Linas.P

Must be just rough area I am living in then (London)... perhaps mechanics are less stressed and rush everything less in countryside.

They kind of do - it is called Lexus ES 😄 Just to be clear - I would not buy either, because FWD is instant deal-breaker for me, once that is mentioned I literally don't care what it is and what it does. Sorry, I don't want to to be rude, it is just not car for me. To be fully informed I have tried it and it only left me feelings ranging from unimpressed and disappointed. Obviously, I was never a big fan of 300h drive train in any Lexus and to be fair being ES300h is least offensive, because it is FWD, so even having best engine in it would make absolutely no difference, so I just confirmed to myself it is not impressive, but I guess acceptable. And it went downhill from there, although interior was very solid and well built, the amount of plastic (especially hard plastic) was very noticeable and reminiscent of Toyota. As I said at the time - "if somebody would blind fold me and put it into ES, I would say it is definitely Toyota". It just didn't fee like Lexus and it didn't feel even remotely good enough as replacement for excellent mk4 GS. Sit in GS and then go for new ES and you feel like it instant downgrade before you even drive it. Obviously, get into ES from any other non-luxury car and it may feel rather nice. I am not trying to trash ES, it is good Toyota and like the guy said in the video - being a Toyota is not a bad thing, but it is distinctively NOT Lexus. It as well was undermined by Lexus own branding - they pushed it as replacement for GS, competitor for BMW 5-Series and that was just unfair for the car. With GS and IS, Lexus specifically targeted what is known as "European style sports sedan", it is distinctive from what Americans have - they simply have "full-size sedan" which is distinctively NOT sporty and that is what ES is. That is why it is so popular in US, because it is the "normal" style of car americans are used to. GS and IS was specifically created as competitors to 5-Series and 3-Series and they are distinctively more sporty. So when Lexus tired to sell ES as 5-Series competitor, they basically undermined the car, because then I have to treat it as "large sports sedan" it isn't and it obviously falls very short of GS or BMW 5-Series, despite being about the same size, just not "sporty". If Lexus wouldn't have tried so hard to compromise this car with wrong marketing and just sold it as it's own thing, neither replacement for IS, nor GS, nor competitor for 5-Series, then it is ok car in it's own right - comparable to Audi A5 saloon, BMW 4-Series GC, Mercedes CLA and Volkswagen Areton.... sort of "mid-size 4-door coupe".

As above Keith mentioned above, you will have to polish the car if you clay it, clay is only good if you planning to do machine polish after that. Lexus paint is soft and Sonax Perfect Finish seems to work very well on the car for finishing step, although depending on how your paint looks, it has almost no cut. Meguiars Ultimate Polish isn't actually polish at all, it is Glaze, so there is no point using power tools applying it and it does not remove scratches (it just fills them in). Don't confuse it with Meguiars Ultimate Compound which actually is polish, just maybe not the best out there. I personally, have long stopped using anything that is sold in halfrauds or on supermarket shelves as I consider those products inferior, so no Maguires, no Auoglym, no T-Cut, no Carplan and no Turtle-wax. However, I must admit recently even these "supermarket brands" have somewhat came back from the grave and do from time to time make reasonable quality product e.g. Autoglym and Turtlewax now make decent ceramic sealant spray, which is definitely not comparable to true ceramic coating, but work great as maintenance "top coat" products, are very easy to apply and give great water beading. Autoglym UHD Wax was always quite good product, just kind of expensive for what it is, so unless you can get one on sale for £16-£20 it isn't worth the price tag. For full polish, I would use something like Koch Chemie H8/H9 to cut, F6 to polish and then Sonax Perfect Finish to finish. If you want single stage polish without removing much of deeper scratches then M3 works just fine and it contains sealant... which may be good for single stage job, but bad if you want to apply something else for protection, then you kind of need to strip the sealant back before applying (in such case I would just use F6, because it finishes rather well). In general I would replace every single product you use. Just because there are better alternative, Bilt-Hamber Surfex-HD/Korrosol for pre-wash (strongest APC + strongest fallout remover from my experience), Bilt-Hamber Auto-Wash for shampoo (just way more concentrated), the snow foam step isn't really important, so just use anything that provides thickest foam. Polar Seal is actually good product for what it is, extremely easy to apply although protection is short lasting. I would use either TAC Systems Moonlight if paint is not perfect, or if paint is perfect then I would take extra time to apply proper ceramic coat of your choice (I used to be Gtechniq guy, but to be fair there are better products now).

Is it really that much different from UK or EU? We have 99 Momentum, and 98 Maxpower and all sorts of silly "ultimate names". at very least we have 95,97,98,99 and some countries in Europe adds 100, 101 and 102 to the mix.

Generally speaking I would say - yes it is worth buying Lexus, because they in general use better materials, are more sporty, yet more comfortable (adaptive suspension or just in general better suspension tuning) and it is Lexus, I mean there is value just in the badge regardless if one values it or not. However, that was the case when Lexus had dedicated or significantly enhanced cars like IS, RC and GS, those cars were not Toyota and did not have Toyota equivalence (more or less), sure they were still based on certain Toyota platforms and used many Toyota parts (which is good, they are reliable). Very important - they were RWD and Toyota's are FWD, this is one of key areas where driving dynamic comes from and why they felt better than Toyotas of similar size. However, when it comes to Toyota Avalon (ES), Auris (CT) or CHR (UX), it is definitely not worth buying Lexus, they are identical cars with cosmetic only changes and they feel exactly like equivalent Toyota would feel. Badge on these cars is worth just as much as plastic it is made from and unless you want to spend extra money to sit in Lexus dealership during the service and drink instant coffee from mug with Lexus logo and have little candy wrapped in Lexus wrap, then NO it definitely isn't worth the money. Lexus RX and NX are kind of interesting in a sense that they are based on existing Toyota cars, but they are kind of improved significantly enough that they no longer feel like Toyota, the way they ride and plastics and sound insulation inside really makes them feel little bit more luxurious. Besides SUV market is very competitive and they are priced reasonably well, where getting RAV4 won't save significant amount of money over NX, especially considering options etc. In the end the only 2 remaining cars which are true Lexus are LS and LC, and those are really worth every penny you spend and are on the league of their own which no Toyota could match. So I guess in the end - it depends, what model, what year and what people want from their cars.

You definitely need to replace just rear indicator light? I am asking because it is so simple that I struggling to understand what would be confusing here. Replacing reverse/fog lights is more complicated and requires removing boot-lid inside cover: This is from Lexus owners manual, p458: https://d24bc9lyrt5en5.cloudfront.net/Customer-Portal-Admin/emanuals/LEXUS/OM53A88E.pdf

It is not rare at all and I had at least dozen of them replaced over the time. Actually, it is very simple to get them stretched past the rated torque and it happens pretty much every time I take my car anywhere to get tyres/wheels changed. For example if there is any grease or even moisture on the nut the torque spec will be wrong and every shop I have seen uses air-guns which way way over toques the nuts... even Lexus dealers do that. Most of the time I specifically ask to not over torque wheel nuts and use proper torque wrench instead, but most of "mechanics" in tyre shops don't even know how torque wrench looks, never mind knowing how to use one. In theory if nuts are torqued to correct torque, then one should be able to easily undo wheel nut with tiny wrench which is included the tools kit, likewise the length of that wrench is specifically calculated to be right for average human being to be able to torque the nut to right spec using reasonable amount of force. If you ever tried undoing wheel nut with standard wrench after visiting the tyre shop, you would know that is nearly impossible to do, because nuts are always over torqued. As result over-time they weaken and eventually snap. Usually when I get car from service I take impact gun (that is the safest way of removing over torqued nut) and if that doesn't work then 930mm breaker bar (this is the easiest way to snap the stud). I undo them all, clean the nuts and studs to make sure there are no grease or dirt and then torque them properly with torque wrench to 76ft/lbs/103Nm/912in/lbs. Every 2nd or 3rd time this results in at least one of the studs snapping when I am trying to undo them, but I reckon it is better it happens to me when changing the wheels rather than when I am traveling at 70MPH+ on motorway. Replacing all 5 studs was unwarranted, but I guess now you have complete peace of mind. It seems you have good relation with the shop you use, so I guess £30 for studs and no charge for replacement was fair deal, although replacing studs takes literally 2min - so 10min job for 5. If it ever happens to me that stud snaps in the shop (and so far it only happened once) then I always insist they cover the replacement of stud they broke.

54k miles are not much... mine one was almost 80k when I sold it without any funny issues, but it was serviced by Lexus each year. Sadly, budget and mismatched used tyres are what garages do. I would go with set of good tyres, don't need to be Michelin Pilot Sport 4s, but any decent brand - Avon, Falken, Uniroyal... or any of those would do. I would personally go with premium tyres because they last longer and in turn actually costs less per mile to run in long term, despite costing maybe £50 more per tyre. So I would choose something between Michelin, Dunlop, Goodyear or maybe Bridgestone. But this is complex topic with many opinions and things to consider, so I would not make specific recommendation for tyres right now. Your experience of car being all over the road would be related with mismatched/budget tyres (I don't understand how this is acceptable or even legal in UK). That being the case, I would not waste my time getting alignment on these tyres - budget tyres despite being ok for just cursing have this inherently unpredictable handling. On premium tyres you can feel where the grip is and when car is about to start sliding, so if you choose to drive on the limit you can, or if not then you will have extra "safety margin". On budget tyres that is not the case - one minute they grip and feel good, next minute they suddenly lose it unpredictably and are outright dangerous. I can't count how many times premium tyres have saved me. In summary, I would say - plan for set of new mid-range/premium tyres and do 4-wheel alignment together with tyre replacement. Then you will have tyres in right shape and better alignment. Obviously, you could align on existing tyres, but you still going to have unpredictable grip and it does not sound to me like existing tyres are worth saving.

It is not new LFA, just an electric Lexus Coupe Concept, so comparison with LFA is not really right. Press called it "LFA inspired", but any inspiration I can see is Aston Martin Vulcan... the only thing which LFA has in common with this is that it is 2-door GT Lexus coupe... but in such case it may be as well LC or RC inspired, because both are as well 2-door GT Lexus coupes. It looks ok (as any concept to be honest), but I find it purely a concept art which has way to many issues to represent the practical product for example it has this long long hood reminiscent of vintage GT car with maybe V16 FR layout. This would be completely unnecessary and unpractical in BEV. Most purpose built BEVs have "skateboard" type of chassis which is most suitable for BEV car - keeps battery low to the ground and packaging simple. Lotus have deviated from design in Evija and put batteries centrally in the car where engine used to be in mid-engine car (still they kept it low to the ground, just not completely covering entire floor) - so that is another alternative for high power BEV... In neither case long hood is needed. So the concept art tries to combine ascetics of this vintage nostalgic GT silhouette with SCI-FI elements of the future and it looks good, but it will never be made into real car, nor called LFA.

It is not really that surprising VW group planning similar steps for Europe, and how can they plan differently when our politicians declared petrol and diesel will be banned. Obviously, they will continue to make petrol/diesel cars for regions where that is allowed. As for Lexus being fist before Toyota, that makes sense as well - Lexus is more premium brand, more expensive cars, so it is possible to sell them at higher price and cover some of development costs. £50k Toyota is thought sell, whereas exactly same car with Lexus badge on it sounds just about right.

Sounds like just an excuse for reducing or rejecting claim. If panel is dented they would have to replace it anyway i.e. removing film thus isn't necessary to inspect it. Insurance very rarely repairs panels - if they cheap enough and could be unbolted, then they simply get new panel and if are expensive, or structural then they will write-off the car before repair process and inspection becomes relevant. I had a lot of painful experience with insurance, just didn't know they could question basically the owner's right to clean and protect their car. But I am not surprised to be honest - insurance is real pain if you get involved in accident, even if it is not your fault.

Not sure why this would have any relation to insurance? I guess unless you get involved in the accident and try to claim for PPF replacement? At that point I guess it would count as undeclared modification, which would not surprise me as insurers are **** and reasoning with them is pointless. I look at PPF same as I would look at ceramic coating or even wax, it is just additional protection for my car so it looks shinier for longer, I would not claim it in case of accident. But I agree any film is priced ridiculously now in UK. I remember good 10-15 years ago before they became crazy popular wrapping entire car costed like £400-£600, because let's not forget that car wrapping technology came from commercial vehicle advertisement and to put company branding and advert on the van was like £150-£200, there was as well "tunners scene" in early 2000's with various decals and then somebody realised new business idea where wrapping entire car would make them 3 times more money, yet would be 3 times less expensive than paint and could be removed later-on when somebody inevitably get's bored driving rose gold chrome car. Protection to be hones was not planned and came just as added bonus. So it was win, win, win + win. Nowadays it is crazy - wrap costs £2000, £3000 even £6000 which is not only not less expensive, but it is now more expensive than paint, which defeats the purpose of temporary "paint protection". I personally have an option to go abroad and do clear wrap still for like £500, so maybe that is why I look at it as disposable. At very least I would do front of the car to protect it from stone chips as it only takes 20k miles and front of the car is like sand-blasted. The small scratches on the sides can still be polished out so less critical to wrap.

