Linas.P

Distant selling does not add anything above your statutory rights in this case. It is automatic 30 days for distant selling, whereas statutory rights on used cars are "unlimited within reason" i.e. where it is reasonable to believe the fault was present before you bought the car (both are within the scope of same Consumer Rights Act 2015). But if they gave you 3 months warranty then this should be covered by it in either way, so nothing to worry about. In this case indeed it would be reasonable to get the car investigated locally if seller is 2 hours away. At this point it really depends if you want to "play nice"... i.e. it would be considered "nice" if you inform them that you will take the car to the authorise centre close to you, but from my experience they may not be entirely happy about it. Or you can simply get a quote without telling them and just confront them with the estimate, that would not be considered "nice", but is still within your rights. They may insist taking car back or fixing it themselves (which they can do). That said, depending on terms and conditions of your 3-month warranty they may be indifferent either way e.g. where it is 3rd party warranty paying and seller is not covering the costs anyway. Handler Protect sounds exactly the type of warranty which would protect you either way, but I have not analysed their terms and conditions to be able to tell for sure. Final thing - I would advise to make all the communication in writing, if anything goes wrong or there is any misunderstanding, then having things in writing always going to help, even if it is SMS, Whatsapp or e-mail. Good luck with it and and let us know how it goes! P.S. Lexus are great cars and good choice, but if you get broken one then they can be real pain to diagnose and fix. As well if we talking specifically IS250C - they are solid, but if there is one thing that could brake, then it is a roof. I would not say it is common for IS250C roofs to fail, they are probably better than competitors in this area, but compared to the rest of the car the roof is still the most likely part to fail.

As it went back-up eventually I would say it is mechanically and electrically fine, else it would have stayed down. Can weak battery cause? Maybe... but then as soon as you start the engine it shouldn't be the problem any longer. In fact I reckon if the battery is too weak to close the roof, then it would be too weak to start the engine anyway, so I don't believe this is battery issue. If there are no error codes or messages or anything else obvious, it would be very hard for anyone here to help you. Could slow window be related with roof not closing... yes very likely... We can speculate all day long and eventually somebody may be able to guess what the problem is... however I would say it is pointless... Because here is the thing - you mentioned the dealer, so I assume it is a company that sold you the car. Under the law they are called "car traders" and have a duty to fix the issues you have with the car, refund, pay for repairs or take the car back. Well more specifically they have duty to describe cars "truthfully" - so if they have said "this cars is discounted because driver window is slow and roof does not close from time to time", then it would be on you, but if they didn't say anything like that then it is on them. Now I know it may not be an answer you were looking for, but the best place to go in this instance is back to the dealer that sold you the car and tell them to find why the roof is not working and why window is slow, and fix both. As well if you want independent inspection (for example if dealer keeps fobbing you off with excuses), you can go to authorised workshop (i.e. Authorised Lexus Dealer) and ask them for inspection and quote (do not repair anything and do not pay anything yet!). Then you can ask the dealer who sold you the car to either cover the costs of repair (including cost of inspection), repair the car themselves or take the car back. Why is this the best way to deal with the issue? Simply because you have rights under the law when buying the car from "traders", basically a protection, "a guarantee", anything that they didn't mention is broken when selling the car is their duty to repair for free. However, if you going to start repairing it yourself, then they may say it is you who broke it and refuse to help. So if it would be the car you have owned for long time, then yes it would make sense to identify the fault and find the cheapest way to fix it. However if you just bought the car recently form a trader, then there is no point even trying to find the solution yourself, even if it is something obvious that you missed or don't understand it is still their responsibility to show you how to use it and explain why it doesn't work. Most importantly don't try to fix it yourself, because doing so may result in them refusing to fix the car and you losing protections you are granted in law. Even if they are right and it is battery that is weak or run down - it would be their responsibility to replace it.

