Linas.P

Generally no, but it is 14 years old car, so it is possible. Could be wiring as well, not necessary the sensor.

I would not be worried about mileage, as long as it was maintained should be good. Actually, higher mileage car may even be better, but I would not exactly call 140k miles as high for 14 years old car - more like average. The only way I would advise regarding sat-nav is to upgrade it to android unit as other suggested, that is best bang for the buck. It does not affect ML (I that is what I assume you have, not MS), because amp and the rest of things will stay the same. The only thing to keep in mind is wiring harness - they are different for Sat-Nav, ML, Non-ML models, so you need to let the seller know what you have, I think it is just wiring which is different, but some models are incompatible. Other option is to get GROM, but that means staying with old and rather outdated screen and it isn't even cheaper. As for brakes - I found them alright, but they are too small for the car, so you get excessive dust and wear - hence some people have upgraded to GS or IS350 brakes which are larger. I they brake just a little better, but they require less maintenance for sure. MPG - over like 70k miles in UK I got average of ~28MPG, best was 48MPG, but towards the end (car was like 200k miles) in the city I was getting low 20s. So generally if you don't push car too hard and don't try to win any traffic light GP I would expect 26MPG. I am generally heavy footed, so I am confident you can do better than 23MPG. You can see some stats from my ownership:

Yes - that is what I would have thought so. It is like ripple in the supply - so for years 2020 and 2021 there was sales shortage, which will take at least 2022 and 2023 to resolve. As such used cars for all 4 years will be rarer in the market impacting the used car price for another few years after it is resolved. This is simple supply and demand, supply was cut, demand was cut but not as much and it's anyone's guess how long it will take for market to settle if ever. For us in UK specifically it may never reset, because on top of pandemic we as well had brex**** debacle and there are just too many variables to consider, before anyone can even make a guess.

I am hearing same rumours, but the problem they are just rumours... I know myself that eventually it will crash, but nobody knows when and basing purchase decisions on rumours is bad idea. There is a saying - "if you would know where you will fall you could put pillow under your head", but nobody knows, because if anybody would know they would be already billionaires.

I guess we need to define "regularly", for some it is every 2 years, for others it is every 14 years 🙂 It is as well more important if you buying nearly new cars - obviously if the car is 15 years old and already depreciated 90%, then whatever depreciation will hit you will be few £ and not thousands, and then you can change them every month it won't matter anyway. However, on nearly new car it car easily be 15% a year and when this comes of the cost of £40k this could hurt. My main point was that - now it is much harder to estimate depreciation than before, because all new cars since ~2018 have not followed "normal" depreciation and are now worth like 30% more than they should have been considering historic trends. And that is what makes me afraid to buy into more expensive car, I am afraid that it would drop by 30% in single year. So far I was very lucky - I bought RC200t expecting it to keep for at least 5 years and I was calculating that it will depreciate from £15.5k I paid to ~£10k in 5 years, which was reasonable estimate at the time. It was amazing deal for 2.5 years old car and I could see getting 10k for 7 years old Lexus. Problem was I immediately hated it and I felt like I will be losing loads of money if I would have sold it right away... so I kept it and I was just fortunate that market exploded and I ended-up selling it for £19k two years later. But that is exactly what I am afraid of when looking at it from opposite perspective - I don't want to be that guy who purchases car which is "worth £13k" for £19k, "because that is market price now". Again - I am maybe little bit weird, but for me it does not matter how much things cost, what matters is to "never pay more than they are worth" and I just can't see how 5 years old car now can be worth more than 2.5 years old car 2.5 years ago. I think "something is up" with the market and I think it will reset at some point, definitely don't want to buy just before it does, but sadly I don't know when it will happen. That is how I ended up with broken IS250 from auction... and potentially as well looking to buy BMW E24... but classic cars prices are stupid as well nowadays. One thing which I hope is not "uncertain" is that nobody is looking to buy diesel now, it would be very unwise decision. What it makes particularly easy for me is that I can't charge the car, so electric and mostly plug-in are out of the question straight away. So I am left with petrol or hybrid.

Yes, but only late 2011 and 2012 models with DLR. As well make sure you get Xenon light if you car has Xenons (you can tell by headlight washers). Older model lights will physically fit, but hey have slightly different connection and they look different because they have no DLR. As well IS300 and IS350 are US models, we don't have them in UK, so the lights may not be compliant here. Technically Lexus has flat beam pattern on xenons, so maybe but I would not risk it. Aftermarket models should fit, but I believe harness is slightly different between DLR and non-DLR, so just check with sellers.

