Linas.P

Agreed - the coolest thing of GSF is that it kind of flies under the radar, large family saloon car which can surprise sort of thing, sleeper. And orange colour just give the game away and therefore looks kind of stupid. Whereas RC-F is sporty coupe so more aggressive colour just suits it.

Yes sadly that is the situation in our country, but paying £695 for IS-F isn't really that bad of deal. IS250 for example is £395 already, later manual ones are £675 as well. You will be paying same for SC430, GS430/460 or any other similar car. And I am using "similar" loosely as IS-F is clearly hotter version of the car. Some Jaguars and Aston Martins are the only ones that have slight lower tax (must be some good old British favouritism), but apart of that you will be paying similar price for most of cars with V8. As you said it looks like it was filled by Lexus Tunbridge Wells and not the owner himself, so should be fine. I would definitely question the history and make sure to confirm it, but as you said there are many ways to explain why it looks like it does.

As well when dealers sells the car they simply fill the book for any service records that were not filled (if asked). Was the same case when I bought my RC - it had no service book, so the sales person just filled it all in and stamped in front of me. That doesn't mean the service was not done, just the the book was not stamped in such case.

I think we are in agreement on all you said above. I remember hating myself for maintaining my IS250 to such high standard up-to 200k miles and getting low ball insurance pay out when it got written off, just because the mileage and ignoring the fact that my car was in better condition than most with half the miles. I know some other owners might be the same as well, but most are not. That said I would not dismiss the car as having too much miles as long as there is corresponding service history and mileage is not excessive. In this case (provided there is no nasty secrets), it seems like fair car for fair price, and perhaps the one that could be enjoyed in any weather without a worry to put too many miles on it... so higher mileage car like this has it's own benefit.

If there are no codes, then you will have to look to live data. Anything else would be pure speculation at this point.

Economy is not the main issue here, the reliability is... I think IS220d does get about what one would expect from loaded "luxury" car that weights 1600kg, but reliability is not what one would expect from Lexus. Don't want to suggest anything, but some owners are less willing to share negatives of their car ownership and focuses on positives more. IS220d without issues does not sound quite right. We had some owners on the forum in the past who were very diligent with maintenance e.g. cleaning EGR every 5000 miles and who were doing long distance driving only... sure in that case they didn't have major problems, but that is because of combination of favourable driving routine and staying on top of any maintenance and doing all preventative maintenance. Once IS220d gets to the certain point (and I would argue that any of the ones sold for less than £2000 are way way past that point) they just become uneconomical repairs.

Noticed that as well, but I would be happy to give the seller benefit of doubt - easily checked as well, as one can simply do it online, or perhaps seller has invoice confirming the work done. Even that said - one missed service would not be the worst thing that could happen to 15 years old car, but obviously just raises suspicion of what else seller is not telling if that turns out to be fake. I would not really worry about the mileage - 15 years and 133k miles seems to be normal annual mileage, I would actually be very careful with low mileage cars of that age as sitting around may hurt as much if not sometimes more than driving it around. So very low mileage cars are kind of lose lose - you overpay for the low mileage, yet the car may have all the same issues and may require same amount of work to maintain. Sure that are some mileage related service and some age related service, so low miles car has slight advantage e.g. spark plugs will be fine, inside of the engine probably will not be worn, interior probably will be better etc. but that is why I think 133k miles is still okey, as it is not high enough to really cause any trouble to any of major components. So I would rather take car with 133k miles and 13-15 service stamps, than I would take car with 30k miles and maybe 8 service stamps. The problem is that most very low mileage cars are not serviced correctly, going by same example 15 years old car should have 15 service stamps, yet I don't believe any 30k miles IS-F would have services done every 2k miles. So yes - as I said very high mileage cars are not great, there was one for £14,800 and 193,000 miles - that is just bad deal, even with all services in the world that car will be simply worn out. But I would be equally suspicious of the car which has way too low miles for the age, and would not pay any extra for it. 133k sounds just about right for 15 years and as long as price reflects it and there is service history I would rather have that and save £13,000. After all considering the risks paying £13,000 less leaves a lot in the bank to deal with any issue. Other note - having had many IS mk2 I know that at least from interior perspective they last very nicely to around 120,000 miles and with decent attention and maybe few repairs (like replacing shifter knob, steering wheel leather and restoring drivers right seat bolster) could last into 180,000. Obviously expect to replace a lot of suspension parts, bushings and similar stuff if that has not been done, as after 133k miles they will be worn out, but even more importantly - after 15 years they will be dry rotten anyway, so here is why low mileage cars are not at all better. Overall, Lexus value is mainly coming from the fact they could be driven for a lot of miles without issues as long as they are maintained, so the best value Lexus are high-mileage Lexus. Whereas other cars would be stupid to buy at that mileage e.g. BMW E92 M3 which is comparable would be total scrap by the time it gets to 133k, yet the Lexus IS-F may be fully serviceable car.

Officially, you can get the repair manuals from https://www.lexus-tech.eu/Menu/Repair Otherwise you may find some manuals online, but it depends on your luck. I sent you what I had for IS200.

Just noticed this one - seems good value, mileage is not ridiculous, dealer service history, tidy car otherwise, it has been long time since I have seen IS-F under £16,000 and those are usually 180k miles, am I missing anything? MOT history mentions front light alignment issue, so perhaps had a little front end damage off the records (i.e. was not written-off). For some odd reason seems like I have seen it before - maybe somebody around here owned it? https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202307239978479 Not intending to buy, just sharing what seems to be reasonably priced IS-F if somebody interested.

Cartels certainly have big impact... but they only impact the price of crude oil. Yet as I have said ~$80 a barrel isn't actually historically high price, yet prices in the pumps are historically high. In short - blaming OPEC is common excuse given by other parties profiteering in the supply chain. I do hate OPEC, especially the so called "OPEC+" with ruzzia, because now they further their geopolitical goals by cutting the production when it suits their goals and artificially increasing prices, and probably generally due to principle of free market, in other hand I do appreciate that middle east is pretty much desert, so it does make sense for them to get "fair price" for their natural resources, because when they run out they will be back to breeding camels in the desert. So apart of using it to literally finance the war, I can see the point of OPEC protecting the interest of people of oil producing countries (or their rulers more likely). As I have already said - the cost of crude oil does not correlate to price at the pump, so OPEC to be honest is not to blame. Sure when crude prices goes-up out pump price goes up, but that is more of retailers and refiners profiteering and just using it as excuse. Have you noticed how every time when crude price goes-up the prices at the stations goes-up overnight, sometimes even during the day, yet the prices of crude drops they always say "we have to sell off old stock first", yet it seems they never have "old cheap stock", only "old expensive stock". Does anyone remember when in beginning of certain virus barrel prices was negative? So that literally means refineries were paid to take crude oil. Somehow I don't remember retailers paying money for people to fill-up their tanks... I know that would be ridiculous, but it was completely reasonable to expect solid 20-30p drops to prices like 99p, yet that never happened. So why our oil is expensive then? I would say primarily 2 reasons: - weakened UK economy and £, this is due to some stupid decision by our government and "people". As crude is traded in $, the $80/barrel now costs £63, whereas in 2007 it was just £39. - profiteering in the supply chain, big multinationals and retailers simply feeling like they can charge whatever they like, because of overall hostility towards motorists. In the past they would get pressure from the government to be reasonable, whereas now stupid fuel prices almost supports the policy by just being stupid. We can even quantify the margin here ~20% or 25p, we know part of this is 3% increase in retailers margin from 3% to 6% and another 17% is refining, and BP already had healthy margin of ~15%. - and even thought I said 2 reasons... there is kind of third reason - excessive taxation! Even if petrol would be free we would still pay 65p for it at the pump. It is kind of hard to blame retailers for profiteering when everything combined they don't earn even half of what government takes. Essentially government telling oil industry to stop excessive profiteering is most hypocrite thing ever. And especially now as we looking in a way to reduce inflation cut of fuel duties would be win-win, not only it would stimulate the economy, but as well it would literally reduce the inflation itself when the cost of many goods could be as much as 30% in transportation alone. But forget it... since when reducing the attacks on motorists was the policy of the government (even thought current PM toying with pro-motoring populism idea).

