Silver Arrow

Legally you can have the car serviced anywhere as long as they use OEM parts and done to manufacturers schedules - that is the law - and the manufacturer has to honour the warranty.

It doesn't mean however, that you can just do it yourself. It's best to have it done at a garage that is officially registered somehow - and so a Toyota dealer should be just fine.

Whether 1) you decide to take the chance and 2) £000's aren't wiped off the cars value at PEX is another thing of course; So even tho' the law states you can do it, manufacturers act like a cartel to protect their own interests and profit - so heed with caution.

Absolutely agree Colin, but it looks as though Lexus favour the Atkinson Cycle engines, and I believe the only 6 Cyl one is the one from 450h, which I believe is now quite an old design. So it will be interesting to see what happens. Hopefully they'll be working on a new even more efficient V6 Atkinson, with plug-in, better batteries and a greater range.

There are some Youtube vid's on IS350's in the 'states showing the rattle on startup. These ones are very short duration - like 2-3s, but I have heard some VAG engines doing this for a bit longer. Very un-nerving.

The way they sort it on them is by replacing the cam adjusters, timing chain adjusters and in some cases the whole timing chain! I believe VAG have TSB's (bulletins) on this.

The one on that video from Tim Roberts sounds like a terminal case of Piston Slap....actually sounds more like big ends gone, though our old Toyota Corona used to sound like that, and we found it to be the Exhaust Manifold gaskets.

Is that all? They must all be demo's then other than mine, assuming that each dealership got one or 2 on the roads when launched.

Having had mine for a few weeks, I can see why not a lot of people have bought one...although it's a lovely car it just doesn't stack up financially at all. Servicing plan is about £300 per year - fuel economy around town is at best low 20's, on a run at best mid 30's driven normally (which really plummets when you hit traffic), road tax is £270 p/a (£600 for the first year), and finally the depreciation will be dreadful. The biggest problem is that the car has next to no torque - so it just drops a cog each time you breath near the pedal.

So for a company owner it makes it very very hard to justify. For private people who do less than 10k p/a on the other hand it's OK - provided you buy it and keep it beyond 5 years. Else it becomes an expensive way to motor. The hybrid for the smaller engine next year should be better unless they decide to plonk that engine in from the CT which is not a good advert for refined motoring!!

I sort of knew this when we bought ours -so I'm OK about it. But the good news is that there will never be enough of the around -and so I am hopeful that as 2nd hand cars residuals will be OK - there will always be a loyal Lexus following from disenchanted drivers of cars with German origins - !!

So all in all I would say get the 450h. The 250 is good, and you then have to question whether the £10k premium for the current hybrid is worth it.

That will probably be the cam adjusters then - the diesel like rattle on startup for a few seconds (rarely up to 30s) which stops abruptly. Akin to someone holding a card board tube against the spokes of a spinning bicycle wheel. This can and does happen on the IS250, especially the earlier ones, but it can happen not only on cold but warm engines too.

That is different to piston slap, which I understood afflicts a a lot of cars. Our VW Golf Mk6 suffers from this horrendously, but I have heard the courtesy cars doing the same. Piston slap is a duller tappety noise, almost like big ends being worn, but only happens when the engine is cold. It doesn't stop abruptly, but gently quietens down over a period of 10seconds or so as the oil rushes in and provides some cushioning.

Saw one finally today, A14, west bound at about 0830....I was eastbound....between Huntingdon and Cambridge

For those who are interested, I tried driving like miss Daisy in ECO mode today, on a motorway for 22 miles. Admittedly I reset the Trip when I decided to do it and was doing about 60.

The result was staggering, considering I did the same thing in my IS220d 6 years ago, when it had 5000 miles on the clock (the GS has 1000).

I managed 51.3mpg according to the trip computer in the 2.5v6 Auto GS250....and only 49.6 in the IS220d 6 speed manual....

Now I appreciate the road conditions allowed me to do it, but the speed was 60mph, with Cruise Control activated on both tests, without any interruption.

The big difference is that with the GS, it plummeted when I hit traffic, and within 5 miles of town speed driving it was showing 36.8mpg. That's still amazing!

I did read it....25000 a year = 5 services in 2 years.

