My IS250 F-Sport

[J Henderson]

Hi, and welcome to the story so far of my IS250. I figured since I have started to change a few things, and with some more mods & upgrades planned, I should probably keep tabs on my progress and try and document as much as possible. I enjoy reading this kind of thing about other people's cars, so hopefully you will too. If nothing else, it'll be something useful for the next owner to have a gander at when I eventually part company with it.

So, the car then. It's an Argento Ice (1G1) 2011 F-Sport with optional Navigation unit, and it's an automatic of course. I traveled just under 200mls by train, to Darlington, to buy it from a thoroughly nice chap and fellow LOC member in late August 2016.
This is my third Lexus IS and my second IS250 F-Sport in a relative short space of time. The previous one being a 2010 model in the rare Sable Metallic (4T5) but this was sadly written-off inside a year with only 27K on the clock. Finding another low-miles F-Sport to replace it proved to be quite difficult and after a couple of months of fruitless searching I was starting to give serious consideration to buying something else. Then one day, someone on the forum announced that they were selling-up...

Being honest, silver was not my 1st-choice when looking for a replacement. In fact it was probably near the bottom of the pile in terms of desirability, but the price was just too good to ignore and it sounded like a great car - one owner (a LOC member, no less), 36K miles, FSH & it had been kept in a garage since new. At this point I was thoroughly fed-up of having to borrow other people's cars to get around so I was prepared to compromise and a deal was quickly struck.

On the day I arrived to see the car in the flesh for the first time, any misgivings I had about the colour disappeared the minute I pulled-up to the seller's house in a taxi. It was a gloriously sunny day and the IS looked absolutely amazing, sitting there, spotlessly-clean on the driveway. I knew right then and there that I would be going home in it. I quickly told the driver to keep the change because I couldn't wait to exit the taxi and have a closer look. 
After chatting with the seller over a cuppa and pouring over the car's history and piles of receipts, it was evident that the car had been well looked-after since the day it was purchased from Lexus Nottingham in April 2011. The test drive was pretty short. Just a mere formality really as I was already very familiar with how an IS250 behaves on the road and there was nothing to be concerned about, so the deal was finalised over another cuppa and then the car was mine. 

There was a generous amount of fuel still left in the tank at the point of sale, but I brimmed the car at Scotch Corner services and planned the journey home on the sat-nav. The obvious choice would've been to head up the A1, but I wasn't in a hurry so instead I headed west on a relaxed cruise along the A66 towards Penrith where I would join the M6, and then subsequently the M74 as I crossed the border before eventually turning off at Abington services in the Clyde Valley to join one of my favourite driving roads, the A702.

This is a road that I'm very familiar with and it has it all; great scenery, sweeping fast corners, dips, rises, a few sleepy towns & villages to cruise through, twisty technical sections and plenty of long straights and clear sightlines for overtaking opportunities. Best of all, there's no speed cameras so you can really explore the limits of whatever you're driving. Taking in this road whilst getting to know my new car truly was the icing on the cake. 

(forgive my lengthy into and waffling but I really did enjoy the whole buying experience of acquiring this car, so I thought I would share it...)

Anyway, here's a couple of pics from the sales ad showing how the car looked before I bought it.

My first six months or so with the car were fairly uneventful. It had just been serviced, MOT'd and kitted-out with a new set of tyres shortly before it went up for sale, so all I had to do was get it taxed and enjoy it. My first modification (if you can call it that), was in November when I prepped the car for the miserable Scottish winter weather - by swapping out the OEM floor mats for the set of genuine Lexus rubber mats that were included with the car, and by switching to winter tyres.

The winter setup was a carry-over from my previous IS250 consisting of 18" 3rd-gen F-Sport wheels shod with 225/40F / 245/40R Pirelli Sottozero 3 tyres, so this was something that didn't cost anything, and arguably looked better than stock so I was happy for my car to wear these for the next 4 or 5 months.

The 2016/17 winter weather was particularly awful. Not to the extent that winter tyres were required, but it just seemed to be constantly raining and/or very windy, especially on the occasions when I actually had some free time! So during the dark winter months I just planned what I was going to do next and armed myself with some knowledge, and also picked up a few parts.

Fast-forward to the spring and it was time to switch back to summer tyres. A successful PPI claim had given me some funds to play with so I wanted to upgrade to a set of staggered 19" wheels. Sure, the stock 18's look good on a 2nd-gen IS, but 19's look even better!. My initial plan was to save up for a set of graphite OZ Superturismo LMs, but these are pretty expensive and rarely show up on the used market, so I mulled this over for a number of weeks before deciding on my alternative choice of wheel - the OEM "blade" wheels off an IS-F.

Produced for Lexus by BBS Japan, these forged and relatively lightweight wheels were hardly a booby prize and were actually a good choice for what I want to achieve. My overall goal for the car could be described as "OEM Plus". To try and make some tasteful improvements to how it looks and performs without ruining it, and to add a bit more of a sporting flavour without it looking out of place. At the end of the day this is my daily driver and I still want it to feel like a Lexus so I'll be using high quality aftermarket or genuine parts from within the Lexus family where possible. In this regard the IS-F wheels are ideal, so when a newly-refurbished set showed up on eBay, I snapped them up.

Once the wheels arrived (from Latvia!), my next point of deliberation was tyre choice. I had narrowed the short-list of candidates down to three - Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 3, Dunlop Sport Maxx RT2 or Michelin Pilot Super Sports. In the end I stumped-up for the more expensive Michelins as they've been proven quality for years and are still featuring as an OEM application on various performance cars. Whilst, on the other hand, the other two are quite new on the market with less known about them. Regarding sizes, I took the safe option and went with stock widths as I didn't want to run into problems when I lower the car a touch.

I didn't weigh them but just by handling them during fitting and removal and moving the various wheels in and out of storage a few times, the new wheel & tyre combo certainly felt lighter than the OEM F-Sport alloys, despite them being larger. What isn't in question though, is just how much sharper and more precise the steering feels with them, plus grip is superb.

Refinement suffered a little of course, but I would say only a little as the car still rides extremely well. On my initial impressions, I was more concerned about the increased road noise and thought I had made a huge mistake, because, boy were these things loud! Thankfully they got a lot quieter after putting a few miles on them but they're still probably louder than a lot of other tyres on the market. I would happily buy them again though.

Around this time I also gave the car it's first proper detail during my ownership, and it was badly-needed. After months of being caked with dirt and rock salt, the sides of the car felt like sandpaper, There were literally hundreds of tar spots, so an extensive decontamination and clay bar session paved the way for a course of Super Resin Polish and a coat of Soft99 Fusso Coat. This restored some much-needed shine and lustre to the paintwork, and for the first time in ages, it was actually protected from the elements.

(Obligatory snow foam pics)

April saw the car pay a visit to Lexus Edinburgh to be serviced and MOT'd and it sailed through with no advisories. In fact, the service manager commented on how clean it was, and how he had to double-check whether they had washed it or not. 

Next up, was to install a dash-cam. In my previous car I had the relatively cheap, but excellent A118c. And I was in the market for a new one because I carelessly forgot to remove it from the wreck before it was taken away. Anyhow, suitably impressed with how it had performed, I was all set to buy another one when I noticed that there was now an A119 on the market. This promised to be even better and could be installed just as discreetly as the older camera, so I ponied-up an extra few quid to grab one, along with the optional GPS module and a CPL filter.

This time, I wanted to make use of the parking mode so that meant hard-wiring it into an "always-on" circuit, so I tapped into the keyless entry system. I was a little worried that this would drain the Battery and leave the car unable to start, but so far so good. I've left the car parked-up for 3 or 4 days at a time without any trouble.

This is especially impressive, since, after reviewing some footage that was captured whilst parked, it would appear that the motion sensor is pretty sensitive and will trigger the camera into recording an "event" quite easily, So, at times (like when it's raining) the camera can effectively be recording 24/7, yet it doesn't seem to be too much of a burden on the Battery. This is something I'm mindful of though, so I'm keeping an eye on it.

For the past couple of months, I've just been concentrating on keeping the car clean, but a couple of days ago I done my first "performance" mod when I swapped-out the standard air intake for the official F-Sport one (PTR03-53100). I'd had one of these in my eBay watch list for about 2 years, just waiting for a deal nice enough for me to pull the trigger on. Well, such a deal showed up a couple of weeks ago so I jumped on it.

Some pics I took during fitting.

Installation was a breeze, very straightforward and quick. I took my time however and cleaned my MAF sensor at the same time, and also cleaned-up some parts of the engine bay that were dusty & dirty before putting everything back together. As for the intake, it's a nice piece of kit. Being an OEM upgrade, you would expect the quality to be very good and the fitment to be perfect, and it is.

The general consensus seems to be that this will free up around 3-5 bhp, but that's not something that can be felt. What is noticeable though is the induction sound. There's very little difference, if any, during normal driving but when you push the revs above 3K you're greeted with a fantastic throaty roar.

My next move will probably be to lower the car another 10mm or so via a set of H&R springs that I bought ages ago, but until then here's a few pics of how the car looked with the 19" IS-F wheels.

Quick Links:

F-Sport Gear knob

Winter Wheels prep & installation

Interior LED upgrade

New & current wheel setup

IS350 Brake upgrade

 

[Texas]

Excellent write up, thoroughly loved reading your adventure getting your next project and having 'been there done that' it is great to get a good result although you do despair at times!

can't wait for the next instalment.......

paul m.

[Farqui]

A crackin' write up John, thanks for sharing. Your car looks very smart and is a credit to you 

You're right that the build log is helpful to keep track of when you did what. It's also useful to look back and see how the car has evolved.

Looking forward to future updates.

[dougie175]

Great thread mate really enjoyed the story. Very jealous of your wheels the 3is F-Sport are the perfect winter wheels in my opinion and the ISFs are the ideal OEM summer too, I am very tempted to swap to ISF myself for the weight and genuine quality over aftermarket.

I've always been a big silver car fan and yours looks superb in silver its a real credit to you. The slight drop will work really well

Look forward to watching the progress, also if you want a bit more induction depth and roar I highly recommend the 3is sound creator, alongside the F-Sport box the sound is amazing!

[peachy]

What an excellent review and great pictures. Really enjoyed reading this.

@dougie175 what is this 3is sound creator? I have the IS250 se-I and I'm looking to enhance the V6 sound more. I would be very interested in learning more about this.

[dougie175]

1 minute ago, peachy said:

What an excellent review and great pictures. Really enjoyed reading this.

@dougie175 what is this 3is sound creator? I have the IS250 se-I and I'm looking to enhance the V6 sound more. I would be very interested in learning more about this.

Check out this page on my build thread it has the 3is sound creator installation then follow it a few pages through and you will hear videos of the noise and such, alongside the F-Sport box mod I did a page or 2 back it creates a fantastic sounding system when you open it up or silent when you want to keep everything quiet and clam

 

[peachy]

Cheers @dougie175 👍I'll have a good read through. 

[J Henderson]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. 

13 hours ago, dougie175 said:

Look forward to watching the progress, also if you want a bit more induction depth and roar I highly recommend the 3is sound creator, alongside the F-Sport box the sound is amazing!

Yes it sounds great. I would definitely have been interested in adding the little sound generator "trumpet" to what I have, just to see if it made any difference, but the F-Sport intake tube is more of a straight pipe with no provision for it.

[dougie175]

1 hour ago, J Henderson said:

Yes it sounds great. I would definitely have been interested in adding the little sound generator "trumpet" to what I have, just to see if it made any difference, but the F-Sport intake tube is more of a straight pipe with no provision for it.

No you are right you would need to keep the F-Sport box but drop the chrome pipework in favour of the 3is to fit the sound creator

[J Henderson]

A small update. The weather was a bit dodgy today so I was restricted to some interior work.

It was well overdue tbh as a few recent sunny mornings had highlighted significant amounts of dust starting to accumulate. So the car was vacuumed for the first time in a while and the dashboard and other plastics etc were given a quick spruce up. The floor mats were then removed, cleaned using Autoglym Hi-Foam Shampoo before being treated with a liberal coating of Scotch Gard.

My main motivation for tidying-up the interior though, was because this arrived during the week.

Original...

F-Sport....

Just a small change then, but one I'll notice everytime I drive the car. 

[dougie175]

Look great mate, looks a treat!

[Rebecca]

Hi John I noticed your f-sport does not have the mark levinson. I actually thought it came as standard on this model as mine is the same year as yours and I have it on mine. Maybe the previous owner had it installed as an optional extra. 

[dougie175]

1 minute ago, Rebecca said:

Hi John I noticed your f-sport does not have the mark levinson. I actually thought it came as standard on this model as mine is the same year as yours and I have it on mine. Maybe the previous owner had it installed as an optional extra. 

My 2010 F-Sport doesn't have ML either. No cooled seats either just about everything else though

[J Henderson]

On 8/12/2017 at 10:56 PM, Rebecca said:

Hi John I noticed your f-sport does not have the mark levinson. I actually thought it came as standard on this model as mine is the same year as yours and I have it on mine. Maybe the previous owner had it installed as an optional extra. 

That's right, @Rebecca, my car doesn't have ML. I'm guessing your car (despite being registered in 2011) is a 2010 model, like my old car was. There does seem to be a lot of crossover between 2010 & 2011 F-Sports. For example, @dougie175's car is a facelift model on a 60 plate, yet there's quite a few pre-facelift cars out there on an "11" reg.

Anyway yes, sadly Lexus cut some of the equipment from the F-Sport trim for MY2011 cars. Not only is Mark Levinson unavailable (not even as an option), but the newer cars also don't have the electrically-adjustable steering column, memory seats or the auto-folding & dipping mirrors that 2010 cars had as standard.

I was originally a bit miffed that all the music DVDs I had bought to play in my old car were now useless, but the normal stereo is pretty damn close. The memory stuff I never really used much, but I definitely do wish that my mirrors dipped when I engage reverse. That's the one thing I really do miss!

Edited April 9, 2018 by J Henderson
Removed outdated info

[J Henderson]

So, since temperatures are now consistently into single digits (especially at the times of day when I actually do 90% of my driving), and because I've noticed my summer tyres struggling for grip a little bit in recent weeks, I decided it was time to swap wheels and put my winter setup back on.

Before that could happen though, I would have to get them cleaned up and protected as they weren't in the best of shape when I pulled them out of storage and inspected them. They were very badly contaminated with tar and baked-on particles, especially the barrels. The faces of the wheels didn't look too bad at a glance, but the finish was a bit flat and lifeless and the spokes had some ingrained dirt that wouldn't come off with conventional means.

Step 1 was to get the wheels clean and decontaminated, so first up was a liberal soaking with a strong TFR mix that was left to dwell before being rinsed off. This was followed-up with a hit from a dedicated wheel cleaner (Bilberry) that was agitated with various brushes, before again, being rinsed off. The wheels were then given a quick wash with some regular car shampoo to make sure they were free of any strong chemicals. Happy now that the wheels were as dirt-free as they were going to get. I focused my attention on removing the baked-on stuff that was left behind.

The majority of the metal fallout came off quite easily with little effort required - just soaked with Auto Finesse Iron Out, left to dwell for a few minutes and then rinsed clear with the pressure washer. The old wheel weight residue was then removed with a tar & glue remover. This was my first time using AF's product and I felt it worked very well. In terms of fallout removers, it's probably not quite as powerful as Korrosol, but it's considerably cheaper and more than good enough so I'll be restocking with more when the need arises.

If removing the iron particles was easy, removing the hundreds (believe me, this is NOT an exaggeration!) of tar spots was quite the opposite. It took a serious amount of effort and an old, previously-used clay bar to be sacrificed to get back to a nice smooth surface on all four wheels.

Even after all this work the finish was still somewhat cloudy and dull due to a mixture of ingrained dirt and clay marring, so the wheels were going to have to be polished before I sealed them with anything. Normally my go-to product for this job would be Autoglym Super Resin Polish but I fancied trying something different and went with Auto Finesse Tripple.

Just like SRP, its an all-in-one product with a minimal amount of cutting power. Ideal for this instance where perfection isn't really the goal, but just a quick general clean-up and restoring some shine. To this end, Tripple delivered and brightened the wheels up quite nicely, and did so without leaving dust everywhere.

To protect and lock in the finish I used a variety of products over the span of a couple of weeks, just doing a little bit at a time whenever I could spare 30-60mins or whatever. The inner part of the wheels were treated to 2 layers of Fusso Coat Dark, and the face of each wheel was also given a single coat of the famously-durable sealant from Japan.

Above this I wanted to apply something with a bit more gloss that would help the chrome effect "pop" more so I added a layer of Infinity hi-temp wheel wax, and finally topped-off the lot with a coating of Infinity's recently-launched QDx Ceramic detailer. Finished results below.

And finally, the wheels on the car.

 

[J Henderson]

A belated update... I finally got around to doing a couple of little jobs that I've been meaning to do for a while. Namely, swapping out all the interior bulbs with LED replacements from a kit I purchased some time ago.

The kit I purchased also included bulbs for the boot (not pictured, but also a big improvement), plus the puddle lights and rear number plate. They seem to be pretty good quality but I'm keeping these as spares as I reckon the OEM bulbs illuminate the number plate just fine. And for the puddle lights I wanted to install something that was a bit more of a proven quality since replacing these is a bit more time-consuming and difficult than any of the interior bulbs. So, I coughed-up for a pair of extra bright Osram LEDs.

For such a cheap and easy mod, the difference and improvement over OEM is quite considerable. Gone is the strange mish-mash of LEDs and yellow-ish halogen bulbs the car left the factory with. Now, there's crisp white light everywhere.

I also completed the long-overdue task of wiring-up my illuminated scuff plates. On my previous IS250, these were plug & play, but a small modification is needed for them to be powered on a MY2011 car. This was a pretty straightforward job though after following the excellent how-to guide on the site. Illuminated Sill Retrofit.

 

[Farqui]

Well done. I fitted LED's on my last car and the interior was so bright at night that you almost needed sunglasses 

[J Henderson]

Last weekend the sun was out long enough for me to give my car a quick Protection Detail. I say "quick", because I didn't touch the interior, or plastics etc and just concentrated on the exterior, but it turns out that I actually spent about 7 or 8hrs in total...

This was the car's first proper clean for ages as during the Winter I only performed touchless washes using Bilt Hamber Auto Foam before topping-off with a coat of Infinity Wax Express Sealant applied via another foam lance. This got the car about 90% clean and looking decent in about 30mins, which was good enough since the car is kept outside and would just get dirty again almost immediately on the salt-covered roads.

The lack of proper contact washes during Winter had taken their toll as the paintwork was now quite contaminated and had some horrible water streaks on the front doors under both door mirrors, so a proper deep clean would be needed to get it looking respectable again.

The process and the products used;

Pre-wash - Lower half soaked with a strong mix of Koch Chemie Green Star then whole car covered with Auto Finesse Avalanche a few minutes later. Left to dwell for about 10mins then rinsed off. I'm not all that keen on Avalanche but I have more than 4 litres of it to use up. Green Star is great though.

3BM Wash - Bodywork washed with Autoglym UHD shampoo and a newly-acquired Gtechniq WM2 mitt. Wheels were washed with Autoglym Bodywork Shampoo Conditioner using a separate mitt, plus Wheel Woolies. Door shuts etc cleaned and dried using a 50/50 concoction of Sonax BSD & Infinity Wax Rapid Detailer.

Decontamintaion - Iron Out sprayed onto the still wet bodywork and left to do it's thing before being rinsed clear. Farecia G3 clay mitt was then used to remove any further bonded contaminants with the leftover UHD in the wash bucket being used as lube. Any tar spots still present after claying were spot-treated treated with Infinity's Tar & Glue remover. Car rinsed again then dried.

Polish & Protection - Poorboys White Diamond was used to jewel the paintwork. Although strictly-speaking not a proper polish, it's designed for light-coloured vehicles and proved to be very effective at masking swirls, scratches and generally cleaning up the paint to leave a nice smooth and glossy finish. The car was then waxed with Dodo Juice Diamond White, which is also intended specifically for use on light-coloured vehicles.

Finishing Touches - External glass was cleaned with Dodo Juice Clearly Menthol, then protected with Infinity Diamond Vision sealant. Tyres were scrubbed clean with Meguiars APC then treated with Autoglym tyre dressing. The wheels were also given a spruce-up with the same Rapid Detailer/Sonax BSD  mix used on the door shuts.

 

Just the one mediocre picture to show for my efforts, but I was very pleased with the results. The colour-charged glaze and wax combo did a great job of adding considerable depth and shine to the silver paint and left it silky smooth to the touch. I'll be looking to add another layer or two of Diamond White as soon as possible! 

[J Henderson]

Quite a bit to report in this update.

First of all, my car was in at Lexus Edinburgh yesterday for it's annual MOT, plus a major service.

The car scored greens across the board during it's last health check, which was back in January when I had the airbag recall done. So, I wasn't expecting any surprises (even if it was Friday the 13th...). Sure enough, when I returned to collect the car another all-green health check had been recorded, plus the MOT was passed with no advisories. 

For a courtesy vehicle, I was given a Sonic Titanium NX300h. An SE model I believe as it had some decent equipment. I'm not the biggest fan of this colour, but I think it suits the angular nature of an NX.

I quite enjoyed driving this around for a few hours. It was nice and comfy, plus the elevated driving position and roomy cabin are a stark contrast to the low and snug-feeling IS. Anytime I get given a hybrid as a courtesy car, I find it strangely addictive trying to maximise EV mode and fuel economy. To this end, I only managed 32.5MPG, which was disappointing considering how gently I was driving.

Before I ventured to the dealers I took the precautionary measure of applying this custom sticker to the airbox of my car just in case someone attempted to replace what's inside with a normal paper filter. Probably borderline paranoia on my part and totally unnecessary I'm sure, but you never know... Lexus used to include a sticker like this with the F-Sport intake, but stopped at some point.

The car is now running on a new set of summer wheels & tyres. I wanted to coat them with Gtechniq C5 Wheel Armour before fitting them to the car, but a punctured rear tyre meant the switchover had to be fast-tracked. The tyre in question turned out be unrepairable so I had to cough up £144 for a replacement. Anyway, these are the wheels that are on the car now...

Freshly-refurbished "Hoshi" wheels as fitted to a MY2010 F-Sport. I bought these in February and some might see this as a backward step considering the other wheels that have been on my car at various points, but I've always really liked these, and similar multi-spoke wheels in general.

About a month later with Winter just about at an end, they were all removed from their boxes and fitted with IS-F centre-caps and Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tyres. I got these for a pretty decent deal, and as with my winter setup, the rear is downsized to 245/40 instead of 255.

I'm very pleased with how they look on the car, but until I take some better pictures, this is all I have.

 

[J Henderson]

Nothing much to report other than the fact that the IS-F wheels from last year are now gone. I sold them on eBay to a chap up North a few weeks ago.

As much as I liked having them, I wasn't 100% happy since they'd been refurbished in a darker colour than OEM which meant they only really looked good when totally spotless. Plus, riding around on 18" wheels during the Winter made me appreciate the extra comfort and lower noise levels, so I decided to revert back to 18" wheels during the summer as well. Hence the purchase of the Hoshi wheels a few months ago.

Anyway, one thing is certain. Thanks to the recent fine weather on the weekends, my car has never been cleaner than it is now. Today, it was treated to a coat of Infinity Wax Diablo, which I've had for a while but never used.

 

[J Henderson]

Enough of this cleaning nonsense. It was time to get my hands dirty again. 

