Linas.P

Other thing - I believe AM wheels needs different bolts. 60 Degree taper if not mistaken, because with Toyota bolts your wheels may overtake you one day.

I reckon this is the case for all 55/05 plate GS300, maybe other years as well, so keep this in mind if you doing quote online next time. On the other hand this may be just comparethemarket.com quirk, because I had to get daily insurance from daysure and they correctly recognised the car and gave me one price.

MID just says whenever it is insured or not, so basically nothing. MOT just shows MOT for correct car, there is nothing suspicious about it. I tied with two GS300 now and both rendered same results. I have no doubt about it... and as special deal just for today and for calling an extra £100 more expensive to improve my experience with the cover.

More likely... wheels have wrong offsets and are wrong width... so who ever fitted them had to stretch the tires to avoid rubbing... or maybe it was their "stylistic choice"... who knows... IMHO wheels are just too big and looks like a cart wheels... as always what is too much is always not good.

Just noticed funny "trick" or bug in the insurance quote (at least on comparethamrket.com)... basically I was insuring GS300 and after entering VRN it gives two options for the car, which are identical: However... if you select the first one in the list, then insurance price is £562, but if you select the second in the list, then price drops to £471. Not sure why, not sure if this applies to all years and maybe other models, but usually when I enter the registration it only gives one selection whereas this time there were two and they have noticeable difference in the price despite being identical. I am sure that somebody will comment that it is important to make sure to select correct one , or that I must call insurance and clarify, or else insurance will get "invalidated" or some other paranoid stuff... NOPE - they are both correct and as a consumer there is no way for me to distinguish them, so I have absolute right to choose the cheaper option even if somewhere in the back end of the database they are somehow different. So if you have GS300, then make sure to play around with the options and see if you getting only one model to select or maybe more.

If you ask me... it just looks wrong... but maybe that is just me. I do believe I got the wheels which came off this car originally!

That is kind of opposite really - Sales are the ones who are dodgy and slimy... service manager just get's to deal with all the lies in the end. Sales are the ones who sold the car with wrong arm, they may even knew it is wrong, but on used cars the margins are tight so they will do whatever they need to do to get it prepped and ready for sale. Lexus "used approved" is not worth the paper it is written on. Do you know they can literally stamp the book for service car didn't have... yes they can, it is in small print. They do their inspection and if car passes then they "certify the history". So the reason why you have wrong wiper arm is fault of sales people, not service people. The second part is exactly what they do and that is sign of dishonesty... they overly friendly and just want to take your money... hence nothing is a problem... they just say yes yes yes and they really do nothing. Simply said - used cars sales is dodgy business no matter where you get the car, low margins, cheap repairs etc. Don't fall into "authorised dealership safety" trap. They are just used cars salesman. So have everything in writing, take pictures of everything and treat them like anyone selling car. I guess the only benefit of dealership is that if your car goes wrong then you likely still going to find them at the same address even few years after the purchase... but apart of that all same issues. I am not going to go into the details, but they sold me the car without brake pads, basically 3000 miles later it is metal on metal. I have noticed that brakes are low and I asked them to do pre-purchase inspections. They had one which was like 3 months old. What they said... "yes sir, of course sir, no problem sir", day before picking-up "have you checked the brakes... yes sir, or course sir, they are all good sir". Good that I had all in the email. 3000 miles later, when another Lexus dealer basically told me there are no brakes to speak off, I asked them - "did you do inspection as I asked"... NOPE.

I know this never meant to be serious, but what this shows is just the brands that people are most jealous about. I know it sounds too cliche "oh you hate it because you jealous", but this is all it is. People are jealous about other people having the cars they can't afford and which are faster than theirs and they automatically have negative feelings about it. On the other hand when they see somebody in Ford or Vauxhall they almost feel sorry for them "ahhh poor chap... I let him be... has nothing much to lose", exactly same behaviour in BMW "... how dares he... he thinks that just because he has BMW rules don't apply". Just look at the list and it is obvious that all of those cars are "affordable" luxury brands, something that people want to buy, plan to buy, maybe not new, maybe 10 years old, but it is realistic to own any of those makes for most people. And this as well explains why for example Bentley won't be on the list for bad driving... it is way too expensive for most people to even want them, they are above their radar and they are rare, so even statistically it is unlikely that somebody got offended by Bentley driver... It almost literally becomes "he can do it because he has Bentley, Ferrari whatever"... but if it would be BMW... then "no no no ... this is so rude and inconsiderate". And I have noticed this quite a lot... when you driving BMW people just hate you... I can be cursing at 90MPH in outside lane in Lexus and nobody cares, if I do 80MPH in BMW... people literally beep when I go past... I do the same thing I drive the same, in general I believe that drivers of all makes are more or less the same, but people just gets offended seeing BMW overtaking them, because somehow that makes them feel inferior. Ford doesn't (too cheap), Bentley doesn't too expensive... but BMW or MB or Audi... just the right car where they want to see themselves sitting and somehow that triggers them. Well at least that is my take on stereotypes when it comes to rude drivers based on makes...

