Considering purchase of a 220d/Advice required

[stocknapping]

Hi,

Does the headgasket issue affect all 2AD-FHV engines or is it only the earlier models and is there  a cut off year/date?

thanks.

[madasahatter]

Just buy a petrol one win win.  

[J Henderson]

Not an expert, and this is entirely anecdotal, but it seems plausible that it was fixed or made more reliable when the engine got detuned for the 200d version. So, 2010-ish.

Most problems reported on the forum are invariably for a 220d. Although there are far more of those around...

[stocknapping]

Thanks for the response. It is double the price, double the pence per mile fuel cost (even with rubbish engine) and double the road tax. Most likely I won't buy one due to the reliability issues, but if I was going to is is possible at all to avoid the head gasket issues? Would December 2009 be inside or outside the fault window?

Taking into account the reliability issues how would it compare to something like an  Vauxhall Insignia?

 

[Texas]

Please check out the ‘engine & transmission ‘ section before buying a 220😳

[johnatg]

Can't really comment on a comparison but the is220d has a poor reputation here. The Insignia diesel has a fatal flaw to do with an o-ring in the oil pick up from the sump. You don't know there's a problem until the oil pressure warning light comes on by which time the engine is wrecked. Which is why there are so many cheap Insignia diesels about. 

Cheap fuel? Can't compensate for the costs involved in fixing engine problems. Fuel cost for an is250 is nothing like double the diesel - in fact quite similar now, I'd say. 

[stocknapping]

If it had a serious engine fault I wouldn't fix it. The age of the cars even petrol anything can go wrong at any time, but its trying to judge how likely that is to happen relative to other cars.

[Texas]

Lexus petrol…..more reliable than most other petrols

Lexus Diesel (220)……less reliable than all other diesels ( IMO standby for others)

[stocknapping]

Thanks for the responses finally managed to see an IS200 in person and I am heavily leaning towards buying one. I missed the opportunity to buy a super clean version back in April .

[McShmoopy]

I would say based on what I've seen on the forum and generally from people I know is unless you're getting the car for absolute pennies or you intend to do alot of miles you're better off with an IS250. 

Ignoring the reliability issues, the economy is pretty bad in comparison to the petrol which is only slightly worse, consider the cost of Diesel at this point in time and the incredibly clunky gearbox, sixth gear is pretty useless unless you're doing around 80 but I have heard the sport versions have a slightly better gearbox. 

I have a 143k IS250 and for the most part drives as if she were brand new and while I am heavy footed I'm able to get 28 to 32 with sensible driving in town and achieve around 43mpg doing 70mph on the motorway with cruise control on. 

If you are dead set on the 220D or the 200D, I heard doing either an EGR or DPF delete as well as remapping the engine can help with addressing all the aforementioned concerns. Hopefully we've convinced you to steer clear of the 250 but failing that just have some money aside for repairs / maintenance! 

[javadude]

I had a IS220d Sport. The gear box was better than the non-sport which I had as a courtesy car once or twice. 6th gear was so long that it struggled at 70 as mentioned. Sport gear box was nicer to drive but a bit clunky to deal with the torque. The amount of torque and the responsiveness was good. I modified my previous IS200 but didn't feel the need with the IS220 as it had everything and was quicker. Fuel economy wasn't great for a diesel as they'd just worked out how to meet some new emissions regulation. Vague memory something like mid to high 30's as the sport was less than the non-sport too. It had some recall thing done on the valves or something I think. Apart from that it was reliable but maybe I was just fortunate. If I bought again and was still into ICE cars I'd prob get the IS250 though.

[stocknapping]

Quote

Avoid petrol version after 100k miles, these burn catastrophic amounts of oli. 1 liter per 1000km 😆 😆

Make sure to test hg, exhaust gasses in coolant. If that checks out immediately remove egr and dpf and have it remaped. Might get lucky and seller is wise dude and already did all that. But why sell this gem after that.

Do you mean the Is 200 first gen needs to be under 100k?

[stocknapping]

http:// https://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/gallery/image/7164-dsc-1324/?_rid=75625

Any ideas what colour code this car would be?

Thanks

[scudney]

Are you sure you have got the right link 🤔 

[stocknapping]

This link should now work.

[CazzyG]

is220d the hot sexy promiscuous girl next door with some serious health issues.

The temptation outweighs the ideal values, it's not worth the 2 min (14 min in dog years) 😂.

[J Henderson]

On 5/28/2022 at 12:58 PM, stocknapping said:

Any ideas what colour code this car would be?

Thanks

That's Kodiak Sky (code 1D2). Unique to the IS200/300 LE.

[Mangos 220d]

Hey Bud,

 

My 220d has had EGR+Cooler Delete, remap for 210bhp and full turbo back free flow @2.5in ID.

I get 45mpg combined, after dyno the engine actually made 228bhp with 351ft/lb.

It delivers the same 0-100mph time as a 125d, its reliable and economic taking into account the performance.

If you have a 220d then the above upgrades transform the car in every way, im going to install a VB15 turbo with larger compressor and install a intercooler with 50% more surface area, after another remap it should make 240-250bhp if the head departs the block then ill buy a new engine and install deeper studs and better gasket.

Its a journey to bring the power up like this but in 2 years iv had to replace 2 injectors and a fuel pump so the stories of bad engine design are not true, its the emissions abatement that kills these engines i have found the 220d engine to be very reliable.

[Linas.P]

On 5/24/2022 at 9:20 PM, J Henderson said:

Not an expert, and this is entirely anecdotal, but it seems plausible that it was fixed or made more reliable when the engine got detuned for the 200d version. So, 2010-ish.

Most problems reported on the forum are invariably for a 220d. Although there are far more of those around...

It was - what Lexus did they used more solid head gasket and detuned the engine from 179Hp to 150Hp. So indeed as far as head gasket goes it is better engine, but all the rest remains the issue - injectors, turbos, DPF, EGR, weird gearbox and DMF etc.

For OP - just avoid Lexus IS220d/200d as a plague. It is not worth it, it isn't even that much more fuel efficient unless you doing a lot of miles (I mean 20-30k a year) and those miles mostly motorway. In short IS250 in my experience (at least Auto) is ~26-48MPG, IS220d/200d is like 28-55MPG. But here is the main thing around the city you will get just under 30MPG in both and on pure motorway you get 7MPG more, but MPG is kind of funny measurement because it does not represent proportional difference. 7MPG between 13 and 20MPG is huge difference (that is 7L over 100km), but 7MPG between 48 and 55MPG is really just about 0.6L. And all that is for trouble free motoring and engine which actually sounds nice and car which is pleasure to drive.

3 hours ago, Mangos 220d said:

My 220d has had EGR+Cooler Delete, remap for 210bhp and full turbo back free flow @2.5in ID.

I get 45mpg combined, after dyno the engine actually made 228bhp with 351ft/lb.

It delivers the same 0-100mph time as a 125d, its reliable and economic taking into account the performance.

If you have a 220d then the above upgrades transform the car in every way, im going to install a VB15 turbo with larger compressor and install a intercooler with 50% more surface area, after another remap it should make 240-250bhp if the head departs the block then ill buy a new engine and install deeper studs and better gasket.

Its a journey to bring the power up like this but in 2 years iv had to replace 2 injectors and a fuel pump so the stories of bad engine design are not true, its the emissions abatement that kills these engines i have found the 220d engine to be very reliable.

Show dyno before and after or I call it BS (to be honest what am I kidding - it is BS and dynos are easy to cheat). With 210HP you would be driving with 2 spare head gaskets in the boot and will be leaving military level smokescreen everywhere.

I do partially agree that emission stuff has negative impact on reliability of these engines - that is true. But that is the problems - these nasty engines are dirty, they smoke and they pollute a lot, hence to make them acceptable on public roads they have to use loads of additional emissions controls. Removing it is illegal and I don't care how tome you feel. So yes you can simply get petrol and enjoy it or be nasty criminal polluting everyone around you - your choice. 

As well 2 injectors and fuel pump doesn't sound like mark for reliability, not to mention that without EGR delete you would have to clean it like 4 times in that period.

[Linas.P]

On 5/25/2022 at 5:14 PM, McShmoopy said:

I heard doing either an EGR or DPF delete as well as remapping the engine can help with addressing all the aforementioned concerns. 

Yeah except that is illegal... If I would be certain Jeremy Clarkson I would say "that people who do that should be taken outside and .... in front of their families". But I can't say it as I am sure ban would follow... because people are very sensible about words, but strangely are fine with illegal pollution.

On 5/28/2022 at 1:05 AM, stocknapping said:

Do you mean the Is 200 first gen needs to be under 100k?

No he means specifically IS250. But this is unfounded rumour - just ignore that, with exception of extremely neglected cars where somebody done services every 40k miles. It is not the mileage which is important, what is important is that car has service history and was serviced properly. He is talking about one single example of the car which was probably not maintained at all and which burned oil excessively after 100k miles. This is not at all the case for all IS250s, most of which by now are above 100k miles. All Lexus and Toyota models (as well as most modern petrol cars) use low tension piston rings, this can result in little bit higher oil consumption, but that is true for ALL cars. However, if car was neglected, service intervals not followed it is known that these cars can start burning oil excessively... again as ALL cars. There are dozens of IS250 owners on the forum and many of them have in excess of 100k miles and nobody had any excessive oil consumption. 1-2L between services that is completely normal, my last car is now over 200k and it was burning a little bit of oil from ~160k, but because I moved to 6k miles oil services it was not noticeable. With 10k oil service I would add ~1L towards the end, but with 6k the consumption was not enough to even bother.

[Mangos 220d]

Well the car passed its MOT with no emissions abatement, the emissions were well below that which would have caused a fail, yes the 220d is a great car to own and running 2bar of boost and 2000bar rail pressure the map makes IS250s just fade into my rear view, the torque is specifically something which surprises.

I understand the nature of those who hate on Diesels they are not the future and will never be good for our planet but this 220d is at a great place and it will be further developed.

Servicing is important mine has oil and filter every 3K but the DPF and EGR need to be addressed and based on emissions mine runs cleaner than with the DPF in place as the AF is running 25:1 and no lower than 20:1 at 2bar boost, no smoke no issues, a dirty DPF is why most Diesels smoke.

If you know the car and can engineer improvements while measuring results/emissions and performance then its a safe game to play.

What is not safe is threatening a man or his family !

[Linas.P]

33 minutes ago, Mangos 220d said:

Well the car passed its MOT with no emissions abatement

Meaningless - I have seen cars which don't even drive, have no engine inside, but have valid mot certificate. MOT proves nothing.

DERV owners always say that, yet none have ever proven that to me in practice, all very fast in comments, but in practice spend more time replacing head gaskets, DPFs and cleaning EGRs than actually driving. As well every diesel driver always claims their car don't smoke... just park it next to white wall and see what happens 😄

There is no excuse for removing mandatory emission equipment and forcing people around to drive in the cloud of your pollution and later die from cancer. Frankly following Jeremy's advise in front of the family is less cruel, then what "safe players" like you do. 

To summarise - if you can get diesel engine to work well and be reliable with everything that came with it from the factory... then great, more power to you! But it comes as a package, with DPF problems, with EGR and so on... you can't just pick what you like and let the rest to be problem for others. Yes TD engines are highly tunable and can get 30% power with simple ECU remap, but this should not come at cost of polluting around you and slowly killing other motorists and bystanders because to get there you had to remove everything that is not desirable to you and makes car unreliable. 

[Shahpor]

21 hours ago, pope111 said:

This linas goes full retard when its about is220d. IGNORE everything. Never had this car and makes out stories to prove that is250 is better 😅 What a clown 🤣 Just keep adding oil to your burning piston rings 

Given Linas and your contributions to this forum, I know which one of you I would ignore...

[scudney]

Sounds like some folks don't know when to take good advice even when its staring them in the face(always an exception to the rule though lol)

[McShmoopy]

2 hours ago, scudney said:

Sounds like some folks don't know when to take good advice even when its staring them in the face(always an exception to the rule though lol)

People are entitled to their opinions even if all the facts state otherwise, that being said the IS220d/200d isnt an awful car objectively but it is a pretty awful Lexus and falls short compared to the IS250. If your preference is to the Diesel IS then all you can hope for is largely trouble free miles but if OP wants some peace of mind I'd stick with an IS250 or go for a 3rd Gen Hybrid IS if he can swing it.