Linas.P

Sounds exactly like every single 10 years old exhaust job 😁 It is possible to undo the bolts, but it is certainly quicker just to cut them.

I thought I was able to compensate for 1 missing wheel, not 1 remaining... it would be interesting to see how that looked like 😁

I think I was quite clear, but perhaps I should be clearer in future.

I probably could not. I never looked into why they fail, but I know they could and do fail (like anything really). GS300 not having this battery, just has one less thing to fail. From my memory there were at least 3-4 threads about failed cells and even walk thought/guide of how to DIY replace them (which requires little bit of advanced skills). Does that make GS450h unreliable - no! Does it make GS300 more reliable in theory - yes... which one I would chose personally - GS450h any day. So clearly this battery fault is not high enough risk to get worried. As well OP mentioned that he intends to purchase car under £5k, by which time it means that is not going to be Main Dealers sale and to be fair I doubt any main dealers still have any GS mk3 on sale.

I didn't say they are going wrong, I said they could go wrong. There are few threads and instances where hybrid battery cells failed and needed repairs. As GS300 does not have that battery at all, so that is one less thing to go wrong. As well, where I say particularly in mk3 - I mean in comparison with mk4, which are not known to have battery issues yet. Obviously, it may be just range and mileage difference at the moment. Again, as I said, both cars are extremely reliable, but GS300 would be that tiny bit more reliable by not having hybrid battery. Likewise GS300 does not have electric dampers, I am not aware of any electric dampers failing because of being electric, but I know that replacing electric dampers will be much more expensive than replacing standard ones. With age of the cars approaching 15 years this becomes realistic possibility. In short what I am saying, GS450h being more complex car with more equipment there is more to go wrong in it. Not that it goes wrong, but there is more risk naturally.

You could have both under £5k, but it seems to me that you will always be able to get "better deal" on GS300, for the reasons I have already explained, but that is precisely because generally it is not considered "better" car, it is simply cheaper car with less exciting standard equipment. As well, GS300 is probably more reliable, just less things to go wrong, whereas particularly mk3 hybrid batteries could go wrong, they equally could be fixed, but still more to go wrong with GS450h, than it is with 300. But, both are generally extremely reliable cars.

I am assuming you looking at mk3 GS. GS300 will always be cheaper, because GS450h is always a better car like for like. So for same price GS300 will have lower mileage, for same price GS300 will be in better condition - these are generalisations of course. GS450h will have lower road tax because it is hybrid. GS450 comes with electronic dampers standard, GS300 does not. GS450h is obviously faster and more fuel efficient. But it is difficult to say which cars is "better", because for different people different criteria matters. In short you need to define your criteria more clearly. If you ask me and give me choice between GS300 and GS450h, for the same price an all else being equal I would always choose GS450h.

GS300 GS450h

450h is better... 😁 In Lexus range (like in most brands which use numeric nomenclature) the higher number = better.

The problem with SS is that metal itself is different and it resonates much more, the walls on SS exhaust are usually thinner as well - and that overall results in drone at any constant load/speed. Not really sure what you mean by "resonated system" - I guess you can call original system that, because it was designed in a way to minimise resonation and drone from the factory - that is very long and expensive process costing millions to design the system which effectively silences the engine and eliminates any unwanted resonations. No aftermarket exhaust will ever get to that level, unless well known mass produced like HKS, but good luck finding HKS system in UK (it is impossible). Exhaust has it's lifetime, so the used exhaust will last the remainder of it's life, paying £120 may be a good value and it may last several years. The outside surface rust is not an issue, but exhaust usually rusts from inside, so it is very hard to tell if it is in good shape.

You welcome. I tried to make it as concise as possible! 🙂

SS are likely to drone... if OP want's to "show-off" a bit then why not - IS250 actually sounds great with SS system, but then you will need to live with drone. Technically any modification to emission equipment is MOT failure, whenever removing secondary (lower) cats and leaving primary (upper) ones would pass mot is kind of a guess game. I would argue that as long as car passes emissions test and still has primary cats it should be road legal, but that will be decision based on MOT tester discretion. Cats in IS250 are not restrictive anyway and removing them adds nothing to the car so I would advise to leave them in place.

The metals in cats are Platinum, Palladium and Rhodium and they have always been more expensive than Gold. Selling your old cats would not buy you an exhaust system, assuming you can find who buys it the cost of used catalytic convertor will be ~£80, your car has 4 of them, so ~£320... still nowhere near the price you need for exhaust replacement. Besides removing cat is illegal and your car will fail MOT without one, not to mention it would be immoral to pollute without any good reason. The main question I have - does your car actually need entire system or is it just mechanic trying to make a profit from you? My old IS250 had some rust on exhaust, pretty much all the time I have owned it, but that was mainly back section (reproductions or SS custom made ones could be had for £300). In the mid section it had one small hole near the resonator (common place to fail) and still has it as far as I know. The mid-section is easy replacement because it is basically 2 straight pipes joining into Y at the end - any pace should be able to do it very cheaply (under £200). I have never seen front section and especially cats needing replacement - so my suspicion machinic either does not known what he is talking about or trying defraud you. Get second opinion first (if you cannot check yourself), because it doesn't seem likely to me that car needs entire exhaust system.

I don't think they are making them, maybe just old stock. Same for old Dunlop RT... they are still available to buy, but they are worse and more expensive than RT2. Second guess, they are OEM for some car model, I know RT have AO (audi) and N (porsche) markings, so in theory they still used as OE. Same reason Michelin PSS are still available despite being obsolete and long replaced by PS4s.

Just make sure you get 5's not 3's as Goodyear has updated tyre quite significantly. I is as well one of two tyres I recommend (second being Dunlop RT2), but in my opinion they quite sporty tyres with great handling, nothing wrong with their comfort in my opinion, but OP said handling does not concern him - only the absolutely most complaint and comfortable tyre.

I know it is bit older thread, but why it wouldn't be safe? I had IS250 AWD (US import) and it had self-opening boot - I assumed it was factory, but maybe previous owner had it retrofitted. As well my current RC boot opens fully by itself (I am sure this is factory) and to be honest it is a bit pain to close.

It is not UK we talking about so it is little bit different. I had so called B1 license from 16 - exactly same license, training and test as B, but at the time I believe it was limited to 1.3L engine and 1200kg (now is probably even lower) and I got actual B license from 18. I was working from age of 13 and I bought my first car when I was 14. I could not drive it on the road (I would be lying if I say I didn't try), so I just quickly flipped it for profit, did it several times as well before I turned 16. My first car at 16 which I could actually legally drive was Mazda MX3 (which was compliant), but soon I have transitioned to E34 BMW 525 (which was very certainly not compliant), but I was little bit into drifting so... it had to have more power and be RWD. Police would not have approved and if I would have crashed I doubt insurance would have covered it. Insurance as well is quite significantly different, when I was 3 month away from 18, I got 525 engine swapped for M60B40 4L V8 (drifting remember!) - I fully declare engine mods to insurance and because I was 3 month away from 18 it didn't make sense to insure for full year as insurance price would have dropped once I turned 18. So I only insured for 3 months and paid the staggering price (or so I thought at the time) of £15 per month, in comparison with £60 a year for 525 it was expensive. When I turned 18, the cost of full year insurance which again in my opinion was very high was £89. As it is completely legal in the country only the car has to be insured, not the driver, so it was legal for example for my father to insure it and for me (or anyone really) to drive it. Insurance cost for my father would have been like £35, but I wanted to be independent so I paid much higher price myself. To be honest I am not sure my father would have approved me driving engine swapped BMW anyway. Just one thing which still amazes me to this day is that insurance didn't see any problem insuring me on the cars which were clearly and obviously illegal for me to drive. Besides insuring my current RC would cost me ~£600 (kasko ~fully comprehensive cover) or ~£250 (mandatory insurance ~ Third party only cover). So I guess nobody should be surprised when I am not pleased at all with punitive insurance costs in UK.

If this review is to be trusted (which I think it is), then BFGoodrich Advantage is the tyre your are after (assuming you are able to find the right size) - all around mediocre tyre, but best comfort in class. Just note that comfort is subjective question:

Just to put it out there - I have no issue with your statement. It may be the case that people need to read it carefully, but statement in itself is fine. One thing is snobbism (looking down on poor people - which is not at all the case in your post) and completely another - breaking down facts, making logical conclusion and giving sound financial advise. Not filling-up tank in full could be case of personal preference or reasoning - and that is fine, but if person is literally unable to afford the tank of petrol, then your point is absolutely valid. I would even argue - owning a car overall should be questioned. And there is nothing "insensitive" about it, just pure logical reasoning and sound financial advise. Petrol in the car ownership is the cheapest expense we have in UK. So if one cannot afford even that, I am sorry. People may get offended about it, but it is nothing snobbish about it. For example I do not fill full tanks, as I said in current circumstances I am trying to keep the tank around 25%... but that is far far away from me not being able to afford it and that is completely different. It is just based on my experience with keeping the car parked for long time. For example when I sold my IS250 it sat on new owners drive for nearly a year. I sold it with nearly full tank, but thankfully the new owner used most of it before parking the car-up (it was ~10L remaining). When I helped him to bring the car back to life the petrol was way off... we even had discussion and I said I will bring tank with 5L of E98 and maybe some cleaner/octane booster, he said no petrol should be fine. I brought it anyway and I am glad I did. Car would start on old petrol but would just sputter and shut off, but once we added 5L of fresh E98 into the mix with octane booster - car cranked and it ran just fine. Now imagine if it would have been full tank - we would have been screwed. Probably would have to call specialist who can pump the old petrol out and paid £300 for that + expense of wasting all that fuel and refilling it again. Whereas I just got £10 worth of fresh petrol and some supermarket petrol additive. Now another argument could be - maybe if the petrol tank would have been full the fuel would not have gone off... maybe, but who want's to risk it to find out?! Finally, one thing I have realised when I was 16 and actually rather poor (as a car owner) - assuming you always driving and consume petrol anyway filling full tank does not cost you any more money, it could even save some. So where my friends would fill-up for £5 I would always have full tank and when we looked at it I actually saved money. Because I would plan my refuel and I would go to the station where fuel was cheapest. They would run for a bit, run out of fuel and go to nearest station and fill up for much more money + extra detour 5-10 times per each tank. Not to mention few times they had to call me to bring them fuel because they ran out and then had to buy me beers for my help and pay for not only their fuel, but my fuel as well. So - filling-up full is actually cheaper if you planning to use it in near future.

