Linas.P

Interesting results... Although I always want to check what sizes were tested an on what car. What I have noticed is that most of the time testing is done on compact FWD car. Put same tyres on larger RWD car and results may be completely different. To my surprise in this case they used quite relevant size (225/45/17) because generally they tend to test smaller tyres (probably cost constrains). Still they used Golf as their test car. As I said previously for example tyres like Michelin PS4 are outright no suitable and overkill even for IS250, so imagine how much of overkill they are on FWD Golf with 140 horse power. Finally, I am not saying results are invalid. I am just saying they are only correct for Golf on 225/45/17. Do exactly same test on IS250 with 225/40/18 + 255/35/18 and results may be other way around. And then there is subjective factors as well - each person going to put different importance for different metric.

Yeah doesn't surprise me either. As I said few times before - I am not against EVs as long as they are not showed into my mouth by force (and that is exactly what's seems to be happening). I even considered getting PHEV myself, before pandemic it would have suited my drive quite well ~16 miles one way to work, with range of between 24-32Miles on battery I could easily drive on electricity alone if I could charge at work... even if not then I would still be able to drive like 80% on electricity and then used discounted parking for EV. And then it being PHEV - I could drive it like petrol car when I want to go for a longer drive. Win-win. Problem comes when it comes to charging - funny enough it would be most beneficial in the cities, but at the same time city dwellers are worst equipped to own EV. And if we going in the way of banning car ownership in the cities and forcing people into smelly and unreliable public transport... then what is even the point of EVs? They are not usable for longer inter-city drivers anyway. All that said I really annoyed when people say there is no issue with infrastructure, just because they don't have one. Majority of population does and this transition is not about individual circumstances. If we want it to work, then we need to ensure that vast majority of population does have access to charging, then excepting or subsidising the remaining few %. Final point - I think those "proactive" councils which currently provide "free" charge will be perfect examples of "bait and switch", at the moment it is free, but as soon as most people switch over and have no way back... I am sure the policy will be changed.

I suspect current pandemic may be partially at fault. Lexus cars are very reliable and buying one is really quite simple. I have never seen basic issues to crop-up on these cars, things like checking lights and electric switches (as you do on other makes) - they all always work. However, these cars likes to be driven and maintained. So it is better to get the car which has loads of miles and relevant service history, than get car with low miles and lacking service. What pandemic has done - many of these cares were now sitting, parked-up for extended periods of time, doing maybe only 1000 miles a year, last service 2 years ago and they are just not good for that. I even suspect there was no issue with gearbox before this cars was parked-up, but sitting for a while maybe ATF somehow sludge-up and as soon as you started driving it again it started clogging things-up. In short - I think this period of low use, going to bring a lot of owners to this forum with all sorts of issues originating simply from lack of use.

Paddles works like "limiters" on IS250, so you can't change-up with paddles, you can just increase the limit. You can sort of down-shift, because you limit the highest gear your car is in and then it has to change down. But you can easily select 6th, yet car will stay in 3rd.

If you ask them - yes. But not at glance. You most likely not going to be able to even see solenoids without removing "valve body assembly":

If you ended-up skipping, then I would argue your judgement calling it "safe" was wrong. Safe in my mind is when time it takes for car to reach my location is 2x longer than it takes for me to cross. By the time car reaches the point where I was crossing I should have fully crossed with some time to spare - that would be safe. Now think about this example and railroad crossing. You can assume to be anything you like - pedestrian, cyclists, car driver, large truck driver... anything you want. And think about it - how much safety margin you would leave before saying it is safe to cross ahead of upcoming train? Besides words are important and hierarchy means exactly that - some are considered more important than others. That is opposite of what mutual respect means. On top of that - competency based hierarchy is good thing and clearly justified, vulnerability based hierarchy is fundamentally flawed concept.

Again matter of perspective. IS-F which is 5L V8 with 471HP costs about same to tax as manual IS250. As well manuals needs a lot more attention than autos. I know recently there were few thread of gearbox solenoids and similar stuff, but we need to recognise that these cars are now 16 years old and many have over 150k miles. Many have not seen anything done with their boxes either... whereas in same time it would have been at least clutch work on manual, 3x fluid changes and maybe some odd DMF. Again that is not to say manual gearbox is bad, but it is certainly more costly... and in London trust me I don't want to be sitting for hour in standstill traffic with manual of any kind.

Makes sense - so basically as soon as it needs to change to 3rd gear (which is ~20mph), solenoid/solenoids responsible for it fails for some reason and sends the signal for the cod to be displayed again. In either case, I think issue is more than just "solenoid performance", it is likely stuck. Fluid change will not hurt, but solenoid may need some persuasion to start working again.

Nothing exists in isolation, so nobody is saying that IS250 Manual or any particular car is all bad or all good. The simple case is that if there is something better, then automatically something else is worse. In UK owning manual your are penalised right away by tax (and this is by the way strange exception) and then having manual in the country with most congested roads in the Europe is no fun either. I said before that driving manual is more fun, but on balance on probabilities you going to find auto in more useful and easier to live with. Strangely in UK it is opposite, you can get manual for 30% less compared to auto, but the saving is not enough when annual tax is almost double. As for IS250 being underpowered, again compared to what? Contemporary E90 325i? certainly not... but it is not as fast as 330i or IS350. I think for it's time (2006) IS250 was great on both power and economy. As well we need to look into the context of what it replaced - it was more fuel efficient than IS200 and faster than IS300, so it was great. It was as well comparably fast to BMW325i, but more economical and sounded way better, although BMW handled better. Anyhow - how fast or slow it is matter of context and perspective.

Cars sitting for prolonged time can certainly develop all sorts of weird issues. However, you are 10 times more lucky than me when it comes to buying - mine just suddenly stopped starting altogether 😄 The codes does not mean you going to be locked out of using certain gears. As I said I had codes and most of the time even with the code car would change the gears, so assuming that car does not shift just because it has code would be incorrect. You stating this kind of changes things a bit. Now you will never know if seller knew about it or not - there is possibility that car was sitting and was only started, moved on driveway and because it never reached 50MPH, it never showed the problem. Now that you started driving it regularly it manifested itself.

Makes sense - I got the same with GB40. However, my point - I don't think they are intended to be charged from dead battery. Rather assumption is that you come with fully charged booster, start the car if it needs boosting, connect the charger to socket whilst you drive to your destination just to recharge what you used to start the car and then if the car dies again, then boost it again... and circle continues. However, to charge the booster fully it may require driving for a while, certainly not for 15min. There are different type of booster based on capacitors and they work differently, you connect them directly to "dead" battery and it charges from the battery to give you one last charge. Personally, I think they are the most likely way to damage the battery. That is probably correct for RC, but I know some RX/NX have ports in the boot which works under different modes. As well I am sure USB ports works on just ACC. Point being - Various cars have various configurations, so it is not the case that "modern" cars don't enable sockets only in IG.

It depends. Some cars have direct connection even when off, others only when ACC on, or only when IG is on. Or combination of some sockets working on some modes, whilst other don't. Lexus seems to only allow some ports to work on ACC and some on IG. Although in this case I can't see rationale for using socket - after all it feeds from battery which is already dead.

GB50 seems to be the one to get. I have purchased GB40 jump pack and GENIUS1UK charger, but it was mistake. GB40 jump starter can't even turn over IS250 and GENIUS1UK is only rated to charge batteries up-to 30AH, meaning it took me 6-days to charge 85AH battery. I think I will return both and just get NOCO GENIUS5UK charger. Jumps starter if less relevant is battery is maintained, so I reckon I better keep it charged than let it die and then use jump starter.

Wow... what caused this explosion!

On older cars it did, never tried it in RC with dead battery, but it worked when I was detailing my car and wanted to move shifter in stationary car with engine off. Can't remember if car was ACC or IG mode, but I think it was completely off.

Cyclists are required to have lights at night, so highway code is not the problem. The problem again comes from stupid "hierarchy", meaning that if you lower down on hierarchy then every smallest mistake is jailable crime, but if you up on ladder like cyclists are, then all your faults are ignored. How many times I have seen drunk cyclists? Dark clothes and no lights in the dark? Or the lights which can be barely seen like a candles, or opposite - tactical flashlights made to be a "defensive" weapon used as headlights outright blinding everyone in front? It is strange how anyone can expect mutual respect, when drivers are clearly discriminated and treated differently? Now I must admit - when I cycle, I rarely use road unless there is dedicated cycling lane, I rather pay fine than risk being inconvenience on the narrow street and as result putting myself in danger. Besides enforcement is very difficult, because cycling lanes start and stop randomly, there are cycling infrastructure in the middle of the pavement and so on. So even if stopped, challenged and fined I think I would easily beat any penalty in court with ton of mitigating circumstances and excuses. I guess that is why police ignores these rules as they are practically unenforceable. My personal opinion is that solution is very simple - if there is no dedicated cycling infrastructure present, then cyclist should be treated same as pedestrian and act as pedestrian. This is safest for everyone and most efficient. Pushing cyclists on the roads doesn't work for either side and implementing almost entire third type of infrastructure everywhere just for cyclists is not viable.

To be honest on older models it was more obvious, it was just a button and it said "shift lock" which was very apparent of what it does and it would work anytime regardless if battery is even connected, but I agree that reading owners manual is always good idea. One thing I am not sure about is that it states "car has to be in accessory mode", so question is whenever it would work if battery is totally dead.

I am not sure if battery has to have charge for this (seems like you need to be in accessory mode), but there is gear lock hole next to gear knob. You need to use key blade (or similar) to unlock the shifter and it should allow to shift into N.

