smooth1

"Actually, this is better advice in a round about way. Most dealers don't have a road force balancer. They aren't in the tire business, and these are expensive machines. But even the most expensive machine can only fix the correctly diagnosed problem. If it's cupping, that's a suspension component issue, and the dealer should be attending to this, but if its feathering then the tire pros should be able to dial that in as well as any dealer, provided they are good also. Keep in mind that the IS models don't even have any camber adjustments available stock. Although I think the AWD does for some reason. " I am not a tire expert by any stretch, but I have had lots experience with tires (40+ years). I have had tires "road force balanced" and the balancer will not cure an out of round tire. In fact, it's usually been a tire tech or store manager, trying to convince me that somehow their fancy tire balancer is going to magically balance my tire. Road force balancing will NOT cure a problem with a tire or wheel that is defective or its dimensions are outside of the physical requirements for simply balancing the tire on the wheel. It certainly doesn't take an MIT graduate to look at the tire and the wheel while it's spinning on a typical balancer to see if the tire and wheel are out of round or abnormal movement that would cause a problem. In my experience, cupping is NOT just a suspension component issue. I've had multiple sets of front tires on my trucks start to cup after 7K or 10K miles. In that case, the cupping is caused by the tread lugs. The spacing between the lugs allows them to "squirm". That condition of tread wear apears to be fairly normal for larger lug truck type tires. And yes, the suspension system and wheel alignment were fine and the tires were religiously rotated and rebalanced every 7K miles. I am anal about vibrations. If the IS250 does not have a camber adjustment, then perhaps the design is bad. Does that mean that the Toyota engineers figured out that there wont' be a problem with wheel alignment, and that camber adjustments to their genuis suspension design won't be necessary? No camber adjust is fairly common on newer front wheel drive cars, but I find it interesting that the rear wheel drive IS250 does not. Please explain what you mean by "but if its feathering then the tire pros should be able to dial that in as well as any dealer, provided they are good also". How does a tire pro shop "dial in" a feathered tire? There a millions and millions of tires put on vehicles that work perfectly normal that never see a "road force balancer". What does rotating a tire on its wheel 180 degrees do? "For most consumers, it's not a big deal to them, so alot of tire shops get away with this. Frequently. I only do business with tire shops that do road force balancing. It's more work for them, as they have to mount the tire, spin it up and measure it, then in some cases, stop, dismount the tire and rotate it on the rim 180 degrees, then remount it, and balance it from there. But I'm much more involved than most I would venture to guess. " Most consumers.... What's "not a big deal to them"?? The laws of physics are fairly straight forward when it comes to balancing a tire. Although the dynamics are different when the tire is rotating down the road with a load, it's obvious that if a quality, non-defective tire is balanced properly on a typical spin balancer, then 99.99% of the time it's going to work fine on the road. However, I can balance a tire the shape of a football on a spin balancer, but obviously it's not going to be smooth on the road. Bent or out concentric wheels/rims and out of round tires can induce a vibration and cause tire tread to cup, regardless of how tight and perfect the suspension components are. That's MY experience. I have a gut feeling that the multiple post regarding abnormal tire wear issues that have surfaced here, and with my own experience with my wife's IS250, that 1) The choice of factory tires by Lexus was stupid. 2) The suspension system on the car is way too loose or a *BLEEP* poor design. Again, the IS250 as a top brand luxury 4-door sedan at $38,000 US dollars, should NOT have tires that wear out in 10,000 miles!!... camber adjustment or no camber adjustment!! That's just my worthless opinion.

I honestly can't even figure out what your saying here. How can anyone clear answer this read to understand when the posts to grammatical type is even when it's so hard to read?

Yeah, the corrosion warranty is a seperate warranty, but comes with the basic warranty. It's for 72 months no matter the mileage I believe. I'm sure if you go the the Lexus website they would have this info listed. In fact, here I just did it for ya, click on this http://www.lexus.com/models/ES/warranty/index.html

Then I would buy the 2JZGTE and drivetrain, make sure you get the ECU also. That's going to save you alot of headaches and hassles. And you'll save a bunch of money at the same time.

Nice! Those are some mac rims bro! Can we get some inside shots?

The Michelin's are nice, but I like the General Grabber HTS' better. Not to mention they are around $60 cheaper per tire also. There's nothing wrong with the Michelin's though. And if your afraid of hitting some real snow, then I would just bring a set of tire socks or snow chains for additional grip if you should need it. Then you can take them off when you don't.

For the budget your talking about, you would be better off selling your current car, and buying one with a turbo motor already in it. Then you can just upgrade the turbo if you want. To put a turbo in a na motor takes time and money. I'm not sure if they used the same transmission in the non turbo as they did in the 1JZ's or not, but your probably going to have to upgrade the clutch atleast. Do you have open differential or a limited slip?

You know, I don't know if there is a TPMS sensor in the spare or not. For some reason I don't think there is. Which would explain the warning light.

$7K huh? Man, the IS300 is just out of reach for that price. But you might want to take a serious look at one of those. They really are a great car! But for under $7k, I would look at the Mazda Protege 5, (which became the Mazda 3), great car! I also see Acura 3.2 TL's alot in that price range. While I'm not a big Mitsubishi fan, the Mitsu Lancer for the years 2002-2005 are a nice looking car and have held up very well. But my reccomendation is.......get a Subaru Impreza. All wheel drive, four doors, plenty of power and then some, great motor, so long as no one has tinkered with it, they are very reliable. I see these selling for between 5-7k all the time now for model years 2002-2004, also depending on mileage and condition. About $6k will get you a nicley equipped Impreza with under 100,000 miles and in good condition.

yep. tex is right on. I'd be down at the dealer right now arranging them to fix that.

