korvan

Here's another quick 'n' nasty using the outline of an IS. The stroke I took is a bit crap (was working with magnetic lasso), but it could be cleaned up:

If you click your 'My Assistant' link at the top of your screen, then the 'Moderation Team' link, it tells you who the admin and mods are. 'Steve' is listed as our admin, so I guess PM'ing him would the best place to start. IMHO, it'd be best to come up with a design we all think works and submit it to Steve for his impressions and/or blessing...

mate thats hilarious, not the fines of course! your predicament! but seriously, if the IS-F comes in at a suitable price doesn't that just put you back where you started! pretty sure the isf won't like >80km.h as well!

I'm sorta hoping that the luxury and style of the IS F will belie the power that lies beneath. The Z was an obvious tiger - the IS F not so much...

Darkest legal. There is definately darker available, much darker.

Still looks bloody nice. Nice one mate.

In keeping with the idea of simple design, why not just the URL (see quick 'n' dirty sample below)?

EDIT: Even better, why not alternate colours for easier reading?

BTW, attached here is a free Lexus-style font I just found:

alexlc.zip

Install it as you would any other font (usually double clicking each TTF file) and use it in Word, Photoshop, Publisher like any other font. Font name is Alexis. There are a few variations included (regular, bold, italic, outline, etc).

What about the built-in-glass antena, will metallic tint affect that?

Tint it, you'll love it :P

Mine is metallic and has caused no issues with radio

Very nice Bluey. Was that the darkest they could do? I really fancy the idea of them being super, super dark - sort of Batmobile-ish...

do you notice any huge difference between the IS brakes and the Z Brembos?

A massive difference. The Brembos took a lot more punishment before going soft and they definitely had better stopping power (needed in the Z).

also, how are you finding the drop in ponies?

There's no comparison really, which is probably why I'm so interested in the IS F (except for the projected price). That said, the IS250 has a lot of guts for a little engine and I've been pleasantly surprised by the performance of the 6-speed auto, for the car that it is.

I still miss the Z though. :( The decision to get rid of it is a long story, and involves my wife "helping" me. I guess it's only fair given the amount of money spent on fines and such but, as I said to her at the time, a car like the Z just isn't made for going slow. She (the Z) honestly hated anything under 80kph and absolutely purred at 120kph and over. Unsurprisingly, I discovered this to be quite the opposite with the wife...

if ya serious, and I guess money ain't an issue

Just out of interest, what sort of costs would you be looking at? I've never upgraded the brakes on a car before (my 350Z already had Brembos ;) )

i've got the darkest legal tints on mine organised by lexus prior to collecting the car and it looks great. Plus it keeps nosy people from staring.

Any chance of some pics Cevu? I've been thinking about tinting mine too. My wife's RX350 has that really dark tint on the rear windows and I'm thinking it might look good on my car, but I'm not sure about the dark tint with my car being black...

Stickers sound good, but only if they're not overly large or "loud". The last thing I want is to be compared to a bloody Gino in a VL Commodore. <_<

Recently purchased is250 at lexus of perth.

My partner had her old toyota echo detailed and touched up there over weekend.

She passed away yesterday unexpectately

Today lexus deliverered her non-lexus car home, with bouqet of flowers and condolensces card

by our salesman John and the manager. They refused to let me pay for the work done on her car.

I am touched that they have been so caring in a difficult time.

Thankyou John and Duncan from lexus of perth

My sincerest condolences on your loss. Top props to Lexus of Perth for being so sensitive to a customer during such a tragic time. There's not many companies that would even care that much, let alone demonstrate it the way they have.

than you can all appreciate my choice of aftermarket wheels! five simple spokes and black inset. takes about a minute to wipe down all 4, :-)

Nice choice!

Its typical of cars with higher performance pads.

I'm not entirely convinced on that point. My Z was the Track model, so had the Brembo calipers. The pads Brakes Plus put on were just as good as the OEMs. At the time, the guy told me that the pads were based on the Bendix "Ultimate" range and generated very little, if any, dust.

I guess Bendix's "Street Road Track" range would probably generate some dust, but I didn't need to go that high on the performance scale - the ones I got were a good compromise in between.

Great post! I've done this hack on the first month when I got the car, funny I don't watch DVDs when I'm driving though. ;)

I don't watch DVDs while driving, but you can't beat playing Metallica's S&M DVD in full surround while driving...

If you're a Top Gear fan, you might also wanna get Fifth Gear. Some of the Original Top Gear journos went and started Fifth Gear when the first incarnation of TG got axed (years ago).

