss. My mechanic supplied the parts FOC and just charged me a nominal labour rate to fit this new set.

Again everything was fine for a while but the issue eventually returned, however I have to date not had anything else done and have just lived with it. The juddering is mostly pronounced when braking in the 55> to 40 zone, but can also occur intermittently at higher speeds and be quite aggressive. What I have noticed is that when the discs are cold braking is fine at any speed and the juddering doesn't manifest itself at all - I have specifically tested this many times to make sure it is not a figment of my imagination - however once they have had the chance to heat up that's when the juddering happens. I have also observed what I feel is excessive amounts of brake dust accumulating on the front wheels??

Bizarrely though, as Doody also mentioned in his post, as time has gone by it seems to be sorting itself out - I have just got back from a holiday in Cornwall driving the car under all sorts of road conditions, at high speeds up and down steep hills and around sharp bends and it was on the whole very well behaved. Not being a DIY'er mechanic myself I have decided to wait until the car is next due a major service and at that point to get fitted some drilled and grooved performance discs from MTEC Brakes - unless anyone has any feedback that would advise against fitting them.

There is a very interesting and informative page on the MTEC website which I would if I could provide a link to here, but I can't seem to be able to Grrr - however if you go to the Mtec website and on the LH side under the articles section click on the link to "Brake Disc fitting Guide" what they say there regarding hints and tips to avoid warped discs seems very plausible and correlates to what I feel is the issues I have with my car. I used to take the first 100miles or so after having new parts fitted , carefully but as I was doing 110miles a day mostly on the motorway it's not always easy to look after them until they fully bed in, which MTEC recommend should be 200miles min.

I will post again when / if I have anything further to add. BTW just sailed through another MOT and apart from this juddering issue I have not had any other problems with my car - she is just coming up to 100K - but now I don't work in the same office and am using a train to get to work I don't anticipate putting more than 6k miles per year on her going forwards.

When I bought my Lexus Is300 the first thing I asked my mechanic to do after getting the car, alongside getting it serviced, was to change the ATF and filter - however he didn't agree with me that it was needed as the car had done less than 13,000 miles - however I debated with him that although it had low miles, it was 8yrs old and the fluid would have degraded over time as it had been sitting doing no work.... He did not agree and said it was no different to the ATF sitting in a bottle on a shelf... after we had a further debate on it I reluctantly agreed with him to leave it ... however a week later I had clunky gear changes / pauses / and stuttering from low revs / low gears pulling away at standstill, although at high revs / high gears everything was fine. The old ATF oil and deposits were working there way though the gearbox!

So I took it back to my mechanic, who was of the opinion that this was not anything to do with the ATF fluid or filter, and to be fair he was only trying to do me a favour and save me money, but eventually he did agree to change the ATF and filter, after all I was paying him, was I not?.

This sorted out the problem and on looking at the fluid that came out it was evident it had degraded, the colour of it was not the bright cherry red of new / good oil but a dark coke colour of old / knackered oil.

Now whether this was because of it's age, or the very limited miles and ad hoc use of the car over the years not allowing the fluid to reach designed operational temperatures and therefore it breaking down and clogging parts of the Auto box.. either way it goes to show that simple things can make a big difference - especially when someone else tells you that it's a fault with the gearbox.. which I never believed and which would have been very expensive if I had.

To this day the car has been fine... although I have had another ATF change on my request to my mechanic who did not argue this time..