jragosta

I couldn't agree more. I almost bought a G35. I told the salesman I didn't like the appearance of the dash. He said that that is a frequent complaint and they have a local shop that they work with who converts it from cheap metal to real wood (your choice of something like 7 types of wood). The price was quite reasonable-something like $700. If I had bought the G35, I'd have had that done before the car ever left the dealer. What an UGLY stock design.

You could try taking out all the seats, carpeting, air conditionoer condeser, entire interior, then give it a real good coat of wax, put some octane booster and drive the car down a steep hill. You should be able to to increase the performance. Like HoeBag said you bought the wrong car. Our cars are not fast and furious, they are slow and curious or 2 slow to curious! ← That's not very helpful. I would guess that the person bought the car because they placed luxury higher in their prority list than performance. They obviously realize that it's not a high performance car. That doesn't preclude wanting to get a little more power out of it. In other words, they decided that even a slow Lexus is better than the other options - so they can live with the slow Lexus, but they would be even happier if the car were a little snapier. My personal view is that you're going to spend quite a bit of money in order to get much more performance from the car, but it can probably be done (exhaust headers, turbo, etc). I wouldn't do that, but some people might.

its pretty cool...i like when they have the brake light on em though...n I never saw a lexus 003 se (pic is backwards) my g/f has the spoiler i want on mine...its the solara se one... ← Wouldn't that be 'suxel 003 se'? Oh, never mind.....

My vote is to get rid of it. You've got a 10 year old car with 165 K on it. You've smashed the car up. You're going to need to repair the body, rebuild the engine, fix the seat, fix the lights. After all that, you'll still have an old car that's been driven hard. Scrap it - and drive the next one more gently.

I don't really know. I'm not really much of a car expert - I usually pay my mechanic to take care of that stuff. If you explain your situation to a good mechanic, he'll know what items could wear out and check those. I would probably consider the following: Engine compression Shocks/struts Brakes Tires and alignment CV and boot Transmission Power steering Water pump A/C pressure and condition Belts and hoses Inspect undercarriage for rust or damage Essentially, anything that can wear out. Good luck.

On a related topic, my keyless remote broke (04 ES330). The plastic just disintegrated in the area around the key. I'm going to ask the dealer to replace it under warranty on my next visit. Does anyone think they'll give me a hard time about it (calling it user damage)?

That would be my initial viewpoint, too. Even if you have to spend $5 K on the car to get it in top mechanical condition, that's far less than a new car will cost you. Heck, you'll spend more than that just on the first year depreciation on a new car. However, I'd add one caveat. I'd suggest having a good mechanic go over it top to bottom with a very fine toothed comb first. They should be able to tell you the condition of the transmission, whether the timing belt is worn, and so on. It will probaby cost you $100 or so, but you'll know upfront how much you're going to spend on the car over the next year rather than just guessing. Right now, you're merely guessing on what it might need over the coming years. There might be some major problems you're missing. If the total comes out too high, then I'd sell it and buy a newer used one in top condition.

Sounds to me like he's an uninformed Texan who think that northerners don't drive. His 'logic' is that in the winter it snows so you can't drive and in the summer you can't drive because they're fixing the roads. That's probably news to people who actually LIVE in the north rather than simply parrotting the bigotry they've heard.

That's the important thing to keep in mind. It's not like you're looking for a rare or exotic car. There are lots of Lexus ES's out there. Don't settle for one in poor condition - because there will be others.

Amazing. That sounds like something's wrong. I'm a very aggressive driver (at least according to my wife and I'd probably have to agree). Rapid starts (but not burning rubber), aggressive lane changes, fast braking. Yet I'm guessing that I'll end up close to 35 K before changing. Of course, that ignores the effect of tire type. I think mine are slightly harsh and noisy (Bridgestone Turanza ER30--stock tires on my ES330). When I replace them, I'll replace them with something softer and quieter, so I guess I can expect my mileage to drop then.

You're talking about cars in the 6 - 10 year old range. None of them are new enough that the years are going to matter. Instead, focus on the condition and how much wear and tear they've seen. When buying an older car, particularly if the miles are getting up there, only one thing matters - what kind of condition is it in. You should be looking for a car that has been impeccably maintained and looks gorgeous (with, of course, some wear and tear). That means that you're likely to get one a year or two older at any given price point, but as I said, don't worry about the age. As soon as you start with "well, this one needs brakes, and a tuneup and timing belt...." it's time to move on. It will take patience, but you should be able to find one in super condition. That's the one you want.

I'd just suggest that you check it out very carefully. First, you're going to pay a bunch of taxes when you import it - so the price difference won't be as large as it seems. You might also find that you don't get as much gain on the exchange rate as you'd expect. Finally, if you buy a car here with a warranty, you probably won't have any warranty coverage in the UK. My guess would be that once you factor all those things in that you won't save all that much money. I could be wrong, though.

Be prepared for 50 conflicting recommendations. Everyone agrees that you want to use a good filter and good oil. Unfortunately, no one will agree on what constitutes 'good'. My own 2 cents is that if you stick with a name brand oil and filter and stay away from the cheapest product in their line, maintain the engine regularly, and do not abuse it by racing, etc, you shouldn't have any problems. Any good oil and filter should let your engine last a long, long time. Others will, of course, disagree with me and will have their own personal favorites. Their opinion is worth just as much as mine is - $0.02..

I don't know about 60-70, but 30 seems too low. I have 22 K on my 04 ES330 and the tires still look great (9/16 left if I remember correctly). I should easily go past 40 K. I'd check which tires I have, but the car's still in the shop.

