smooth1

To clean the IS 300 seats, Suede, Nubuck cleaner for shoes works great! don't use the supplied plastic scrub cover though. I used a very soft bristle brush I found a while back. Just give the seat a light foam coat and let it rest for about 30 seconds. (Which is the name of the cleaner I use.) and then I brush the seat down. after that I like to use a clean terry clothe and lightly spray a UV water repellant on it. Then I cover the seat with the towel and blot all around with my hand. Give it time to dry and brush the seat lightly again to bring up the nice shimmer of the fabric. Works great, looks great, and protects the seat.

Hey what's going on in here? Any results? any findings? Still have the whistle? We need an update here,,,,,,

Hey every 1, just catching up on some threads and stumbled on to this one. I just bought a new window cleaner from auto sport magazine. It has a flat triangle head that a terri clothe goes over, and a handle with a swivel on it. At first I was skeptical but after the first time I used it, I was convinced! You still need to use a good class cleaner, I also use invisible glass. And you still have to work the handle a little to get it to be streak free, but, you can easily get down along the dash line and along the pillars really well with it. I use Eagle 1 Nanoteck natural finish on the dash. ( I think it looks the best, not shiny.) And I almost allways get some on the glass where the windshield and the dash meet. It's so hard to get your hand on the glass along there. This device works great for that. Saves me atleast 10 minutes and a tricep/ deltoid work-out. The quality of the device is I would say not great, but atleast 2 steps up from cheesy cheap. ( I only paid 15 bucks for it.) It came with 2 terri clothe bonnets, a microfiber bonnet and a gridded nylon bonnet for scrubbing bugs off with. Which I don't recommend. I think you would break the cleaner if you really beared down on it.

Okay, I think you have 1 of 3 possible problems here. 1) ( this is the one I think is right.) - You may have a bad cross-over. Mounted in the door is a cross-over network which seperates frequency ranges and sends them to the assigned driver. If you have a bad cross-over it may be causing a power draw which also explains the lack of output you are getting to those speakers. Could be short in the transformer, or bad wiring. 2) before we think this is the possible problem, I have to ask a few more q's. A) does it matter if you listen to the tuner or CD player? Do you have any aux. input devices in use? does it do it with them also? So this could be a bad amp channel. there should be a seperate fuse built in the amp itself. I would have them check that fuse and also test the output of the amp itself, not the speaker's output. This may also explain if the first speaker was indeed blown, why it would be blown in the first place. Not just replacing the speaker! 3) It could be a deficient ground wire and you may be picking up interference. the DSP system may be recieving it and isolating it or maybe trying to process that as a signal. In the old days if you didn't use a line filter on the electrical system you would pick up buzz from the ignition system. While we now don't use a magneto any more, Lexus is noted for having a poorly grounded electrical system on their cars. I don't think this is really the issue here, but it is possible. It may explain the intermittance issue. But not the lack of output. Hope this helps you out. Let me know what they come up with. You have my curiosity peeked here. I've never diagnosed a audio problem like this before over the internet. It would really have helped to hear the problem first hand. For all I know you may have some bad or loose screws on the door and you may be hearing a vibration coming from the door!!! In any case, Good luck!

