Matthew_McNally

yea mines is black, maybe i should get that cleat one, just saw a pair on ebay for like 40 plus shippnig (gzzzz) i duno it isnt that serious

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I would.

clear and black is much cleaner.

mine is really dark blue, and I changed out the orange sidelights for clear ones - subtle, but much nicer.

We have had two decent days weather in a row, and the chance to polish and wax the car was just too much.

I've not been able to do this since I bought the car - we've just not had the weather :(

I thoroughly washed it with Sonus Shampoo and dried.

No clay - not really time, as I started late in the afternoon, and wanted to make sure I at least got to polish it.

A !Removed! good polish with Klasse All In One, which did the paintwork some good.

It also gave me a chance to get close up to my paintwork for the first time.

This let me realise

• I have some stone chips to the front and bonnet. Not surprising - but still :( I shall be contacting our local ship repair place to sort these out.
  
• Someone had waxed the car before me, and left wax in the gooves of the kit fitting, which was a right royal PITA to remove
  

No Sealant Glaze. Its in the box with the other stuff, but I know we are not going to get enough of a spell of decent weather to make it worth while :(

When the weather picks up - will be done.

Retired for the night, and then gave it some Pinnacle Souveran loving.

Very pleased with results.

Paint is defintely a lot cleaner - you can tell there is a blue in it from a lot more angles and further away.

Of course - having done all this, I had to take pics to post here bragging, errr, fishing for compliments to show you all! :D :D

On with the pics - first some general, all round "Ooo - Shiny!!" pics :D

Look carefully on the bonnet on these pics, you can just make out the two biggest chips :(

Of course - the obligatory "Look - my car is so shiny, you can see my reflection in it" pic. This is me, waving to the LOC'cers - you all better be waving back!

:D

And finally, my favoritest little neice.

WARNING. EXTREME CUTENESS AHEAD!

what do you reckon guys?

should i stay stock orange or change to clear on my gs, where can u get those anyway? easy to change?

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what colour is your GS?

On dark cars - I dislike the orange.

lighter cars can get away with it

Everything I've heard and read about Lexus is nothing but fantastic, it's just that you either could not get a manual transmission on their cars, or the one you could (current IS 300) has ugly altezza tail lamps and a cheap interior. So kudos to Lexus for this new design, and I'll be checking in on this forum for everyone's opinions about owning a Lexus long term.

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welcome to LOC fastball!

hear you on the cheap interior - the old IS interior was very "plasticy" and really let the car down.

I actually like the rear lights though - although the altezza / IS is THE ONLY car they should be seen on :)

The new IS addresses both of these issues.

The tails lights have changed.

And I think the interior looks great! At least a 300% improvement on the old one.

I really want to see it in the steel :D

Those are some sharp looking tires.  B)  Great pics...especially the last two.  I have 225/60/16's w/ H speed ratings. I have had them aired up to 44psi for the past year, and I have not complaints at all as far as the ride is concerned, etc. Good luck with your new tires!

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Hi guys,

Now I'm confused. My car came with the summer Toyos. Inside the door it reads tires should be 30. I now have the Michelins. They should be 30 as well, right? Or higher?

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yeah - as long as you have the same size tyres as stock.

thats Lexus recommended tyre pressure

AOO / Blake

don't you find the handling very light and floaty with those sort of tyre pressures?

Their is a google banner for yahoo i think with lots of "kanji".

I have japanese text on mine already so i never see the prompt from windows to download the additional fonts and scripts

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cheers Sharad

sorry guys - the content of the googleads is beyond my control sorry guys, there is nothing I can do about it

what a great post - glad to hear you are having such a good time with the car blake.

Here's to another trouble free year!

Also nice to see the ultimate Lexus accessory B)

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I had Bridgestone Potenzas on an IS, and they were quite noisy.

