Linas.P

Most issues on the service manual has "checking fluid level" as a step for troubleshooting. Apart of replacing the fluid there is nothing else you can do with the gearbox. If there would be issues with solenoids you would get a fault code, but that as well could be caused simply by fluid again. Generally, if procedure is done correctly and Lexus dealer should know how to do it, then it cannot hurt. In short - no matter what issue you have on gearbox the fluid change and level check is always first thing to do. If there is mechanical damage e.g. broken gear, then this would be very obvious very quickly and certainly when changing fluid - chunks of gears would be all over the place.

The AFT is fairly generic type of fluid, Valvoline is as well well known brand, but whoever does the change must do it correctly. Does Lexus dealer change includes filter change? That would make sense considering the cost, but would be best to check with them.

It depends on what device you get, but newer OS is generally more secure and less venerable + it will have more built in features by default. 7.1 is just obsolete version which is no longer supported, although this being made in China I about that aby of them are officially supported anyway. Short answer - no they don't. Longer answer is that even if Lexus would sell it, the cost would be something stupid like £4000. And that is assuming it is even possible to retrofit infotainment from FL RC. Obviously, this quickly becomes non-issue because Lexus won't even sell it to you and it is not like market is full of used infotainment systems from 2019 cars which are by themselves extremely rare (Lexus RC). On top of that - Lexus infotainment is trash, it is slow, navigation is terrible (even in 2020 model) and there will are no Apple CarPlay, nor Android auto (even in FL RC). Some Lexus models are not getting that, but not RC. Getting this android unit you know that you can use all apps from Google Play store and you can use built-in Google Maps for navigation + it looks OEM. As far as control of all the other functions - the thread I have linked cover is. Basically you need to get right model for your car and all functions will work same as standard unit.

I think you can do better than that and replace entire tiny 7" screen with something what looks like FL sreen + it is android and has carpay and android auto. Below is the previous thread. The only thing I would change - I would make sure OS is at least android 10, android 7.1 is very old now.

Absolutely, Lexus sat-nav is terrible, no point fixing it. Second screen would be quite "old-school" and probably custom job. Nowadays, easiest way is just to get large android screen instead (they are ~£200-500 depending on spec.) with correct buttons for climate control. Something like that:

I think quoted £100 is on the low side, that would be reproduction screen from China and assuming you fit it yourself (even then with shipping and few basic tools it is closer to £200). Quality as awful as original one. If you look for somebody else to to it for you, then closer to £300. Lexus Dealership, probably £500+. Worst case scenario - replace entire unit at ~£500-700 (used). But I would not pay 1 penny for Lexus Sat-Nav anyway.

This is general discussion part of the forum, so admittedly standards are allowed to slip...

300 miles is quite good in RC-F... I could barely do that in my RC200t. @nicnac - am sure he moved deliberately to be canyon road away from work, so that RC-F could be fully enjoyed every time.

Where does it say car has to be serviced or stored in UK. Basically you assumed I imply that and then instead of clarifying just gone ahead saying that is what I said. "Spend all summer driving completely legally" - again exactly right. It is legal to drive up-to 6 months. In UK we are lucky if summer lasts 2 weeks, so 6 months should be plenty. But the question is - before storing it for 6 month... would you leave full tank or would you leave it empty? 😁

Yes... so car being 12-13 years old means you most definitely could not have taken warranty before it is 10 years old. Unless somehow previous owner had warranty and you can extend it after it is transferred to you.

