IS250 Auto vs Manual

[Lex_utor]

On 1/26/2022 at 9:20 PM, Linas.P said:

Nothing exists in isolation, so nobody is saying that IS250 Manual or any particular car is all bad or all good. The simple case is that if there is something better, then automatically something else is worse. 

In UK owning manual your are penalised right away by tax (and this is by the way strange exception) and then having manual in the country with most congested roads in the Europe is no fun either. I said before that driving manual is more fun, but on balance on probabilities you going to find auto in more useful and easier to live with.

Strangely in UK it is opposite, you can get manual for 30% less compared to auto, but the saving is not enough when annual tax is almost double.

As for IS250 being underpowered, again compared to what? Contemporary E90 325i? certainly not... but it is not as fast as 330i or IS350. I think for it's time (2006) IS250 was great on both power and economy. As well we need to look into the context of what it replaced - it was more fuel efficient than IS200 and faster than IS300, so it was great. It was as well comparably fast to BMW325i, but more economical and sounded way better, although BMW handled better.  Anyhow - how fast or slow it is matter of context and perspective. 

I understand what you mean. For my case, the manual is perfect though. :)

If I lived in a place like London, which would make me think of buying an auto, I would probably just move to a different place where I could enjoy dailing a manual. :) 

I have always driven manuals and I had been dailing sports cars for the last several years. My last daily was a RX8.

I'm enjoying the manual IS250 so much that despite having bought the IS250 with the intention of buying a sports car for the weekend, so I could cope with not dailying a sports car anymore, I'm thinking of saving my money for now. The manual IS250 with the sports exhaust is fun enough on spirited weekend back road drives, at least for now. 😉 

The only thing even close to negative that I have been thinking since I bought my IS250 5 months ago is, what a crime Lexus never sold the IS350 here and that they never made that car with a manual. If the IS250 manual is fun, that would be a hoot! 

[Linas.P]

2 hours ago, Lex_utor said:

The only thing even close to negative that I have been thinking since I bought my IS250 5 months ago is, what a crime Lexus never sold the IS350 here and that they never made that car with a manual. If the IS250 manual is fun, that would be a hoot! 

Yeah, this annoys me as well. IS250 is nice comfortable car, but just lacks a bit of power - I would have gone for IS350 and later RC350 myself. On other hand IS-F/RC-F already has too much power as daily car in my opinion and running cost reflects it. 350 would just right size engine which I can use and enjoy, whereas I would almost never be able to use 5L V8 potential.

I did have very negative view towards automatics as well, but that was before I driven IS250 and moved into London. All older automatics I had really sucked and my opinion was that they are slow in changing gears, poor economy etc. But around that time ~2006 autos really took manuals in terms of efficiency and gear changes are fine, not fast but certainly faster than most people can shift manual. 

[2Ravens]

Is it really easier to source a good manual than auto? Surprising, I thought there were way more autos sold.

Never tried the manual, I would be curious to. I like my auto, you can't really knock it. It's not as quick as a ZF but it's smart enough, it never feels daft and it's nice to have the easy driving, slightly better economy and tax situation.

But I wouldn't have been totally against the manual. Heard it's not the greatest box but it's still a manual hooked up to a V6 RWD, how bad can it be.

[Texas]

“how bad can it be.”

Well…You have a clutch for a start, that can (and will wear out sooner or later!)  be abused!

And, for me anyway, I don’t want to be ‘stirring’ gears to get around, I rather waft, after all it is a Lexus. And the top gear is not suited to our UK upper speed limit, I think you’ll find that 70 mph at civilised revs sits between 5th and 6th which is a bit annoying!

[Linas.P]

On 2/11/2022 at 5:17 PM, Texas said:

“how bad can it be.”

Well…You have a clutch for a start, that can (and will wear out sooner or later!)  be abused!

And, for me anyway, I don’t want to be ‘stirring’ gears to get around, I rather waft, after all it is a Lexus. And the top gear is not suited to our UK upper speed limit, I think you’ll find that 70 mph at civilised revs sits between 5th and 6th which is a bit annoying!

Agree - IS250 is just not the car which benefits or is complimented by manual. I understand that is light and nimble sports car or something one could take to the trackdays, but IS250 just isn't that. It has enough power to cruise comfortably at any speed and it's key strength is how smooth the engine is. However, it does not have performance to really hool it around and manual gearbox fundamentally takes away from key strength of the car. Basically manual improves the car in areas which don't matter and makes it worse in areas where it does. Nothing fundamentally wrong with manual, just not as good as auto for this car...