Yes, but... it just means Toyotas are getting too expensive. LBX is downgrade from CT, UX should not be "aspirations thing" either... it is literally one of the smallest and cheapest "premium" cars... how it cost £40k I have no clue... and I have no clue why and who buys them. Not strictly speaking because it is bad car, but how it makes sense to pay such money I just don't know. There is no explanation. And there is absolutely no comparison between LBX and Juke - Juke is whole class above, it is equivalent to UX if not a little bit more practical (somehow they shaped it in such way that it has more space)... and to be fair whereas I really hated hard on old Juke, the current one looks alright and at £20k starting price I do see the point of it. I would not like to own either, but if tiny cross-over is your thing, then Juke is pretty much the cheapest way into the game without buying something extremely bland like Dacia Duster (which by the way not much cheaper at £17k)... Which goes back to exactly the point I made - Toyota looked at CHR and Nissan Juke and thought - "alright CHR is clearly way too expensive for what it is as Nissan Juke is arguably better car and better value for money, but we can't just discount it... we need a cheaper car"... so they made Yaris-Cross. The whole point of it's existence is to BE CHEAP... now Lexus took the car which is otherwise shaite and only exist to be a value proposition and turn it into "luxury" tin can on the wheels... not only it isn't Luxury or Premium, but it isn't even good value.. so they removed the sole reason why the car exists in the first place!

Did it look like that:

Yeah - insurance companies annoys me when they "abuse" the category system. This car shouldn't have been "written-off" - it should have been what is known as "Category X - stolen, recovered minimal damage", now the car will always have a mark as if it was crashed. Cat-N should be strictly for crashed cars with "non-structural damage", the Cat-S for "structural damage"... but in reality all these categories only have monetary value... perhaps 10% will be X, under 30% N, 30-60% S and anything over 60% is B (and it varies depending on insurance - hear <50/50-100/100> mentioned somewhere). I may be too sensitive for cars, but it does hurt second hand market and consumer in the end. And don't get me wrong - salvage categories and history are good thing, I don't want to buy previously crashed car without knowing it, but they should be used correctly for what they are. Now I often see little bit older higher mileage cars being sold as "Cat-B" despite only having scratch on the bumper (literally).

I thought he listed them for sale at some point, just not sure if he managed to sell them:

A lot of that comes from maintenance... That said you can drive twice as long with half the maintenance on IS250, so it is kind of objective to say IS220d is unreliable (for Lexus that is). I think IS220d (as many diesel cars) was really hurt by people just not using it right (short trips), then not bothering or not expecting to do extra maintenance for that use and finally just getting cheap. Once car get's below certain point (say £2000) it becomes increasingly likely it will be bought by people who are not planning to maintain it, or could not afford to maintain it... so now when you see one for sale, for say £1800 you can be sure it will be loads of pain to own it. Same applies to IS250 or any other car, except IS250 benefits from just being inherently more reliable... so even with poor maintenance it will drive twice as far before exploding... but it will explode eventually. I think it is fair to say that by now most of IS220d on the market are in a state where they are simply not worth making right. Maybe there are some late model IS200d which are still in good enough condition to acquire and maintain, but at the price you will pay for them it is always better just to get few years older IS250... even with double miles. And even if you end-up finding that one perfect example, and maintain it to highest standards, then again you have issues of government just banning diesels from driving... so the question is - is it even worth the effort to keep on in long term.

That will all depend on offset and tyres - again you can use the tool I have shared to calculate different offsets and tyre widths. Ideally you should go and measure how much space you have now as a starting point and it will tell you if your wheels will rub (at least in theory, works fine for the rear, but not so much for front). 8.5 would be very skinny wheels for 20". 15-20mm spacers I would say is pretty usual offset to space wheels more nicely. That is what I would go for myself. I think around 25mm the wheels should be level with arches, but anything more than that and you probably will start rubbing on normal offsets.

You welcome!

I may be wrong as well, I just assumed Lexus standard fitment is always ~45, but clearly not the case for IS-F (generally seems like F-Models deviates more from 45, whereas or "normal" cars have 45 quite often). In which case your initial assumption is closer to the truth than mine. Except... I believe most of the cars benefits from little bit negative offset as from factory wheels are always tucked in. Generally with ~10-20mm spacers the wheels sit more flush... hence if I would go for Vantage wheels I would put some thicker spacers than it is strictly needed to just to bring them to spec. You can go quite a bit more in the rear, but not sure how much wider the fronts may go, 10mm (over standard) would be safe bet.

