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I thought it was only the UK that came to a standstill with a millimetre of snow!

That is AWD GS, no ES in Russia.

Totally agree @peachy Final post I make on this thread but @doog442 your IS200t is far superior and faster than the 250. Happy now? 😀

Since when did value = quality? A work colleague bought a £25k new BMW last year and after 6 months of going back and forth to the dealers, BMW agreed to take the car back because they couldn't figure out how to fix the problem. If the IS250 does appear in 'shed of the week' then it is good luck for potential owners who can now pick up a great car for a bargain price.

@Linas.P it's not worth responding to his posts. Anybody can see he's just out to cause trouble. I had an intimidating personal message from this guy.

I think it is much more likely that IS-F will feature in future classics magazine rather than "shed of the week", though it is even worse for IS200t as it won't future in either - you see to at least feature in "shed of the week" car must be good value for money, which IS200t isn't and never going to be.

Are you just arguing for the sake of argument? What I said is that Lexus does cover whole range, just not in UK - the list in US is sufficient in my opinion. Yes Lexus does not offer diesels, but with current trend that is not an issue - 300h more than covers the needs of average diesel driver. Obviously, hybrid is not as good on motorways especially in EU where in most countries permitted speed is 90MPH+, but it more then covers UK with outdated 70MPH limit... What 300h loses on motorway it more then covers in the city... so whole German diesel range is covered by one car... if it would be PHEV obviously additional tax benefits etc. would be even more attractive. Now in US Lexus still have Turbo/200t which is ok for entry model kind of equivalent to BMW 318 and 320, I don't even understand what is the purpose of this minute distinction in BMW range, then they had IS250 which again pretty much covered BMW 325, 328 including "xi" as Lexus offers "awd", then there is rather bland IS300, which sits in between BMW328 and 330 and finally IS350 which is covering between BMW330 and 340. For me that is pretty much whole range covered anything I am missing? I cannot agree with second part either. IS200 and 300 were nice cars, but rather outdated in the design (engines pretty much from 80's). The cars were directly replaced by IS250 and IS350, which both were brilliant updates in any measurable way. For example IS250 was both more economical and much more powerful than IS200, much better equipped standard e.g. 13 speaker sound system, keyless entry and V6 engines were much more suited for luxury car. SE-L model was far beyond in any way then previous offering. Now I understand that maybe somebody with IS300 in UK found themselves locked similarly as I am now, but that is because Lexus replaced it with IS350, which they for some reason haven't introduced here. Even comparing IS300 vs IS250 the difference is no huge, I understand that IS300 is much lighter and being more powerful and easily modifiable it was potentially faster, though stock figures stands as 8.2s vs 8.1s (IS200 was 11.2s). Again times 0-60 doesn't mean much, but mk2 was a significant upgrade over mk1. Now you might say ... but what about IS220d, was it not meant to replace IS200... not it was desperate move only in EU to chip into German pie, which was not very successful and it was not replacement for IS200 either, because it was priced below sort of CT of the day. IS220d aside mk2 had completely new modern engine designed almost specifically for these cars, the equipment was much more comprehensive and what is important - almost all of it was included as standard. I am almost certain that was a move to introduce loss leader in US for the entry luxury market to push MB and BMW out (similarly as they did with LS back in 90's pushing S-Class out). They actually succeeded as well, because now Lexus is second by sales in entry luxury segment ahead of BMW in US, mk3 for them is time to relax a bit and recoup the lack of profit for mk2.

Very little to do with the size of car, the transmission and the driven wheels and very much to do with the tyres. My auto RWD Merc pulls 4x4 Imprezas and Freelanders up hills because it’s got the right tyres on it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It’s 100% down to the wrong tyres. You can’t beat the laws of physics. I’ve towed 4x4s up hills in a RWD auto Merc when I’ve had winter tyres on and they’ve had summer tyres. I have no idea why cars in UK are shipped with rubber specifically for use above 7 degrees when it’s below 7 degrees for 6 months of the year. They use RWD automatic cars on ice covered roads and steep inclines in Scandinavia and Canada. Buy a second set of rims and winter tyres. It’ll save you money and you wont get stuck. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I won't bore people on here to much as I've mentioned it a number of times before, but having worked as a tyre development driver for Michelin on performance fast road use of Summer and Winter tyres covering huge mileages in an assortment of vehicles, I'm a great advocate for winters and summers and trust me the benefits are huge. Buy yourself some steels or used alloys for the winters, who cares about aesthetics it's safety that's paramount You extend the life of both types by 50% if you store them correctly Winters are superior in wet conditions in 7 to 10 degree temperatures and far superior under 7 degrees Braking distances in wet and greasy conditions are far better with winters Buy your winters in the summer months, it's cheaper It is in the conditions winters were designed for they are a great contribution to road safety example...... if you leave a greater distance between you and the vehicle in front and presupposing the vehicle behind you is on summers, you can extend his breaking distance by your greater ability to stop slow And manoeuvre Replace your winters when they are approaching 5 years old irrespective of tread depth, in any event they do not function as well below 5mm All of us on here know how expensive it is to buy and run our Lexus vehicles irrespective of their age makes sense to me to go that one step further, after all the tyre is our only contact with the road surface........ and it's about the size of the palm of your hand. Big Rat

I had to rob a replacement out of my mate's IS-F when he wasn't looking :)

Yes, not a great sign. I would like to think most of us are on top of tyre wear on a 400+ bhp car. Only excuse I guess would be the the IS-F is a devil for wearing the inside edges on the front tyres.

I've just come back from collecting my son from hospital in 6-8 inches of snow. no issues and was very enjoyable in fact with winter tyres fitted. it was great moving around abandoned cars on the road. I felt safe and being a responsible driver getting my family home

All pails into significance to the cost of my E61 M5 14months ownership full Bmw service history sub 30k mikes £13.5 in repairs, you've gotta love a warranty 😇 Big Rat

Hi all. Flytvr i agree but the XK i never stopped opening my wallet the thing was eating money like no tomorrow. I had 2 previous Jaguars and they were not like that still had one once would not have one again have now turned to the oriental side 65mike.

Well guys as you may be aware there is now a lot of snow around and I can confirm that RX 450h f sport on winter tyres is absolutely fantastic. i had to collect my son from hospital this morning after his over night operation, so it was an essential test of the car. we overtook many abandoned cars on route and even managed a 40% gradient climb up a local hill. 8 inch's of snow where we are and the car never missed a beat, it felt firmly planted to the road. it was an essential trip so as far as I'm concerned well worth the investment as now know I can believe all the hype about these tyres. It was well worth it.👍🏻

Fairly snowy here. The Mrs woke me up saying "it's at least two inches". Not the first time I've heard that particular comment!

I’ll start it off. My F doesn’t like rain and snow and has (wisely) decided to hide.

Snowing outside, sat in front of the fire, I'm reading some other threads about IS-F ownership. I thought it might be helpful to post a list detailing what it really costs to run an IS-F. So, excluding brakes, tyres and fuel, feel free to share your costs in the following format - Length of ownership: Approx 18 months Repairs outside of warranty: New drivers seat due to clicking - £75 (second hand) Repairs covered by warranty: New steering rack - £3500 Total cost - £3575 Total cost to me - £75

That is how I am going to go to work tomorrow... but quite opposite from posting here, I hope nobody going to record it or furthermore post it anywhere

To be honest that AWD throw me out a bit at first, because it was clearly not acting like typical RWD car on ice (by which I obviously mean... not moving at all). I though ES for a second as that is the only FWD Lexus, but then there are few moments where all 4 wheels are clearly spinning and then few close-up shot by which time it is clear it is GS.

Well their not ISF's but still great driving on an ice rink, a free lolly to the first person to I'd the Lexus model 🤗 Big Rat

Agree on that one. If the IS350 was available in the UK I would be the first to buy one. Awesome car and very disappointed Lexus never introduced it here.

Sorry to hear that

Well, if you consider that large, then Lexus should definitely have denied my claim! Perhaps the warranty company should have a weight-in before deciding if it is the seats fault or not?

Can you lot please stop posting so quickly? My inbox can't take it! But seriously, Dav, as you know they do sometimes cover seat issues, like in my case. Having said that, from the 5 warranty claims I have made, the fact that they agreed to change my seat still staggers me to this day. My car was 9 years old and had over 130k miles on it when the claim went in, so if I was the claims assessor, I wouldn't have agreed to it! What is even more strange is that there was no visible damage to my original one. Perhaps you should have brought your car down to Lexus Reading. As the service guy told me last time, the wording on the claim form makes a big difference on whether it will be accepted or not.