There is not such thing as "300 model" for mk2 (at least not in UK) and for 2011-2012 "facelift" you basically have either IS250 or IS200d, 220d being older model until 2010, IS300h is newer mk3 model. What you are looking after is sadly quite expensive and rare - those are facelift lights with DLR (day running lights) and were only fitted between 2011 and 2012. Whenever they are sold used they disappear quickly as people "upgrade" pre-facelift cars, so you can be expected to pay £500 each easily, new ones are £600-800. The only other option is to go "aftermarket" and get something like Vland or similar lights which have DLR and generally looks similar to what you have, but they are not as good quality as Lexus ones and obviously you would need to replace both, but they are way cheaper ~£200-300 per set.

Guys - stop trying to make sense out of insurance premiums, they don't make sense. Adding business use actually reduced my insurance (go figure), do I use my car for business? No. But saving £200 from £800 is big chunk by having extra cover I don't need. As well when I declare the miles I am planning to do a year I can see price jumping all around, it could be up or down by 10% every 500 increment. All in all I found that ~ 6000-8000 miles is what gets me best price. How many miles I did last year? maybe 1800... In short - insurance algorithm makes no sense and don't try to think logically what should increase of reduce premium, play around with comparison site option (as much as you can push the look without being dishonest) and you will see that options which seems to have nothing to do with the price could make a combination cheaper for not reason. Finally - never take renewal, in 9 years I am now insured in UK every single time I checked different quotes during renewal and every single time it went down 10-25%. Obviously, if you already paying ~£400 then don't expect it to be 25%. I was paying £2000 at the beginning, so over 9 years it had some way to go down, but I am sure it would always be less just because you made a call.

In short - no. What has impacted my car buying/selling plans was semiconductor shortage, which delayed manufacturing of new cars and I guess demand was lower as well because of pandemic. Les new cars, less depreciation on used ones and as result used car prices became little bit stupid at times. I literally sold my last car for more than I bought it few years back. The car price just being higher does not concern me to be honest, what concerns me is that I don't know how long it is going to last i.e. I would hate to buy the car now say for £20k and 6 month later for some reason there happens to be bust and all the prices halves making my car £10k. In short I don't like making big decision like car purchase in times when market is volatile and unpredictable. So was it increased cost of living - I would say no, it is not like increased cost of living means that I can't afford the car I want anymore, I just may need to pay little bit more. But the car prices not dropping as much as I would expect does affect my buying - like for example I expected RC-F to be under 20k now (they were selling as low as £24k 4 years ago!), likewise LC500 maybe in low 30s... Again I remember I test drove LC500 just at the start of pandemic and it was mint 2 years old car with 16k miles for £42k, now it would be closer to £60k and it would be nearly 5 years old. I guess in some way increased price of cars could be considered "higher cost of living", but again the price is not an issue in my opinion, what is the issue for me is that I am afraid depreciation got frozen for some time, but it may catch-up at some point and I just see some cars like a bit overpriced asset which may burst one day. Not being able to predict and calculate depreciation is what impact me the most.

IS250 AWD is like 65-80% of power to the rear, but yes it is sluggish, understeers a lot and uses a lot of fuel (I had one for 40k miles, so I am familiar with it's issues). Still got stuck in winter and that was the only reason why I wanted to move from RWD to AWD - pointless model. Yes we all would like IS350 or RC350 here.

I think Lucas already summarised on this point - all people will have different views on what tyres works for them. If you really want comfort then R17 on 225s will be more comfortable than R18 on any tyre. Yes you have to be stopped to turn off TC fully. The claim that car behaves better without TC (VSC)... well it depends. Under normal driving - no... if you want to drift, then yes... but that is not normal driving. So it being a "fact" is kind of dependents - for most people and driving I would say that is incorrect. I don't have anything against driving without TC, except the fact there is no benefit of doing it in normal driving conditions i.e. where you not deliberately trying to lose grip. The reason AWD uses square set-up has nothing to do with the grip, the reason for it is differential - it can't handle different size tyres as that would damage it. As for the reasons Lexus has staggered set-up on RWD - part of it is just looks, second part is trying to make tyre wear rate similar between driving and driven axels, finally it is this "safe" handling characteristic - which Lexus decided is desirable (probably makes sense when majority of their customers are pensioners). There is belief that for inexperienced driver is safer if the car understeers first and this is what staggered set-up achieves on IS250, you will always lose grip in the front first. That being said I do not consider this safer (probably because I am not inexperienced) and actually it annoys me, because it makes car unbalanced and twitchy. What this means is that you can't reach the actual limit of your car, because anytime you try to push it car will understeer before it can come even close to it... Whole benefit of having RWD is that you can modulate car angle mid-corner with throttle, hence RWD is considered "better handling", but if you have less grip in the front and if car understeers before the limit, this just removes this single benefit. So in my opinion standard staggered set-up gives you less control and it is less "fun", nevermind with 265s in the rear.

I am confused... are you saying you "drifting" all the way to your work every day, hence you put 265s and keep TC off all the time? Sorry, but it still doesn't make sense. I guess if I give you benefit of doubt, then I would assume what you are trying to say is that you don't want "software safety" in TC and instead you want mechanical grip which is provided by tyre width? Still does not make sense, because that is why there is TC button in the car - when you just want to drive safely form A to B you keep it on, and when you want "fun" you run it off... and if you can have fun on 265s, then you will have even more fun with 225s and won't need to deal with unpredictable front end which is just eager to understeer due to having much narrower tyres and less grip. All in all I would say you solution is contradictory to your own goals... unless I still don't understand what they are...

DTC P0340 is general code for all camshaft position sensors, Bank 1 would be P0342/43 so I am not sure how you determine it is Bank 1 from your code? If you confident it is Bank 1, then is on driver/right side. Those would be the locations of all sensors:

I think we probably need another thread for this as the original answer was already answered. 225 all round will fit, will not impact ride quality, will improve fuel consumption and Lexus uses this set-up on AWD IS250 from the factory, so OP really cannot go wrong by going this way. @KamD - cannot really see how the MPG proves anything here, 38MPG is fairly normal and not impressive for A/B roads provided they are quiet, 44MPG on motorway @90MPH, but if driving on quiet A road and sticking to 60MPH the best I got was actually 48MPG. Other thing I don't understand - is what is the point of always driving without TC? What does that actually achieve. I understand that if you want to go to track then having TC kicking in would be annoying, but on public I can't see any reason to do it. Likewise 265 is clearly overkill, Lexus fitted 265s on IS-F so I just can't see how fitting them to IS250 can be justified and what benefit that could bring. As well I didn't say that you can't loose grip on IS250, I said you can if you trying to do it deliberately, but with standard set-up you will always lose grip in front before you lose it at the rear ... and understeering is never good. So again it seems what you saying is contradictory in itself.

As well, this is why many considers BRZ/GT86 such a good beginner car, skinny tyres simply don't have enough grip to allow you to reach the speeds at which you can be in trouble and it is balanced nicely without any silly "safe handling". So it let's you to get to tyre limits at safe speed, where you can still ride on that limit.

Maybe PS4s then wear more than PS4, who knows... NO - wider tyres are especially for DRY grip. Wider tyre is more likely to aquaplane, the more surface of the tyre touches the road, the less pressure it has, so the less water it could push out. Nobody says to put wood block on the car, but 208hp just does not justify fitting such wide tyres, because modern/premium 225s are more than capable to handle this power. But on the dry yes - it is kind of simple, the wider is the tyre the better. Maybe your issue with grips is that you fitted TOO WIDE tyres and that is why you can't get any grip in the WET?

Yeah - agreed. I was definitely not tracking my car and not drifting in it or doing burnouts, but I would say I drive it very hard all the time as much as it is possible on public road without being completely silly (I am sure I would have long lost my license in any other country). It is possible to get IS250 misbehave if you deliberately trying, I remember once I was driving without TC on N500, got to the petrol station in the evening and realised it is closed, kind of got my annoyed and on exit I floored it into nice bend, kind of forgotten TC was off and it was very wet and still cold early spring... and car was spinning wheels all the way into 3rd/60-70MPH. So yes it could be done if you trying, but IS250 definitely does not actively trying to kill anyone and even then it is hard to do it once you already at speed, because if you on staggered set-up, no matter what you do the front will lose grip before the rear and car is kind of unpredictable that way. I never really tried to drift it with AT box, so never really got to setting it-up, but form whatever occasional slip-ups I had the car felt unpredictable on staggered set-up, too little grip in the front and too much in the rear, so it was always a risk to push the front away or overcorrect it.

And even then only if she finds out how to disable TC. As for Michelins temp - maybe I am exaggerating a bit, but you know the feeling when you get out on the cold morning and tyres are cold and just doesn't feel like you have all grip available. Then after few miles they feel like they have "warmed-up". So with Michelins this feeling would take much longer to get compared directly to Dunlop Sportmaxx RT2 which I had right before them. They still had plenty grip, but never had that confidence inspiring feedback... maybe it was just me but I felt like the tyre could act unpredictably for quite a while.

