Lost it

I was a little sutrprised it had an amp under a plate in theback if I'm honest. Looks like there's plenty of space under there for another amp, but volume doesn't seem to be an issue. The guy at Canon Audio said he wasn't sure if the sub would be able to provide the "thump" I need with such a large space to fill (my Lexus is the first model, the estate proper one) but it does seem to be head and shoulders above the car as it was without a sub. You know, if I used it every day I'd go the whole hog, but I live on Hayling and work at Watfiord at the moment so I need to use the bike else I don't get home until silly oclock. Maybe when I get a job closer to home. Another strange thing about the Lexus.. I find when I drive it I'm in no rush, it's a relaxing vehicle to drive. I like that.

Toccata and Fugue should only ever be played on a Church Pipe organ. It's what wifey and I had for our "Leaving the aisle" music on our wedding day. I was trying to walk so slowly down the aisle... It's on my ipod thing, but even my S type with it's optimised system doesn't make a good fist of it. To many panels in the car vibrate in symphony. My XJ6 with it's Premium Sound and sub does a good job, just can't produce the volume needed to do it justice. I even built a pair of horn loaded speakers from a kit design in one of the Hifi Magazines of the day to make sure that I could hit the 25hz bass note... It could but it used to make the walls bang for some reason. No, I have to disagree. To get that voice timbre right, you need a sound system that doesn't distort voice frequencies. After all that's pretty much all most of us listen to. From Radio 4 at 05;00 onwards, whatever "conditioning" BBC do to the announcer's voice seems to be minimal, whereas I find the boosted thump and compressed everything else on Radio 1's offerings these days to really destroy any enjoyment I could possibly get. And their habit of playing some "lift music" low level thump all the time they are trying to talk just winds me up. You shouldn't listen to Radio One in the morning. They set the pace and beat of the music to make drivers on edge, to try and make them rush into work. It's subliminal but turning it off and listening to Radio 4 removes that feeling. They mess with your head and it's not realised. And the "pop-classical" first track on War of the Worlds gives any system a good work out too. But my favourite listening music runs from Roy Orbison to Queen to T Rex to Disturbed to ELO to Pink to George Michael to Erasure so there's really not much I don't listen to. I even listen to Abba sometimes... Can't believe I just admitted to that.

Really feel for you bud. But these guys on here seem to know what they are talking about, and that's the basis of any good forum. Help and advice when you need it.

Well the "tat" speakers are far above the rather old Pioneer things that sound like the sea is rushing in when they try to reproduce any kind of bass note... The old speakers are lets face it 20 years old, probably older and are just tired. I have no idea how they have been used in the 120,000 miles the car has done so it's probably for the best that I changed them for new anyway. So the "tat" speakers were so much better I bought another pair for the rear doors, I need to get the MDF out to make four suitable spacers though, they sit way too far back in the doors at the moment. And the Sub went in today. I only cancelled it for a week. Glad I "farmed it out" because it isn't a quick job. Basically boot area stripped, rear seats pushed forward as far as they will go, find a power feed from the glovebox (I think tyhe sub only needs a 10 amp supply?) take the trim out, feed the cables, find a "signal" from the rear speakers at the amp under the cover behind the seats and then... Put it all back together. £250 well spent in my opinion, I mean bearing in mind my ears are pretty much stuffed for high end response, and the only "test" track I had was 1980's sub and bass off a CD, it sounds presentable. I meant to take my "War or the Worlds" CD with me because if anything tests a speaker set, it's that voice at the beginning followed by the opening track... But I only had it on my ipod thing so it was compromised anyway. But the amount of stuff that has to come out, these cars are really screwed together well aren't they? Not one of the "push in" clips broke, not one. Try doing that with any european car... Then a bit of tweaking over the next few days with the rotary cross over remote thingy and I'll be a happy bunny.

Well that was in interesting week... I usually use my Honda VFR for work, but detected a bit of play in the front wheel bearings (play equals brake pad knock in when cornering, equals a "long brake lever". So a "long brake lever" tells me I have a wheel bearing isue. 25,000 miles. Shocking) so Friday I took the RX. And managed to blow the n/s front speaker judging by the buzzing. So cancelled the Sub box for a week, bought a set of Alpine SPG-17C2's to install. Then I'll review the sub idea. I thought I could hear an imbalance...

So in effect you are saying warm it up before starting your journey. I always have done this, never believed in cold start pull away theories.

Well that's good news all round then. A little more expensive that you first expected, but you have a car now with years of life ahead of it.

My first bout of bowel cancer in 2013 I put my Honda VFR Vtec in my shed, under a soft cover, on stands so the tyres weren't on the floor before I went in for the op thinking/believing what they told me about being fit for work again after a couple of months. It had Dunlop RoadSmart 2's on that had been fitted about 6 months before and had done only 1500 miles. Almost a year later when my core strength was up to it, I went to the shed, uncovered the bike, started going though the usual steps, battery on charge, check the lube, operation of levers, lights etc. When I came to check the tyre pressures the front tyre had cracked in the grooves, right at the base of the grooves, the only bit I hadn't "tyre blacked" before I put it away. The rear was as good as it was when I put it in there, because I had tyre blacked the whole of the tyre (I know you aren't supposed to but I wouldn't have been trying for knee down on my first outing). Now this was under cover, not in any UV light as such, although it did get quite warm in the shed in 2013, I was shocked to see the tyre in so bad a state. Straight down to my bike tyre man for a new pair of shoes on it... Put a dent in my "Bike pounds" account.

I'm not a chemist, but I thought these products were sold to "beautify" the tyre wall. Not protect it. Putting a pretroleum product on a tyre wall cannot be good for it, but I might be completely wrong.. The "olden days" if you like we would use tyre paint but these products are quick to suit the "must have it now" lifestyle we seem to have grown into. Anything that makes the tyre slippery (and it does, the son of a friend of mine mistakenly put some on his scooter tyres a while ago, he lost control the next corner, luckily he was barely moving) has to be effecting the tyre chemistry? Far as I'm aware it's not "elements that crack and fade the tyre". It's good old UV radiation from my understanding. Because they don't crack on the side of the tyre that see's no sun, and presumably these "elements" if they exist are on the inside of the tyre as well? I have to change my wife's tyres not because they are worn out, it's because they crack on the outside when they get old. And have been in the sun as her parking spot faces east/west.

Tyre cracking wouldn't be a warranty failure, it's what tyres do and unless it is through to the inner braiding it's not an MOT issue either, presumably would have been cracked in June when you got the vehicle, would have expected that it would have been visible during inspection?. So personally I think unless they are really going to push the boat out, you have bought a 2nd hand vehicle with normal wear and tear features for a car of that age. Never seen a warranty that covered wear items the seller had no control over. And the fact you have covered them with tyre "enhancer" probably wouldn't help either. Wonder what the MSDS sheet says for the tyre cleaner? Besides petroleum distillates at up to 30 BV? Never understood why people think spraying petroleum based products onto essentially rubber tyres is a good thing...

Same one as I have in my S type. Comes with a "remote" so set the sensitivity and frequency where bass is passed to the sub. It also has a piece of "stuffing" that you can remove from the bottom of the box but that makes it very wooly to my ears as installed in the S type. And as the RX is basically an estate with not as large a loading (S type one being in the boot which is effectively a sealed enclosure) I'm curious if it will be able to do the job. My X type Estate has an "Alpine" premium sound set up that has a sub in the offside storage compartment and that manages to make the sound quite pleasant, not so much bass that it will blow the wonmdows off but it also has a feature where you can set the balance for who is sat in the car and what they are listening to. My RX kind of has that ability too, and I presume the bass control will need to be dialed down to allow the sub to do it's job. Well he's the man who fits these things all the time so I'll rely on his advice. Have to consider that my working life, on or about a coal face for 13 years, working on Volvo heavy plant, ran my own garage, ride motorbikes etc. has pretty much destroyed the top end ability of my ears, which is why I sold my Quad ESL's and bi amped Quad 11 valve amps some time ago... So the sound might be more than adequate for someone with reasonable hearing, but I need to cater to my needs as I'm the main driver. Only requires a 10 amp feed too. The guy works at the address below, doesn't have a website, I believe his work comes via word of mouth which is the best advert you can get. I'm not related in any way, just so everyone knows, but if I find somewhere that gives me good service, I will pass it on. In fact I've just realised I don't even know the guys name. Cannon Car Audio 5.031 Google reviews Car stereo store in England Address: Unit 1, Kinches Farm, Roads Hill, Waterlooville PO8 0TG And the unit he's going to fit: https://www.alpine.co.uk/p/Products/SingleView/SWE-815

