IS250 - cranks, just about to start, but doesn't

[Linas.P]

That is good question and I don't have an answer for that. But I don't really have "worries" about it. That said as you mentioned it now - if I would have used leather perhaps I would be slightly worried now. 

I can rip vinyl by hand (actually done so accidently) so it isn't particularly strong. Looking at overall construction, the dash has a "H" shaped depression underneath to facilitate splitting of dashboard, but even at it's thinnest part it is still like 2mm thick plastic which you can't really pull apart with hand. I am sure there is some impact, but I don't believe 0.4mm thick vinyl makes a huge difference. I can only speculate, but I am sure airbag will inflate, whenever it inflates slightly slower and that has an impact I don't know. 

[Linas.P]

Hello... wiring harness just arrived!

Just before getting into harness deal, I was completing last bits on interior. Not the time for detailing yet, but I thought I just do a quick clean whilst I have them off the car as many trim pieces were nasty it seems to make sense to clean them before putting them back...

and the results:

Anyway, next big step now is to check the replacement harness carefully, make sure it is not broken and not missing anything and then try to get it into the car. 

 

 

[H3XME]

2 hours ago, Linas.P said:

Hello... wiring harness just arrived!

Just before getting into harness deal, I was completing last bits on interior. Not the time for detailing yet, but I thought I just do a quick clean whilst I have them off the car as many trim pieces were nasty it seems to make sense to clean them before putting them back...

and the results:

Anyway, next big step now is to check the replacement harness carefully, make sure it is not broken and not missing anything and then try to get it into the car. 

 

 

I'd recommend a black fabric dye on the A pillars & headliner. It's a cheap mod that will completely transform the car. I did my A pillars a few months ago. Not done anything else yet as it wasn't warm enough outside to let it dry out properly. (A pillar I took home with me). Hopefully I can get it done soon 🙂

[Linas.P]

Yeah it was weird decision by Lexus to use that contrasting colour on the headlining and pillars. I guess if car does not have sunroof it may get a bit claustrophobic inside, but I would prefer black headlining instead. Anyway modding is maybe something for the future, for the time being they cleaned-up real nice and that will be enough. 

[H3XME]

29 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

Yeah it was weird decision by Lexus to use that contrasting colour on the headlining and pillars. I guess if car does not have sunroof it may get a bit claustrophobic inside, but I would prefer black headlining instead. Anyway modding is maybe something for the future, for the time being they cleaned-up real nice and that will be enough. 

Yeah, manufacturers use the light headliners and pillars to make it look more roomy. Although I believe IS-Fs have black roofliner & pillars.

[Mincey]

1 hour ago, H3XME said:

Yeah, manufacturers use the light headliners and pillars to make it look more roomy. Although I believe IS-Fs have black roofliner & pillars.

And F Sports

[Linas.P]

Ok so the IS250 nightmare project car was going kind of slowly recently. New wiring harness turned out to be fine, but required bit of "persuasion". Got DTCs P0352, P0354, P0356 - Ignition Coil "X" Primary / Secondary Circuit. Basically entire bank stopped working. Turned out it was bad secondary engine ground strap... which was bizarre, because I have previously removed and cleaned it, but it was enough to take it off, put it back on and coil issues were gone... and that is despite there being at least dozen other grounding points!

Secondly, for some reason throttle has died (motor is good, but position sensor is dead), probably was on the way out. Now as I find out apparently it is not so easy to find replacement in UK, strangle that 9 out of 10 used ones listed are from Lithuania (and generally much of Lexus spares). Bought 2 in UK and both were dead on arrival, so had to return them. New one costs ridiculous money - £1182 + delivery, but more realistically ~£500 from amayama or similar place, but still very expensive. So what I did in the end I have ordered brand new OE replacement one for Lexus CT, Toyota Yaris, RAV4 etc. It is identical throttle body to IS250/GS300 and the only difference is that one coolant line goes 90^o right, instead of being bent 90^o backwards. Anyway £90 later I ordered one and planning just to transplant the sensor and rivet it back on my old throttle body and hope for it to work.

vs. 

Third, I have elusive C1201 error which is just VSC error without much description. I suspect some grounding issues somewhere, but still have to figure out where. For time being I want to solve throttle body so that car runs and drives properly.

