SW03ES

Pepboys sells Bosch Micro Edge Excel wiper blades which are excellent ;) Nothing wrong with places like Pepboys, they sell oil, cleaning products etc, light bulbs, washer fluid. Just don't get carried away with what ya buy ;)

Check it out: This is the 97 Camry Here's the 00: in the rear: As you can see, in 00 they replaced the headlights with much more attractive clear lens reflector units, redid the bumper and grille, came out with some better looking wheels, introduced two toning on some models, and redid the shape of the rear lights which are also now clear reflector.

Any word on what they're going to do about it?

Royal Purple is good stuff too. Red light on the Fram filter, Fram filters aren't nearly as good as the standard Toyota filter which is about the best out there. You should always stick with the Toyota filter.

The cat sleeping on the moonroof can't hurt it, no need to worry. I get in the car a lot and find little footprints going up the windshield, they've never done any damage.

Ditto from here too Alan, I never would have guessed your age from your posts, really fantastic!

sk- Never seen that, the lights on or Camry are whats wrong with it I think. skeemer- Ever sat in or driven an SC? Its one of the most luxurious cars on the road. Its honestly not like a sports car, it drives more like an LS. hard to make something more luxurious than it LOL. Piggy-the 97-99 Camry had to be about the most boring and unnatractive its ever been. At least in 00 they freshened it some with clear reflector lights front and rear, but in 97 I remember being saddened at what they'd done to it. I think you're the first person that ever told me it was their favorite lol. The previous model was quite attractive.

Here you have the Maxima, fully loaded SL at $33500 with navigation heated and cooled seats, heated power tilt telescoping wheel, unique rear bucket seats (deleted saves you $1,000) that are power and heated, rear sunshade DVD navigation, Bose stereo, automatic power entry/exit, power folding mirrors. VDC stability control, 17 inch rims, and a 265hp engine. Really unique panoramic sunroof. Really a neat car, too sporty for my taste, but really a neat car. Then you have the Accord, priced at $27,800 with DVD voice activated navigation, 240hp engine, electrochromic gauges, heated seats, memory seats etc. Then you have the Camry, $27,855 with heated seats, 210hp engine, no navigation (cancelled currently in the Camry run). When you look at the options, unless highest comfort and most reliable are the top on your list, the Camry is in obvious last place. Here you have the Accord and Maxima with equipment and packages that you normally only see on cars 2 1/2 times as expensive. Tough competition. We'll see what Toyota comes up with when they into the new engine. I dont suspect many if any changes to the ES from Lexus for the 04 year other than the 3.3 because Lexus doesn't know what Infiniti and Acura are going to do, but they'll be there for 05 once Lexus sees what they're up against and what the buyers find attractive. They'll have to do something for the Camry though...

I actually don't like the new Camry myself. I think next to competitors like the new Honda Accord and the new Nissan Maxima it looks somewhat dated and cheap already, and lacks a lot of the high end equipment those cars have. Equipment that actually the ES300 doesn't have like a voice activated nav system in the Accord, power tilt/telescoping wheel in the Maxima. Maxima has bi-xenon headlights, Accord has electroluminescent gauges. Makes the Camry look really ho-hum. It also seems overpriced, being the most expensive out of those cars, with the least standard and availiable equipment and option packages. It'll be really interesting to see what Infiniti does with the next I35 off the Maxima and Acura does with the next TL. My guess is they wont actually have much their downline siblings dont have. I also really dislike the rear styling of the Camry, not sure why.

You can stop the moonroof at any point during its travel by simply touching the reverse side of the switch once, it'll stop dead in it's track. H8R, I dont know that Target will carry the grease. Probably your best bet is to go to some sort of car parts store like Auto Zone, Pep Boys or the like. Toyota will carry it, as will Lexus. Its good stuff to have, used to grease the door hinges and latches etc also.

Also most leases nowadays are 0 down, you give them the first months payment, a security deposit and you're on your way. You can mod the car, but you have to be prepared to turn it back the way it was when you turn it in. With leasing maintaining the car is just like an owned car, you pay for all maintenance less warranty work. Not so attractive through Lexus since we still pay our maintenance, but really attractive on a BMW or something where BMW pays for all the scheduled service. Also, the common fallacy is that leasing is for people who can't afford to buy the car, not true. Its much harder to get a lease than straight financing. Much more strict about credit and debt to income ratios.

I agree, they'll wind up just replacing the whole radio headunit and charging the repair to Lexus. Call another dealer. Not a problem with Lexus, the dealers are all independant companies in and of themselves. If you dont get the response you're looking for, ask to speak to the general manager and inform him that if your complaint isn't taken care of to your satisfaction you'll take your service and future sales business to another dealer and inform Lexus of your dissatisfaction. They'll take care of you. If not then just walk. If you dont have other Lexus dealers in your area, contact Lexus and they'll eventually dispatch a technician to you personally. The issue with it probably is poor communication between the volume module on the steering wheel and the volume knob on the radio face. Its not like a traditional knob that is hard wired to the circuitry so you turn it, it changes the volume. Since its wired to the switches on the wheel there has to be a relay there where both of them tie into the system, they're just not happy with each other. When you turn it off and back on it resets the system and they communicate properly again.

Oddly enough, I like the front end of my car the most I think. Really took me a long time to warm up to it, I originally wanted silver to sort of hide the headlights, but the little woman talked me into the garnet. Now I think its great, really distinctive and unique. Secondly I love the interior. The new ES has the greatest interior, great design, lots of gadgets and gizmos like the optitron gauges, the wood has a reddish stain and is really unique. Feels like a $70,000 car not a 40k one. Really well done. Thirdly I love the quiet smooth ride. I just love to get into it after a long day and ride home in complete silence, no radio no nothing. Seems totally detatched from the chaos of the world.

Yeah the whole front clip should bolt right up. The hood, grille and headlamps are all new, I think the fenders carry over. Gonna cost you though. I know someone that just did this to his 96 LS400, updated to the 98-00 front clip and it cost him upwards of $8,000, the ES wont be much cheaper. You may find that you could get out of your 98 and into a 00 for the same amount, or not much more. Then you wouldn't have the issue of degredated value like you'd have with the 98 updated to the 00, it'd be worthless on trade. If you owe money on it you'd be really in the hole. I also agree, I like my generation the best but I think the 00s and 01s were a big improvement over the 97-99. Amazing what a few really minor tweaks can do.

I dont have that problem in my 03... can you guys upgrade to a better alternator?

To put it bluntly, its crap. Most everything from Turtle Wax is. What type of scratching do you have, swirl marks etc?

I agree with Alan, the tracks are probably dirty and need lubricating. Just be happy its auto open/close LOL, my Explorer has one you have to hold the button, THATS annoying.

Mine is leased, for now. Leasing in all honesty really gets a bad rap. My dad drives about 30k per year, and he STILL leases because the tax writeoff is good enough to outweigh the costs. There's the deduction which is great, never having to worry about maintenance as the car will always be under warranty, never having to worry about trade in values or selling the car, never having to worry about being upside down on payments etc. Leasing is the future of the automotive buying process. Cars are getting more and more expensive, and lasting longer and longer meaning the resales stay high. Since a lease is effectively paying for the depreciation on the car only, then that makes leases very attractive. Any businessman will tell you, buy things that go up in value, lease things that go down in value. Yes a car is property, but its property that depreciates VERY heavily, very quickly. For a lot of people leasing is an answer and they don't even know it. As for not feeling that they own it, I dont feel that way at all. Its my car. Its not like I leased it because I couldn't afford to buy it, I leased it because being a small business owner it was the smarter decision. That said, I'm heavily considering cashing in some sadly floundering investments and buying the car outright. New tax laws make it possible for small business people like me to write off much of the depreciation of a cash aquired asset like a vehicle in the first year, and it may wind up saving me more than continuing to lease it. Other than that, I'm 100% satisfied with leasing.

Oh God, I hate that crap. Don't you just love it when the dealer tries to "help you"? Generally what I would reccomend is just park the car out in the sun with the windows open and let it air out. Thats pretty much going to be the only way you can do it. There's a product called "Odor Gun" that removes smells from the carpet/headliner etc without adding a smell behind that you can try too.

Yeah, the wax will do exactly what the Rain X does.

Or perhaps the light is just burned out...

Yeah, according to KBB and the other pricing engines the price is off by about $2000. I just checked.

Wow, really? Thats really surprising. Maybe the problem is that the 02 rims are wider?

Yep, pretty common actually. My dad's LS came like that from the factory.

According to Lexus, ABS was standard in 1990. Traction control and air suspension were optional.