Linas.P

That is not true, IS had real leather trough most of the model lifetime. mk1 and mk2 when they had "leather" it was always only real semi-aniline leather with exception of F-sport (2010-2012) which in UK got only half-leather interior with Alcantara (in rest of the world, there it was optional), as well mk1 Sport had full cloth or cloth interior with leather bolsters, but again when optional leather was specified it was actually real leather. IS mk3 was step backwards in terms of quality at launch, still most of the range had semi-aniline leather when leather interior was specified, and Premier had it as standard - see here: https://autocatalogarchive.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Lexus-IS-2015-UK.pdf However, after facelift the quality went further downwards - after facelift even when leather was specified it was mostly fake (Tahara) which I feel is disingenuous. If it is not leather don't call it leather! IS Takumi should have semi-aniline leather, that is the only model which get's it - the rest of the range uses plastic bags instead for leather (NuLuxe). I always believed that F-Sport with Takumi pack should get real leather too, but now I am no longer so sure, because F-Sport without Takumi Pack did not have it in the final years. Same for RC - my F-sport had full leather (2016), but when seat failed Lexus chosen to fix it for £4200 instead of replacing entire seat, part of my speculation is that replacement seat would have been made of Tahara and would have looked significantly different, because after facelift RC F-Sport lost real leather, only Takumi had it. Kind of disappointing really - don't like when something that that isn't leather is advertised as leather. Likewise when getting Takumi pack I would expect "Takumi quality" not just the name. Sadly I can't find detailed 2020 brochure for UK to confirm.

I am sorry, but I just can't be excited about another damn SUV. New EV coupe that would be something unusual, but new electric SUV is literally old news. As for RZ in particular - design just looks too busy with too many angles which exists just for sake of existing. As well yoke is idiotic (and yes Tesla model plaid yoke is idiotic fad which exists for not other reason than just to be different) in production car, it works well in F1 and other circuit race cars because of their very narrow steering angles (270 degrees max, but no more than 160 degrees actually usable on the track), but it completely does not work on the car where you have 720 degrees of steering and practical application of using car on the street, this stupid fad need to die out before it becomes popular. It is literally dangerous on road car and I argue should be banned. Like we don't use slicks on road we should not use F1 steering wheels.

If you just want little bit more aggressive, then the easiest way would be to simply use F-Sport Grille, which is same design as newer models (mesh), just not as big. If you want to go step further, but without fully custom making entire front end, then very late 2011-2012 models had little bit more aggressive front bumper. vs. standard Then add lip at the bottom Obviously it won't be like mk3 "aggressive", but it won't cost like £1000+ to make. Because even if you make everything custom - be expected to pay ~£300 just for original grille alone.

I am pretty sure there are several modified cars with big grills from mk3. Some earlier cars were full custom jobs - grille of mk3 is used, then the bumper of mk2 is modified to fit, cut, glued together, fiberglassed, filled, painted and that is how people end-up with mk3 front on mk2s. Like here on IS-F: Nowadays there are ready made kits - https://www.amazon.co.uk/2006-2013-Conversion-Unpainted-IKON-MOTORSPORTS/dp/B076WTQ8W4 Like here they already using kit (meaning it is bumper made to fit to mk2 as above):

Could it be something in door "pockets"? I remember I had tyre pressure gauge and it drove me mad. Failing that I would look at speaker grill area.

Sadly the advert is now removed so I can't really add my 2p on what the car is. That said I don't see where the issues is SE-L was top of the range with most features included and F-Sport was second best, lacking cooled seats, rear window bling and swapping real leather for alcantara (which is fancy name for plastic bag). So if I would be sold F-Sport instead of SE-L, I would be disappointed, but it is not like it is easy to make such mistake, but other way around is better.

As far as I know if car does not have registration it needs VAT to be paid before it could be registered.

Yes - cold oil will always show low, checking hot is official Lexus instructions. Of course the difference isn't that massive, so one can get general understanding whenever they are low or not even on cold engine. But I would advise checking when hot once you do top-up to confirm it is at correct level.

I am just looking at links of IS350 you posted and realised both are actually the same price - the one for £9k is UK registered, the other one for £7k still needs registering, means paying VAT on it. One fun claim on the more expensive one "Same Mpg as a is250 but more power." - no... it isn't! 😄

There is such thing as supercharged IS350 as well 😄 I personally never had issues with automatic in IS250, so keeping manual is not on my list of concerns.

