mike m

12 minutes ago, Mattmech said:

Car looks great, as you say, hard work but more than worth it to see the results.

Aye, ive been a few hours yesterday and today sorting it out. It was the paint feeling like sandpaper that got be started.

8 minutes ago, Bluesman said:

Had you thought of paying for your insurance on  a monthly basis. It always seem less painless to me.

Yeah and the same with the road tax as well but i really grudge giving them the interest.

7 minutes ago, steveledzep said:

What a well organised garage you have !

 

The car's not bad either 

lol thanks, thats just the tidy bits of the garage.

 Can't believe that's nearly a year since picking up the isf. Unfortunately it means service,  mot, tax and insurance are all due the same month lol.  

Main thing is that I still can't think of another car I'd rather have at the moment. Every drive still feels like a big event and I love the fact nobody seems to know what it is as a newish Audi S4 found out the hard way the other week :-)

So I was inspired by the detailing thread to spend some time with the Claybar, Autglym super resin polish and a coat of R222 wax to get her ready for the decent weather. Takes ages but satisfying all the same. The amount of crap the clay bar finds always amazes me.

Id probably go back to the 2nd gen 2005 Lexus GS430 i used to own or preferably one of those really hard to find GS460's. Once i fitted a custom twin 4" exhaust system to it the V8 was released.

So the car window got a right good looking at today and one of the window seals has wear and tear £115 for the part. At least nothing is wrong with the lifter mechanism. They also quoted £985 for front discs and pads due to corrosion lol. Euro car parts are selling brembo for 300 before any discounts so i'll be getting them at some point.

Just to clarify , all the doors lock / unlock no problems with the keyfob / buttons etc , the problem is when you drive away the doors auto lock and when you stop all of them unlock except the rear drivers.

5 hours ago, ISJason said:

 

Hi, no noise on mine. You should be able to disable and alter The doors parameters bY following the instruction manual. It's in there

Gave it a go today, turn the ignition on then hold the lock, unlock button for five secs with the car in Park or Neutral. I'll need to try again with the car in Neutral.

2 hours ago, Dar said:

the rear not automatically unlocking might be the child safety lock on the side panel of each door??

Tried that but both doors have the safety lock disabled. It must be software because the door locks all work fine just chooses not to unlock the rear drivers.  It'll be one of those custom settings no doubt.

Aye its still under warranty so i'll let the experts break the clips on the door card lol

Cool, i have some silicon spray in the garage i can quiten it down with. On mine you can literally rock the glass front to back then it tightens up when the windows lowered further. 

Had a similar problem on an MR2 once and i had to replace the lifter plastic guide roller. I'd be surprised if its the same on the isf.

Hi folks,

Anyone else noticed their drivers door window rattling going over bumps when its opened by about an inch or so? 

Mine sounds like its rocking on its mounts but is fine when you open it further so its going to get looked at next week while in for a service.

Also getting them to disable the auto locks when you pull away. Theyre annoying me but more so the drivers rear door wont auto unlock. Probably just a software setting but its getting disabled.

Mike

23 hours ago, Warrington guy said:

That's two in a week . There's only ten 13 plates in the country. Still think the black one is overpriced 

Wow, i'm now wondering how many are in USB with black leather.

Just to mix it up abit, i use Meguiars nxt metal polish. 

The last few occasions I've been out in mine I've preferred manual mode out on the open road and twisties. It doesn't kick down when cruising in 8th unless you go below 50mph and seems to improve the mpg a little. ( Like 24mpg instead of the 22 I normally see). I also like being in full control when putting the power down unlike auto mode where I've had the car sideways on an unwanted kickdown.

Back in the town and traffic though it's put straight into auto unless I'm in a noisy mood lol.

2003 Yaris T sport with 136k on the clock. We call it the Beast lol and the ISF is the japanese **** box. Well that's what me and the wife tell people when they ask. Tongue in Cheek of course.

Yaris has been in the family for over 8 years now.

Ultrasonic blue with black leather was my 1st choice too :-)

Didn't realise there were Mercury grey ISF's though, they must be a rare beast.

1 hour ago, gumball3000 said:

Both of them had leaking radiator car (common ) black one split the radiator , but around £250 for a new one so not too bad.

THey both had ap brake upgrade so zero brake issues , black one had a ls7 clutch. Other than that nothing .

But i agree the build quality wasnt the best , but at £30k new what do u expect.

Aye i remember the LS7 clutch kit was a popular upgrade through Monkfish.

Your right about the price though, easy to forget that some of the older Jap cars like the MKIV supra cost 50k plus in 1993. Think i paid about 13k for the CV8 and it still had vauxhall warranty left so it was a great entry into the V8 world.

8 hours ago, gumball3000 said:

Nope 2 different ones, had a silver one first but then had to sell it due to having emergency spinal surgery . So couldnt get in it . But hen got a black one a few years later.

How did you get on with your Monaros?

