Linas.P

I forgotten how to use internet without ad-blocker... so sadly don't know adds on this site (or any ads to be fair). But where I am leading to - get ad-blocker and you will never look back!

First of all taking fuel advice from the landscaping association seems strange - was that first link which fit your narrative? I am sure they are good at landscaping, but who makes them qualified to advise on fuel?! Are they experts in the field (no pun intended), I guess they may have specific needs - like specific landscaping equipment being parked-up for months when not in season? But then we need to put into context and think if that applies to the cars... Secondly, again they mention fuel separation. I already mentioned that in both of my posts - yes ethanol is known for absorbing water and yes fuel separation will eventually happen in E5, E10 and E85. The question is how long it takes and the answer for this is at very least months if not years! So the advise goes - don't leave ethanol for months in the tank! I mean sure - if left outside, on the sun in a cup then maybe 1 month is enough for to separate, maybe even week. But car fuel tank is mostly sealed, not 100%, but ethanol isn't exposed directly to elements either. Besides this would impact both E5 and E10 (and 100% petrol as well - all fuel has some water in it, just very small amounts), the only difference is that E10 will have double the water (or same amount in the half of time) because obviously there is double the ethanol to react with oxygen. Yet again - what about E85 then? I should have had tank half-full of water after running E85 if we talking about weeks on E10? So to conclude where we getting at - don't leave any fuel in the tank for long time, long being months. That is true for any fuel and any car and that is just common sense... and if for petrol 1 years is probably the limit, so for fuel with ethanol halve it to 6 months, for E85 I would not be comfortable leaving it in the tank for longer than 3 months. But again context matters - cars are not normally parked-up for 3 months at the time... and if they are then make sure to leave empty tank or at least fuel without ethanol, or use fuel conditioner. Not rocket scienience. I personally don't like fuel with ethanol, but for completely different reasons - like that it contains less of actual fuel. For example the reason why in Europe I was running E85 was that it was generally 30% cheaper than E95... so it contains 25% less fuel and it is 30% cheaper... I call it good deal! If E10 is not 10% cheaper then I consider it scam, secondly car obviously loses some power... it is basically the same thing either consumption is higher or power is lower, or usually both... and that is not good! I hate that in UK E10 replaced E95 like for like with the same price, that is just bad deal. But the stories about exploding engines and water in the tanks and all other scaremongering - that are extreme cases which do not apply for everyone. Like everything what is too much is not good - if you get tank full of E85 and use it within week, then no harm will be caused, thank full of E10 and use it within month - same thing, but if you leave the car parked-up for 2 years then don't be surprised when it won't start because fuel has gone bad... or don't put E10 into some classic car from 60s, than won't be a happy story either, but within a reason it is safe fuel to use, if used within 99% of normal circumstances. Note: I am using E5/10/85 as 5/10/85% of ethanol, but it isn't strictly true as it is "up-to", so E10 could have 5% ethanol E5 could have 0% and E85 can be 40-60%, as well not to be confused with old marking of E92/E95/E98 because those generally had no ethanol, but then again E98 sometimes used to have ~2-5% ethanol as additive to increase octane rating so...

Most of Europe runs cars on E85, I am not saying ethanol does not have any effect (positive or negative), but it cannot be that great. If 17 times greater ethanol content does not kill IS250 then I don't really see why 2 times higher content would. It is well known (be it somewhat rumoured) that one should not leave ethanol in the tank for long time (that is E85), again how long it is somewhat debated, depends how full the tank is how much oxygen actually gets into the tanks, how cold/warm/humid it is, but consensus is that over the time ethanol will absorb some water. How much is again debatable, but any water in fuel is not good. So his is the argument about corrosion, basically some components may be fine in petrol, but may rust in water. Some argues that somehow ethanol pulls water out of seals ant thus dries them out and makes them brittle, but unless we talking about vintage cars and natural rubber seals I can't see this being the case either. As I said in the past I have run IS250 on E85 for thousands of miles (I think good guess would be 40k) and nothing has happened to it, now sure I have not disassembled fuel system before and after to confirm and inspect, so it is only anecdotal evidence, but even if there was undue wear we talking micrometres. So if that is anything to go by, then 8.5 times less concentration of ethanol should be fine for over 320k miles. That is not to say ethanol is better for cars or that anyone should ignore the manufacturer recommendations like I did and use ethanol, but the panic is unwarranted. And... importantly when it comes to additives I just kind of doesn't make sense additive can isolate all components from ethanol and make it safe to use. There are "conditioners" for diesel and petrol as well, which works in similar way and extends life of fuel already in the tank, but that should not be needed if the tanks is used at least in 3-6 months. As for Redex in particular and IS250. The key issues is that 4GR-FSE has only direct injection, so 80% of what fuel additives could do automatically does not apply, because fuel never touches injectors or intake manifold and thus can't clean anything. The only thing it could do it to clean injectors, but the fuel itself should be cleaning them (ethanol is actually good way to clean injectors)... so despite using redex in the past I honestly cannot justify any reason to have it in the tank on IS250 in particular.

That is the problem... they claim a lot of thing on the package, but it is not very clear how true they are and in what circumstances. As for corrosion from E10, there is no such thing... if E5 didn't corrode anything, then E10 does not corrode anything either. This kind of requires further context. Basically fuel with high ethanol content may absorb water if left in the tank for very long time... that said 10% isn't "high ethanol content" and very long time is ~6-9 months... so it is questionable if one needs corrosion protection. More for classic cars I guess, but I doubt anyone runs E10 in classic cars anyway...

It seems you have face-lift 1-piece bumper (I thought they only came in 2011-2012), not sure how it suppose to be on 1-piece bumper, but on older 2piece bumpers the front of undertray tucks behind the bumper. So I suspect the reason your one got bent was that somebody didn't fit it correctly and left it hanging below the bumper. At any speed even the wind would bend it down.

Theoretically possible... although with size of standard fuel tank one will get 50-100 miles range max. Potentially not an issue if refuelling infrastructure is sorted out, but otherwise I would not expect much take-up. Further there will be no price savings, so the only reason to do it would be air quality benefits.

Don't even bother - I have broken down the costs in the past and people do no care. They look 2 days ahead like that 🤑 just based on 1L of LPG being cheaper than 1L of petrol and that is all - the fuel price is not direct saving! As well there are "religious" LPG converters who just convert any car to LPG regardless. The savings on LPG can be done on specific older cars which had no direct injection... in such case benefit of direct injection in itself means that car can be run pretty much 1:1 like petrol on obviously cheaper fuel. But on direct injected car such economy does not work out at all - either car will use 40% more LPG, or it will have 30% less power. The other common saving is getting LPG system rigged-up in some backyard for cheap... In short - there is no way to economically convert car like IS250 to LPG... spending £3,000 on properly installed MPG system to have 10% savings on fuel... well the math is simple - just to get the money back on the system one has to spend £30,000 on fuel just to get the money back on the system itself and even with worst fuel estimates one will have to drive more tan 100k miles. And that is before we even think it is even possible to convert it (which as far as I know is not possible). As you said - economy is not too bad on IS250 for what it is. In the city it is not great, but on country road or in motorway 40MPG is easily achievable. I would struggle to think of any similar petrol car with 40MPG+ unless it is diesel or hybrid.

No. The longer answer - it is not economically viable. Because specifically 4GR-FSE (the engine in IS250) is direct injection only, not only it is tricky to install it, more expensive, but as well there would be minima to no fuel savings. High compression and other engine design features does not help either. I haven't seen any conversions, not saying there are none, but it would be very expensive waste of time if at all possible. Many people have done LS 400, 430 older IS300, 200, RX300... all those are suitable. Not IS250.

For Lexus that is uncommon (for electrical switches to get faulty), likely previous owner messed-up something.

