Linas.P

Not sure why you so determined JMD car would be in better condition? I assume Japanese are following strict service routine? But in that case just find car in UK with FLSH, cannot be that different. As well Japan has sometimes harsh winters, salted roads, narrow and often rough roads (many mountain roads) and if car is driven in the city then it is not good either, short journeys never good. And being 12 years old and only 45k miles just proves it was driven on short distances, maybe even tracked (actually looking at wheels - likely tracked). Obviously, we all would like to believe in the dream that car was owned by pensioner who just wiped the dust and drove to the church on Sunday (or whatever are Japanese customs). It is hard to say how much 2008 car would cost in UK now as it is rare car, what I can say that relatively low mileage car like that never costed less than ~14k, at their lowest point ~ 3-4 years ago, 2008 and 80-100k miles cars were going as low as £10k, lower miles probably could have been bought for £14k. Nowadays they increased in value, so my guess would be 16-17k maybe if you lucky to find one. However again, I don't understand why people value low mileage. Low mileage is indicative of many short journeys, many engine cycles (cooling, heating) and that is what wears down the car. Just starting the car in the morning and going for 1 mile to the store and then starting it again and going back, probably does as much wear as just staring the car and driving it for 200miles straight on motorway - probably exaggerating a little bit, but it is the starting and "engine cycles" which counts, not miles. Well... at least that is my experience and opinion, but I do see that many people in UK only cares about mileage as if lowest mileage is always most desirable.

I would rather focus on how much the cars sells, rather than on the price they listed for. Lexus service history (or any main dealer history) becomes irrelevant after ... maybe 3-5 years. So indeed if you trying to sell car after 5 years and 60k miles (still expensive car) and it has patchy service history it will impact the sale price. But once car is 100k miles and over 10 years old... I doubt anyone anyone cares. I mean sure - it will be "easier" to sell as potential buyer will have less questions and concerns, but that doesn't translate into more money. There are cars where it still matters, like more exotic cars, very low miles Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini, Aston Martin - sure service history and even individual work carried out matters there, but not on Lexus or other "normal" cars. But even then you will only get any "value" out of it if selling privately - dealership will rip you off regardless and will fabricate service history themselves. Ferrari (at least in US) are even known to "clock" their cars if they feel condition justifies it.

Sunroof was the option in UK, apart of that most UK car came all fully loaded. Not sure if the same is the case for JMD, but I am certain that US cars had much more paid extras, compared to UK ones where they just included as standard. Considering this is early example, I just wondering how much it costs in Japan to justify the costs of importing it and potentially higher insurance (although probably cheaper road tax).

Happened to me once, just sadly (or gladly in this case) I didn't have sunroof. However, it was because I didn't program windows after replacing battery. Strangest thing was that it was middle of the summer, nice weather, went to Tesco and exactly when we got out heavy rain came out from nowhere.. I ran to car and found it will all windows fully opened. Lucky for me it was like that for just 1-2minutes. And incidentally we bought 2 big towels to go to the beach... they came handy wiping rain water from seats. As for having this option, I used this it mainly in summer - especially with black car/black interior it is nice to open all windows just a minute before getting into the car, although I as well tend to leave windows opened by just few millimetres if I do not expect rain for interior to ventilate a little bit and then double-locking the doors (so that interior latches are disabled). Indeed, this worked for both closing and opening on my car. When I had IS with sunroof, same applied to sunroof.

The system would be easy, just salvage it from almost any SUV since like 2010.. almost all Audi, BMW, Lexus have it. The question - how do you programme to do it? Obviously, you can as well salvage the buttons, but doing it via key may be much more difficult. On my RC the boot opens itself, but closing it is real pain. Really could not understand how they managed to put it in NX which is cheaper car and not RC... it is not like they were trying to save weight!

For the damage as it is on headlight, I would just leave it - it is tiny chip and does not impact the function or anything else. After some research I tend to believe that front wing, bonnet and headlights are the same as saloon. The bumper is different style, but technically compatible. Mirrors and windscreen are the same. The rest of body parts are all different (by which I mean physically incompatible). That is my understanding, but anyone trying this should do it at their own risk, because part numbers are different.

Face-lift saloon does not have side-repeater on wing either. It was moved to the side of the mirror. Just saying that it is not a hole for the repeater which is different. To be fair visually they look the same... Besides part like this could be ordered directly from Lexus, it won't be cheap, but I don't see it costing more than £400-500 to fix. Or just use PDR - I heard they make miracles 😁

Doesn't look like a recent dent... Lexus metalwork even when completely exposed takes very very long time to rust - it must have taken years for panel to rust like that. What I am saying - I wouldn't worry notifying the owner about their car being damaged... this is not hit and run, at least not recent one.

