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just seen a great vid of an isf on the ring, the driver comments its faster than a M5 around there! Search for Lexus isf , Dale Lomas....

Welcome back ;)

Here you go chap.

I travel a lot of country roads - mainly to work and back ... I have found mine (a 250) sticks to the road when using the paddles around the twists and turns - does the F feel as planted? The only thing about the country roads, especially after it has rained is that you constantly need to clean the car !!

That will be me. I have friends that live there :)

Precisely. Just means you have a smaller audience than you would for a stock version. Whilst I agree modifications can be to an individuals taste, some enhancements/improvements will be recognised by people as beneficial to the cars performance, looks, handling etc. You can't say a modified car won't be worth more than a stock version. If the modifications in questions are done tastefully and at considerable cost, there is no way the owner would swallow a huge loss to sell their car. I'm fully aware I wouldn't make back all the money I have spent on my car if I ever do decide to sell it. Thank you Keith for the kind words. At the end of the day I am extremely pleased with how the car now looks and sounds. Next up will be improving the handling. You also need to appreciate that once this car has been featured in one of the Japanese performance magazines, it does add something to the value. Remember not that many people really know about the IS-F. Hopefully I will help open their eyes to the amazing potential these cars offer for those who need a degree of practicality, whilst still retaining plenty of performance and good looks.

I will give the new presenters a fair chance, no trio is going to be the same as the original, but why they have a to have a female, just for the sake of it is political correctness gone mad. Certainly not Jodie Kidd, just coz she likes fast cars is no reason, would rather have Julie Walters, at least she has a sense of humour. If the show ends up being naff, then one less program to bother about.

Agree on the question of tyres, I have found cheap tyres on the LS can be quiet, but the grip tends to be an issue. Road surface also makes a huge difference, especially on concrete surfaces, where I have found continentals to be better. Have found the falkens the best all rounder, and improve tramlining I have had with other tyres, and the continentals are far worse for tramlining. So it is going to be a compromise given the variability of UK roads.

Had a few comment about where to buy the body kit and exhaust for their 250! Even some Lexus owners don't have a clue what the ISF is :)

I'd say March or September, that's certainly when dealers are at their busiest.

Hi, Playing devils advocate again, the cambelt was changed way too late at 120,000 miles, should have been 100,000. Not necessarily an issue but indicative of how the car was maintained, will bet next months wages that servicing at that time was not by Lexus as anyone willing to pay Lexus prices would not skimp on leaving cambelt change. I suspect that documentation will show an ownership change around the 90-100k miles. If car was sold by a garage at that time they probably arranged the cambelt change to be able to sell the car. Bills would be something that would be handy to see to check what has been done ove rhte years. The boot seals and struts as you say should be an inexpensive fix. The cambelt and aircon are unlikely to be, you could end up investing 50% of your purchase price again on cambelt alone so be prepared for that. I would suspect that for the money you are budgeting there will be better examples available. The problem is that an LS400 even after 200,000 miles is still a better car than most anything else on the road within equivalent price bracket and if you havent experienced them before for comparison it is easy to be overwhelmed by the spec, quality and comfort and therefore overlook the negatives. For what you are paying they are one hell of a car and if you are happy to risk the potential bills associated with a high mileage car then you are unlikely to find a better car for your money so long as you get a good one. Gut feeling on this one is I would be walking away with the aircon and cambelt issues alone but thats just me. As mentioned before I dont like high mileage cars whatever the make but I like to keep my cars as close to showroom as possible and that just isnt possible when someone else has done 200,000 miles in it so I am probably more sceptical, picky and paranoid than most. Perhaps someone with a 400 with equivalent miles could give you a better insight as my 98 mk 4 has only done 55k. To reiterate, the 400 is an easy car to fall in love with just dont let your heart rule your head, £1600 isnt a lot of money for a car but if it's all you have got then its a lot to lose and if for whatever reason you have to try to sell it on needing a cambelt and with no working aircon no-one is going to give you anything like the amount you are being asked to pay for this one. With that mileage and the issues you are already aware of I would say its maybe worth 50% of the current asking price on a good day. Have a shop around to see what other examples are available there are good ones out there and the right one is worth waiting for. Just so you know, there is probably no-one worse than me for being "I want one and I want it now" so understand the temptations but I have always ended up regreting those hasty decisions and literaly lost tnousands as a result so now tend to over compensate. Whatever you decide to do I hope you get sorted and enjoy what is still one of the best cars ever produced.

Yeah, I think the Lexus Achilles heal is the wrong tyre choice. It can make such a huge difference. And seems to effect the whole range. Sometimes I think noise perception is misleading as the better sound proofed the car becomes the more you notice road noise, e.g bad road surface transmitted through the tyres which is probably the single hardest factor to resolve as there are so many tyre possibilities to fit. I have tried most brands and there performance seems to vary depending on the road surface type so in honesty I'm not sure what the best tyre is. I had several bmw's and although not noisy cars the general noises were higher which seemed to reduce one particular noise trait over another, so although if measured with a decibel meter would most likely be higher than the Lexus the perception of noise seemed often less. It's a difficult one to gauge. Catl

900,000+ miles? Who'd care? In fact, Guiness Book of Records......

................. joyriders !!! Malc

Replaced my water pump today on my gs450h luckily I am able to carry out these repairs myself but any reputable garage will be able to carry out this repair a lot cheaper than the agent