blake918

Sewell seems to have the best prices around for OEM parts straight from the dealer. Create an account with them, and you will see the discounted prices...

http://lexus.sewellparts.com

Does your car have the smart key system? If so, the dealer is needed to program your keys. My car came with 2 smart keys that looked like hell. I bought a new one from Sewell Lexus online for $110 or so, and the emergency, slide out key was cut too. The dealer programmed it for $65.

My garage is very tightly packed! Next to my 430, is my lovely F150...

You can't see it, but there is an ATV in front of the Lexus too..

Haha, I am and will always be a huge fan of the LS. Why did I trade? Nope gas wasn't getting to me; I traded in when gas was $2/gallon. A number of reasons- after 7 years of ES/LS I was ready for a change, I wanted something with more head and legroom, better seats, something just more modern in general, iPod integration, useable cup holders, better fuel economy, lower maintenance costs, better headlights, the hatch functionality is nice, etc. The biggest reason was I was just ready for a change. Also, my LS needed a few repairs and maintenance items, and I just didn't want to sink any more money in to it (timing belt was coming up, it needed a windshield, shocks, etc.) at the service department, and I didn't want to work on it myself. The other car I considered was a Sonata Limited which was extremely nice, but it just didn't excite me -- probably because I already had a nice 4 door and that's what the Sonata is too. Then, I drove the Prius, and when I left the dealer, I couldn't stop talking about it -- it definitely has the X factor that I was looking for. After the first drive, I thought it over for several weeks and test drove it again 3 or 4 more times before buying.

Yep, I've been done with school for almost two years. I work in operations management for a liquid storage terminal company that's right outside New Orleans. It's a great job.

Hey there Josh! Like Jim said, I traded my LS in 9/10 for a brand new Prius. I didn't make a post about it (other than in the moderator forum), so there's no way you would have known. ;) I browse the ole forum every now and then, but just as a lurker. It's hard to believe that I've had my Prius for almost a year now; I've loved every second of it. I thought long and hard about switching to the Prius since it is so completely different than my previous cars were, and I have no regrets. I love my Prius. My only complaints are minor ones (the lack of fully auto head lights and crappy sun visors come to mind at the moment as my main complaints). And wow, how nice is it to have a car with great aftermarket support. I've really enjoyed modifying my car with a bunch of factory looking mods.

First week I had it. Jeez, those fog light blanks are hideous:

Blizzard Pearl White flake shot. It's just a terrific color.

Factory looking fog lights; the turn signals have silvervision bulbs in them as well. I hated the "fried egg" look with the amber light bulbs.

Leather upgrade that I installed myself

JDM Leather steering wheel

JDM Turn signal mirrors....these are really cool.

No exposed wires for the signal mirrors, and you can see the factory looking fog light switch too.

Illuminated door sills:

JDM Grill Garnish

I hope all is well for you too!

Very nice Steve! I guess a screen name change is now in order?

I had to go to Ontario for work a few weeks back, so I flew in to Buffalo. It would have been fun to meet up since it has been a few years! Of course, I would go to NY, and you are not there. I hope you had a good trip.

You know who I'd love to hear from on this, that we haven't seen in a long time....Ralph! (RFields)???? He's in the oil & gas game down in Blake's neck of the woods. Blake, have you heard from Ralph at all??

I haven't heard from him in a loooooong time. I think the last post of his that I remember was about 2 years ago. What's ironic is the first vessel to come in to our new ship dock was loaded up with lube oil that our customer gets from BP. lol

I'm curious, how many miles on your car? I'm two for two on starter failures at 150k miles on the two Gen 2s I've had.

My thanks to you all.

SRK

And our thanks to you too! You're one of my favorite posters here.

I always eat in the car. I don't always have the time or desire to stop. Having said that, I also have the cleanest car of anyone I know because I clean up after I do eat in the car -- vacuum the fries, tons and tons of fresh air to get that fried smell out, and so on. I keep wet wipes in the car too, so I don't have to spread the grease all over the interior.

I buy things to use them and enjoy them, not to half enjoy them and sell them to let someone else enjoy it more than I did. Use it, but don't abuse it, and clean up afterwards, and everything will be just fine!

I'm glad Lambo won! They deserved it since they played the best game; they were extremely strategic but still seemed to have a ton of fun along the way. Well done!

Is Season 4 here yet?? :D

I was indifferent about BMW (wasn't a fan of their car mods...didn't care for the black car with black and chrome rims.). They didn't seem too serious about the competition, and I think they got lucky in the challenges too since that guy wasn't a very good driver. It's a shame NSX wasn't the one to leave! Another very strong performance from Cuda. The daughter impressed me the way slamming in to the wall didn't really phase her. Well done! It will be interesting to see what Lambo does next week, to see if they can do a repeat of this week. I was shocked to see them come out on top.

What a lovely car! Congrats!

I'll continue to let the fuel levels in our cars run down to nearly empty before filling our tanks. Neither my wife or I have had a fuel pump failure in our combined 90+ years and 1,000,000+ miles of driving the relatively few cars we've owned in our lifetimes.

IMO, more frequent trips to gas stations to top up fuel tanks are a waste of our time. This method has worked for us but apparently doesn't work for everyone. I even suspect that the reason it works for us is that most of the cars have been purchased by us new or nearly new and the gas tanks always been run down to nearly empty -- maybe no sediment or water ever builds up in our tanks.

I do the same thing, and I've never had any trouble either (including my former 315k mile 95 LS).

The recall of 600k Siennas ought to help ya RX!

http://www.freep.com...Sienna-minivans

Bad Toyota press from CR always cracks me up since CR has been a long time Toyota-Lexus !Removed!. This isn't much of an issue to me because I wouldn't buy a GX in the first place. However, if a car comes equipped with a safety feature, it ought to work properly.