You could change this in settings, not to do so. It only harms driver behind you, by burning your brake-lights into their retina. But does not hurt the car + it probably switches the engine-off fairly soon anyway 🙂

The saddest thing is when you think you are behind Lexus and then black smoke puffs out and you realise it was IS220d 😪 But mane is always on AC + re-circulation, because otherwise car becomes like a gas chamber.

Not much more to add... AC should be kept on, not only to control your "climate", but as well to keep the system itself lubricated and seals from drying out. Not doing so could damage the system over time and as well cause bacterial growth in condenser etc. When that starts is stinks quite bad and quite difficult to clean it off - there are treatments but you may need to do it few times to fully kill it.

... and we are legally forced to participate.

It is literally the case. They will give "market value", if building 6 bedroom house increased in cost that is not their problem (apparently). Obviously, you could have insurance with agreed price for vehicle, but you will pay astronomical price for it. As stated before - the price you see on comparison site is irrelevant. The price which will be relevant you will only find out after accident. That is why I advise going through claims management companies and getting your own assessor, because int hat case at least you have some say when it comes to value. Talking from personal experience here:

Mercedes once did that as well:

It is difficult to say what is market value of the car which is over 10 years old. Generally, speaking when it comes to insurance valuation only two things matters age is the most important, mileage is the second most important.... whenever it has ML, sunroof and actual condition of the car does not matter. Even on Glass the difference between the car in "excellent" vs "poor" condition is like 20%. The good thing is that the valuation of the car which you see when buying the insurance does not matter at all. If your car would get written-off then the they would hire assessor who would evaluate your car at the time and place. However, to be fair for - you would get rough deal either way - as your mileage is far below average, this means you will never get market value of your car in the case of accident. Most favourable in case of accident is to have new, lower than average mileage car in terrible condition... and you will get above what car is worth. But if you have old car in excellent condition, especially higher miles one, a lot of optional equipment, then you will get nothing. Having very low mileage car is not great either as the response you will get from insurance is simply "we pay reference market value, not replacing your car like for like". e.g. when my car got written off I was offered £2850 and when I send them the link from autotrader basically saying - "look... I cannot buy any SE-L, nevermind anything even similar to condition of mine" as at the time cheapest SE-L was £3700 and cheapest black car was like £5500. I am still arguing with the to this day (1.5 years since the accident... and they still haven't increased the value). Insurance is fraud, we are forced to have it and insurance companies can charge anything they like, so don't expect much... they will rip you off either way. My advise - if you get into accident, get yourself claims management company, they will give you most favourable valuation and will claim it directly from TP insurance, whist you will be driving in brand new hired BMW... making your claim £200 more expensive every single day, thus putting pressure on TP insurance company to settle ASAP. Although this won't work if car is deemed un-repairable or if it is your own fault.

The only thing I was surprised about that they made an offer for you at all. When I jokingly asked how much they would give for me 2008 IS250, they said it will be like £400 (basically price of scrap metal), but they just said it verbally and refused make an official offer, but they could scrap it for £2000-£4000 depending on car I wanted to purchase (must be new). I then said that my F-Sport wheels alone costs like easy £1000... and we had a laughed together with sales guy. That is just reality of PX in dealerships. So not really sure what you expect there to be honest - how much you thought it is going to be (certainly not retail price of ~£5k)? It is known that PX offers from dealers are always lowest bottom offer imaginable. Thinking about it, any dealership in UK of any make would give something similar, but most would probably refuse to PX altogether. On top of that what you expect them to do with 2001 car? I know that If I would take my RC for PX, I would hardly get £10k, yet the cheapest retail is like £18,900. In fact for them your car is totally worthless.... the offer of £2900 is not what they pay for your car actually, but rather how much discount they willing to make from their NX. It is not like they will be selling it through dealership, so most likely will auction in... and what SC worth in auction? Probably not even £2900.

Airbags have very specific conditions under which they deploy... sadly in reality those conditions are not 100% correct. They will work most of the time in frontal collisions and straight forward side collisions, but anything more complex like overturning or spinning car are likely to result in fairly unpredictable deployment. In rear end collision they should not deploy, as well if car is upside-down and many other situations.

great outcome in the end!

I assume you still have Panasonic battery? If so then it should be clearly stamped on the top (although it may be under the clamp): And if it is not Panasonic, then you know the answer 🙂

I don't think they have any particular name - just "premier/takumi" wheels, see page 34: https://forms.lexus.co.uk/EBrochures/Lexus_IS_e-brochure.pdf As well Lexus parts catalogue only mentions them as "Type D": wheel:https://lexus.7zap.com/en/us/lexus+rc/245420/gsc10l-rczlha/2/4103/414217a/ Overall information is kind of scarce on Lexus wheels, even part number is not very clear but should start with 42601-xxxxx or 42611-xxxxx.

There are no colour codes for Lexus wheels, just similarly looking colours - that is short answer.

So just to clarify what is the issue here - are you saying your gear changes are not smooth, or that throttle response is not smooth? What throws me out a little bit, is that you saying "when I am not applying great deal of gas", which would indicate you are cruising... at which point I am a little bit confused how car can be jerky when cruising. Or you saying you slowly accelerating? I assume it is auto (the advice on the manual would be totally different) and focus on driving here, as as far as I can see there is no issue with what you describing about moving off from stand still. The first bit about RPM is as expected, on cold start, especially cold winter morning the car will run 1300RPM idle with no load and will drop to 800RMP idle when you put it in gear, that is normal until engine and gearbox warms-up. Engine actually warms-up much quicker than gearbox and you may need to drive for a while to get it warm in winter, meaning that if you have 10 min drive to the shop... it may not actually be enough to warm the gearbox. Cold gearbox = thicker cold fluid /lower viscosity = gearbox may be a bit lazy to shift (kind of opposite from jerky, but definitions vary from person to person). As well if you stationary in gear and just let-off the brake suddenly, then there will be momentary delay (I don't know.. maybe 0.5s) and it will jerk a little bit out of stand still, again normal. Both throttle response and gear changes are controlled by ECU and it is so called "smart" which learns your driving style - so you were driving hard for sometimes it may become jerky as it expect to be pushed all the time. This can be re-set by disconnecting battery for 10-15 minutes and then driving in your desired way. So that may be all it needs. The next step, if the gear changes are late, early, or harsh - then it could be issue with fluid and it may need refreshing. But before you do anything, just make sure that car is still doing even when it is up to proper temp, because if you looking for the issue in the car straight after starting it on the cold winter morning, then you will find many issues which do not actually exist.

There are some fuses on passenger side, under the dashboard, mostly for interior functions like windows. The rest of the fuses are under the bonnet. As for fuses getting damp from what I assume was some condensation (?) - that is unlikely, you probably would need to pressure-wash the inside of the car if you wanted to damage it. Holding the key next to the switch is advised if you suspect the key battery to be dead, not so much value in your case if you have replaced the batteries. I think probably you just need to spend more time and be mentally prepared to listen to alarm and get in terms of all neighbours thinking you trying to steal your own car. After locking and unlocking the car in all possible ways it stops beeping... I think at first it doesn't even react to the keys on the remote, but eventually that starts working and then fairly quickly alarm stops. You may still need to lock and unlock the car several times with fob before it really stops.

Hello Trevor, I had same issue recently and there is not particular steps I found to work. It is the case of fitting new battery getting inside the car and trying to get alarm to shut-up! Thing you can do is to touch the fob next to the start button, starting the engine is possible, locking and unlocking the doors whilst you inside and using the buttons on the fob to lock and unlock door. Eventually, the car calms down and realises there is fob in the car and disarms the alarm, but be prepared to listen to it for 5-10minutes. I would advise not to do it after 9PM or indeed before 9AM 🙂 The only way to avoid this in future - if you plan not to drive the car for more than 4 weeks, unlock the car via fob (disarm the alarm), lock the doors via central locking (from inside), open the bonnet, get out, lock the driver door with the key, remove the battery, close the bonnet and keep the battery in warm dry place. This means that when you start driving again, you simply connect the battery and alarm won't trigger as it was not armed in the first place. If car runs out of battery whilst alarms is armed then be prepared for this nasty surprise. here is thread of basically the same issue I had:

Sometimes there is a difference e.g. there is a point where Lexus started introducing LSS+ and other features which if you go with say 2013 model you wont get. On some other cars there are "facelifts" which are more preferable etc. But as far as I am aware 2017 was already "facelift" model for mk3 IS and the options remain more or less the same (don't quote me on that, but if there were differences they were mostly negligible). So really... what is the difference between 2017 and 2019 or 2020 cars? Sure there is few numbers being different on number plate, but apart of that not much... getting like £15k+ discount for having 9k extra miles is amazing saving. There is time and place for new cars and that mostly is - tax savings getting one on the company (paying from gross salary) and that you can choose colour and other options of your liking. But if you choosing from existing cars and one already has everything you would want anyway, then there is no actual benefit of having never car, especially for private buyer who won't save on tax.