Linas.P

It won't but it isn't really an issue - it was never good design even compared to contemporary competitors and any £150 android unit you can get in place of it will run circles around it, or any cheap phone. So I see it as a moot point. For example in car I got from auction screen digitiser does no work anymore (common problem, ribbon cable snaps from vibration and heat-cycling), but I am not worried about that at all as I am not even intending to fix it - it is going to the bin right away and getting replaced with android unit.

I think there is no multiplug at all, so harness needs to be removed before old door could be removed. As well technically it is not door skin, but rather entire door... and indeed prices are not very high (I assume because a lot of IS220ds met premature end and thus are filling-up breaker yards across the country) - I have seen plenty in a range of £60-150, it is only little bit hard to find right colour.

I doubt it, unless by "jig" you mean somebody else's hands. As for moving the trim - as I said it may be tedious just because of vast number of parts, but they all kind of self-explanatory and old door can be used as reference as well. I reckon 4h job without much rush.

Funny enough, that was exactly the reason which pushed me over the line replacing my old IS250 - because of accident and insurance company write it off. Else I was really struggling to fault it for anything and find replacement despite it being near 200k miles.

The door skin would be the same regardless if car has ML or not, it is only the question of transferring internal panel from old car with all the wiring and speakers. Obviously, even easier option would be to get exact matching door (although I guess wiring would be cut and door still would need to be disassembled to reconnect everything. Good point regarding weight - the it would be easiest to fit plain door skin and align it before putting anything on it. Door with all the bits will be very heavy indeed (if I am not mistaken 30-40kg). Funny enough that is colour of my car and it has ML, just not parting it out... yet.

That is great outcome - well done on dealing with insurance scammers and getting it your way (not common). Replacing door is really not difficult and most of the doors I have seen for sale comes as whole package with internal panels, speakers locks and so on. Even if it comes without anything then it is pretty much the case of taking your door out and having them side by side to transfer few bits over. It may be tedious work, but definitely not very difficult. Everything is in the repair manual so you can even follow step by step instructions.

I think it is some sort of British supporting British thing, because I have noticed long time ago that Jags have lower road tax than rest of the cars. As well for many cars road tax doesn't make sense - like why manual IS250 is £580?!

I give you that - getting something comparable overall for less than £10,000 is hard. But there are others cars which can do certain things better and that certain thing may be important for the owner. Like in my case I wanted coupe and it has to be two doors, I don't care for the rest as long as it is acceptable. Now one may argue - that isn't rational, why have two less door for more money, but it doesn't have to be rational. IS250 is very rational car (that is why when I sold my failed-dream car I went back to IS250 as "cheap" runabout car), but people needs are just not rational sometimes + there are actual things lacking in IS250 (as in other cars) and some of those things could be reason to change.

Yes, but in other hand it is matter of perception. When considering inflation and how much everything costs the price of fuel as a part of overall household spending hasn't really changed. I think the problem is that at the moment we are living in worst stagnation of income since WW2 i.e. prices are raising with inflation, but salaries do not. Take for example when fuel was £1 in 2009 (I know there was short period in 2016 as well, but it is an exception), adjusted for inflation that was equivalent to £1.32 today. That is just inflation alone and yes fuel now is more like £1.85 so there was recent increase of ~40-50p due to range of factors. I guess what I am saying - fuel price only increased by ~25% and another 25% is inflation. The problem is that back in 2009 average salary in UK was £24,000 and it is only £28,000 now. Whereas it should be closer to £32,000 just based on inflation. Now these are only averages, so they don't reflect individual circumstances, but I am pretty sure that there are many people around UK who were earning £40,000 in 2009 and still earning same salary to this day. Salary remained the same, yet everything is 50% more expensive. Moral of the story - people need to push for salary raise or look for another job if they can, because that is the only way to beat inflation. Focus should be earing more, because spending less is not an option - and if one is able to earn £80k today instead of £40k back then, the fuel price increase becomes non-issue.

Very good point about SUVs - as sad as it is people seems to like them a lot. It is fashionable to have SUV and it is "old fashioned" to have normal car. I personally really hate SUVs both to look at them (or drive behind them - you can't see anything at all) and drive them, high centre of gravity and body roll just isn't my thing, likewise fuel economy and performance suffers, but for many people that isn't an issue. So indeed executive saloon like GS and IS is thing of the past - very well reflected in Lexus range and upcoming models. Likewise it seems to be death of coupes - at some point they were considered fashionable but not very practical choice... nowadays everyone just get's in their big fast SUVs and ascetics is secondary consideration. As for fuel prices I have bad news for you mate - I think these prices are here to stay, that will be new normal going forward. Like 20 years ago £1/1L was a barrier to cross, now that barrier is £2/1L... and beyond even psychological limits, this is government policy. ICEVs are being phased out so fuel price concern is no longer important. As such I would not have much hopes to see fuel selling for anything under £1.50 anytime soon, it may even increase towards £3, before coming little bit back down to £2.

Not sure auto makes any difference for drone, it is more of inherent feature of the material itself - stainless just amplifies sound (rings) rather than absorb it like mild steel. So SS exhaust in particular has to be well engineered to reduce or eliminate it. I have no experience with Tony Banks so I can't say, but most aftermarket SS exhaust have a drone around 2000-3000 rpm. Is it possible to use SS and eliminate the drone? Yes absolutely, and perhaps there are companies who have found ways of doing it.

Lexus cars are reliable, but they need proper maintenance to stay that way.

Unless it is over 5 years old and you can get essential care, which seems to have been discontinued now, but still offered at dealer discretion. Other option is to get service plan for 2 or 3 years, which in my experience will always have some discount offered.

Any possibility of car being "clocked" in the past? I would check if anything is attached between wiring loom and the instrument cluster, there could be mile blocker device and you may have accidentally activated it by some sort of combination. If that is not the case then I would say that instrument cluster is probably fault, but again suspicious fault if only the odometer is wrong and everything else works.

Jemca isn't really "indie", they are the company behind one of the largest groups of Lexus Dealerships and to be honest one of the worse. I am not saying they are bad, but kind of more corporate and less caring the smaller networks.

So basically those no longer exist around me... For german cars there are usually "specialists", but not many for Japanese cars or specifically Lexus. For example my mate owned Audi and dealer was out of question - not only that they were crazy expensive (he paid £1500 + was quoted another £3300 for lumpy idle), but they failed simple things like resetting the battery after replacing it and tightening drain plug, so he basically leaked half of oil on the way home. Eventually after some research it turned out that nobody takes their cars to Audi and even prefers for the book to be stamped by certain independent Audi specialists who were able to diagnose the car properly and fix it for more reasonable price (£660 for injectors). But this certainly not the case for Lexus, there are few Japanese specialists, but to be fair they mostly work on "tuner" cars, so if you have modified Nissan GTR or some sort of Honda they are good, but standard Lexus isn't their bread and butter.

Lexus Dealership. I know for other makes it doesn't make sense, but for Lexus the dealership service is really the best option. Ask your dealer if they do "Essential Care" (which used to be available for cares over 5 years old) and they can do service for ~£160. Major service I believe is around £380, so does not make sense, but I used to get 2 year service plans with discount for £450... so basically each service costing £225. This price is hard to beat if you consider you can as well get courtesy car from them and usual good Lexus service in nice building with coffee and comfortable seating + some peace of mind considering that they most likely know what they doing. The chains like halfrauds and kwikfail actually charge even more. Although they say service from £99, when you start looking at the engine size etc it turns out a lot more + they will try to scam you. Not joking - literally scam you for parts you don't need and if you doing MOT at the same time, they will miss report fault to fail your MOT and then keep your car basically hostage (because with certain faults you can't drive) until you pay very high prices for fix. The only chain I have decent experience with is ATS Euromaster, but their prices are about the same as Lexus, but does not include bells and whistles. I use them for tyre fitting, wheel alignment, but not for service. I have used many independent garages over the years, but I can't really recommend any of them - in my case I knew exactly what was needed, brought the parts and pretty much pointed them to where it is and what they have to do and they just did it under my instructions. Apart of that they have never shown any knowledge about the cars generally, nor specifically about Lexus which wouldn't inspire me with confidence leaving car with them. The way I used independent garages was only for specific jobs e.g. dealer says you need new shocks for £660 a piece + £400 labour (£1720), then you get 2 shocks for £580 and take them to independent garage to replace for £120 (£700) - to save over £1000 this way makes sense and really it is hard to mess up shock replacement, but for general servicing in inspection I would not bother with independent servicing. Note: oil needs to be replaced every 10k miles or one year whichever is first. So even if you covered 5k miles over the year the oil still needs replacement regardless. Besides this only applies to cars which qualifies for "extended service plan" and basically none of our cars qualifies for that, cars driven in the city, in the traffic, or on motorway does not qualify for this service, just nobody bothers to tell that to owners. As such most of cars really need to be serviced every 3k or 6k miles (or equivalent number of months), I personally did my oil services every 6k miles / 6 months and it was big improvement on oil burning and engine smoothness overall. As your car is relatively low miles I would recommend starting proper service schedule (i.e. every 6k miles) now whilst it still matters and engine is worth protecting. I only started doing it when my car was like 160k miles and was already burning some oil and it still improved things, but at that point it can't restore the wear on the engine.

First reason - simply because it is old car. As the times goes by people want some change and IS250 can't just be used forever. Yes they are amazingly reliable cars and comfortable cars, good value for money, well equipped, but with little bit of neglect they are starting to show signs of wear and tear as well. Overall model was released 17 years ago and most of tech is easily over 20 years old, not even facelift helps. Second reason (at least for me), IS250 is comfortable car, but fast it isn't - for 2005 car it was borderline acceptable, but many want a little bit more umphhhh... I have argued that around 5-6s to 60 is sweet-spot... and that has always been the reason why I was trying to find something else. Still looking... Third reason - practicality is lacking as well, for example for unknown reason IS250 does not have folding seats, boot is not massive and opening isn't even allowing use of what it has easily. Rear headroom and legroom isn't great either (thought that never bothered me much), so I could see that some cars are upgraded when family grows. Cost of ownership... I kind of doubt it. I guess it depends - for me it was never an issue, but I do a lot of stuff myself or at least I figure out what needs doing myself, so service guys can't upsell me for what I don't need, less car savvy owner my find it difficult when every service bill is £1000+ if you just let it be. Fuel economy is good for the car it is, but for with current prices it could be concern, ever increasing tax does not help either. So I would say - cost of ownership shouldn't be the reason, but for some owners it may be. IS250 mk2 key strength is amazing value for money and it does everything well, but nothing exceptionally (maybe except of reliability). When I tried replacing my IS250 I really struggled to find anything that would do... sure for me RC350 was that car, but we don't have it here. GS450h would be my next choice.

There are a lot of IS220d being broken for parts, so getting ECU kit is not necessary that big of an issue, new one obviously would be very expensive. However, the bigger issue is diagnosing the issue correctly and the access is very difficult as well - in my case it wasn't even immobiliser which was main issue, but electrical issue somewhere.

I would say that unless you are qualified welder and making exhaust is your hobby, there is no way you can make it yourself for less that £700 considering how many tools and consumables you need. I would go for custom made exhaust rather than one from ebay, but I would advise to avoid SS because of drone. Yes it is possible to make it not to drone, but it generally does. Custom made exhaust costs about the same as the one from ebay so really no reason not to do it, except maybe convenience.

Great to see that in US they have agency which puts companies such as Tesla in it's deserved place. I still think Tesla should be liable for their "autopilot" failures because it is not product which should be sold to consumers yet as it is completely not ready to be used.

Does not sound like what Mushk would do - if anything ever goes wrong with Tesla it is always the fault of owner not using it right, it is never fault of Tesla for providing cars with test version of software or anything like that.

Not quite true - Toyota Owns 16.5% stake in Fuji Heavy Industries (FHI, parent of Subaru), whereas FHI owns 4.5% in Toyota. There is partnership and influence, but I would not say it is part of Toyota.

Answer - there is NO WAY to bypass immobiliser (so don't worry about private messaging), I recently (around March) did full ECU kit replacement because my immobiliser was acting-up. It would be good to know the codes you getting and what box of part they have returned to you, what they have changed, what they have tried. I may have semi functional "ECU kit" one I am finished with my car and it may help diagnostics.

Yes that is same in US - Luxury > Sport > Premium/Premier (instead of SE-L). SE is pretty much UK thing for some reason, just don't know. SE stands for Special Equipment and should symbolise high trim level, but in fact SE is most basic level available (at least for mk2). Yeah everyone got it, expect Europe... really silly how they decided not to bring it here.