Linas.P

Sure seems like by the style of the advert, but maybe I am wrong? https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202204224925376 I am almost tempted to go and meet the guy in person, just for ... and giggles. The most ironic part is the company name 😄 Must say from pictures car looks genuinely in good shape, maybe he learnt the lesson?

Looking at the picture it seems like entire side from Y joint has broken-off, but I agree that it makes little difference for noise and it does not affect the emissions. Yes there certainly is.

Partially agree - when car is 12 years old the stamps in the book adds no value to the car, not even when selling. However, I disagree that servicing at Lexus is a killer, if anything it is hard to beat their price and that is why my car was serviced there all the way to 200k (I think last service was 188k). Not because I think stamped service book adds value, but because it was simply the cheapest and most convenient service to use. Obviously, I used Lexus Essential Care plan (which seems to be to officially available anymore) and I would get 1 Minor and 1 Major service for like £480. Thinking about it I probably could have got away with just doing minor services all along for £160. You right as well - there are many things that Lexus do not touch during the service, unless you pay them additionally, or do them yourself. So that was always my plan, I would split the year in sort of 3 parts - Lexus service, Intermediate service and MOT. So let's say my MOT is September, then I would take car to Lexus in February, get standard service and the list of items they advise to do, sometimes it was BS, sometimes it was actually good information and parts I would not have thought to check myself (or could not do without lifting the car). Now obviously, I would not authorise any repairs at Lexus, because their labour rate is what is the killer. Then I would have good 6 months before MOT to research the best fix and sort out the car. Sometimes it would be things like brake pads, so I can just order set and swap it in 15 minutes myself, sometimes it was something more involved and I would have to take it to mechanic. Obviously, something like greasing callipers you just have to do yourself. Then just before MOT, say in August, I would take car to independent mechanic, just to do quick oil and filter change, and if required other stuff which Lexus pointed out and in case I was not able to sort them out myself. As well I would do things like tyres at the time... as such my car would always be at it's best just before MOT. And as I was doing ~12/14k miles a year previously, this would always nicely coincide with oil change every 6k miles, once by Lexus and once by independent garage. And above is pretty much the answer to your dilemma - I just use both (or three things), Lexus to do annual service and inspection, independent to just change oil in between services and for jobs I can't do myself on driveway, and finally smaller maintenance jobs myself.

not yet, but I hope I going to be able to do it eventually.

Agreed, As I said I have not worked quite extensively on IS250 and it is certainly one of the most painful cars to work on. So it would be reasonable to assume anyone working on them would charge extra. The good side of that - most of the time nothing goes wrong, so if you have car in good condition that should be big concern. As it happened to me - I got auction car for cheap, hoping it is going to be the case of scanning the codes and maybe replacing few sensors... boy I was wrong!

IS250 isn't really much louder without silencer, if you really rev it out then it just more dronny, but nowhere near the levels of noise to become an issue. Don't forget there are 2 catalysts and resonator in a way, and resonator is responsible for 80% of the noise reduction and both rear silencers for remain 20%. At least that is based on my experience running IS250 for two days without one silencer.

Shouldn't be a problem for the car and it isn't a legal issue, silencer is not part of emissions control and has no other purpose of just making the car more silent. In short I think it should be fine driving without it for some time. I had same issue myself and had to go to work twice before I could sort it out on weekend, so maybe total of 50 miles in 3 days.

Good write up and happy to see you enjoying the car. Trust me - spark plug replacement is breeze compared to everything else. I reckon I could do all spark plugs in 5 minutes now, because I have taken the intake plenum like out like dozen times already. At first it looks scary and there is one extremely nasty bolt behind throttle body, but apart of that is really not that bad. But when you try to work proper on this car is real pain and most annoying project car I ever had. I wanted to remove engine power harness, because I had short in it, removed like 90% in 2 hours.. and was left with 7 plugs - crank sensor, starter, oil level and 4 plugs going towards gearbox. The starter plug requires removal of alternator and belt, the crank sensor requires removal of A/C compressor, but have blind bolts where you can neither see, nor reach them, so basically have to be undone by blindly pushing sockets with multiple extensions and a lot of hope. So took me another 8 hours to undo those 2 plugs. I can't even see where oil level sensor is, somehow you need to fish it out from under the car... but the worst are 4 connectors going to gearbox - I was able to undo one by blindly reaching behind the engine, but other 3 realistically requires gearbox removal. So overall - I agree, this car is not meant to be worked on by owner and not designed for DIY.

I got used one and got it refurbished, costing £180 for me, but it only lasted 5 years. I am not sure what second replacement was. If you check the thread I have linked, the other members discuss part numbers and suppliers there as well, so you may find it useful.

But this one was horribly done all around. I would argue one of the worse examples. Wrap could get much better than that, especially if not such a bright and contrasting colour used it could be hard to notice. In other hand because of current prices it long lost it's utility of being "cheap and reversible process". Say for example I want to take my car to the wedding, but it is black... in the past it would have been possible to do quick wrap job just for occasion for say £250 and remove it right after, but with current prices that is long lost possibility. I think overall, the sentiment changed for worse - wrap should be seen as a TEMPORARY thing, which is applied for certain occasion, time period, event and then removed leaving original paint protected. As such nobody should expect same standard from wrap as they would expect from actual paint. Now most wrappers sells it as a permanent feature and public seems to have fallen for it.

But isn't it same concern with any fire in any tunnel? Talking about ferries "allegedly" BEVs caused massive car ferry/transporter to sink earlier this year - https://www.ctif.org/news/burning-ship-carrying-lithium-ev-cars-sank-outside-azores I agree that BEVs fires are special in multiple senses, but I still want to stay balanced on the issue. For example this bus video is just suspicious, if somebody calls me conspiracy theorist that is well deserved, but it looks staged to me and made specifically to scare public from BEVs (or maybe certain Paris government department away from procuring electric buses). However, it shows few key issues with tech - lithium is highly reactive, can combust spontaneously if compromised, it is very difficult to extinguish (because it is self-sustaining chemical and electrical fire in one place), not only that it is explosive, especially the thin foil/mesh used in batteries, so not only it is difficult to put out, it is as well dangerous. So on one hand I would say that if designed correctly, if maintained correctly and if used correctly lithium batteries are rather dense energy storage device and it is excellent for what it is meant to be used... and that is consumer electronics, maybe small vehicles... so we can stretch to maybe PHEVs with 30miles range, or small city cars with similar EV range. Where lithium gets scary are these new long range cars, even worse buses and trucks, when you have so much of highly reactive metal in thin sheets surrounded by chemical electrolyte... it turns very sour very quickly. So lithium and lithium batteries tech is amazing and very beneficial for humanity, but using it for vehicles with ever increasing battery sizes is another matter.

This is particularly egregious example statistical fallacy (or rather multiple fallacies), so much so that I would go as far as saying that creator of this data is trying to deliberately mislead the intended reader... and kind of knows that such data will be picked-up by EVangelists and plastered across the internet. So what is the issue here? Simply the fact that risk of fire increases exponentially with the age of the vehicle, as such this information would only be relevant is we know the age of the vehicles and cause of fire. However, the data is derived by current sales vs. fires... which is completely irrelevant, because most petrol cars that caught fire are classic or very old cars. Instead most of electric cars that caught fire are nearly new or certainly under 10 years old. Not only that - we don't even know what caused the fire, it may have been electrical and as such not related to the fuel used. On top of that, this infographic particularly uses information from NTSB, who look at the fires as result of fatal accidents. See the problem here? So that is not all fires from all causes, only the fires from the accidents which as well had at least one fatality. Again, the reality is that most of fires on petrol cars are not accident related... and ALL cars are designed and tested considering accident safety, as such it is not surprising that both in testing and in real life accidents relatively new and safe EVs survives quite well. However, most fires starts due to lack of maintenance and general disrepair... so realistically we only know how bad are electric cars when they going to get to the point where they are old, worthless, run down, fixed by questionable mechanics and run on shoe strings... like the ICEV counterparts we are comparing with. In short - this information is manipulation of statistical data and BS, but it is good example of bad research. More relevant metric would be to see fire statistic broken down by average age of vehicle for example.

You are lucky guys!

I have seen the story before, but kind of decided not to make any conclusions from it. This burning bus is highly suspicious... like what exactly the person was filming when it suddenly busted into flames... lucky coincidence or set-up? Maybe I need to put tin foil hat, but sometimes some of "viral" videos are just too convenient. And I am by no means EVangelist - as many may know, I don't think BEV is the future, they have their place and they are good for certain things, but as a replacement for all vehicles it makes no sense and I would argue it is impossible to achieve... or worse - it will be achieved with consequences which will be far worse to the society and the environment, than just continuing to use ICEVs. In short BEV future seems to be the one where we will have to ask for permission to drive, will be forced to use public transport, cycle or walk, in the best case have share of the car and will not be allowed to own it (or simply could not afford) and will pay excessive amounts for energy, yet all the planet around us will be in even worse place because of all mining and toxic production. But... I don't think this video is proof of that.

That is basically what A/C service is. They re-gas and at the same time refill the oil, machine does everything in single operation and you usually get receipt saying how many grams of gas and millilitres of oil was recovered, before refilling with correct amount. So your A/C was serviced and used in the way which should have preserved it most. In other hand it is 16 years old part, so not bad going. My car got 2 compressors in same time, but it was 200k miles. To be fair with you I can't think of anything else considering your symptoms, if it would be just the case of A/C not blowing cold air, or A/C light flashing, then you could potentially be looking at A/C clutch relay, or pressure sensors, but because your engine is stalling... the seized compressor is really the only thing that can cause it.

