inchley313

Alpine were airbrushing their audio show cars back in the late 90's and American Low Riders were doing it decades before that!! Lexus should have said first from factory as people have been doing this for the best part of the last 60 years!!

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I have a 2003 RX300 that started doing a similar thing! I noticed a couple of years ago when driving down from IOM to Yeovil, after a couple of hours, the air con stopped blowing cold. It would leak out condensation all night then be fine the following day. Next time I took it to england, the drivers vents started blowing warmer than the passenger ones. Thought it may need a regas but the A/C clutch is still kicking in so indicating enough gas in system.

Then one day when I left the car running, I noticed a loud grinding noise from the A/C compressor so unsure which way to go with it at the moment. Do I regas and potentially waste the money on having to have it done again once any other work is done or do I just bite the bullet and replace the compressor??

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At a considerable loss of income to the Island though and disappointment of thousands throughout the world, me as a several times visitor included!

Welcome Ian.
Did you buy privately or from a Dealer? If the latter what Warranty came with the RX ?

I don't hear my alarm go off at all for 50 weeks of the year, then the Isle of Man TT happens!! Every damn motorbike that goes past my house sets the bloody thing off!!! Thank god the TT has been cancelled this year! A bit of peace and quiet!! [emoji1787][emoji1787][emoji1787]

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I'm considering filling and spraying my dash as I want to change the horrible grey to black anyway, spray the wood effect silver to match the dash then replace the steering wheel and gear knob and completely lift the interior!

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I have been looking at fitting these as a DRL option.

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https://www.canavie.com/
Looks very impressive. Might be worth asking them directly if they make a version that works with the RHD UK model RX. The lack of detailed specification info on the site is a concern, I would feel more confident about the quality of Alpine, Kenwood or Pioneer with a Beatsonic interface but that could only upgrade the AV and Nav.. Beat-sonic definitely does work with the ML system but it's not a cheap solution.
https://world-beatsonic.com/audio_adapters/lexus-rx-double-din-kit/
 
 

Some of you may be interested to know, I have recently spotted a Tesla style screen, stereo upgrade for the 2003-2009 gen 2 that looks like it may actually work with the Mark Levinson sound system as fitted to some RX models. Looks like an import from China at a cost of around £550 but I think it looks amazing.

I really want one of these so if anyone here has any more info on this, like a UK stockist who can tell me if it definitely works with the ML Sound system, please let know!

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https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F132597305839

Just found this on eBay. Hope it helps.

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sorry for the late reply to your post Ian but I added a post sometime ago with a photo of mine could I ask is there just the one RHS on the rx400h ? as I`ve looked all round the car and can only see the one on my driver side rear did you just buy the bolt & ball joint parts that are on ebay ? sorry for all the daft questions but I`m pretty new to these cars I only noticed it had snapped when I changed a wheel 

**Update** move over Mark Levinson, Ian Inchley is in the house!!

I managed to run a multimeter across the original Mark Levinson 6x9 speaker and got a reading of 7ohms.

Using this knowledge I bought some 8ohm 200w Blow 6.5" woofers from amazon for about £11 each and can confirm the sound quality is out of this world!! I am convinced I have successfully improved on the original sound for a mere £22 total!!!

So happy with the result!! Mark is sacked and I'm hunting for his job!!

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Mine has done the same. I would be interested to find out if anyone gets a successful warranty claim so I can try with my local dealer! My local dealer consists of a bunch of a$$ hats with multiple brands so don't want to try without someone having some level of success so I have something to throw at them!!

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What was removed and what was fitted in their place!

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I would imagine so but be careful as there are a lot of trim differences between the 2.

The 400 generally had silver inserts where most 300 models had wood trim etc.

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Beautiful car! I do like these but must admit, I'm not a fan of the price tag! I would need to sell a few more tyres to afford one. I really didn't like driving the shape after mine as it just felt bland and wasn't expecting to like the new one but drove one a few months ago and absolutely fell in love with the Lexus brand again!

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Just wipe a little bit of grease around the rubber. It may just have gone dry.

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There's a saying in the computer industry - GIGO, Garbage In Garbage Out.
 To get the best from a Mark Levinson system it needs to be fed with really good stuff from Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, The Who, AC/DC, Jethro Tull and David Bowie, to name just a few. You'll never realise its full potential otherwise

Not sure about the speakers but will congratulate you on the tunes.

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The words 'nail' and 'head' come to mind here [emoji6]
Are there no markings on the one you took out to tell you what it is?

So I spent most of the afternoon yesterday replacing the N/S door mirror on my 2004 Lexus Rx300 that was booted off by some p!$$ head a few weeks ago and decided that while I had the door card off, now was a good time to replace the blown Mark Levinson front door speakers that have been farting at me for months thanks to my love of rather loud dance music.

I already had backing plates to change the speaker size to 6.5" as there are some much better quality low wattage speakers available in that size to go with a standard head unit, modified the wiring to suit the new speakers, put everything back together and she sounded absolutely amazing! ...for about 10 minutes...

Just as I pulled up to my workshop, feeling rather pleased with myself, a bass drop happened in the JFK PaSSion set I was streaming and my drivers door speaker started making a horrendous noise with smoke bellowing out of it!!!

So my question is, before I spend even more money on speakers, does anyone know the specs of the original ML door speakers, what wattage and resistance they are so I can replace with something as close to the originals as possible. I think I read somewhere that the ML setup is 8 ohm, I used 4 ohm speakers as almost all car stereo setups are 4 ohm so maybe this is the problem.

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I suspect it is not going to last as long as a genuine one hence the need to stock a couple. But if I get a couple of years out of each one for a tenner, I'll quite happily keep changing them out!! ;)

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Just a quick update, it's been a couple of months now since this fix and the £9.95 eBay sensor is working perfectly!! Definitely going to order more of these to keep to one side ready for the next failure!!

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I spoke to Brian on Monday, what a fantastic bloke, very knowledgeable and helpful. Stripped the top mounts off Monday afternoon, packed them and posted them Tuesday morning from the Isle of Man to his workshop at Orchard Engineering in Gloucestershire.

He emailed the invoice, sent me a text once he had recieved the parts on Wednesday, I sent payment once he had seen them to make sure they could be done, and they were back with me, on the Isle of Man by 10:30am today (Thursday).

Not only were the new bearings fitted but he had also given them a splash of paint!!

So impressed with the speed, price and quality of the job, a real breath of fresh air!!

Would highly recommend Orchard Engineering for top mount repairs, I'm still astounded at the 3 days from start to finish... to and from the Isle of Man... we can't even get a phone call back from companies on this Island in that time frame!!!

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I've just fitted budget tyres to replace the Avon zx's on My RX300. Couldn't really justify spending over a quarter of the value of the car on tyres!
I fitted Three-A EcoSavers, never heard of them before, but they are Chinese (just like most budget tyres and even some premium tyres these days). C rated for economy and wet grip, 72Db on noise. I'm very happy. They are 104 load rated rather than the 100 of the Avons and I must say the car rides a bit better. I was originally offered Blacklions, but the noise, wet grip and economy ratings were a lot higher then the Three-As. I suspect they were just trying to sell them off.
Wet grip was tested on the M56 last weekend in a torrential downpour. No aquaplaning and no drama when hitting patches of standing water. They just ploughed through it. Being budget tyres, I'll see what the longevity is like and how they hold up on the ratings once they get a bit of wear on them.
Edited to add:
I was in Australia during the winter and was interesting to see the Chinese brands Like Jinyu and LingLong get advertised just like the major European brands. There doesn't appear to be the same badge issue. If they work just as good as the major brands, then the Australians buy them.