smooth1

Do they make panties that fit over diapers? LOL!! That's curtesy of a member here. (Flop 170) Hookin me up with the signature banner.I just put it up today so I haven't been able to thank him yet, as he did an awsome job on it. I think it looks great!

I love watching Top Gear also. :)

um wth man? i love how your turning this on me....i report it for his childish antics and now your yelling at me bout it? i was sticking to the topic....i didnt attack ne1 and was answering the OP I'm not turning anything on anyone. You were both warned. But you went thru this before. tijr1 made a perfectly ok suggestion that was initally attacked by you. He was warned for how he reponded to that attack. And you were just warned for your part.

That's enouph of the personal attacks. Stick to the topics. Sakataj you've been warned clearly before.

This all really depends on the dollars. We were looking at the 4.3 liter V8 Tundra motors to swap in the IS350's. But it's just not looking very good at all. A friend of mine just down the street did a twin turbo 4.3 liter in a Supra and even the costs on that were well over 60k . To many ECU's have to talk to each other and the costs are just outrageous right now. The 250 to 350 swap, you would be way better off just selling the 250 and buying a used 350 and shipping it over. Anything can be done with enouph money. But with these cars, it's better to go the path of least resistance.

Black exterior on black interior. Ok Ive only heard thet used to describe black exterior on black rims. I guess it could be both. But I've never heard Black on machined or black on polished before. Or what would you call that?

Dang....I was hoping for ya. So, ok, nothing smells like a new car, except a new car. So of all the ones you have tested, seeing as how you have them, do you like any of them? Are there any that in particular you think atleasts smells good, even though it doesn't smell like a new car? And didn't you think the Griot's leather care smells just like leather? Or didn't you try that one?

Click on me

It's very unfortunate for Moroso. They were even taken off my race schedule this year. Last year we ran there twice. This year, they aren't even in the programs. I heard that about 8 years ago, Moroso contracted with an asphalt company to repave the track. They were told that it was a competition asphalt compound like what was used at Daytona, and they paid like X million dollars for it. (I was told 8 million, but I think figures like this tend to get inflated with the "Hey look what I know" expander clause.) But whatever. Anyway, they definately have a problem. the track is crumbling away, and the park doesn't have any money to have it repaved. They are getting alot of complaints from race officials and sponsors are pulling races there as no one wants to drive on the track there. The only things they have now are 1/4 mile, and some open time attack events. MAybe some local stuff, but that's about it now. Kami Speed here in Orlando just opened up a road course race track. I haven't been to it yet, I think it opened last week. I was going to check out that track in a couple weeks when I get a chance. Alright, back on topic.

Those cars were being driven flat out all day long brother. And it wasn't just the ISF's, the IS350's were going out all day. I drove one atleast 6 or 7 times. And Danica needs to win a race before she gets to say anything. Until then she can just sit behind the steering wheel lookin good on the stick.

Yeah I watch this also. They aren't doing badly! did you see the Evo smack the cement barrier thing? and then the Dart team rolled thier car when it wasn't even a race anymore? Man that was stupid! But very entertaining!

I'll take that bet, because I've done it in an IS350 at Moroso Speedway, I drove the wheels off that car for alot longer than 10 minutes, not to mention that car was driven like that all day by 40 different people. And I can prove it as I did a full write up and review here on the LOC with pics and video. Stock, out of the box, 2008 IS350's and ISF's. That was what changed my opinion about this car and why I sold my turbo IS300 and bought one of these! Moroso Speedway track day for the ISF

That's why I always wear my tin foil hat.

"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". Because those larger sidewalls hide this issue much better. Lower the profile like we have, and you have to be alot more exact.[/quote] What does rotating a tire on its wheel 180 degrees do? [code] Road force balancing measures the roundness of the tire, by measuring the amount of pressure where the contact patch actually is. Most all rims are not perfectly round to begin with, and have some movement in them straight from the factory. So in essence and for the sake of keeping this relatively short, it measures the amount of movement in the rim, then tells the tech to rotate the heavier portion of the tire to the opposite side of where the rim is out of round the most to create a rounder, more even contact patch.[/quote] "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!! [code] Sometimes you surprise me Randy. I would think you should be more familiar with suspension geometry's as you have racing in your background. Every car manufacturer has the exact same desicions they have to make, and no matter what that desicion is, there are a bunch of haters complaining and sniveling over it. The facts are, a suspension system that places the tire in a more vertical postion, ie, gets great even tread wear, corners crappy and is unstable at higher speeds. That's a law of nature that science can't overcome. A tire that is more cambered, has alot more stability at high speed, and offers alot more traction in cornering, but at the expense of localized tread wear. Every car ever built faces these same issues. so when they decide tread wear is more important, then you would be complaining that the car doesn't corner very well, understeers all over the place, and won't track, or want to stay on the line you pick with the sterring wheel. You know how some cars feel like they "wander" going down the road all the time? And your forced to constantly correct the steering? they probably get great tire wear. Just look at all those 1980's-1990's cars that get great tire wear, but all performed very poorly. Now we are starting to see some real performance for a change. And when they decide performance is the higher priority, then they have to decide how much tire and suspension wear they are willing to sacfrice to achieve the level of performance they are looking for. 15-20k miles on performance tires is common across the board. Maybe you should be driving a Volvo? That's just my worthless opinion.

Thanks SW. I have alot of years of going to far to teach me when to stop now. LOL!!!

You should use that pic as your avatar. :D I'm workin on it...

Black exterior on black interior.

I've had several tires over the years that turned out to be out of round. Once, the tire store Manager said "it's within specs"..... to that I said "I don't give a ripp'n flip about your "specs"... the tires are out of round and causing a vibration on the freeway.... I WANT NEW TIRES!! That's just my worthless opinion.

Welcome to the LOC. I'm sorry your having these issues, but I think I can help. When you say cupped, or feathered? or ribbed? Do you or the person who told you they were cupped know what the differences are? Or are you using this word just as an adjective to describe what you see on the tires? Can you take a pic of the tires and post it so I can see? The reason I ask this is because each one of those are caused solely by on setting or another. And when you add in the tire pressure and how high or low can effect those, then by looking at the tire, l would be able to tell you exactly what the problem is. For example, if it's feathering the tread, that would point to a toe in issue, and should just be adjusted in the alignment settings. But if you check the specs, and it comes up within spec, then that would suggest that the bushings in the front suspension were beginning to fail. As when the car is at rest, theres not any load on the suspension,(would read within spec.) but as the car was accelerating and braking causing the suspension to over sag, and dip.(Now out of spec most of the time) If it was indeed cupped, then that's not an alignment issue and the dealer is correct in saying the car is within spec. Cupping comes from issues with any one of or combination of spring, shock, ball joint, wheel bearing, etc. So checking and rechecking the alignment for a cupping issue is pretty useless.

I was just putting the photo ablum away in a file and as I was looking thru them, I think this one has become my favorite of all the photo's I have so far: