Linas.P

Not sure end of what it is... ...are you saying it is not much to be bothered anyway? In which case it was pointless to argue which layout is "safer". ...or you saying it is loads.... in which case you just make a justification for RWD...

There is a little problem with 300h tuning - you most of aftermarket parts for Lexus comes from US. However, in US they have don't have 300h, meaning you generally not going to find much mods for it. 200t or 350 - yes, 300h - none. So your options are either get something for other Lexus IS mk3 and try to adapt it... or leave it stock. Which is probably a good idea as performance mods on IS300h are pointless. If there is any mods to be done, then mostly cosmetic. Besides things like good tyres for example could be quite beneficial. Cold air intake not so much... it will certainly not going to add any power, even likely to lose some, so the only reason why would you do it is intake noise, but IS300h does not have naturally good intake noise... so why bother?

And modern stability control has closed majority if (not all) RWD disadvantages. So what we are talking about here?! If you leave all stability controls in it's default positions and don't do something completely stupid then your driving wheels won't be reason why you left a road. FWD cars on average may be safer, but only by virtue of having less power and attracting people who are less likely to push them to the limits. If we take the same driver in the same favourable or unfavourable conditions the driving wheels never going to be major factor for safety in modern cars. RC200t has **** engine which should not exist... and besides that Lexus are focused on making more luxurious and GT cars, not outright track beast. Sure there will be cars like Renault Megane RS - which is dedicated track-day car, nice around the track but otherwise horrible. But this has nothing to do with RWD and FWD layouts, stop comparing apples to oranges. In the end of the day all that makes no difference, because question is not whenever FWD or RWD is better, but how to handle RWD car, or whenever it even requires any extra care when driving.

@Mr Vlad - Factory wheels are ~ 10mm in... maybe 15mm at very top... which makes Lucas wheels quite noticeably out. Not exactly "rocket bunny" style, but not something I would call "subtle"... but car mods are subjective thing. I assume at very least rolled arches + bit of negative camber?

Yes RC350 would be no brainier... I know that RC200t could be chipped... just probably not by "plug 'n play" boxes, but I just think that car is "too young for that". At this point car is warranted and one of key benefits having Lexus is in my opinion is reliability. When you start chipping things, loosing warranty etc. then it becomes project car and ideally you want your project car to be a separate one from your daily-driver. I am sure 10 years later they will be amazing tuner cars (except they won't be because Lexus sold like 10 of them in UK 😁). All in all, I think for RC200t there are only 2 option - replace it with RC-F or engine swap it (after all it is nice looking body). This car is just a strange thing, especially economy is tragic... and again if throwing buckets of petrol would result in buckets of performance ... why not! But this is not the case. I certainly do not believe that chip-tuning can get 60 more horse power from that micro-turbo, and especially via signal intercept ("cheater") box. I am sure they can remove hesitation from throttle map (because of amurican "unintended acceleration" prevention it is deliberately made numb). I looked at tdi-tuning in the past and they not leaving good impression, check their T&C - they remain as vague as possible and have all sorts of extra fees and conditions for returns : https://tdi-tuning.com/en-gb/terms-conditions almost next to every claim is says "cannot be guaranteed" and depends on your individual car. At very least I would expect them to offer 30 days "no questions asked return policy".... and that is why proper chip-tuning is done by having car "in house" and custom mapping it to that particular car. In short - I would only believe their power claims after seeing before and after graphs on dyno. And if they would have decent policy, I may even pay my own money to book dyno for couple of hours to try it out. Them not offering clear return policy is good indication that their claims probably are a bit over the top. And I do not believe their fuel claims at all on turbo petrol, TD maybe, but definitely not petrol. The only test they passed for me - at least they don't have IS250 in the list of cars they can tune. It is very easy to find if company is fake... that is if they offer 40HP+ for NA cars with chip-tuning, then 100% snake oil. But these guys at least pass that. I guess in summary - I buy nearly new Lexus to have reliability, comfort and luxury of effortless performance. Not to tinker with it and tune it. Not that I do not respect or appreciate the work which goes into, but because if I wanted to do it I would choose different brand - preferably something with huge aftermarket support and popular specifically for aftermarket.

In front that would have have quite a few negative effects, not only rubbing, crabbing, ruining alignment, but as well all sort of undesirable steering geometries. In the rear could be done, standard offset is ET45, so if you have ET35 (if not opposite... I always getting confused which way offset goes, but I think 35 will be "negative" and that means wheels will be out) then they will stand 10mm proud. Again not recommended, but easiest way to achieve that would be to put the spaces. I mean I certainly do not recommend to drive on spaces, but could help to determine what offset you want.

And I certainly don't see why not... unless you actually tired of IS and want to upgrade. Otherwise, I assume, the car is going to be in great condition, being Lexus it is not like you need to worry about spiralling out maintenance costs.... and all in all when you own the car the actual costs is going to be less then getting another new car again. Besides, by the time you really going to have enough of IS... they may have reversed the decision and will have mk3.5 back in Europe, maybe even some EVs. So indeed, simply staying with current IS if possible is great option if you can choose that. I guess there are some people who are locked into contract (like work schemes) where after 3 years they have no option of keeping the car. In that case is much harder.

I would admit Volvo S60 looks nice. I am sure it is not an issue for many people, but for me Luxury car has to be RWD... especially if they have "sporty" or "driving experience" mentioned anywhere in marketing. As for ES - there are far more issues with it than strictly driving wheels or folding seats. Overall, it does not feel like Lexus inside. It seems like really boring, but I guess the only solution I see is BMW and MB. Has cars in all segments - entry exec, sporty coupe and luxury saloon to replace IS, RC and GS. Which... fun fact were all introduced to specifically rival German cars in their respective segments.

For me FWD... say no more. 🙂 And I know it is "technically AWD", but the engine is connected to front wheels and rear wheels are just "part-time" AWD electric motors, overall handling and feeling is like FWD car. Have not tried specifically S60, but had S80 T8 for weekend. In straight line amazing, in corner it just squealing and under-steering forever.

I guess that is because you cannot actually turn-off traction control completely on Lexus IS and I assume similar system in GS. When it is "off" it let's you play just for millisecond more and just when it feels like the car is going to lose it, then it suddenly comes back. But overall I agree - you need to try deliberately or do something very very stupid to lose control on Lexus RWD cars of this generation (extends to IS mk3, GS mk4). I guess exception are IS-F, RC-F and GS-F, but that is for obviously reason - they are generally performance cars and not mean for everyday commuting. If you want to let them loose then yes you actually can.

I would say there is truth in the statement, but it is not universal. For example LC is bet best quality car I have ever been inside by far... and I mean that in comparison to Royce Royce, Bentley or S-Class - yes they will have something silly inside like thick planks of wood and starry sky headlining, but overall quality will be hit and miss. I mean the will be uneven stitching and especially with wear and tear, there will be creeks and rattles etc. In Lexus LC there are none - it is just perfect... or at least as perfect as I have seen to the date. Just before current lock-down I was enquiring on BMW i8 went for test drive, but they didn't have it ready so ended-up just looking at it on the lot and trying new 8-Series instead. Inside it feels solid... but just as solid as new 3-Series... Lexus LC on the other hand feels special, every button and every stalk feels like custom made and fitted to perfect fitment. I cannot compare it to anything, because there are no comparison to my knowledge. If I would need to guess then maybe some higher-end Porches are similar in build quality (not in terms of design which is quite basic/boring), but I am not big fan of them so I don't know. Last one I been in was like 2006 997, so not exactly worth comparing. Next thing, I feel like RX is very well built car, generally Lexus SUVs seems like segment where Lexus pays special attention, better than similar BMW/Audi SUVs... again probably the only comparable cars would be Porsche SUVs, I am sure Cunnilan and Bentayaga are in the level of their own, but so is the price. Going further down the tier list the NX for example is much better equipped (base equipment and options) and more solidly built than say RC or IS, both of which I consider to be worse built quality than mk2 IS. It is weird as NX in the price range sits nicely between IS and RC, but RC is by far the worst equipped car from all 3 and NX is best put together at the same time. GS was probably the last saloon (I consider LS a limousine) with true Lexus quality and roughly equivalent to RX overall. However, there are few models where I feel Lexus quality is not that great. The mentioned IS/RC were not as well built as models preceding them. CT from the begging was not a Lexus, even when compared to say Golf or especially Audi A3... it felt far closer to Toyota than any other Lexus at the time (and still does). I have tried both UX and it's twin Toyota CHR and they are exactly same quality, both ugly but I consider Lexus less ugly, especially inside, but quality is the same. Same goes for another badge engineered car - ES... just feels like a model of Toyota. In blind test I would say it is definitely Toyota and not Lexus. One model I don't know is LS, I have once driven very tired LS460 in Bahrain and wasn't impressed. Not sure if it was the condition of the car or because rental company provided it as "equivalent" to IS-F which I rented. I would assume LS ~ LC, but I don't know speak from experience here. So in conclusion, I think the overall trend is that Lexus is becoming less special and more like badge engineered Toyota, but there are still some exceptionally well build models which they offer. In terms of quality I would go from the best: LC ~LS? RX NX GS IS ~ level of new 3 Series which is kind of baseline for "Luxury cars" RC ES UX CT

I would imagine that should be strange feeling buying car this way, but I guess feelings aside... what is important is to agree all conditions on used car in writing. What I would do in such circumstances, I would try to ask all relevant questions over the e-mail e.g. service history, tyre thread, brand overall condition of the car, interior damage, exterior damage, everything what you would generally check on the car. If easier, get yourself "car inspection sheet" from internet and just go through the questions. Most used approved Lexus cars will have inspection sheet as well - you can use that as a basis to make your questions. Open ended questions are fine... "is there any damage to wheels / or interior / or exterior". Expectation is that dealership should provide list of damage to you in high level e.g. "stone chips on front bumper and bonnet", "scratch on rear bumper, left corner". Here it is their responsibility to be as detailed as possible as anything they miss, could then be used as reason to reject the car. Obviously, the more detailed are your questions the easier is to argue they misrepresented something. When you receive the car you should compare the answer to your questions and see if something is different e.g. tear in the leather I assume is important, but maybe small scratch under the front bumper could be considered within "general wear and tear" - Based on how important it is, I would again inform dealership in writing (within 14 days) whenever you happy with car condition or not. Besides if something is seriously wrong with your car, the statutory rights extends past 14 days Lexus policy e.g. when I bought my car my brakes were very worn, but I was assured they are fine. 3000 miles later different Lexus dealership reported that there are literally no inside pads left and outside were like 1mm. This was nearly a year after purchase, but I only covered 3000 miles due to lock-down. In this case I went back to dealership which sold me the car and asked them to fix brakes for free... there was a little bit of drama but in the end they agreed (largely because condition of the car was discussed and agreed in writing). So again, I think what matters - ask all questions, have answers in writing and you will always can go back see what was agreed and keep them to their word.

Just to get this out of the way first - I generally agree with what you said yourself, what I disagree are the generic articles which combined generic-half-truths around internet and present them as facts applicable for ALL cars. Some things they say can be considered "general tendencies", but others are just outright false. Further, even in isolated cases where they may be true articles don't go into details explain why and how, so just making themselves useless. Neither mentions torque steer, which I tend to think is quite important especially when slippery and ~200hp. As well I agree that I am biased towards RWD, because it is inherently better in most circumstances when it comes to driving dynamics, handling traction, feeling etc. I have owned several FWD cars and I really hate how they handled. And indeed, when correcting RWD car you need to do what seems counter-intuitive at first, hence it is called counter-steering. This is a basic skill one has to practice if owning RWD car and it becomes very natural very quickly. "brakes, and increases steering angle" - really? I have so many issues with this statement in isolation. Think about this situation again and tell this is really the best action. I mean I agree that this is what inexperienced driver will do, but is it really positive action on any driving wheels?! Neither normal, nor expert driver should be putting car in "drift" if they not planning it. When driver looses the grip unintentionally then s*** will hit the fan either way. There are like billion variables, but if car enters slippery turn too fast it will be on the side of the road hugging the tree either way. Questions is just how slippery it was and how much too fast it was going. Yes RWD will be in the ditch backwards, FWD forward, but if driver is really inexperienced and the speed high enough it will be in the ditch regardless... especially if they follow "brake and turn" action. When moving away from standstill (and accelerating), you always going to have more grip on rear wheels (unless you reversing). Maybe there are extreme examples where that is not the case, but weight transfer to the rear will always be much stronger force than small difference between weight balance on axles. Hence FWD will always struggle with grip when accelerating, especially from standstill. I know there is one flat-earther in this thread who has different opinion on physics, but lets not go there... 😁 Now... we can invent situation - you are on ice where cars just spins wheels on the spot and theoretically FWD grip will better. Let's assume very biased scenario ... say 60/40% distribution, equal Kerb weight and equal tyres on the rear and front, then yes front wheels will have 20% more grip in front. However, this almost never translates into real life scenario. Lets take for example Honda Accord 2.4i vs Lexus IS250 ... will Honda have more grip? NO... first of all because weight distribution is going to be much closer to 50/50% (Lexus is 52/48... like brexit, Honda is 59/41 - pretty much as bad as it gets), secondly because Honda is overall lighter car (1440kg vs. 1570kg) and finally because Lexus as standard has wider tyres (225/245@17 vs 195). The percentages are just relative from best gripping tyre assuming all else being equal - Honda F87% R56% Lexus F99% R100%. So in the end of the day when comparing two specific cars it turns out that even at standstill FWD not necessary has more grip. Same calculation can be done by OP on his previous "Nissans, Rovers, Hondas, Renault etc" and it is likely the Lexus will have more "grip" relatively speaking, just by virtue of being heavier car and having wider tyres really. I mean we can really go into a lot of details (which I don't mind), but we not just discussing it theoretically. OP already has IS250, question is - should he or shouldn't he drive the cars differently in some particular way, especially on slippery roads. I have driven IS250 extremely recklessly and extreme conditions and it is very forgiving car. I think the answer here is - he simply needs to learn the limits of his car. And here I agree old cars... from like 80's and before were not as forgiving. BMW was in no way special, any ore powerful than average RWD car without traction control + no skill + wannabe race driver and we have bad results. Would results be different on FWD car.... no... results will be exactly the same, just in old days powerful FWD cars did not exist. Well... if you not DK and neither you want to hug the tree, then you should not be doing it in any car AWD, FWD, RWD... This is by no means just specific to RWD.

I just started reading and what a ton of BS... obviously I blame the author of article and not you Luigi, but c'mon... Absolutely, opposite... perhaps it with very low power or very old vehicles that is true.. but when you drive modern 200hp+ car that is exactly the advantage of RWD, not FWD.... as FWD has to both power the front wheels and steer the car they actually struggle for traction far more than RWD cars. Again ... on slippery incline RWD as absolutely always better... to the level where one of the tricks in FWD car to get up-hill is to drive in reverse... why? Because you get most traction at the lowest point of the car (that is Rear Wheels), so with FWD you will be better off reversing up the hill... they claim somehow that FWD somehow better for that.. just false. As well clearly author has not understood what traction means... because traction is literally how much tyre grips the road... yes sure there are more traction if you have more weight on certain wheels, but with weight distribution on modern cars FWD and RWD usually has very similar bias... something like ~54/46... so yes front wheels will have few % more traction if the front and rear tyres are same (as we know that is not the case), but as well because they need to both steer and power the car that negates the advantage. I mean to the level that in practice on modern cars that is no longer an advantage. Besides author clearly ignores basic physics and weight shift under most circumstances... There are 2 conditions where traction actually matters - braking and accelerating. When accelerating RWD will have more traction because weight transfers backwards and when braking it does not matter because there always going to be most traction on front wheels and you not accelerating so driving wheels don't matter. So the only argument which can be made is that when simply driving at constant speed the FWD will have more traction, but that again is not where traction actually matters. After reading just few paragraphs, I can straight away say that whoever was the author... does not know how to drive and just recirculating myths and theories. This was the first article... Second article is much the same, just makes conflicting claims both within itself and compared to first article e.g. it says that FWD provides more feedback to driver when wheels are slipping, yet both first article and second article claims that overall feedback and steering response is worse on FWD... so how comes it provides better feedback then? Neither talks about Torque steer either, which is a massive issue on slippery road... In summary - it is hard to explain differences via forum, the best solution is this - try for yourself in safe environment and you know exactly how it behaves:

Yes obviously driving wheels affects how the car handles - that is RWD handles better under any circumstances, provided you have skills to back it up. AWD are great for off-road, but for daily driving it has more issues than benefits. I have owned both AWD and RWD IS250 and RWD is far far better. I guess more to your question - should you change the way you drive the IS250 compared to your previous cars... I would say no under 99% of circumstances, in daily driving conditions even if it is little bit slippery it does not matter. There are some extreme circumstances where FWD behaves differently, but you kind of need to deliberately try to put yourself into such environment. Obviously, correcting car if you lose control is different, but with experience you get to know both. My only advise - when it starts snowing find some empty car part and try it out. I am not saying drift around... just try braking suddenly, accelerating suddenly, turning sharply, accelerating when turning, braking when turning etc. This will help you to figure out limits of your current tyres and overall behaviour of the car. Really comes handy when you have unexpected moment or event to avoid such moment to begin with. Besides Lexus IS250 is balanced for "safe" balance, rear tyres are far too wide, meaning that when it comes to cornering grip it acts like FWD car (understeer before oversteer). On my old car I was trying to balance it back to more neutral by fitting narrower rear tyres(instead of 225/255 I had 225/245), but even then it wasn't enough, I feel it needs wider front tyres to eliminate understeer (probably 235/245). On top of that Lexus has fitted very intrusive stability control which you could not turn-off (there are some methods which apparently works, but that is different topic). This stability control although annoying at points really prevents you from losing control completely unless you are really deliberately trying. As for driving in wintry conditions, the only factor which matters is tyres - it does not matter if it is FWD or RWD... on summer tyres you will slide equally with both. Again as I said, I do not alter my driving based on driving wheels, only based on road conditions and only difference in the end is just how you correct the car when you loose control, but it is always better not to get into that altogether... and I already covered that above.

Although, I think he was trying to fit mk3 Fsport dash to mk2, which is level of additional complexity.

If it is not in your 2008 IS250, then somebody just stole it (not sure how it happened - maybe previous owner too it out to save weight), but 2008 IS250 should definitely have one as standard. Mk3 hybrid does not get one.

I thought in leather repair kit you generally get like dozen of different colours which could be mixed to achieve exact match? I would not trust if somebody says they have exact matching pre-mixed colour when it comes to any painting, I mean even painting literally a white wall, paint colour almost never matches. When it comes to more complex colours it almost always has to be matched on the spot.

.... in the mountains. I mean fair enough the title just says snow, but when reading first post I straight away wanted to clarify what OP means by "mountains". I agree completely that NX can handle snow with ease, provided the road is good otherwise. I would not say the same about potentially harsh mountain conditions. Just google Pyrenees and pictures like that pops-up: Surely, this is not a place for NX to be, but on contrary, depending on where OP lives it could look like this: At which point I would say ... NX would be more than enough. So it really just depends where exactly in between those two conditions OP is planning to drive.