Well... the correct way would be fixing the faults... however if you believe faults are fixed and there are still DTCs (trouble codes), then sometimes clearing them is good way of checking that issue was actually fixed. Likewise sometimes you have some historic faults which are no longer relevant, or faults which are not relevant for the time e.g. I currently have all the airbag faults, but that is because I have the dash out and all airbags are obviously disconnected. Anyway... in your case the correct way would be to clear the faults, do the calibration and read the faults again to make sure calibration cured them. In fact I think calibration itself clears the faults as an intermediate step. If you get all the faults again after the calibration then calibration was not your issue. Likewise sometimes it happens the you simply clear the faults and they never comeback if you lucky. But yes - pressing the engine button is the correct way to clear the faults if you actually want to clear them. It does not matter if you do it from health check screen or from individual modules screen.

Yeah - sad news, tyre has to go. The bulge can blow out at any moment and last thing you want on motorway is for this to happen. Now how it could have happen? Could pothole cause it? Yes pothole could cause it, but did you hit one? It has to be pretty huge bang to cause nearly new tyre to bulge, so I doubt it could go un-noticed. Does somebody else drives the car? I would be very reluctant to suggest it was faulty tyre on the car as it is rare, not impossible, but for premium tyre to fail itself this way would be very very unlikely. Maybe you can inspect the wheel more closely and see if there is any mark at all near where tyre meets the wheel, like some rubber transfer or anything at all? That would be clear evidence that the wheel hit something. Else it could be argued it is just manufacturing defect, but even knowing that Lexus often are quite nice and will try to help... I think it will be uphill battle to convince them that tyre replacement is on them.

Well... so if it doesn't clear after a while and when engine is hot, then it will be head gasket issue. Now without seeing how much smoke it blows it is hard to say. But I would say if it blows it until engine get's to temp then stops... it will be just water condensation (sometimes it is surprising how much of it comes out on cold morning). But if you drove for 30 min and slow down and it is still blowing white smoke that can't be condensation. You only going to get milky oil etc, if it is the part between oil and coolant that is blown, but if passage between cylinder and water jacket is blown then it would would blow white smoke. DPF, 5th Injector etc would result in black smoke not white smoke, burning oil would be blue smoke. So you are only left with diagnosis of coolant burning. I mean last guess - maybe you get some old diesel and it has absorbed loads of water? Especially now when they put ethanol and biodiesel in everything it can go surprisingly bad and surprisingly quickly. I am pretty sure that programming out EGR, DPF or 5th injector would be illegal in Ireland, same as it is in UK. I do consider Irish vehicle tax stupid and unfair, clearly counter productive in this case, but that is not justification for pollution either.

the OBD port is under the dash, but in principle it triggers same function - clears yaw sensor memory and calibrates it.

Yes... that is why when I was ordering my ID BOX I made sure to find one with 2 keys already, because I knew the replacement would be ~£600.

The backboxes are unregulated, as long as vehicle passes emissions and is not too load. The noise testing is as well quite complicated, so I doubt police could do much about it as none of them would have right equipment to test. So don't touch any emissions parts (like cats and dpf) and it should be fine. In short - it doesn't need to be stock and DVSA or Police should not be concerned about backboxes.

Battery only needs ~15-20minutes to charge and driving couple of time a week would be quite normal. Cannot see this as being an issue. No... don't do it - Lexus batteries are not amazing and you would be just overpaying for mediocre battery. Consensus from the owners is that Bosch S4 is probably the best battery you could get, so you already have it... Lexus one won't be better. As well as it seems there is nothing wrong with the battery you have, so not sure why you want to replace it? As well do not start car daily, this not only wouldn't help, but likely would hurt the car and the battery. Unless you planning to start the engine and wait until it get's warm... (and that on 4GR-FSE could take good 10-15min and would waste a lot of fuel), then you simply going to be using more battery to start the car than it could recharge. As well you would prematurely wear out the engine, because the majority of wear is caused at the start-up and until oil circulates (say first 10 seconds of engine running). If you driving twice a week for 15 min and engine get's warm - this is more than enough to fully charge the battery. If you do that (drive twice a week for 15 min +) and the battery still dies, then you need to look for the issues elsewhere, either you have parasitic loss, or it isn't charging properly. Getting CTEK trickle charger would be only addressing the symptoms, not the problem. If you say you driving once a month, then yes - that would be an issue of not driving enough and indeed trickle charger would be the only solution.

Does it have battery "protector"... when I hardwired dashcam I just had little sensor on wire which would check battery voltage and prevent it from discharging.

It definitely looks better as well.

Probably need to look at parasitic loss, because if battery is good and charging then it should last at least several weeks without touching it.

... I was about to ask what you did with ACC button... but you answered that in video. I actually found it quite strange that GS didn't have paddles wired, because for example in my IS there are all wiring for ACC, despite it having no ACC... well I guess the answer... some IS had ACC, some didn't and therefore wiring was there in case they had. But GS never had paddles so there was no point of wiring that in the loom at all. That said... in theory IS wheels with ACC button exists, they are just rarer than unicorn farts... so you could have both paddles and ACC. I suggest to look for IS250C wheels, because those had ACC little bit more often than normal IS250s.

There is possible benefit for us - our "domestic" makers will have to drop prices to survive. Competition is always good for consumer... perhaps even "bad" competition like that coming from China. Other option is obvious that our government should wake-up to the threat. You know that to own company in China one must partner with Chinese company at 51/49% share? Perhaps EU should instruct the same to Chinese companies - they stole or tech and now want to sell it back to us, at least they should pay fair share of cost then.

I was considering 6-Series when buying my RC... to be honest I should have went with 6-Series... probably would still own it to this day. 8-Series is just rebadged 6-Series in principle. And if their prices will follow the same trend I can see myself picking-up 840i M-Sport for under 20k in few years time.

Ok so you have calibration errors yaw sensor. You sure that happened after oil change? I can't see any relevance here - whatever they did to the car could no knock calibration out, disconnecting battery will do nothing, you need to calibrate yaw sensor. Usually something like replacement or disconnection of the sensor or ABS pump would cause it. The calibration of yaw sensor is simple, park car on even ground, go to TechStream utilities for ABS/VSC/EPS and there will be calibration option - I think it is called "reset memory". It goes something along the lines "turn IG ON, make the steering straight, press calibrate, wait 5s, turn off the ignition, wait 5 seconds, start the car". It could be done with jumper between TS (4) and CG (12) terminals, but that has a risk of damaging you OBD2 port (just connectors get's lose over time)... so I would not advise it. Same procedure as per TechStream, just instead of following on screen instruction you need to jump terminal 4 times in 8 seconds, VSC Test Mode and ABS light starts blinking, wait 5s switch off. Better do it with TechStream... Do you have repair manual... it has all instructions.

As far as reliability goes IS300h will basically have no competitors, there is nothing in the same league on either BMW or MB side. IMHO - IS300h has plenty of flaws of it's own, but you said you have performance car so perhaps it is not relevant for you. But reliability isn't one of the issues with the car, so if that is your only criteria, then go for it. Just a side comment... I do agree that manual is dead for mainstream, but I would still insist to learn how to drive on manual. Whenever it will be needed or not it won't hurt.

I moved from Lexus to Lexus... I know that is not leaving, but the reasons are very similar to the rest above. Basically I could not find way to progress with the current brand models, so I went back to owning older Lexus. It may seem like "I am staying with the brand", but as far as Lexus is concerned they already lost me as the customer, that I am buying some of the cars they made 17 years ago from the 5th owner doesn't move their sales target in 1 micron. Now again my reasons, circumstances and impact that has on Lexus maybe are different. I have always been the person who buys 2-5 years old cars (and I am not considering of changing, brand new car just doesn't interest me), so for me it was always very important what Lexus has in "pipeline"... In 2008 Lexus was selling loads of IS250s, so it was obvious that by 2012 that will be the car I would picking-up used. But let's think of what Lexus are selling now... UX, NX, RX, few ES and that is about it. Maybe LM 😄 there will be nothing that will interest me used in say 5 years time. So once used IS250s pool dries-up and they become more trouble than they are worth (and I argue that is already happening, just look how many new threads are created with electrical issues every week) I will be leaving Lexus for good. Sure... I may eventually come across RC-F, GS450h, GS-F, LC... but I would argue it is unlikely. Remember my target is used, but still relatively modern cars, ideally less than 5 years old. And even newest on the list (the LC) is already getting past that. So by the time I find them for decent price, they may as well be too old for me to be interested. In short I was already bottom feeding for years because of lack of interesting models. I stayed in my last IS250 for way longer than I was planning. I used to change cars ~every 2-3 years, but I had IS250 for 6... and that was already my 3rd one! It really got to the point where I thought I could not get rid of it and the only reason I did was that I was forced to change, because car was written-off by insurance. Why was that? Because even back in 2016 I had no choice... IS300h was never my cup of tea, GS450h in my opinion just too big, RC300h more or less same issues as IS. Yes I ended-up picking RC200t from desperation really, but that turned out to be mistake. So really the only way was backwards, but I really doubt I could stomach another IS250 after this one. I mean by now they getting really really old, maybe mk3, but those are stupidly priced - 10 years old car for £14k... that was IS-F money when I bought my last IS250 in 2016 - no thanks! I honestly think, that in another 3 years I probably will get something like BMW 8-Series, should be depreciated sufficiently for me by then, maybe E-Class coupe, E53 preferably. Unless miraculously LCs will be under 20k, which I doubt. I may entertain the idea of cheap RC-F, but in 3 years time they will be 12 years old, so again unlikely. In summary, my point is - I really need to bend my own rules to justify it and be creative to find ways to stay with Lexus.