Price of crude has nothing to do with price of fuel... $80/barrel was the price back in September 2007 and October 2010... what was the price of petrol then? £0.94 and £1.16. It would be mistake to apply inflation to this, because crude oil is commodity (basically commodities prices does not correlate with inflation and most of the time correlation is inverse). So if the theory of crude oil price being linked to prices of the petrol in the pumps would be true, then the only thing that matter should be price of barrel * USD/GBP rate. But that is not true - so if back in September 2007 barrel of crude was £39 when exchanged to £ and fuel price was £0.94, then in October 2010 it should have been £1.02 and now it should be £1.27. Quick conclusion - price of petrol is not linked to price of crude, it is only linked to whatever excessive profits oil companies wants to make. I guess it is not surprising then BP made £4 billions of excess profit last quarter and now upgraded predictions by extra £2 billion. "Excess" meaning above the billions of profit they have already predicted to earn. Now where do you think this "excess" profit is coming from? So I would not jump to concussion that retailers are making more profit (although they do as well), Asda admitted making £525 millions more than expected... that is basically by overcharging the customers, but that is not much considering £6 billions on top of already healthy profits that BP made. And I would not blame Asda too much, they are the only ones to admit it, but I am sure everyone does that and Asda fuel is still one of the cheapest. In concussion - petrol price is as it is because everyone is profiteering from "fake shortage", the price of crude is just excuse...

That is the reason I was more than happy to put the alcohol in the tank, when the difference was so much.

E10 more expensive than E5? How does that make sense... recently in France I have very much enjoyed E85 for 0.97 Euro

So you have fried wiring which goes to the fuses you mentioned, I would not be surprised if after fixing that it will blow more fuses as the circuit connects further. But on the positive side you at least know which harness is fried... could be worse, when ECUs themselves are fired it may be more difficult.

Worldwide that is what sells most units... Not sure FWD only 350 makes that much sense, certainly not in UK, but lack of choice of models and engines certainly hurt Lexus over time. I think if they would have treated UK as primary market and always offered all the models here, they would have built larger niche here. Surely it is bad growth strategy to offer only part of your models and then to restrict them to single engine option...

Cool... Now that you provided actual context of your decision it becomes clearer why you made it. but there was no way interpreting your above post this way. You said BMW is too common, hence not special. And ES more executive and uncommon. That said I don't believe you compare it like for like - BMW certainly has sunroof option and even choice between panoramic or standard sunroof, same for safety features, be it paid option. Again there are nuances - ES had face-lift in 2021 and many told me that it has significantly improved the quality of materials inside, however that still does not explain much about success or lack-off for the entire model. Current ES model is getting towards the end of it's run and sales are declining as expected, so even if it is true that they addressed material/quality issues toward the end of the run, then it would be the case of "too little too late". 25 miles EV only miles will be fine for many people ad despite no longer being a thing, before there were a lot of benefits of owning PHEV. As they are no longer available I guess that explains why BMW no longer offers 530e in UK. As for attracting special kind of people - I don't believe that is true, but I do believe ES owners won't challenge you going quick round the roundabout, as that would be frankly quite embarrassing to watch 😄 Where I agree, is that people will have completely different needs and you clearly chosen car that suits yours... that is fine.

But that just proves your decision was not rational. And that is fine it doesn't need to be rational, but that is exactly what I am talking about when saying that owners opinion poorly explains why car does not sell. It seems you bought it, because it was unusual and uncommon, but that is not the same as being better build and more luxurious. And this is not criticism of your choice - for you it was important that the car is uncommon and different... fine. But that can only last if the car for some reason is not appealing for majority of buyers. That is exactly the question - why the car is not appealing? Now when it comes to true exclusive Luxury cars - that answer is price... they are much better than anything else, but they remain exclusive because they are simply so expensive that many people would like to have them, but none can afford them. Lexus ES isn't that expensive - so exclusivity cannot be explained by price, perhaps it is just not good in some way and people don't like? Those reasons are exactly the point of topic.

