IS250 - what's not to like?

[normski2]

The tyre pressures should be on the driver's door pillar.

I go by what is indicated. I have 18" wheels with 40 profiles and that's 35 in fronts and 38 in the rears

[Sathax]

1 hour ago, madasahatter said:

Welcome to the forum Sathax, what colour and model do you own.

Hi Madasahatter,

Thanks, mate. QUite happy to be part of the group that discusses commonly faced issues

It is a Dec 2005 blue colour IS 250 SE...How about yourself?

[madasahatter]

Argento ice silver Se same as yourself grey leather heated cooled seats. 2 sets of standard wheels one with winter tyres. Running team dynamics in 

anthrisite light weight wheels love them. Just over 55,00 miles full history .automatic hid fogs and headlights led interior lights.

In a word i love it, and get loads of comments on its condition. Inside outside and under the bonnet shes spotless everywhere.

[dazed]

What's not to like:

• Flaky alloys (although to be fair the wheels on my current 2012 model are holding up well, unlike previous cars).
• Road noise. Some tyres are better than others in mitigating this, but compared to other cars I drive, the IS is quite noisy.
• Soft paint work. Probably a criticism that can be levelled at most cars nowadays.
• A few more rattles than I would expect from a premium brand car.
• High cost of some parts (e.g. exhaust).

That's about it really. Supremely reliable engine and sublime gearbox Definitely the best car I've ever owned - and I've had several ISes (all petrol) since 2006. Never had any expenses other than routine servicing, tyres and windscreens in over 200K miles.

Goodness knows what I'm going to do in a few years time when my current one reaches the end of its useful life (to me). My dislike of hybrids means I'll probably be forced to move on from Lexus.

 

[Sathax]

5 hours ago, normski2 said:

The tyre pressures should be on the driver's door pillar.

I go by what is indicated. I have 18" wheels with 40 profiles and that's 35 in fronts and 38 in the rears

Thanks, mate...I shall check that out as well tonight. :-)

[Linas.P]

7 hours ago, dazed said:

Road noise. Some tyres are better than others in mitigating this, but compared to other cars I drive, the IS is quite noisy.

I quite surprised by this - have you tried comparable MB C-Class or BMW 3-Series? I found Lexus the quietest car I have ever owned... In my time I had 2010 MB350 Elegance and it was terrible by any comparison, interior materials quality was awful and it was not that much road noise, but the interior panels were all squeaking, creaking and shaking, BMW 328xi was very hard car.. was well build, not too much road noise as such, but due to the hardness it was quite load and uncomfortable on rougher roads... then I had Passat CC.. the worst car I have ever had (maybe expectations wise)... cheap plastic everywhere, all buttons controls straight from golf, essentially golf with inflated body.. even engine was from Golf GTI.. the worst engine I ever had in the car.. it may be OK for tiny golf, but for Passat CC it was terribly underdeveloped, turbo-lagged and loud... and road noise was as well comparable with golf, not to Premium saloon. I even found 5-Series BMW quite similar to 3-Series ... and overall I feel like at the time my IS250-F-Sport was much more comfortable. My current SEL.. is even more conformable and quiet.

Yes there is that notorious creak in console (which happens once after ~20 minutes of journey), but road noise.... that is quietest car I had. I even run tires on higher pressure (38/40). What are your tires and pressure? 

I agree with the point that post-facelift alloys doesn't flake... I currently have IS250 Advance alloys since 2010, scratched quite a lot but no flaking.

 

[mk_lon]

I used to be a c class owner and the is250 is far superior in every respect (minus parts cost). I was very close to buying an e90 325 but was talked out of it by my indy bmw specialists. In their opinion the old e46 3series was the last well built BMW, worth mentioning the new f30 shape is much better. 

[dazed]

11 hours ago, Linas.P said:

I quite surprised by this - have you tried comparable MB C-Class or BMW 3-Series? I found Lexus the quietest car I have ever owned... In my time I had 2010 MB350 Elegance and it was terrible by any comparison, interior materials quality was awful and it was not that much road noise, but the interior panels were all squeaking, creaking and shaking, BMW 328xi was very hard car.. was well build, not too much road noise as such, but due to the hardness it was quite load and uncomfortable on rougher roads... then I had Passat CC.. the worst car I have ever had (maybe expectations wise)... cheap plastic everywhere, all buttons controls straight from golf, essentially golf with inflated body.. even engine was from Golf GTI.. the worst engine I ever had in the car.. it may be OK for tiny golf, but for Passat CC it was terribly underdeveloped, turbo-lagged and loud... and road noise was as well comparable with golf, not to Premium saloon. I even found 5-Series BMW quite similar to 3-Series ... and overall I feel like at the time my IS250-F-Sport was much more comfortable. My current SEL.. is even more conformable and quiet.

OK. I'll concede that many others are probably just as bad, if not worse.

