smooth1

Very cool! Those kids are 11, 12 and 13? Nice! The video was crap, but the band was pretty good.

What did you do with the original set of sensors? I've heard alot of guys get them off Ebay and not have any problems. You should be able to get a set for 150(ish)? the only issue now would be that you have to go to the dealer and have them registered to the car before you put them in the tire.

You can't. It's not an isolated circuit that can just be shut off. (not the best idea, but it is what it is.) The only thing you can do is get the sensors and a small 6 inch tubeless trailor tire and deflate it, put the four sensors inside it, and reinflate it to like 40 psi and carry it in the trunk. Or you can make a canister out of PVC pipe, and an air valve, but I keep hearing they don't hold the psi as long for some reason, or leak after a bit. But that could be more because of the craftmanship of the person or lack there of.

How many miles do you go between oil changes? Randy, the oil is guaranteed for 1 year or 25,000 miles, whichever comes first. I usually do about 25k/year, so it works out perfectly! blake918, Unless I missed something, I cannot find any "guarantee" information on Amsoil's website. I cannot find any information about extending oil drain intervals to 25,000 miles. I have attached a PDF file that is off of Amsoil's site that is apparently their warranty. My IS250 requires a 5,000 miles oil and filter service according the Lexus Recommended Mainteance. If I were to extend the mileage interval for oil change to say 25,000 miles, according the hightlighted statement on Amsoil's Warranty, they - Amsoil, and Lexus could deny a claim for failure to comply with the warranty stipulations. :o If I'm reading that incorrectly, can you please comment. Thank you. I only post this because you asked: extended drain intervals terms of Amsoil Warrenty I'm somewhat surpised by you R&B. As you've stated in previuos posts you want proof. Ok, show me any proof that going to the 25k mile drain intervals causes any more damage or wear and tear then if you did it at every 5k miles. I know more people than I can name and count that all change thier oil at 25k mile intervals, and have never had a problem. Blake, How many miles do you have on that beautiful LS of yours? and how much do you a pay a quart? I'm only making a point here. I'm not endorsing or pushing Amsoil.

I think we would need to disagree or atleast take opposing points for a real debate. From what I have read here, we mostly agree. I feel though there are some here who were hoping for much more of debate though. That's just my worthless opinion. :P Synthetic oil is better than Dino oil. Your question of how better do you really need is a subjective one. Even Dino oil today is better than the Dino oils of years gone by. I would wonder though how much more oil companies are going to look into advancing the Dino oil formulas with so much success in the synthetic oil advancements. It may come to be that maintaining both lines will be more costly than just swtiching everything over synthetic oils. Also, as older engines and previous designs are replaced with new technology and more efficient designs, the demand for dino oil may just drop to the point it no longer is a viable option to continue. My point is that engineers are able to design the engines they can today because of the advance in engine fluids and lubricants. Period. It's all about engineering and design. The engines you refer to were designed to use those fluids, and to operate in a specific range. If you were to put full synthetic oil into an all original 1960 348 Chevy when new, you would have ended up with alot of problems. The same can be said if you put good old fashion dino oil in a Grand Am GT class Porsche. Design and engineering. I mostly agree that most engines offered in todays consumer market are engineered to the middle of the road. And then there are motors that are much more "aggressively" engineered, and should be cared for more closely. It's up to you to decide where you stand with that.

Nice review. In general I mostly agree with your observations. Hyundai is coming along, Nissan's line up looks good, (what the heck is going on over at Mitsubishi?). And the new Toyota Venza is nice. It caught my wifes eye when we went to the show here in Orlando over the New Years break. And I completely agree with you about Ford. We also like the Volvo S60 alot. She has the S40 now, and it's been a good car.

It sounds like you need to reset them. Use the controller on each door and lower the window all the way, then raise the window back up all the way all the way around the car. Then see if the master control on the driver door works.

Hi Smoothie, Always a hotly discussed topic... Comparing race applications and daily drivers may not be completely fair, although somewhat relevent. There are basically two main ingredients (as you said - zinc and phosphorus) that are important in anti-wear properties. I wouldn't say "greatly decreased"... perhaps from 1200 PPM to 1000 PPM?? Can that difference in a daily driver be measured? Isn't even that about a 15% drop? that's not alot? In professional racing, the lubricants are formulated by the oil companies for the specific application and race team. They usually have twice the amount zinc/phosphorus, but they are "race" engines, with extreme pressures. You can't really compare a race application with a daily driver. Besides, even Mobil Oil does NOT recommend their race formulas to be used in street vehicles. There are alot of different classes of racing. Highly modified classes do not actually make up the largest section of race classes. I raced in the Open GT and the Unlimited Super classes. In the Open class, you could only modify brakes, suspension, exhaust and some body panels, the motor has to be all OEM stock form. Even the air intake! In the unlimited class you were allowed some head work, and intake, but the engine internals again had to be factory.Usually all the highly modified classes were for factory backed efforts or people with huge wallets for racing. You can buy Mobil 1 or other syns that do apparently provide a more anti-wear chemistry. The question is: How much less wear does the synthetic oil provide than a petroleum based oil that meets the same API rating? I wish it was just this simple, but the fact is it isn't. For this specific instance you just asked, it's about Polymers. the oil itself does the lubricating. Polymers are added in order to acheive thier multi viscosity range. But polymers also lower the flash point of oil. So yes, both oils can lubricate, it's just that synthetic oils can do it alone and dino oil needs huge training wheels and a support bar that can't hold it up there for as long. But during a smaller period of time, they are doing their jobs. Premature engine wear and failure due to oil or lubrication (anti-wear) properties? Where do you get this? Have you any recent data or research on this? No, no no. Just due to designs. for example the Northstar engines that are having headgasket failure and overheating issues before 100k miles. Most happening right around 60-80K miles. The Ford Mustang (last years of the 5.0) were having overheating issues when idled for too long, this wasn't really even an issue until the state troopers started to use them and they discovered this design flaw. Once they did, they were made to use Redline synthetic oils and the overheating was atleast controllable. It still left a bad taste in thier mouth and opted away from the Mustangs. I have spent a little time around the few race tracks, professional engine builders, and some professional racing friends, if you build a competitive engine and you are having engine failures due to lubrication issues you'd better have a serious talk with your engine builder!! You may have blue print issues or other issues going on. In your "pro comp" experience, how many engines have you seen fail because of oil property breakdown!! Be honest! How many races have you seen lost because the oil itself didn't lubricate properly!! But the engine builders don't choose what oil to put in them. You do. And again, it's not about catastrophic failures, it's about those little issues that can destroy or atleast cost you alot of time and money. This is a good point. If longevity in engine life is a major concern for ownership, then you most likely will see an actual reduced wear on some internal engine parts by using synthetic oil vs petroleum base oil, providing the maintenance is the same interval. The question again is how much? The bearing, piston, etc specs on many production engines has a tolerance - usually several hundred thousands of an inch. For example, you might see a circle runout on camshaft spec at .008" limit. In other words, the circle runout can be between .000" and .008" - according to the engine manufacturer's spec. How much wear in thousands of an inch will that camshaft see using dino vs synth oil? In my opinion, this is the wrong way of looking at this. Most engine wear doesn't come from the actual friction, it comes from the detonation cycle in the cylinder itself. Each time the fuel and air mixture combust, acids form and recondense on the cylinder walls which etch the cylinder walls and piston rings. Again, here it's not about being more slippery than the next oil, it's about the oils ability to stay distributed on the cylinder wall and act a barrier, kinda like waxing your car. It's a sacfricial (spell check that?) layer that keeps those acids off the cylinder walls, and the abiltiy to suspend those particles and gases and clean them away. A typical compression spec will have a standard and a limit. For example, the compression might have a standard spec of 171 psi with limit of 142 psi - that's about 17%, and a differential of pressure between each cylinder of 14 psi. These numbers are spec'd by the manufacturer and one can argue that's per "blue print". The 80% and 90% example you give is OK, but do you think that any average daily driver vehicle (IS250 or IS350 engine) with a difference in compression of 10% will be noticeable or even recordable on a Superflo Engine Dyno? On a race track and the driver's butt dyno.. maybe noticeable! Will a 10% difference in compression cause a drop in fuel mileage that can be calculated? I believe synthetic lubricants have benefits, but at twice the price over dino oil (Autozone Mobil1 5w-30 is $6.99, Amsoil 5w-30 is $8.90, Mobil 5000 dino is $2.99), do I get twice the benefit? Can you show me where your 40k car can perform twice a good as a 20k car? But you bought that anyway. And for me, it comes down to the same question - can anyone show me certified, actual, quantitative and qualitative test data that truly demonstrates significant engine component wear of oil lubricated parts using dino vs synthetic oil? The synthetics offer the only truly significant differences, due to their superior high temperature oxidation resistance, high film strength, very low tendancy to form deposits, stable viscosity base, and low temperature flow characteristics. Synthetics are superior lubricants compared to traditional petroleum oils. You will have to decide if their high cost is justified or not.