That is very old recall - I am surprised that OP car hasn't been done. Something like 2017-18 was when they did this recall. No difference if it is Android or iphone as you car will have just basic hands free. Definitely check owners manual, from memory you either go to settings or phone and there should be options to connect. As for lights staying on - it seems your drivers door switch is broken, so car does not recognise that door was opened/closed and therefore lights stays on. I assume if you close/open passenger door they would go off.

I think to clarify it - if you have sat-nav then you should have phone Bluetooth connectivity no natter the year of the car. I have 02 2006 car, pretty much one of the first mk2s and it has Bluetooth connectivity for the phone. The only thing facelift adds is music streaming via Bluetooth. If you do not have sat-nav then only facelift models got hands free/phone connectivity. However, if the OP car description is correct (2008 SR), then it is clearly not facelift, but it has buttons on the steering wheel, which means it must have sat-nav, or else the wheel does not belong to the car. So again if it has sat-nav it has to have bluetooth for calls only regardless of the year.

Mine is missing as well. As other mentioned it makes battery replacement really awkward, so some people may choose to throw it away. Other reason - Lexus uses uncommon size battery, so some people just go with what I believe is 063 size which fits without cover, is cheaper, usually higher capacity and more commonly available (I believe halfrauds as well advises that). To be honest it doesn't add much apart of holding temperature sensor, but that said it could lead to unexpected issues - if you leave temp sensor dangling it may fall close to catalytic converter and report that your battery is on fire. Basically as long as you find the way to secure temp sensor it should be alright without cover.

It seems to be getting increasingly common in Europe/UK to recognise how indestructible Lexus cars are. I think the mechanic nailed it by saying "as long as it was maintained it should be good" and that is basically it. Car has not lost any power in 240k, interior looks like something well under 100k and anything that doesn't look good was either damaged in the accident, maintained poorly or fixed badly. And I had experienced this myself with Lexus, mine was near 200k, obviously it was maintained very well and honestly if I would tell people it is 60k miles they would believe me - just goes to show Lexus the built quality has no competition. The reason I am posting this is not really that I want to promote the Lexus as I hope everyone on this forum already knows what they have, but because I found video weirdly relatable where the guy says "it is all solid, I would believe it is 60k if you told me that" and I am thinking - I was in that situation myself where I was looking at my 200k IS250 after good wash (which was basically worthless due to miles) and thinking "it looks and feels as nearly new car somehow".

There is not much you can do with Halogens on your car (Xenon would have washers). You can get whiter white (4300k or 6000k, instead of ~2700k originals), but you can't make them much brighter - I think other guys already mentioned best options Osram Cool Blue Intense or Osram Nightbreakers. They do look nicer, but do not expect much brighter lights... just the limit on how much halogen can shine.

1. If you head unit does not have sat-nav then it won't have phone connectivity. It is not true however that only facelift got Bluetooth, all cars with sat-nav had it else there would be no way to connect the phone. The difference however is that pre-facelift had Bluetooth for calls only (no music) whereas facelift got proper Bluetooth, so you could play music if you wanted to. Although I am puzzled about buttons on the wheel. Like here: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202205316360170 you see - no sat-nav, no button on the wheel vs. https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202210120659418 - has sat-nav and has buttons, so has Bluetooth. Perhaps you just need to find how to connect the phone (check manual)... or somebody fitted different wheel. Basically you can't have phone controls if the wheel if car didn't have sat-nav, but if you had sat-nav then Bluetooth was there from the earliest models.4 2. Button on the end of stalk turns it on, pulling down sets the speed at any speed above 25MPH (if memory serves, but owner manual will have that sort of info). 3. Could be faulty, but the sensor on the back of the handle is a little bit finicky... if you know exactly where it is then it is easy, but if you pulling at wrong side then it may not work. Lexus IS250 sadly only locks itself if you unlock it but won't open the door (can be set to 15, 30, 60 or 120s) which is kind of silly. But if you were driving, stopped and walked away it won't lock ever (that is oversight in my opinion, but it was one of the first cars to offer this feature). 4. Must be something faulty, because when you have lights on "auto", they only turn on when engine is on and only when light sensor detects low light and they should turn-off as soon as you turn-off the engine (I assume it is UK car). So basically there are no way they should be on if the engine is off. I don't believe 2008 had future to "lead you home" or whatever it is called. This came on later with introduction of DLRs in 2010. 5. Auto-wipers have sensor in front of rear view mirror. If water get's on the sensor then wipers will wipe and you have choice between sensitivity of the sensor. These are known to fail if windscreens are repaired and sensors not properly seated or gel pad is missing.