Have the service dept. replace the headunit/amp. I take it this is warranty work...Correct ? Blown speakers can still have a degree of output. Okay, first of all, I would ask the dealership which one of their certified mechanicsis also a digital electronics specialist. I doubt very much that they have one. Before I can maybe diagnosethe problem, without the unit in front of me I have to ask you some questions. 1) Does the crackling sound increase with the volume? Either in frequency and in volume. 2) Does the crackling happen while adjusting the volume or after wards? 3) Does it seem to stress the crackiling noise if you increase the bass level, or treble level, or no change at all? 4) Which speakers exactly make the crackling noise? Does the noise go away when you use the fader to isolate the front speakers? 5) Which speakers have no output? If you again use the fader, balance controls, can you isolate those speakers and determine if it is a seriously deficient output or no output at all? By the way, you don't need a Mark Levinson specialist. They use electronic componentry just like every one else. Although at one time, Mark Levinson was the best that money could buy. I have a No. 33 CD player and a 15 CD transport. 12 years ago it cost $35000.00 for that set up. trust me, they are not using that technology in your car. BTW, the warrentee is a good point. Even if I diagnosethe problem, they are not going to open the unit and replace an oscilator or anything. they will end up replacing the whole unit anyway. ( Because they of course don't have an electronics specialist.) And one other thing, tell the tech who told you about the frequency thing and the speakers to back to working on his little red wagon! What an idiot. I think he was just blowing smoke at you because they have no clue. The Mark Levinson system uses a digital sound processor to digitally focus the sound in the car. It is true that there are some speakers used for "ambient " purposes, but that will depend on the adjustments to the sound prefrence by the user. Are you using preset modes or custom sound tuning the system yourself? What state do you live in BTW? I might have aplace for you to be able to take it in and find out for sure. to be honest, I don't think you have a speaker problem. I'm at this point not even sure you have an electronics problem. So, please answer the questions at the top and I'l be able to atleast get you pointed in the right direction.

K&N air filter = 60.00 = a little quicker take off. or Cold air intake = 200.00 = 5 or 6 hp. 6-10 tq. and underdrive pulley=250.00 = wow that motor revs quick! You should have atleast 2 car lengths and sowly keep pulling away by now.

Okay, to be honest, this is one of those times I wish I knew it all. But unfortunately, I'm not that familiar with Nav. systems. Even so, I think I can maybe offer some advice for consideration anyway. I would try to go about this from the cheapest fixes first. Have you tried cleaning the disc bay? Maybe blast some air in there? I of course mean computer cleaning air and do it gently. Next I would take it to a good auto audio shop and see what they have to say about it. Seems to me that the certified mechanics at the dealership know the cars, I doubt they can open the stereo system and fix an off track laser, or replace a D/A converter. I'm sure you can find the parts someplace else. But if our asking if it's hard to replace yourself, you could probably do it yourself, but no it's not easy. You'll need to study first. And finally, if you find that the unit is bad and you need a whole new one, then yeah, aftermarket is the way to go. Especially now with all the touch screen DIN units out and the higher resolution screens. Not to mention the much improved user interface programs they have now. If you go this way, let me know, I'll give you the info on several units. You can figure that the unit will cost about a grand, and to have it installed about 150-200 bucks. So for around 1200.00 you can have a wwwwaaaaayyyyyy better nav unit with ipod direct connect, Sirrus, XFM, HD radio, rear view camera, DVD player, and more all in one unit. ( no more joy stick thingy.) Well, I hope this helps. If not, atleast I tried huh?

:) Well, this is just an update. All the parts I have ordered are just now starting to slowly come in. The Hyper ground system and the Hyper MR voltage system will be here next week. The new headlights are here, I've already opened them and I have already primered and put on the first coats. I'll fiinsh them this weekend and then install the halo demon eyes. ( I got the hyper whites.) I ordered this week a set of front and rear slotted rotors from Power SLot. I guess it takes an extra 4 days to cryo treat the rotors, so those will be here in about 10 days. I also ordered EBC Green pads for the front and rears. The steel braided brake lines are already here. I bought red high temp piant and clear. I'm also going to piant the disc hubs black. The Lexus brake decals should be here any day now. All I need is DOT 3 brake fluid and I'll have a nice afternoon project with that. Again I'll post pics of before and afters.

Sounds like the self leveling motors or having an issue. I would turn the car on in the garage ( While it's dark) and look at the wall in front of you and see if the lights rise and fall, then center together. If not, then you may need to just replace a headlight unit. If that's ehat it is let me know, I can get the IS300 headlight sets pretty cheap, and they are genuine toyota parts, with leveling motors, and new gaskets. You just swap in your bulbs. * one note though, changing out the headlight units is an almost all day affair. Bumper and grill have to come off, etc. etc. I am about change mine out. I bought a new set, opened them and painted the inside black and put in the halo / demon eyes. I'm installing them next week. I was going to post pics afterwards on my thread.