13 months in and nothing lexus-made has broken (some issues related to my modifications). My first service did cost me £1000 though. Due to not knowing the exact details of previous services and 107k miles on the clock, I played it safe and did the spark plugs and gearbox fluid along with the routine items. Along with the tax, insurance and fuel economy it isn't cheap to run but I think it is definitely worth it 😎

@Flytvr Fffffffffrozen Fffffffffingers 😂 🐀

He doesn't talk to me anymore. Buggered off abroad!

It's such a good deal on the warranty, IMO it's just not worth running without it and ruining the ownership experience due to a rare issue (bad luck). For example a broken motor on the electric seat will cost you £2600, plus the cost of transferring the leather cover onto the new seat. The AA package alone must be worth close to £300 over the 2 years.

Had mine for 5 years and 24thousand miles. Didn' have a warranty. Only expense was water pump replacement other than service,tyres,brakes.

To keep it on topic, here is @Flytvr

Hi all. Flytvr tell me about it the XK cost me £1400 pounds in 10 months and still was not wright it was a money pit it had a few problems which needed money thrown at it if not then in the future so it had to go and good riddance to the thing. 65mike

18 months of ownership cost me £75 in repairs outside of warranty, If I hadn't had a warranty that would would have been £3575! Yep, to run one out of warranty, you are either - 1.Loaded 2. Very confident from a technical perspective 3. Have a s strong sense of faith 4. Mad

My first time driving a gen2 RX in the snow. Anyone else nearly bin theirs into a hedge too?

lots of snow here in Holland. and as usual the country comes to a standstill, trains get canceled, traffic moves with 15mph, traffic jam galore. How do they do that in Switzerland?

@Warrington guy Dave what’s that one then 13.5 tog 😂 🐀

I had BMW 328xi, MB350 4-matic and Passat CC after my first IS250 F-sport, the reason I am back with Lexus is that Lexus materials and build quality is almost next level, overall package is much more comprehensive - no wonder that some less knowledgeable people compared IS mk2 with BMW 5 series E60 back in the day. It went from entry model in mk1, to something above it's mark with mk2 (I guess they made it loss leader to get where they wanted in US) - so much so that it was almost challenging BMW5 back in the day, the model whole class above. It is probably me being naive and hoping that Lexus is going to continue that with mk3 i.e. underselling the packed car, so I must admit my expectation for mk3 is slightly unreasonable. I guess where my problem starts is not that it is worse than 5-Series or E-Class, but that nowadays it is clearly behind 3-Series and C-Class... I am not talking about speed, but overall package - mk2 was simply much better equipped for it's time. We would really need whole new thread to compare how mk3 went downhill after mk2 and how BMW offers better package in both standard package and available options. As for IS-F... it just makes no sense for me, first of all I would need to get rid of current IS250 for nothing. With it's current mileage my one is probably worth like £2500, whereas I know the car is in perfect shape because I had maintained it well. Secondly, I commute in the car so IS-F makes no sense what so ever and finally, I cannot keep 2 cars. In ideal word I would have like RC-F and RX450h.. or even NX300h, but neither I really need 2 cars, nor I have where to keep them. Btw parking 2x4m patch next to my apartment cost £20k... So I would need to spend IS-F or IS200t money just to have the space to park second car. In this situation the only thing which makes sense for me is GS450h, but I don't like the looks.. so it is kind of strange situation - Lexus does make the right bodies and they make the right engines, but not the right engines in the right cars.... Ideally I woudl have RC450h which would be equally fast enough on my scale and economical enough as daily, and would be single car package as I need. And finally it is not true that Lexus like Germans don't offer long list of engine options ... after launch mk3 IS was available as IS200t, IS250, IS300, IS300h and IS350... so it is only UK problem. The last car which I could swallow as daily would be RC350 - but it is not offered in UK..

Just moved house and find myself with an elderly neighbour, who just happens to have an identical Lex to mine in green/ivory. He is the sole owner from new, full LSH, 2 cambelt changes (125k miles) and zero fails indicated on the MOT site. I will ask him to let me know when he decides to sell, or is 2 Lex being greedy?

Welcome @SpeedyGee good to see a familiar name! Good luck with the Lexus search.

Erm no thanks @Rebecca I'm in no hurry to rush out and buy a milk float. 😆

New here too so welcome from one 300h owner to another. Enjoy.

Hello and welcome to the LOC. I only joined the LOC after I bought my imported LS400..... fortunately I got a good one to start with and spend more time on here giving advice than needing it but still learn something new every day..