Absolutely. If there's a drain, it shouldn't be that hard to track down at least which circuit it's on.

30 or so years ago, I was driving across country with some friends and we got a flat tire. The lug nuts were, of course, rusted and we couldn't get them off. All the guys were showing off their muscles and trying to get the nuts free. Then, one young lady (a chemical engineer) pushed us all aside and poured a coke on the lug nuts. She told us to wait a couple of minutes - and then it came right off. To her credit, she didn't gloat much. Now, it couild be that we loosened things up and it would have come off anyway, but Coke does have phoshporic acid which is used as a rust remover (obviously very different concentrations), so it's worth a shot.

Mostly correct. However, you forgot a step: Fasten seat belt.

Sorry, I don't believe a word of it. THe only way to get a new ES that's fully loaded with all the options for $28 K is if it's stolen. Not to mention that I can't believe you got a service contract that covers all your maintenance at 2500 mile intervals for that price.

10 minutes is ridiculous. Most modern engines are designed to be warmed up for half a minute to a minute and then driven reasonably gently (no fast acceleration, etc) for a while 50 km/h sounds overly cautious to me - but maybe I'm just too aggressive.

I'm still curious. How did you manage to completely trash a 2 year old $50 K car in only 79 K miles? ← The 03 gs430 wasn't trashed, it just had a few minor dents and scratches on it etc. It was my wifes car and she has to drive a lot each day; she manages to hit around 40k miles each year!! It's a lot of driving and it was evident in the look before i sold it. She had hit a deer in the front so there was some body work done, but then another car scraped the front side a little . After i cleaned it last week it looked o.k, but not like a 2 yr old car; more like a 5 or 10. She is a horrible driver and treats cars like dirt. That i won't lie to you I sold it this year because of the high mileage. I figured that if she kept it any longer it would have been in even worse condition and the mileage would have been over 120k miles in only 3 years. At least it's only 2 years old, still considered somewhat new. The car worked very well but i was worried about how much longer with her driving it was going to last. ← OK. Now I understand. I"m glad to hear it wasn't neglect that caused the value to drop. I HATE to see expensive cars neglected. One thing you might need to readjust your thinking on. 120 K miles isn't that much for a high quality car that's well maintained. Your new ES should push 200 K without problems if you properly maintain it. Granted, at around 100 K, you're going to put some money into it on a timing belt and so on, but that's way cheaper than a new car. I'd suggest that you start out with a plan to keep that ES 4 years at 40 K miles per year and then maintain it that way. Even if you DO sell it earlier, you'll get more for it.

I would wait. You want time for all the rings and bearings to seat properly. If you change the oil too soon, you may interfere with that. I can't see that it's going to do you any harm to wait and will save you a few bucks. There are lots of arguments of synthetic vs. natural oil. My personal feeling is that if you take good care of your car and maintain reasonable oil change intervals, it won't matter much. Synthetic is somewhat better in some areas, so if the cost difference is modest, it's probably the way to go. HOWEVER, do not exceed the manufacturer's oil change interval even if you use synthetic. You'll void the warranty.

Funny how different people see things. I always forget to turn my lights on at dusk, so I leave the switch in the auto position and never worry about it. When I leave the car, I just hit the lock button twice to turn the lights of, but even if I forget, there's no harm done because they go off in a couple of minutes.

I'm still curious. How did you manage to completely trash a 2 year old $50 K car in only 79 K miles?

I'd use the tape adapter to get sound out of the main speakers. I'd only have the amp hooked up to some subs, the other speakers will be running off the headunit. Also mp3 quality is really good, especially if you have it encoded at 160kbps and up. VBR mp3's are good too. I use nero right now to burn cd's, and it burns the mp3's directly to the disc without converting them back to wav's to save time, and they sound fine. I'm not an audiophile or anything so it won't make a difference. I installed a panasonic mp3 cd player in my girlfriend's car and it sounded fine too. plus this is a good excuse to buy an ipod. :) thanks! ← OK, I think I have it. Let me see if I understand this. You have a tape adapter in your head unit driving the main speakers and the RCA will drive an amp purely for subs. There are two scenarios: 1. Your head unit is also driving the sub. In this case, you don't need the Y adapter at all. Just use the tape unit. 2. Your head unit isn't driving the sub. In this case, you're only going to get the sub out of the iPod and not your head unit. If #1, just use your head unit and tape adapter. If #2, what you're proposing will work just fine. You won't have a fire and the only downside will be a few cables lying around. HOWEVER, you might want to see if your headunit has RCA level outputs that would allow you to connect the head unit to the sub amp rather than having the iPod's bass bypass the head unit. That would give you subwoofer on all sources. If your amp has enough power, high level inputs, and the impedences match (and if you're willing to play around with it a bit), there's a third option. That would be to take the output from your head unit and feed the amp and use it to drive all speakers. Quite a bit more work, but this would probably be the best solution. MAKE SURE that the impedences match, particularly on the speakers, and that the amp will take high level inputs. I hope that helps. The bottom line is that what you're suggesting won't hurt anything. I'm just not sure it's the best way to rig things up because only the iPod will benefit from the subs (assuming that you're using option#2). Good luck.

lmao amf!! ;) Nobody so far knows the 'technical' name for it lol. ← Actually, it depends on what part of the country you're from. For easterners, the technical name is 'doohickey'. For westerners, the technical name is 'thing-a-ma-bob'. Who cares about southerners? :P It's good to know that they're so cheap. I ruined mine on a curb and the dealer charged me $250 to replace it. Next time I'll just do it myself. :chairshot: