SW03ES

But the 4cyl Camry cannot be compared to the ES300 or ES330 because they have entirely different engines and transmissions. The 4cyl Camry also does not have an electronic throttle, I believe.

All Lexus vehicles have this hesitation. I've also felt it on the BMW7, 5 and the new Audi A8. I firmly stand by my assumption that its a characteristic of the electronic throttle on these cars. The only way to remedy it is to learn to drive around it, it is definately doable. As for the Camry, the Camry has exactly the same engine and transmission as the ES (on the upper models) and I believe it also has the e-throttle. If this is the case it will operate the same. The reason you don't see people with GS' complain about it on this board is simply that our GS traffic isn't as high. I don't mean to sound disrespectful but did you not extensively test drive the ES before you bought it? I've heard this from several people, they just bought it because they'd had a Camry or an older Lexus in the past and bought it without driving it. This is very inadvisable as all cars are different.

Couple problems with that. Two things the slow economy has yet to hurt are real estate sales and automobile sales, especially luxury car sales. Americans may be making less and spending less, but not on homes or cars. Also, this time of year is pretty good in the car sales business. The best month to buy a car is January, a lot of car salesman make $0 in January it is the worst month in the car business.

Lay it out for them and make them work for it. If you've really decided on the car then let them know it, all they have left to do is get in on your price, private party book which is fair. Agreed that they're not into the car very much, they probably stole it off some 75 year old woman. Its the person that trades it in who pays for reconditioning, not you. As for the % rate, they may not be able to finance you except at 9.9, 757 is an excellent credit score. Credit unions usually have WAY lower rates than dealers, ESPECIALLY on used cars. The dealership goes through Lexus Financial Services which usually doesn't have very good rates, even on new cars. So let them know, you're going to finance with your credit union, this is your price if you two can reach an agreement you'll pick it up tomorrow.

Nice work, I'm going to move this to the detailing forum. I do have some reccomendations for you though that will save you some time and give you a better end result. 1. Cleaner wax. Really this is not the best product choice. Cleaner waxes are designed as an all in one step, and like all in one products it does niether step as well as stand alone products. Since you're waxing anyways no need to use a cleaner wax. If you want to stay with something you can buy in a store I reccomend Meguiar's Color X. 2. Wash after polishing step before waxing. Again, this isn't really neccisary. Only way this would be neccisary is if you're using some pure sealant program like Klasse or Zaino that require an oil free surface, and you're not. 3. Turtle Wax Platinum and Meguiars NXT. These are redundent products. If you WANT to use both you can but you have the order reversed. The NXT is a sealant, it should be applied underneath the Turtle Wax, which is a wax. The NXT also has a good amount of chemical cleaners in it and likely removed the wax you had laid down underneath it anyways. 4. Dress the wheel wells! Spray some of that tire shine up into the wheel wells, gives the car a much more finished look. I can see everything but the Concorde pics.

The tri-mode phone only comes in handy when you're travelling to areas where you will need to roam on the old analog networks. I hardly ever roam anymore with CDMA digital which is what you have too.

Yes, this is taught in precision driving courses. I've done it once (during a course) and it takes a lot of skill and perfect timing.

Not actually. I wouldn't use anything but the specified Toyota ATF in the car. It is a very sophisticated long life fluid and is far moreso than the Mobil 1, synthetic or not. As for the people at Jiffy Lube laughing I would have asked the manager if they wanted me to take my business elsewhere and write a letter to Jiffy Lube explaining why or if he wanted to have his employees stop laughing at treat me with respect. But thats just me ;) As for can you drive the car too much, short answer no long answer yes. A car is a machine and has many moving wearing parts. The more you use it, the more of its life you're using just like any other peice of equipment.

Okay, hang on, I'm confused... You don't like the Xenons because they're too bright? So you're going to use the wedge bulb to be your illumination? lexusk8 is right, when "-" is selected the wedge bulbs up in the corner are the only things that light up, and I believe the DRLs may too. There is no way to use the wedge bulb as the primary headlight because the socket isn't designed to project that light out onto the road. So, even if you could get the bulb to burn you're just going to have REALLY bright wedge bulbs that don't illuminate anything. If you're talking about the DRLs, the DRLs are just the high beams on low intensity, putting a brighter bulb wont make a difference here. To me the xenons being too bright is like saying "Take this Prime Rib back, it tastes way too good" but the reason your xenons are too bright is probably because they aren't aimed properly. HIDs are VERY bright if they're titled up even just a little bit. Let the Lexus dealer look at the aim...

They seem to work fine unless its just misting out. Even on the most sensitive setting, the glass just has to be too wet for my liking before they swipe the first time, and I find myself having to cycle them myself. This would be fine except for two problems: 1. The ES, unlike other Lexuses does not have a mist function. You either have to spritz the washers or bump it down to "LO" then when you bump it from "LO" to "AUTO" the wipers remain at LO until you bump it up to OFF and back down to AUTO. 2. The auto wipers completely replace the standard intermittant function, which is stupid. Auto headlights don't keep me from turning them on when I want to... The feature reminds me of something my dad had on a 90 Lincoln Continental he had when I was a kid, auto high beams. Good idea right? Sure, but the technology wasn't totally there yet, the highs would stay on, the headlights would go totally off when next to a truck etc. He shut both the auto headlihgts and the auto high beams off. I can't do that with my auto wipers though...

I wouldn't use it every week but once to thoroughly clean the leather shouldn't hurt.

BUT the tint in the rear windows is not a removable film. The glass would have to be replaced with clear glass, then tinted. The short answer is yes it can be tinted, but it will make the glass thats in there now be even more reflective.

Auto wipers are about the dumbest invention ever put on a car. The idea is sound, but the technology just isn't there yet. Mine either go on when its dry or don't go on when its raining...

Thats an EXCELLENT deal! My dad has the identical car, he's very happy with it I'm sure you will be too. The flint mica is a great color, dark but hides scratches better than black. Black interiors are a must, they wear much better than any other color, and the antique wood is very unique.

Probably not, unless the GSM service becomes more reliable here in the US. Right now its terrible...

That doesn't mean they won't address the issues of the ring and porting the phone book. Verizon offers no cost service to prohibit them from allowing you to have the phone ring and sync the phone book. This quote is deirectly from that site: Mobile phonetools is what the Lexus uses to sync phonebooks.

Exactly, more evidence that Verizon may indeed be holding steady on the GSM track. It'll be interesting to see how it unfolds. As for blacklisting ESNs it hasn't been made illegal for 2 reasons: 1. People haven't complained about it. People complained about number portability and that happened easily, open ESNs will come next too once people complain. 2. Again, Verizon is huge and is a BIG proponent of leaving it legal to blacklist ESNs. We all know the poll big business has with our government. Thats not as much an issue in other countries that have already made it illegal. You can bet that Sprint was fully versed on the future of their industry when they decided to upgrade to 3G CDMA, they made a concious decision that they were choosing CDMA over GSM for the long haul. The release of CDMA phones that roam on GSM from Sprint and Samsung shows this even further. My guess is Verizon has a plan to implement either GSM or 3G CDMA and they're using Sprint as their Guinea Pig on this one.

Thats a commonly held fallacy. Clearcoat paint and regular paint are no different from each other, the only difference is the final coat of paint on a clearcoated car has no pigment. Anyways your black SC is actually probably NOT a clearcoat. Most Lexus black isn't.

That generation 7 series BMW is quite reliable, how many miles does it have now? Basically you want to find a car with an oil change history of every 5ki to avoid the gelling. That engine in those years is susceptible to gelling of oil that is left too long between changes. There's an extended warranty from lexus until 8 yrs or 100,000 miles. Run a search in this forum for more info.

The ML is about my least favorite vehicle on the market, Trucky ride, poor construction, built in Alabama... As for the 320 vs 500, well the 500 is a....500.

Thats what this site's all about! Maybe not. I've been thinking about this and Verizon may just be planning a switch over to GSM. When Quallcomm's 3G came out Sprint immediately updated, cost them several billion $$s, Verizon didn't. Why not? The fact that Sprint updated means that they at least intend to remain CDMA for the forseeable future, that investment wouldn't be cost effective if it was only for the short term. I'll see what I can dig up about Verizon and GSM... If thats the case then that makes sense why Motorola is planning a swap, with their largest customer also planning a swap it would be a very smart move. But yeah, the whole blacklisting ESN's is not cool. Sprint will activate Verizon phones if you can talk them into it but they don't support a lot of the vision features. Verizon on the other hand though won't do it, big time in it for the money. There's an open letter to congress to let your representatives know you support the banning of the practice of blacklisting ESNs, I'll see if I can find it. If that were to happen then we'd get better technology sooner and we'd be treated more fairly because ambitious carriers like Verizon won't have the yay or nay power over our equipment. Then technology can really move forward.

It may or may not, I'm not sure. My guess is its real though. Its real in all other ES model years.

Great, keep us posted!

I hope to be able to make that meet too...

I realize that your info comes from people high up in Motorola's heirarchy but what you have to understand about business is that a people talk a lot but say very little. Just because this is what Motorola has "SAID" they are going to do means nothing. In the history of the Motorola partnership with Verizon we have seen nothing but Verizon saying what they want and Motorola caving in. Why would we think otherwise now? Whats changed? I did a little checking, actually they were released simultaneously on CDMA and TDMA, the V60C and the V60T. But see you cannot correct someone's opinion. We both seem pretty evenly matched when it comes to knowledge about this subject, but you're getting yours from only one source, Motorola. Mine comes from research I've done on this subject on my own from many sources. There are a lot of players here. See thats the thing though, Motorola doesn't give Verizon deadlines, Verizon gives Motorola deadlines thats how their corporate relationship works. Verizon purchases phones from Motorola, phones they can purchase from many other manufacturers. When Verizon says jump, Motorola jumps. This would not be the case if it was illegal to blacklist ESNs, but its legal. Verizon basically owns Motorola. I'm not saying you haven't been hearing these things passed down at Motorola or that Motorola's goal isn't to switch to GSM entirely, I'm just saying that wont happen if Verizon has anything to do with it. The history of these Ma Bell subsidiarys shows that if Motorola crosses Verizon, then Verizon will make it their mission to put Motorola out of business. Verizon is your BIGGEST customer, they do over 60% of your business. If they pull out, Motorola will fold. That means you cannot do anything "if Verizon likes it or not". Samsung has the same problem with Sprint that Motorola has with Verizon. The vast majority of their business comes from Sprint, same with Sanyo. Sprint didnt just spend however much they did to upgrade their CDMA network to 3G to bow to GSM within 5 years. They believe CDMA is going to be here to stay. LG is basically a free agent so I'll give you this one. They are entirely GSM actually, thats why Sprint doesnt have a bluetooth phone because S-E screwed them over the T608. Thats because Verizon gave them an ultimatum, if they continued to supply phones to Sprint Verizon would blacklist their ESNs. I'm not saying GSM isn't up and coming, but what I have seen and heard from Verizon and Sprint they have no plans of switching their networks. Sprint just came out with a new Samsung phone that is CDMA but can roam GSM and are calling it their "world phone" and just totally revamped their entire product lineup, all CDMA. A company about ready to switch to GSM wouldn't do that. Verizon MAY be looking at a switch, they never made the change to 3G like Sprint did. My one and only point though is that these two companies basically own the cellular service industry in the US, GSM carriers account for a small % of market share compared to Verizon and Sprint with Verizon being much larger than Sprint. Cell companies may want to go GSM, but if their two largest customers are CDMA and intend to stay that way, money talks.