In which case the difference is 3%... No not the car 😄 but I am guilty of that as well - you put premium 99 Octane expecting fuel savings, or you replace old sticking calliper, or have hydrogen carbon cleaning done and sub-cautiously you doing different driving, driving more carefully, more economically or coasting more... maybe just in general by accident maybe second-half of December is more quiet on the roads or temperature is higher, or you did less idling and fuel economy reflects that. So this is just the case of wrongly attributing causality... yes MPG improved since refuelling with with E5, but has it truly changed just because of fuel and nothing else?! There is no mystery about ethanol, the way it works as a fuel is well understood and there is nothing miraculous there - ethanol has 30% less energy compared to petroleum, so if you burning 90/10 mixture it will either produce 3% less power, or it will burn 3% more of the fuel. In reality you get something in in between, but skewed towards less power rather than higher consumption. So realistically most people in most cars on most journeys should not see any noticeable difference in fuel consumption... averaged between 100s of tanks over long period of time car will consume slightly more E10, but little bit less than maximum 3%. As I have mentioned in the past - I have long history running IS250 on E85... in fact most of Europeans does that. And 85% of ethanol is much more than 10% of ethanol, but even in such extreme cases the fuel consumption was not noticeably different. Theoretically one needs 25% more E85 to achieve same power, but at no point my fuel consumption was 25% higher. It was slightly higher maybe 5%, but not 25%. However, on autobahn I did notice that my top speed has dropped. When coming out of Poland on some Polish special premium 100 Octane fuel I could go all the way to ~138MPH relatively easily, but when I refuelled E85 in Germany suddenly car didn't really want to go beyond 125MPH, or at least it would struggle to accelerate past 125MPH and it was clear it was little bit down on power and I have noticed it multiple times... although on normal driving at normal speeds it is hard to tell, whereas on autobahn it was more measurably apparent. So I am saying - there is difference between E10 and E5, but for it to be 25MPG>31MPG there has to be more in it, not just fuel.

I make out placebo out of it 🙂 E10 is not as good as E5, but not 6MPG different. It should be different by ~1.5%

Well that would be unreasonable expectation - you basically want car to have a crystal ball and predict the future 😄 Sadly not how systems work, not the type of the failure mode they can have as they are based on electrical signals and basically have a range in which they pass the test (e.g. 2.4-2.6V) and values which are outside of allowed range and then they report fault. On top of that in modern cars almost everything is unit replacement, so although I agree it would be more convenient to spend £3000 at the time convenient to you rather than when broken down on the side of the road... it still means spending that £3000. Thinking about it further - I don't believe any manufacturer would willingly include such feature as it would mean people could claim warranty on parts which are about to fail, instead of those parts failing outside of warranty, so this basically would be extra step to take which would directly hurt their margins. Just cannot see it happening.

I think you reading too much into it. Simply said lights means that that systems are ready for self-check, when you start the engine they complete simple response via can-bus reporting that they are working and the lights goes off. I don't think there is any meaning in the sequence, it may be programmed in the Getaway ECU to send sequential command to each module, or it may be based on the module location on the can-bus. In either case airbag going off last is unlikely indication of any fault, perhaps there are more checks linked to airbag light and it takes longer to confirm all parameters are right. My only guess is that your second car is later model with LSS+, which means that you distance radar and other things have to self-test before airbag light goes off, whereas older model didn't need to check distance ECU... so airbag light just takes twice as long to go off, because it needs extra module to respond.