While I can see you relating your track experience to "real life" and I understand that philosophy, I think you lose a little credibility equating stop and go traffic in 95 degrees to anything done at the track. My track time in a 95 M3 was in the middle of the desert, 110 deg plus...speeds up to 125mph on straights, brakes smoking into turn-in, redline in every gear until the next straight. Even after a cool-down lap the hood needs to come up to let the heat escape. Comparing that to driving to work is not even in the same universe. I know I am not telling you anything you do not know. That is the same type of argument the anti-smoking crowd uses...their message is good and valid until they start saying things like 2nd hand smoke is more dangerous than the 1st-hand guy who filters ALL the smoke through his lungs first. Not realistic and defies common sense. I'm not really interested in debating the pros and cons of Amsoil. Amsoil is more like a religious faith than a lubricant, and the discussions always end with hurt feelings. I would simply point out that this is the internet age and if there were a secret product with space-age capabilities baffling scientists worldwide, it wouldn't be a secret anymore. There is no magic and there is no product that is head and shoulders above everything else out there. If a product were significantly superior, someone would reverse engineer it and reproduce the formula (a lab can tell you the components of a liquid in short order). Some products deemed to be superior are often specified by manufacturers for use with their products (Corvette and Mobile1 comes to mind) and if I am correct, no manufacturer is specifying Amsoil. Amsoil is not a secret, has been in the market for decades now but still manages to elude all the manufacturers and professional engineers as the panacea of all lubricants. Really? Not likely. The synthetic/dino oil argument and the associated extended drain intervals would seem to me to have some merit depending on application, but comparing one synthetic to another made from the same base stocks seems a little silly to me. Prediction: Before this thread is done, no fewer than 12 pages of Amsoil in-house "testing" literature and multiple links to bobistheoilguy will be cut and pasted into this thread. Meh. I fail to see where I drew that comparison together. I referred to my exerience and choice of oil as a referrence matter. I'm not an Amsoil preacher. And I'm not here to debate and compare one oil to another, or why. I could really careless which oil you use, or how often you change it. I speak from my own expereinces. And what I know to be true.

I've found that when looking at a higher mileage car, it becomes more about the regular maintanance discipline of the owner than it does about the motor itself. So long as it was maintained regularly, and not wrecked, I wouldn't have any issues at all buying one. The 2JZ has a long proven history. The drivetrain and trans is fine. $6k for an IS300 isn't bad. Your due for the water pump and timing belt replacement. That's can cost around 800 bucks. I would also make sure all the fluids look good.

have you tried going to a Toyota dealership instead? I've seen as much as 40% less there for the same work.

The dealer has to flash it to the ECU. If you buy one, you'll have to take it to them and have them program it for you.