For MOT this argument doesn't work, because then presumably after passing MOT you use the car, so what difference does it make? Unless we are talking about real beaters where valid MOT is worth as much as the car itself. As for selling the car - sadly that is the truth, many people don't know/don't care, but I for example always consider what tyres are on the car and have several times refused to buy car or negotiated sizeable discount. Even if they are premium tyres, but say word down to 2mm, it would reasonable to say "well car is good, but rear tyres needs replacement" - right? So it is same with budget tyres - because as far as I am concerned if car has budget tyres on it then they will go into trash immediately. I may drive back home on them, but they will be replaced as the first thing next day. So in such case I would say "decent car, but tyres are trash and will have to be replaced". There have been cases where we could not agree on that with the seller and seller considered me "unreasonable", because "mate these are nearly new road legal tyres"... NOPE... don't care, they are trash not worth the rubber they are made off, so I want discount to the value of decent tyre, which usually works out at say £80-£120 per tyre depending on the size. This is in no way different from any other defects on the car, if wheels are scratched they will need to be refurbished, that costs £400, if the seat is ripped that will need to be fixed, this will be £300... if battery is dying that will cost £100. So same for the tyres. I would argue they are not fooling anyone by saving 2 pennies on the tyres... at least not people who knows what they are doing. Now again - sad truth is that people are ignorant, lazy, do not negotiate, do not research, do not inspect what they buying and don't even know what they buying. Then obviously next day they come to the respective forum and start asking the questions after the purchase and it turns out their new vehicle is costly mistake with a lot of thing wrong about it. And sure with 80% of people being ignorant why wouldn't the sellers take advantage of them? That said I still think in long run it is not beneficial... I have long said as one of advise looking for cars to check the tyres. If the tyres are premium it meant previous owner cared about the maintenance overall... and after several dozen cars that I and my friends bought this almost always the true. Every time you see car listed with premium tyres and you go to inspect, it always have folders and folders with previous invoices, service history etc. Anytime you go to look at the car on budgets... usually there is no history, or history missing and various red flags everywhere. I know exceptions definitely exists, but what I found is that tyre brand often is just a visual representation of how much care the owner put into the maintenance of the car. And there is one interesting caveat - some cars on good mid-range tyres, like specific models which are well reviewed are probably the best maintained, because it shows that owner was paying attention and doing research, are likely mechanically minded and not just blindly paying the money. But again - if you see the car with budgets, walk away, owner was economical with the tyres, was economical with the maintenance and probably is economical with the truth. Again - exceptions exists and not everyone are passionate about the cars, not everyone knows what they doing and they might not even know what tyres are on their cars, so this certainly don't mean they are liars... although it could be still argued that person who does not care and does not know, just couldn't have maintained the car well, not maliciously, but just from ignorance. When selling I as well have used this argument quite a few times - I point out that tyres are premium, that they are good and buyers often have more trust in the rest of the car, again they see I didn't try to sell them car with black round death traps on the wheels, so by association "probably rest of the car is also okey". What this works out at - people negotiate less and you have less "tyre kickers" (literally), saves time, saves money and you sell car quicker. So even from seller perspective I doubt budget tyres really saves that much money.