BMW Condition Based Servicing on a high miler will mean 2 services over 50,000 miles. Audi have their Long Life schedule too....The more longer journeys you do, the less frequently the car needs servicing.

There is no real evidence from my experiences to suggest it's bad for an engine either - engines haven't changed much, but oil is 10X better than 20 years ago. It's shame Lexus haven't done something about it as bringing ownership costs down can only be a good thing!!

I cannot believe how dear Lexus are to maintain....compared to any of it's competition....£1400 over 5 years? WOW! My last BMW only cost £435 over 4 years and ran as sweet as a nut!

The dealership didn't have a servicing price for the new GS...

You hear loads of horror anecdote about long life servicing, but in reality the german diesels are no more likely to wear quicker than the Lexus diesels.

496 miles, mostly motorway, running at legal limits, 36.7mpg at pumps

Refinement great except on rough motorway and concrete sections - otherwise pin drop silent!! Totally comfortable after 5 straight hours too. Well chuffed!

Dealers still can't tell me what speed and load ratings are recommended. Want to get a set before the price goes up.....anyone else know??

Neither had a lot of space, both similar for rear leg room.

Sounds like a stunning deal!

I was halfish expecting someone else to have bought one....seems I'm the only one with the GS250 in the UK on this forum....

Guys - you really don't know what you're missing!!! lol

I still haven't seen a single one on the roads. Come to think of it, my garage are very "green" on what the car can do. They claim to have sold a few, but I doubt it. Think mine is the first in the UK....wow....either I'm daft, or tooooo clever! lol The others that people have seen must be demo's or Lexus' own company cars

To the OP - did you ever buy one?

The other thing I have noticed is that there are NO rattles at all in this new GS - seems that much better construction practices are in place.

The new GS250 is the same - driven gently the gears change in very quick succession between 1300-1900 rpm, and you can genuinely keep it below 2000 rpm at all legal UK speeds without driving miss daisy around, and average real world of 37-40 on a run!

If it had 8 speeds and start stop I'm sure the CO2 would have been much lower - may be down to 175!

Save your money - seriously!! DIY is a doddle and if you can wash a car, paint a wall, use a screwdriver then you are over-qualified and you can detail yourself. Buy a good kit for £30-50 and you'll be able to do loads of cars.

Probably true over all - the Bridgestones may have been the culprits. My IS220d was one of the first and plagued with issues. Most of the issues remained throughout it's life-cycle judging by the posts on here - so I was worried about buying a "fresh" model with the potential for teething issues.

So far I've only found a couple of issues - and neither are about build quality at all.....so it seems that Lexus isn't falling into the mire that LED to MB falling behind - thank god!

This new GS seems better built than any Lexus I've ever driven or been in before. Not a rattle or squeak in mine anywhere - what amazes me is just how few there are about still.

I hope they learnt from the issues of the current IS when designing the new one. A hybrid is a good idea, to a point, as long as it comes well priced. The new GS Hybrids start at £45k....ouch....

My IS220d had Bridgestone Potenza's on it RE050 I think. They were intermittently noisy - really noisy on grained concrete/tarmac - really quiet on billiard tabld smooth new tarmac.....Jekyl and Hyde. May be it was the early cars that were afflicted, but I have never driven a "luxury" marque that had so much road noise...

Driven on the same roads in other cars and it's like day and night. Nothing came so close.

I bought a random orbital one for £14 from Makro...it works fine....but only after I got a good 10" microfibre pad for it (elasticated). Works superbly....Just done my new motor (Carlack68 - Klasse_ Sealant glaze (which is a pig to remove)) and managed it within one hour!!

Then applied 2 coats of P21S pure Carnuba (24 hours apart) and the car looks amazing!

I think the governments tax policy on company cars will mean not many sell. I reckon now mine must have been the first my dealership sold....

Does make you wonder if you've made a mistake lol

Hopefully there won't be a massive number hitting the streets in September - I like the exclusivity....

All cars have good and bad - just seems like the mags, who have a huge amount of leverage in persuading people, concentrate on the pro's of german cars and the con's of Japanese cars. For example - the ride in any BMW currently available new is really atrocious. The steering has a lack of feel, the options are expensive etc. Mercedes have dour interiors and very bad quality - the interior is really dreadful - yet they will always beat a Lexus in a road test even though the Lexus rides and handles better - especially the new GS.