Lexus of Memphis just quoted me $750 for front brake pads and new rotors. They said the rotors were "lipped out" and need to be replaced. 750???? can you get an itemized quote? I wanna see how they came to that price!

You'll need that kit, plus Fuel management system larger fuel injectors Walbro fuel pump new 3'' full flow exhaust system ugraded valvlebody for the transmission and boost the line pressure (assuming you have an automatic trans.) new torque converter (assuming you have an automatic trans.) Digital Boost controller an AF meter full dyno retune and more tuning after and more tuning. then fine tuning. And you think all that will only cost how much?

You'll get the same performance, it's just the name you're buying. The performance depends on turbo size also, there are many different size for turbos. If you put a turbo into an NA car, don't expect to just buy the turbo and slapping it on. You'll spend way more money on turbo charging a non-turbo car than just swapping it. If you go turbo, i suggest you swap it off with a turbo motor. i dont want to have to hassle with motor swapping i know a mechanic that can prolly install it for me im just trying to get around 350hp or more and a turbo kit and exhaust seems to get me there this is the link of the turbo im thinking of buying if its worth it i know there is some parts missing but this see,s to be one of the best deals and it doesnt look like its junk http://www.cxracing.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?S...250-90-SH250-90 Actually that's a sucker turbo kit. I reccomend you doing alot of research first. If you looked at that kit and thought " Wow, cool, and only a grand!" then you need to go to turbo 101 school first.

The ride is better imho. And no rubbing issues either. I've even put new rims on since this thread with more aggressive offsets and I still don't rub. If you click on the link below you can see it for yourself. pic of car with new rims hello smooth...your car is beautiful. Could you tell me what size your rims are... http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...tem&CID=205

Kinda looks like a Mazda 3. But still cool anyway.

Ebay. You'll still have to go to the dealer to have them registered to the ECU though.

I guess that's why they have more than one forum, so they can be different from each other. Your right, Steve won't give you permission to delete any posts. Why don't you just ask a moderator to delete it for you? Isn't that part of thier job here?

Buy a IS350. There are no turbo's or superchargers for the IS 250 or the IS350. The ECU is locked and nobody has been able to break in.

You have, or should have 8's on the front now, and 8.5's in the rear. That's how it comes stock. So I would go with the 8's for the front and 9.5's for the rear to keep the staggered step up. Or go to 8.5's all around if you want to be able to rotate the tires. I don't think 9.5's all around is a good idea. To much rubber to lug around for no reason. And if you think the steering feels heavy now, wait until you put those 9.5's on the front! Plus I you'll have to deal with tramlining. 40 mm offsets will fit, and you won't have any rubbing issues. You can go to 34mm with out really having any troubles, unless you lower the suspension also.

Yeah, I'm thinking if you need to ask how to remove the cluster, then your going to have a ton of questions once you get it off bro. I've been looking at alot of the LED mods and theres more to it them just adding or changing bulbs. Different LED colors use different resistors. Not to mention making sure your using an LED that won't burn out in 6 months after all that work! I'm not saying don't do it, but I think you should find someone else who has done this alot already to do it for you. I have a buddy who wanted to change the LED's in his car to blue and red. He tore the dash apart and started working on it almost a year ago. Still not done. LOL!!!

Yep, they should fit just fine.

I looked at the TSW's you have. You'll need to find out what the offset is. What size are you going to run for the fronts? Your not going to 9.5 all around are you? Those are just for the rears?

G Man - you just want to delete your post about the pirus huh? :D Just kidding around with you... Yes :) Seriously, this is the 1st forum I have been in that I cannot delete a post. Yep, no delete option for the peasant members. :P Only mods can delete entire posts. Why do you want to delete a post anyway?

I don't really know what to say or how to feel about all this. I've seen to many "parents" on the news with 20 microphones sticking in thier face while they cry and boo-hoo about how some ethnic person stole thier child and on and on, only to find out they were themselves responsible for the whole mess. It's just too hard to know the truth these days. This guy could be just looking for a payday, or he could be legit. It's almost 50/50 either way. Look at the parents that said thier kid was trapped in that hot air balloon! All they wanted was media fame, and hopes of a payday for that! Instead they got jail time! Good work police dept.! Look how many people claim they found a dead mouse in thier Coca Cola, and on and on and on. So, I would just sit back and wait to see how this all pans out. I have alot of unanswered questions about this to be on the "it's all Toyota's fault" side. 1) Thousands of units sold, only a handful of reported cases? 2) Why aren't the reported cases of unintentional acceleration regarding all the other manufacture's also open for discussion? 3) GM has had millions of units recalled over the last decade for faulty ABS systems, and other braking issues, yet they are never on the news. Nor are they beeing called to Washington to answer for them. 4) Why is this only happening here in the US? 5) If it's a software glitch, or a mechanical issue, then why isn't it a more consistant issue? I have others, but you get the point. Again, I'd like to say that I'm not on either side, I just think the media is doing a very poor job with this. Which just keeps this nagging voice in my head about the timing of all this. It's just to coincidental, and theres something about all this I can't quite put my finger on..........