waveydavey

Dave Your LE looks stunning I have a 200 LE Where did you get the interior lighting form as it looks amazing.

cheers matt

Thanks Matt.

I've a whole album of pics of the car on my flickr page here

I got the lighting panels from eBay. I'm just about to head out now but a couple of others have also asked for the details so i'll find them out when i get back later with a couple of pics of the panels themselves etc....

Cheers

Dave.

Just wondered if you got the problem sorted?

Did it end up being a problem with the rear brakes like mine and others?

Cheers

Dave.

What about the problem with a whistle that comes from the wheels when over around 20mph???

Mine suffered from this issue and was sorted by the local dealer during a service. I've seen others mention it on their cars and the issue seems to have always been caused by dirty rear brakes or having to play about with the rear brake guards etc.....

I've also heard two other IS's that have driven past me when walking that have had the same whistling as they've gone past me.

Always worth remembering about this one as it's something that drives you mad when your car suffers from it!!!

Cheers

Dave.

nice LE dave, I'm lookig to swap my interior and number plate lights to hids just like yours is it a straight forward unscrew the light casing remove old bulbs and fit new ones or would it involve more than that?? and which HID bulbs you using and are they reliable or do you have to be replacing them regularly? droped in my Apexi high flow panel filter this morning but havent had the change to explorer the cars responsiveness and mpg reading yet as i need to clean MAF and reset ECU.

Thanks John.

All IS300 came with factory fit HIDs/xenons, (along with the IS200 version of the ltd ed), so can't help you there. I know there is also a cover under the bulb to alter the beam pattern to cut dazzle. Basically if you look at the headlights head on when they are switched on the bottom third or so of the reflector is in darkness. You can see what I mean in the third pic.

I replaced the sidelights with LEDs along with all the interior and boot lights. The sidelights are 9LED 501 bulbs, The map and boot lights are 12LED panels, The main interior light is a 24LED panel and the visor lights are 3LED bulbs. I also replaced the front and rear indicators with silvervision bulbs.

I can pop up some pics of the headlight bulb cover and the LED panels if you want them. :)

Cheers

Dave.

Here's some of mine. One of the rarer ISs on the roads the elusive 300 Limited Edition..... Mainly standard except for the switching around of the seat heater and traction control buttons, lighting mods, aerial (not shown in the pics) and air filter.

Cheers

Dave.

_{Mine has the yellow fogs. Lexus had a stint of putting them on as standard didn't they???? I know mine must have had them from new as the car's only had one previous owner and that was an old fella who i don't think would have been in to modding. :)}

_Cheers

_Dave.

You'll find that adapters will be produced anyway. The same happened when Apple changed the dock connector a few years back. The connector was physically the same but the charging pin changed.

This time it's a possibility that it's a totally different shaped connector too apparently. Around the size of a mini USB connector.

Cheers

Dave.

Thanks guys.

I'll give it a go in the next day or two. :)

Cheers

Dave.

I'm looking into getting either the Grom or the Xcarlink unit. Only thing i'm waiting for is the new Iphone announcement as if the rumours are correct it's going to have a totally new dock connector so won't work with existing dock accessories like the Grom/Xcarlink adapters.

Cheers

Dave.

Hi all,

I have an issue with the driver's door red light where i need to remove the lower door panel that has the red light in it.

Since i got the car that red light hadn't worked and as it wasn't anything major i only just got around to looking at it and replacing what i thought was a blown bulb. I removed the light only to find that it has no wiring connected to it!!! The vehicle history that Lexus pulled off the system for me shows that some work was done on the driver's interior door handle so i'm assuming when this was done the light was never connected back up.

Anyway i've tried feeling to see if the cable is near to the hole where the light goes but no joy so it looks like i'll have to remove the lower panel to try and find the cable and re-connect the light.

How easy is it to remove that panel? If it's a PITA i'll just live with the light not working. ;)

Cheers

Dave.

Hi,

I had near the exact same problem where there was a whistle noise coming from the drivers side of the car when the car got above around 25mph. The noise would stay constantly till the speed dropped down below around 10-20mph when it would stop. It seemed to come from the rear of the car. It drove me nuts as I couldn't work out what it was. You couldn't hear it with the windows up only when they were down and also it wouldn't happen if it was raining or the roads were wet!!!

It had it's service last year at Lexus Sheffield so i mentioned it to them and decribed exactly what was happening and they cured it by stripping down and cleaning the rear brakes.

It's been around 10 months now and the noise hasn't occurred since, (touch wood!!!)

Hope this helps

Cheers

Dave.

The one thing I miss from my previous car that i dont have on the IS is not having lane change indicators. Is it possible to enable this feature somehow on the IS300?

Cheers

Dave.

how many is200's do people see by the way on a daily basis? i see maybe one...if that a day. i love that!

