Easiest Mod Ever! Genuine Lexus IS (20 series) Door Weatherstripping

This is seriously the easiest modification I've ever done. All you need is the ability to apply a sticker and that's about it.

In surfing the web, I found several IS/IS-F owners had installed the Lexus (genuine OEM) weatherstripping for the GS.  Interesting, I found that non-Toyota owners were doing this mod too, including this Mazda Atenza Wagon owner. Seems to be a popular, cheap, effective and easy DIY mod.

The claimed benefits being, when closing the doors they sound more substantial, the additional weatherstripping helps to make the car even more quieter, and it prevents rain/water from carwash from accumulating on the B pillars.

Anyway I ordered from an online retailer and waited a few days:

Part numbers 67895-30020 (driver's side), 67896-30020 (passenger side). For RHD anyway.

Hardest part was making sure to apply on a clean and grease free surface. After using some cleaning items, I made sure that the length of the rubber strip matched up:

Making sure it lines up at the bottom.

 Warning, the strip is actually a few mm short. See below, make sure the top of the strip fits properly.

Here are the pull away tabs which reveal the adhesive underneath.

 Pull the lower tab away, revealing the adhesive on the lower half. Start at the bottom of the front edge of the rear door, and then slowly but securely apply the weatherstrip. That's it!

The top side looks like this. There is actually a small tab that needs to either be cut off or pushed behind the existing vertical strip.

As you can see the additional strip make the doors flush, except for a bit at the top

From a distance can barely tell. (And yes, I know the paint needs a professional polish)

Anyway, I then took the car out for a drive to see if I could tell the difference in sound.  Actually it was a 4 hour road trip with the family; I GUESS there is a small difference but likely a placebo effect. The biggest change is definitely how the doors sound when you close them now.  Interestingly, most Lexus owners reported the same thing in the links above; only the non-Lexus owners experienced a clear reduction in noise, telling us how well designed and built these cars are to begin with.  

And I suppose this also explains why the cars didn't come with them either. Oh well. To the next mod!

Trunk Interior Lamp LED Conversion

So in continuing to update the OEM lighting of the ISF, one light that seemed noticeably (and pathetically) dark to me, was the trunk lighting.

Here, at night, the OEM bulb lights up only the rear edge, you can't see what's back there deep in the trunk...

There are lots of options - sure I could find and use many of those LEDs found on Yahoo Auctions and such, but I wanted an easy to fit, and also one that actually was brighter than the OEM incandescent bulb.  So this time I turned to LEMS, known here in Japan for their Lexus specific tuning parts. They had a prepackaged, LED version of the trunk light module - so it would be a quick and easy swap out - no need for me to take my trunk light out and replace the bulb with LEDs.

It's plug and play. I didn't even open the instruction book.

Once you pull out the assembly (from the right side), the assembly hangs down like this. OEM bulb.

One clip is all that holds the assembly in place. Unclip the old, and clip on the new LED assembly.

Instantly - much better. You can see the details on the ski pass-through (compared to the first photo above)

Here is a photo my DSLR took in auto mode with the OEM bulb - the shutter stayed open longer than in the LED photo below, suggesting lower light intensity

Photo by the same DLSR - you can see how the LED provides much sharper detail around the rear shock assemblies and the edge of the rubber mat.

So now, I think I am addicted to these newer tech LEDs... the technology has improved so much since I experimented with LEDs on the GT-R.  Not sure what my next mod will be but perhaps there are other LED bulbs that can improve the IS-F...