Linas.P

Fixed sat-nav screen today (new digitiser for £17 did the job). Sill waiting on damn Throttle body. Sat-nav digitiser is simple enough, just requires some patience. If anything is spent most time trying to remove old glue than on anything else - 20min to do it, 30 min to remove the glue, but tar and glue remover in combination with pure isopropyl did the job eventually. Probably better option would be to heat old digitiser on heating plate for smartphone screen replacements, but I don't have one so just used thin scalpel and then cleaned afterwards. The gloss digitiser glass indeed looks nice, but I am not sure I like it compared to semi-matte original digitiser. Not sure how badly it will reflect in sunlight: @Ishaq - this is the cable I would advise to check if your buttons do not work (basically it powers all buttons), however if you screen is black, then it may be something more serious:

If screen is dead this is the only option - what is the point of fixing trashy old-school sat-nav when one can have modern android system in place for less money. But if it is just digitiser or broken cable then it could be fixed relatively cheaply.

I reckon it could be fixed, however it will never be completely hidden, indeed it may be cheaper just to find matching colour panel at breakers and replace it. Prices are not high, but I am not sure how likely is to find driver side panel in good condition and same colour. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/403664208651 The leather bit (red vinyl) can be removed after removing whole door panel, however at that point you may as well just to put whole new panel if you have it, rather than transferring just leather piece. I guess this would only make sense if you get passenger door card from US or Europe, in which case it will be necessary to transfer just the leather bit. As well just note - there are real leather and vinyl pieces in same colour, your one seems like vinyl. So just make sure you get same material as it may have slightly different colour.

That what IS-F test mule was called at some point. Later it was bored out to 5L and called IS500. Reason for 3GR - the whole GS300 is cheaper than naked 2GR, as well there is no supply of 2GR in Europe and especially UK, whereas there are plenty 3GRs/GS300s. As well it seems to be "plug an play" as long as you have whole package from GS300, hence I would insist on getting whole car or at least half-cut. 1UZ sounds great on paper, but as you mentioned this will require standalone ECU, custom mounts, custom gearbox solution etc. And it is little bit antiquated engine to be honest, better choice would be to go with 3UZ 4.3L unit, they are cheaper, supply is better, they are VVTi, more fuel efficient, more powerful etc. Would still require custom mounts, but if one goes to trouble fitting V8 I would say 3UZ is the way to go. Although again, then one probably should look for old GS430 or SC430 as a whole donor car rather than naked engine, because standalone is much more difficult on 3UZ compared to 1UZ. Anyway going back to 3GR, the reason it would make sense - the cost and availability, it would not cost much more than getting another 4GR, but it offers nice 50hp bump. Now of course - swapping working 4GR to 3GR would be madness, but if indeed the engine on OP car is dead and needs replacing, then I think this isn't bad idea.

This one is 100% with poverty line standard audio system with 6 speakers which are absolutely unacceptable quality if you like music of any sorts. Generally, pretty much as basic as F-Sport gets. Agree with most what you said, but F-Sport is must have in my opinion. That said still agree - there are plenty more better equipped F-Sports for lower price, maybe slightly higher mileage. I personally would always take higher miles but better equipped car within reason. Where I not quite agree is that you can get lower trim car which is equipped just as well as higher trims. First of all because Lexus options lists in UK are very rigid, most of the time either it comes with trim or it is not and option. Few exceptions like Leather which one could have specced with most trims, but there are many many small differences which you can't get unless you get particular trim... and they are weird ones as well, in F-Sport you can't get wood inlays only plastic carbon fibre looking pieces, in Premier which is basically top trim... you can't get rose leather and you can't get F-Sports dials and I know it may not be issue for many, but for me that is absolutely must - if there is any part which is outstanding in this model and has no equivalents is the F-Sport dials. But in F-Sport you can't get dynamic cruise control for Pre-Facelift (later it came standard on all 2018+ models with LSS+). Secondly, very few cars where made to order, maybe some F-Sports and Premiers, but it seems that all the lower trims have always been bought to the budget and simply bought from the dealership floor... So unless dealer specced the leather maybe for demo car to make better impression, it is quite unusual to see that anyone asked for it, waited extra 3 months for delivery and paid full price + price for options. So what you said about trims is theoretically true to some degree and certain options, but very uncommon in practice.