My experience of other comparable cars is limited - the nearest is probably a Honda Accord, but that was running on 16 inch alloys so perhaps not a fair comparison. I think the point I was trying to make was how critical picking the right tyres is on the IS. I've never driven a car before where the choice of the tyre makes such a significant difference to the amount of road noise that is heard in the cabin. Maybe this is partly to do with the quiet engine and low level of wind noise, so the tyre noise becomes more significant.

I've currently got some Michelins on the front - noisy as hell, but Toyos on the back, which are noticeably quieter.

[madasahatter]

Try owning a vw group car, another finding the right tyre choice. Im on goodyears cars brilliant quiet smooth and as above states, no dreaded wind noise.

Forget how quiet the thing is sometimes for a V6.

[Linas.P]

2 hours ago, dazed said:

Maybe this is partly to do with the quiet engine and low level of wind noise, so the tyre noise becomes more significant.

If I am right, what you are trying to say is that Lexus is very quiet car hence wrong tires choice can be very evident. And I do agree... I mentioned in another topic my experience with Nexen tires... and that is true I hated every single of 2000km I driven on them, but I would never blame car for that, that was tires problem. 

In terms of quiet tires I had following experience (purely acoustics performance):

Brigestone Turanza - average

Nexen ?model - terrible

Pirelli P-Zero - excellent

Nokian (on IS250AWD, so R17/235/45 all around) - excellent

Dunlop SP SportMaxx - just below excellent

Dunlop SportMaxx RT - excellent

Generally, if tire noise in concern I would recommend to avoid directional tires with distinctive V-Shape.. they are good for wet conditions, but they are damn loud. As well looking to all premium tires band they no longer makes completely V-Shape tires, but usually hybrid  of directional/symmetric/asymmetric, so V-shapes nowadays are mainly budget tires as they give that "vintage sporty looks" - I remember when I was teenager, I thought they look cool and that was kind of factor when choosing tires.

[Wisty]

I recently had a '16 plate Merc C220D for 3 weeks as a courtesy car, following someone driving into the back of my IS on the M56.  I can comfortably say that if that is an indicator of Mercedes build quality, I will never EVER go near one to own.  It only had 7000 miles on it and squeaked, creaked and rattled and had a very crashy ride - this was on 17"s with plenty of sidewall - which looked tiny on the car as it's ridiculously large for a 'small' saloon.  Not only that but the diesel engine was dreadfully noisy with no refinement whatsoever.  And don't even get me started on the naff shiny plastics on the dashboard, or the enormous intrusive info-tainment screen that is just seemingly stuck on the top of the dash, that has no touch control features.

Coming back to a replacement IS, it's so much better screwed together, and a far more pleasant place to be.

[lex28]

On 28/09/2016 at 10:00 AM, Sathax said:

Hi Lex 28,

I agree with you wholeheartedly on that point. I just bought the exact same model as yours with the 55 reg plate number and really do enjoy driving it around. :-)

Also, what tyres have you got in there at the front and rear? Any recommendations?

And hould the tyre pressure in the front be 35 PSI and the rear being 38 PSI?

Regards

Im running 19 inch ISF wheels at 36 And 38 PSI 

[Linas.P]

23 hours ago, Wisty said:

16 plate Merc C220D 

That Is actually very interesting experience, because 1st new MB C-Class is beautiful (I am not fan of new IS, or BMW 3-Series, because you probably need to get 4-Series to be equal nowadays) and 2nd at least form consumer reports quite a lot more reliable than previous one. One of major improvements (again from reviews) is the improved interior.

Now I think where it all comes together that BMW, Audi and MB comes very basic without one spending 20k on extra equipment, something was not the case on 2IS, but certainly is the case on 3IS (I mean 6 speakers standard? what is that Toyota Aygo? 2IS had 13 standard... and many other bits). And because it was 220d and loaner I can expect it was most basic possible option, hence interior was basic as well. I have previously found very similar story when looking to buy all my previous cars, when you get to basic Lexus... it is fully loaded, but when you look to comparable price Audi, BMW, MB they are extremely basic (beyond believe to be honest), and to get something comparable to Lexus you need to spend twice as much ( that especially applies to used cars).

Now this makes leaves me wondering... as it is coming to the time to upgrade the car - and to be honest I don't see any on the new generations cars being an upgrade without spending stupid money on them.

[cidersteve]

funny enough Linus i have the same year and model you have ,and i am looking to upgrade ,i usually buy around 3-4 year old cars on a low milage and i can honestly say i am struggling to find something that is better than the is250 ,perhaps i will just hang on another year or two :)

[thesmileyone]

My only gripe with the IS250 is why didn't they bring in the IS350? Also the gearbox, it seems to go into whatever gear it wants on upshift for example if I tap it into 5 when it is in 2nd it wont go into 5 until it wants to but when it does it wont go into 6th? That's what I got out of the test drive. My current car is dual clutch and it goes into whatever gear you tell it to.

