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New Year Wishes: health and happiness.

I’d rather servicing costs are lowered and we keep reliable vehicles that are serviced at least once a year.

Wishing you a happy and healthy new year Bernard and to all our other forum members. hope you are all ok.

I'm really looking forward to getting back out on my bike with the Cheam & Morden cycling club. It's been a good number of weeks now since I went, the bike has had a £300 service in the meantime (needed a bunch of stuff) and I have some nice new warm winter cycling clothes. Cycling is a great activity. It's unfortunately sometimes let down by the bad cyclists who sail through red lights and generally behave badly, but that's really just humans in general and motorists aren't any better.

Too early to have done much today, but yesterday I taxed the fresly MoTed LS400 and started driving it again. I doubt the £50 of V-Power I put in will last me long, but it's great to be behind the wheel of it again not just looking at it on the driveway. Now to start on the list of things it needs to keep it going as longer-term proposition.....

Managed to replace the side repeater without a hitch, working slowly with plastic trim tools I already had. Re-attaching the upper cover took the longest time. More of a sliding into position from the bottom and then pressing rather than a straight on push. Gave me a satisfying sense of achievement and saved me almost £50 from lexus! Many thanks to the valuable input from Colin & Peter.

Autoglym hand polished , then a coat of harly carnuba wax ! 3 hours worth looks clean for a day before rain comes back FullSizeRender.MOV

Motorists aren't any better at what may I ask? Sailing through red lights, riding on footpaths, impeding the progress of other road users, imperious to horses and pedestrians, going as fast as possible through rural villages, going two or three abreast worst of all shouting to one another as they go along 🤯😎

So far I don’t think anyone has mentioned that the IS is rear wheel drive and the ES front wheel drive. But don’t let that put you off the IS I have never managed to loosed the back end even on snow. With its 50/50 weight distribution it performs well in slippery conditions. I have not driven an ES so cant offer an opinion on that. My other comment, the Top spec IS with Mark Levinson will have bigger wheels that will make the ride harder. Good luck in your search, either will be a great car.

Congratulations Ian, satisfying to read as well as your own sense of satisfaction, and an encouragement to have a go at jobs that at first seem impossible - until you get the info from Colin and others 🙂 Embodies all that is good about these forums.

Most of Europe runs cars on E85, I am not saying ethanol does not have any effect (positive or negative), but it cannot be that great. If 17 times greater ethanol content does not kill IS250 then I don't really see why 2 times higher content would. It is well known (be it somewhat rumoured) that one should not leave ethanol in the tank for long time (that is E85), again how long it is somewhat debated, depends how full the tank is how much oxygen actually gets into the tanks, how cold/warm/humid it is, but consensus is that over the time ethanol will absorb some water. How much is again debatable, but any water in fuel is not good. So his is the argument about corrosion, basically some components may be fine in petrol, but may rust in water. Some argues that somehow ethanol pulls water out of seals ant thus dries them out and makes them brittle, but unless we talking about vintage cars and natural rubber seals I can't see this being the case either. As I said in the past I have run IS250 on E85 for thousands of miles (I think good guess would be 40k) and nothing has happened to it, now sure I have not disassembled fuel system before and after to confirm and inspect, so it is only anecdotal evidence, but even if there was undue wear we talking micrometres. So if that is anything to go by, then 8.5 times less concentration of ethanol should be fine for over 320k miles. That is not to say ethanol is better for cars or that anyone should ignore the manufacturer recommendations like I did and use ethanol, but the panic is unwarranted. And... importantly when it comes to additives I just kind of doesn't make sense additive can isolate all components from ethanol and make it safe to use. There are "conditioners" for diesel and petrol as well, which works in similar way and extends life of fuel already in the tank, but that should not be needed if the tanks is used at least in 3-6 months. As for Redex in particular and IS250. The key issues is that 4GR-FSE has only direct injection, so 80% of what fuel additives could do automatically does not apply, because fuel never touches injectors or intake manifold and thus can't clean anything. The only thing it could do it to clean injectors, but the fuel itself should be cleaning them (ethanol is actually good way to clean injectors)... so despite using redex in the past I honestly cannot justify any reason to have it in the tank on IS250 in particular.

Dont worry if the firing squad is all female i am sure a fight will break out between them giving you two the opportunity to sneak out!

I second that Bill. Happy New Year everyone one.