Went to see my "man" at Canon Audio up in Waterlooville, I sought his advice with my S type because it just didn't have the grunt even with decent mid range new to the car Alpine 6 x 4's in it and he pointed me in the right direction. Basically he says Lexus set their systems to be very "bright" sounding and so the ICE set up itself leans that way. Whipped a door panel off and he says there's nothing really wrong with the units in the doors, they may look old spec and very basic but apparently they are reasonably decent Poineer units, generally he said you might think it sounds a little thin, but MP3's weren't really a thing when the car came out. And they aren't noisy or damaged else he would have heard it. So. He has suggested I add an active sub, place it inside the load area and take the "signal" off the amplifier under the floor behind the rear seats for the active sub and go from there. Basically let the tweeters and door speakers do the high and mid, and as bass is Mono, a 120 watt active sub should do wonders for the sound. So he's installing it next Saturday, £200 including the sub.

Digital Signal Processor thing was the option I was lookimng at if the speakers don't do the trick. I used one on my S type, it had an old style Ipod adapter lead, was made by Sony. I think it was only rated at 32 Watts RMS but it was more than enough compared to the 9 watts the Jaguar came from the factory with. The speakers are fine at low volume but are completely unable to reproduce bass which is usually a sign that the head unit doesn't have the grunt needed. There's plenty of space in the rear where I could stick an active sub if that's what I have to do. Definitely look like the ones in the video too, so when i decide what units to put in that's what I'll go for. My dash looks like this, I think the little things in the corner of the top of the dash are supposed to be tweeters. But the ICE unit has the controls for a/c, temperature, cd, radio etc. built in by the looks of it so the choices regarding changing it are few. Sorry I'm on my bike today so can't take a better shot of it.

What happens to the display on the dash? And the controls for the a/c? Must look into this.

I've been told that some Britsh a/c specialists are like that as well. Because they cannot "recycle" the gas they reclaim if it's contaminated with A/C leak fixing stuff. It gets way too expensive. Part of their costing is based on what they can "sell" the reclaimed gas for, if they have a bottle of contaminated gas it can't be reclaimed, becomes hazardous waste and at that point it's very hard and quite costly to have it dealt with legally.

I take it the Harrier doesn't have the combined head unit with tape, cd and radio with a/c panel combined then. Because I'd love to do that. There are other options. A small "booster" amp, maybe a little active sub somewhere to give it a bit of thump. I don't know what I was expecting if I'm honest, I thought the speakers would be much better than what is in here though.

Look a lot like these things, definitely not ovals. Pretty much 3 ohms... Which is a strange figure. If I go to 4 ohms I lose volume, But I should just about get away with it.

I've met that swelling thing recently. With hoses bought from ECP... They were fine about it, once they had accepeted that I had cut them in two to find out why the front brake was "slow" releasing. Not coming on, but it would drag once the pressure was off. ECP offered to replace them but I really didn't want to put the same "branded" ones on after that so went for metal hoses. I mean they have their own little problems do metal braided ones but a car is usually heavy enough to deal with it. Not so much motor bikes.

Ok, I know I have an "old" RX, a 2000 model no less, and it has the normal radio/tape player/Cd changer in the glove box set up. But "poverty spec", no controls on the steering wheel. And I cannot find any info on what the actual "abilities" of this unit's amplifier are, I'm pretty much stuck with it because the a/c panel is part of the fascia, so where do I go to find out what would be the best option door speaker wise? What I'd ideally want to know is the RMS output, fed into how many ohms, 2, 3, 4, 8 ohms? So that I can source speakers with the same impedance.If I decide to go the "booster amp" route then that's another option. The door speakers are terrible, probably because they are 20 years old... They look like cardboard cheap'n'nasty 10 bob specials which is a bit of a surprise given the car quality.