My CV8 was probably the worst car i've ever owned in terms of reliability and build quality. Used to chew through brakes every 5k (smaller much cheaper brakes than the VXR)

The power steering pump failed at 3 years old whining all the time (Vauxhall werent interested under warranty) then the power steering cooler hose blew off on my drive making a right old mess off the mono block. Had to replace one of the HP power steering hoses due to rot. Belts squealed everytime it rained - failed idler pulley. Most days from cold it wouldn't go into reverse and had to go through 1st to 4th before you'd get reverse. Diff oil was silver at three years old. Clutch would slip when warm trying to pull away quick - something to do with the servo oil overheating. Oh and water liked to leak in the doors.

Loved driving it though and that big old pushrod V8 was great to live with day to day. Driving in the snow was interesting lol.

Seriously considered a VXR8 but saw more issues with water leaks , gearboxes failing, wishbones failing after 5k and indicator faults so went back to Japanese cars.

First car was a 73 vw Beetle 1300 and i've still got it. Only doing few hundred miles a year though.

1995 Citroen ZX 1.9D as a run around while restoring the bug at the time.

1998 Peugeot 306 GTI6 in Blaze Yellow. (Handled awesome and sounded great just abit fragile)

2004 Honda civic EP3 brand new and sold it after four months. Didnt like it.

1997 Toyota MR2 Rev 4 T Bar Silver / Black edition.

1993 MKIV Supra Aerotop non turbo in black.

1993 MKIV Supra TT 6 Speed in Red. (Wish i'd never sold it now as they're fetching mad prices now)

2005 Vauxhall Monaro CV8

2007 Civic Type R FN2 ( Kept it a couple of years - Much better to drive than the EP3)

2005 Lexus GS430 SE-L Premier. (8 year old when i bought it with 31k on the clock)

2010 Lexus Rx450h SE-L

2012 Lexus Rx450h F Sport

2013 Lexus ISF (Hides in the garage alot just now)

And for the donkey work i'm running a 2003 Toyota Yaris T sport. ( Used to be the wifes then her dads and now mine and its turned into abit of a project)

1- Love the rarity, that V8 sound on 2nd intake and Lexus build quality / reliability.

2 - Would like settings access through the dash like on the wifes CT so i can stop the doors locking at a certain speed , The dash centre console looks abit old school,  Less fragile paint.

3 - A GSF in Solar Flare but would settle for white lol, An Aussie spec Toyota Landcruiser 79 series double cab pickup V8 , Porsche 993.

Looking good mate. Love the detail in the exhaust system. Are the valves working off the inlet manifold vacuum?

Hi,

As mrfunex says you cant really compare the two but what he says is spot on in my mind.

I've owned a 10 plate RX450 SEL spec with air suspension / media hard drive / heated & cooled seats and now have a 62 plate F sport with Mark Levinson and both cars are easy to live with. The air suspension on the SEL was more comfy on a long run but i was never happy with the front end looks which is why i bought the F sport. MPG is always above 30 usually 33 but long journeys with twisty roads / hills it will climb to 37 / 38mpg. Depending on the roads you can get a few miles on electric.

Its certainly practical enough and great for long distances. Drove mine from the Lakes to Looe in one day.

Power wise it has about 300hp and with the electric motors giving a low down shove from standstill i've given a few cheeky folk in their VAG TDI's something to think about. Where i live there's lots of twisty roads and i can honestly say the handling is spot on. For such a big heavy car it can be pushed hard into corners quite far - usually with the tyres yelping but its safe and quick. Handles more car like than an SUV is what i'm trying to say.

The AWD also works great in the snow. I was unfortunate enough to get caught in snow coming home from Applecross one November going over the bealach na ba mountain pass. Had normal tyres on following a van with snow socks and the Rx pulled up the hill no problem while the van was struggling on the bends. Coming back down the otherside of the pass was terrifying lol but kept it slow and steady with no problems.

Reliability  / running costs. They will easily get 40k on the original disks and pads in fact i think mine is still on two original tyres. Never had any issues with the F sport but the SEL had an air strut replaced under warranty, windscreen wiper mechanism ball joint failed causing the wipers to stick across the screen and the A/C kept loosing gas. I traded it at that point.

The ISF i'm just getting used to so i wont really comment. What i will say though is the Mark Levinson stereo is the ISF is fairly ordinary sounding compared to the RX.

Cheers

Mike

5 hours ago, DAW said:

Hi Mike my friend was very impressed by your beetle and tells me he thinks the colour is Brilliant Orange (L20B) not Clementine (L20D) like his. He then suggested he should get his coat and leave for being such an anorak!!. Lol

Hi David,

Haha - Yip he's spot on its L20B VW leucht / Brilliant orange. Its the original colour for my bug.

Thanks Peter, it's doing not bad few bubbles coming back in the usual places but nothing serious yet. It gets a bit boring working on the same car for so long so working on the modern stuff is a breath of fresh air. Not that I've had to do much of that owning a Lexus.

Talking about technology though I wouldn't dare touch the brakes on the mk3 GS 430 I had with that ebc stuff ready to throw vsc errors at you. Does the isf have this do you know or can you change discs / pads without any hassle?

Dave,  it's great to see another one being rescued :-) I had mine like that in 2000 welding in floor panels and heater channels etc.  Yours will be like a new car once its done