The current IS is only a good car if it's the 250 Auto. Even then it's small boot and pretty hard ride, tiny rear leg space etc are no where near as good as any of the competition - who also happen to be a lot newer in design now (A4=2008, C Class=2008, BMW3=2012).

Lexus's biggest problem however is the emissions thing - that's what stops it dominating the sales. Then you add a lack of an Auto Diesel, and all of a sudden no one wants one.

The New GS250 is a terrific car for 100% of anyone who buys the car with their own money, but over 90% of these cars are bought as company cars, and it just doesn't stack up. The 450h is terrific, but all the comparison reviews just state it's average.

These things don't help - but it means we have great, rare cars!!

Only mine (GS250) on the roads I reckon - anyone else got one yet, or ordered one?

My jaunt across to BMW was a useful tool.

This current Gen IS was a lovely looking and wonderfully packaged car when it was launched, but Lexus I believe tried too hard to make it the most powerful, the most economical, and most refined car in it's class. They forgot that you can't just shoe-horn a Toyota D4D diesel engine into a car and make it good....so they ended up with a car with compromises in final drive, gearing, refinement and economy - all culminating in poorer reliability for this marque overall. The vibrating rear view mirror, very narrow power band, massive turbo lag/flat spot, the useless 6th speed/final drive ratio, lack of an Auto all made it compromised. Overall I think it was a good car spoilt by a lack of foresight and understanding what the competition was actually doing.

The early Sport was better to drive because it had a better final drive, but even then, no Auto, a notchy gear change and a narrow power band made it awkward to drive quickly and economically.

While the IS is a good car, it was fundamentally flawed as a diesel. They really should have designed it with a new bespoke engine and gearbox. They couldn't make a Hybrid I suspect as the boot was too small to start with, and so it was left trailing behind all of the others in terms of overall driveability as a diesel.

The IS250 Auto on the other hand was almost perfectly right, and had it not been for the slightly higher emissions (making it useless as a company car) it would have enjoyed much more sales success in the UK. The other area where Lexus should improve is updating the engines regularly to make them better in terms of CO2 etc. There was no way the IS220d could compete against a BMW 320ED as a company car, just as an example.

Whilst the BMW's do have a lot of issues with Turbo's and swirl flaps, it was easy to avoid the issues with a bit of Indy/DIY care (remove swirl flaps and change breathers etc). There ain't a lot you could do with the IS when the head gasket blew, or the 5th injector/EGR needed cleaning or replacing. But to Lexus's credit they have always been brilliant with their post-warranty care- something the german manufacturers are atrocious at.

Seems like it Mr Editor....

I have now found 2 things that are missing on the new GS - so far!!!!!!! lol

1) Autolocking of doors at speed

2) The ability to set up the sat nav so that when you are handsfree on the mobile it automatically mutes the nav - unless someone knows how to do that....on my 5 series it was simple - 2 clicks. Here you have to go to 3 menus to mute it

Both of these are minor things though - the smoothness and refinement are almost from the class above. The only noise in the car when driven gently is from the road - and even then it's only because the rest of it is whisper quiet.

I still haven't revved it to 4500rpm to see what max torque feels like (254NM), but coming from a diesel I find I have had to change my driving style pretty significantly as there is so little torque. To make rapid prgress and stay below 4000RPM while running in is a challenge, but a smooth and eeryily quiet one!! No complaints though - it's brilliant!

The other good thing is the cooling function of the seat - on my old Gen2 IS it only cooled the squab. This cools both the squab and the backrest. Also the seats are so much better than the IS or the old GS - in the IS you felt as if you were sitting on a metal bar at times - this is brilliantly padded.

The car handles much better than Whatcar will have you believe. It's no 5 series, but it's better than the E class and only slightly behind the A6, though not as firm.

And that's the interesting thing - Whatcar award this car 2 stars out of 5? They must be joking. the only thing this car doesn't too well is the emissions thing. Otherwise I seriously cannot fault it - and I am no Lexus fanatic!!