I watched this week's ep (season 14, ep 5) last night and not only did they track-compare the GTR against a Porsche 911 Turbo, but they did some track work with both the IS F and the new 4-door M3 sedan.

It go so bad at one point that I was tempted to purchase some nice charcoal/carbon-coloured rims, just so it wouldn't look so obvious. I probably wouldn't even mind as much if it was evenly applied to all four wheels, but my front wheels always get dirtier quicker.

Nevertheless, I tend not to clean them so often, especially near service time. When the dealer rep picked up my car last time, he commented on the state of my rims, to which I replied that it was Lexus' fault for OEMing such crap pads and I figured they could be the ones to clean them for me. Not sure how he felt about that - Lexus seem to be pretty good at training their reps to be unemotional with customers.

I think it's fairly common for OEM pads to be honest. I had the same problem with my 350Z before I bought the IS. My solution was to instruct Nissan to never touch my brakepads again. The money I save on my servicing went towards getting Brakes Plus to service my brakes, including the nice dustless Bendix pads made exclusively for them. Never had a problem with brake dust after that.

OK, I had a little time this afternoon, so thought I'd record myself removing the clock fascia, just so people can see how it's done. Quality may be a little low to meet the 2MB attachment limit, but you get the general idea. Sorry 'about the censor bars - didn't want anyone seeing my ugly mug reflected in the gearshift or the fascia itself!

Removing_the_IS250_clock_fascia.wmv

Hope this helps some of you...

Someone please tell me how do i remove the map dvd. I looked at the posts, pictures and car manual, i am finding it extremely hard.....a question, do you push the tools all the way in till you cant push in anymore? and where in the world is this clip under/behind the emergency light button?......

someone please give me a step by step method

I couldn't find any notch/clip under the emergency flasher button. What I did was gently push the probes all the way in. You will meet some resistance at one point, just keep gently applying pressure until they go all the way in.

Don't forget that they go in at a slight angle (ie: with the handles both leaning slightly in, towards each other). I'm assuming you've read the Howto thread here? There's a couple of pictures in the PDF that show how to insert them.

Once they're all the way in, the easiest way I found was to spread the probes outward, so the tips are then starting to apply slight pressure inward, essentially "gripping" the inside of the fascia in a pincer-type grip. While maintaining this opposite pressure, gently work the fascia out by pulling back on one probe then the other, the same as if you were "walking" a heavy washing machine out from a wall (sorry - best I could come up with).

EDIT: I just put a video file up, showing how I removed the clock fascia. Check the third post in the Howto.

... and a brief write-up and photos (same as Lexus' website I think) here.

I do like the look of the wheels...

My dealer just contacted me yesterday to let me know of a forthcoming invitation to an unveiling of the IS F. He still doesn't have a firm price, so could only quote the predicted $150k. The scuttlebutt is that Lexus Australia have gone back to Lexus Japan, asking for permission to go to market with a more competitive price.

I said it earlier in this thread: I love the look and spec of the F but, if I can buy a C63 or an M3 sedan cheaper, why would I even consider it? IMHO, the Lexus marque has a way to go before they can price themselves in that segment of the market.

Was that the coffee issue Korvan??

Sorry buddy, but I tend to chuck 'em after I've read 'em and, from memory, there wasn't much that I found interesting enough to read in the last issue.

Cool, thanks for letting us know. Still downloading at the moment so can't tell yet, as far as I see it's been rar up to 24 parts approx 58mb each, but having reading what you said, 5.xGB ... tempted to stop downloading. Found the torrent in mininova.org.

You've got the right one (this is the one I got). Believe it or not, the 1.3GB of rar files expands to a 5.28GB Nero image file (.nrg). You definitely need dual layer. Also, learn from the three coasters I made and burn with Nero at 4x speed. I burnt coasters on my Macs (Toast can supposedly read Nero images) and my IS250 didn't like it burnt at 8x speed.

I think I got my last issue about a month ago. Talk to your dealer and ask them to ensure your details have been loaded properly. Did you get your intro pack for Lexus Encore yet? If not, that'll probably be why.

1.3GB, sounds about right?

The image I got comes to about 5.something GB, which means a dual layer. It was a UDF Bridge formatted disc, so there's a 1.2-1.3GB ISO partition at the start of the disc (for compatibility with older Windows) followed by the ~4GB UDF partition that holds most of the data. From memory, the Australian map data files came to over 3GB.

That said, I don't know if that's just because of the way the disc image was taken, or if that's the way the retail disc is. When I get home tonight, I'll check my retail v12 and see if it's the same or not.