First pic of my car on this site Lolol.

08 450h
Crystaline Ice

 

Hey all

I'm Brett from Melbourne, Australia.

First time Lexus owner, long time Toyota kid (Chaser) now in a 2006 GS300 Sports Luxury RWD
Currently 18" factory wheels, black leather interior, deep red grain trim, dark grey/ smokey charcoal colour.

I'm by no means mechanically literate but will start scouring the threads for answers to questions first.

Cheers!

 

Interesting! I have never seen that color.

Looks good!

 

Some of us have to go with the older Lexus because of budget! Mine is still going strong. 07 GS450h. Lowered on Tanabe springs. with Hyundai Genesis coupe 19 inch lightweight rims with 234/35/19 Potenza's on front and 265/35/19 Potenza's on rear. 260,000 kms. no issues except maybe an O2 sensor to change. Replaced all the suspension and brakes with factory Lexus(other than the springs).

 

Hey all

I never posted any photos of my stock lady. Here she is (in phone camera quality images) after a drive through the hills of south east Victoria.
I am currently working on her inner health before beautification begins

Plans:
I love a tasteful VIP look - not everyone's cup of tea on here I've seen, but each to their own.
- Paint recovery detail
- Headlight fix (found random HID ballast floating around one headlamp)
- 19-20" rim e.g. Vishunu's, Bazreia's
- BC Racing Coils
- Fresh tint
- Back window curtains
- Sound system upgrade

 

Hey all,

Just purchased a 2006 Lexus GS300 AWD today. Still not sure of all the options but it has a tape deck lol. It was a bit of an impulse buy as I was set on getting a new A6 or GS350, but last minute decided I wanted a cheap car. I preferred the 3.5L but I'm ok with the 3.0 as that's all I could find with lower mileage. Hoping it doesn't give me any real issues. I've had an LS460 in the past and this GS feels more comfy.

Not really sure what I'm gonna add to it other than an android head unit.

 

The Babies: GSh and First Gen Tundra

 

New guy here
2007 gs350 126k miles
Awd
Really dark blue metallic
Stock wheels 17”
Spoiler
Tan interior
Park assist, mark levinson
Kalamazoo Michigan

car is in great shape, initial plans are just to get window tint and figure out something for Audio so I can run Bluetooth/Spotify ( I think I saw something from Grom that looked pretty cool )

ideally I’d run coilovers with 19s and keep the 17s to use for winter tires. Haven’t looked too much into it yet though, the factory setup rides so smooth I don’t want to totally ruin that lol

Used to have a first gen ls400 and first gen sc400 a while back

currently have this car along with a 2015 transit connect that I use for utility / camping, and a 1999 Bmw z3 coupe

 

1. GS300
2. AWD
3. Mica Grey (love it)
4. Factory 17s
5. Spoiler
6. Light gray upholstery with dark wood (not sure of the official name)
7. AFS, rain-sensing wipers, Homelink, parking sensors, ventilated seats, rear sunshade
8. Pics will come below!
9. I'm French, currently in Montreal, Quebec, Canada
10. One more time pics are below

Hi everybody,

I'm new to this forum and I hope this thread is the right one to introduce myself.

I'm Paul, 22. I primarily like cars, but also information technologies and networking, music, photography, horse riding, good food, cheese, you name it.... I never run out of something to think about or dream of really. I also tell jokes which sometimes work and I tend to drive like a grandpa because I prefer comfort to speed, which makes friends laugh because I'm the only young one in this case rather than liking sports cars with uberfirm suspensions that go fast

My favorite cars are mid-size luxury cars (E-Class, XF, 5-Series... and obviously the GS, which brings me here). My first car was a 2006 Volvo V50 1.6D. Then, a 2008 Volvo XC70 3.2. They were well designed cars if maintained correctly, but I acquired both when they had a high mileage (120,000 miles+), and with no maintenance records. To even worsen that all, I later realized (or rather my wallet later realized) they were trashed by the previous owners. Thus, they just were endless moneypits. They more or less always got me to point B but something was always broken on them and/or there was always a noise. Then in March, I had a coolant leak on the XC70, it was too much, I sold it. Then I begun to be pissed off of all those lemons, and as I'm interested in Lexuses since the beginning (I just didn't dig them much more than another until now because I like a lot of brands), I focused on them for my new car, because of, you might know, their reliability. In fact, I wouldn't have a Toyota, they are really blend and annoying to drive. But I thank Toyota everyday for having created Lexus, because they are on another level and carry a completely different philosophy, with Toyota reliability.

I was a bit in a hurry to find a car, so I firstly was after a 2007 RX400h with 188,000 miles. SUVs are not my favorites but again, this is not a bad car. The thing was the owner never answered my calls, but I can only thank him because it allowed me to continue browsing, and find some GSs in my recommandations...

So, there I am. 2 months ago, I bought this 2006 Lexus GS300 AWD!


It had 90,500 miles at the time, so kind of low-mileage for a well-maintained Lexus. I had the full history, clean Carfax, and the car is in great shape, mechanically and cosmetically, interior as exterior, from an elderly person who didn't use it that much lately. It just has a couple problems I will come to later and I got the car for quite a low price because of that, and I love DIY so for it I went!

I think the 3GS is a beautiful car. I love the long C-pillar, the chrome, the subtile but refined design overall and the interior materials. I also love how it drives. At first I felt like it was a Huracan, but that was because the XC70 had an extremely heavy front end with the transverse L6, and honestly a bad handling (maybe because the car was just globally worn out also). I got used to it and feel some lean if I push it to the limits when cornering, I believe German cars correct that, but I have no problems with the GS's handling, as comfort is my priority, and the GS still handles really good. I also love the AWD system: I definitely feel the RWD bias, and it handles great in snow.

The engine itself has plenty of punch. Maybe sometimes I sometimes regret not having the GS350 but again, there were not that many GSs on sale, and the 3.0 does the job. It sounds nice, yet a bit quiet. An exhaust could be really cool, I'm just not sure now if I'm putting one on it. I never feel like I lack some power to overtake or get on a busy road at a stop sign, and the engine is very smooth. I can only imagine what the V8 versions feel like as V8s are known to be king of smoothness.

And it really does great in the domain of comfort: the soundproofing and seating comfort are awesome. Because of the lockdown I couldn't travel very far but the 60-80 miles drives I did seemed like 5 minutes. I don't have the Mark Levinson sound system that everybody praises, and as a music enthusiast this is a slight disappointment just because it is known to be excellent so I would like to have a listen, but I still think the Premium sound system kills it. I think it is more nicely balanced and the bass are definitely more powerful than the XC70's system which was already very good to begin with. I really like to listen to music in my car. The car is greatly equipped too, I think no other car at this time had standard keyless entry. Adaptive headlights, all-electric seats, outside dimming mirrors, cooled seats, LED taillights etc. This is amazing.

Maybe the biggest downside compared to the XC70 is as you can guess the trunk, but I just had the XC70 because I love station wagons. I didn't need that much cargo space and I have no kids so no problem at all. The center console storage is large, I have all the storage I need to put things that can come handy. The interior if very well laid out and it's very nice to spend time in it. I was amazed by the soft-touch material even down the door, the dashboard or the B-pillar. The gauge cluster is magnificent with the brushed aluminum background, certainly my favorite analog car gauges to date. The door closing sound is truly satisfying too, and emphasizes the build quality of the car, before 15 years later, it is unaltered, as opposed to my XC70 whose driver door (most often used door I believe) had play and made a used $700 Saturn's door closing sound...

But, and there are 5 buts. I have a dashboard noise coming from somewhere I cannot pinpoint, the front CV axles boots are cracked, the front left parking sensor doesn't work, one or more TPMS are dead (I already installed Techstream and I'm waiting for the VXDiag connector to arrive to know which one) and the headlights are shot. All of this brings me here because as I read the forum since a long time, I found tons of useful information. I may as well help if I can!

What I wish to do:

- New cabin filter
- New coolant
- New brake fluid
- New diffs fluid
- Drain and fill the transmission
- Install a Bluetooth kit to add A2DP and keep the factory BT calls ability at the same time
- A good detailing including removing the 2 or 3 light scratches and applying a wax or a hybrid ceramic coat
- New tires, as you can see those ones are brown, and for a reason, they were made in January of 2013, and they are noisy
- Replace the front CV axles, the headlights, the front height sensor and putting LEDs everywhere. I'm especially interested in VLEDs because after some search they appear to make class-leading bulbs, and all of them can be ordered with an embedded resistor.

Maybe I'll keep it for years, maybe I'm gonne change for a 2007 or 2008 GS350 AWD, or, most likely, wait a few years and then get a 4th gen GS350 AWD. Yes, GSs now are among the best existing cars for me.

Looking forward to hear from you guys! Here are more pics


Yeah the rims are just put against the ugly rusted steel winter wheels when they were on the car, I just absolutely wanted to see what they would look like once they were going to be on

 

2011 Lexus GS350
RWD
Silver (Exterior)
18s
No spoiler
Black (Interior)
No ML system

 

Hi .
2007 GS350
RWD
Silver
18s
No spoiler
Ash W/Blackwood
Dubai

 

2009 Lexus GS450h
RWD
White (Starfire Pearl)
18s
Spoiler
Tan with walnut interior
Hybrid with ASC.

Been lurking here and reading guides for a couple years now, finally made an account. You guys have been SUPER-helpful for fixing a couple small issues I had (incl. pulling the battery pack to replace a couple modules, saved MUCHO$$$ on that vs replacing the whole thing.)

Next up: Deleted the front plate holder, need to sand out and fill holes in the bumper. Looks like the rear bumper got repainted the wrong color, so that needs correcting. Got a couple small door dings that need to go as well. Just recently developed the rear shock/sway bar thump that needs diagnosing. A few small squeaks around front windshield/dashboard.

REALLY considering a tesla or VLine mod, but leery about shelling out the cash for it. Really just want bluetooth audio and touchscreen CarPlay so I can put a wireless charger in the armrest.

And before someone says "lower it": Dude, I live in the land of road craters. That ain't happening. I almost wanna lift it and put some offroad tires on the damn thing. Other than that, I love it. She's my baby, and there aren't many of the hybrids around.

 

you must be close! We have lots of the land craters here too. I’m west of Chicago. I’m worried about the 18” wheels every pothole.

 

Hey there, new to the site but second Lexus to date. Loved my early 90's SC400 back in the day, recently I slipped in to an '08 GS460, and NOW I know what love is! What a whole lotta car! I'm from NZ, and can see me doing quite a few things to the new ride... but for now I'm just getting acquainted, enjoying how it was designed... For now

So many questions

 

2008 RX400h
Charcoal grey w/ lt grey/black interior and wood trim
Owned for almost a year and a half
143,000 miles
stock.