If done right could be great, you can even apply just transparent wrap for protection, but it has to be done on perfect paint. As such wrapping in particular is no longer an option for you. The benefit of the wrap is that it could protect from stone chips, scratches etc. but because you already have stone chips which are starting to rust, this is certainly too late for wrap and would make everything much worse. It used to be cheap, like doing entire car costed £400 at the beginning and if you wanted just clear film to protect the front, could have that done for £150 or so... but that was good 15 years ago. Nowadays wrap became some sort of fad and all wrappers are out of their bloody minds, now people charge more for decent wrap job, than they charge for complete respray. I wanted clear wrap on my RC and was quoted £2000 - completely ridiculous. I would advise to get glass fibre pen and some touch-up paint and address those stone chips as soon as you can, before rust really becomes an issue.

Meaningless - I have seen cars which don't even drive, have no engine inside, but have valid mot certificate. MOT proves nothing. DERV owners always say that, yet none have ever proven that to me in practice, all very fast in comments, but in practice spend more time replacing head gaskets, DPFs and cleaning EGRs than actually driving. As well every diesel driver always claims their car don't smoke... just park it next to white wall and see what happens 😄 There is no excuse for removing mandatory emission equipment and forcing people around to drive in the cloud of your pollution and later die from cancer. Frankly following Jeremy's advise in front of the family is less cruel, then what "safe players" like you do. To summarise - if you can get diesel engine to work well and be reliable with everything that came with it from the factory... then great, more power to you! But it comes as a package, with DPF problems, with EGR and so on... you can't just pick what you like and let the rest to be problem for others. Yes TD engines are highly tunable and can get 30% power with simple ECU remap, but this should not come at cost of polluting around you and slowly killing other motorists and bystanders because to get there you had to remove everything that is not desirable to you and makes car unreliable.

That is sort of "best practice" or let's say "preventative maintenance", as well "recommended" for most makes... alternatively you get compressor seized once in a while and pay £700 for repair. Both are possible options one can take 😄 I rather stay with A/C service for £50 once every 2 years, in my experience that works out cheaper than new compressor + service every 6-8 years. Now I agree that if you always have A/C ON and drive daily the system should last longer, it may sound counterintuitive at first, but the more one uses A/C the better for the A/C system. This is because apart of refrigerant there is oil, which moves around system when used, lubricates seals and all the parts and prevents wear and leakage. On the other hand if A/C is not used regularly or car is not used regularly then the oil simply pools in few places and let's seals to dry, that results in leak, leak results in oil leaking out and that results in premature wear to parts like compressor... and seizure. My first compressor seized because I don't think it was services ever... and I didn't think of it when I got the car, because A/C was cold and "worked fine". The second compressor seized after car was not driven and parked-up for over a year during covid and later the person I gave it to was driving without A/C, "because in winter he did not feel hot to need an A/C", sure enough came the spring, he turned on the A/C for first time in a while and it locked-up when driving on motorway leaving him stranded on the side of the road as A/C clutch seized and accessory belt could not turn at all. But A/C was cold all the way until there was no A/C no more - so I can't agree that A/C would have to always stop cooling before it seizes.

I had exactly same problem twice. In simple terms it will be stuck or seizing A/C compressor. Once the clutch was still working, so RPM would jump for some time then A/C light would start flashing. Second time clutch failed as well, so the engine could not be started without removing belt from AC compressor. In your case it sounds like clutch works, so you can basically turn-off A/C compressor and start the car. When was the last A/C service done (has to be done every 2 years)? And yes as John said it is fine to drive car without A/C on, it does not hurt the car at all, but generally it is recommended to keep it on, so that compressor oil moves around and lubricates A/C system.

Yeah except that is illegal... If I would be certain Jeremy Clarkson I would say "that people who do that should be taken outside and .... in front of their families". But I can't say it as I am sure ban would follow... because people are very sensible about words, but strangely are fine with illegal pollution. No he means specifically IS250. But this is unfounded rumour - just ignore that, with exception of extremely neglected cars where somebody done services every 40k miles. It is not the mileage which is important, what is important is that car has service history and was serviced properly. He is talking about one single example of the car which was probably not maintained at all and which burned oil excessively after 100k miles. This is not at all the case for all IS250s, most of which by now are above 100k miles. All Lexus and Toyota models (as well as most modern petrol cars) use low tension piston rings, this can result in little bit higher oil consumption, but that is true for ALL cars. However, if car was neglected, service intervals not followed it is known that these cars can start burning oil excessively... again as ALL cars. There are dozens of IS250 owners on the forum and many of them have in excess of 100k miles and nobody had any excessive oil consumption. 1-2L between services that is completely normal, my last car is now over 200k and it was burning a little bit of oil from ~160k, but because I moved to 6k miles oil services it was not noticeable. With 10k oil service I would add ~1L towards the end, but with 6k the consumption was not enough to even bother.

It was - what Lexus did they used more solid head gasket and detuned the engine from 179Hp to 150Hp. So indeed as far as head gasket goes it is better engine, but all the rest remains the issue - injectors, turbos, DPF, EGR, weird gearbox and DMF etc. For OP - just avoid Lexus IS220d/200d as a plague. It is not worth it, it isn't even that much more fuel efficient unless you doing a lot of miles (I mean 20-30k a year) and those miles mostly motorway. In short IS250 in my experience (at least Auto) is ~26-48MPG, IS220d/200d is like 28-55MPG. But here is the main thing around the city you will get just under 30MPG in both and on pure motorway you get 7MPG more, but MPG is kind of funny measurement because it does not represent proportional difference. 7MPG between 13 and 20MPG is huge difference (that is 7L over 100km), but 7MPG between 48 and 55MPG is really just about 0.6L. And all that is for trouble free motoring and engine which actually sounds nice and car which is pleasure to drive. Show dyno before and after or I call it BS (to be honest what am I kidding - it is BS and dynos are easy to cheat). With 210HP you would be driving with 2 spare head gaskets in the boot and will be leaving military level smokescreen everywhere. I do partially agree that emission stuff has negative impact on reliability of these engines - that is true. But that is the problems - these nasty engines are dirty, they smoke and they pollute a lot, hence to make them acceptable on public roads they have to use loads of additional emissions controls. Removing it is illegal and I don't care how tome you feel. So yes you can simply get petrol and enjoy it or be nasty criminal polluting everyone around you - your choice. As well 2 injectors and fuel pump doesn't sound like mark for reliability, not to mention that without EGR delete you would have to clean it like 4 times in that period.

If they going to keep being stupid, you have a right at any time to say you will use your own claim management company (your are allowed under law), this usually kicks them into gear and helps remember where they left their common sense. If they continue to be stupid, then you can actually follow trough with that and just contact claims management company. It is better to do that from beginning as then your excess is not affected at all, but you can do it at any time. Just to be clear, I neither work for claims management company, nor I am associated with them, as a matter of fact I wanted to take one to the court as their service was less than stellar, but the advantage you get is that they do the evaluation, they do the market value, you can negotiate it fairly reasonably with them and then they just simply go and claim the money of the TP insurance without your insurance getting involved at all. In short TP insurance and your insurance have no say whatsoever when claims management company gets involved. In simple terms use scammers against scammers, take a comfortable seat and just watch from afar when they fight each other.

The bumper is actually held in place by two bolts (one on each side) which screws into square nut at the corner of wheel arch. The plastic bracket supports bumper just a little assuming you still have clips for that bracket on the bumper itself. At least in my case the clips and the bracket was barely holding the bumper in place and only once it is screwed in at he back it finally held properly. Although my bumper is all mangled, so not sure if it works better with the bumper which is in good shape.

The way you said it sounded like big tragedy, almost like you would be left standing on the side of the road because of that or would need to call Lexus to report it. But the reality is that apart of complains and rare adjustments to the policy there is no need to actually call Lexus, the breakdown cover is provided by AA and in emergency you need to call them, and yes I know number says it is Lexus, but as soon as you select that you want to report breakdown it redirects to AA. I have used cover twice and both times it was not working hours for Lexus, but AA was able to figure it out, sure they were not very knowledgeable on what it is and what it coves, and they kept asking me to wait on the call before confirming details, but we get there in the end. I mean I know it is called Lexus Roadside Assistance, but realistically Lexus just provides discount and better terms of AA cover, the only important number on cover is the AA number and it works all the time.

Nice to see you know the purpose of your car well 👍 When I changed the plate last Decemeber there was some confusion as well e.g. they sent me letter stating that my cover will start from the day I change the VRN and that I will have to pay £120 which will be taken by direct debit. To be fair I just ignored it and it worked out fine - no extra payment was taken and cover expired in May as it should have. But it seems that communication between AA and Lexus is not the greatest,by the way AA was providing actual cover all along or at least as long as I can remember (~2017), but with Lexus you just get discount and better terms. I happen to have issue with Portuguese rented IS300h in Spain last week and it took good 20 minutes for the person to figure out whenever I am covered or not (I wasn't). One interesting thing I he told me thought - you have 1 month grace period on the cover, so technically you get 13month of cover if you really want to push it. Just to be clear here - yes the customer service line of Lexus RA does not work, but you can report the incident and receive roadside assistance 24/7/365