First of all - even if it was the case, so what? Secondly, you need to decide for once what you want. Because basically what you saying here is that before every comment I make I have to give 15 pages disclaimer to put it into context, to explain all the positives before answering the questions? And what is then? You going to say - stop writing the essays, nobody has time to read post so long? As such, I just have to assume whoever is reads the comment should already know the context e.g. that ES is a Toyota Avalon, it is reliable, it is fuel efficient etc. I am not denying those positives exists, but I just can't repeat them every time. So your expectations are just not realistic and not practically possible to include in every post. Not only that the topic is - "why ES failed to sell"... and quite clearly ES didn't fail to sell, because it was most amazing care ever, nor because of the positives. It failed because of the negatives, so it is just logical to focus on negatives and answer the question. In my experience 5-Series/E-Class uses better materials and are more solidly built... and that is not even in the some obscure areas under the dash. ES has very cheap, scratchy and hard plastic surrounding gear leaver, windows controls and central locking, the buttons below steering wheel. The so called "katana inspired hadori style" inserts are just horrible cheap and scratchy plastic. What it suppose to represent is "damascus like" layered steel, but it is really just very cheap and scratchy plastic. You don't get anything like that on BMW or MB, I am not saying they are made from pure diamonds, but if it is brushed aluminium then it is brushed aluminium, if it is wood, then in particular on E-Class it is open pore real wood. Probably worst part is wood effect black plastic surrounds (those around gear leaver and windows switches), it is really just shameless wood grained black plastic. Now sure here I am specifically talking about 2019 F-Sport + Takumi Pack, that was the car I test drove. I am aware that Takumi is apparently slightly better and again in 2021 materials were improved again. I said I will change my mind when I try newer model if it indeed improves the things, but to be fair it is not on my priority list. But I just can't always include the same situation in every comment, yet if you ever in doubt then you can clarify by asking "what trim you tried, what year" and we can have that clarified. Squeaks and creaks were not the issue in examples I drove, some of them were already high-mileage cars thrown around quite a bit because of being rentals, they are class above ES and they feel that way. NOX and Ad-blue issues are only diesel related, I have never recommended anyone to consider diesels and if that would be the only options i.e. 520d vs ES300h then I would get...... yes the old GS300h. I would not chose diesel engine and I would not choose FWD, those are both deal-breakers for me. When we talking about ES failing to sell we are talking about ES "current model" that is the model which was introduced in 2018 and runs to this day, as such mentioning BMW 540i is reasonable, BMW does not sell 530e either. You now get either 520i or i5 eDrive40... but that is new BMW 5-Series, ES really competes with last gen 5-Series. And that is actually good point - ES standing is not improving as times goes by, BMW was ahead and they are now pulling further ahead by updating the 5-Series.

It seems you haven't read my comments then... I point out many positives, but yes you right, overall conclusion on the balance is always more negative. But it can't be any other way... If we take ES300h for example and as you say you so tired of me over many years, you should know already what I don't like then. If it would be any other way, then perhaps I would own one myself. I don't like FWD, I don't like underpowered/small (usually 4 cylinder) engines and I don't like SUVs. What I like is NA engines that are smooth, usually V6/L6 or up, I like RWD cars and I like coupes... ohh and above all I love good value luxury cars! That is pretty much my main reason of liking Lexus. So it is not like I am always negative about everything, but from that list there are obvious things that are good or bad in my opinion. ES is very reliable car, I actually like how it looks, it has great seats with very nice leather, it is relatively modern with many cool toys, BUT it is too big, it is FWD, I always thought 300h was underpowered, it has too many scratchy plastic bits in the interior and despite being relatively good value, everything considered I don't like the car more than I like it. So my overall rating for the car is that I don't really like it. If you go back and see what I have said, you will find all those positives mentioned in my posts, but it is you who only focuses on negatives, not me. You are the one who tries to "debunk me" with lame reasons like "you don't own it so you don't know". As such you inevitably fail to "debunk" me and then act like butt hurt child, because I fail to listen to you. If you come at me with some coherent argument, if you at least attempt to use some form of evidence in your post, then more likely than not within 3 posts we would be "on the same page". We may agree on compromises, we may admit that out of our points were were both wrong on some and right on the others, we may still agree to disagree, but the forum will be better place, because that discussion took place, something was analysed, something was discussed, some conclusion was reached. Instead what you demanding is not to discuss that is contrary to what you believe is true... I am sorry, pull the plug from LOC server and just should it down, because if we can't have opinion and can't discuss anything, then what is even the point. If I ever wanted to be brainwashed by just positives I can always watch Lexus advertisement and be done with it.

