Damo2

Hi Guys Happy New Year to you all! I have a IS300 Sportcrsoss and love it... it's not 4x4 though.... and never will be. All 2 wheel drive Lexus's are, shall we say, as far as I know from other owners, challenging in the snow (unless you are used to rear wheel drive motors, which they are) and ice and snow ... but they are great fun..! That snow mode button is just there to fool you.... lol.. Keep it in ECT or sport mode and enjoy - But be careful of ice or snow on the road. It does make a difference and the switch actually does dial it down when you change mode.. so is not a gimmick. However that's my view.... Best

Hi Guys Just thought I would also respond to the query from Ken re. changing the back discs and pads and if it had any impact. All four corners on mine were replaced at the same time as the 3rd set of replacement front discs and pads were installed, this was not done to resolve any issues on the front end, just that the rear ones were the original ones from new and were worn / corroding on the back of the disc and therefore needed doing as well. I was putting approx 22k miles a year on the car back then and it had done over 50k+, so it didn't seem unreasonable that they needed replacing. Current status of mine is I notice it only intermittently now at around 70mph if braking hard to come off a dual carriageway on my way home, this is when the discs have had chance to get warm - as per my previous post it is not aggressive as it used to be and as I am not doing anywhere near the mileage I used to, 30miles a day on average tops which in the main is my round trip to the station, I have decided to live with it for now. As a point of interest - All the wheels on my car were replaced a few years back with a replacement set from Pristine Alloys near Milton Keynes (highly recommend these guys), as the original alloys had corroded and let the car down in the looks department and I was going to get them refurbished. However this would have meant Pristine having the car for a couple of days which was not convenient for me, so they found me a replacement set and refurbished them instead and took mine in exchange, the caveat being that my set could be refurbished and weren't buckled. So I have experienced the juddering issue with two different sets of wheels on the car, so don't think it is due to a buckled wheels/s although I suppose you can't totally write it off. However as an aside, the tyre wear has always been even on all the wheels, and I have had quite a few sets of tyres over the years and always have the tracking checked at the same time when I have new ones fitted and there has never been issues there. PS. I only feel the judder through the steering wheel, but haven't tried driving in my socks, I have though on a number of occasions taken my hands of the steering wheel to see if the car pulls to one side when braking / juddering and it just keeps going straight as an arrow. It's definitely a puzzle!

Hi guys - I have been following this thread for some time now as I also have the same issue with my IS300 Sportcross. I bought the car from a mate of mine as it was his wife's ride but she hardly ever used it as she would drive their Range Rover and my mates a builder, so he hardly used either of the cars as his daily ride is his van. It was one owner from new, full history and had only done 12,500 miles when I bought it in Feb 2011 - so was virtually as brand new when I got hold of her. Since then I have had 3 sets of front discs and pads replaced - everything was ok for approx the first 20k miles when I first bought the car off my mate, then the dreaded juddering started. I took it to an independent Lexus specialist (fully Lexus Trained and the right equipment for working on them). I had sort of diagnosed it as warped discs myself having had experience of this on my Vectra V6 SRI which used to chew front discs up after about 30k+ miles (I stuck 180k miles on the Vectra before selling her on, so had gone through quite a few discs by then, it was never anything else). Anyway my mechanic also concluded the front discs on my Lexus were warped and on inspection this was the case, so they installed new OEM parts to both corners. Less than 7 months and approx. 15k miles later the same issue returned - my mechanic no questions asked replaced the discs and pads under warranty and at the same time comprehensively checked the front end, suspension, bearings etc for other issues but found nothing un-towards. However you've guessed it, the new ones lasted less than 7k miles this time before the juddering started again, so I took it back to my man again who was at a total loss and said he would take it to the main Lexus dealer who supplied him the parts for them to look at it, which he did. After waiting 2 hours for them to actually do a road test and some cursory checks with it on the ramp and expecting them to do further checks with a dial gauge for run out etc, which they didn't, they concluded the issue was at the back end and said he would need to bring the car back again for them to look at it closer!! However neither my mechanic or I could afford the time to go back to Lexus again for them to investigate further and quite frankly we both thought they were off their heads to suggest the issue was at the back end, plus I couldn't afford to have the car off the road as I needed it for work and public transport was not an option for me as it involved a 12 mile drive to the rail station and 3 trains to get to the office. So we went with another set of discs, new pads and my man also checked out the front end again but still found nothing amiss. My mechanic supplied the parts FOC and just charged me a nominal labour rate to fit this new set. Again everything was fine for a while but the issue eventually returned, however I have to date not had anything else done and have just lived with it. The juddering is mostly pronounced when braking in the 55> to 40 zone, but can also occur intermittently at higher speeds and be quite aggressive. What I have noticed is that when the discs are cold braking is fine at any speed and the juddering doesn't manifest itself at all - I have specifically tested this many times to make sure it is not a figment of my imagination - however once they have had the chance to heat up that's when the juddering happens. I have also observed what I feel is excessive amounts of brake dust accumulating on the front wheels?? Bizarrely though, as Doody also mentioned in his post, as time has gone by it seems to be sorting itself out - I have just got back from a holiday in Cornwall driving the car under all sorts of road conditions, at high speeds up and down steep hills and around sharp bends and it was on the whole very well behaved. Not being a DIY'er mechanic myself I have decided to wait until the car is next due a major service and at that point to get fitted some drilled and grooved performance discs from MTEC Brakes - unless anyone has any feedback that would advise against fitting them. There is a very interesting and informative page on the MTEC website which I would if I could provide a link to here, but I can't seem to be able to Grrr - however if you go to the Mtec website and on the LH side under the articles section click on the link to "Brake Disc fitting Guide" what they say there regarding hints and tips to avoid warped discs seems very plausible and correlates to what I feel is the issues I have with my car. I used to take the first 100miles or so after having new parts fitted , carefully but as I was doing 110miles a day mostly on the motorway it's not always easy to look after them until they fully bed in, which MTEC recommend should be 200miles min. I will post again when / if I have anything further to add. BTW just sailed through another MOT and apart from this juddering issue I have not had any other problems with my car - she is just coming up to 100K - but now I don't work in the same office and am using a train to get to work I don't anticipate putting more than 6k miles per year on her going forwards.