I agree that tyres is like literally the only thing which matters when it comes to safety, but just putting widest rubber possible on any car isn't the solution. Narrower tyres are actually better for aquaplaning and wet, where wide tyres matters are only dry grip, but I can't see how 208HP justifies 265 in the rear. On top of that narrower tyres better on noise and economy. Comfort more depends on specific tyre you have, some are more comfortable - I was quite happy with Dunlops RT2s and Pirelli P-Zeros, but Michelin PS4 were noticeably less comfortable. I know that Goodyear Asymetric 3/5s are quite good as well. Michelins wear too quickly... really? wear is like their main strength. What Michelins were you using? I had PS4 on IS250 when I had mk3 18" F-Sport wheels on mine and I felt like I can't get them-up to temp. mechanical grip was there but they never felt like compound is gripping to really push it. At best the tyres would feel right by the time I am 10 minutes away from home on ~45min drive. I had 225/245 on mine, so that was 10mm narrower than spec. in the rear. But they lasted forever - I think it was 5.5mm left after 30k miles. In my experience IS250 is just barely adequate when it comes to power (I guess for it's time it was ok), one thing which is good at is that it sounds nice and the further you push it the happier it is. It just like to be revved-out, however what has always bothered me on the car was the unnatural balance in the corners, Lexus made it "safe" to handle with those wider rear wheels, meaning that at any time you push it in the corner it just understeers and keeps understeering, almost like FWD. So going few sizes down in the rear was always my plan, with square set-up car just feel more natural like RWD car should feel and more predictable. Now again - I have not had 225 all around on RWD, but I had 225/235R17 and I had 225/245R18, which was definitely step in right direction... and the only way to further improve it would be going square 225s or square 235s.

Is it possible - yes absolutely. Lexus IS250 AWD comes with exactly same wheels and 225 all around from the factory and wheels are obviously identical. I had IS250 AWD and cannot say I have noticed any difference in terms of ride quality. It handled poorly and was not fuel efficient, but that was because it was AWD, not because of the tyres. I had RWD car on 225/235 but not 225 all around. In fact my recent auction purchase has 225/235 as well and I am looking to replace them with 225 all around and maybe 20mm spacers in the rear when I get it running again. Note - standard sizes for RWD are 245/45R17, so somebody already fitted "wrong" tyre on your rear. The only downsides I can see to this - rear tyres wears quicker, so by having 225/245 they wear more or less equal, I would even say 245 maybe outlasting 225 a bit. But having all around 225 will mean that you will have noticeably more wear on the rear. But there is silver lining - because all tyres will be same you will be able to rotate them, kind of negating the negative. Other consideration, your speedo would already be 5-10% over-reading, once you move to 225s in the rear this will add another 3%. The positives - you will get better fuel economy, especially on motorway.

The clips should hold it on their own, but it is good question where to get them... I have few missing as well and don't know myself. As for the access - there are many things under the dash and this panel would need to be removed before removing dash to access them (like heater, immobiliser, fans etc.), but nothing that I would call "service" items. Cabin filter is accessed through the panel in the glovebox. In short - if clips doesn't hold it then it would be safe to epoxy it, because it is likely you won't need to have it removed for many years if ever at all.

Yes I can't figure out in picture, if the red part is part of tank, then I kind of see why they would like to replace to, but from picture it is not clear if it is tank or shield. However, if the tank looks like area in green, then it is just surface rust. I am pretty sure the tank is metal, but from outside it is covered in rubberised paint and inside looks like some sort of ceramic coating.

I have seen same video. Although I would like to point out that cars they have used were beaters from early 90s, not exactly comparable in complexity to what is relatively modern Lexus, direct injection etc. But I take your point - the residue of diesel will be small enough not to matter... probably. From the picture I am struggling to figure out if the big rust hole is in the shield or is it in a tank. At least to me it seems that shield is gone, but it needs to be removed before the tank can be inspected.

You welcome. In my experience usually customs don't check goods coming in, I am still not been charged import tax on over dozen items. It is usually only problem to send goods into Europe, because EU does check.

I got mine for £46 in December from Lexus parts direct store on ebay, they were selling them off with 50% discount. So you may get similar deal, otherwise you can get them anytime from same place just for full price which is ~£90. Other option - there are places that fix carpets and they could put the patch under the pedals (which I guess where the holes are).