NickLore

After tiring of the ridiculously high prices and the false elite personas at the dealer, I looked around for a better solution. I tried an independent Lexus garage in rockville, MD called Lxt Automotive Lexus Specialist. They have done all my work since. Great prices - significantly lower than the dealer, very knowledgable and excellent quality work using only genuine Lexus parts. The owner, Nelson, is a former high end mechanic at the dealership and has been in his own shop for several years. If you know of other exceptional Lexus mechanics in the D.C. area, please share what you know in this thread.

Why won't the spare tire/wheel be sufficient without buying the whole kit? Can't it be stabilized, tied down of somehow - maybe with bungge cord or??? It is hard for me to imagine there isn't some easy way to stabilize it.

I had my Sc430 for 2 days and am ready to heave the rough-riding run flats but unwilling to do what many have chosen - regular tires and no flat so as to preserve some tiny amount of trunk space. They forget the corrolary of Murphy's law which states that you will get a flat in the most unlikey place and farthest from civilization. So, I need a compact spare and don't want to pony up 700 bucks at the dealer. Does anyone know if other, more common compact spares might fit the bill, taking into consideration the 18 inch wheels. NickLore

Is there asource for the Service Repair Manual and/or the electrical wiring manual on cd or as a bunch of pdfs?

Looking at the past posts, it seems the only possible solution is to forget about having song title text on screen and just find an adapter to direct connect the iPod to the audio system. In an old post someone said they found the sound quality was not so good with some sort of splitter they tried. Has anyone else tried and succeeded? If so, what interface did you use, and how did you do it. On the vaistech.com site's application fit page it lists their SLU adapter's fit with a 2004 as "special". I wonder what that means? Have you had luck with this or another brand? There must be a solution. After all, we got those Apollo guys down from space when it was supposed to be impossible. Nick