@Sundance - My sentence admittedly lacks sense. Fixed. Car is insured in the country it is registered in, you don't need UK insurance to drive in UK. If French or Belgian wants to drive their caravan across UK, they don't need UK insurance. Most insurance companies allows to drive abroad, including in UK. As far as law is concerned the driver Mr. John hires the car from XYZ Limited CI, that is all that matters. That Mr. John is as well director of XYZ Limited CI that is nobodies business. It is not illegal. Funny enough that is the easiest way to pay no Stamp duty on real estate and that is exactly how all of the London Mansions are bought and sold without ever paying stamp duty. As well half of MPs does that with their London homes - sell them to offshore shell company which they own, then rent them from basically themselves and then claim expenses. Immoral it may be, but it is not illegal. I never said car can to be permanently kept in UK... Actually opposite - driver will have to prove it is in UK temporarily, but it is not difficult to do e.g. ferry ticker. The renter cars driving thing is exemption under temporary importation laws. As well it is up to 6 months.

At that price they never stay for long. Cars priced at 17k+ tends stay for longer as at that time the seller is looking for person who actually appreciates their particular car. For £12k it is good value generally when you consider it is 4.4s to 60 and 400hp+ car. Another thing is warranty, as car is now 12 years old it may be difficult to get it warranted. In either case that would apply to any 2008 IS-F and ~100k miles is about right for the year. So whichever way we look it is still well priced car.

No worriers, I doubt I would find more friendly and welcoming forum on the internet, so I will stick around. As well if you PM me then this comes as an e-mail and even if I am not actively looking to the forum I could still be reached.

Yes door sills should be easy to install, sadly I cannot remember if there are wiring already there or it needs to be wired for sills lights to work.

I am absolutely sure it is not the same, chemistry and additives has changed. Even fuel changing from leaded to unleaded would be major change in how they are formulated. I tend to believe that fuels nowadays are advanced enough for additives to become unnecessary under most circumstances, however I still believe there could be exceptional circumstances where one could use dedicated additive to their benefit.

UK residents are allowed to legally drive which are cars rented abroad. Which part of this is scam?

Hello Anton, Everything is possible, but nothing is financially feasible. When it comes to Lexus, they are really not the car which are easy to retrofit and modify in general. For comparison I know that for example common mods on BMW and Audi is to retrofit newer iDrive systems etc. On Lexus what you buy is pretty much what you get. "Adaptive lights" - there is not such thing on IS. HIDs are self-levelling and older ones had AFS, which is something like 5% tilt when cornering, you cant even notice it unless you directly in front of the wall turning the wheels. Could AFS work on non-AFS car - it could, but you will need to retrofit a lot of things. New headlights, headlight levelling sensor with arm on the wheels and probably dozen of other things. If you have entire "donor" car it may be possible in theory, but it is not like just getting headlights with AFS on internet and fitting them to the car. Likewise HID+DLR likes don't have AFS, only older HID non-DLR has it. On top of that getting pair for 2012 HID+DLR lights will be half of the price of your car. Not sure how likely it is and how lucky you can get on used ones, but new ones are £1300+VAT (each). + you will need to modify wiring harness and you will need to get ballasts... and still your car is going to throw error for lights. Everything is doable, but nothing you planning to do is worthy. In short it would be cheaper and easier just to get 2012 car which already has all the things you want and it probably would be nicer car overall, because it is newer. Auto-dimming mirror, may be feasible, because as far as I understand it is self-contained unit. Simply plug the power and it works. Whenever car without electronic mirror has power... I don't know, I actually doubt it. Changing aftermarket lights both front and rear would be feasible, they are relatively cheap and usually plug and play if you get right lights for your model. However, the light you get from them could be worse than original halogens, never mind HIDs.