Okay, Error 1 means you have a disc in the 1 bay that is unplayable. Maybe the disc is upside down, or your playing a recorded disc with no TOC on it and it won't load. Try a different disc. Are you using a cassette converter for your ipod? ( Looks like a cassette on one end and a jack on the other for the ipod? If so, that's your problem. Not the Lexus persay, but the tape heads can pick up electrical interference quite easily, and when working with digital signals can be very sensative. In CD players during D/A converting it's known as Jitter. A much smaller scale though. You would be better off using an FM transponder anyway. It's a craddle that plugs into your ipod and you tune the stereo to 98.9 and B) !! To program the garage door opener you need to determine if you have a rolling code system. If so, you have to program it off the training button on the unit on the ceiling in the garage. Press the training button, you now have 30 seconds to run to the car. Press the button you want to assign to the garage twice for a second each time. The garage should open, if not push the link button one more time, this should complete it and the garage door will now open. I've noticed that in my car I have to press the link button for a couple of seconds before the garage activates. I'm not sure why that is. But on the better note, the range is awsome. I can open the garage door from around the corner now. I never could do that before. When I turn onto my street the garage door is almost all the way up already. That's nice. If my directions on this are off or you can't make it work off that, the link that Bartkat left you is a good one. And there is also the owners manual loaded on this site somewhere. Iv'e seen it here. Welcome by the way. I'm also pretty new here. It's a great forum, and Iv'e already met some really nice people. Hope this helps.

Yeah Man! That's definately a nice ride! He went a little further than I'm looking to go right now. I don't want to lose the everyday drivability of the car. I love the sport-luxury combo of the car. So that's why I am really trying to take my time and see as much as I can to figure out what's right for me. On one hand I love the supercharger's streetability, but yet all the really nice factory rides come with turbos. HMMMMmmmm, what to do, what to do.? I have time yet. But I am kinda leaning on supersharger. I found a kit that is ready to bolt on with no other mods or upgrades needed. With factory headers, and exhaust, no tuning and 93 octane gas produced 100 rwhp more. pretty nice to me!

Hey there guys, I actually have a few things I wanted to touch on. So, I'll try to be brief and to the point. Of course this is also only if these things are even open to discussion. First of all, I think you guys are doing a great job with the forum restructuring. I am actually hoping there will be much more to come. Is there a way to shorten the route I have to go thru to get where I go most? Say where "my ablum" "my controls" etc... could you put a " My Posts" ? I like to visit alot of threads and sometimes I lose track. So this place would keep track of all the threads I have posted a reply in. If I could have them all in one place I could then cruise them and check in on them to see whats new if anything. I am new to this web site, so if this already exsists and I just havent found it, then pardon my dumb a$$ and if you could show it to me would really help. Next, is there a way to maybe clean up all the old 1 or 2 post threads that have been obviously abandoned? It's not really a problem except that it makes paging thru the posts alot longer. And, is there a way to offer different skins and formats for appearances? again, not really a problem, I just thought if you guys are workin on this restructuring thing now would be a time to ask. A few more smiley face options would be really cool to. Anyway, it's nice knowing you guys are working on things. Nothing is easy, so I'm sure this has been a real pain in the @$$ ! Thanks again. :D

BTW, I'm still reseaching supercharger or turbo. I haven't made up my mind yet. The arguments for either one is pretty good, so until I decide what exactly I want out of my IS, I'm gonna keep researching. I did a bank check and the funds aren't an issue. So I just need to figure out what I wanna do.