You kind of disagreeing with yourself here - so it is noisy, you just saying "normal" driver should not drive it in a way that becomes an issue. And that is fine, I can agree with that, I usually call that - "learn to drive it like a hybrid", meaning don't accelerate quickly, cruise around or "waft about". Care does not reward you if you push it (which would be expected from "sporty" car), there is no way of avoiding eCVT drone, but I wouldn't even call it noisy, it just isn't pleasant or rewarding sound. As long as we don't call it "sports car with exhilarating performance" I think we are all on the same page. That said coming from Honda Jazz... I am kind of lost for words... there is no comparison, it is all possible ways better car. Handles better, accelerates better, depending on exact Jazz, may even be more fuel efficient, much more comfortable, much more quiet - people will actually look at it and think "what a nice car"... which nobody has ever thought after looking at Jazz. So it isn't sports car, but it is very comfortable and well built, reliable, premium car. Likewise it is certainly better car than entry level C200, 320i, Octavia's or whatever stuff coming from Europe. Where it falls short is when you start looking at ~330i or C300 with £10k optional stuff on it, then BMW/MB will edge it on performance for sure, but even in terms of equipment. But BMW and MB has so many options that possibility of you finding one used with what you want is practically impossible. Other thing to note - I can recommend Lexus no matter the mileage as long as it was serviced. 80k - fine, 160k still fine for right price. That is not the case with BMW or MB or Audi, they will break and they will cost a lot to fix, Lexus is just much more reliable as long as it is serviced properly and that is why I kept maintaining my IS250 with Lexus all the way to 200k and never really had any major issues.

I tend to believe when it comes to rust IS300h won't be much different for IS250 (because IS250 isn't really known for rusting either). The reason they rust is probably because paint was compromised at some point in their lifetime and wasn't properly addressed. Maybe somebody repainted some panel and didn't prepared it properly, but from factory they generally have good rust protection. Well, the only exception is bonnet, but it does not rust as it is aluminium, but whatever primer Lexus used tends to start bubbling if stone chips are not addressed quickly.

Nonsense. First of all when buying car with 100k+ you would expect normal service to be carried out in line with schedule, so water-pump, coolant, aux-belt are moot points - they should be done already. So buying say 110k mean you just missed few most expensive bills. Suspension, shocks other suspension parts won't be worn anymore significantly than they would be on 80k mile car. In fact mileage isn't even that relevant at all - car which did higher miles on motorway will always be in way better shape than low mileage car which spent it's time in city. Brakes and pads again it is in no way 100k milestone, you can buy car which is 40k miles but brakes were never replaced and it would need to be done, or you could buy 160k mile car with brakes which were done 10k miles ago. The sort of stuff you talking about here are standard points of inspection when buying the car. Undercarriage corrosion will always be worse on low mileage car assuming they are same age, the car driven more has more time to get warm and dry out most vulnerable parts for rust like exhaust. The car which sits and just does local miles will be the one corroded the most. As well, a lot depends just on how previous owner cared for the car - again you can buy 160k car which feels and drives like new, because everything was done in time or you can buy 50k mile car which is trash because nothing ever was done on it. Again it does not matter how many miles you Lexus has, once it is 10 years old it will have no warranty and replacing car on 50k miles car will cost same as on 150k miles car. Now obviously, there are exceptions everywhere and all sorts of caveats, say if you buy car which was used as rental or taxi in the city with high mileage, then yes it will be trashed - city miles and poor maintenance is what trashes the cars. Although good way to avoid ex-taxis and rentals is to go for higher trim like F-Sport, taxis tend to be entry level trims like Luxury or SE (not that Lexus IS taxis are that common in UK). Overall - low mileage cars are the worst value for money, the best value for money is to buy as new car as you can and with as many miles as possible. Again - if car is 6 years old and has 120k miles, then most likely it was driven on motorway, for long journeys and often and that is good for any car, if car is 10 years old and has 25k miles then stay away from it, it sat all it's live and that is not good. This obsession with low mileage car really has nothing relevant to reality. Sure there trashed out high mileage cars, same as there are trashed out low mileage cars - point is, mileage on it's own is not an indicator of condition of the car. When buying Lexus it is even less relevant, the key on Lexus is service history and no just stamps, but check invoices if you can access them, make sure that owners replaced what was required, not simply paid standard service prices and rejected everything extra for years.