Not much of disagreement then - I said there is risk they not going to seal as well, not that they will leak. I had used tyres in the past and had no issues with them either, but it all comes down to bead being cleaned properly, not damaged when tyre was removed etc. and let's face it - whoever was replacing those tyres probably didn't care much for protecting what was effectively £2 of environmental liability. When you get new tyre you can be sure the bead is not damaged and it is clean, but with used tyres you just don't have such guarantee. On second point we agree - as long as the price is right and reflects properly the remaining thread and the risks associated with the used nature of the item they are fine. And if new tyre is £12/mm, then I would happily pay £6/mm for same used tyre and take the risk. But when it works out actually more expensive than new... no thanks... prices are ridiculous now. I just wanted to correct myself, because previously I said "go and buy used", but it turns out prices nowadays just doesn't make sense.

LOL... It is so true that it funny and hurts at the same time... every time I have explained this issue in detail to auto-electrician... they tell me they either don't work on Lexus, or don't have time, or some other excuse, few of them told me to maybe ask dealer for diagnostics and then they can repair "whatever they find" - at which point I tell them "if I knew what is wrong I could fix it myself without your help and dealers don't just diagnose the cars for free"... One guy literally came and took my ECU "to be checked and reprogrammed", then went on "holiday" and never returned it (lucky me he took spare one I had)! They only ever come to look at the car if I pretend I am dumb and just say "car does not start don't know why"... then they come spend couple of hours poking at random things and then, fixes nothing and then disappear never to be found again. So yes - finding decent electrician who knows what they are doing is very hard. In the end, I pulled out all the electrical diagrams myself, figured out how to use mustimeter and did it myself. Yes it took me 9 months, but I am not sure using electricians from the street would have been any quicker.

Are you referring to this: Yes - with some research savings can be made

Just been looking for tyres myself and realised one thing... which I kind of knew, but never thought about it much and wanted to kind of correct myself. Long post warning! 😄 Previously I said "if you can't afford premium tyres, it is better to get used premium than new budgets". The second part of sentence still stands, I still believe there is never good reason to get budget tyres... ever. But first part is what I realised is not really true... at least not at the moment. Looking at used premium tyre prices, many tyres listed and priced based on thread depth remaining, but there is a catch! As it is hopefully surprise to no one - there is minimum thread depth required by the law in UK (1.6mm across central 75%)... so let's say brand new tyre comes with 8.6mm thread... well it's thread isn't 8.6mm, as far as we concerned by the law it is 7mm of wearable thread. So if you looking to buy used tyre with 4.3mm thread life it is not "50% worn", it is actually 62% worn. And to be fair I would say it get's even worse, because no reasonable person drives all the way to 1.6mm. I personally start looking for replacement when tyre get's to ~3mm (this is by the way the point where manufacturers advise tyre start losing most of it's grip anyway) and I replace them at some point when it get's below 2.5mm, allowed for some uneven wear it may be the case that on side of the tyre is 2.2mm, but other is already at 1.8mm. Anyhow... my point - whatever is thread depth on the tyre, take away at least 2mm from it for legal reason and another 0.5mm for uneven wear. So where is the problem then... well the problem is that used tyres just works out more expensive, which clearly makes no sense. We can divide the tyre cost per mm of thread, obviously this cannot be compared across the different tyres, but let's take real example - Pirelli Citurato P7 C2 comes with 8.8mm of thread new and it cost £79.99 for 225/45R17. Using logic above if we take away ~2.5mm, then we will end-up with 6.3mm usable thread or cost of ~£12.70/mm. The used Citurato P7 often sells on eBay with 5-6mm of thread and at the cost of ~£50 per tyre, or at £14.30/mm because only 3.5 mm is really usable (I have averaged 27 offers and they work out at 5.6mm and £52). Now sure... it seems like I am penny pinching £2 and counting mm, but let's not forget the context - people buy "hit-pis 2000" so save £8 per tyre... and here we would be losing £2/mm, if we convert used tyre price into new tyre thread depth it would work out £11 more (£90 instead of £79). And by the way - buying used it is not only the tyre depth that you losing... used tyres don't seal as well (so there is risk of slow leaks), they will be older rubber, so harder, less grippy etc. and we don't even know how long they were stored and in what conditions, as well about 0.5mm is shawled of the tyre after refitting/rebalancing - basically tyres/wheels are not perfectly round, so they "worn-in" to the shape of wheel overtime, so once you refit it, the tyre has to "worn-in" to the new wheel (and I don't mean bent wheels, basically the only reason wheels needs balancing is that tyre/wheel combo is never perfectly balanced or round). Anyway - I am sure you bored by now but the point is that "used mm" is not equal "new mm". But that is not even the end - in my example I used Citurato P2, but the tyres that are sold used are actually older model which was replaced twice (P2 > P2 Blue > P2 C2), so it isn't even fair to compare it to the tyre of £79.99, because we are talking about 8 years older tyre model which wasn't as good to begin with. And this is true across the board - any premium tyre will be worn for years until it gets to the point where ~40% of thread is left, so very often you will be looking in 1-2 generation old tyres. All these things considered I cannot see how used tyre could be any more than 50% of the cost of new tyre per mm i.e. that 6mm Citurato should cost no more than £20 to be worth it. To be honest this used to be the case in the past, I remember driving into Europe in winter and buying 4 Pirelli Winter tyres for something like £90 delivered and they were 8mm and when new costed ~£150 each. Perhaps it is current living standard crisis that forces people to buy used and hence the prices are ridiculous. So what is conclusion - I still think buying premium is most economical option, not only they are better, but they as well going to outlast budgets and most mid-rangers on mileage, so they will work out cheaper overall and maybe about the same as mid-rangers after considering the initial price difference. But the worst thing to do when trying to save money is to waste it and buy something that works out more expensive in long run... budgets works out more expensive in long run, but it seems that used premium are the same as well. So in the end I consider that the only reasonable justification for buying used premium tyre is to replace maybe the tyre you have punctured... maybe you have set of 6mm Michelin PS4s all around and one needs replacing... yes getting used PS4s with 6mm thread for £90 probably makes sense in such circumstances, but apart of that I would say just ignore used tyres unless prices! There are no saving to be made buying used!

Can't agree more... I am sure one can argue they are just adapting to the times... but it sounds ridiculous when they say they could not homologate IS350 or new IS mk3.5 for UK, yet somehow they found time and funds to homologate this crap. And I am sure RC350 would not have sold in large numbers, but certainly better than this. Unless... their profit margins on this thing are just out of this world, which may indeed be the case, because this is minivan selling for £100k.

Whilst I was waiting for working ABS pump to arrive I was fooling around the broken one which I have ordered. Basically it looks like you can undo 4 screws and remove just the electrical part (which is what most likely has failed). This would make a lot of sense, and despite being awkwardly placed, would save time compared to draining brake fluid and bleeding entire system. Now sadly I wanted to report that Lexus/Toyota made it so it can't be repaired... honestly it is obvious from design that they did it deliberately and my personal opinion is that it should be illegal. Anyway as the pump was trash anyway I didn't mind applying some destructive disassembly in attempt to learn more about how it is put together. Basically the construction is as follows - the 4 screws holds entire electrical part of the pump onto the body with dozen solenoids and one big electrical motor, it even has rubber gasket there suggesting they probably designed it to be removed (or there may be different models that can be taken apart), but then they decided to seal it. Basically there is 5th hidden screw, which is under separate glued cover... and this cover does not have gasket, it is just sealed with epoxy. And then the screw actually sits under the PCB, making it impossible to remove without first soldering out like 50 contacts. Point is - the sole purpose of this screw is to make the whole thing disposable. Now theoretically one can carefully pry the cover of PCB with like razor blade, maybe a sharp chisel... then remove 50+ contacts from the board... and then whole assembly can be removed, but the whole thing is clearly designed in such a way to make this redundant an requiting replacement of whole unit if either solenoid body or electrical part fails. Pretty disappointed... both because not I will have to deal with massive nuisance of bleeding everything, but as well because it is legal to make such anti-consumer designs which only generates more waste. So yes - if anyone wondering, just replacing electrical part is not an option and there are no shortcuts.