The next things on the list 1. fix sat-nav digitiser, have bought replacement one for £18, screen is good, just digitiser not responding from the day I bought the car. 2. had to order new central vents as mine were just trashed, but that is just cosmetic. 3. Badly need new gear knob, but LPD wants £169?! Seems I have to wait for one to be delivered from amayama £37, for IS-F knob. 4. The horn stopped working, but I suspect wiring issue in steering wheel as I have messed that-up replacing steering lock, got replacement ordered relatively cheaply from scrap IS220d. 5. Generally, prepare car for MOT... seems like the only two issue remaining are VSC light and horn. 6. I am struggling to find suitable wheels - the existing ones to be honest are good enough to pass MOT, but they are just ugly and doesn't really deserve to be refurbished. Problem is that nobody seems to be selling Lexus alloys for reasonable price (unless one considers completely trashed set with all 4 different tyres for £400 to be good price). Funny enough, I never thought I will ever need to buy Lexus wheels again, as I had hoarded 4 sets myself, but they were either stolen or literally burned in arson (the times we living in!).

In either case the status for now is that car runs and drives, just not well enough to pass MOT. Once MOT is done and it passes my present back will be full detail, for time being just detailed interior, as it there was genuine risk of catching diseases inside. Before and after was quite dramatic even if it is hard to show it in pictures here:

[J Henderson]

Agreed about the wheels thing. Kinda makes me regret selling the OEM wheels my car came with as they rarely come up for sale.

There used to be a company on eBay that would regularly sell full sets of freshly refurbished Lexus wheels. Literally every wheel design and all a similar price. Even ones that normally command a higher premium.

It's how I acquired my Hoshi wheels, but they just seemed to disappear all of a sudden.

[Linas.P]

Yeah, First Aid Wheels - they are still around, but £312 to exchange set of standard IS 17" I just don't see the point. That is literally the cost of refurbishing them anyway and they even state that if wheels are badly corroded (which mine are) they may not take them for exchange, making it £448. I can just refurb my wheels for like £70 each, which is £280+VAT, but I am just not a fan of original wheels anyway. Even something like original 18" sport wheels would do (which were plentiful previously), mk3 F-sports have became unobtanium (they always been in high demand), but even more common ones like Hoshi and Baransu are nowhere to be found, or the two below (not sure what they called... "mk2 Fsport"?)

And maybe I am coming to this with unrealistic expectations, but it used to be the case that buying set of used wheels with tyres would often work out cheaper than buying set of new tyres alone. And I don't even expect premium, as long as they are like 4-5mm left and some mid-range on wheels which little bit of scratching, but nothing major I would be fine. But now I see people literally listing badly corroded wheels with 4 different trash tyres for £400. That just doesn't compute - so I get the wheels which must be refurbished (say £300) and then set of tyres (say another £300) and all in all that will be £1000 for set of bog standard wheels. £1000 used to be the price for IS-F or "mk3 Fsport wheels". So I look at it the way that if wheels require refurbishment, then they are worth like nominal price of £100 and if tyres are not matched and not usable, then they add no value... but it doesn't seems to be the case in current market.

To be fair there are plenty of mk1 wheels in various conditions, but mk1 wheels never looked right on mk2.

It is ironic that I had mk3 F-Sports, but that car was just stolen with the wheels on never to be found. Then I had 17" advance wheels in need of light refurbishment and that would have been perfect for me now, because I kind of like the way they look, those got burned in the fire and I can only find people selling 2 of them individually for £169 for wheel. Few years ago when I was trying to sell whole set nobody wanted them even for £250.

I am still looking for my stolen set to turn on sale, there are not many of RC300h F-sport facelift wheels around, so it will be very obvious if thieving s..m would decide to sell them. Although, I am sure they probably sold them on same day to some tyre shop for £50 to get a shot of crack. Not that I would put them on IS250, but still interesting where they would end-up. 

[J Henderson]

The wheels in the first picture. I think you only got those on (09+) facelift SE-L.  Not sure if they have an official name, but I've seen them referred to as "Lobster Claws" on Clublexus. 😄

I always fancied putting the facelift GS F-Sport wheels on my car, but gave up waiting for a set to appear.

There was 4 wheels on eBay at one point, but all single wheels with damage from 4 different sellers, and £200+ each.

PS. if anyone has these wheels and would like to sell them, please let me know. 😃

[Texas]

Were those alloys known as ‘G-spider’ iirc?

scrub that!!! No they are different wheels🙄

[Shahpor]

Am I reading this right that the IS throttle body is £500ish and the CT one is £90 and the only difference is a bend on a pipe?!?

At some point you have going to have to chronicle what you have done to get this car back to roadworthy condition again!

[Linas.P]

28 minutes ago, Shahpor said:

Am I reading this right that the IS throttle body is £500ish and the CT one is £90 and the only difference is a bend on a pipe?!?

At some point you have going to have to chronicle what you have done to get this car back to roadworthy condition again!

OEM Lexus is £500 vs. OE Toyota is £90 - that is correct. The problem is that there are no OE throttles in Lexus spec. to buy (that would be Denso with that bent pipe), but there are plenty of generic and OE electronic throttle bodies which are literally identical. I could have picked-up no-name reproduction for £50, but opted for what claims to be Denso part for £90. 

6 pages in is kind of chronicle already 😄 

6 hours ago, J Henderson said:

The wheels in the first picture. I think you only got those on (09+) facelift SE-L.  Not sure if they have an official name, but I've seen them referred to as "Lobster Claws" on Clublexus. 😄

I always fancied putting the facelift GS F-Sport wheels on my car, but gave up waiting for a set to appear.

There was 4 wheels on ebay at one point, but all single wheels with damage from 4 different sellers, and £200+ each.

PS. if anyone has these wheels and would like to sell them, please let me know. 😃

Lol - Lobster Claws! I find set of GS mk4 F-Sport wheels, but I am not convinced I like the looks of them on IS250, furthermore 19" is a bit much, gets into territory of uncomfortable and don't look right without lowering. Same for Aston Martin alloys - there is set with good Bridgestone Potenza's for £900 (that is much better than getting 17" standard set refurbished and on decent tyres), but again they are 19" and they have 275 on the rear... Surely not the tyre I want to run on IS250. 

The Aston Martin wheels looks great on IS-F thought with right spacing and right height: 

Just not practical to run such wheels on daily driven IS250... although still £900 is way better on these wheels, which can take off anytime and sell for same £900, than spending similar amount on trashy standard IS 17" wheels to get them back to the shape. 

 

 

 

[Linas.P]

Damn... how ridiculous is that, got throttle body today and it is still faulty, this is third one! I don't understand what is going on - is it really that difficult to buy working throttle body?! I mean the two used ones for £30, ok I understand they were kicking around the warehouse (of not left outside on breaker cars), but 2 out of 2 faulty is still kind of disappointing, but new one is faulty as well.

Now I am going to go and check my wiring just in case, but the point is that the units are faulty by themselves if Lexus workshop manual is to be believed. 

The used ones measured 2000Ω and 2900Ω, but even new one still measures 104Ω, whereas it should be 1.2-3.2Ω between E2 and VC (that is sensor side of throttle body). 

So I don't even need to connect it to the car to know it is basically dead on arrival. Just this stupid part already wasted 2 weeks of my time, order wait few days to get it, test it, send it back again and repeat. Never thought it could be such a hassle just to get used part as described! 🤬

 

[Mr Vlad]

Have you tried to power the throttle body from a 12v supply and not from the car? That will definitely let you know if it's the body or wiring to it. *ummer about the used ones you got.

[Linas.P]

The motors are fine, I can power them with 12V, but it is not motor which is faulty, it is throttle position sensor. And when ECU detects that throttle position sensor is faulty it cut's power to motor (kind of hate electronic throttle for this reason, analog one you can always bypass with the "power of your foot", here ECU just says "nope). So what I need to test is a sensor and sensor should be 1.2-3.2Ω at 20^oC... funny enough outside is like 21^oC today. So I am not expecting much of the difference. I mean it could vary a little bit and perhaps 0.5-5Ω would still be fine, but when I am measuring 100s or 2000, it is clear that sensor is dead on the units and it won't work. 

[Mr Vlad]

Makes one wonder if its possible to repair the sensor or see if a sensor can be bought separately. I'd have thought that particular sensor is common to a good few cars. Best of luck in finding a good throttle body or sensor.

[Linas.P]

1 hour ago, Mr Vlad said:

 I'd have thought that particular sensor is common to a good few cars. 

You are right here, exact same sensor is used for few dozen cars, hence I picked-up one for Toyota RAV 4 and Lexus CT... the little problem... it that it came faulty.

As for fixing the sensor itself it sadly not a chance - it is completely sealed over/moulded into plastic, but to be fair I don't even know how it is possible for it to fail. There are no moving parts and whole thing once assembled is completely isolated from environment. I guess in my car dodgy electrical side could have caused it, like shorted it or some voltage peak blown something inside.

My plan was to transfer electronic part on my TB as the coolant lines were different on Toyota TB, as well it tuned out the diameter of throttle itself was slightly smaller, which would have necessitated transplant anyway. But again, there was no point transplanting anything as electrical part was dead on new TB.

 

[Linas.P]

Found one set of wheels which is closer to what I would expect, but just a little bit closer. Entire face of at least one wheels is scratched all around (seller says "used - as new"... yeah sure), assuming they all look the same this means they all need to be re-cut, probably that is the only advantage of diamond cut wheels is that face could be done for £40-50 if nothing else required. Tyres still look decent, but to be fair not amazing - probably 3-4mm left and they were not the best tyres to begin with, but at least all the same and all Bridgestone.