You definitely not getting away with 5/8mm spacers if you looking for Vantage wheels. The offset on rear is 62.5 - so you need 17.5mm just to bring them to the spec and ideally another 10 to make them look half decent. 50.3 in front, so you need 5.3mm there. In short you looking at 25mm spacers in the rear and maybe 10mm in the front (if minimum is 15mm... then 15).

There are many RWD cars with square set-up, Lexus IS250 cam with ridiculous 255s on the back almost as if it has 400HP. It depends what you mean by "ideal" - cars came from the factory with 225/40R18 and 255/40R18 as I have said. If you just want factory set-up then those are your sizes. However, that is far from "ideal" by my own definition... 225/255 feels almost FWD with a lot of understeer - that is considered "safe", but it really handles poorly and balance is poor in the corners. If you want more neutral balance where the car grips well, but isn't much "fun" to drive, then you can go for 225/235 or 225/245. Finally, if you have all 8J wheels you can go for square 225 or square 235. This will make car like it should, with rear bias and little bit of oversteer if you really push it, and then as well you get benefit of rotating the tyres and you will get better fuel economy.

This probably is feature only on GS460, does not work on GS300 either. I believe it to be similar to IS250 system, whereas cars until ~2009 didn't have it and from 2009 it does it automatically if programmed into ECU and perhaps holding the button is workaround. Same for GS range just probably came couple of years early, and perhaps GS460 being flagship had it from the start. It is weird thought that GS450h does not, as it was kind of "more modern"... and costed the same. Perhaps from Lexus perspective it is GS300 > GS350 and GS450h > GS460.

That is in UK.

The correct sizes for IS250 are 225/40/18 and 255/40/18. That said 255 is massive overkill on IS250, so I personally went for 245/40 in the rear. So basically just pick two best tyres of what you have and put them in the rear and just order fronts. I don't believe you can run 245s in the front without rubbing, I think the widest you can get are 235s... but as you have the wheels already then you can simply fit them and see if they are not rubbing. Sure 245 square would be overkill, but if they fit then why not use them? Not sure what you mean by "this set may not be staggered"? On GS the tyres are square, but usually G-Spider set is in itself staggered (i.e. alloys themselves are 8JJ and 8.5JJ). Now sure it is possible somebody swapped the set and have all 8JJ for example. If that is the case, then I personally would go full square on IS250... like 225x4 or 235x4. Honestly, 225 is plenty for 200hp (something like 160hp to the wheels) and then you get benefit of being able to rotate the tyres. In short - if you have staggered set of alloys, then get pair of 225/40/18 and use 245s you already have. If it is indeed square set, then try to fit it as is... if not then replace fronts (or all tyres) to 225s or 235s.

Not in my experience... they may get lower hour rate, but they get guaranteed income. For example my claim was for faulty electric seat motor on Lexus RC. It was still working, but kind of weak, so I would have to pull myself up by the steering wheel or get out of the car for the back of the seat to actually lift. They quoted £4200 for repair, they replaced all 3 or 4 motors, all the wiring, screws, gears etc. everything inside the seat. Now if they would have told me the repair for that was for £4200 - I would have said "are your out of your mind", got myself a motor and paid somebody to fix it for £100. Or maybe bought entire used seat for £500... there is no way anyone is paying that much for such fault. As well I reckon they could have changed only the faulty part and it would have been maybe £800 or whatever, but they chose to do more work than was strictly needed... in part as good customer service, but as part clearly driving up the bill for labour. I personally was kind of happy and kind of not very happy - on one hand I feel like they could have replaced whole seat (apparently Lexus does not make whole spare seats) and as mine had some wear on it, that would have been preferable. But then they would have got nothing for labour... what does it take to put seat in... maybe 1h? So instead they chosen to go trough laborious job of completely rebuilding existing seat, not sure how many hours did it take them, but it must have been measured in days. In the end of day, the problem was fixed, Lexus paid whatever was on the bill and seat worked perfectly after that.

As long as the fault is covered I think it should be fine. My claim was not on Relax, but just generally with Lexus and from my experience dealership was extremely keen to do the work. You see the people who determines what your car needs and estimates the cost are dealerships, dealerships are not owned by Lexus, and Lexus GB (or their warranty provider) is the one paying. So from dealership perspective they actually want your warranty claim, that is good business for them. Lexus GB generally speaking cannot really reject the claim unless it is clearly outside of what is covered... the price negotiation if at all happens then happens between dealership and Lexus GB. In short - check what is covered under Relax (as it does not cover as much as previous extended warranty or Lexus manufacturer warranty) and if it is covered then I am very confident Lexus will pay it without any problems.

Test mule looked more like ES... although that may not be a bad thing... as my main gripe with ES is the FWD... if the made electric ES with RWD/AWD it probably would be okey... still too big for my liking, but I am sure there are plenty of people for whom it would be just fine.

You can trick her - say it is present to her... could she refuse?