Does anyone know of where I can get a new face plate for the a/c controls on the center console? Is it a seperate piece?

hey there bartkat, what a coincidence! I was just over at another thread looking into some power mod applications. You posted a web link to a Lexus performance shop that puts turbo and supercharger packages together. You posted the link like a year ago. Link still works for the info!! :D So after looking into it I have decided to go Forced induction after all. Yeah, I've searched the web up and down to find out all the performance gains and pros and cons of each. There are some interesting combinations out there, but for the money, sure seems like alot and a crapton of work for so little. So, rather thatn waste my time and my money, I just tonight decided that I will return the Typhoon by K&N. I'll skip doing the ICU Programmers or a piggyback power chip of some kind, and go with the Raptor V supercharger. My IS is an everyday driver. So I don't want to mod it to race only settings. I figure if I can get between 300-350 hp, I'll be happy. I was going to look into headers and exhaust, but I really like the quiet of stock, so I'm not really sure what I'm going to do there. Also I want to put anti sway bars on to help stablize things. Maybe upgrade shocks and springs if I need to. Right now I'm in the planning stage of all this, I want to have a definate starting point and a finish point. Even if I decide to add or change things later, I atleast want finish one thing at a time. Heck the halo's for the headlights aren't even here yet! So, I figure it will take about four weeks for them to build the supercharger and assemble all the parts for the system. ( Piping, blow off valve, oil cooler / intercooler, etc.etc.) I figure less than five grand will cover it. And I will get to 300 hp atleast for sure with no problem! B)

yo man, not to crack on you, but your explanation is way to vague to even speculate at this point. Does the sound happen during all shifts or just certian ones? Does it seem to effect the shift at all? Do you feel anything when you hear it? How old is your IS and how many miles do you have on it? When was it last serviced? If you put it in neutral and rev it, does the sound happen at all? What about reverse?

depending on how technical you are, I think you have to do the obvious here. Take the center console apart and pop the cd player out. should be 4 screws to take the cover off and reveal the cd housing. From there it should be a visual dignostic as to how to get the cds out of the tray. This won't be easy though. If you don't wanna deal with it, but really want to save the stock unit, then there are 2 more options. Buy a new one from ebay or someplace that has them besides the full dollar dealership, and have the unit replaced. The other option is to take it to an auto audio shop and have them fix it for you. I have a feeling that either of these options may come out very close in price to each other. Fixing it means it could happen again, but you may save 100-200 bucks, A new one doesn't gaurentee it won't happen again, but it should have a new warrentee with it so if it does. Or, saylavee to 2 discs and you now are the proud owner of a 4 disc cd player??!!! LOL! ;)

OHHHHH!!, it's a Lexus IS300!!! Well then, now officially all the IS 300 community can once again publicly acknowledge you. JK!! B) Lookin Good man!!! Nice ride. I too spent the better part of my Sunday in the garage washing the 3. Last week I took a clay bar to it, and put on two coats of sealer and 1 coat of wax. This time I washed the car real good, waxed it and buffed it. then I also used a teflon coating on the rims. ( The bottle says it helps reduces the ability for brake dust to cling to it) Seems to make sense, we'll see. They shine nice though. I figure until all the parts I've ordered come in I can spend my energy shining up the ride. the headlights should ( Better!) be here this week. I really want those on the car. I'm also thinking of ordering the Apexi power programmer. Anyone using this? Every web site I go to seems to steer me right to this one. I looked into the uni chip, but that was a quick laugh. Isn't there something better than the apexi? or is the Apexi sent by the gods to the warrior IS300 owners???? And has anyone gone thru the super chip thing? Thanks.

