Slightly Rougher Engine Noise

[Ozzay]

Noticed this the other day. Oil is full and decent colour.

Usually the normal sound is a light ticking type which is normal. Now sounds a little bit more rougher, ticking. Gets better over time as the engine gets warm.

Recently did change transmission fluid but can't be that. MAF sesor cleaned a few months ago. No major changes really.

Rarely I hear a gargling sound but I stop that by opening the coolant cap and it goes away.

[Ozzay]

Don't know what it was noise went away and back to normal. Just revved it out a little. Reset ECU by disconnecting Battery for a couple of hours. Car drives better. Can't say my hope it holding 2nd gear longer at low speeds was fixed but oh well, it does pull better.

[Ozzay]

If anyone has tried Mobil Oil ESP 5W-30 Fully Syn before let me know how it was. Currently been on A5 Castrol Magnatec since February. Runs fine. But I heard good of the Mobil stuff. On the Mobil website it does say its compatible based on spec.

[ColinBarber]

Might be worth using an engine flush when you next change your oil. Mobil 1 or Castrol Edge are excellent but you should be fine with Magnatec.

[Linas.P]

What is mileage of the car and how long since last oil chnage?

In my experience after around 6,000 miles my old IS250 used to have hydraulic lifter sticking issue. Basically, when you start the engine cold the oild would be too thick to get into necessary place and lubricate the lifters resulting in roughter than normal running until oil warms up a little bit. Or maybe pasages would get blocked preventing normal flow.

I don't think there is real solution for it, but from my experience engine flush as suggested by Colin does extend the life of the oil (probably by making oil passages cleaner), but ultimatelly the oil replacement after around 5,000 miles would cure it for sure. 10,000 miles service is non-sense and it is aimed at reducing servicing costs, not at protecting the engine. In most contries normal service intervals are considered either 6,000 miles or 3,000 miles.

Most of the time I ran the car with Magnatec 5W30 A5 and it is great oil (far better then Toyota intended when developing the engine for sure). However, my car used to burn ~0.6L of Magnatec per 10,000 miles, which is not terrible considering mileage. I only used Mobil 1 ESP Long Life once for a long trip and it was 0W40. It was noticeable inprovement over Magnatec because no oil was burned and after ~7,500 miles it still looked very clean (althought it was only used for 2 months). During the time I had no issue with sticking valves either. 

The only issue I have with Magnatec to be honest (apart of it burning for some reason) is that it is quite dark out of the bottle, because it aparently has some aditives. This overall makes it difficult to tell how dirty the oil is, becase even after 1,000 miles it looks like old oil you would excpet to look after 10 times more.

[Ozzay]

Heard bad things about the engine flush. People say your engines days will be numbered.

I will give the Mob ESP 5W30 a go and see how it goes. No issues really at the moment just a bit of noise but that kind of went away.

 

[Ozzay]

Its on 86K now.

Been using Shell 99 the whole time. But after ECU reset I am sure it has to calibrate again. But then I am wondering that doesn't make sense. Surely if I switch to BP 97 it will adapt on the fly it wouldn't be too bad. Would be nice knowing unleaded 95 E10 was good enough from Sep.

You ever change any suspension parts on your one. I wanted it to be stronger over bumps but that would mean it becomes more like a sports suspension.

18 hours ago, Linas.P said:

What is mileage of the car and how long since last oil chnage?

In my experience after around 6,000 miles my old IS250 used to have hydraulic lifter sticking issue. Basically, when you start the engine cold the oild would be too thick to get into necessary place and lubricate the lifters resulting in roughter than normal running until oil warms up a little bit. Or maybe pasages would get blocked preventing normal flow.

I don't think there is real solution for it, but from my experience engine flush as suggested by Colin does extend the life of the oil (probably by making oil passages cleaner), but ultimatelly the oil replacement after around 5,000 miles would cure it for sure. 10,000 miles service is non-sense and it is aimed at reducing servicing costs, not at protecting the engine. In most contries normal service intervals are considered either 6,000 miles or 3,000 miles.