The way things have gone over the last year or so I think I'd settle for a year when nothing else goes wrong 🙂

My guess would be that there's a good chance that this technique results in the parking pawl sometimes not engaging with the parking gear. I don't suppose this matters as the parking brake is holding the car but here's a video that shows the parking pawl and parking gear in a similar Toyota transmission. From this you can see that sometimes the parking pawl may not slip into a slot in the parking gear. This is the Prius P410 transaxle, whereas the IS300h has the L210 transmission, which is pretty similar but designed for rear wheel drive rather than front wheel drive. If you look at the video you can see that the parking pawl won't necessarily fit into a slot on the parking gear unless it turns a fraction to line up the pawl with the slot. This movement is what causes the jolt you sometimes feel when it engages. It probably doesn't matter whether it engages or not because if the parking brake were to fail, the parking pawl would still slide into the next slot of the parking gear before the car had a chance to move more than a fraction. And for normal use, if the brakes are holding the car whenever Drive is selected, it will never be obvious whether the parking pawl was engaged or not.

A few more pics, trim tools came in handy, lock nuts added to prevent the nuts coming loose again

I've read accounts ( on the US forum) of folk attempting a lens change and I don’t think it ended too well. I recall some having to resort to putting the whole unit into a oven to melt the sealant in order to get the old lens off, or trying to use a heat gun on the seam. It’s pretty easy to see what can happen to the main body as a result of this. Bear in mind you are needing to remove the front bumper in order to get the headlight unit out…. that’s a bit of a pig of a job. I would go the sanding route and uv sealant. I’ve done it twice in the last 6 years on my HID unit lenses. Last time was about 2 years ago and they still look perfect. I also give them a good waxing twice a year. I used the Holts Restoration Kit. I don’t think it’s a Halogen or HID issue … it’s just degradation of polycarbonate as has been said above. I see it starting to appear on the top edge of the lens on my wife’s Mx5, and they are Halogen.

I have a non AVS car (poverty spec haha), the ride is still phenomenal 🙂

I think they also said "sprocket", which I think might be the cassette, either that or it's just bike shop word for "we added £50 to your bill sir"

Nice to have a good neighbour and friend Ant.👍 You're not alone Malc, the portrait filming caught me out too......at first.😊 Sussex is just a big flood plain at the moment. I took my SC out of hibernation and into the pouring rain for its MOT and service just before Christmas. A lowered SC is not the best vehicle for deep puddles and fords but it copes well enough in the rain. I have some winters for it but can't be bothered to swap them over. 161k miles and no advisories but it does need a little more minor cosmetic surgery so it's gone back to the garage for more paint. I really don't need it, I'm ashamed to say the SC has only done 5k miles in the last 2 years.

Sure, pick all the bad things you've ever seen a cyclist do and tar them all with the same brush. I could do the same with motorists but it's not productive. Most of the cyclists you've seen doing something silly probably own cars.

Presumably, as an EV owner you need one of these impediments to progress in order to avoid the 3 hour, waiting to charge queues? 😁

I've bought it one from Ebay,35£.use just the cable and do a download from internet,just tap which version you want

It's a bit more complicated, OBDII is a generic term for the connector, not the car interface. You need a "Mini VCI" cable, with drivers that are compatible with your version of windows. Some sellers on ebay will bundle cracked versions of Techstream with the cable but I wouldn't recommend using those.

Yes pal,just connect with the cable straight on OBD reader.And take care from where you fill up fuel,i forgot Shell or BP,only Tesco-Esso 99 Momentum

A Mini-VCI cable and Techstream will give you the best interface (equivalent to a Toyota main dealer). I think you can buy licenses to use it for a single day for not much money.

the blessings are that the number of cyclists will reduce simply from inextricable mangleation of their cycles 🤣 Malc

woops, just realised my screen got stuck a little . sorry Mlc

Update. After much searching I managed to find the wipers that were on the car from new. They are Denso Hybrid wipers and are an exact match to the originals, far superior to what is being supplied as a Lexus replacement. I bought them from Euro Carparts and for anyone who is interested the 26" is part number 485778266 £15.49 and the 18" is part number 485778186 £11.49. They wipe great and are quiet.

I forgotten how to use internet without ad-blocker... so sadly don't know adds on this site (or any ads to be fair). But where I am leading to - get ad-blocker and you will never look back!

We'd die of old age whilst they were picking out the right colour bullets 🙂 Now I'm really done for 🙂

Thats a very good point you raised about the larger wheels. My IS has 18 inch f sport wheels and they're noticeably harsh. That section on the M25 which is concrete is just too loud and jarring to drive on.

Could be a vacuum leak somewhere, check the oil filler cap is tightly sealed and all hose clamps etc.

Regardless of what is the norm for other countries, in the UK you will not get a puncture repaired once a sealant has been used to repair the tyre. So be prepared to add that to your running costs and avoid building sites like the plague. Believe me I really tried, when told a near new tyre costing close to £300 fitted needed replacing because of using the gunk (junk) kit. Of course it's Murphy's law, and since I invested in a spare wheel I have never had another puncture. 😄

i was wondering who Betsy was until i saw your signature LOL... you have driven quite a few lexus cars what i find with the cars you hardly see them on the road

Are you referring to Google Maps via Android Auto? If so, then an impending update to the Android Auto user interface (codenamed "Coolwalk") allows for Google Maps to run full screen. I have it working on my 2022 NX (I am part of the Android Auto beta program so have Coolwalk enabled already). Hopefully Google will make it available to all users some time soon.

Betsy has the concierge option.

I used to have the 'two shots of Redex upper cylinder lubricant' many years ago but oils have improved greatly since then. Some people also used a very high proportion of Redex as a way of decoking vehicles. However, with catalytic converters, I understood the idea was to stop oil and crude passing through the converters to maintain efficiency. As regards E10, there is a lot of information on how it adversely affects, gaskets, and seals and eats its way through rubber and has other downside effects. The effect is magnified with the changed ratio of ethanol. The presumption that E5 didn't do any harm is incorrect. This was established when motor cyclists who had fiberglass petrol tanks were finding that they were delaminating. Doubling the amount of ethanol in the mixture means it is not advisable to use in many older cars and there is some opinion that it may, albeit more slowly, detrimentally affect later cars.

Just wanted to thank you for posting this guide. I have just used it to fix a a very loud rattle on the passenger headrest of my GS250, it turned out both nuts had detached and where rattling around inside the headrest. My question is now it is all back together properly how does the forward/backward adjustment mechanism actually work? The Headrest goes up and down but Im currently not sure how to adjust it any other way and the owners manual isn't clear. Mine is a 2013 F-Sport with the 15 way seats. Thanks.

Hi Random and welcome to the LOC. Bear in mind these cars have Climate Control and being computer controlled the blower will not operate until the engine has warmed up if the selected cabin temperature is above ambient temperature to avoid blowing cold air into a cold cabin. Did you leave the car running long enough for the coolant to warm up to the normal level on the gauge?

Not too distant from Epicurus’ belief that happiness lies in the absence of pain. Or something like that. Not sure he made any distinction between women and men in this regard, though. Perhaps Phil can enlighten us.

That's for the diagrams. Just had a go at lying on my back in the footwell to find that rely box no. 1 and it's hiding. I'll try in the morning when there's light and hopefully no rain. I wish car makers would insist on hiding fuses and relays above footwells. It's just rude.

There's a few French emissions zones Malcolm, and one or two in Germany. I actually think their approach is fairer, or at least more honest/transparent when it comes to making it about emissions. If you're not compliant you can't enter, but if you are you can, and only need to display a sticker, which is only 3 or 4 euros. Here though, you can drive as much as you like in a congestion/low emissions zone, compliant or not, as long as you pay a daily fee, which makes it more about revenue than emissions control. Regardless of the rights or wrongs of either, the former at least seems to be directed towards the stated goals,, and not simply an opportunity for a cash grab.

I wholeheartedly agree with all of those sentiments Bernard, especially the Putin ones! Can I also add: End to all strike action with a reasonable solution. Cost of living back to manageable levels (good levels would be a stretch too far I think!). Lexus to change their minds and decide to bring the new IS to the UK. Happy New Year to you all and fingers crossed for a better 2023!

Never ever heard a squeak from the proper Denso ones (blue packaging) as sold by Eurocarparts.

I hate rattle noises from cars. I have sold a couple of cars because of rattles that I couldn't find / repair.

Dirt doesn't harm the car. Cleaning it can ..

Roads around here are gritted every night, so washing the car would be a waste of time. Also don't want to risk my pressure washer getting wrecked with water freezing inside it.

These may help:

Presumably joining the Cats Protection League isn't going to help!