I am just about to put Goodyear Eagles F1 GS-D3's all round my GS430, which I hope will be better than the Pirelli P-Zeros on there at the moment

but no-one can supply an link where it happens so I can try and sort it out?

strange.

can you supply me with a link to a page on here where this happens please mate?

don't like either to be honest.

If you held a gun to my head, and told me to pick a set - I'd choose the second

since no one likes the rims, send me some links to stuff YOU guys like....let get some other ideas here....

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whats your budget?

best bang for your buck has gotta be nitrous.

freeing up the breathing with a induction kit / exhaust would be better - but are not going to yield the HP that you can get from no2.

this will be more expensive in the long run though, as it only works as long as there is spray in can

What I want to know is what makes it an IS400? 

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a dyslexic webmaster :D

no mention of engine mods, and no engine bay shots make me think its an IS3, and that its just spelt wrong.

IS400 would make you think the 4.0 V8 engine swap - and you are gonna mention / show that on an ad aren't you

whoah.

didn't get a video - and the site that was displayed was defintely NSFW.

you want to check that link AOO?

Custom Candy paint, Walds kit with flares, 19" SSR professors

http://www.protomotorsports.citymax.com/ca...486.htm#image_1

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gotta respect the effort and money thats been put into that - much I'm not feeling it.

its the colour mainly - not my style at all

Where is the website for the dad-gummed Worldpay..?  Worldpay.com..?

  Looks too obvious to me..LOL!!!

  Thanks for the Info tho..?

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worldpay.com is worldpay's website - you can read about them there.

to pay for your subscription using worldpay, simply click here to access the subscription and select Worldpay ;)

Thanks..I'd gladly become a GOLD Member if it wern't for having to have a PAYPAL account...noway there..done that!!!

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exactly my point, now if i could mail a check or money order i would be all over it!

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Agreed! Paypal periodically locks people out of their accounts so they can't access their money.

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you can also direct by credit or debit card via worldpay.

no need to signup for anything - they simply process your card and forward the funds to us.

worldpay are one of the top 5 online credit card processing solutions in the world ;)

ah - you added more pictures after I looked - the really dark ones were the last ones when I looked.

nice GS - those SC430 rims on there?

what colour is it?

in the summer pic - it looks very light silver.

but in the fall and spring pics, it looks a lot darker (and the wheels are different).

Have you resprayed it? or is it just the effect of the light?

Rascal,

get the pics off the camera.

click on my controls (up the top).

in the navigation links on the left you will see a link that says "My Albums" up at the top.

Click that - then hit "create album".

once you have an album, you can upload your pics, and the use the IMG button when making posts.

As you are not a gold member, you have 1 megabyte of webspace for pics, so you should reduce the size of the pics if you can.

Gold Members get 10 times more space for pictures

thats awesome!

quarter of a million miles!

My fathers LS400 has a problem with the LCD screens for the radio.

They are not lit when the lights are on.

Does anyone know the type / spec of these bulbs, and where they could be sourced?

yo, check out my ride..

http://gallery2.alexus.org/main.php?g2_vie...m&g2_itemId=334

while you there feel free to leave comments and browse the whole gallery as well :)

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not to be rude mate

but I see two, very dark pics of your Lex, pics of a cat, plane, poker chip??

gave up - couldn't find a decent pic of your car sorry

Lexus' install is no better. They put the antenna on the side of the trunk lid.

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but isn't that justing asking some little !Removed! to mess with it?

Reviewed hereby Barry Winfield

The Mauna Lani Resort on the Kona Coast of Hawaii’s Big Island has five large solar power systems to augment its supply of electricity from the island’s mostly diesel-generated current. To further minimize its dependence on the grid, the hotel runs 122 solar-charged golf carts on its courses. There is a green-turtle breeding area in the lobby, and small sharks circulate in a shallow pond near the beach. Somebody here clearly believes in conservation, even if the hotel did allow Kevin Costner to stay in one of its most expensive suites for six months while making the box-office bomb Waterworld. Now, there’s a waste of resources.

