Linas.P

No I don't think you claimed they work 100% of the time, I just wanted to be clear on that point and that is it. Sorry, I thought you said it was £180 for alligators, for £120 it seems more acceptable cost. However again I just don't like how they look. £90 is like the highest you could be charged for wheel repair, I would say average would be closer to £75, but if you know where it could be done for even less. I am sure they could be reused when refitting tyres, never said it is not the case. However, what I have said that they should be replaced once damaged... and as your own explanation suggests it is a little bit of grey area when to replace them and what is considered damaged. This results in some people running them damaged and "exploding" corner of their car when these things gets detached at speed. I might be exaggerating a little bit as it again depends on your luck - they my simply fly off, or they may take corner of your car with them... certainly there is possibility of later. Finally, indeed in case of damage like Mike's - they would have helped, but that is because damage on his wheel is literally tiniest damage one can get... just a tine scrape. In most cases they either would not help, or would help, but look horrible by themselves and would require replacement

That was what I had to do... seems ok so far (their work that is). Problem in my case was that in my kit I got incorrect gasket, so now I needs another kit and do it over again (probably not too bad, considering it may benefit of 2 flushes after 192k miles).

I tend to ask Lexus not to wash my car, maybe some dealerships are better then other, but I found that complimentary wash (not polish) causes more issues then it solves. Last time I forgotten to ask and they applied glaze on the car and forgotten to polish the grill - took me 3 hours with tooth brush to scrape it from all crevices once it dried on properly. Regarding their health check - first thing - I would get second opinion, ideally from local garage where you could actually see it for yourself. Regarding their findings - I think you could ignore the exhaust system for now ( it seems they wanted to scare you and try to get you into new car). Corroded brake lines - that would be concerning if it is true, so again just check somewhere else and make sure they are actually in bad shape. Somehow it doesn't make sense as my old car was 193k miles and it didn't have any major issue with corrosion, except on small hole just before rear silencer... So I cannot see how much newer and probably lower mile F-Sport could have so many issues with corrosion. Regarding tyres - I do recommend RT2, I had good personal experience with them. That said it is just one of many opinions - I would as well consider Goodyear Asymmetric 5. I have not used them myself, but Dunlop is owned by Goodyear (so it is same company basically) and Asymmetric 5 is newer than RT2... I assume overall RT2 is somewhere in between Asymmetric 3 and 5. I would look and see which one has better deal available on the day and pick the cheaper. Michelin and Continental are good tyres as well, but sadly they tend to be much more expensive, for not really much more value.

They are definitely no the same, I have replaced my with refurbished used one when mine locked-up around 150k miles.

Funny enough, I just replaced it for new owner of my old car few weeks ago. Why do you want to change it - any issues? I my old car case it was throwing error codes for solenoids and that is why the change was need and it did transform the shifting to be honest. But it was 193k miles. I have ordered the kit with 4L ATF, gasket and filter and that was just about enough to do the job, but you looking at £140 just for parts alone. There is no way Lexus dealer doing replacement, they generally don't do it at all. £150 will be just for refresh - maybe 0.5 or 1L of ATF out and fresh one in. The fluid is indeed "life-time", but the question is what is considered "life-time" of the car? 10year/100k miles maybe? So yes eventually it needs to be changed. Some people on this forum suggest 50k, but each change, especially if not done properly could harm more than it helps, procedure is not exactly easy to do and there are not many places which could do it well enough to risk.

@LenT - I didn't say alligators or similar products are bad, I just pointed out that not only they don't work 100% of the time, but as well you must replace them as soon as you hit the kerb. That is not something I have invented but the instructions of the product. £180 for 4 = £45 per wheel. Whereas wheel refurbishment is £50-90 depending on size, quality and the place you living... and how greedy you local wheel refurbishment shop is or how much clientele they have. Basically, having rim protectors reduces your repair costs by 30-50%. On top of that I actually don't like how they look (my personal thing) and I consider them as equivalent of support wheels on kids bicycles (basically indication you could not feel the corners of your car). They kind of suits some cars- like is you have pin Lamborghini and matching colour rim bands that is kind of style of the car, but this is more of exception. Scratches from the kerb isn't "damaged aluminium" - just lick of filler and it will be gone. Considering some of the wheels I have refurbished in the past your your "damage" is literally joke - just a scratch. ...and you are clearly not waiting to hear back from Lexus Poole as it is little bit late for their recommendations!😁But good effort there... + I guess the service guy is having a laugh as you basically asking how to refurbish a wheel. What you expect them to say? "Take it to wheel refurb place". Well I guess they can recommend the place they use as they should be using one frequently. But considering how far you have gone by yourself... again it is kind of too late for the professional job. I think you really stressing out far too much about the thing which is literally frequent occurrence (well maybe for you it isn't, but generally it happens to million people every day). As you have done it all now, it is kind of too late, but sadly I feel like you have wasted a lot of effort. Any wheel refurbishment place and considering how small the damage was - even mobile repair vans would have easily done the job for you in a matter of minutes. Call me pessimist, but after you going to spray it you still going to need to eventually get it fixed by professional shop and it isn't even that expensive ~ tank of fuel. Lexus wheels have no colour codes, but most reasonable wheel refurb places matches the colour close enough. Obviously, if you know the shop used by dealership then maybe that is advantage... although I feel it could be "double-edged sword" - you see... dealerships will always refurb the wheels in the cheapest possible way, because they literally do hundreds of them. What I am saying - place which dealership uses are likely to know how to match wheels closest to Lexus colour, but they work quality might not be the best quality.

