IS250 1 weeks ownership

[SeanR]

Hello all,

 

Bought a 2010 IS250 recently and must say so far very impressed, drives like a new car.

Surprising firm suspension, but that just might be me as been driving a 2007 fiesta with squidgy suspension for the previous few years.

Full service history and no apparent faults so far.

One thing i noticed though, some stone chips on the back driver side  wheel arch starting to show rust. Hate this, so booked it in with body repairs to sort it before it gets worse!

Apart from that, body work and underneath is fine, might wax oil it in the summer.

Exhaust seems ok, expect the rear will go first so already been looking for stainless steel alternatives, not daft sounding ones though.

Might get the rear windows tinted a bit darker, il see.

Good to drive a decent motor again

Anyways, a few bad pics.

Cheers, Sean

[Linas.P]

Great choice! Very solid cars and drives well. The only issue it is that it is hard to replace when it comes to it - almost nothing else comes as good in terms of value.

I would advise against SS, unless you really know the place which could make it acceptable. Problem isn't with design, but metal itself - SS rings and therefore there is always some drone coming out of it. I personally go simply for aluminised steel (that is what it was from factory) and if shop knows what they are doing it will last another 10 years.

[Mr Vlad]

Hi Sean and welcome to Lexus ownership and, especially the brilliant is250, the best Lexus forum there is. What made you go for the is250? Which spec car did you get? What's its service history like? Where did you get it from? Do you know about the rear brake calipers if they stick or not? They're the only sore point with the car. The slide pins need cleaning and greasing upto twice a year. Is Longsight far from you, I notice you're in greater Manchester. If not I recommend a body shop which I've used a few times in the last 8 years.

[TomFlo]

I bought mine few days ago and I live in Manchester as well :)

What a coincidence

Im about to do a full service in next week, got FSH but car did only 5k miles during last 2 years

drives pretty good like for 2008 and 109k miles on the clock (previously had Hyundai Coupe 2007 very reliable but to firm for Mcr roads)

Hey Vlad which garage do can u recommend (I live in Rusholme)

 

[Las Palmas]

Welcome to the forum.

We have had https://llumar.com/na/en/automotive/window-tint/clear/ installed for having 99.9% UV protection. They have from almost completely clear to extremely dark.

[SeanR]

Hello, thanks for the replies.

 

Linas, i didnt know that about stainless steel, something im going to have to take a closer look at when the time comes for a change. Seen a firm on eBay that is in Leeds, they say they can make them as loud or quiet as you want.

Vladimir, i will try and keep this short and not too boring, the reason i went for an IS250.  Back when i was a youngster i was always in to Japanese performance cars, the usual Supra, Skyline, 300zx and so on. Owned a few then bought a Lexus GS300, liked that so much that a few years later i bought another, an older GS300 sport. Great cars, all the time i owned Japanese cars, especially Lexus, i never had one issue!. Then one day i buys a 2007 Mercedes CLS and worst buy ever, pre-mature worn sprocket due to manufacturing error and 3k to fix!. Mercedes talked to me like 60,000 miles was a lot for a car and i should expect such issues, really annoyed me. I watch a guy on youtube called Scotty Kilmer, he has it right about Mercs and BMW, maybe you have seen him. Anyways, was looking at BMW 520d and got sick of reading problems about timing chains. I spoke to an independent BMW mechanic and he said most chains start making noises around 80k. Mercedes E class 2l diesel the same. 

 

After going around in circles for a few months reading about issues with German cars, started to look at Lexus again. Didnt want to buy a German car out of warranty or pay for an extra long warranty, they are just not reliable enough.

I live the other side of Manchester to Longsight, the guy who is doing the work does a good job, but thanks for the heads up. The car came from a dealer with 3 months warranty, it has a full Lexus history, one stamp for every year since.

 

Ive read about the brakes, going to try and find a vid or some info and do them twice a year, cheers.

John, thanks for the heads up about the tints.

I suppose this guy sums up why i chose a Lexus, sounds like Shaggy off Scooby Doo but i like his vids 

 

 

 

[SeanR]

Ps, was kind of concerned it may guzzle petrol, but dont seem too bad, compared to some ive owned over the years.

 

Thanks all!

 

Sean

[Linas.P]

50 minutes ago, TomFlo said:

Im about to do a full service in next week, got FSH but car did only 5k miles during last 2 years

drives pretty good like for 2008 and 109k miles on the clock

Which partially explains rust on the exhaust - low mile cars really suffers from that, although mostly rear section and rarely manifolds/down pipes (as they generally getting hot very quickly, so even driving 5 miles is enough to dry them out).

109k is nothing for this car, as long as it is maintained (which yours seems like it was). I got my previous IS250 with FLSH and 120k miles, which was ideal because the car was just 6 years old at the time (meaning it was driven mostly long journeys on motorway) and it was like new car, drove to 200k with little issues.