I would try not go above 2.5k RPM if possible, as well if car is stuck in 3rd gear (I have not seen it mentioned to be the case before) then this would be quite significant fault with whatever solenoid controls it. I am starting to think that just ATF change won't be enough. It is possible that new fluid and codes reset would improve things, maybe get solenoid unstuck and over time it will improve with fresh fluid. However, I am starting to think that at very least you going to have to address that particular solenoid. One possibility - just identify which one it is it, get it out, clean it get it unstuck and see what happens next, other possibility is replacement. Third and least likely possibility, due to wrong fluid viscosity it was not working within spec and ECU simply blocked it via code, without any actual mechanical fault - but in such case clearing faults should allow you to shift again. What happened on my old car was that from time to time it started to give solenoid performance codes, but they would be intermittent, few weeks later it gave another code (solenoid stuck open/closed) and at that time it would not shift into 6th at all. However, in my case it was purely ECU code - resetting it would remove the code and car would shift into 6th for few days again. On that basis my issue was more likely to be solved and was solved by fluid change. If you constantly have codes and even after clearing them you can't shift into 4th, or the codes reappears right away, then I think you will be in more serious trouble. I am not gearbox expert, but maybe discuss the options of solenoid change or at least cleaning with your mechanic.

I have never seen more parts like ATF filter or gasket being sold on any mainstream sites for car parts. ATF-WS is generic thing, like engine oil, so I assume you could find it anywhere. As well - it may be more cost effective to get ATF from mainstream site and only get filter + gasket from ebay. Other thing you need to check, does the garage even accepts the parts from third parties and whenever they would warranty the job. I don't think you would like to be in position where they refuse any liability if you order wrong part, or if they mess-up the process and then just blame the parts you have provided. What I would say would be acceptable in this case - you take liability to bring right parts, they take liability for work carried out. It is not showstopper, but it would be best to ask the question and clarify it before the job is done (ideally in writing e.g. e-mail). It would be ideal not to drive the car, but it is not end of the world... I understand that you already drove it to Halfords few times and to place which diagnosed it, so it won't make it much worse. More relevant question is how far you need to drive it - if it is 25 miles and you stay at relatively low speeds (say under 50MPH), I think that is ok, but if you have to drive for 150 miles on motorway, then I would say that is bad idea... or if you need to drive even for 25 miles, but in heavy traffic which will take you 1.5h to get there. In summary - try to do as short and as slow drives as possible, to stress the car as little as possible.

Doesn't sound very trusty if they can't get what is basically generic Automatic Transmission Fluid (ATF). Preferred is Toyota or Aisin ATF-WS (OEM) which is widely available. Toyota/Lexus should be able to supply these parts if all other sources fail. I have used something like this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/402355014060 Although, I would be very careful to check with seller that gasket has right holes and that filter has right fitment (there are oval and round ones available). ATF itself is fairly standard fluid.

VSC light would be MOT failure now. But perhaps it is too early to worry about it. The codes means solenoids are functioning outside of specification, in my experience this could mean anything i.e. it could be just an error - no impact to performance, mild or intermittent impact to performance or hard fault where you can't change gears. And it sort of progresses like that at first it starts mild, but it can go from just a light to gearbox replacement in say 10-20k miles. The "gearbox specialists" seems to be dying breed. People who call themselves "gearbox specialists" either have little knowledge or little inclination to fix gearboxes, the default answer - "fit entire new gearbox for £XXXX".

Yes - you can take of the wheel and look at the shock absorber. If it has just drops of oil on random places, or some misting I would say that is from brake job, if the actual shock is leaking then you will see oil around seams and places where different moving parts are meeting. Although note - you need to make sure leak is coming from the shock itself, because when I checked mine it was literally like last picture on the right, but it was just missed spray from the WD. So what you can do - wipe the shock absorber, drive for you few days and see if there are new runs/leaks coming out.

Yes, but only when turning - if you going straight through junction then this does not apply. I do agree with you that addition of "waiting" adds nothing, but confusion.

I sense irony in your statement 😄 To be fair I don't know any country where they get it right, countries which have "jay-walking" as offence seems to overuse it, the ones that don't have it have no rules at all. As well it seems that countries which enforce "jay-walking" as offence then have to put pedestrian crossings every 20 metres. So I think it is best to let pedestrian cross the road, but be responsible themselves for making it safe. UK now gone to the extreme on this - let the pedestrians cross the road and then make drivers responsible for it?! Idiotic. For me it seems that fair rule for "jay-walking" should be that pedestrian can cross the road only after making sure it is safe to do so, but fines should only be issued if they cause "dangerous" situation. I would further define that dangerous situation would be any case where such crossing causes other road users to react in any way to avoid collision (brake, steer, stop, beep, slowdown etc). Because otherwise it causes comical situation where police stops pedestrians crossing empty street at night and issues fines, despite there being no cars or other road users around.