I see a couple. I commented to the wife the other day though that I was pleased we got the sportcross as you don't see many around at all (unlike in NZ where in Altezza Gita guise they are semi common), then we pulled into a car park and there was an IS300 sportcross, doh!

If you want rare you want the one I've got.... According to howmanyleft.co.uk there were only ever 191 of them registered new in the UK.

I've yet to see another 300 LE on the road yet. There is a 200 LE round the corner from us though which is the closest I've come. :)

Cheers

Dave.

Quick question....

If you just replace the OEM air filter with a cotton filter do you need to reset the ECU or is that just when carrying out more advanced engine mods?

Cheers

Dave.

Has anyone mentioned the alloys aren't the best?

I had a conversation with the local Lexus dealership service guy when i was getting my cars full service and warranty history before i bought it.

He was saying that at one point 90% of the worldwide warranty claims for alloys were coming from the UK!!! Also I don't know whether it's something that's a nationwide thing or just my local Lexus dealership but he said they have a thing where you arrange to take you car in and they will replace however many of your corroded alloys you want with refurbed ones for £50 each. So you could get a full set done for £200 and it be done in an hour or so rather than having to wait for your wheels to be refurbed etc...

Cheers

Dave.

i have gold brakes on a gold car, looks great.. why not colour code same as car

Thanks for all your votes and suggestions guys. I'm going to go for black with silver decals for mine. Don't fancy kodiak Sky calipers as they would just look the same as they were before i painted them. :)

Cheers

Dave.

Cheers guys.....

Think i'm gonna go for black/metallic black and will use Hammerite... So will be black as i don't think they do metallic black.

Then silver decals to match (kinda) the colour of the car.

Cheers

Dave.

Quick question.....

Halfords sell HT paint which i was going to use.... But then when it comes to lacquer they all seem to be just normal and not HT.

Does the Lacquer need to be HT too or have you guys just used the normal lacquer?

Cheers

Dave.

I know it's no help but we ended up getting a non ISOFIX seat as the guy at the shop couldn't get a single one in the shop to fit in the back of our IS!!! :(

Cheers

Dave.

Well so far it's looking like either Black/Metallic Black (with silver caliper decals) or maybe a blue like F-Sport blue????

Cheers

Dave.

everyone does red, takatta green!

Coming from a Skoda vRS background i've been doing green for years. ;) (Green calipers, Green strut brace, Green ARB, Green window vinyls......)

Cheers

Dave.

I've always loved the IS200/300. The wife bought hers back in 2004 (An 03 plate IS200 Sport with Aero pack) and the one regret we had was not thinking about a 300 instead. She got rid of it about 18 months later when the need for a large car had gone.

Then in 2010 i needed to get rid of my car as it needed quite a bit of work doing on it and i'd had it over 4 years (from new) which was how long i'd said i was gonna have it anyway. As i needed to find something pretty quick i went straight to looking at IS's as i knew there was next to nowt that went wrong with them and after looking at a couple of IS200 Ltd Ed's and a 200 Sport i settled on my 2004 IS300 Ltd Ed. and traded my old car in against it.

It had had the cambelt done on it's 6yr service the year i bought it (the only service it hadn't had done at Lexus but it was done at a Toyota dealership instead) and Lexus Sheffield pulled off it's full service and warranty history. Basically all it had done under warranty was the drivers door release handle cable, and some brake discs!!!

The only issue i've had with it since was the weird whistling that would start at 30mph and keep going till you came back down to around 20-30mph. It had it's last service at Lexus Sheffield and they sorted the whistle out by cleaning up the rear brakes.

It was only ever going to be a temporary stop gap till the summer of 2011 when i could have a proper look around for a car but the little 'un arrived in the summer of last year and the wife has been driving it during her year off on maternity and was the one who said to keep it instead of looking for another car!!!

It drives like it's maybe a couple of years old and not like the 8 years old that it actually is!!! Ok so it's not the most economical car but to be fair our other car is a diesel, so i use that for my 50 mile round trip to work and the wife uses my IS for her 8 mile round trip to work so the cost doesn't really show up too much if you see what i mean. After speaking to a few mates they all made me realize that why should i get rid of a car that has absolutely nowt wrong with it and that only does around 3-4k a year so it's poorer mpg doesn't make much of a difference anyway....

Cheers

Dave.

Hi,

Found these pics of before (You can just make out how mucky the exhaust is.... and then after the session with the autosol and steel wool.

Cheers

Dave.

Mine looked awful when i bought the car a couple of years ago. I used some Autosol metal polish and steel wool and it came up a treat.

I think i have some pics somewhere which i'll post if you like. Not ure if they are before and after or just after ones.

Cheers

Dave.

Would like one of these for my IS300. I have a similar unit in the wife's Fabia vRS.

How easy are they to install in the Lexus?

Do you have to remove the HU to install and if so where did you place the unit. The one we have in the vRS is tucked up above the HU inside the dashboard.

Cheers

Dave.