Same here... My experience with glue and inflation kit is very bad... well to be honest I have only been in such situation twice and to surprised of nobody each time I had to call for car to be recovered. What happens usually, if you get a puncture you most likely going to notice it when it is too late - that is the case on both occasions. Once it was screw in the tyre and I noticed weird noise and mushy steering input - when I stopped tyre was completely flat and detached from the rim (not completely off, but no longer sealed). Second time I hit deep pothole hidden by the puddle and pretty much the same thing happened - tyre unsealed itself and upon further inspection the inside of the rim was cracked and inside of the tyre had like 2 inch long rip in it. In both occasion inflation kit was completely useless (I didn't even try to use it), but in both occasions spare tyre would have saved the day. On contrary, I have used spare tyre at least dozen times and it helped me to get where I was going and in several occasions even saved the tyre from being trashed. Once you use glue you should not drive on that tyre for long or reuse it, the inflation kit is meant only for reaching service centre and replacing the tyre. So my conclusion - always have spare tyre. And if there is no place due to hybrid battery I would rather sacrifice my boot space and jut put it there.

cross-climates are good tyres... for mild british weather and slush, but they have their limits. Not the tyres to climb steep and slippery mountain road, completely useless on ice (on ice they are exactly the same as any summer tyre).

Not sure if it is an option in Spain/France, but there might be NX200t available. That has a proper "full-time" AWD system which can send up-to 50% of power to rear wheels. And auto gearbox can be manually limited to 1st gear and provide additional engine braking on downhills. Obviously, if you interested in Lexus because of hybrid system this will be moot point - RC200t is 2L 4cylinder turbo-petrol. However, if you generally considering the looks and the build quality it may be an option + it will be more capable off-roared (not by much, but maybe just enough). Now I need to be very clear - I do not recommend this car, mostly because of the engine which has terrible fuel consumption and I feel it is under-powered. It is under-powered in my RC200t, so in NX (larger and heavier car) I assume it could be even worse in both power and fuel efficiency. But money is yours so you can decide what fits you. Besides, mine is mated with 8-speed gearbox which has very very short gears and it continuously grinds them for no real purpose . Just generally poor combination of large, heavy car, with under-powered engine and poorly adjusted and ill fitting gearbox. Unlike RC, NX200t has 6-speed auto and perhaps with longer gears it is better fit for the engine and does not feel always lost... I personally have not driven specifically NX200t so don't know. But again, just to let you know there is such option.

No problem... Although, I would not count on it as selling point. People generally simply expect brakes to work and that is it, however keeping car in presentable condition is always good idea and gives potential buyers a better impression. So.. it certainly wont hurt, but I doubt it will add value. good luck with it and make sure to post some pics!

I was always under impression that IS300h had no space-savers (I am like 99.9% sure). That said MK3 IS space-savers exists from mk3 IS250 and 200t, the only thing is that they are extremely rare. What I assume is the case, somebody has mk2 IS250/220d space-saver and has listed it as mk3 space-saver to get attention of mk3 300h owners who are likely looking for space-savers as car does not come with one! BUT... all above are moot points and just fun facts. Yes wheels holes, PCD, offsets etc are identical between mk3 and mk2 and thus space-savers will be identical and will fit.

True, although what you usually get are refurbished calipers (almost never truly new), sometimes prices includes exchange (meaning they expect your old calipers back) and finally, if not painted they will look crap after a year. I just checked and I paid £391 for my calipers full rebuild + paint via BCS and that was with 30% discount. the full price was £509.16. However, you need to consider that shipping was £19.99, the rebuilding was £132, new parts (seals, slider pins, gaskets) £33 per caliper and the actual painting was like £269 before discount + I chosen custom colour, so it was more expensive than regular. So it really depends on what you need. if you calipers are fully functional just dirty and rusty and you only want them in regular colour (like black, red, green etc) then perhaps BCS can do it for like £149. But if they are stuck or sticking, then you will need them to be rebuilt which obviously adds cost. BRC probably just assumes all will need doing, hence £499. I suggest to wait until BCS has discounts (they often do as much as 60%) and do it then.