smooth1

staight

Thanks, the ceramic pads are pretty good too...hardly any dust compared to the originals :) Wasn't too sure of the colour coded centre discs on the Volks, but like them a lot now. I also sprayed the lug nuts to match, and have been surprised they haven't chipped at all when torquing up. Yeah, I was seriously considering going to the ceramics also. I've used EBC's and have never had any problems. So, I was going to let the dealership do the TSIB brake pad change first and see how that turns out. If it doesn't, then I was going to a ceramic pad also and see how that works out. DO you drive it hard? How are they holding up? how much grab, more or less than stock? What brake pads are you using? I have the Obsidian Black on black. I have the windows tinted 20% all around, but I think I'm going to go darker all around, then black rims with polished lip rims.Lower it, Black lip kit, no spoiler, and a black rear window visor. Maybe black out the headlights and taillights. I may take your brake caliper design though! :) That really does look great.

Congratulations! I'm glad to hear and see you got it! Nice color choice! And atleast the car drives the same as it does with Nav, so your not missing out on any performance of a AWD 250. I think a great mod to start with is getting the stance right by lowering it just 1 inch. I've seen spring kits for this car starting around 250 bucks, and Eibachs, that I know makes great springs are around 350 bucks. The F series "performance" parts for this car are like 260 bucks, and you can get those from the dealer, and they will install them and they offer a warrentee on em!

stirred

I just have to like what I drive. Looks and feel are just as important as resale value and mechanical soundness. Toyota?Lexus just feels better, and looks great!

My advice: Never, never, never, never buy a first year new model. They allways have bugs to work out, and engineering issues for the first couple years. I would wait and see how the model is recieved, and give it some time. In the mean time , get the RX.

Welcome to the LOC, and congrats on the new Lexus! Yeah, your in for a mechanical treat when compared to the C230!

you may just have some carbon build up in the cylinders also. 5 years of very short trips? That's actually the hardest miles you can put on a car. If you just got it, give it some time and throttle it hard on the on ramps to blow out some of that. Also, take the negative terminal off the battery for about 15-20 minutes, and then reconnect it. That will reset the ECU and the car will relearn your driving habits faster. That should help some also.

Well first of all, Welcome to the LOC! Sorry to hear about your bad experience. I find it hard to believe that they only had 1 LS 460! You should ask to take thier customer satisfaction survey. They put alot of weight on those.

Congratulations!

martini

This topic has been gone over at great length. I suggest you go to the bottom of the forum and use the search function. Just enter "Fuel Grade" and you will find more on this topic than you will care to read.

Well, it could very well not be the cars fault. It all depends. At one time or another you or someone who drives the car may have had some corrosive or harsh chemicals on thier hands and touched the steeering wheel. The leather on the steering wheel is just that, leather, so the peeling could even just be from a higher PH in your persperation. To fix it, I would just go to the store and find some shoe polish that mtaches and rub it in and then treat it with some saddle soap. Or, you can get a leather repair kit that will have the colors and you can just retouch those areas.

desert

Yeah, the link you posted for the Amsoil id great. That's what I use. As for the headlight, I have used Flitz plastic and glass polish beofre with great results. I have also heard people get good results with some headlight headlight restoration kits. The poppping and clicking sound you hear, may be the brakes, and is normal. It normally makes that sound when you are backing up, or just staring to move?

The headlight should just be replaced if your having miosture problems. You can try the drill a small hole in the underneath side trick, but I have found that for all the trouble your gonna go thru to do that, just spend the 150 bucks on a new one from Ebay and done with it. To get to the headlights you have to remove the whole front bumper and grill, to gain access to the headlights. I use Amsoil on all my cars. I race on the side as a hobby and I wouldn't use anything else. BUt that is a personal preference in my opinion. I can't tell anything from the pic if the bumper has had any issues or not, but I can tell you that mine has never seemed to line up perfectly either. And I have had 3 IS 300's.

Oh, ok. :)

Ok, I'm confused here. So let me try to get this straight. 10 months ago you did a full detail? and now you just redetailed it? or what you just did you don't consider a detail, and here is what it looks like 10 months after a real detail?

Yeah, probably, but if you like the fun of a manual, then it is workable.

That's ok, so long as it was changed regularly. Just switch it over now. It will be fine. Changing oil isn't that bad, the oil filter is a bit of difficult location, but doable. You don't have to drop the pan, just the oil plug.