I don't even want to start the topic of how unsustainable that is for so many reasons... all this ban on ICE is based on unobtanium materials and miracle yet to happen technologies. I don't want to be absolute pessimist and say it is not possible, but it is fair just to point out that solutions do not exist yet, they need to be developed and our goverment is making policy on something they don't understand and without robust plans to make it work. It is all great to have such "desire", but that is not enough, it won't happen by itself. I hope it won't be like that FT-1 Prototype... looked amazing as prototype and in production it was fit to undersized Z4 platform hardpoints and looks just all chubby and ugly. I still can't understand the reason why they couldn't have made it on LC platform - Toyota owner it, it had all right proportions and it was even right model in the lineage... Previous supra shared platform with SC which is predecessor for LC... it just makes so little sense that they went BMW Zupra route. I would as well question why EV would need such a long bonnet... almost as if it needs to house V16 up front. Being EV it would make far more sense to have more "mid-engine" looking car like Lotus Evija.

Yes, it let the pump prime for short time, for long time, I have "primed" it manually a little bit when testing if it work (just applying 12V to pin 4 and 5), it still does the same thing. It doesn't seems to respond to accelerator i.e. when it ran for 5s (maybe I am exaggerating the time a bit, but it turned over several times and fired on all cylinders to the point where one would consider it "started"), I was pressing accelerator hoping I could sustain the idle, but it just burn what it had and shut-off. I mean that fuel is not getting delivered to chamber I am 100% sure, but I can't figure out why. I know the easy answer would be supply pump, because it is what causes 99% of cases, but it doesn't seems to be the case here yet. I guess the answer here would be for me to get right tools and not to waste anyone's time i.e. techstream should come tomorrow and I just need to get right gauge to test it delivers right pressure. In theory I can just take reading from the sensor, but that could be faulty itself. Earth issues - is just general bug-bear in electric system e.g. maybe short sensor, maybe broken wire, maybe water ingress in one of billion harnesses and the reason I am saying it would be "interesting" is that it would be extremely difficult to troubleshoot as it may be something completely unrelated and intermittent. i.e. maybe injector driver is shorting and all the rest system is fine. Yes I believe there is only strainer in the tank, only diesel has separate fuel filter. I have tired to start it in "safe" mode, but it didn't help much and I kind of got unexpected results. Without MAF is no difference at all, but when I disconnected fuel pressure sensor (which could cause all this) then I got not crank at all... and that is not what car should do. So it just all very weird and doesn't do what it should do. The sound which I am confident was coming continuous from high pressure fuel pump only happens after failed start. It does not make any sound before I attempt to start it. The vacuum theory is good shout, but I don't believe it would cause engine to stall in the fashion it does. I would expect rough idle, lean/rich mixture and loads of error codes - currently I am getting 0 error codes. Seems as if ECM tries to start and dies before being able to run any self-diagnostics, hence I am looking into "exotic" issue like injector driver ground or short fuel pressure sensor (just disclaimer - for somebody who may be using this thread in future - I would not recommend doing what they are doing or what I am doing, I am just looking at these videos for ideas of what else to check ) : or:

Glad to hear they were able to fix it, now it is just matter of waiting whenever insurance decides who's fault it was. As well, report all the issue you find with the repair, because by now you have paid for it anyway, regardless of who's fault it as and you premium will be affected, so at least get the job done right. And because they had to do it right first time around, this won't make it any worse in terms of your insurance. Sad thing the insurance company which suppose to represent you and to whom you paying top money isn't bothered and that is usual. Obviously getting dash cam is now tool late but I would consider it anyway. I had 3 crashes in span of 2 years (hopefully you won't), but in other hand I decided to fit dashcam right away, just because drivers in London are so bad and it was the case of when, not if. What is worse - in all 3 cases other drivers insisted it was not their fault (well - the first one didn't even stop) and refused to even reason with me, without dashcam it would have been very difficult to prove.

Reminds me Supra prototype (Toyota FT-1), or maybe lovechild of Aston Martin Vulcan and Supra, strange that it has Lexus badge now.

What is the mileage on the car? I agree it looks like tracking issue at first, especially if you are saying fronts have outside wear, but it is slightly strange for them to be so different from rear. I mean I had slightly more wear on inner edges on my RC (to be honest all Lexus I have ever owned) - just very corner itself and maybe 3mm at most. I mean I don't want to go into conspiracy theories, but am I right in saying that is how you bought the car? In which case maybe previous owner flipped the front tyres when inside was wearing out? Hence you have outer wear on front, inner wear on rear? Finally, I would say that alignment should be done on new tyres and it is a bit of waste to do it on old tyres. Because alignment you will be getting now will be to adjust suspension to your unevenly worn tyres and not the other way around. I mean sure I know alignment equipment is attached to hubs, so in theory it should straiten the wheels regardless of how your tyres are looking, but in practice you will be using small nut to counteract tons of force. Unless, you really really want to save those tyres for extra 5000 miles (justifiable considering the cost), I would just wait until they gone and do alignment with new set of tyres.

It certainly wouldn't be best seller, but it has it's own niche - BMW manages to sell 340i, MB manages to sell C350, so I am sure some IS350 would have been sold. I am not sure if it would have been enough to justify bringing it here, but it depends on Lexus plans. I would say that every car they sell even at loss is better than car their competitor sells (that is how LS400 and Lexus brand happened overall). So I would say it was worth bringing it here just to stick it to competitors. Besides there is genuine niche, people like me who wants just little bit more power from car, but without going to IS-F, sort of 300-350hp which in my opinion is sweet spot for passenger car - properly fast, without being obnoxious, dangerous, costly and so on. That is why people love BMW E46 M3 - it is just exactly manageable power which is fun to drive without being scared. As far as insurance and road tax... yes I am sure one would have to sell organs to insure one here, but road tax is already £585 on manual IS250, so IS350 would not be much worse. Surprisingly, IS350 is actually lower on maintenance cost - it doesn't have carbon issue in the engine as IS250, it does not have as much brake fade and wear (actually it is quite nice upgrade to put IS350 brakes on IS250). Generally, speaking 2GR-FSE is slightly more reliable engine than 4GR-FSE, no issues with sticking valve lifters, no issues with chain stretching or guides... just my opinion, but maybe 2.5L is little bit underpowered and overstretched pulling heavy car and thus overtime wears out, whereas larger 3.5L just generally has easier life by being optimally sized. That is why 2GR-FSE lives on and 4GR-FSE was discontinued. Now granted - IS350 is more of a cruiser and whereas it is great in american canyon, British B-roads are just way too narrow for such car. I am sure that one can have way more fun in Caterham or Mazda MX 5 any day - one really needs small and nimble car here. Finally, where I think it is reasonable to argue IS350 didn't have much point in UK, but not bringing RC350 was real crime. For 4-door family car engine power is less of an issue, but gutless sports coupe was real shame, because it does matter for people who buy such cars. Same argument can be made about IS-C, 350 would have been way more appropriate for convertible and would have provided at least some alternative to keep people coming of SC430 (who in this reality were left in the dry).

There is one other method - although only as last resort. You can drill the hole from the back of the calliper on where slider pin located - it is relatively thin wall and then you basically going to get access to the back of the pin. Easier to spray penetrating oil inside or just whack it out with the punch. Anyway if you do that then it will compromise the slider even more, so it is not ideal. In theory it is possible to plug the hole with hermetic, or maybe more elegant solution would be to tap it and put the screw cap in so that water doesn't ingress from the back. In my case I was always able to remove it after repeatedly twisting it and wiggling back and forward, applying more oil and doing all over again. Just to inform the pin of it's inevitable defeat make sure to swear repeatedly, that helps as well! 😄

Car came with only one key and I have confirmed previously that immobiliser get's deactivated (red light in the centre console goes off). Good shout on the immobiliser, but sadly I wish it would be that easy. It is definitely this, the annoying part is to find which one of few dozen parts are causing it and so far I am having no luck with it.