I am copping with you perfectly well. I have no issues with your opinion - it wasn't me coming out of blue, not contributing anything to the tread just to say that you are stupid and childish and have to leave LOC. Was I?

And will be on threads for many more years, so you will have to find the way to cope with it... that is just reality. And you do you, if you don't want to discuss cars, don't discuss them, if you don't want to offend others don't offend them, be as careful as you want - it is up to you. I have given my opinion, somebody said something contrary to that and we are discussing it, don't be butt hurt baby... if anything it seems you are more hurt than most ES owners here. Or you suggesting I am limited to one post per thread and if somebody quotes, or metions me I have no right to responding?

Actual owners means nothing, how many times we have to repeat this! If you have own the car and love it - more power to you, but you can't shut other people-up who have different opinion. You have to calm down, stop attacking random people and calling everyone stupid - you are the only one out of order here!

Accuses somebody of acting like "butt hurt" baby... whilst being the only one who acts like butt hurt baby at the moment...

You are fool is you think I have posted one off MPG of the car which I drove for 10-20 miles. What basis does you criticism has? Isn't it hypocrisy to say that without providing any basis yourself? It is irrelevant that somebody owned the car, ownership is not a proof of knowledge, I know many people who owned car for 6 years and the only thing they can tell is that it was "red and some sort of korean car", but according to you they are experts? And so what that my comments are critical (should not be confused with negative) towards Lexus and so what that it has been for number of years. What exactly has changed since 2006 when Lexus decided not to introduce IS350 in UK (which is great car), what has change since 2016 when they did the same with RC350, nothing has changed all the way to this day?.. Have they made any significant change to their strategy which would be positive from my perspective? No they have not, so why would I suddenly be positive about something... they continue to sells same cars I continue to criticise them? What is so surprising here? You just contradicted yourself twice in single sentence - "No one said you have to like the cars, No one said you have to even own the cars" YET "you really need to shut up and stop providing useless negative opinions of vehicles you haven't owned"... so which one is it, should I own the car and only speak positively about it, or I don't need to own or like the car and can say whatever I think about it?! I can predict your answer here - "if Lexus strategy is so bad, and if you are so unsatisfied with the cars they are releasing then don't be on the LOC". Is that is what you want to say?! So the answer is the same as it has always been - it is not your business, not your problem and I will continue to be here as long as I want and I will be as critical as I want. Deal with it... And if you have come to conclusion that I am troll and keyboard warrior, then why you even arguing - isn't that in wain?! And if I come to terms that is who I am, what difference does it make - I will just continue trolling you. Get that ignore function set-up and take a rest. Finally, I still think it is kind of funny that you think you know something about me that even I don't know, you know what cars I have driven and for how long... you really a very gifted person... perhaps you need to buy a magic orb, a spooky tent and tell the people their future, such abilities should not go to waste!

You are always welcome to prove me wrong! That said it requires little bit than more than basic, common and easily debunkable fallacies to do that. You saying it has no basis or substance does not really prove anything, apart of that you disagree with me, you may as well disagree and be wrong. Or we can both disagree and both be right, because we have different values, needs etc. when it comes to car ownership. And why shouldn't I be critical of the vehicles Lexus puts out if they are no good? Again what is basis of your argument? Even if they are sales success that doesn't mean they are good cars, and even if they are good cars then it doesn't mean I have to like them. And who are you to tell me not to talk negatively about them? And what NON-superficial experience do you have to be able to say anything? Does owning RX450h/UX300e and previously if I remember correctly IS300h makes you "certified expert" on all matters Lexus? or simply being always positive about everything regardless of objective truth is what counts?