LOL!!! Bartkat, makin me laugh!!

I admit that it's hard for me to just look at street applications and not include what I've learned at the tracks. Let me use this as a quick example, when I buy my tires, I buy them to try to fit the most realistic extreme circumstances. Like hard braking in the rain, or an emergency stop that relies on the the tires ability to stop the car. A tire that I know will hold the road when I decide I wanna hammer this curve coming up, and won't break loose everytime I slam on the gas pedal so easily. I don't buy tires to fit just my everyday driving. If that were the case, then most any generic, hard compound tire would do. I buy my oil with that same logic. Stop and go traffic on a 95 degree day can achieve periods of time that are more than severe enouph.

I come from a racing family. My dad, my uncles, my brother, my cousins and myself have all raced in pro comp's of one form or another. And none of us use an off the shelf oil. It's allways Amsoil, Penn, redline, Lucas, Joe Gibbs, Torko, etc. etc. Even Quaker State and Pennsoil have "racing" grade oils" and then have over the counter "retail" oil. The reason? Many of the key ingredients required to sustain a high performance engine have been greatly decreased or removed over the years due to tightening environmental regulations. The EPA, car manufacturers, and the American Petroleum Institute (API) have legislated the wear protection right out of the over the counter oils for the public. The reduction in Zinc and Phosphorus, which are key to reducing engine wear, has meant we have less protection in our high performance engines. Most if not all "new" oils introduced are more about following these EPA and API regulations and only "market" themselves as "improved" or "better". Premature engine wear and failure are beginning to be an increased concern. While the environmental effects have been reduced and although I'm all for cleaning up the environment, I'm also into protecting my investment. I've seen first hand motors opened up after 10 hours of comp on them using over the counter oils and it's not pretty! So, you may not see any performance differnce today, or even tommarrow, but what about a few years from now? Let's just for the sake of our discussion say that most motors last to 100k. as a general rule. But at what amount of compression loss and internal materials degradation? Sure, the motor will still run just fine at say 80% of the original compression, and so long as the car isn't under full throttle you probably won't notice it under daily driving conditions, but maybe if you used a better quality oil and the compression was maintained at 90%, then not only would you have more power on hand at 100k miles, but probably a bit better gas mileage also. Would this offset the cost of the oil? while you may spend a bit more over the long road, in the end, you still have a better result also.

Isn't the front 225/35/18? and the rear is 255/40/18. 245 in the rear would be ok I guess.

The rims are different widths. 8's on the front, 8.5 on the rear. I wouldn't recommend going to 225's all around. I have 8.5 on the front and 9.5 on the rear, and I have 225 on the 8.5. It's definately a stretched sidewall look. So your rear tires would look thinner than your fronts.

Yep, could be a nice car.....

they must have at one point, in 08 they came out with a suppliment report about the best and worst gas mileage, in that publication, they have the H2 as getting 11 mpg's. The worst of all gas mileage, yet in all their regular publications, it's allways listed as N/A. I just don't get that. Here's a link to the suppliment report:CR gas mileage report Now go look at the regular publications and you'll see. it's allways N/A. Even though they show 3-4 years of consumer feedback on all the catagories.

Actually, (this is just my opinion) I think CR has lost alot of value in my eyes. Take a look at the review for the H2 Hummer. Why do they not publish the mpg's ? All I ever see are n/a. You mean to tell me that in all 3 reviews, and comparisons and all that data, nobody can figure out the average mpg's? Or is GM paying CR enouph money to keep that off the publications? And if you agree with me that GM must have some arrangement with CR for that, then where do those agreements stop? How many car companies? And what info is for sale?

well the three I thought was the established "ok" number, I guess I can understand the dislike of the seven, as that would require using the other hand to count that high, so maybe to keep it simple just make it "33".

Here, just paint it up like this : so when you drive around town everyone will think your really fast, and oh so uber cool!

Great, that's the business logic of our future generation? No wonder we're in soo much financial trouble.

Uh oh, someone just got busted!!