I used my RX300 for two days this week to get to Watford and home, a round trip of 180 miles, AM it's off Hayling Island, up the A3, the M25 to the Watford turn off so mainly cruising speeds, a bit of traffic at the Watford end circa 07:30. Home it's a reverse run, but this time the M25 is pretty much a stop start fest with average speeds of 25mph I guess? But normal motorway speeeds realistically, I have to use cruise because it seems to love being around the 80 Klepton mark, and I know in many cases Cruise isn't the best way to use the motor. I usually use my red Honda VFR800 for the commmute, it's more fun, and knocks hours off the journey time literally. Anyway, the onboard mpg thing shows 26.5mpg. No idea how accurate it is, but it was on 27.8mpg when I got here on the first day, the return journey with the M25 rush hour traffic knocked about 1mpg off. Which is pretty much around what I expected. So I think once I've worn this one out, I will have to look at a Hybrid.

The problem is you have to trust that they will actually look that info up. And if what John says is right, they would have to either completely clean the pipes they were going to use to prevent cross contamination or have more than one machine to cater for Hybrids. Because I'd presume that all hybrids might be like that, not assume, I'd want to know. They don't pay them that well, that's the point. Not that many of them stay at Halfords as a life long career. Like "menu" servicing, whatever they charge they will be expecting that fitter to do that job within a very strict time frame. So the option of looking it up won't be there. 9 out of 10 times it might work, the one where it doesn't, well who pays for the fix? How do you prove what they did was wrong because the whole basis of their offering, their business plan is to do it because you don't know how to, you looked at some prices and they are cheap as chips so you have taken it there perhaps? How would you know if it was done right. You are holding a lot of trust there, and in my experience I'm not that trusting. I mean I'm the guy who has new tyres fitted then gets the torque wrench and long bar out of the car in the car park of the tyre supplier and re-does the nuts properly. Because they can't even get that right. They buzz them up with the windy gun then check the torque afterwards? And can't understand why that isn't the way you do it... I mean that thing with the DPF regen was last Saturday. I wasn't best pleased when he told me that he had taken it there. £85 wasted.

Happen to agree with just about all of that Herbie. I did a 4 year apprenticeship too. Although I was more than good enough that they shortened it by 4 months and still gave me my indentures. Not much call for mining engineers though these days. This total lack of proper training is going to hit this country very hard soon. And then you'll find people my age doing stuff i thought I'd forgotten because no-one else knows how...

I can tell you stories. How about them telling a good friend of mine that they can "Force a regen" of his DPF on his Kia Sportage and then let him watch aghast whilst they rev his derv engine to it's rev limiter for 2 minutes? You cannot "Force" a regen by doing that the car has to be in gear and rolling.. Any mechanic knows this. Halfords didn't. As to their cost base? Well they charged him £85 for that "service". I told him to bring it round, I'll rev the nuts off it for two minutes for half that price. What about the Halfords MOT guy I caught with a stanley blade cutting a ball joint rubber so they could fail the car? On camera too. Ministry loved that one. How about the Halfords "technician" who literally smashed the headlight out of a Merc to change a side light bulb? Happened. Or the one who didn't know where the port was for filling the a/c on a Jaguar S type. I thought I'd give them a try... And it's in a manual, it's even on the internet. These are just the things I know of, and know the source of so I trust that source. On a different note. I went in and asked a so called "expert" what the impedance of some speakers they had on the rack was. He didn't even know what impedance means. Would you let someone like that take your dashboard apart? Because what that tells me is that they are perfectly happy to connect parts that don't actually have the same load parameters of each other. I'm not a perfectionist, but I do believe if you know a guy who does nothing but A/C systems all day I'd sooner take his advice than listen to someone who has done a 4 hour course including fag breaks on the same subject. And if they do manage to cook your A/C compressor, what proof do you have as to what oil they injected? None at all my friend. They dont know what they are doing else they would have known the Hybrid uses a different a/c lube oil. I didn't know that either but I don't work on many cars these days. But I do know a trained technician wouldn't be seen dead working for them, or that tyre company everyone loves. They aren't "back street" in that sense.

I'm definitely in the right place car choice wise.

I do know that a certain parts supplier who used to be called "German and Swedish" has bought the brand names of quite a few parts suppliers. So they can literally put anything they want in a branded box because, well, they own the trademark. So I go for Mahle or Mann where filters are concerned. Whether the Pollen filter is grey or white depends on if it has a charcoal element to it. They are slightly better at absorbing the more country type whiffs.