Diesel FTW! 50 gallon tank, 10mpg w/load, =500 miles per tank. That means we go from Fort Drum NY, to Fort Worth TX, and then on to Fort Lewis WA, on 8 tanks of fuel (at $200 a piece on average...OUCH!)

Congrats on the move Josh!

I'd rethink that 10mpg. I know that's what Penske tells you, but I just used a 26' Penske Freightliner to move. It got a little more than 7mpg and that's without towing a car carrier. It didn't seem really windy, and it's not that hilly either. Perhaps my truck needed some work? My diesel bill was almost 2x the rental fee. Mine was limited to 65 mph, so you go nowhere fast. The ride was truly abysmal too (actually it was something far worse than abysmal), so much so that the CD player was nearly worthless because each minor imperfection in the road would make it cut for 5-10 seconds. I was ecstatic to drop this thing off. I never did stop for breaks. Once I climbed up in to the bridge, I wasn't coming out until I reached the destination. It wasn't fun, but I did 6 hours at a time. The bumps just killed me. And, how none of my stuff broke, I'll never know.

I was 45 minutes late to pick up my truck, so I was left with the !Removed! of the fleet. The Caterpillar engine ran great (a 7.2l I6 I believe), but the rest of the truck was falling apart (the abs light would come and go, the passenger's side mirror was held on with a rope, part of the rubber floor was gone, almost no weather stripping was left on the windows, there were some holes in the floor in the box container, it took forever for the air to build up past 100psi to release the brakes for the first time after starting, etc.). It only had 276k miles, but it felt more like 676k miles. Had I not been in a time crunch, I would have just told them never mind. It was a manual transmission too, kind of felt like a real truck driver. lol The Penske guy gave me 25% off because it was a manual. Luckily, the lift gate worked because I wouldn't have been able to move without it since I moved out by myself.

Is it me?

Must be a windows thing since very aspect of the website (never crashes, remembers login, etc.) is fine on my computer - Firefox running on Snow Leopard. Mac FTW!! B) hehe I would send Steve a PM for some suggestions on what to do.

I do NOT like NSX anymore. They are like little kids throwing a fit over everything. IDIOTS!

x2 They could have easily hung on to immunity if that guy had kept his big mouth shut and maintained his composure. I don't know why they think they are such a big threat, when that Cuda guy could drive circles around these goofs. I'm not sure how hiding in the bushes and pretending to be out of gas was a strategy? If they hadn't done that, they could have taken Hummer for the #1 spot (and kept their immunity) since they weren't that far behind them. Yeah, idiots seems to sum them up nicely!

I think it will come down to Cuda v. Hummer in the end.

Wow, very nice! Love the color! ;) It's always hard to figure a fair price on a car with either really low or really high miles since they don't come around too often, but $19k "seems" like an ok deal considering the ridiculously low mileage. I think it might be a modern lux (which I think is essentially a base car with nav and ML) package?

Ugh I hate these small town speed traps. This is the reason I avoid little small town highways like the plague. I'll drive 70 miles out of my way to avoid some LA state highways. These games with the changing speed limits every 1/4 mile is not something I'm going to play along with when I can just drive on the interstate. I've never gotten in to any trouble since I can pick up the cops with my 9500 radar detector, but it's still a pain to go from 50 to 25 to 45 to 30 and on and on for a 70 mile stretch. State highways in West Texas I don't mind....since the speed limits are usually 70+...the only thing you have to fear is running out of gas with no cell service!

What kind of radar did he get you with (should be written on the ticket)? K, Ka, Laser? Just to play devil's advocate, the only way I can see this remotely working in the county's favor is that the cop would have to be running stationary K or Ka band radar (in which his radar could see you in the 15mph zone long before you see him sitting in his Crown Vic playing solitaire on his laptop), and of course, you would have to be accelerating in anticipation of the 35mph zone (and I'm not sure what the verbiage of the speed law is, but I'm guessing the leading edge of your car would have to be past the sign before you start accelerating, even though we all gun it when we see the new speed limit sign!).

I'm only grasping at straws to make a case for the cop, since what you say really doesn't matter in a legal matter of Joe Schmoe v. the Police. Who's the judge going to side with when you appear for your "fair trial?" A tourist coming to Vegas to party or a duly sworn Officer of the law & revenue generator for the county? As sad as that is, at least we can still lawyer up to keep the insurance company out of it.

My left side was worse than the right.

Moved to buy & sell. Also, as per forum rules, you need to post an asking price.

Glad you are ok! Your car looks great for giving a 40mph blow to the F150. Airbags go off? I'm sure the insurance co will total it, but someone is going to snag this one real quick at the auction. I really liked your antique bronze mica too; I don't see very many of them.

I can't believe that lexus beat the lambo in a drag race. They have to be putting out more than 460HP to do that.

really??? did i miss something...

NEWHOO See ya later LEXUS chix... See ya later... Man that one chick was sooo annoying.

They were riding side by side on the highway, and they both punched it. This happened an episode or two ago.

Yes, I am so glad team Lexus is gone!! I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt that it's creative editing, but the older lady on Team Lexus just seemed to be in a foul mood all the time. What was the deal with the booster seat and back pillows for the Team Lexus girl? She didn't look that short. Bullrun does a poor job casting Lexus with this SC team this year, and the last season with that ISx50 with those heinous rims. We were killing ourselves laughing when the Challenger guy mocked the Lexus lady! If I were doing this show, a gas guzzling, low to the ground, modified, eye catching sports car is the last thing I'd want. I think I would want to run in a Subaru Outback 3.6 since it has good ground clearance + mpg + AWD + decent performance + a lower profile than a sports car--less attention from LEO's. B)