Different people different opinions. For me lexus does not stand for high speed or brute accelleration. Not for engine noise but lack of. Not for competing with other road users but ignoring them in silence. lexus is not for everybody but for people in the know. You have to see it to recognize it. Overengineering, conservative buildquality, polarising styling and above all driving something special. A feeling a lifestyle. For me it does not matter what type of lexus people drive from 20 year old ls400 to brandnew lc we all have something in common and i find all cars just as interesting.

1st Gen RX <2003 didn't have air suspension AFAIK 2nd Gen RX 2003-2009 had air suspension but was notoriously unreliable. This was only on the RX300 and RX350. The RX400h did not have air suspension on any grade 3rd gen RX (2009-2015) had air suspension and DAB on the SE-L and facelifted Premier models. Advance and Luxury models from 2012-2015 have standard suspension. They also have DAB Word of warning though - DAB is crap - honestly, FM sounds better

All good points. FYI I drove a RWD C-Class Merc up a hill that a 4WD Disco3 with Pirelli Scorpion Summer tyres on couldn't get up. The disco got so far up then the 4x4 system shat itself. After sitting stationary with the handbrake on for a few seconds it actually started sliding down down the hill. Albeit these were extreme conditions but it showed that even 4WD and Land Rover off road gubbins is useless when your rubber is rock hard the laws of physics come into play. Plenty options that make running summer and winter sets cheaper than using summer all year round (see my previous post).

I'm a massive fan of winter tyres and living in a hilly part of the midlands I see them as essential in colder months. I leave early and come back late at the coldest times of the day and the temps are often 7 or below, however I use them on my LS400 but my wife with her RX450h is not interested in the perceived expense or hassle of swapping her wheels. I love the way the LS stops on snow/ice, it is more efficient/safe than anything on summer tyres. However, even in the worst of the snow/ice the RX has never got stuck and I have deliberately taken it out to test it alongside the winter tyred LS to see if I could get it stuck! I store my other wheels free of charge at my local tyre garage and they swap them over for nothing and in return I buy my tyres from them. I do love winter tyres and if I ran an RX myself I would think about getting them but not sure I would be anywhere near as bothered as I am about the LS in seeing them as a 'must have'. As rayanns said, extra care and attention combined with 4WD might do the trick for most but equally I would not blame anyone for going down the winter tyre route as circumstances may dictate this is the best course of action for you.

It shouldn't be hard to find rims to fit. I got a pair of diamond cut Kia rims for my Infiniti which will also fit my RX. Only problem is centre bore is a bit bigger on Kia rims so I'd should really use spigot rings which I'm not a big fan of. Most jap fitment wheels will fit. Strangely, from memory so I might be wrong, some other Lexus rims won't fit the RX, e.g. IS.

Bear in mind tread goes 8mm-1.6mm so you can take off 13mm ride height just taking your tyres to the legal limit. I’ll probably use non standard tyre sizes on my 2RX simply because the rims and tyres were bought for another car which was rejected and they’re close enough for me not to be concerned. I’ll try sticking them on gumtree and use the proceeds to get genuine Lexus rims with proper sized tyres but if there’s no interest I’ll just use them on the 2RX. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm not disagreeing, just making a couple of points. The average annual temperature in the UK is 8.5-11 degrees. The average temp is below 7 degrees everywhere in the UK in winter. So, based on that, pretty much everyone benefits from winter tyres. The experience of negative road holding in summer on winter tyres is an order of magnitude less of an issue than the road holding of summer tyres in winter. So based on that winter tyres all year round is better than summer tyres all year round. Adverse handling of winter tyres in summer would only be experienced if you were making serious progress anyway. I've used winter tyres all year round on a C-class and a V6 Touareg and noticed no difference in wear rates or fuel consumption. I get the same range out tank regardless of what tyres are on them. I was really surprised at the wear rates I got from winters in summer. I haven't done the maths but I'd say the cost of alleged increased fuel consumption would easily be offset by the fact good winter tyres are generally cheaper and certainly by the cost & inconvenience of getting stuck or having a bump or kerbing a rim. All seasons are a compromise in both winter and summer. It's better than using winter tyres in summer and better than summer tyres in winter, but it's also not as good as summer rubber in summer and winter rubber in winter. Best bet is two sets of wheels and tyres if you have space to store them. Winter rubber all year is easily a better idea than summer rubber all year. All seasons are a good idea if you can't have two sets or if you can avoid the more extreme winter conditions. Given that I live at the bottom of a hill in central Scotland and have two kids with underlying health issues we'd choose winter all year over all seasons.