What particular product you have in mind, just to name the few common thing available in supermarkets - Redex octane booster, Petrol system cleaner, fuel system cleaner, emission reducer etc. Each of them will do exactly what they say on the label (well... not exactly - they won't increase power etc). Say octane booster will boost octane rating of your fuel, petrol system cleaner will clean things like injectors and lines. There is nothing special about these products - same chemicals are included in fuel itself to achieve same things, just at lower amounts. If I make analogy then imagine drinking orange juice to get vitamin C, the redex product would be concentrated vitamin C pill. Whenever you benefit from 10000mg extra vitamin C in your body that is another question. Same for cars those additives does what they say they do, but whenever it is beneficial is not quite clear cut. I did use emission reducer before MOT on older car and it seems to have done the trick, I did use petrol booster on old tank of fuel which was gone bad to start the car and it did the trick. So I think they do work in certain circumstances, but using them regularly would be waste of money. As well certainly they don't make your car more fuel efficient, nor they make it more powerful than rated power. These claims are based on assumption that you have an issue e.g. if you have slightly clogged line or injector, then in theory cleaning that could improve emissions or fuel efficiency. But if you don't have these issues then additives can't help. Or if you have old petrol which is not the best and thus car retards the timing to run on it and as result you have less power. Yes adding petrol booster would bring that petrol up to spec and your car will again make full power, but the statement of 20% more power they make is absolute non-sense and based on multiple assumptions at once.

Just note that you sharing your post code with the link 🙂 on AT you can always strip most of the link and just leave the advert number at the end e.g. https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202103109999304 As for the car - I see this very often on Lexus cars, just maybe not to this extent. People don't know what was optional and what was standard and because something like SE-L has extremely long list of standard features they assume this is fully loaded. Whereas reality is that there were only 4 options - Sunroof, ML, MM and ACC/PCS. Clearly he is selling this car on another planet where IS250 is triple the price. Even then I remember there was car with 24k miles for £4690, with sunroof and with ML. Admittedly, it was last year - but I am not aware that IS250 would have tripled in value since. I remember commenting that although car looked brand new, I would be concerned about it just considering the fact it was sitting for most of it's life.

He is knowledgeable guy I just could not stand his shouty voice and accent. As well he oversaturates the detail and blows things out of proportions sometimes (funny enough, similar problem as I have). Luckily I just don't have his shouty voice 😁

It seems that from time to time it would actually help if you read the posts, maybe even twice, because at no point I suggested anything illegal, it is fully covered by insurance, but indeed may not be permanent. At no point you would forfeit the car, livelihood or face court proceedings - those are inventions of your imagination or simply clear lack of understanding what law applies where and how it works. .... at least you feed your car - that is good to know 😁

Registering the company is a minor inconvenience, actually can be done for like £200 a year. It is just shell company in principle, CI financial system specifically created for shell companies like that and tax avoidance. Getting the car registered on the company and rented out to yourself is just a formality, cost of few postage stamps at most. If car is already bought and registered in UK, then VAT is already paid and no savings can be made (there are some mechanisms to recoup some when permanently exporting but not much). If car is new and bought in CI then no VAT paid (it may be 5% in Jersey) and it is all saving. There is a lot of grey area around how you define where car is kept etc. I am not going to go into details, but that is something potential owner could decide themselves. From perspective of VED car is CI based and used in UK on temporary basis as long as permitted by law. Car would be insured in CI, most of insurance companies permits use in UK, but insurance is magnitude of times cheaper anyway. UK insurance artificially high and insurance companies actually makes unbelievable profits, but they do not declare them by various tax avoidance loopholes. I know several exotic car rental companies around Europe which works on similar principle i.e. where car is registered in certain country where insurance and tax are very low, but car actually never drives in that country and spends most time in places like Monaco. This as well could shield owner from any liability when it comes to traffic violations (useful in Switzerland/Finland/Estonia), but again I won't go into details. You can call it "shady"... yes it definitely is - that is purpose of it. And... wait... what we were talking about in this thread... ohh yes I prefer to fill full tank 😁

I guess one thing to consider is that we still in lockdown, so technically it would be illegal to take test drives etc. This being private seller and considering what kind of the car it is I would imagine a lot of people would not take a risk buying it without seeing it, test driving it or taking it for inspections. So my guess maybe potential buyers are just queuing-up and waiting for lockdown to finish.

But if everyone are officers then who actually fights the fire? 😁

I am just trying to be careful here, because nowadays you don't know who takes offence from what 😁 If you ask me I am fine with having just policeman and fireman (especially considering 99% of fireman are actually man). What is correct way then? Firefighter?