No SE-L in Australia

[markeyszoo]

Was looking at Autotrader in Australia to compare prices with here and yes I do have too much free time,

The car I was looking for was a 2009 SE-L but it seems that that lineup was not sold there. 

None have memory seats nor ML system and mostly cloth seats.

They have manuals that are much cheaper than autos.

 

IS250 Sports Luxury	2.5L,  6 SP SEQ AUTO	$11,800 – 17,270
IS250C Prestige	2.5L,  6 SP AUTO	$16,400 – 22,880
IS250 Sports	2.5L,  6 SP MAN	$10,600 – 15,510
IS250 Prestige	2.5L,  6 SP MAN	$9,100 – 13,750

[Mr Vlad]

No but they have a lot of is350's lucky gits.

[Linas.P]

Yes that is same in US - Luxury > Sport > Premium/Premier (instead of SE-L). SE is pretty much UK thing for some reason, just don't know. SE stands for Special Equipment and should symbolise high trim level, but in fact SE is most basic level available (at least for mk2).

On 6/22/2022 at 5:48 PM, Mr Vlad said:

No but they have a lot of is350's lucky gits.

Yeah everyone got it, expect Europe... really silly how they decided not to bring it here. 

[H3XME]

On 6/23/2022 at 6:45 PM, Linas.P said:

 SE stands for Special Equipment 

More like Sh1tty Edition in this case 🤣

[ColinBarber]

On 6/23/2022 at 6:45 PM, Linas.P said:

SE stands for Special Equipment and should symbolise high trim level, but in fact SE is most basic level available (at least for mk2).

Special Equipment or Sports Edition are the two common meaning but I don't believe Lexus GB has ever stating their official meaning.

The SE isn't the basic grade, that was the IS250 (without any suffix). IS250, IS250 SE, IS250 SE-L etc.

 

On 6/22/2022 at 4:27 PM, markeyszoo said:

The car I was looking for was a 2009 SE-L but it seems that that lineup was not sold there. 

You would need to look for the Sports Luxury model to be comparable.

Be careful as there are JDM imports on the market which may be of lower spec.

[Linas.P]

51 minutes ago, ColinBarber said:

Special Equipment or Sports Edition are the two common meaning but I don't believe Lexus GB has ever stating their official meaning.

The SE isn't the basic grade, that was the IS250 (without any suffix). IS250, IS250 SE, IS250 SE-L etc.

I think they have said SE meant "special equipment" for mk1, which was one of better trims, so I assume the same is true for mk2? But you right - they have never specified that for mk2 and on mk2 it suddenly became second worst trim.

No suffix was certainly the case for mk3 (being the lowest possible grade), now that you said it I may remember that being the case on mk2 as well, but they are extremely rare. As for AU I thought SE-L equivalent is "Prestige"?

[eleveneleven]

@markeyszoo How much are 350's going for where you are? 

[Linas.P]

There are like 2 or 3 in UK and as said they are for sale for like £7-8k.

[ColinBarber]

3 hours ago, Linas.P said:

As for AU I thought SE-L equivalent is "Prestige"?

You would think so but that was actually the bottom grade: Prestige (UK SE) > Sport (UK Sport) > Sport Luxury (UK SE-L), and then later the X came in (which was a bit like our SR grade).

[H3XME]

16 hours ago, ColinBarber said:

You would think so but that was actually the bottom grade: Prestige (UK SE) > Sport (UK Sport) > Sport Luxury (UK SE-L), and then later the X came in (which was a bit like our SR grade).

Wasn't the SR grade in the UK basic though? Cloth seats, no touch screen, no heated bums, only lip kit and manual gearbox, no? I was looking at them before bought mine, but other than the slight exterior differences.

[markeyszoo]

20 hours ago, Linas.P said:

I think they have said SE meant "special equipment" for mk1, which was one of better trims, so I assume the same is true for mk2? But you right - they have never specified that for mk2 and on mk2 it suddenly became second worst trim.

No suffix was certainly the case for mk3 (being the lowest possible grade), now that you said it I may remember that being the case on mk2 as well, but they are extremely rare. As for AU I thought SE-L equivalent is "Prestige"?

Prestige has often no leather seats, no ML , no rear blind, no self levelling lights and is not equal to SE-L.

[ColinBarber]

7 hours ago, H3XME said:

Wasn't the SR grade in the UK basic though? Cloth seats, no touch screen, no heated bums, only lip kit and manual gearbox, no? I was looking at them before bought mine, but other than the slight exterior differences.

It's not exactly the same but was a special edition that came along later.

The SR in the UK was based on the base grade with a body kit but I believe it did have heated seats as standard and auto box / ML stereo and Nav / 18" alloys were all options, so you can get a nice SR - but you have to be lucky to find the right one. 

[Linas.P]

7 minutes ago, ColinBarber said:

It's not exactly the same but was a special edition that came along later.

The SR in the UK was based on the base grade with a body kit but I believe it did have heated seats as standard and auto box / ML stereo and Nav / 18" alloys were all options, so you can get a nice SR - but you have to be lucky to find the right one. 

The big issue for me was that you could not get SR with leather at all (kind of weird decision as many Lexus decisions about arbitrary options restrictions).

[H3XME]

6 hours ago, Linas.P said:

The big issue for me was that you could not get SR with leather at all (kind of weird decision as many Lexus decisions about arbitrary options restrictions).

tbh, if it's a "sporty" version, the cloth seats work better. This is why I went for the half leather 3IS seats. You just slide around too much on leather, but the cloth seats in 2IS look really poor. 

[Linas.P]

Don't have that issue mate 🙂

For me leather is must and it is kind of funny to think about IS250 as a "sporty" car. I am not saying it can't be turned into one after stripping 400kg of insulation and stuff, but in the factory form it just isn't. And I agree with your suggestion - most likely they decided it is "sporty" to have cloth (even if car was anything but), although my argument would be that they should have had half-alcantara seats like in F-Sport, I hate alcantara, but at least it looks presentable. Whereas standard SR seats just looks so nasty.