I would not say car prices increased that much, but the prices have not dropped as expected. So in normal market one would expect IS300h from 2014 to cost no more than £6k now. After all it is 8 years old car with 80k miles. Just as example I bought 2008 IS250 in 2014 for £4k, sure the mileage was on the higher side (122k), but it was 6 years old car. comparing more apples to apples I could have had 2010 car for £6k with like 60k miles. So IS300h are really not depreciating in line with the market. However there are many reasons for it, first of all economical hybrids are in higher demand now than ever, low tax, they actually look modern compared to competition. If you get right trim (the only two I recognise as being right are Premier and F-Sport), then they are well equipped... again if you get C200 or 320i it is going to be poverty spec. with so many blank button covers that is going to drive you mad. So they do exist in kind of vacuum where there isn't much competition for them, Lexus has not sold many of them and people who want them and know what they are are generally willing to pay for them. Now is £12k goo price for 8 years old car... I would not say so, but considering all the circumstances you not overpaying that much, perhaps £2-3k, but I assume it has to be nicely equipped F-sport ion good shape, at least premium Audio etc. If it isn't just hold on not until you find it cheaper (because you won't), but until you find the car which is in good condition, because from time to time there are cars in good condition. The other question you need to ask yourself - do you need a car with 80k miles or could it be over 100k? You see with Lexus relax the cars under 10 years old and under 100k miles command some premium, because they are warranted. But is it worth buying the car with warranty which will run out in 10k miles and 1 year for 2k more? Or is it better to find car in good condition which just gone over 100k and is maybe £2k cheaper? Now whenever it is worth holding off the purchase... I doubt it, you maybe holding it for years. Yes prices may drop, but don't expect them to drop massively. So if you going to wait, then wait for car in good condition, because if you waiting for price to drop, you may have to wait for 2 years to save £2k. At which point you will be buying car which is 10 years old for 10k and probably with 100k miles, which in my mind isn't that much better deal.

You know that is the conclusion I have reached regarding many laws. And it goes beyond zero emissions... because let's face it they are just as annoying if you are in Tesla or Hydrogen Toyota. I starting to think that aim is to create dystopian future where people no longer own personal vehicles at all. We will be allowed to go only where public transport takes us and only on the schedule it implies. Because it seems they fight in particular personal vehicles on every possible front - pollution, speed, noise regulations, more responsibilities, tougher fines, blocked-off streets, priority for pedestrians and cyclists... and bus lanes in place where bus only passes one every hour. I am going to unwrap tin foil from my head now...

I always think that they trying to achieve results by exactly opposite incentivising behaviour from their goal. They say that likelihood for pedestrian to die in 30mph crash is 30% higher than in 20mph crash, but that is missing the point - likelihood for pedestrian to survive the crash is 100% if pedestrian is not hit in first place. The problem in UK that there is no education on how to use roads safely, people cross anytime they like, anyway they like and they just jump in front of the cars. You know what else changes when speed is reduced on the street - pedestrians are more likely to cross it and less likely to look around "cause cars are moving slowly anyway". So as far as I am concerned they addressing wrong thing and are backwards, people advocating for these reduced limits are the same as the ones who would say that every car has to have a person with a flag walking in front of it and cars should not drive at more than 4mph. Even better banned and we all just start walking everywhere. In short they are not constructive bunch so having argument is pointless. The only thing I know reduction of speed may reduce likelihood of death, but increase number of accidents counter acting itself. But as drivers we just get everywhere slower and it will be more annoying than it already is to drive in the cities. Other thing I noticed about myself, the slower I have to drive the less I am concentrating, I just can't it is so slow that I get bored and it is not that I don't look, I just simply no longer see things as I am just bored/tired and can't focus. And yes that is my problem, but forcing me to drive slower government makes me less good of a driver and more dangerous driver. In this particular case it sounds like kneejerk reaction - because there was one instance of somebody speeding there on motorbike and scaring local pensioner, now the whole road has to be 20mph. Now with one thing I agree British A and B roads are most horrible in the Europe, most of countries have certain requirements for the roads, like for example that there must be 5, 10 or 15 metres clearing from the road depending on the speed limit and purpose of the road, which makes the road significantly safer because you can see what is coming from around the corner and you have safe space in case you lose control or somebody else loses control. Not in UK, in UK trees, stone walls and literally corners of the buildings are on the edge of the road, so if you leave the road just by 20cm you will hit something. So yes "roads needs to be made safer", but reducing speed limit does NOT make the road safer, it just makes the accident cause by dangerous road less deadly. This is like perfect example of "band aid" solution - It is like saying "I am horrible and unsafe driver, so I have put mattresses all around my car to soften the crashes". What a great idea?! How about addressing actually issue?