Yeah seems like we on the same page... Insurance have refused to insure me two years ago on RC200t - they said "this is fast and powerful car for a young person" and I was 29 at the time! Anything just about 2L+ is powerful here - what a joke! Which is probably nicely turns back into the topic. OP is probably right to consider IS250 "fast" for UK public standards. But I guess I am trying to defend americans calling it "slow", because for them it is. Other thing - perceived "slowness", for example same CrownVic has 8.4s 0-60 (same as IS250), but as you can imagine with that V8 it is way louder and feels way faster, whereas IS250 is just generally very quiet and well insulated car, so it doesn't provide same sensation of speed and thus seems like slower than it is... What I am saying - for americans where everything including lawnmower and mobility scooter has V8 and are loud, the quiet V6 Lexus probably makes impression of slow car. Looking from different angle - CrownVic is obsolete car designed in 80s and it has same acceleration as IS250, doesn't that make IS250 objectively "slow" - at least in their environment.

Note as well that Octane rating is not the same as fuel quality. Often it is linked, but it is far too simplified to look at it that way. It is almost like saying that vintage whisky is as good of a drink as winter windscreen wash - "because both contains 38% of alcohol". Ethanol isn't bad either, but it depends on the application, it could be added to the fuel as detergent for example. I ran IS250 with E85 and it runs just fine, I would not recommend leaving it in the tank for long time, but in many European countries that is the only choice you get. Sure enough fuel consumption is up by 10% and power is slightly reduced (because ethanol doesn't have same power density). I am sure it cleaned my injectors and fuel system well, the only question - how much detergent in fuel is too much?

They definitely have equivalent of that. 91 Octane in US ~ 98 Octane here. And you can see they even have 93... which is your super ultra duper 100 or something. I mean I generally have reservations about petrol quality in US, but at least where Octane ratings are concerned they are the same. US petrol is worse for other reasons and Octane isn't one of the,

Not quite sure what you mean - GS is equivalent of E-Class/5-Series, whereas C-Class/3-Series and IS are direct competitors, in entry luxury market. The true "luxo barge" is LS/7-Series/S-Class, whereas Class below that (GS etc) is large/sport saloon. I agree with your second paragraph, but it seems you are contradicting yourself in 3rd and 4th paragraphs. So on one hand we agree that in US it is bought by teenagers as first car, but then you say it is not considered "luxo barge here", despite OP kind of insisting it is and should not under any circumstance be compared with "sporty cars"... which to me indicates people look at them like way bigger car and way more luxury oriented then they are in other countries. IS - is entry luxury sports sedan, so being sporty and "fast" isn't unnatural for such car. And even outside of this thread I have owned multiple IS250s... just got another one few weeks ago and I know how people look at it. "True Brits" always comments that it is "fancy car", "not sure I could afford to run such car" and "I am not sure I need such powerful, large, luxury car"... which for me not being "true brit" always sounds funny, because I consider it small and frugal daily runabout car, nothing fancy at all, just well put together comfortable, not offensively slow car. In most countries something like Passat/A4 is considered average car. Then obviously, there is fancier version of average car and that is where entry-luxury comes in 3-Series, C-Class and IS - same size but little bit sportier/luxurious. Amuricans have taste for bigger cars so their average car would be ~A6 range, CrownVic used to be staple in US (and that is large V8 sedan, definitely larger than Mondeo), hence they really liked ES - which isn't really 5-Series competitor, but it is "larger car". Compare that to UK and it seems average motorists considers Fiesta/Focus as about average and anything larger than that is considered "large and luxurious". Now obviously that is generalisation and I can't get to every person's head, but that seems to be the case to me after many years driving in UK and comparing to Europe. And this is in particular is false US uses MON Octane rating and we use RON. 87 MON = 95 RON. So at least as far as rating is concerned they have same fuel.

Ok, sorry maybe I misunderstood the issue then. But I guess to some degree same applies to full lock when reversing - wheels are not in same angles (because the can't be) and inevitably it comes to point where tyre has to jump back to it's "natural" form. The harder is the compound, the lower is tyre profile, the grippier is the tyre and the more aggressive thread, the more noticeable this "jump" will be.