I just like driving 🙂 As for going to work it was something like 19 miles each way, but I would drive to work in London (which is unusual). Some miles on weekend and that makes ~250miles a week. But then in Summer I would often drive to sea side which from London is 200-300 miles round trip depending on where I was going. I liked road tripping in UK as well, Scotland, Cornwall ... so my average year would be ~14k miles in UK. On top of that I would go driving to Europe, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Eastern Europe by car. So add another 3-4k miles a year.

And it is good ideal to replace things like shock absorbers in pairs.

I had something like this after leaving the car outside on very hot summer days, however although dash felt sticky after just getting into the car it was not permanently damaged.

Yes I was driving on higher pressures. I found 35/38 to result in premature wear on tyre edges indicating underinflation ... on Dunlop tyres (Sportmaxx SP, S001, RT) so it is quite specific to specific tyres. And indeed running tyres at 38/38 or 38/40 resulted in completely flat wearing tyre in my case and generally optimal pressure for handling. Rear tyres were evenly worn to 2mm after 37k and front tyres evenly worn to 3.5mm. Fronts still had edges stripped, but not because of underinflation, but rather because of camber when cornering. Yes at 38PSI they will be less comfortable, but steering will be lighter. I think for the fronts anywhere between 36-38 is ok. More PSI = more MPG... you can run it up all the way to 50PSI (RT2s are rated for 50), but this will destroy tyre very quickly and you will lose a lot of grip. Running such high PSI basically makes the tyre to "balloon" in the middle reducing contact patch, thus reducing rolling resistance. Obviously, I do not recommend overinflating tyres that much. The reason I overinflated my tyres by 2-3PSI was the reason I explained below - 38PSI resulted in improved tyre wear and as bonus it as well slightly improved MPG.

I am not sure how to apply the moral of your story to this discussion 😁 Point is that tyre technology is one of the areas where quite a lot of breakthroughs are happening, it is very competitive market and tyres are quite generic goods. From the point of view of general ignorant motorist they are just black rubber circles. Point is - when it comes to your safety that is pretty much the only thing which keeps you on the road and I would not advise cheaping out on that. Most tyres will keep you on the road when just cruising on motorway, however that is not where the benefits of premium tyres are most noticeable. It will only matter once in many years when you have dangerous situation... and we can all scoff at 2m difference in braking distance between premium tyres and no-name ones. But when that distance is equivalent of you crashing and not crashing I think it is worth the money. Besides as I mentioned tyre is consumable item, so if I can cover 37k miles on one and 16k miles on another this makes first one far cheaper per mile. Yes you can say having the tyre which can do mileage of over twice around the world is pointless, I can say that in ownership of my last IS250 I covered over 70k miles on basically 2 set's of tyres and second one isn't even finished yet. When I got the car it had nearly done Dunlop Sportmaxx SP Sport - not great tyres overall. After ~12k miles I replaced them with Dunlop Sportmaxx RT, for no particular reason, but at the time ~2016 - best on paper performance (A,B, 68db) and they were brilliant, did 37k miles. For last 21k miles I had Michelin PS4 and they were only partly worn by the time I got rind of the car. In comparison I probably would have had 4-5 sets of Hankooks, Falkens, Avons etc and even more sets of no-names, + probably would have had 3 serious accidents where the only saving was excellent tyres I had on the car. So not only premium tyres were better, not only they overall costed me less money, but they as well saved me few times. I think that is worth the price if you ask me.

That is what I call "disassemble the door". Obviously, definitions of what is "dead simple" differs from person to person, but the part I hate about taking door card off are million clips which are expensive, have to be ordered individually and and least few of them going to definitely brake... and if you don't replace them then your door card will flop around and make annoying noises. For there reason I would rather do everything possible to avoid taking it off and only take it off if there is no other way. Although removing mirror glass is sticky business as well (literally), not only mirror clips into the enclosure, but it is as well glued to it with large sticky pad which in theory you need to replace every time you remove glass. In my case I was replacing the mirror so I was not worried about braking it, used hair dryer on the replacement one at home and didn't brake either. Then the access to innards of the mirror are easily accessible by undoing ~3 screws and it all disassembles easily. The only part I don't like is that Lexus used cheap plastic screws, instead of using machinery screens and having metal inserts. Meaning that it is easy to overdo them and strip threads.

First of all your alloy isn't damaged, just paint little bit scuffed. "damaged alloy" I consider to be buckled, bent or cracked. Any normal alloy reform place could repaint it ~ £50-90. I would be careful with rim protectors, if you just brush the kerb very lightly (like probably was the case with your one) it may help, but any harder and they not only don't protect the rim, but you as well need to replace them immediately, because they may separate from the wheel at motorway speeds and wreck entire corner of your car (side panel, bumper, wheel arch lining etc) - think of them as grass trimmer wire, just attached to 18" wheel traveling at 70MPH+.

Not really, because you have to disassemble entire door to unbolt 3 bolts holding the mirror in place. That is what I planned to do when I ordered the mirror to replace broken mirror cover and glass. Ended-up just replacing covers and glass from replacement part, because it was too much work to disassemble the door. Although in my case all the inner piece was good anyway.

I did find them really "confidence inspiring" even in not ideal conditions. Obviously, they could slip if you try to do that, but never under normal driving conditions. Regarding the fuel - it is never easy to compare tanks like for like, it is very difficult to say whenever conditions were the same every time etc. Mixing fuel is absolutely fine. My experience is based on around 130k miles in 3 different IS250s and for last 70k I had excel spreadsheet and logged every refuel, price, mileage etc. I never refuel half-tank - as I said before "brim-to-brim" I never seen any difference and as far as mileage goes - my best ever was on "cheap" supermarket fuel and worst was on premium. Yes but "decent brand, a decent price & decent performance" is not enough to actually recommend something, question is whenever it is better than other tyres at the same price point, or cheaper then more expensive tyres. I am sure they are "okey" tyres because Hankook is relatively well known company, but to actually recommend it is little bit far fetched especially where price difference is £6.

There were several OEM 18" options (and one 19"): 18" Original Sport, F-sport 18-Spoke, F-sport "Baransu", Mk3 - F-sport... and few more I don't even know the names of (mk2 f-sport?): 19" US Speck F-sport: several 17" options, the original 10 spoke (you have) and 2 options of "advance" : and one 16" option on early SE model only... Then you can fit any mk3 IS wheels or RC wheels, RC-F wheels and of course mk2 IS-F wheels. And older IS and GS wheels... so there are quite a few OEM options. Probably few more I have missed. Finally just a picture of my old car for good measure 😁

You will need to take the inside panel at least partially-off (probably better if you take it fully-off as that would risk braking some clips... but to be fair some clips probably will brake anyway. There will be 1 Torx screw inside holding the handle and the clip for the lead to connect. I will send you instructions privately.

Could you clarify what help do you need? Diagrams, part numbers?

Any justification for that opinion, or any comparison of how it is better than anything else?

And I guess it is recognised as CD player and you just change tracks as if it would be CD?

Interesting ... I don't think this is widely known in this forum and for the price it is certainly worth trying.

Automatically folding mirrors were standard in FL mk2 IS S-EL, F-Sport and maybe SE-I if not mistaken - not exactly sure if it was together with introduction of indicator on the mirrors in 2009 or around 2011 with final FL with DLRs.

I remember Black interior was listen on eBay for £2000... for like 2.5 years. Not sure if anyone bought it or if they ended-up throwing it to the landfill. I guess not a bad upgrade for somebody with GS450h maybe.

Exactly... if it makes no difference why pay extra 😁 There is - not by car manufacturers, but by oil companies (not biased at all you know). And they take 2 brand new cars, put them on the rolling road, run them for 200k miles, whilst carrying out all the required service in right intervals and then compare. They do same for engine oils and for fuels, if I found video I will post, but I have certainly seen that just browsing YouTube. In the end of the day there is less carbon on the cars running premium fuel, but neither it eliminates all carbon, nor the test is realistic compared to real on road conditions, nor the engine running on regular fuel fails (just has a little bit more dirt). As I said in other thread - if we would keep our cars from new to 500k miles (that is like 50 years of ownership) then probably it would make a difference. Now I just quickly assume average 30MPG and difference between premium and standard of 10p... that works out at the cost of £3920 over 500k. Thing is - you can get 120k IS250 for that price, or if we look other way around - by the time IS250 has 300k miles it will be worth less than the price difference of the premium fuel which was put into it. Economically it just doesn't make sense, nor we drive so much. And further it is not like standard fuel hurts your engine either, difference between the two is very minor (if it exists at all). In short - is premium fuel better than standard... yes... but does it matter? No!