Most of the time I ran the car with Magnatec 5W30 A5 and it is great oil (far better then Toyota intended when developing the engine for sure). However, my car used to burn ~0.6L of Magnatec per 10,000 miles, which is not terrible considering mileage. I only used Mobil 1 ESP Long Life once for a long trip and it was 0W40. It was noticeable inprovement over Magnatec because no oil was burned and after ~7,500 miles it still looked very clean (althought it was only used for 2 months). During the time I had no issue with sticking valves either. 

The only issue I have with Magnatec to be honest (apart of it burning for some reason) is that it is quite dark out of the bottle, because it aparently has some aditives. This overall makes it difficult to tell how dirty the oil is, becase even after 1,000 miles it looks like old oil you would excpet to look after 10 times more.

Its

[Linas.P]

Lexus Recommends E95 for IS250, so engine basically does not take advantage of 97, 99 or 104 or whatever other octane you would have. I don't want to repeat same old topic, but what I am trying to say - apart from placebo it won't change how your engine is running, expecially at low to med RPM.

More or less same for engine oil - all current oils exceed manufacturer spec for what effectivelly is 2003 engine desing. Mobil ESP is great oil and certainly won't cause issues, equivalent on Castrol side would be Edge (full syntetic) rather than Magnatec (hydro-cracked synthetic), but overall getting cheaper oil and replacing it more often is probably more beneficial than getting best possible oil and keeping it for long time.

1 hour ago, Ozzay said:

You ever change any suspension parts on your one. I wanted it to be stronger over bumps but that would mean it becomes more like a sports suspension.

I have always ran over bumps at full speed and never cared for suspension. I even get ****** off when other drivers nearly stops over the bumps (to be fair I appreciate they simply care for their car and thatis their right) and I have even overtaken other drivers over the bumps when they slow down for them.

I have never changed any suspension component and car had all original suspension in good shape when I sold it at 192k. There where some age related things like perihing boots on ball joints, rusty steering tie-rod ends which had to be replaced as I could not get alignment done, but none of major components failed or had to be replaced and I certainly did not take any care about the car supension and didn't try to avoid bumps. In short in my oppinion the suspension components on IS250 are nukeproof.

[Ozzay]

4 hours ago, Linas.P said:

Lexus Recommends E95 for IS250, so engine basically does not take advantage of 97, 99 or 104 or whatever other octane you would have. I don't want to repeat same old topic, but what I am trying to say - apart from placebo it won't change how your engine is running, expecially at low to med RPM.

More or less same for engine oil - all current oils exceed manufacturer spec for what effectivelly is 2003 engine desing. Mobil ESP is great oil and certainly won't cause issues, equivalent on Castrol side would be Edge (full syntetic) rather than Magnatec (hydro-cracked synthetic), but overall getting cheaper oil and replacing it more often is probably more beneficial than getting best possible oil and keeping it for long time.

I have always ran over bumps at full speed and never cared for suspension. I even get ****** off when other drivers nearly stops over the bumps (to be fair I appreciate they simply care for their car and thatis their right) and I have even overtaken other drivers over the bumps when they slow down for them.

I have never changed any suspension component and car had all original suspension in good shape when I sold it at 192k. There where some age related things like perihing boots on ball joints, rusty steering tie-rod ends which had to be replaced as I could not get alignment done, but none of major components failed or had to be replaced and I certainly did not take any care about the car supension and didn't try to avoid bumps. In short in my oppinion the suspension components on IS250 are nukeproof.

Lol you must have the easy bumps I find that hard to believe lol. I do see bigger cars like Qashqai's going through them easily. I just can't stand the bounce of the car. My Mazda 3 was well suited flying over them.

 

Anyhow I suppose I have to stick to the higher Rons even after September 😞

[H3XME]

It may not be related, but I've been using Mishimoto magnetic oil drain plug on my cars for years now. It's a really strong magnet and catches whatever metallic dirt they may be in the system. Works really well and for sub £15 "mod" it's worth every penny. As for oil, i religiously use HKS 5W30 synthetic oil. I have tried Shell 5W30 oil before and it may be just placebo, but I think the car prefers the HKS oil. 

https://www.part-box.com/product/mishimoto-magnetic-oil-drain-plug-m12-x-1-25-lexus-is250-and-more/

https://www.part-box.com/product/hks-super-oil-5w30-synthetic-engine-oil-4l/

[Linas.P]

Just to note - magnetic plug isn't really a preventative measure, it is more useful in a sense that "if something horrible happens" you will know and it will be obvious. Certainly does not hurt having it, but in healthy and well maintained engine it is kind of unnecessary. If you really have piece of metal in the engine or a significant shaving then it is likely that engine is gone anyway. However, it is more likely that you simply going to have oil diluted with with petrol or carbon due to blow-by (especially on higher mileage cars) than having actual pieces of metal.  

As for the HKS or Shell oil I can't argue, I am sure it is great product and being fully synthetic it will be better than Magnatec (again fully synthetic Castrol would be Edge, Magnatec is hydrocracked semi-synthetic). However, having even cheap oil replaced every 5k miles will be more beneficial than having HKS oil replaced every 10k miles. Likewise replacing oil more often would achieve more than magnetic drain plug i.e. it will drain the contaminants from the engine if there are any and would give engine fresh oil with fresh additives to clean and protect.

Now obviously, you could argue that replacing HKS oil every 5k miles (or even more often) is even better, and you are correct, but at this point I feel we getting into diminishing returns territory. 

P.S. Looking at the price of 4L of HKS it actually seems like good deal for £27 and fully-synthetic oil.

[H3XME]

13 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

Just to note - magnetic plug isn't really a preventative measure, it is more useful in a sense that "if something horrible happens" you will know and it will be obvious. Certainly does not hurt having it, but in healthy and well maintained engine it is kind of unnecessary. If you really have piece of metal in the engine or a significant shaving then it is likely that engine is gone anyway. However, it is more likely that you simply going to have oil diluted with with petrol or carbon due to blow-by (especially on higher mileage cars) than having actual pieces of metal.  

As for the HKS or Shell oil I can't argue, I am sure it is great product and being fully synthetic it will be better than Magnatec (again fully synthetic Castrol would be Edge, Magnatec is hydrocracked semi-synthetic). However, having even cheap oil replaced every 5k miles will be more beneficial than having HKS oil replaced every 10k miles. Likewise replacing oil more often would achieve more than magnetic drain plug i.e. it will drain the contaminants from the engine if there are any and would give engine fresh oil with fresh additives to clean and protect.

Now obviously, you could argue that replacing HKS oil every 5k miles (or even more often) is even better, and you are correct, but at this point I feel we getting into diminishing returns territory. 

P.S. Looking at the price of 4L of HKS it actually seems like good deal for £27 and fully-synthetic oil.

Yeah it may not be necessary as such, but for the curious ones it not a waste of money given the price tag. Especially if you take your car to a dealer for servicing. They drain it and put new oil in within 5mins just to get the job done as they're on the clock. I leave mine dripping for half an hour or so to make sure everything is out. 

As for the oil. I change mine every 6-7k. Twice a year. I'm due a change now so I'll take a picture of what's on the magnet after just over 6k Miles on a 155k miles car. 

BTW I can get you a bit of discount on both oil and plug too.. So price is even better 😏

[Linas.P]

All true...

Are you in charge of product description as well?  😄 Seems overly convenient to have oil which is recommended for precisely two cars you own - "Suitable for: Lexus IS250 4GR-FSE, Toyota GT86 / Subaru BRZ FA20 and many more. Please refer to your owner’s manual."

[H3XME]

8 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

All true...

Are you in charge of product description as well?  😄 Seems overly convenient to have oil which is recommended for precisely to cars you own - "Suitable for: Lexus IS250 4GR-FSE, Toyota GT86 / Subaru BRZ FA20 and many more. Please refer to your owner’s manual."

I help out with that, yes. Had to put some examples in. There will be hundreds of other cars using the same grade, but it is "universal" product at the end of the day 😄