[dazed]

2 hours ago, thesmileyone said:

Also the gearbox, it seems to go into whatever gear it wants on upshift for example if I tap it into 5 when it is in 2nd it wont go into 5 until it wants to but when it does it wont go into 6th?

The "manual gear selection" is really just a gear limiter. If for example you select 4th then the car will never select 5th or 6th - but it won't go into 4th until it's good and ready to.

Basically, the feature allows you to hold onto lower gears for longer during acceleration or get some gearbox braking when slowing down.

Personally I never use it and I suspect most owners don't either.

[Linas.P]

I agree floppy paddles and sequential mode on Auto is really of limited use (as on any similar car/gearbox) so no point comparing with DTC, but trust me manual in Lexus is even worse. However, when comparing with other automatic gearboxes Lexus IS one is one of the best and as well most reliable, most refined and comfortable. 

IS250 is not performance or sports car, so auto gearbox choice is just fine. You are right, IS350 is more performance oriented and it would make difference on IS350. I believe it is no in UK, because Lexus thought there is no demand for it, but in fact all reviews says that IS250 is much more refined..

What really baffles me.. is that they didn't make IS220d with automatic.... in other hand thanks them for that.. if they would have made it automatic, we would have twice as much those crappy diesels around and less petrols.

 

[madasahatter]

You are right its not a performance car,that goes for the handling as well. I have done all of that, and wanted a comfy refined car with  good reliability.

Well specked not the best looking but not the worst either. People comment on a nice car { oh you have a lexus } very nice. And yes it is very nice, no knocks

bangs creaks what so ever. Brilliant heater and a stereo to die for. Nicely weighted steering no wind noise, that i have herd. Wish i had bought the Sel now,

i like sunroofs and am not one for windows open. Not brilliant mpg but did not expect a 2.5 litre auto to be. I will only change this for another Lexus.

I keep cars for a pretty time reg number chasing is not my thing. I look for low mileage cars when replacing with another. Thats just me and everybody is

different. I leave mine in auto with pwr on as normski advised and cars fine.

[dazed]

54 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

What really baffles me.. is that they didn't make IS220d with automatic.... in other hand thanks them for that.. if they would have made it automatic, we would have twice as much those crappy diesels around and less petrols.

 

As I understand it, the auto gearbox in the IS250 would not be suitable for mating with the diesel engine (too much torque I presume) and Lexus presumably didn't think it was worth the time and effort to source/develop a gearbox for a car that was pitched squarely at the fleet market where low CO2 is king.

[Linas.P]

Not really true. Same engine goes to Toyota Avensis and is available with automatic gearbox in certain markets. Obviously, they would need to have different torque converter, but that is pretty much off the shelf part, not much of development. What is true - you right IS220d was "compliance vehicle" for tax optimisation on the fleet.

[thesmileyone]

Well sometimes autos either don't recognise a kickdown or they kickdown too much for what is required, which is why I prefer manual ovverride. A lot of the time in my current car I use the paddles to upshift it earlier because it doesn't change up quick enough. Can't do that in a Lexus but its not a noisy 4 cylinder diesel so might not matter.

[Linas.P]

That is true, but for what it is (a comfortable cruiser) the auto gearbox choice is fine. It is no sports car, not it does have power, agility, lightness to benefit from different transmission. IS-F does have power, hence it has the gearbox which changes gears in 100ms as it is needed for such car, but not for IS250.

If you want more response from gearbox when overtaking I suggest to tray sport mode, which changes the gears more aggressively. 

[johnatg]

I don't understand why you would ever want to upshift earlier than the autobox wants to. I suppose if the change was so slow that you hit the rev limiter, that would be the case, but i don't think it ever would be in an IS.(Unless you have limited the box to too low a gear with the paddles) The car uses the highest gear suitable in any given situation - sometimes I think I bit too high. But any higher would put the engine into labouring..

So - upshift by the paddles would be pointless and as it works on our cars it is fine - controlling downshifts by paddle but leaving the box to change up when it wants to (unless you want higher revs, and then you limit the highest gear with the paddles)

Or just leave it alone to its own devices - I guess that's what most people do and it's fine nearly all the time!

[madasahatter]

I agree with john, i have tried the paddles and changing with the stick. I now leave in drive with pwr on all the time, a good recomend by normski.

[madasahatter]

On 26/09/2016 at 4:04 PM, normski2 said:

It was not an option in the UK market. As far as I know it was only available in the US.

TBH I don't think its that clever an idea really. The glasses are being stored in a place that can get incredibly hot ...probably end up buckling the arms if you were unlucky.

Had them on 2 skodas brilliant dont get warm in the least. Both had sunroofs as well first one owned for 4 years,till written off.