But what better place could there be for introducing the Lexus RX400h to the press? Here’s a vehicle that exploits Toyota’s ingenious Hybrid Synergy Drive technology to provide high performance and good fuel economy. The RX’s estimated EPA city consumption is 30 mpg. That’s about double the mileage of comparable rivals. (For one, Jeep’s Grand Cherokee 4.7 two-wheel-drive model gets 15 mpg.) Like all of Toyota’s hybrids, the RX400h’s highway fuel economy isn’t quite as good, at 26 mpg, but its combined rate of 28 mpg beats the average for many sedans, including the V-6 Camry.

For a 4580-pound SUV, that’s quite an achievement, particularly when you compare that figure with that of the RX330 sport-ute on which this vehicle is based. Lexus says the RX400h boasts 33-percent-better fuel-consumption performance, yet it outruns the RX330 to 60 mph by 0.9 second and whups it in the quarter-mile by 1.0 second. More thrust on less gas? Now we’re talking. Unfortunately, Lexus trucked the RX400h to our test site and then hauled it away when we were done, so we were not able to obtain our own fuel-economy figures. With the Prius, we averaged 42 mpg, well below the EPA ratings of 59 and 51. Lexus says real-world fuel economy for the RX400h will be much closer to the EPA estimates.

Naturally, this comes at a price—which works out to about four or five grand more than what an RX330 will run you. That’s a lot of gas, even at today’s prices, but when you factor in the extra performance, the environmental awareness you’ll be credited with from the Sierra Club, and the ultra-coolness of powering past onlookers on just the whispering electric propulsion, we think the car will find owners like cops find doughnuts.

There’s another category of owner that will be naturally attracted to the Lexus, and that’s anyone with an appreciation for fine engineering. While sitting and listening to Lexus engineer Dave Hermance describe the RX400h hybrid installation, we couldn’t help thinking that if we had not already become somewhat accustomed to hybrid technology, the amazing level of integration and synergy applied to this vehicle would make rocket science seem simple.

Starting up front, we find a 3MZ-FE 3.3-liter V-6 gasoline engine similar to the one in the RX330, only retuned for this application to an output of 208 horsepower—about 10 percent down on its gasoline-only sibling. Don’t worry about that—there are three electric motor/generators (MGs) lending a hand that supply a peak total of 268 horsepower. A part of the front-drive system, the first device—called MG1 by the Lexus engineers—fires the gas engine when required, acts as a generator when called on to do so, and controls one of two planetary gearsets to vary the relationship between the gas engine and itself.

A bigger, more-powerful 163-hp electric motor (MG2) is connected to the sun gear of the second of the planetary gearsets (dubbed the speed-reduction gearset, which provides the stepless ratio changes across the system’s operating range). This motor abets the V-6 gas engine, adding copious amounts of torque to the front transaxle, but it can also power the car all on its own or act as a generator to replenish the hybrid-drive batteries. The final piece in the puzzle is a beautifully designed multifunctional gear, which essentially hooks the whole front-axle power system together, allowing the various components to act separately or in unison, depending on the judgment of the control computer.

At the rear wheels we find the rear electric motor (MGR), which is hooked directly by gear drive to the rear differential. This one is air- and oil-cooled, since it only functions intermittently (the other MGs are water- and oil-cooled), and it adds another 67 horsepower to the mix. Hermance says this motor cranks over 650 pound-feet of drive-axle torque to the vehicle’s overall tractive effort when it’s energized.

0503_rx400_engine.jpgWe believe him. Nail the RX400h’s throttle from rest, and you might hear front or rear tires chirping, depending on available grip. The V-6 growls with the usual determination when you’re hard on the gas, but the continuously variable transmission pegs its rotational speed somewhere near the torque peak and maximum volumetric efficiency, producing sound effects that are the opposite of a slipping clutch. Instead of a rising engine note as vehicle speed remains constant, the vehicle speed rises as the engine speed remains constant.