Just to be clear - I didn't say it is "the most reliable engine made by Lexus", only "the most reliable from the 4 engines which falls short of being called good". So that makes it 4th least reliable engine in US, but just slightly better than other 3. I may need to be more careful explaining it in future. Besides even if I think that 2AR-FSE is more reliable engine than 3GR/4GR-FSE and 8FARTS, that does not mean that 300h as a platform is more reliable. Simply having that hybrid system makes it way more complex and risky long term than pure-petrol options. Not to say IS300h for example isn't very reliable car, but it is inherently more complex and thus less dependable than IS250/300, even if just engine alone perhaps is better. I mean to all that context is required... so 2AR-FSE does not have carbon build-up problems, which means it does not lead into other premature wear problems, so because of that it is better than 3GR/4GR-FSE... but it has electric battery and complex eCVT system connected to it, which if goes wrong makes repairs uneconomical. That isn't an issue 3GR/4GR-FSE where engine can simply be replaced for $600, or even together with gearbox for $1000. In the end of the day, I think we (including myself) are splitting hairs here - all Lexus cars are amazingly reliable, so it is really hard to go wrong. Yes Lexus has one exception and that is IS220d/200d - they made that mistake and they never made another diesel car, I reckon they learned from their mistake. But as for the rest of Lexus they can all be recommended as far as reliability is concerned. The reason we have this discussion is because of some american who has clearly oversaturated the topic and took the topic out of context without explaining it properly. He looked at Lexus/Toyota line-up in US only in isolation as if no other makes exists and no other countries exists. Then he correctly identified the problem for IS250, but he made that problem way bigger than it is, didn't explain under what circumstances it happens, nor that it could be avoided or mitigated. I mean I do understand and appreciate where he is coming from - that is "this engine theoretically and inherently flawed", but he completely failed to consider practical consequences of that and completely failed to explain the perspective which means for average viewer it gave wrong impression as if somehow IS250 is "horror story". To be fair to him - he just had ramble on the internet, he needs to make his content interesting to watch and all these small details would have taken way too long to explain to keep any viewer interested and here we nit picking his every world. I think he even says himself "don't listen to every idiot on the internet" - and that is exactly the case. He had one simple and clear intention - review Lexus line-up from the best used deal to worst and he did that... overall he got it right LS400/430/GX470/GS350/IS350 are the most reliable cars ever made period... IS250 is not on the same league, it has some design faults which could bite... what he failed to explain is that he reviewing scale 9-10, not 0-10.

Well that sounds about right for bargain car... and I am not being cheeky - I got myself a bargain IS250 last year and still working out kinks to this day. That was copart so returning it wasn't an option and I feel bad breaking it for parts. B2799 - very likely battery code, because if immobiliser does not get 5V then it will give this code. As well it is likely because if you genuinely had B2799 then car would not start, I had it and I had to replace immobiliser, steering lock, keys and smart key module (that is the only way, they must be matching modules or new). The rest of the codes - again if you genuinely had those codes car would not start at all. If camshaft position sensor is disconnected then as a failsafe mode starter is disabled. Besides you have codes on all 4 sensors at once which is nearly impossible to be true. So again - either you have false flag... or you may have faulty wiring or faulty ECU. I have replaced wiring on my car - trust me you don't want to get involved with that, new wiring harness £1600 assuming you could find one to buy (got myself used one for £120, but after 6 months I still don't know if it is even good)... the job itself - I would not do it again for any money so you likely won't find electrician who would even agree to do it. First option is to contact seller and get the seller to resolve the issues if you can. Trust me that is the best option here if you have it (I bought car from copart knowing the risks and I did not have that option). From what you described above it could be anything... literally from £250 for a sensor to full on replacement of half of ECUs for £5000+... or just false alarm due to low voltage. Second option - check battery/alternator, clear the codes and hope for the best. In theory it could be the case that car was sitting for some time, battery voltage got low and the real cause for codes is just "low voltage flag". Note - this is pure lottery, it is likely all things considered, but no means guaranteed.

