Dave M

I've got the 'big' service (cam-belt etc.) coming up soon and also I've recently noticed a worrying knocking when turning at full lock... I probably can't afford to use Lexus this year, and was wondering whether anyone knows of any decent independent garages around the St. Albans / Harpenden area that have some experience with GS300s. Has anyone got any recommendations, and also is there anything important that I need to watch out for if I get an independent to do it (things like the type of coolant for example). Cheers

Thanks for that - I'll give them a try.

One of the plastic clips on the windscreen de-misting vent has broken and it won't stay in place anymore. I don't really want to glue it back incase I have to remove it again... Anyone got any ideas on how I could keep it in place and still be able to remove it, or failing that, where I could buy a replacement?

Two things you can try: - There are two drain hoses from the sunroof, which come out by the rear wheels. They need to only just stick out below the bodywork, any lower and they transmit noise into the cabin. - If you look under the car, under the drivers (and passengers I think) footwell, you should see some 'drainage' holes with rubber bungs fitted to them. If these plugs are not fitted, lots of wind noise can get into the car under the carpets. Failing that, it could be a badly fitted windshield. I had to have mine removed and refitted twice because the bonding failed along the lower edge, which allowed loads of wind noise (and a draught!) into the car at speeds of over 40-50 mph. Hope you get it sorted.

I use Toyo PROXES T1-R - they get excellent reviews and I'm very happy with them. Excellent in the wet and fairly quiet - a big change from the stock Potenzas which are a bit too slippy when there's water about. I paid £166 for a pair (delivered) from mytyres.

Hi I've got a pre-facelift Series-II GS300 with Satnav. I had a bluetooth kit installed - the installer used a lead and relay-box which connects into the existing wiring loom. The handsfree uses the drivers side speaker. The box and lead provide an ISO connector which the handsfree kit plugs into. The only thing it doesn't provide is the mute, can be connected to (I believe) a blue wire going to pin 7 of connector S17, on the amplifier. The amplifier is located in the passenger footwell, on the left hand side. The installer put the relay-box and the cable harness in the space just behind the glove compartment - the handsfree unit was put behind the carpet to the right of the passenger footwell (there's quite a lot of space behind there...) I had a bracket installed in the gap between the surround and the stereo, on the left of the stereo (next to the 'audio' control) - it is pushed into the gap and held in place with a double-sided tape, so it could be easily removed without leaving any marks. The installer reckoned there was no problem using the stereo speakers on the GS300, unless you had a Mark Levinson stereo, which didn't provide a mute lead. Hope that helps!

Does anyone know what the service interval should be for a GS300 manufactured in 2000 (it's the pre-facelift version)? The service book I got with the car says 9000 miles (and cam-belt around 60,000 miles)... I thought the 2000 model had a 10k interval and the cam-belt didn't need doing until 125k or something. Any ideas?

Thanks Tony I've PM'd you. Dave

I've had problems with my Series II GS300 since I bought it second-hand a year or so ago (I posted a few times back then) - it was handling like a dog and chewing up the front tyres like there was no tomorrow. Lexus said there was nothing wrong with it and wouldn't do the tracking as part of the warranty cover, so I just put up with it for a year. Recently I took it to Tony Bones (wheels-inmotion.co.uk) over at Watford, as suggested here. He found that the geometry was well out of spec. and sorted it out for me.. it's made a huge difference to the car, no more drifting, no more hanging on for grim death when going over bumpy roads, and it goes where I tell it to rather than meandering off wherever it feels like. Bliss. Seriously - I can't believe what a massive difference it has made. One things he said was that he often saw GS300s and IS200s that weren't properly set up out of the factory - he also reckoned that mine had a manufacturing fault that meant he couldn't adjust it to the factory spec. He reckons that keeping the tyres slightly overinflated should sort it to some extent but I suspect it explains the really fast tyre wear (only on the front) that I've been having. I'm going to write to Lexus and ask if they can sort this for me as I thought there was something wrong with the car since a few days after buying it. What do people reckon my chances are of getting Lexus to pay something towards the extra tyres it's going to get through? Anyway, if anybody has got a GS300 that seems to have a mind of its own, take it to see Tony and he'll put it right.

Could be a cat (not the furry sort) has expired. Had it happen on an old Renault - sounded like a kettle full of bolts when accelerating..

Has anyone else had rattling noises coming from the back sear area of a Mk-II GS300 - on the passenger side? It sounds like something flapping about when going over rough roads. I've had the back seats out and couldn't find anything - it's been there since I got the car and the dealer couldn't fix it... Any ideas (other than turning the stereo up!)?

Hope you get it sorted without too much expense. Let us know what happens!

It sounds as if one or more of the ECMs have been damaged by having the polarity reversed. Often they have voltage regulators inside them which effectively act as a dead short when the polarity is reversed, which is what causes the fuses to blow. You can normally tell if a voltage regulator has gone by the fact that it will be charred black and smell bad. If you're lucky the regulator will have blown the fuse before the rest of the ECM is damaged. If you're really lucky, it will blow the fuse before it gets damaged too. Unfortunately you'd need to take the affected ECM apart to see if there was any damage - I suspect Lexus would just replace the entire module though. Are there any warning lights on the dashboard when you try to start the engine? It's probably worth seeing if you can get a friendly lexus engineer to come out with a handheld tester, they might be able to read some fault codes and get a better idea of what's going on.

It was registered early 2000, it's only done about 36000 miles though. Any suggestions on what sort of shocks to go for? How much difference does gas filled make over oil filled?

Does anything else work in the car? Things like the radio, windows, mirrors, aircon & memory seats? Also, which fuses blew and have any of them blown again since you replaced them?