Just for little bit of fun - at the time I was 29 years old, 5 years NCB, clean license for 12 years, car is in Romford, garaged:

By any chance it was runflat (or similar type)? On my old IS I had PS4 and they were great, especially in terms of mileage (had ~5-6mm left after 20k). I would not recommend them as I found PS4 to be "too sporty" for my liking, great mechanical grip and good feeling steering response, but harder, louder and less fuel efficient than say RT or RT2s. I would certainly recommend them for sports car with 300-400hp (and PS4s above 400hp), but for IS250 they were just overkill (same probably would apply to 200t, 300h cars). Now I got them for free, so the price was not a factor, but if I had to pay money I would say there are better value tyres around. I am not sure why, but tyre reviews tends to skip Dunlop tyres, but I would expect RT2 to perform somewhere in the middle between Goodyear Asymmetric 3 and 5.

I agree that Continental, Pirelli are Michelins are rather expensive, but I not sure where claim of Michelin "poor durability" comes from? Primacy and PS4 have great durability, whenever it is worth the price that is different question. I generally have good experience with Dunlop RT and RT2, but I feel the are now getting to end of their life e.g. Parent company Goodyear has released Asymmetric 5, but there were no update from Dunlop and RT3 is kind of due. I would feel comfortable recommending both (RT2 and Asymmetric 5) as good value options.

Lexus wheel naming is not great (they usually have no names or numbers). These wheels are simply known as multi-spoke/F-sport/15-spoke wheels. As you can see in brochure calls them "ISP Mode", but I have never seen them listed this way. https://www.lexus.com/documents/brochures/2010/2010-Lexus-IS-Brochure.pdf

Crashed vehicle for repairs on auction, probably even cheaper. My comment was in relation to the situation where some low morale vehicle tradesman (or tradeswoman, because nowadays we need to be politically correct) has damaged car and they want to fix it. Often that is unrecorded damaged car so it can be sold back at high price/high profit once fixed. They have an option of getting another wrecked car from auction (usually cheaper than ordering individual parts) or they have an option to reach out to their contacts in criminal world to get particular model stolen. The theft itself will cost some money - some investigative journalism has revealed that process overall is ~£5k depending on the car, the thieves who takes the car usually get's £400-£2000 depending on complexity, butcher shop can get £500 per night per person (so say 4x) and people running the operation could charge whatever they like probably percentage of vehicle market value and complexity. So I guess on £60k Range-Rover or BWM this could be £10k, but on something like RX this will certainly be lower. This is obviously speculation, because although this is from interview with car thieves gang member it does not mean that all gangs operate the same way, or that he is telling the truth or that interview is even real, because it could all be "re-enactment". So for the car to be stolen it has to be worth more for thieves and the person ordering, than same car could be found on salvage auctions. Obviously, there is as well question of supply - can such car be bought at reasonable price in reasonable time. Maybe their car has front of it crashed and all the cars on auction as well have front crashed etc. Simply what I am saying - most of older cars after 5-10 years old generally are just not valuable enough to be prime targets. Mostly targeted are brand new cars or latest model e.g. car may be 2016, but the model is still present in 2020, meaning thieves can repair 2020 car with it.

Generally, I fill full tank and I use it till the end. Not because I am lazy... or maybe I am, just call it "efficient". The difference on driving with full tank is quickly negated, by having to take even few 100 meters detour to fill-up, so there are no practical difference there. However, during lockdown I stopped doing this as fuel goes-off over time and my car being parked sometimes for a month doesn't help. So now I started adding fresh 5-10l only every other time I drive and keeping it below 25%. But that is not how I would normally do it, just exceptional times we living in.