I guess same applies as with IS250. It isn't best Lexus engine, but that does not mean it is bad engine overall.. it is worst of the best. It definitely not going to be as bad as IS220d... I mean that is universally bad engine even outside of Lexus brand. Whereas 200t will likely be one of the worse engines Toyota/Lexus made yet generally reliable engine compared to the rest of the market. Besides I think 8FARTS is bad not only because of reliability (it may actually be reliable), but rather because it has no redeeming features at all.. it is just extremely inefficient engine without any good features and it has failed to achieve what it meant to achieve, so it failed in that regard even if it could run for a million miles. I genuinely consider it as waste of time and money, as Toyota poured like billion dollars into it's development, they had these big plans of making "modular" engine which could then be turned into TT V8 4L, T L6 3L, TT V6 4L, T L3 1.5L and so on... yet they only ever used it in form of 8FARTS. Developing 240HP from 2L turbo isn't anything to brag about (MB get's near 500HP), it has some torque (350NM is average), but it doesn't like to rev and is generally just lazy lump not good at anything. It isn't economical for sure, and it isn't powerful or fun to drive... so it is a bit of nothing overall. Why it even exists and how Toyota or the world benefited from it's development is a bit of mystery?!

I think that summarises IS250 well, no it is not LS400 and not even IS350, but it is way way better than say comparable BMW 325i or MB C300 of the era. It is easily beats even best BMW and MB in terms of reliability, and for the price it beats them on power, economy, build quality and list of equipment. It isn't best Lexus, but it great car overall. That said - apply some neglect to any car and it could turn horrible, but within reason IS250 beats most of other makes.

Well... he is kind of right... but just kind of. I think perspective matters here! First thing we need to note - he is looking from American perspective, so over there they don't have IS220d... so the definitely worst Lexus by million miles is eliminated. Going from there all Lexus are rather excellent so it is very hard to fault them. Starting from original V8 4L and later 4.3L and 4.6L versions are all bulletproof. 5L V8 and V10 are legendary... the GR series V6 started with 2GR-FSE and it is award winning and excellent engine. So what we have left? 3GR, 4GR, the 2.5L hybrid engine and 2L turbo. In terms of pure reliability I would suspect 2AR-FSE (the hybrid I4 banger) is most reliable, but as well it is most under-powered and boring lump, it won't die but you will die from boredom. Then I would say 4GR and 3GR are equal and kind of equally bad because of DI, because unlike 2GR they don't have port injection and have well known and documented carbon build-up issue (for some reason seems to plague US cars more, perhaps due to extreme mileages they do). I would rank 4GR just hair above 3GR, because 4GR is ever so slightly more efficient engine using less fuel and making more power per cubic litre of displacement ,but they are equally "bad". finally I think the worst Lexus on sale in US is 2L Turbo 8AR-FTS (or as I like to call it 8-FARTS). Yes it is still relatively new, but I am sure that long term it will be second most unreliable engine only after diesel which US never got (lucky them). In summary, yes IS250 is the most common and one of the least reliable Lexus they have in US, but that does not mean it is "bad"... if we rank cars by reliability and we put LS400 as 10/10 and IS220d as maybe 6/10, then IS250 is easily 9.5/10 with rest of Lexus line-up fitting in tiny gap between 9.5-10/10. So on one hand - yes it is true IS250 "second worst car Lexus sold in US", but in other hand it is literally 9.5/10 in reliability and beats many other cars by miles. I think realistically only Honda/Acura has anything in that range and obviously Toyota itself... and all other cars are worse. We basically talking about the "last car in top 10 best cars".

I guess this point was argued for many times, but only time could prove one way or the other. Seems like indeed one of the benefits of choosing IS-F over contemporary competitors was that it could be enjoyed and yet reliable. M3 lost their bearing well before 100k, C63 are not know for amazing reliability either... and IS-F casually races along at 400k...