Linas.P

If you doing for it, then just get F-sport grille. It is just my personal opinion, but when you pain standard grille is just looks weird. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/113300829603 Note: note I am pretty sure you can get it for less than £170. I posted it only for image.

Yeah as Malc said - this is temporary solution. I suspect one of the covers were not properly closed (could be ones on the bottom, which would required taking lights out to inspect). I had mine removed as I was polishing them, but I may have to do it again... I have dried them, made sure they sealed, but I have some water staining inside which looks kind of horrid.

In my case I only had the car for two weeks before this happened, so I don't know if sunroof drain may have been blocked i.e. I simply had no time to notice any issues with anything was getting wet or damp... kid of the risk when buying used car... never assume that something was done to it and always assume that everything is broken. In my case I simply had no time to look around all the areas before it failed to start. I am kind of surprised this would involve any fuelling components, in my case those are basically all the computers controlling various body functions related with security, noting related with fuel delivery in particular. I mean nothing that touches fuel, only electronics and control units.

To be honest video correctly identifies issue with DI engines, but the advise is completely useless. The guy even acknowledges that himself, but still goes ahead advising to waste money on spark plugs or premium fuel which has literally no impact on carbon build-up on intake valves. All the advised in the video is not justified by any logic (apart of advising "throw more money at it and hope") and even basically states - this will be useless, but "it can't hurt". It would basically apply to any engine, DI or non-DI. Now to be fair, nothing that was suggested would hurt the engine and most of it was just normal maintenance - so yes... do it but don't expect to avoid DI specific issues. What was not mentioned was catch-can, which would be way more beneficial than anything else he mentioned. But again don't be mistaking - catch-can cant remove carbon build-up, it would only slow down accumulation of it, so if the car already did 100k miles without it, then it is unlikely to be useful, unless you clean all intake valves before installing it. Finally, how much of the problem it is? frankly not much - just looked at my 102k miles engine and the valves are basically clean, before I had checked my old car at ~ 180k and valves were clean (but some cleaning was done to them so.. who knows). In short, this is not as much of an issue as people may suggest and before doing anything about it simply look at how your valves looks and you may not even have this issue.

It does have sunroof and it did happen after washing it... wonder if that is connected... In other hand there were no signs of leaks, but I may need to investigate further.

Some update... Car still doesn't run but according to auto-electrician they have identified what is needed. So the fault is as I suspected is to do with ID Box, the conventional solution is very very expensive one - replace half of the car computers and sync them... that is £4000+ just in parts, and then I would need to remove dash to replace everything, control module is in the boot and ECU is under the bonnet. He said they once had exactly the same issue with another customer and they got it done for £950 using used parts. In either case that is not what I want to do and to the electrician said he doesn't want to get involved either as it is massive job. Instead he has some ECU programmer and I have spare ECU, and he told me they were able to find the way to trick ID Box working again. Don't know the detail but that would cost me £250 if it works, so I guess it is worth the shot. One caveat - if it works, I may pay £250, but if it fails again 2 days later I will be back in square one. Other thing, I asked why he thinks it has happened and he said this is usually to do with incorrect jump starting or battery going flat and generally voltage fluctuations. It is kind of hard to predict, but somehow ID Box got out of sync from ECU and the procedure which suppose to resync them does not work. I am surprised and kind of annoyed this has happened and the way it has happened. It makes sense that in auction lot it may have been jump started incorrectly, but it is still strange why it worked for couple of weeks before dying overnight.

I understood it differently, I thought he wanted to update maps and that is why he got new card. I guess we will not know until this is clarified.

American fuel is not worse quality than we have here, it is true that they have more issues with carbon build-up, but I don't know what particular reason is. That said there were no changes in the engine which could make any difference - main issue is that 4GR-FSE is direct injection only, compared to direct + port injection in 2GR and 3GR, meaning fuel never washes the intake valves and carbon accumulates there. My guess would be that this is simply matter of age - pre-face lift cars are older and have more miles on them, so at some point it was true that pre-facelift was suffering from carbon build-up, but face-lift at the time were too new and too low miles to have the issue. I think by now same mileage cars would have same issues. It may be the case that GROM compatibility is better with face-lifted car, but when it comes to complete replacement there is no difference, there are many many options for both face-lift and pre-facelift and mostly it is only the wiring harness which is different. Besides full android systems are comparable in prices (if not bit cheaper) than GROM. And you maybe be right, maybe Teyes CC3 in particular is not compatible with pre-facelift, but it does not mean that there aren't 100s of different options which are.

100% not. That is not to say octane boosters doesn't work, but octane boosters are not power boosters. Same for all other additives, they do their thing, but they simply can't make more power. Well... kind of... So say IS250 makes 208hp at the crank when new, you can put anything you like in your tank, it won't even make more power than 208hp. However over the time engine may be covered in carbon deposits or not working to it's best and it may be making 190hp. What using various additives can do, it could help to get some of that power back, so say maybe 195hp. So what testing by 5th gear showed was that - they measured increased power, from base line before, but not increased power over original spec. In short additives sort of adds power back if your engine is tired and does not run at it's full potential, but they won't add power over and above factory specification. And finally, they can't bring back all the power, simply because if you have wear and tear on the engine additive can't restore the metal, or clean the carbon from intake valves etc. All in all, waste of money on properly working engine... and if engine is not properly working... still waste of money, better save it for maintenance or new car one day.

I was thinking for some time what to say and frankly I can't provide solution. Do you still have original SD card? As such perhaps try putting it back in and see if it works. And if it still does not work, then the only thing I can think of is to take it to Lexus with original card and say that Sat-Nav is faulty, and let them check. I suspect that card from ebay you got probably was not genuine, or didn't even have correct map and that corrupted something in the system.

Not sure about that, as far as I know engine remains the same throughout the year for MK2 and even MK3, what makes you think there were improvements to reduce carbon build-up? As far as infotainment goes, yes I believe around 2010 came USB and Bluetooth integration (I think it was the particular system with HDD which enabled that, so trim dependant), but overall the system was still very very poor and even cheapest Chinese android systems are better then Lexus integrated one of final year. And as far as Chinese systems goes they cover all years and all options, with ML, without ML, with sat-nav screen and without one, so this is not distinctively facelift advantage - you can replace entire unit in any Lexus between 2005 and 2012 (and obviously there are different system for MK3 then).

Depends on what you are looking for. IS250 is surprisingly modern car, reliable, good fuel economy, actually nice to drive, very very well equipped (especially SEL). In 2019 I was trying to replace IS250 and I was struggling, many 10 years newer cars were not equipped as well and felt actually poorer inside. For example heated/cooled seats are extremely rare option on many cars, in Lexus that is standard. After a while I got Lexus RC and I after some time IS250 looked dated to me... depends how you look at it. The infotainment in IS250 and Lexus in general was kind of old always fashioned, so that will feel as older part, but all the rest is very modern. Even from outside they look kind of classy and being relatively uncommon, many people do not realise they are 15 years old cars. Now the price is the issue, but it is an issue with all the cars nowadays. When I got my last IS250 in 2014, it was 2008 car with 122 k miles on it and I paid £4000. That was 6 years old car back then. Now even newest IS250s are over 10 years old, but they cost £8k+ so market has changed significantly for all cars... So in short, if you just need reliable and comfortable car and you don't care about latest technology in it, then I think IS250 is still very good value option.

I would say this is fairly good, generally 8-10 years on well used car for exhaust to rust and that is for the car which are regularly used and do miles. For exhaust to last on hybrid, for 14 years and on low mileage, that is quite good. As other said - the more miles you do and the more of long trip you do, the better is for exhaust. Short trips are worst.

That is just a labour thought, but I genuinely believe that when there is not much to do Lexus won't try to scrape the bottom of the barrel to extract extra £50. Obviously, we have not seen how damage looks, but if indeed it is just a piece of plastic which popped out, then it should be expensive, but if parts are broken, then there will be a parts price on top of it.

I have OBD2, but my cars always been AT, so that wouldn't be relevant. As for trackday, you will surely finish it, what matters is only the cost of maintenance after that.

If it is MT, then it is less of an issue. Not that the oil would not overheat, it would still do as MT don't have oil cooler either and the oil would still need to be replaced. It is just that it is cheaper and more viable to replace oil on MT, than replace ATF in AT. Other thing, because MT is less sensitive to oil level it is easier to add oil cooler to MT, perhaps that is something you should consider if you planning to visit the track from time to time.

Yeah... I was convinced it as 60k or 80k service, but water pump indeed is not scheduled item until it starts leaking or making noise. So this ~70k miles may be just recommended mileage. Perhaps another assumption is that many owners had theirs replaced at 60k miles service. Likewise on my previous car I have seen it done at 64k miles, so I just assumed this is part of 60k service. It seems that this is the time when dealers tries to add it as recommended job with big service, perhaps even upselling prematurely.

Water pump is 60k miles service item so should have been done with 60k service. You are right, there is increased risk of them failing just after ~80k and it could result in overheating, which as far as I know only realistic way to kill the engine in this car. You can check and see how your water pump looks. If it was replaced just 16k miles ago it should look relatively shiny compared to the rest of the engine, which should be quite crusty after 12 years. Aluminium corrodes with like white crust, so see if there is a difference between the block and the pump. As well, indication for water pump failing would be pink crust either around water-pump or around expansion tank. This is not definitive proof, but if there is pink crust then I would investigate water pump more carefully.

If it is Automatic, then I would say taking it on track bad idea (for many reason), but main would be that you will need to replace ATF almost after every use. Obviously depends on how you "track-it", there is obviously a difference between just driving around the track and properly racing it. Main issue is that IS250 does not have ATF cooler, so if you do more than 1 or 2 laps overtime you will overheat ATF and then it will need to be replaced straight away. Considering the cost I think that becomes very uneconomical car to take to the track. I understand that by getting some gauges you specifically want to monitor it to prevent overheating, but that is exactly the point - it will overheat after few laps and it either going to be very boring track day or very hurt gearbox at the end of the day.

Definitely do not go trough the insurance, because increase in premium for over 5 years will be much more than whatever cost of mirror. Now fair to say Lexus parts are not cheap and complete mirror probably will be in a range of £800-1000, but that is way better than having claim on insurance, not to mention there is probably some excess anyway. To disassemble the mirror, you need to remove glass first, but all things considered (it being expensive part on expensive car) maybe it is not worth risking more damage by trying to do it yourself. Have you asked the Lexus how much it would cost for them to fix it, if nothing is broken and it is the matter of just disassembly and putting the chrome piece back in, I can't see them charging more than 30min of labour, which is ~£100.

The procedure is rather specific, even the overfill bolt is useless if procedure is not done correctly. Basically to ensure right level of fluid, the fluid temperature must be correct, so procedure includes running the car on the lift after change of fluid, going thought gears, getting fluid up-to temp and only then measuring the level.

It does, but it is of questionable benefit after 100k miles. If fitted to new car it would definitely be beneficial. I am not sure it is correct, I honestly don't know the reason why carbon build-up is much more of an issue in US, but US petrol isn't worse than the one in Europe. Maybe because they use corn ethanol (most of 95 equivalent there is E10), but it isn't "bad" compared to European fuel anyway. Besides quality of fuel makes no impact on intake valves and valve stems in DI engine and that is the key issue in IS250.

It would be hard to imagine there would be anything wrong with oil after 800 miles, even if it is 1 year old. Technically oil expires even if you not driving the car because additives loses their effect, but in just 800 miles, again I can't imagine it would require immediate replacement. I would not advise for keeping it forever wither, but perhaps replace it ~6000 miles or 1.5 years. Definitely don't keep it past 2 years old.

I didn't say it takes 3 hours, but that is what it is listed as. And it is not unreasonable. To correctly remove the pan without bending anything and praying it out definitely cannot be done in 5 minutes, probably closer to 20 min, but 3 hours are for entire job, refilling, warming-up so it is about right to be honest.

I doubt they even drop the pan, because it is listed as 3h labour (actually you need to remove some gearbox mounts to properly access it) and obviously this requires new gasket and 4L of ATF. You can't drop pan and replace just 2 litres. And you right - they definitely won't change filter, because that alone is like £110. So for £140, I am sure it is literally just opening the drain, draining what is in the pan and refilling to correct level.