 

Seems to be facelift IS300h, still £500 for 17" wheels which will require tyres in 5k miles and require £200 to make them look the way they suppose to is kind of steep. Sure they would lift the looks of the car quite a bit, but that is not that big of achievement considering current wheels looks like this:

I still think mk3 F-sports are the best look... doubly annoying considering I had them previously.... 

[Mr Vlad]

With what you say about the sensors being sealed units that reminds me of an edition of wheeler dealers. The Maserati one where the throttle actuator, I think it was, is a sealed unit but someone found a way in basically by cutting carefully and drilling out the filling. Since you've got at least one knackered sensor why not try getting into it. After all what have you got to lose. Just a suggestion. 

[Linas.P]

I was thinking about it, but still hoping to find good used one. After all they are not that expensive, problem is that sellers knowingly list trash which they know does not work and just hope that people won't notice. Guess what happened to two used ones I have returned... yeah obviously they are relisted on eBay as good working units! Despite me checking both of them both on the car and off the car and sending pictures to sellers showing that sensor reads 2000Ω.

To that point - it is possible to buy individual sensors, but making them work would require hacking together new wiring harness and "modifying both new and old sensors. I mean it is doable, but not simple. But just goes to show that combining sensor in the same body with throttle body is very bad for owners. Now instead of just replacing faulty sensors, which coudl be bought for £15. I have to source whole Throttle Body for hundreds. 

[Mr Vlad]

Those sellers need reporting to eBay and trading standards. 

[Linas.P]

So the saga of actually working throttle body continues, from 5 sellers I contacted only 1 replied and he was upset that I asked him to check the throttle body. literally brassed off  what do you expect me to buy multimeter just to check it - mate if you don't like it buy it from somebody else". And no... I do not expect them to buy multimeter just to check part for me... I expect that if they are selling electrical parts which can only be tested with multimeter as "used" (rather than "untested/faulty/spares an repairs") they should already own it and multimeter isn't some sort of expensive instrument, basic ones can be had for £8 from amazon. Like used car part sellers and breakers are just different kind of people it seems and they have very strange attitude towards the quality of the parts and making sure they are as described. Just the attitude in itself is strange "do you expect me to sell you the part as described?! What? - go buy it from somebody else with such 'unreasonable' expectation"...

Anyway ordered another few - one for GS450h and one for RX300 (gone with two straight away as my hopes of them working are kind of low by now), point is the electrical part is the same, the only difference is the angle of the coolant pipes and number of them. Even GS430, 460, LS430, 460, RX400h have same same sensor and motor. As long as sensor is good I can drill out the rivets and move sensor onto my throttle body, so it is is just a matter of finding used throttle body with working sensor. 

Final thing I am contemplating with throttle body is to get one for IS220d, it is completely different in the way of having separate motor and angle sensor, but this would allow me to replace angle sensor separately with new one and that is much cheaper. The only problem is that the way angle sensor is placed would interfere with heater pipes and I am not sure these is any solution for that. As well the wiring is different, but I assume it has same wires, just instead of having 1x6 plug , it has 2x3... if the next two throttle bodies are faulty I may need to look further into this.

On other news - fixed steering angle sensor and horn. I suspected the ring cable to be broken, but turns out I just forgotten to plug in pressure pad wire. Anyway, I have ordered new ring cable as I needed new steering angle sensor. The trick here is to look for IS220d parts as they generally 4 times cheaper than same part taken out of IS250. In my case steering angle sensor was £60 for IS250, but I found ring cable taken out from IS220d which seller called "airbag squib" and forgotten to remove steering angle sensor... and whole thing just £15. 

[Linas.P]

Fixed sat-nav screen today (new digitiser for £17 did the job). Sill waiting on damn Throttle body.

Sat-nav digitiser is simple enough, just requires some patience. If anything is spent most time trying to remove old glue than on anything else - 20min to do it, 30 min to remove the glue, but tar and glue remover in combination with pure isopropyl did the job eventually. Probably better option would be to heat old digitiser on heating plate for smartphone screen replacements, but I don't have one so just used thin scalpel and then cleaned afterwards.

The gloss digitiser glass indeed looks nice, but I am not sure I like it compared to semi-matte original digitiser. Not sure how badly it will reflect in sunlight:

@Ishaq - this is the cable I would advise to check if your buttons do not work (basically it powers all buttons), however if you screen is black, then it may be something more serious: