New member - my IS250 C

[NeilS]

Hi All,

Just joined the forum yesterday. I bought an IS250 C a few months back and have to say that this is, by a country mile, the best car I have ever owned. It came with a full Lexus service history and no issues at all, until a couple of minor ones cropped up recently. I have some questions for the experienced owners, but first let me tell you a bit about the car.

 

Wifey and I got bitten by the convertible bug around 6 years ago when we decided to get a Megane CC, itself a nice comfortable car but sadly things were starting to go wrong, so it was time for it to go. I didn’t want another boring straight-4 and having owned a Probe V6 many years ago, the idea of having another lazy V6, VR6 or a straight-6 was quite appealing. So after some research I whittled my options down to either a VW Eos with the right spec or an IS250. Being aware of Lexus’ reliability and refinement, I took the plunge when the 'right' one presented itself and we’re not disappointed.

 

The car is used as the daily, I get 30–34 mpg and after having this and the previous car with auto transmission, I doubt I’d choose a manual again as like most of us, I frequently have to deal with stop/start traffic during the 32-mile round trip commute, and this is where an auto box comes into its’ own. Occasionally, I get the odd ‘good’ run to work and back home. I’ll briefly run through some early mods I’ve done, but before that some of the first things I replaced were the air filter and cabin filter (which looked as if it had never been changed), and I sourced a space saver for use as a spare. I then bought a third-party set of floor mats in black, for use in wet weather to protect the cream mats that came with the car. Didn’t like the black steering wheel much, I felt it made the dash look slightly monotonous so I got a cream coloured steering wheel cover to give some contrast and I also treated myself to a soft head restraint pillow, which is very comfortable.

 

I’ve replaced the interior bulbs and side lights with some nice bright LED’s and I bought a basic but easy to read analogue clock, which I stuck over the digital clock display that I felt was a bit dated and looked like a 1990’s era VCR. As the model is an SE-L you’ll be aware that it comes in 'grandad' spec, which is absolutely fine for those who like Classy and Refined, but it’s not to my taste. So I covered the door button panel inserts and great aunt Fanny’s dining table with a smart, contemporary dark brushed-steel effect wrap. It’s all subjective, and this may not be to someone else’s liking, but I think it’s an improvement. In fact, everyone who has seen it thinks it’s better. I’m not a fan of carbon fibre weave either.

Whilst I had the centre console out, I thought it might be good idea to replace the green/amber LED’s on the seat heater & cooler rotary controllers with something more appropriate, so I removed the control pcb module and replaced the LED’s with red/blue bi-colour LED’s. Now, when the seat heater is turned on, the indicator lights red and when the cooler is turned on, the indicator is blue.

 

More recently I’ve bought a small third-party DAB+ radio adaptor, which works surprisingly well and sounds ok too. Future projects may include replacing the green dashboard LED’s with something more fancy, but I am hesitant as the car is so well put together, I don’t want to ruin anything.

 

So there you go, my initial impressions are very positive. Although I have a few nit-picks with the car, the comfort, quietness and sheer driving quality outweigh the other things I’d like to change. Oh, and the missus is now officially the queen of our local Tesco and Asda car parks! On a sunny day.

 

Anyway enough waffling, sorry for the looong first post, and thanks for letting me join LOC.

[madasahatter]

Welcome to the forum, glad you are enjoying the car. Automatic all the way for myself to now.

[dublet]

8 minutes ago, NeilS said:

I bought an IS250 C a few months back and have to say that this is, by a country mile, the best car I have ever owned.

Seems like high praise, but then coming from a Megane, Eos and a Probe, perhaps your bar was quite low. 😉

[Las Palmas]

17 minutes ago, dublet said:

Seems like high praise, but then coming from a Megane, Eos and a Probe, perhaps your bar was quite low. 😉

Think you should start being a bit more friendly and not so arrogant. Especially to new members of the forum.

[dublet]

Just a bit of jest, which OP recognised as such. 🤷‍♂️

Anyway, @NeilS what this thread is missing is some pictures of your fine steed and the mods you made so far.

[Mr Vlad]

Hello Neil and finally welcome to the best Lexus forum there is. Your mods are an individual thing But where are the photos? We here like to see forum members cars. I'm surprised that the air filter and cabin filter looked like they'd never been changed as they are part of the major service from Lexus. This leads me to suspect all is not well with the full lexus service you say the car has. Anyway photos please. 

[NeilS]

I'm a bit busy atm, and I'm going Out out later, so I'll put up some pics tomorrow, pinkie promise! 😄

[Mike246]

Hi Neil,

Your post caught my attention. We IS250-C owners are a privileged breed and I believe that there are just 300 or so registered in the UK.

Mine is also a 2010 and I think it is an SE-L - it has light beige leather and just 21,000 on the clock. Genuine mileage as purchased from a Lexus dealership in 2016.

Thankfully it has never given a moment's problem and the same can be said for all of the other Lexus models I have owned. This includes a GS which I have just sold with over 200,000 on the clock. The IS250-C roof mechanics are a work of genius and unequaled by any other manufacturer.

I was intrigued by your add-on of a DAB adaptor as my radio has DAB built-in. Am I missing the point? Anyway I listen to a US station, iRadiophilly, most of the time on my Iphone bluetoothed through the head unit.

I hope that you continue to enjoy your car as much as I enjoy mine.

Don't think I'd leave my IS-C at Asda . . . . . . . maybe Waitrose.

[Beamish]

 

Hi Neil,

Welcome to the club.

As a fellow IS250C owner I did a little research some time ago as to how many of these cars found their way to the UK market.