:) It's okay to use a touch free car wash. I just get the rinse and wash setting. Then I hop out and chami dry it. Keeps things shining between the real detail days. Yeah, I do all my own work as well. I just put a magnetic oil filter ring on, and one at the bottom of the oil pan. So my next two oil changes I will remove the pan completely and clean it out and regasket it. After that I'll wait one or two oil changes and see if there is anything at the bottom. Amsoil is great oil. I also just converted to a 25/75 coolant mix. I already noticed the car runs cooler. Next I'm looking at a heat shield. By the way, while I was under the hood, did you notice alot of play in your throttle cable? I noticed that in mine, so I tightened it up with the adjusters and it took every bit there was to get it back to tight again. When the car goes in I'll have them reset it, but after I fixed it, I did notice that the obvious result was better throttle response. Now I just touch the peddle and the tach jumps to 2500 rpms. Just a tip if you haven't already done so.

Oh okay, yeah that looks great! very nice job. What did you use for a clear coat? And by the way, kinda dirty??? You otta be ashamed!! LOL! Isn't there a car wash in your neighborhood? JK!!!! how long have you had it? What are you working on next?

Nice work. The gauge set up looks awsome. Next to you transmission control buttons, what are those 2 orange buttons? I can't quite make it out, looks like one turns on and off a radar detector/scanner? And what's the other? I don't have the heated seats either, so I was thinking of turning those blanks into something useful later. I did notice there are subtle differences in our cars I think. I will have to go look at mine again to be sure. I think it's because you have the manual trans and I have the auto, but where your trac off/snow button is, mine just says trac control. and the snow button is on the center console next to a button that also says power. ( I like that setting with the trac control off. It really goes thru gears 1-3 like now!!) Are you planning on running forced induction? I am seriously looking into a supercharger. It won't happen for awhile, but as I go along doing the modifications to the car I will keep that in the back of my mind. So for now it's just one step at a time. Ok you confused me on the caliper color and coats also. Let me get this straight, you originally wanted your calipers to be red, but after you painted it you weren't happy with the color, so you painted them cherry red with high temp paint. So are your calipers red now or white? and what did you use for a clear coat? My steel braided brake lines came in. So now all I need are the EBC green pads and one Saturday soon I'll bleed the system down, and install the brake lines, recoated calipers, new brake pads and rotors. that should finish that end for awhile. And about the dash kits. I went to NYC Dash. They have nice kits, but I seriuosly want to be different. For example, on your center dash console, everything you have in cherry wood, that plastic trim that goes from the shifter all the way up and around the console and back bown the other side, you have your gauges on top now, but I have a dash tray there, all that I want carbon fiber. After I know I can get that , then I was thinking of the brushed stainless steel or billet Aluminum look for the face of the console. If I can get a billet face, then I think I want it to be a graphite color. I'm still toying with all the ideas. I have already located a carbon fiber custom molding fabricator. We haven't talked design ideas or prices yet. I know it's gonna be expensive. But hey you only live once right? I have actually done this before. I went to the junk yard and bought a center console out of a totalled Nissan 300Z for 50 bucks. I sent that in and they did a replication in carbon fiber for me. Cost me 600.00 plus shipping. But man was I happy with how that turned out. After that you can just buy a flat sheet of carbon fiber and shape it to just do highlights around the interior with.

You will need to go to Home Depot, and get NAPTHA PMA. It's in the paint department next to the turpinetine. It's not a harsh chemical, and won't hurt the glass or anything else like the defrost lines on the window either. It will cost you six bucks. And you'll be able to clean all the price stickers off everything you buy from now as well. I do custom picture framing for a living, so I have to deal with removing adhesives all the time. You can even use it on paper and it won't discolor or leave agreasey residue on it also. Use a terry cloth to wipe the area off the window real well. Make sure you rub it one direction repeatedly. Not back and forth. You will see a nice line of adhesive residue form. Then wipe that away. If you have a problem getting that line of residue off, use a NEW razor blade and with a steep angle, scrape it off easily. Don't use turpentine or mineral spirits on glass!

I have had the car now for 2 weeks. I've added 18x9 einki's ( only 18 lbs. each!), tinted the windows and put on the mini mast for the antenna.

Here is a photo of the car the day I bought it. Very happy day!