This understates the RX’s performance somewhat and renders a tachometer obsolete. Instead, there’s a power meter, showing how much draw your right foot is producing in the hybrid system. After driving about in this extraordinary vehicle for a while, two things happen. One is that the RX400h assumes a degree of normality and transparency that plays down the remarkable technology operating behind the scenes. The other is that a driver begins to realize that his or her control is restricted to directional and accelerative inputs.

Important tasks, to be sure, but all aspects of the powertrain management are competently handled by electronic geniuses that decide how much electric assist you can have, how much power is to be bled off the V-6 for recharging purposes, even whether the gas motor is to be used at all. At the day’s first startup, as the driver twists the key to boot up the car, the computer usually fires the gas engine to get some heat into its lubricant. (There is no Thermos-like coolant reservoir in the RX as there is in Toyota’s Prius.)

Thereafter, the system might move the car—particularly at low maneuvering speeds—on electric power alone. Watching the car inch silently up the ramp onto its transporter after our high-desert performance tests was an eerie experience. Yet the RX400h provides more of a conventional experience than the Prius. For one thing, it’s fast. For another, it uses its gas engine to much greater effect in everyday driving. And that was the intent from the outset with this project. The Lexus uses hybrid technology to expand both its performance and efficiency parameters, not just to turn it into a model of miserly motoring.

That means it can handle protracted high-performance driving better than the Prius. The Achilles’ heel of all hybrids is the rapid exhaustion of the battery pack, meaning that an assault on the mountains is exhilarating for five minutes, then you’re dragging the batteries and generators around on the gas engine alone. In the Lexus, you always have 208 horsepower at your disposal. That helps.

In normal driving situations, hybrid systems such as this one work perfectly well because the performance envelope is so generous. Most of the time you are not exploiting all the available power, and there is almost always a downgrade or a need to brake on your route—providing opportunities for regeneration. Lexus likes to keep the nickel-metal hydride cells charged somewhere between 60 and 95 percent in the interests of long battery life, but this limited charge/recharge range seems to make little impact on actual operating efficiencies.

Other than the strange engine cadence and the occasional whir of the electric power steering (which idles until you need it), the driving experience is much the same as that of a conventional RX330. The creature comforts and amenities are about the same, too. The climate-control system uses an electrically powered compressor but is otherwise unremarkable, and the usual array of high-end stereo options, rear-seat DVD entertainment, and power-adjustable gadgets meets the standards for a luxury SUV in exactly the same way they do in a gas-powered Lexus.

And that’s the beauty of this hybrid system. It calls for no more sacrifice from its owner than does a conventional vehicle. You may find yourself watching the gauges to maximize efficiencies, but you don’t have to. Go ahead, have fun. The RX400h does the rest.

2006 LEXUS RX400h

0503_rx400_front.jpgVehicle type: front-engine with rear assist motor, 4-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 5-door wagon

Estimated price as tested: $45,000 (estimated base price: $45,000)

Major standard accessories: power windows, seats, locks, and sunroof; remote locking; A/C; cruise control; tilting and telescoping steering wheel; rear defroster and wiper

Sound system: Toyota AM-FM radio/cassette/CD changer, 8 speakers

ENGINE

Type: V-6, aluminum block and heads

Bore x stroke: 3.62 x 3.27 in, 92.0 x 83.0mm

Displacement: 202 cu in, 3311cc

Compression ratio: 10.8:1

Fuel-delivery system: port injection

Valve gear: chain-and-gear-driven double overhead cams, 4 valves per cylinder, hydraulic lifters, variable intake-valve timing

Power (SAE net): 208 bhp @ 5600 rpm

Torque (SAE net): 212 lb-ft @ 4400 rpm

Maximum: engine speed 5600 rpm

ELECTRIC MOTORS

Front transaxle

Type: 3-phase AC permanent-magnet synchronous motor powered by 30 9.6-volt nickel-metal hydride batteries