For quite some time now, I've been buying up parts here and there and putting together a package that would overhaul and improve my brakes. The existing brakes have been performing fine and always pass the scrutiny of the Lexus techs whenever my car has been in for a service or an MOT, so there has been no real rush to do anything with them. As a result I've been able to play the long game and take advantage of discount codes, special offers and killer deals to pick up everything I need for reasonable prices.

Some of this stuff was bought as far back as 18 months ago. I did actually intend to do this brake job last year as my front discs and calipers looked ludicrously small and puny when they were sitting behind the 19" IS-F wheels I used to have on the car. But a mixture of me being lazy, and the fact that there was no genuine reason (other than looks) to make the swap, meant it became something to be tackled at a later date. During my last service though, there was mention of the front discs being lipped, and that the pads had under 5mm left front & rear, so that was the green light I had been waiting for.

These are what were hiding in the rockauto package in the "haul" picture above. A pair of reconditioned IS350 front calipers from the USA. Cheaper options are/were available, and although it was always my intention to paint them, I opted for ones that were finished with a "weatherproof" coating, because well, why not? The premium was pretty small, and even accounting for this, shipping costs and a hefty import tax bill, they were still reasonably-priced compared to the rusty and seized GS calipers being offered by salvage firms on eBay UK.

And here they are. A few nicks and gouges in the aluminium casings here an there, definitely (they're not brand new after all), but overall not too bad and fully-rebuilt with all-new bleed nipples, pistons, seals, guide pins and pad fitting kits etc. And count how many pistons there are. Four!

Next on the shopping list was a pair of larger, fatter discs for these bigger calipers to grab onto, so a genuine set of GS450h discs/pads were sourced from good old Lexus Birmingham's eBay store. Because the new calipers are a 99% direct bolt-on swap on an IS250, and because they came with all the necessary hardware, this was it as far as the front end was concerned.

I started on the rear. The discs were still in pretty-good shape, just a little rusty so they were retained. The dreaded slider pins also appeared to have no issues. Both sides were moving freely and their rubber boots were intact and exactly where they ought to be, so I adopted the "if it aint' broke, don't touch it" attitude and left them well alone.

To improve the appearance of the calipers, I wanted to paint them a colour that will stand out behind the wheels. My inspiration was the official F-Sport BBK package that was available in the USA as a dealer-fit accessory. So, something similar to that "F-Sport Blue" would be required. This arrived in the form of a caliper painting kit by Foliatec. Their "RS blue" colour is a pretty-good match, so after removing the old pads and cleaning them up a bit, I painted the rear calipers in situ, and also tidied-up the discs with a lick of satin black Hammerite.

I gave them about 4 coats overall and left my car on jack stands overnight to let them dry properly before attempting to fit the new pads. I considered sticking with OEM but ended up going with a set from brembo for around half the price.

The last time I done any brake work myself was well over a decade ago, on a BMW, but swapping these pads was extremely easy. I would encourage any other IS owners (or indeed GS owners with the same brakes) to DIY them. The only tools I really needed were a pair of needle-nosed pliers! It never ceases to amaze me how, even today, something as important and critical as the braking system is held together with tiny and delicate pieces of metal in such a rudimentary fashion.

New pads fitted. I would like to have placed some kind of decal on the rear calipers to up the bling factor and match the fronts, but they are incredibly thin with no major surfaces to place one on, so that was it as far as the rear brakes were concerned. I had some VHT clear lacquer to hand but it seemed a bit pointless to waste it on the rear calipers, which are used so little. So, the wheels were re-fitted and a short test drive was undertaken. The brakes definitely felt a little stronger and smoother on the test drive.

On to the front brakes then. The calipers were painted alongside the rears, alternating between the two to apply each coat. I had to really because with the Foliatec kit, the colour is mixed with a hardener so time was a factor.

For an off-the-shelf kit that is applied with a brush, I'm quite happy with how they turned out. As with the rear calipers, they received about 4 or 5 coats each. Even though these front calipers are pretty massive, I still had plenty of paint left. Obviously some areas were missed/skipped because they won't be visible on the car, but still, I could've kept on painting them if I wanted to.

As with the rears, they were left to dry fully overnight. The following day it was time to apply the decals I had sourced from eBay.

Separating them from the backing paper proved to be quite tricky and a bit of a faff, which made lifting off the transparent top layer a bit nerve-wracking, but thankfully that was the only thing that lifted and the decals were firmly stuck in place.

I went with a silver logo, and I'm so glad I chose this option over white. I think they really look the part.

Next, for some added protection, and to help ensure the decals remain on the calipers, I applied several (I forget exactly how many) coats of high temperature lacquer. Finished results below.

Again, these were left to dry fully overnight. Now it was time to install them on the car so the following day, the front end of the car was raised and the wheels were removed. This is how the OEM setup looked. As mentioned earlier, all working fine and no real problems, but just a bit tired-looking. I find it a little bizarre that the front discs are a smaller diameter than the rears, but they are (296mm vs 310mm). The new calipers and discs would put that right though.

Removing the OEM gear was very simple. Since everything was being replaced, I could just undo the two 17mm bolts that the caliper is mounted with and pull everything off at the same time - calipers, discs, pads...the whole lot! All that was left to do at this point, was to undo the 14mm banjo bolt and clamp up the brake lines to minimise fluid loss.

The next step was to clean up the hubs to ensure the new discs had a nice smooth surface to mate to. I mentioned earlier that this upgrade is a 99% bolt-on job. The picture below shows why it's 99% and not 100%. That small triangular piece of metal has to be trimmed from the dust shields to avoid fouling the considerably larger 4-pot calipers.

New discs and calipers installed....

And then with new pads (genuine Lexus) installed....

After bleeding the system, I gave everything a final wipe down to remove all the oily fingerprints etc. Finished results below.

Other side...

The wheels were then refitted and I took it for a test drive to confirm everything was OK. I was worried they would be noisy as due to an oversight on my part, I didn't have any shims for the pads, so I'll need to order those and fit them at a later date, but the brakes were nice and quiet and stopping power was impressive. The OEM brakes always felt a bit "grabby" to me but shedding speed with this setup seemed much smoother.

One of the main reasons for this upgrade though, was of course for the aesthetics. I put some petrol in the car during my test drive and when I was walking back to the car on the forecourt I couldn't help but be impressed with how great the bigger brakes looked. The car was dirty though, so for a nice money shot I gave the car a quick foam and rinse so the wheels were reasonably clean.

Overall, I am SUPER happy with this upgrade. I think the end result is quite spectacular on a visual level (on the front anyway) and the overall cost wasn't really that much more than fitting like-for-like OEM parts. I'm also really glad that I did all the work myself. In the past I would've (and have) taken the easy option and just bought all the parts and handed them to an indy garage to do all the dirty work, but I figured this was something I could probably do myself, given enough time, so I swallowed a brave pill and went for it. 

 

[juicestop]

Absolutely fantastic job, the calipers look super cool. Well done!

[juicestop]

A quick question if I may. I've also bought a set of refurbished Hoshi alloys, not fitted yet, and will be using them for summer tyres, retaining the 17" alloys for winter tyres. I see you have Pirelli Sottozero 3, which is what I was considering, especially now as winter tyres are cheaper to buy during summer. So my question is how are they on the IS250 in the snow/ice and general performance at 7C degrees or less. Thanks in advance.

[J Henderson]

Thanks 

I've found the Pirellis to be very good during the Winter months. I bought them 3 years ago and at the time, they were highly-rated in various comparison tests. I will admit they were my second-choice (originally wanted Michelins, but nobody had any stock), but I've been more than happy with them.

This past winter was the first time they had actually seen a decent amount of snow and ice and they performed well. I was able to stay mobile during all but the very worst that "The Beast from the East" threw at us. Even in general Winter weather - cold, wet, grit-covered & slippery roads, they are excellent.

 

[juicestop]

Thanks John, will see if they're still good value compared to newer spec tyres.