And if it would be the case of being significantly cheaper - say £2000 vs. £4000, then I can see the point for somebody who doesn't get stuck in traffic, but the deal breaker is that £500 VED in UK.

[Lex_utor]

On 2/11/2022 at 12:01 AM, 2Ravens said:

Is it really easier to source a good manual than auto? Surprising, I thought there were way more autos sold.

Never tried the manual, I would be curious to. I like my auto, you can't really knock it. It's not as quick as a ZF but it's smart enough, it never feels daft and it's nice to have the easy driving, slightly better economy and tax situation.

But I wouldn't have been totally against the manual. Heard it's not the greatest box but it's still a manual hooked up to a V6 RWD, how bad can it be.

Well, at least around here it is way more difficult to find a manual. In general  actually they are way more rare. I have the info somewhere but from memory less than 10% the IS250 sold were manuals. From that a very small fraction were F-sports, which mainly counts for the U.S. 

As for not being the greatest gearbox, well, coming from a RX8, which was my last daily before the IS250, I don't find the gearbox bad.  The RX8 is famous for having a great gearbox. So keep that in mind. 😉 

I guess you can see I'm in the minority here, but I drove both and chose a manual. So I have to strongly disagree the IS250 is not a car which benefits from a manual. If you like to be involved in the driving as much as possible and enjoys shifting, a manual definitely benefits the car. 😉 

Truly a case of to each his own. I could have bought an automatic for much less as the manuals carry a premium here. Keep in mind I live in Continental Europe where people have always enjoyed shifting more than in the UK and U.S. For example the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio is only offered with a manual transmission here and nowhere else in the world. It has been the case with several other cars. Maybe the fact the roads are much better here may have something to do with it. I don't know. But being a diehard fan of manual transmissions, this was what I appreciated the most when I moved here. :) 

 

[AFlex]

I agree with everything @Lex_utor has said and I have a manual IS250 sport AND I daily drive it in London. So I guess I am pretty much the antithesis to @Linas.P 

At the time I bought it, I was going to get a 3 series but 2 things put me off at the time:

• The E90 3 series had a weird key security bug which meant criminals were reprogramming keys and driving them away off people's drives in the middle of the night! Some insurance companies refused to insure them!
• I figured that, if I bought a BMW, whatever money I saved on annual tax I would end up paying back both in the higher purchase price, and annual repair bills.

I've learned to do a lot of my own maintenance to keep wear and tear costs down and overall I love the car.

Next on my list to do - clutch accumulator delete mod 

[SeanR]

On 2/12/2022 at 6:57 PM, Linas.P said:

Agree - IS250 is just not the car which benefits or is complimented by manual. I understand that is light and nimble sports car or something one could take to the trackdays, but IS250 just isn't that. It has enough power to cruise comfortably at any speed and it's key strength is how smooth the engine is. However, it does not have performance to really hool it around and manual gearbox fundamentally takes away from key strength of the car. Basically manual improves the car in areas which don't matter and makes it worse in areas where it does. Nothing fundamentally wrong with manual, just not as good as auto for this car...

And if it would be the case of being significantly cheaper - say £2000 vs. £4000, then I can see the point for somebody who doesn't get stuck in traffic, but the deal breaker is that £500 VED in UK.

 

Agree, its no rocket ship compared to a lot of cars.

Saying that though, think it might of got me my first speeding ticket in years!

Whilst not quick off the mark, if daydreaming like i was, soon get caught out if not careful.

Never had that bother in the old 1.2 fiesta, usually a careful driver too.

Mobile speeding van parked just where a 40 goes to 30, hoping he was having his lunch or sumert, expecting a letter soon though.

Nippy enough for me

[Linas.P]

39 minutes ago, SeanR said:

Agree, its no rocket ship compared to a lot of cars.

Saying that though, think it might of got me my first speeding ticket in years!

Whilst not quick off the mark, if daydreaming like i was, soon get caught out if not careful.

Never had that bother in the old 1.2 fiesta, usually a careful driver too.

Mobile speeding van parked just where a 40 goes to 30, hoping he was having his lunch or sumert, expecting a letter soon though.

Nippy enough for me

That has more to do with comfort and sound insulation rather than speed. in smaller, cheaper car it seems you going so fast even when doing 30MPH, but in luxury car there is less noise even at 60MPH. Especially noticeable in situation like yours, going 60MPH on national limited and then have to slow down to 30MPH when entering some village... and it feels like car is not moving, seems like you can almost open the door and step outside, despite still going like 40MPH. You will get used to it, but I agree when you move into more luxurious car first time, which has some grunt and as well automatic (on manual you kind of know, because you have to change gears), it is very easy to forget what speeds you doing.

First time for me was similar, but I didn't get fine - it was 60km/h street and there was annoying old merc stuck in outside lane, when he moved over I just accelerated "a little bit" to get past him just for few seconds and next thing I see is police car behind the bush and I am doing 110km/h. Lucky for me they didn't have camera, so just stopped me, quizzed me for some time, like "so where you were going so fast", but ended-up issuing no fine, because they haven't recorded any speed, just visually noticed that I was going way faster. 

[Texas]

10 hours ago, SeanR said:

 

Agree, its no rocket ship compared to a lot of cars.

Saying that though, think it might of got me my first speeding ticket in years!

Whilst not quick off the mark, if daydreaming like i was, soon get caught out if not careful.

Never had that bother in the old 1.2 fiesta, usually a careful driver too.

Mobile speeding van parked just where a 40 goes to 30, hoping he was having his lunch or sumert, expecting a letter soon though.

Nippy enough for me

In that case ( no previous history ) you may get offered a speed school session instead of the points ( the fee is equal to the fine but no points) and I guarantee you will learn something you never knew about road craft if you choose ( highly recommended ) to opt for it.

[Linas.P]

12 hours ago, Texas said:

In that case ( no previous history ) you may get offered a speed school session instead of the points ( the fee is equal to the fine but no points) and I guarantee you will learn something you never knew about road craft if you choose ( highly recommended ) to opt for it.

It is actually more expensive than a fine nowadays, but the key benefit is that you don't need to disclose it on insurance (they can't check in any way) and that overall saves money. As of benefit of the course - not sure, mine was quite funny and the trainer was quite friendly, not at all trying to judge anyone, but rather to have open discussion of how to avoid penalty in future. He as well joked about some nonsensical claims about say braking distance. The only real thing I remember from the course was that government claims of braking distances originates from practical experiment from 1932 i.e. the time when cars could barely even reach 70MPH and these figures are still used in highway code to illustrate braking distances... which is kind of silly. At least this was like 8 years ago and I had to attend it because I was over by 2MPH in temporary 50MPH on motorway, at night, because of road works which were not even there!

But overall I agree, given an option SAC is always better than 3 points + fine. 

[SeanR]

Actually been to one, but red light awareness. (another story and i reckon not guilty on that one, but wont bore you)

 

Came out with a new outlook on traffic lights, green is the most dangerous colour, the guy kept saying.

Quite funny too, and better than points

[Lex_utor]

On 3/25/2022 at 1:15 AM, AFlex said:

I agree with everything @Lex_utor has said and I have a manual IS250 sport AND I daily drive it in London. So I guess I am pretty much the antithesis to @Linas.P 

At the time I bought it, I was going to get a 3 series but 2 things put me off at the time:

• The E90 3 series had a weird key security bug which meant criminals were reprogramming keys and driving them away off people's drives in the middle of the night! Some insurance companies refused to insure them!
• I figured that, if I bought a BMW, whatever money I saved on annual tax I would end up paying back both in the higher purchase price, and annual repair bills.

I've learned to do a lot of my own maintenance to keep wear and tear costs down and overall I love the car.

Next on my list to do - clutch accumulator delete mod 

Way better than an E90 for sure and totally agree it will be cheaper to run and more reliable. 

But this is the first I hear about a  clutch accumulator delete mod . :) 

[AFlex]

On 4/21/2022 at 4:49 PM, Lex_utor said:

Way better than an E90 for sure and totally agree it will be cheaper to run and more reliable. 

But this is the first I hear about a  clutch accumulator delete mod . :) 

Here's the guide if you're interested

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/is-2nd-gen-2006-2013/688815-6mt-remove-clutch-accumulator.html

Looks like some additional parts are needed.