What I found was that over the four years that the model was on the market in the UK a total of 882 cars were registered comprised of 418 SE-L,

277 SE-I, 69 Limited Edition and 118 Advance.

At he end of 2019 816 of the original 882 sold were either still registered or on SORN. 

That represents a survival rate of 92.52% which I imagine is rather above average.

Hope this is of interest and all the best with the car.

Dec.

[johnno]

We have great memories of our 2010 SE-L model. I used to drive 20-30,000 miles each year and sold it after 3.5 years to avoid the mileage looking excessive, but to be honest it was as good as new. and is probably still racking up the miles. In all that time the only attention required, apart from servicing, was to the nav screen where the anti-glare coating wore where the touchscreen was frequently used. I reported this at 2.5 years and was visited by a Lexus UK engineer at my workplace. He took a brief look and said that of course they would replace the screen free of charge!
We drove the car through France several times and were often stopped by locals who wanted to know more about the car. The roof mechanism is very sophisticated but in typical Toyota fashion, it just worked beautifully every time.
I'm sure you will love it!  

[NeilS]

First of all, thank you very much to all the respondents to my post, and for the welcome greetings. I'll try to respond in thread order, so please bear with!

Mike246:

Hi Mike, it appears that the guy who purchased the car from brand new decided he didn't want the DAB option. I considered approaching Lexus about a retrofit, but I found that it would have been rather costly (for what it is) and also that crucially, they would only be able to retrofit a DAB system, and not DAB+ which as I'm sure you will be aware, has more channels to choose from. So I decided to chance my arm and go for a 30 quid adaptor which I sourced on fleabay. It came with all the kit & caboodle including the aerial, and it works surprisingly well, even tuned in to a redundant FM channel. I was expecting to have to connect the output to the auxiliary socket in the centre console, but really it works well enough.

I must be one of the sad few who still actually listens to radio in the car, and I remember back in the day compiling a "mix tape" for every possible occasion . . .  and eventuality. But you know what? The older I get, the more lazy I get and these days I just can't be bothered anymore! better to listen to a computer-generated playlist, and when the adverts come on, just switch the channel; there are 80-odd to choose from on DAB+. Believe it or not, I hardly use my mobile so I have Pay as you Go SIM card. I see little point in paying £30+ a month for an unlimited data/text/calls contract to have streaming music in the car when I can get pretty much what I want with a little add-on adaptor.

If I'm honest, I didn't really like the idea of something plonked onto the side of the windscreen, but the unit is quite discreet and not that intrusive.

As for the supermarkets, we are very fortunate to live within a 10 minute drive of all the major brands. The nearest Wait & Pose is about 15 miles away.

 

Beamish:

Hi Dec! Many thanks for taking the time to produce your interesting research results! Wow, they didn't manage to sell many convertibles in the UK did they? If I was asked to guess, I would've said at least over a 1000 units. Maybe brand 'awareness' could be a factor. This may be a good discussion topic for another thread.

 

Johnno:

Agreed, the folding roof mech is pretty much a work of art as well as being an engineering marvel. I think only the Japanese or the Germans could manage such perfection. Also agreed, France is a beautiful country.

As regards to posting pictures, perhaps someone would point me in the right direction to the procedure? I'm a member of several other internet forums, and I've posted loads of photos in the past. But I apologise for saying that I don't find this board particularly intuitive.

 

[NeilS]

ETA: Didn't mean to be harsh or rude, maybe it's my stupid Flickr account. Which photo hosting site do you guys use?

[Mr Vlad]

lol Neil. I don't know if you use a laptop/computer or a mobile phone or one of those ipad type things. Question is where are the photos of your car? 

Just for example I only use my mobile phone (oh I only pay 20 a month for unlimited calls etc but I get Spotify premium for free which wipes the floor with DAB+ in my opinion) so all my photos are in my phone. Below where you type you should notice on the left a paperclip. To it's right is Add Files. When you click that a Files folder appears. Click on that. From that find your photos and click on them to add them. Hope that makes sence.

Oh John if you read this then oh ruddy hell yes have I been drinking, I'm on my 11th Southern Comfort. Cheers 🍻   lol hic

[NeilS]

Thanks Mr Vlad! OK here goes:

[NeilS]

Well that turned out terribly well. How the hell did I manage to double post the pictures? Oh whatever. Here's some more. 

[NeilS]

I'd have like to placed some descriptive captions under the pics, but it wasn't to be. Sorry about that, I'm sure you guys will figure out what's what from my op. I'm clearly not as sharp as I think I am with tech. 🙄

[joelfigueira]

On 8/27/2021 at 5:04 PM, dublet said:

So I was right? 😉 Jinkies..

Time for the Mystery Machine to drive to the next problem. 😃

 

On 8/27/2021 at 5:33 PM, joelfigueira said:

Ywere indeed! Last night I could not see the little with a torch 😂😂😂😂

 

On 8/31/2021 at 8:39 PM, J8k1122 said:

 

On 8/30/2021 at 2:59 PM, NeilS said:

Thanks Mr Vlad! OK here goes:

Looks really nice like the silver and cream interior combo

Edited September 5, 2021 by joelfigueira
Error with quotes from other posts

[Las Palmas]

Very nice car.

Enjoy.

[Mr Vlad]

Hi Neil. Glad you got it sorted posting pics. Car looks sweeeeeeet. 👍

[Arnett]

Looks lovely ! 

[NeilS]

Thank you for the kind comments! 👍

I'll find somewhere with a more picturesque background next time. Maybe a nice sunset shot.

[LIJO151]

Very nice Neil. 

 

Thank you for sharing.