If your swapping to the Supra GTE, then just get the tranny that goes with it also. It will save you alot of headaches, as the stock tranny is not a direct fit to the GTE anyway. For turbo, an auto is faster. With manual, you have respool every gear shift, auto stays spooled all the way thru. You'll need the GTE ECU to run the turbo anyway, so keep the the drivetrain together will be easier in the long run. The turbo Supra GTE tranny will hold 500 rwhp no problem without doing anything to it.

I've watched this a couple of times now, as I actually liked it. If you listen to him after he talks about the mustang, he does say he likes the car anyway. He says that about a couple of the cars he trashes. I do agree with his Cadillac review, but I don't think it should be called the most expensive sports car ever made by american. It should be called the most expensive Cadillac made at that time. And when he talks just about the build quality of the American cars, I have to agree with him, Amercan cars haven't been handling and suspension, brakes, chassis, or transmission advanced in years! I hate how cheap and plasticy feeling the interiors of american made cars feel. And even though they get to claim 500 HP, it's out of these huge liter motors. It's the most heated agrument that my dad and I have had over and over. He's faster, until there are corners involved, and then I allways win when we race each other on the track. His Mustangs just can't go fast on a real track. And if he modify's the whole car for track set up, then yes, it does go fast, but for less money, and fewer mod's, I can make an Evo 8 way faster on the track, and that's a 4 banger with a turbo!, or an RX-7 make a Mustang GT look silly slow. Now, to be fair, Americans don't seem interested in road racing courses. ( I happen to prefer this kind of racing over all others, and then 1/4 mile racing is second.) Look at the World GT cup racing. Ford is involved with it's Falcon devision, and GMC has the Opel. They do well in their respective classes. So, here is what I think is very interesting. In the last 20 years, Ford has held the European car of year title 5 times with the Mondeo, the S-Max, Focus, and the Scorpio. GMC does business in the UK as Opel, and held it twice, although they were both back in the 80's if I remember right. Chrysler hasn't seen any real success since the 70's over there, but I think we all know why that is. So, I don't think it's the Manufacturers, I truly beleive it's the american market, or what the car mfgrs percieve the american markets to be. Which would explain why during the 80's and 90's, the #1 selling cars here were the Toyota Camery, the Ford Taurus, and Honda Accord, while over in Europe are the Peugeot 207, the Volkswagen Golf, the Ford Focus, and the Opel Vauxhall Corsa.( 2 American based mfgrs in that list by the way!) All these cars are, or atleast look like half the size of the cars in the US. It's just a differrent lifestyle over there. What is wrong with that? The number 1 all time selling vehicle is the Ford F150. It is so far in front as the #1 seller, if you took the Toyota Tundra, the Dodge Ram, The Nissan Titan, and the GMC Serria, and added up all the sales, you still wouldn't total half the sales volume of the F150! Why would Ford stop making trucks? Why wouldn't all the other car mfgr's want some of that pie? So he can bash the car companies all he wants to, but I don't see it quite like that. I see it as the car companies putting out what they think we want. And I would say they get it right about 75% of the time. Look at the SUV's and how many they sold to people who want them? I know the people who bought them know that they aren't going to corner like a Porsche, and take off like a Vette. It just so happens that alot of people don't care about that kind of performance. And for those of us who do, we find the right car for us, don't we?

the only issue I have with this is that the UV coating isn't on the outside of the headlight. It's on the inside where the elements and carwashing can't take it off anyway. I think you just used a better quality headlight restoration system that had better sanding steps then you had done prior. Thier UV proctectant solution was probably more of an Acrylic polish that may have had some UV properties to it, but in order to keep you from going out buying Acrylic polish on your own, they called some UV secret sauce that only they have in thier kit.

I've used Flitz plastic polish kit and glass polish kit and that had amazing results! I was skeptical about it, but when I was done they looked brand new again!

The traction control is a safety system that detects wheel spin and stops it. So it depends, if you want to do a burn out or take off hard, then press the traction off button, other than that, it stays on by itself, and everytime you start the car it defaults back to being on. The Power button is for the transmission. It changes the shift points in the tranny to a higher RPM, and a few other subtle changes that help with throttle responce from a stop. Again, up to you, but this will stay in the setting you choose.