ClayShooter

I've had my 07 350, Starfire, UL for about 2 months now and was wondering what the side molding would look like on a white one. Thanks to Ronp's post last July, along with the great pic, I'll be on the phone to the dealer tomorrow ordering the moldings. I think they look great, esp. on the white, but different strokes, as they say...I shouldn't mention this, (knock on wood), but my car has 30k on it with no door dings whatsoever (I'll probably get one now). I want to keep it that way and am just waiting to come out of a store to see some nutbag has bashed a dark colored door into mine. Ronp, if you see this, how hard was the do-it-yourself install? Do they give you a template or something? I'm not the handiest tool in the box, but I figure I can hold my own on peel-and-stick. Anyone else done a DIY on side moldings? Thanks in advance for any info... Ben

Not to guide the thread a bit, but I've read alot of different posts, both here and elsewhere, that differ on engine damage. I know the manual says 93 octane, but is it REALLY a necessity? I've read different things about high compression engines vs. 'normal' compression that need 93 in order to run as designed. Also they mention that if the computer senses a lower octane, it will !Removed! the performace, resulting in loss of power and general poor performance. My question is this: Does anyone have first hand knowledge of an engine failure, catastrophic or not, simply because they used 87 instead of 93? I know someone has a brother in law who's grandmother's husbands nephew had something happen, but do you have an actual first hand report of this happening? It'd be interesting to know. One part of me thinks that it naturally follows that if the engine was designed around prem. fuel, then that's what you need to use, but I also suspect, like tearing off the "Do Not Remove Under Penalty of Law" mattress tags, it may be something that can be safely ignored, much like an old wives tale; i.e. getting caught in the rain causes you to catch a cold. Any thoughts? Anyone had an engine failure due to fuel alone?

I agree with BaddBoi, no matter what numbers you want to use, high/low milage, highway/city etc, the bottom line is that you're driving a $40,000+ automobile. If you can't afford to pay a little bit more for gas, you should've bought more in your price range; say a Camry or something else that takes regular gas. If you're filling up twice a week, as I do, what's that? An extra 10 bucks a week? C'mon...if it's impacting you that much, maybe you should be worried about your overall gas consumption, not the 10 cent difference in price per gallon. I'm no tree-hugger, but if you want to cut down on fuel costs, buying mid or reg. ain't gonna do it. Driving less will. And it'll help you hold more value in your car longer as the milage won't be as high as early. I can rant on this all night, but I'll only give you one example. I heard a guy interviewed on the local TV news the other day saying that gas prices were too high and he wasn't going to be able to take his family on vacation this year because of it. The reporterette doing the story thought it was terrible and I'm sure the mindless dolts watching (author excepted) thought so too. Check my math, but if you're going on a vacation and driving, say 1000 miles round trip, getting 22mpg, you're going to be using 45 gallons of fuel for your trip. If it was a year or two ago and fuel was at $3/per instead of $4/per as it is now, it's going to cost you an extra 45 bucks for your vacation. I submit that if $45 makes a difference in a vacation for you, then you couldn't afford to go anyway. Comments? (...drawing a target on my back as I type...) (()) Ben

What kind of phone is it? That's strange that it only plays in mono... I have a Palm Treo with a 4GB card in it that I used to use with a cassette input to play MP3's. The headphone out jack on the phone is a little larger, so you have to go to Radio Shack and get a 'downsize' female/female for it, but the Treo has terrible interface and unless you just want to set it on shuffle and let it go, it's a pain. I went to Best Buy and bought a Sandisk Sansa for about 40 bucks, I think. It's a 2GB, so you can't put your whole collection on it, but it works fine, although the bass response overloads the speakers when the player and the car are at high volume. Be careful that you don't blow out a ML speaker! I'll bet they're a pretty penny. Interesting aside; when I flew from VA to Fresno CA to pick up the car and drive it back, I found that I'd packed everything but the mp3 cord. I stopped in a Kmart in Tehachapi CA and figured it'd be an easy thing to find. They didn't have one, but the electronics guy opened a box of aux. mp3 speakers and just gave me a spare cord out of it, no charge. And everybody laughs when Rain Man says "Kmart Sucks!" It's pretty cheap and thin, but it works fine. Being a former car audio competitor (IASCA), I agree with the previous posts regarding the quality of the wiring, but unless you're competing, it really doesn't make very much difference for the casual listener. Just some info...

There may be more than you think...I'm north of you in Roanoke, but I had to go to Fresno CA and drive mine back to get the color combo I wanted...As far as I know, there are only 2 UL packages I've seen in Roanoke. Maybe a more pointed question would be how many UL's in your color combo AND with the rear spoiler in your area? Mine is White/Grey AND has a spoiler. Not the only white one in town, but the only white with a spoiler. The other guy also has tan interior...I guess that's why I had to go 2500 miles to get it! Congrats on your unique-ness...I'm right there with ya!

Latest Update: Got the apt. in Greensboro pushed up to today. Drove to Greensboro (Flow Lexus) at about 10am this morning. Ronnie and the crew there took great care of me! I'm very impressed with my initial introduction to service at Lexus! Kuddo's to Flow Lexus in Greensboro! That being said, it was not only the right front, but also the left front wheel bearings both going bad. I also had a quasi-related issue of a nut and stud on the interior axle being stripped, but don't really know where that came from. As I stated, the car had a years worth of use and 24k miles (coming off a lease) on it when I bought it. Flow had ordered parts based on the Nashville dealers initial diagnosis, but once they got involved with it, they found both sides going bad. They happened to have the parts to do the other side (don't ask me how, but they had them...funny, we had a 4 day order for the initial driver's side, but they were able to get the passenger side within several hours on the same day, and a Saturday to boot!) Regardless, I'm not complaining as I'm back in Roanoke VA, with my 350 sitting in my driveway and not a loaner car, which they graciously provided during my day in G'boro today. I asked Ronnie if this was a common thing and he didn't seem to think so. His take was that sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't, so no real info there, but he was in a hurry to get things wrapped up on a very busy Saturday at closing time. Baddboi70, you may be right. This may be a design issue/continuing flaw etc that someone needs to look at. I don't know. If more info is needed, contact me through here. Bottom line, even though I was inconvenienced by having to kill a day getting this fixed, I'm a happy camper. I got to spend the day puttering around in a new town, Ronnie and the crew at Flow were great in not only moving my apt. up from Mon. to Sat., but also fixing unforeseen issues on the same day (regardless of how they finagled the parts!), and I walked away with a $0 bill; the only costs being a half a tank of gas and the clothing bills my girlfriend ran up shopping...(at least I managed to convince her that "...they don't SELL jewelry in North Carolina, honey!" "REALLY...would I kid you about a thing like that?" Any more info I can give, just send me a note. Ben

I just took an 07 ES350 UL White/Grey out of Fresno and back to Virginia...love it so far, but you won't be seeing it on any more Cali roads for quite a while! It was a pain to fly out to Fresno for a car and drive it back, but for the color combo and UL package, you just couldn't find them around here for 32k....

Take it from an old time car audio system competitor (IASCA), I have an 07 ES350, UL with Levinson and it is nothing like what you could put in aftermarket for the 3-4k you'd spend on the Levinson. I wouldn't have gotten the Levinson except that it's almost standard in the UL package and is so integrated with the NAV/Bluetooth etc. that unless you just have more money than you know what to do with, it doesn't make sense to tear it out. Don't get a factory Lexus system, go with aftermarket, good head unit, MB Quart speakers and a nice Subwoofer or tubes if you can afford the space in the trunk. You won't be disappointed. I could build a system for $2500 that would leave the Levinson in the dust, although alot of the integration would be gone, so I'll stay with it for now...sigh...Good luck!

For what it's worth, I just bought a 2007 ES350, (Ultra Lux, all options but radar cruise, White/grey) in Fresno CA last Wed. I flew out and drove it all the way back to Virginia, got back last night. While coming through Arkansas, I too, started noticing the 'gear' type whining noise, esp around 30-50 mph. It's definitely a speed thing, not trans or engine related. I thought it may have been an alignment issue where the 'pads' of the tire wear unevenly and slap along the road. I had cause to spend a day or two in Nashville on my way back this weekend and got it aligned on Monday morning as I didn't want to eat up a good set of Michelins on the 400 mile drive back to VA. They (local alignment/tire shop) said it was out a little bit, but that the noise was still there. They aligned and rotated and balanced everything, but the noise was still there. I lucked out and got an emergency apt. Monday afternoon at the Lexus Dealer in Nashville (Madison, north Nashville). They diagnosed it as right front wheel bearing going bad. Said it would be fine to drive back to VA and then to Greensboro NC, the closest Lexus dealer to me (about 100 mi). They didn't seem too concerned and said that as long as I didn't put another 10k miles on it or something stupid like that, that it'd be fine. The car has about 25k mi on it now after putting 2500 on it driving across the country last week. I have an apt. with the Greensboro dealer next Monday and will let you know what I find out. The guys in Nashville said they had never had this occur before, esp on a 25k mile car...Greensboro dealer had to order parts, hence the 6 day wait for the apt., but I'm gonna revert back to driving my old Volvo till I get this fixed, even though it's still well under warranty. Like I said, I'll let you know what finally comes of it.