When I bought my Lexus Is300 the first thing I asked my mechanic to do after getting the car, alongside getting it serviced, was to change the ATF and filter - however he didn't agree with me that it was needed as the car had done less than 13,000 miles - however I debated with him that although it had low miles, it was 8yrs old and the fluid would have degraded over time as it had been sitting doing no work.... He did not agree and said it was no different to the ATF sitting in a bottle on a shelf... after we had a further debate on it I reluctantly agreed with him to leave it ... however a week later I had clunky gear changes / pauses / and stuttering from low revs / low gears pulling away at standstill, although at high revs / high gears everything was fine. The old ATF oil and deposits were working there way though the gearbox! So I took it back to my mechanic, who was of the opinion that this was not anything to do with the ATF fluid or filter, and to be fair he was only trying to do me a favour and save me money, but eventually he did agree to change the ATF and filter, after all I was paying him, was I not?. This sorted out the problem and on looking at the fluid that came out it was evident it had degraded, the colour of it was not the bright cherry red of new / good oil but a dark coke colour of old / knackered oil. Now whether this was because of it's age, or the very limited miles and ad hoc use of the car over the years not allowing the fluid to reach designed operational temperatures and therefore it breaking down and clogging parts of the Auto box.. either way it goes to show that simple things can make a big difference - especially when someone else tells you that it's a fault with the gearbox.. which I never believed and which would have been very expensive if I had. To this day the car has been fine... although I have had another ATF change on my request to my mechanic who did not argue this time..

You could try this test_ pull onto a dual carriageway / or a straight bit of fast road with a slight slope to it at normal speed, normal revs, in normal gearbox mode ... then accelerate really hard and switch on the ECT button whilst still accelerating - if you are hitting the right revs when you hit the ECT switch it should change down a gear _ as the ECT switch controls the Transmission and the throttle inputs. It works for me, although that said I don't change the settings and just have it in ECT mode all the time for most of the year, unless there is snow on the ground and then I do sometimes change to the snow mode setting as I would rather stay on the road!

PS to last post - I got my IS with just under 13,000 miles on the clock from someone who never really drove her apart from doing the weekly shop, actually it was his wife's car and she never drove it!! I have now done nearly 80,000miles in it and it hasn't missed a beat - although I do have her serviced twice a year and I also had the cambelt done at 60,000 although it didn't need it and my mechanic said that I should just wait for the serviced period - the only other thing I have done is had the wheels totally refurbished as they were rusty and this was the only thing that let the car down, apparently it was a problem with most Lexus's back in the day and Lexus themselves back then would absorb the cost. However no such luck for me as well past warranty period, however, I took the opportunity to pimp them up with a metallic fleck paint finish to match the bodywork and it only cost me £63.00 per corner from Pristine Alloys near Milton Keynes.

I have always found Bosch blades best no matter what car I have owned, previously I had a Vectra V6 SRI - and currently I have an IS300 Sportcross which I have owned for the last 3 years and have only had to change the wipers twice - and I am doing a 110mile a day round trip to work and an average of 22,000 per annum, which includes all types of roads, conditions, weather and speeds - so I think the cost of paying a few quid more for the Bosch blades is more than justified for the extra lifespan of them. :hohoho: