SW03ES

Happy Birthday dcfish! If it weren't for you we'd all have cracked navigation screens and we wouldn't know when anybody's birthday was. Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday SK!

Thats great! As for buying another Lexus, I understand the trepidation given your experience, but in the end they are doing right by you and obviously its not an issue the vast majority of people have. If you like the car, I'd give it another shot. They made a lot of nice changes to the LS in 2010...

I agree with Jim. Its just a car, its a tool to them to transport people around the resort and to advertise. Why do you care about the resale value? They aren't your vehicles...

They themselves don't know what to tell you...

That doesn't create a searchable database as the OP was looking for though. Also doesn't solve the issue of moderating.

LED bulbs aren't going to produce any light output, which is the purpose of having lights in the first place. I would do an HID conversion before I did an LED conversion.

In my location I just never come across that problem. You can't compare it to the Garmin really, Garmin is in the business of just designing navigation systems...Lexus' system is designed alongside the other electronics in the vehicle, its all done on a overall budget. Garmin's GPS R&D is much more vast than Toyotas, because Garmin is selling much more GPS units and thats the sole focus of their R&D efforts. You need to compare the Lexus system to the systems offered by other carmakers as built-in. Its pretty comparable. The data all comes from the same source too...so if you have a navigation routing issue in the Lexus...you likely will in an Acura, a BMW, etc as well. For 95% of the motoring public, the system is excellent. For GPS aficionados and those who are used to systems developed by stand alone GPS manufacturers like Garmin or TomTom, not so much. Think about it this way, compare an old Motorola Q to a Blackberry. Blackberry had perfected the smart phone circa the mid 2000s. The Q by comparison was clunky and poorly designed. Why? Because all of Blackberry's R&D went into designing the Blackberry, when only a small portion of Motorola's did. Now Motorola is using the Android platform so they don't really have that issue. Eventually car companies will start contracting with Garmin and TomTom to produce their systems I have a feeling...

Makes a lot of sense, but thats a HUGE undertaking. The 400 and 430 topics are so intermixed that we would literally have to go through every thread and move it into the proper forum to achieve the kind of searchable database you're looking for. Thats why we spun off a 460 forum when the 460 was new, because we could just start a new forum and didn't have any threads to move. On top of that you need good moderating staff to deal with the additional forumload...

Man...thats one nice computerator machine! The article is awesome too, thats why a replacement wheel from the dealer costs $3,000

No, there's not. I have tried it. The engine has a rev limiter, it won't hurt anything. Try it. One, 1 inch movement of the gearshift would have saved their lives.

Yeah our Prius is pretty good in the snow, as long as the depth isn't such that it gets built up underneath...

Sure, why not!

I don't see whats so bad about the current system. Its very similar to the systems in other vehicles in the same class...

Very nice! Did you wind up leasing it or buying it? I came very close to getting a very similar car instead of the ES actually. I'd buy that car over the IS-C too.

A driving instructor that never thought to put the car in neutral...

Not quite as much fun when you own the company like you and I do LOL

Well yeah...listening to the radio all day will run the battery down for sure. A dead or weak battery on a new car is not uncommon...discharged and jumped all the time on the lot...

But if you look at it from a cost benefit analysis the lower price of the 02-06 is going to outweigh any fuel savings from the better economy of the 350... If MPG is really important to you, you might want to look at an HS...or the new hybrid Lincoln MKZ

Its the tires, which brand does yours have? Do you have the 18s or 19s?

Have you driven an 02-06? IMHO its a huge upgrade from the 97-01, fuel economy aside. If fuel economy is one of your primary concerns, this really isn't the right car...

The "stone looking trim" is actually wood, its just an ash colored bird's eye maple. If it has that wood it has the UL or CL package. That year...probably the UL.

I'd love an iPhone, but I'm on Verizon...

I don't have an iPhone :(

Well...MPG isn't the sole reason to upgrade. Its a function of gearing, in '02 they went to a 5 speed transmission from the 4 speed, and in '07 they went to a 6 speed. The extra gear improves fuel economy. The '02 vs the '98 has the 5 speed, but the '02-06 is heavier than the 98 and is pretty underpowered which I think contributes to poor MPG. I always joked with my dad, my '03 ES and his '04 LS got the same mileage...but he had a V8.