Power (SAE net): 165 bhp @ 4500 rpm

Torque (SAE net): 262 lb-ft @ 0–1500 rpm

Rear transaxle

Type: 3-phase AC permanent-magnet synchronous motor powered by 30 9.6-volt nickel-metal hydride batteries

Power (SAE net): 67 bhp @ 4610 rpm

Torque (SAE net): 96 lb-ft @ 0–610 rpm

DRIVETRAIN

Transmission: continuously variable automatic

Final-drive ratio: 3.54:1

4-wheel-drive system: part time with automatic rear electric-motor engagement

DIMENSIONS

Wheelbase: 106.9 in

Track, front/rear: 62.0/61.2 in

Length/width/height: 187.2/72.6/66.3 in

Ground clearance: 7.1 in

Drag area, Cd (0.35) x frontal area (29.8 sq ft, est): 10.4 sq ft

Curb weight: 4580 lb

Weight distribution, F/R: 55.9/44.1%

Curb weight per horsepower: 17.1 lb

Fuel capacity: 17.2 gal

CHASSIS/BODY

Type: unit construction

Body material: welded steel stampings

INTERIOR

SAE volume, front seat: 56 cu ft

rear seat: 46 cu ft

cargo, seats up/down: 38/84 cu ft

Practical cargo room, length of pipe: 131.0 in

Front-seat adjustments: fore-and-aft, seatback angle, front height, rear height, lumbar support

Restraint systems, front: manual 3-point belts; driver and passenger front, side, and curtain airbags; driver only: knee airbag

rear: manual 3-point belts, curtain airbags

SUSPENSION

Front: ind, strut located by a control arm, coil springs, anti-roll bar

Rear: ind, strut located by 1 trailing link and 2 lateral links per side, coil springs, anti-roll bar

STEERING

Type: rack-and-pinion with electric power assist

Steering ratio: 15.6:1

Turns lock-to-lock: 2.9

Turning circle curb-to-curb: 37.4 ft

BRAKES

Type: regenerative electric and electrohydraulic by wire

Front: 12.6 x 1.1-in vented disc

Rear: 11.3 x 0.4-in disc

WHEELS AND TIRES

Wheel size/type: 7.0 x 18 in/cast aluminum

Tires: Goodyear Eagle RS-A, 235/55R-18 99H M+S

Test inflation pressures, F/R: 30/30 psi

Spare: full size on matching aluminum wheel

C/D TEST RESULTS

0503_rx400_radio.jpgACCELERATION Seconds

Zero to 30 mph: 2.5

40 mph: 3.7

50 mph: 5.2

60 mph: 6.9

70 mph: 8.9

80 mph: 11.5

90 mph: 14.6

100 mph: 16.7

110 mph: 21.9

Street start, 5–60 mph: 7.0

Top-gear acceleration, 30–50 mph 3.3

50–70 mph: 3.5

Standing 1/4-mile: 15.2 sec @ 93 mph

Top speed (governor limited): 112 mph

BRAKING

70–0 mph @ impending lockup: 200 ft

HANDLING

Roadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad: 0.76 g

Understeer: minimal moderate excessive

FUEL ECONOMY

EPA city driving: 30 mpg

EPA highway driving: 26 mpg

INTERIOR SOUND LEVEL

Idle, gas engine/standby: 40/29 dBA

Full-throttle acceleration: 72 dBA

70-mph cruising: 68 dBA

The owner of this car posts on a technical forum I am a memer of.

This was BMW's idea of a standard Sirius install!

he's since kicked up a fuss, and chewed them out - the antenna is now on theparcel shelf.

but damn - this tells you a lot about BMW dealers!

Who on earth would sign off on that, and give to a customer?

someone actually thought "yeah! thats a great job - give the customer his keys back ;)"