So the saga of actually working throttle body continues, from 5 sellers I contacted only 1 replied and he was upset that I asked him to check the throttle body. literally brassed off what do you expect me to buy multimeter just to check it - mate if you don't like it buy it from somebody else". And no... I do not expect them to buy multimeter just to check part for me... I expect that if they are selling electrical parts which can only be tested with multimeter as "used" (rather than "untested/faulty/spares an repairs") they should already own it and multimeter isn't some sort of expensive instrument, basic ones can be had for £8 from amazon. Like used car part sellers and breakers are just different kind of people it seems and they have very strange attitude towards the quality of the parts and making sure they are as described. Just the attitude in itself is strange "do you expect me to sell you the part as described?! What? - go buy it from somebody else with such 'unreasonable' expectation"... Anyway ordered another few - one for GS450h and one for RX300 (gone with two straight away as my hopes of them working are kind of low by now), point is the electrical part is the same, the only difference is the angle of the coolant pipes and number of them. Even GS430, 460, LS430, 460, RX400h have same same sensor and motor. As long as sensor is good I can drill out the rivets and move sensor onto my throttle body, so it is is just a matter of finding used throttle body with working sensor. Final thing I am contemplating with throttle body is to get one for IS220d, it is completely different in the way of having separate motor and angle sensor, but this would allow me to replace angle sensor separately with new one and that is much cheaper. The only problem is that the way angle sensor is placed would interfere with heater pipes and I am not sure these is any solution for that. As well the wiring is different, but I assume it has same wires, just instead of having 1x6 plug , it has 2x3... if the next two throttle bodies are faulty I may need to look further into this. On other news - fixed steering angle sensor and horn. I suspected the ring cable to be broken, but turns out I just forgotten to plug in pressure pad wire. Anyway, I have ordered new ring cable as I needed new steering angle sensor. The trick here is to look for IS220d parts as they generally 4 times cheaper than same part taken out of IS250. In my case steering angle sensor was £60 for IS250, but I found ring cable taken out from IS220d which seller called "airbag squib" and forgotten to remove steering angle sensor... and whole thing just £15.

Actually not the case, MOT certificate does not mean car is road legal or safe to drive (says so on certificate itself). That said I think we can all agree that priorities are misplaced when it requires 6 cars and 12 officers to stop car for misplaced characters on number plate and yet none are available to attend serious crimes.

I was thinking about it, but still hoping to find good used one. After all they are not that expensive, problem is that sellers knowingly list trash which they know does not work and just hope that people won't notice. Guess what happened to two used ones I have returned... yeah obviously they are relisted on ebay as good working units! Despite me checking both of them both on the car and off the car and sending pictures to sellers showing that sensor reads 2000Ω. To that point - it is possible to buy individual sensors, but making them work would require hacking together new wiring harness and "modifying both new and old sensors. I mean it is doable, but not simple. But just goes to show that combining sensor in the same body with throttle body is very bad for owners. Now instead of just replacing faulty sensors, which coudl be bought for £15. I have to source whole Throttle Body for hundreds.

Just make sure to cut the power cord from the microwave 😄

Yes F-Sports came by default with standard (horrible) 6-Speaker system. If they have premium Sat-Nav then they by default get upgrade to 10-Speaker system which is good, finally there could be upgrade to ML with 15-Speakers which is marginally better than "Premium" system. To be honest both "Premium" and ML are good enough. The difference is that when car comes with ML it is easy to spot, whenever car has "Premium" or poverty line system is harder to tell.

That was my first thought as well - I thought "loss of Lexus" was Lexus deciding not to use AA as their partner for roadside assistance. That said it says a little bit about the make of the cars if the head of recovery service chooses one for himself and family.

The A/C replacement would have no relevance to this. Either the entire unit gone bad (which would be strange), or connector got loose. I guess you can check the fuses for head unit, but my expectation would be that if fuse is blown it would be completely dead - no radio or sound at all.

Yes, but that does not explain why physical buttons do not work. As Anton said - screen digitizer faults are common and relatively cheap to fix (£18). By "dead" do you mean it is black or simply that touch controls are not responsive?

Has the head unit been taken out before? If yes then my theory would be that some connector was not fully plugged in and wiggled itself lose over time.

