It's not easy.....

[Texas]

I have been looking to treat myself to a pristine 250 SE-L for a while now and not having much luck to date...

it is especially not easy when this is going on.... But hey ho that's life

went and stood in front of this one last week down on the south coast 

http://www.trustmotorcompany.co.uk/used-cars/lexus-is-250-2-5-se-l-4dr-christchurch-201705255793139?at_source=autotrader&at_medium=desktop&at_campaign=website-visit&_ga=2.236719303.756743295.1496356355-1128808510.1431961814

had to walk away after finding out it had had a slight 'Kiss' on the N/S front and the bumper was not fitting 100%

now today find this....t'was over 500 miles and 8 1/2 hour round trip between those two locations!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LEXUS-IS-250-2-5-SE-L-MULTIMEDIA-AUTO-GENUINE-27-000-MILES-FSH-FULLY-LOADED-/222568385994?hash=item33d21c0dca:g:kM0AAOSwOMdZWgyK

I can see this is not going to be easy but I am prepared to wait for a good 'un...

wish me luck...

cheers Paul M.

[C Andrew Green]

Re the eBay ad it may have 'only' 27K miles, but nearly £12K for a 10 year old IS250? Really?

It sure migrated north for the summer pretty quickly........

Andrew

[Texas]

"Nearly 12K" ??? Not with you on that.

mileage pans out fine if you put the reg in here https://www.gov.uk/check-mot-history

paul m.

[stevet]

2 minutes ago, Texas said:

"Nearly 12K" ??? Not with you on that.

paul m.

The price

[Texas]

Aahhhhh the price...yes that's the painful bit, especially when it could have been had for 8450 tops last week!

like I said this ain't gonna be easy...

paul m.

 

[Linas.P]

Strange, I have bough mine after ~3days searching on AT and I had strong requirement of Black/Black combo which somewhat limited my choice a lot. Sadly, missed one with sunroof by one day. It was bottom low price and exactly as described. 2 years 9 months on and 40k+ miles I have no issues with the car. 

I guess it really depends on what you consider perfect IS250 SEL. I personally was prepared to take on higher miles car as it is non-issue for Lexus given it has FLSH (which mine does). High miles cars are usually highway miles as well, so light on wear - honestly I was impressed how car looked considering not so little 137k miles, but again FLSH.

Recently seen 2006 SE-L with all possible options and just 30k miles... It was like £6900 but I am sure the price could have been negotiated (though to myself - I wish such car would be around in case I write-off mine). If you ask me - there is no difference in 2005-2009 cars and I see no reason to pay premium for latter (mine literally had no premium being 2008). If you one later car, then you need to look at late 2010 cars, 2009-2010 had only cosmetic changes, whereas 2011 had things like USB audio, DLRs etc.

What colour combo you looking for (grey/cream seems to be most popular and cheapest)?

[bobmc]

Correct me if I'm wrong but..

It's the same car

Someone from Wakefield has bought the car from a dealer in Dorset

And is now trying to sell it on eBay with a mark up of nearly £4K

Or am I going mad

 

 

[Texas]

Found a good 'un in 3 days...I should be so lucky...lucky lucky lucky

yes holding out for certain specs like Black Leather and MM. Sunroof would be v nice and ACC would be unbelievably nice😀😀😀😀.

Body colour is flexible but ideally not light blue (Brechin I believe it goes by)

year is not as important as condition and been gauging about 10k miles per year as a base line, although it seems some of these cars are being hidden away most of the year and do pretty low mileages.

scuffed bumpers really do put me off looking any further into a car as I don't really want to get into body work, don't get me wrong I intend keeping this car for years.... And won't be adverse at doing the spark plugs and water pump if necessary but paint..no way.

Cheers Paul M

 

[Texas]

7 minutes ago, bobmc said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but..

It's the same car

Someone from Wakefield has bought the car from a dealer in Dorset

And is now trying to sell it on ebay with a mark up of nearly £4K

Or am I going mad

 

 

Yes sure is, that's what I'm talking about, gotta be right place right time, not that he's gonna get £11k plus for it.

[bobmc]

3 minutes ago, Texas said:

 not that he's gonna get £11k plus for it.

Yeah, I doubt that. Even £8k is top price for year/spec/mileage

Keep looking, something will turn up if you're patient.

 

 

[Monocle]

Bizarre comments for someone who has owned the car a couple of days! Or maybe I'm losing it too!

About me: A mature car enthusiast +47yrs who has owned a number of modern classics that were hard pressed to find.

I spent months searching daily for hours before I came across this. 

The examples I kept seeing were either missing one extra such as the Rear Sunblinds, paddle shift or missing the M/L Premium Sound or had all the extras but had high miles or did not have my preferred colour combination.

Some days of the week, the car is covered with a waterproof breathable car cover

[J Henderson]

One thing I noticed whilst I was searching for a IS250, is that there are very very few SE-Ls in the 2010-2013 range. They're all F-Sports or Advance models.

 

[dazed]

16 minutes ago, J Henderson said:

One thing I noticed whilst I was searching for a IS250, is that there are very very few SE-Ls in the 2010-2013 range. They're all F-Sports or Advance models.

 

That's what was being sold during those years.

[Linas.P]

5 hours ago, Texas said:

ACC would be unbelievably nice😀😀😀😀.

ACC was rarer than unicorn fart in UK, so that would be completely random luck. Most of ACC are on IS250C... so far I have seen 1 IS250 with ACC in my entire (Lexus) life.

ML is pretty common, but don't forget ML on IS250 is minor upgrade, standard car already has 13 speakers, what ML does is adds 1 speaker (which can be retrofired anyway), prepositions some of the speakers  and has slightly better quality AMP - I personally don't find the difference due to my source being aux, you probably need to listen for CD and classic music to hear any difference. I am not saying ML is not better is just that mk2 has very good system from standard anyway... if there is perfect car sound system then standard Lexus would be 80% perfect and ML would be maybe 85% perfect. As well I would not care about Sat-Nav... it looks cool but it is pretty useless - probably most common feature I have used when I had car with it was reverse camera, as well it is good if you drive like from London to Edinburgh as "general pointer", but in city it totally and utterly useless.

@J Henderson - that is true since 2010 Lexus messed-up their range. Before 2010 you had basically SE, Sport or SEL with SEL being actually best bang for the buck, it basically had everything standard - kind of one stop shop and many people bough them, because SE and Sport were poorly equipped and adding optional extras just didn't make sense and SEL was not that much more extra. Since 2010 they added SE-i, SE, Advance, F-Sport, SE-L as a packages and people started to buy different packages, because at the time SEL became somewhat expensive and say SE-i offered most things with just few features missing like wood, or sun-share or illuminated scuff-plates - basically you could live without. As such it becomes much more difficult to find SEL for 2010+, yet it as well helps because sellers are confused as well and sometimes doesn't know what grades had what and just sales based on mileage. As such I can sometimes find 2011 IS250SEL with 5000 extra miles, cheaper than same year IS200d Advance - which is no brainier...

[Texas]

Aaahhh funny you should mention Classical music 'cause that is what I listen to most when driving (tends to subdue the road rage😀) so if I could get DAB along with ML then I think that would be my choice.

paul m.

[is 220d owner]

ye finding is 250 with all the goodies is really hard i was looking for it like 5 months most of them was overpriced or looks like its been driven on the field thats why i have is 220d se-l with all possible features,  but it was a huge mistake for a while , but since i fixed all the problems i love the car now. :) but still i would love to have petrol auto but i would take gs or rx  range because is back space of IS really small. It is more like a hatchback then saloon.

[Linas.P]

36 minutes ago, Texas said:

Aaahhh funny you should mention Classical music 'cause that is what I listen to most when driving (tends to subdue the road rage😀) so if I could get DAB along with ML then I think that would be my choice.

paul m.

Standard system is still very good even for that, I would just said ML woudl edge it a little bit if you have excellent source. Obviously, in the end of the day it all depends of how important each feature is for you.

@is 220d owner Back space in IS mk2 is not that bad (at least for it's class), I had 4 adults in car for few long trips and whilst not ideal it was kind of OK, nobody ever said like "oh we should not take you car for next such trip"... Actually, I have compared and it does offer similar space as MB E w210/212 and, BMW E60, the biggest difference on both being extra headroom, but not actually legroom, where GS actually have extra of both. So I would say - yes IS is average in terms of rear space, no the best in class, but no hatchback either.

[thenapster305]

7 hours ago, bobmc said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but..

It's the same car

Someone from Wakefield has bought the car from a dealer in Dorset

And is now trying to sell it on ebay with a mark up of nearly £4K

Or am I going mad

 

 

Yes this is true before buying mine 2 weeks ago i went and had a look at this. The guy who bought it didnt even come to see and and paid a company to collect it for him.  This is 100% genuine but like you say.......the PRICE!!!!!

[C Andrew Green]

6 hours ago, Texas said:

Aaahhh funny you should mention Classical music 'cause that is what I listen to most when driving (tends to subdue the road rage😀) so if I could get DAB along with ML then I think that would be my choice.

paul m.

Haha, so true, Classic FM for a calm and leisurely cruise controlled (slow trucks permitting) trip up and down the A34 every day to and from work!

Andrew

[Texas]

BOOM!,,,,,,

It just got a whole lot easier....

just managed to bag a IS250 SE-L mm with black leather 37,000 miles & 7 Lexus Stamps, albeit in my least favourite colour (Silver) but wait for it......it's got a Sunroof (Moonroof according to Lexus) and although it has a few scars on the rear bumper ( fixable at the end of the day) what I could not resist was the fact it got ACC (Unicorn poop I'm lead to believe?)

not got it yet but can't wait and will post some pics when able to.

so Title should now read "Got there in the end "

cheers paul m.

[bobmc]

Moonroof and ACC - a rare beast indeed, can see why you're excited. You will have to post some pics though - otherwise I won't believe it exists!

 

[Linas.P]

45 minutes ago, Texas said:

ACC (Unicorn poop I'm lead to believe?)

You are second person I know to have it. 

In the other hand I might be bit wrong in terms of rarity as I was always very specific on the colour. Not a fan of grey and it is kind of big deal for me. It is quite funny as I am looking RC300h, but it must be black and must have ML and Sunroof... and there are not a single car in that combo for a while, but there are few grey ones. It seems people who order grey cars are more likely to add extras (or Lexus specs them better by default :D).

[Texas]

Yes your are right about the colour appeal as this is my least fav colour, but I am willing to live with it for a while to enjoy all the toys and treat myself to the luxury of a well spec'ed car. I am looking forward to actually getting to know the car inside out. Sado that I may be but I enjoy reading manuals and instruction books and this car with its nav system has got tombs!

cheers Paul m.

 

 

[Wisty]

Silver's not that bad a colour.  Mine is silver (with the moonroof - no ACC though :( ) and it still looks good even when it's got a little bit of road muck on it.

The one I had before was dark grey which was a nicer colour, but when you're spending insurance money and have very little time to mess around as you need to get to work; beggars can't be choosers!

Can't wait to see pics of yours :)

[Linas.P]

4 hours ago, Wisty said:

Silver's not that bad a colour.  Mine is silver (with the moonroof - no ACC though :( ) and it still looks good even when it's got a little bit of road muck on it.

That is where grey cars are the best, after getting scratched or bit dirty they don't reveal it. Wheres black ones are real pain to keep clear and all little dings and scratches shows right through. In terms of maintenance grey is very nice colour indeed...

In my personal opinion so called "silver" grey is still better than "asphalt" grey which I had in shape of IS250AWD. I really hated the "dirty black" looks of that colour and light grey interior even more. Surprisingly, similar colour just with little bit more of pear looks great on IS-F.