14 minutes ago, SeanR said:

Ps, was kind of concerned it may guzzle petrol, but dont seem too bad, compared to some ive owned over the years.

No... it is surprisingly good on petrol, especially on motorway, basically rendering IS220d irrelevant. I was able to get up-to 28MPG in the city, which is not bad for relatively heavy car and on motorway you can expect 40MPG+, 44 is nothing special, but 48 is about as much as you can get. But that is very good. Not sure why people thinks it is gas guzzler.

19 minutes ago, SeanR said:

Seen a firm on Ebay that is in Leeds, they say they can make them as loud or quiet as you want.

I would be careful with that, because they can surely make it more quiet, but they can't change the properties of metal itself which tends to drone/ring. And by making it "quiet" they may be making it as well restrictive. SS works well on sports cars which you want to make loud, but it is not great for daily driven cars where quiet exhaust and comfort is more important. I was playing with silly idea of titanium exhaust, which is more like mild steel in terms of sound properties, but won't rust. But as you can imagine prices of that would have been ridiculous. Contacted one place which was making exhaust for motorbikes and they estimated that only the pipes for the car would have costed £3600 without the cost of fabrication itself.

 

[Mr Vlad]

Eh up Tom and a warm welcome to the best Lexus forum there is and to is250 ownership, great choice. As for a garage to do services I'd use Toyotech in Oldham. My car has full lexus service history from new, I'm it's 2nd owner and I've had it just short of 2 years now so got one more service at Lexus Stockport then it'll be Toyotech after that. For any bodywork then to me there's only one place in Levenshulme. 

Sean. Excellent car history. I was always a Rover fan the the MG versions then Ford mondeos particularly the titanium x sport versions off which I've had all versions. Out of interest which garage do you use? As for a gearbox oil change then I've very recently come across the Launch Cat501s machine. YouTube it. A place very near me in Rochdale has one but I got more info from northern transmission services my local garage was too busy, I'd just got my car back after having new rear arm bushes fitted, the ones inbthe hub and there was a queue of customers hence a phone call to Launch to find another local stockist and learnt of the place in Leigh. Roughly £500 to flush the gearbox and pump new oil in whilst old oil pumped out. Then sump off for a new filter then sump back on and level checked. Yes a lot of money but still a shed less than a new or recon gearbox. 

[SeanR]

Thanks for the heads up on exhausts, Linas, not too sure what way i will go about it, but definitely need to do some reading up.

 

Vladimir, i find Fords of that era are also very reliable cars if looked after. I dont have a garage as moved away from where i used to live. Was hoping find a Lexus independent but they seem rare, that Toyotech looks interesting.

Out of curiosity, what mileage should i consider an auto gearbox oil change? , mines done 85k now. Il be honest, i dont like the sound of £500!, the £140 from Lexus sounds more tempting. 

[TomFlo]

1 hour ago, Linas.P said:

Which partially explains rust on the exhaust - low mile cars really suffers from that, although mostly rear section and rarely manifolds/down pipes (as they generally getting hot very quickly, so even driving 5 miles is enough to dry them out).

unfortunately despite the fact that car was serviced in lexus till 2017 and then every year in independent garages (at least thats what can see in the service book, hope its legit :D) have some rust down at the bottom, can see that exhaust pipes are quite new like previous owner replaced them. Wonder if Lexus can share the info about job its done to the car?

 

1 hour ago, Linas.P said:

109k is nothing for this car, as long as it is maintained (which yours seems like it was). I got my previous IS250 with FLSH and 120k miles, which was ideal because the car was just 6 years old at the time (meaning it was driven mostly long journeys on motorway) and it was like new car, drove to 200k with little issues.

 Can you share what kind of issue you had? Have you ever had a problem with carbon buildup?

 

1 hour ago, Mr Vlad said:

Eh up Tom and a warm welcome to the best Lexus forum there is and to is250 ownership, great choice. As for a garage to do services I'd use Toyotech in Oldham. My car has full lexus service history from new, I'm it's 2nd owner and I've had it just short of 2 years now so got one more service at Lexus Stockport then it'll be Toyotech after that. For any bodywork then to me there's only one place in Levenshulme. 

Thanks for the info will call them on Monday and see if they have time in the week

 

PS. Hi to everyone :)

Edited March 5, 2022 by TomFlo
Forgot to say HI

[Linas.P]

3 minutes ago, TomFlo said:

unfortunately despite the fact that car was serviced in lexus till 2017 and then every year in independent garages (at least thats what can see in the service book, hope its legit :D) have some rust down at the bottom, can see that exhaust pipes are quite new like previous owner replaced them. Wonder if Lexus can share the info about job its done to the car?

 Can you share what kind of issue you had? Have you ever had a problem with carbon buildup?

Sadly no.. you can get summary of work done, but it is cryptic, you can hardly make anything out of what it says. You can do it on MyLexus app yourself if you want, but it does not say much.

I had A/C pump seizing, but that was kind of my fault as it need to be serviced every 2 years and I didn't know that and I am not sure when my A/C was serviced (maybe never), but two years after I bought the car it seized. Costed me ~£350 to replace with refurbished unit, but new cost and labour in Lexus would have been £1000. I had rust on back section of my exhaust and at one point one of rear silencers fallen off. However I looked at it and it was mostly just broken on the weld and not rusted, so it was simply the case of welding it back on and had no further issue for 4 years. One drop link ball joint rubber boot got hole in it at 170k miles, but that was cheap replacement. Around 190k I had gearbox solenoids issues and ATF change mostly solved the issue. Towards 200k it seems that some O2 sensor or something got "lazy" and my fuel consumption increased, but no errors - never got to the bottom of what it was. Overall, not much issues.

Never had issue with carbon build-up, did Teraclean once but without any results - car was indicating 0 on emissions before it and 0 on emissions after it, no noticeable improvement in how it ran either. As far as I gather in UK carbon build-up isn't common issue - I always used cheapest fuel and never bothered too much about it. The only thing - I did oil changes every 6k miles, 10k is just too much for oil and I would get hydraulic lifters sticking issues after 6k miles/6 months, as well used engine flush every other time which fixed the issue with lifters.

[TomFlo]

6 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

Sadly no.. you can get summary of work done, but it is cryptic, you can hardly make anything out of what it says. You can do it on MyLexus app yourself if you want, but it does not say much.

well... yea I already checked MyLexus app and its nothing useful there

13 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

I had A/C pump seizing, but that was kind of my fault as it need to be serviced every 2 years and I didn't know that and I am not sure when my A/C was serviced (maybe never), but two years after I bought the car it seized. Costed me ~£350 to replace with refurbished unit, but new cost and labour in Lexus would have been £1000. I had rust on back section of my exhaust and at one point one of rear silencers fallen off. However I looked at it and it was mostly just broken on the weld and not rusted, so it was simply the case of welding it back on and had no further issue for 4 years. One drop link ball joint rubber boot got hole in it at 170k miles, but that was cheap replacement. Around 190k I had gearbox solenoids issues and ATF change mostly solved the issue. Towards 200k it seems that some O2 sensor or something got "lazy" and my fuel consumption increased, but no errors - never got to the bottom of what it was. Overall, not much issues.

That's impressive like for the millage, hope will get to 200k with that little issue as u did. In my case I driving around 5k miles a year so this Lexus will last forever. The only issue when I was deciding to buying it was expensive tax road and mpg which is actually the same like in my hyundai and a little worse then in Volvo s40 which I also had before. I had also BMW 318i but that was i nightmare since then I said to myself that will never buy german car again :)

20 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

Never had issue with carbon build-up, did Teraclean once but without any results - car was indicating 0 on emissions before it and 0 on emissions after it, no noticeable improvement in how it ran either. As far as I gather in UK carbon build-up isn't common issue - I always used cheapest fuel and never bothered too much about it. The only thing - I did oil changes every 6k miles, 10k is just too much for oil and I would get hydraulic lifters sticking issues after 6k miles/6 months, as well used engine flush every other time which fixed the issue with lifters.

Thats interesting because Ive seen quite a lot of yt videos where they talking about carbon build-up like the one of the common problem of IS250. I was also thinking which fuel should I use and end up filling with vpower on shell (these days price going up day by day, wonder where it will stop) next time will fill up with cheapest one and see how it goes. At the moment Im planning to change oil, filters and spark plugs and see if there is anythink else to do

[SeanR]

With the price of fuel, i look at this way

Spent a lot less buying an older car, so that helps iron out concerns about fuel

[Linas.P]

Carbon build-up is theoretical issue on any DI engine, so IS250 is no exception, however cases of it becoming an issue I have seen was from US. I don't know what, but in UK it isn't common issue. I am sure there is build-up of carbon, but it doesn't get to the point where it becomes an issue. 

Not sure spark-plugs change is warranted, unless you have an issue. Lexus say 60k, but they can even last a 100k. So I would say - at very least replace them at 120k. Obviously, it would be good to check if they were done before, because it is possible they were never done and at 108k it would be right time for it.

As for fuel - IS250 does not benefit from Premium fuel when it comes to power or fuel economy, the benefits of cleaning engine are as well kind of irrelevant, because it is DI (so intake valves cannot benefit from it)... and in my experience I was getting better fuel economy on standard fuel compared to premium.

[Mr Vlad]

Sean, the £500 is to change ALL the oil. The £140 is only a sump drop and top up and it doesn't even change the oil filter. As for what mileage to do a gearbox oil change well that depends on how those miles were attained. If all journeys were short then 60-80k miles is on par. If journeys were all motorway then I'd personally say 100-120k miles. My cars on 85k miles. I had the 'cheap' oil job done last August at lexus Stockport but I'll be going full hog this August before its annual service. Yeah £500 is steep but I'll know my car will never need it doing again in my lifetime. Rear diff oil should also be done at around 89-100k miles tho lexus seem to ignore this. 

[Linas.P]

1 minute ago, Mr Vlad said:

The £140 is only a sump drop and top up and it doesn't even change the oil filter. 

I doubt they even drop the pan, because it is listed as 3h labour (actually you need to remove some gearbox mounts to properly access it) and obviously this requires new gasket and 4L of ATF. You can't drop pan and replace just 2 litres. And you right - they definitely won't change filter, because that alone is like £110. So for £140, I am sure it is literally just opening the drain, draining what is in the pan and refilling to correct level.

[SeanR]

I see, a lot more to it

Leigh not to far away, whats the name of the place that does it there?

 

Cheers

[Mr Vlad]

Hi Sean. Its something like Northern Transmissions. Strictly auto box specialist 40 years trading. Guy I spoke with sounded similar age to me (I turn 60 in April) and ultra knowledgeable. 

Linas. Are you sure dropping the gearbox pan is listed as a 3hr job? Blimey I've seen live videos dropping the pan in under 5 minutes. Plus except using the level plug how else apart from pumping out old oil can you get oil out without dropping the sump? If I remember correctly Stockport told me they dropped the sump.

[Linas.P]

17 hours ago, Mr Vlad said:

Hi Sean. Its something like Northern Transmissions. Strictly auto box specialist 40 years trading. Guy I spoke with sounded similar age to me (I turn 60 in April) and ultra knowledgeable. 

Linas. Are you sure dropping the gearbox pan is listed as a 3hr job? Blimey I've seen live videos dropping the pan in under 5 minutes. Plus except using the level plug how else apart from pumping out old oil can you get oil out without dropping the sump? If I remember correctly Stockport told me they dropped the sump.

I didn't say it takes 3 hours, but that is what it is listed as. And it is not unreasonable. To correctly remove the pan without bending anything and praying it out definitely cannot be done in 5 minutes, probably closer to 20 min, but 3 hours are for entire job, refilling, warming-up so it is about right to be honest.

[Mr Vlad]

I suppose that kind of makes sense.

[Alfalfa]

23 hours ago, TomFlo said:

well... yea I already checked MyLexus app and its nothing useful there

That's impressive like for the millage, hope will get to 200k with that little issue as u did. In my case I driving around 5k miles a year so this Lexus will last forever. The only issue when I was deciding to buying it was expensive tax road and mpg which is actually the same like in my hyundai and a little worse then in Volvo s40 which I also had before. I had also BMW 318i but that was i nightmare since then I said to myself that will never buy german car again 🙂

Thats interesting because Ive seen quite a lot of yt videos where they talking about carbon build-up like the one of the common problem of IS250. I was also thinking which fuel should I use and end up filling with vpower on shell (these days price going up day by day, wonder where it will stop) next time will fill up with cheapest one and see how it goes. At the moment Im planning to change oil, filters and spark plugs and see if there is anythink else to do

I put a Oilcatch can on mine, but maybe this is an US problem due to bad gasoline over there.

[TomFlo]

7 hours ago, Alfalfa said:

I put a Oilcatch can on mine, but maybe this is an US problem due to bad gasoline over there.

seems like good solution but the question is if it really works 

have you noticed any change while driving? 

[Linas.P]

10 hours ago, TomFlo said:

seems like good solution but the question is if it really works 

have you noticed any change while driving? 

It does, but it is of questionable benefit after 100k miles. If fitted to new car it would definitely be beneficial. 

17 hours ago, Alfalfa said:

I put a Oilcatch can on mine, but maybe this is an US problem due to bad gasoline over there.

I am not sure it is correct, I honestly don't know the reason why carbon build-up is much more of an issue in US, but US petrol isn't worse than the one in Europe. Maybe because they use corn ethanol (most of 95 equivalent there is E10), but it isn't "bad" compared to European fuel anyway. Besides quality of fuel makes no impact on intake valves and valve stems in DI engine and that is the key issue in IS250.

[Alfalfa]

11 hours ago, TomFlo said:

seems like good solution but the question is if it really works 

have you noticed any change while driving? 

There vil be no difrence in the driving, but you have to sheck if there is oil in the catch can and take out the oil before the can is full.