As well use tape on the dash surrounding head unit and vents, ideally double or even triple layer of tape. Dash is extremely easy to chip. As for why could it be - I would look at connectors to the head-unit. You should have separate buttons for A/C control, so I can't see how broken screen can make it impossible to switch it off. Which makes me believe maybe other electrical connectors issue going to head unit.

Found one set of wheels which is closer to what I would expect, but just a little bit closer. Entire face of at least one wheels is scratched all around (seller says "used - as new"... yeah sure), assuming they all look the same this means they all need to be re-cut, probably that is the only advantage of diamond cut wheels is that face could be done for £40-50 if nothing else required. Tyres still look decent, but to be fair not amazing - probably 3-4mm left and they were not the best tyres to begin with, but at least all the same and all Bridgestone. Seems to be facelift IS300h, still £500 for 17" wheels which will require tyres in 5k miles and require £200 to make them look the way they suppose to is kind of steep. Sure they would lift the looks of the car quite a bit, but that is not that big of achievement considering current wheels looks like this: I still think mk3 F-sports are the best look... doubly annoying considering I had them previously....

You are right here, exact same sensor is used for few dozen cars, hence I picked-up one for Toyota RAV 4 and Lexus CT... the little problem... it that it came faulty. As for fixing the sensor itself it sadly not a chance - it is completely sealed over/moulded into plastic, but to be fair I don't even know how it is possible for it to fail. There are no moving parts and whole thing once assembled is completely isolated from environment. I guess in my car dodgy electrical side could have caused it, like shorted it or some voltage peak blown something inside. My plan was to transfer electronic part on my TB as the coolant lines were different on Toyota TB, as well it tuned out the diameter of throttle itself was slightly smaller, which would have necessitated transplant anyway. But again, there was no point transplanting anything as electrical part was dead on new TB.

I am surprised they haven't as well included tutorial of lock-picking and address of Mr. King 😄 I honestly wouldn't mind, even considering the risk of getting longer sentence than they do... the issue is just finding them now... The types I suspect for doing it probably sold the wheels for £50 to the first tyre shop to get a next dose of crack. I not convinced that they would be sophisticated enough to even list them on facebook market place or ebay.

To be honest I would be amazed if it was anything else. Plug-in so called "piggy-back" chips are mostly scam, not all, but MOSTLY scam. In theory they could work on certain cars and on more popular cars they do, for example BMW 320d or Golf GTI ones often do mostly what they claim to do, but what happens then - sellers simply take generic chip and advertise it to all makes and models. So I am sorry to say it, but such results are expected. And by the way, what Lexus did to resolve horrible IS220d with exploding head-gaskets and everything - they detuned the engine from 179hp, to 150hp in IS200d. They not done it for fun, they done it for a reason and that reason was simply the fact that 2AR engine is crap and can't reliably make the power without exploding. What you doing by trying to chip it, is to undo what Lexus done to resolve the problems and arguably make your car worse. I just want to warn you that IS200d and IS220d are just not the cars suitable for chip-tuning. Are racechip in particular scam? No - it seems they at least recognise that none of their products work on IS250/IS-F and the promises they make about IS200d are kind of realistic. Basically their chip brings IS200d to the power of IS220d (179hp). Do you know what else would do that? £20 IS220d ecu from breakers, just don't forget to order few sets of head-gaskets as well at the same time. I am sure racechips have some sort of "quality guarantee"? So I advise returning it whilst you can and leaving your car alone before it get's you into serious trouble. Wouldn't have made a difference, piggy backs would work on principle of intercepting and "falsifying" sensor data (like showing that there is more or less air, then there really is) and most of the sensors are the same between IS220d and 200d. So the cause is most likely that chip isn't meant/ programmed for Lexus IS at all and just simply scrambles the wrong signals. Now I guess yes - argument can be made that IS220d ECU may accept higher values in some cases and putting IS220d chip on IS200d may cause some sensor data to ready outside of allowed limits triggering engine light, but I still doubt it, because according to racechip themselves they can get 193hp from IS200d and 208-227 from IS220d. 10-20hp difference would still be minor enough based on sensor data not to trigger any faults, sure IS200d may not make 227hp (to be fair I doubt even IS220d does), but it should throw any errors. Why am I saying it - that is because looking at workshop manual Lexus doesn't even differentiate between IS200d and IS220d for sake of trouble shooting i.e. all expected sensor data is the same, so even if it is faked by chip it would not matter. What causes error on IS200d, would cause error on IS220d as well.