yellowturbois300

Those are some great tutorials... Thanks for the info, especially about removing the painted on pinstripes.

First off i want to know if everyone who has one is very pleased with the cars performance as a luxury/sports car and what are some common problems to look for. Reason im asking is because im planning to buy one used and want to make sure the biggest common problems with the car, if any are already fixed so im not buying a lemon. Any input would be helpful. Thanks in advance

They really don't give many problems unless you start modifying them. I would suggest a stock one as a daily driver. I also recommend the auto over the manual, as the manual tranny is particularly weak and will not withstand abuse.

The 01's come with a lsd stock, but many other models came with an open differential. I recommend the lsd if you like to drive for performance.

Make sure the timing belt has been replaced around 60k and that it has been serviced with mobil 1 are the only pointers that I can offer.

I just purchased a used 2001 IS300. Everything is stock. I am a student and intend to pamper the car so that it continues to provide reliable transportation.

I purchased the car and it had 5 owners and was salvaged and then rebuilt. The front was damaged but the engine is in intact and in great condition and everything was replaced. It has 85000 miles on it. It is an automatic. I have been reading posts on the forum but I decided to engage directly and ask the following questions:

Is it normal to hear a lot of road noise from the tires and are there any recommendations for tires that muffle road noise?

What would be the best air filter and oil filter for mpg efficiency?

What is a good break fluid to use?

Does synthetic oil truly make a difference in the performance and longevity of the engine and am I able to return to regular oil if I have to?

I hear some small clicking sound when warming up the car but goes away when I drive, what is that?

If I purchase a CD dash do I have to replace the stock speakers? (Stock CD player is dysfunctional)

and are there any recommended CD dashes that would accommodate the glow of the interior dash?

Most importantly when I drive, gear change transitions seems a bit jumpy. It drives fine, very smooth, but transitions to higher gears is a bit jumpy, for every gear. I do drive carefully and do not accelerate quickly at all and thus drive at low speeds and possibly could be a reason since 6 cylinders isn't meant to be driven like a 4 cylinder.

I would appreciate any commentary.

Thank you.

Road noise is not really typical in the 01 is300, but my car has been turbo for a long time and I cant hear anything over the sweet sound of it spooling.

All in all, the 01 IS is an excellent car. Run mobil 1 oil in it, keep with the factory equip, air filters, etc, unless it isn't a daily driver. Mobil 1 is worth the money and you should run this oil in your car. It cost more, but is worth every penny.

When I had my engine rebuilt at 130K, the report was that the engine parts looked like new, except for the cracked piston lands (from running too much boost and 50 shot nitrous at the same time for years on a stock block).

Brake fluid... whatever dot spec is on the lid of the brake reservoir should be fine. Nothing too special there.

The clicking sound is odd... I never experienced that.

I would recommend making sure that the timing belt was replaced at 60k. If it wasn't, spend the extra bucks and have that done.

The stock cd player is junk. Throw it away. However, the factory wiring has an amplifier built in that will have to either be bypassed, or you will need to run new wires to the speakers.

You can get by with the stock speakers for a while. Just have someone that knows what they are doing install the system.

When I bought mine, I pulled the interior and dynamatted the whole car inside, so it gave me the chance to rewire the whole sound system.

If you know what you are doing, you can replace the head unit and rewire it all in a few hours.

You can find a wiring harness and a single din mount kit for a cd player on ebay for cheap. try an alpine cd player... They have a nice orange glow to them that is close to the stock amber.

The bumpy gear transitions sounds odd to me. When I first bought mine, it was silky smooth. The turbo kit forced me to change to a fully built race tranny after the factory one died. The race tranny shifted so hard that it felt like someone rear-ended me everytime it switched gears. Most of the time, second and even third would chirp the tires.

For your car, it shouldn't be like this. Unless someone has modded the car or increased the line pressure in the transmission, I would have it checked out.

Rebuilds of these transmissions are expensive.

All in all, it should be a good car, if the rebuild was done properly and it has been maintained. The biggest problem that I know of with these cars from stock is aroung 170-190k the valve stem seals in the head will start to seep and the car will burn oil and smoke. It doesn't happen in all of them though.

I was cleaning my car and i accidentally pushed a button on the cd player and it started saying error 3 no matter what i did so i decided to unhook the battery and hook it back up. Now it works but it dosnt show that any cd's are in and wont eject or put any new ones in. it had 6 in it when i unhooked the battery. Any ideas anyone??

This happended to me and also my friend who has an IS. Mine is also a 2001. This is the second time I have had to replace the disc changer and they want me to pay for labor. I think they should stand behind their cars and replace these obviously malfunctioning units!

The six disc changer unit in the IS 300 is just junk. There is absolutely no other way to put it. it it the first thing that went out in my is300 too. I replaced it with a high end Clarion cd player and had no other problems. The IS300 can be a real pain to do this in, as the factory unit has an amplifier built into the dash. I did the complete sound system rewire and replaced all speaker with aftermarket at the same time.

Sorry, but there is no better option than replacement in my opinion

I have a Mercedes S430 that I daily drive, but just sold my 01 is300 PFS turbo (weekend car). It had over 42k in mods done to it and really was a great car. The problem was that I could not keep a transmission in the car after the stage 3 upgrades. It had a built auto with stall convertor, but after going out for the third time within 30,000 miles I decided to sell the car.

Now I am in a better financial situation and looking to replace it with a new toy. I have been really busy at work and haven't kept up on the lexus modding scene. Can anyone give any recommendations as to what model lexus is now easily upgradeable to gain decent hp numbers?

Also what budgets are they requiring?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.