On IS250 oil need to be measured on fully warm engine, which is kind of annoying, because whilst engine is running oil will always shows low as it splashes around. So basically the only way to accurately measure it - get it warm, turn off the engine and measure after waiting 15 min. As well at least in my experience dipstick tends to smear all over so some deciphering is always needed.

IS still don't think even after spending £7k on what is now £5k IS250 is going to be anywhere near IS-F from any measurable angle. I would rather have IS-F for £15-18k with 471hp and a car which is actually appreciating, not modified IS250 for £12k if lucky, with unknown reliability (and you definitely don't want to deal with unreliable IS250) and even higher depreciation. Supercharged IS250 maybe more comparable to IS350... but as you just illustrated yourself - there is no point supercharging IS250, when there are IS350s on sale for as low as £7000-9000 (I assume JDM?). IS350 comes with better engine design (because it has both port and DI) and already comes with brake kit.

Good luck with that. If you have phone contract you my be better off speaking with your network provider, sometimes they have "technical helpdesk". Now sure they won't know how to use each specific device, but they usually have quite good general knowledge on settings - maybe there is something special that you can change on the device.

I have nothing personally against them, I can only speak from statistical point of view about the issues they have. I would say that majority of our clients use either Samsung 24% phones or iPhones 75% (I personally hate iPhones and Apple products overall despite using them everyday), the rest of the brands takes-up 1% of share and if we ever have any issues it is with that 1%. Now that may be simply "self-fulfilling prophesy" - being in 1% they are simply never prioritised for testing, so apps crash not inherently because it is bad software or hardware, but because people developing apps never tested and optimised the apps to work on those phones. But this is kind of irrelevant - if android-auto crashes on this certain phone, there is nothing one can do, it is not like you going to fix the bug in android-auto to stop it, even if it is actually fault of android-auto. Why I segregate Chinese phones? well because they are not officially supported by google, because most of google products are banned in China. So despite most of these companies claiming that they use Android, the version they use is not officially supported and custom to them. It is almost like having pirated Windows on PC - when it is not supported by it's actual creator it is never a good sign and it can't be as stable as official android versions. Second reason - with Samsung I am confident that I will get 3-4 years of free software upgrades and 4-6 years of security updates, when you get Chinese phone you lucky if you get 1 year of support and then phone basically becomes obsolete because there are no updates. I guess some people don't care and change phone every year anyway - so it may not become a problem unless you keep your phone for longer time. Finally, more personal reason is that Chinese phones do spy on you... and yes - all phones spy you, but whereas Apple, Google or Samsung spies on you for marketing purposes, Chinese government literally spies on you with intent of suppressing freedoms. This may sound paranoid, but for example we have noticed that our app shielding (which prevents hacking basically) often shuts off our app on certain Chinese phones, because they trying to spy on the app. I can't decide for other people and I am sure that if somebody is not planning to go to China to protest against Chinese government saving 50% of the cost on device with similar specifications may not be an issue. As for MediaTek - again it is similar issue as with Android. Most (if not all) of modern phone CPUs are ARM designs - Qualcomm, Samsung and Apple licenses architecture and makes CPUs to ARM spec. MediaTek uses ARM designs as well, but they often make custom designs specifically for Chinese market which may or may not be up-to spec. These then usually finds their way in entry level phones (under £200) and simply are not as stable. There are some high end MediaTek chips, which are quite good, but especially their entry level stuff is iffy. So when you combine low-end MediaTek + entry level phone + unlicensed android it is like asking for trouble. Simply by process of elimination it is clear that it is something to do with the phone and not something to do with the system in the car. I am not saying you have to change your phone because it doesn't work with Android-Auto, as I said you can try resetting phone and settings in car, but it is rather involved and annoying process and there is no guarantee it will start working. So you might end-up with choice of not using Android-Auto or having to change your phone anyway.

Very hard to say what is causing this, but it is quite clear it would be something to do with your phone (as it works on other phone). My speculation could be that the phone is build around MediaTek CPU, which is not as common and not as widely supported as Qualcomm (Snapdragon) or Samsung (Exynos), I have seen many reports on various apps crashing on MediaTek including Android-Auto. As well at work (I look after internet banking project) most of issue we have with our app not working or crashing usually happens on entry level or Chinese phones (like Oppo, Xiaomi, Huawei, OnePlus etc.), Motorola being both Chinese and entry-level in your case would be something prone to compatibility issues. Not much I can advise - you can try removing the phone from car navigation, resetting the phone (which means backing-up all the data) and trying to link it again, but if it is CPU compatibility issue then it may not get fixed anyway. Kind of sad that nowadays there are no variety of really competitive and good quality Android phones apart of Samsung (HTC, LG and Sony kind of gone).

This is spot on as it is on all modern cars. I find Lexus on the higher side, most competitors are ~5-10% range, Lexus is most of the time spot on 10% for me, when the car is on standard 17" wheels, 16" being even smaller means it is even more off. I would not worry too much about it, because this is legal requirement and every car has to always show more then the actual speed (or at least they can't show less). You can play around with numbers here to see what size would you need to use to make it spot on, but it is quite unlikely that wheels of such size would even fit within the fender. I reckon around 245/55R18 is where you would get +/- 1mile and that is the size which probably would fit on the rear (as far as I know speedo reflects on the size of rear wheels). https://www.wheel-size.com/calc/?wheel1=205-55-16X6.5ET45&wheel2=245-45-18X7.5ET40&fcl=50mm&wcl=30mm&scl=50mm&sr=0mm But other thing to consider - even if you find the sizes which would make it perfect, it does not mean you could get the tyres in that size of that they would be economical to purchase. Like fronts would have to be something like 225/60R18, which is not very common size and costs like £160+ per tyre

Ok - now car is definitively fixed and I am saying it because I am 99% confident of what has caused it. So, the night before the fault I took it for car wash, I washed it and because after washing the engine was warm I thought I will rev it and see how smoothly it revs, so launch the car few times revved it out probably 5000+ RPM, came back home and next day it would not start. Yesterday after finally somehow clearing the immobiliser fault, it let the engine warm-up revved it few times and noticed that after revving engine nearly stalls. This led me to conclusion that there is still some other issues with fuel delivery maybe pump, HP pump, fuel pressure sensor or something in between, but as car was still staring I was mucking about with immobilisers and various stuff and eventually it would not start again. Could not figure out why, but thought enough for tonight, immobiliser comms got corrupted again or something and left it until today. Today I repeated what I did yesterday, changed immobiliser, reset and resync, but was still getting trouble starting the car. At this point I thought - I had new fuel pressure sensor anyway, because I bought it believing it may be causing issues, so I tried changing it to see what happens. Changed fuel pressure sensor and all problems are gone, even Shift Solenoid Performance and O2 Sensor codes are gone! Now the biggest issues diagnosing it was that it is intermittent and requires special circumstances to occur (that is my "favourite" type of issues, because they nearly impossible to diagnose). So the way to reproduce the issue is as follows, start the car, rev the engine past 5000-6000RPM, this causes fuel pressure sensor malfunction, which as result interrupts and corrupts communication on LIN network (which is 5V and communicates between immobiliser, wheel lock and certification ECU), like it is not enough, you can start the car again and you won't know there is an issue as long as you don't lock it. So what caused the issue yesterday was that I locked the car at some point when trying to link the keys. If you lock the car something happens with immobiliser and it won't work again, so when you come to unlock it next day car won't start with immobiliser communication error. Now in theory if you can clear the error from immobiliser, car would start and run again until you reach high RPM and cycle repeats, but for some reason the error was not clearing (I don't know why, maybe again because immobilisers somehow corrupts itself). In my case I had to use another immobiliser for the code to clear. Anyhow if one never reaches high RPM then this issue does not repeat itself and fuel pressure sensor works fine when idle or with engine off, so when I was measuring it there was no issue with it. Basically I took out dashboard for nothing (although ultimately it helped me to find the issue), but I don't hate myself too much, because realistically there was no way to diagnose it to fuel pressure sensor when it was failing in this very specific intermittent way. @Lythics and few others were right, it was fuel pressure sensor, but I knew this could be the case and have actually checked it before without finding any issue. And what is conclusion - modern cars are complex and damn annoying to work on! Obviously better electrician probably would have been able to find ways to troubleshoot it properly, but where do I suppose to find them?! It is nearly impossible, I have had 4 different people to check the car and they could not diagnose it.

Depends on what lights you have, assuming that 2014 IS300h comes with Xenon, then kind of yes and no. You can get more "white" good quality Xenons which are not brighter, but illuminates road better - like Osram XENARC NIGHT BREAKER. Maybe simply replacing what you have could improve things? Xenons becomes "pink" before dying and the light output drops drastically, so first thing would be to check that you get bright white light from lights, because if they purplish or pinkish then they are on the way out. And time scale kind of makes sense - in most cars I had Xenons started dying around 8-10 years mark.

I would do it myself, but if you don't want to spend much time then I would go and ask detailer to polish them. Many places that do hand washing as well do little bit of detailing, so I would ask them first, as they may ask less money than good detailers. The kit you copied would do the job if you have electric drill, but it is not ideal. In principle any polishing compound which is meant for car paint can polish headlights as well, wet sanding is only needed only in cases where headlights are badly oxidised and yellowed. Other note - if you do it on the car, then be very careful around bumper and tight spots - it takes no time to burn hole in plastic with power tools (ask me how I know). This is just example of quick hand polish using cheap Farecla G3 "scratch remover" on a sponge by hand (far from actually good products) and results were very good: In principle, if you know what you doing then it is not difficult to polish headlights.

Basically yes, not sure how long that is going to last thought, somehow don't have confidence and it is not very convenient to remove dash and swap immobilisers every time I want to go somewhere 😄

IT'S ALIVE! Today I got ECU kit for the parts I needed - immobiliser (ID BOX), 2 keys and Certification ECU (smart key module). Put them in, resynched all ECUs... and it doesn't start... then I realised wheel lock is not released, which need to work for engine to start. And sure there is fault - B2268 - power steering lock communication error. The problem is that ECU kit I got is probably from slightly newer car mine ends 53010 and that one is 53014, likewise ID box is 53010 vs 53011. Point is - despite ECU kit matching with keys, they are slightly newer revision and won't communicate with steering lock. BUT I noticed that B2799 - immobiliser communication error got cleared! Previously I could not clear the fault. So I decided experiment little bit and, I put old immobiliser and certification ECU so that I can unlock steering wheel and my plan was to put new immobiliser/certification ECU combo in once wheel is unlocked to see if car starts. However, when unlocking the wheel I kept the foot on the brake and what you think?! IT STARTED... It is literally like Frankenstein, feels almost as if it works on magic! Long story short - fiddling with new immobiliser somehow reset the fault and then old immobiliser started working.

How bad is the oil leak? Have you seen it yourself? Because this would be quite common up-sale tactic from disingenuous dealers. I have never experienced that with Lexus, but I know some dealers on other makes does it. Is it really leaking gasket? Or maybe you spilled some oil when topping-up? All in all I don't see any reason why it would be leaking from there, chains don't require replacement, and if nobody removed cover and messed something-up, then they generally don't leak on IS250. So I would start from finding out if you actually even have an issue, why you have an issue and how bad it is. Selling the car with the fault always going to devalue it more than fixing the fault, unless car is completely worthless. Obviously, if buyers notices something wrong with the car then they simply going to lose trust in the seller and the car making it difficult to sell. As far as IS250 I don't know the country where it would be worthless, or where something as simple as chain cover gasket replacement would make it uneconomical to repair. Trying to pretend fault is not there, or trying to hide it can range from misselling to fraud, so I would not advice that. In short - fix any obvious faults before selling, unless you want to get silly low price for the car.

Or you can buy special tool to do it, if you planning on doing it more than once - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neilsen-CT2590-Handed-Caliper-Set-Black/dp/B0045KBN70/ref=sr_1_8?keywords=caliper+compression+tool&qid=1649673588&sprefix=calliper+compre%2Caps%2C50&sr=8-8 This is not necessary the best, so check all options, but you get an idea.

This topic came around few times in the past. The answer is - no, IS250 cannot be run on LPG. In other hand it is good that it can't, because it honestly would not benefit from LPG. In general LPG is beneficial on the cars without direct injection, so not only it is benefiting from cheaper fuel, but as well from more modern injection. However, if the car is already DI, then the price of the fuel alone does not save enough to pay for the LPG kit. IS250 is already fuel efficient car and adding LPG is pointless.

https://lexuspartsdirect.co.uk/product/lexus-is-phase-2-air-filter-2-5l-petrol/ I think they can be found even cheaper. I think the least I have paid for genuine filter was ~£18.50. The pattern filters are even cheaper £8-£11, they not as good as OEM, but I would argue better than K&N. And by the way I am not saying K&N is not a good brand, or that their washable and reusable filters are bad products. However for IS250 (or even more IS220d) they just don't make any sense. The standard Lexus intake is not restrictive, the engine actually does not need very high flow air intake anyway, because it is naturally aspirated, so adding K&N adds no power, it barely makes a difference on intake sound and maintenance of the filter is just way more work than it is worth... and it doesn't even filter the air as well. However, if you have 1000HP Supra, or some high revving V10 BMW where very high flow intake is needed the K&N filter may be small but nice upgrade, say 10-20HP if the original set-up is restrictive at that power level, where at 200HP it just doesn't make a difference.