Linas.P

It is IS-F specific so have to be new part, very unlikely to find used one.

It is not about the damage, it is about car being Cat-S, meaning car can no longer be sold for profit, CAT-N would be borderline still feasible to repair. I just nominally assign 40% discount for S and 20% for N. So Cat-S makes it £12k car, when only the engine alone is worth £8k I can't see somebody investing into repairing it, Cat-N would mean £16k car and that is more reasonable as even braking for parts it would be difficult to get more. Now... I guess yes - it could be shoddily repaired, because simply the margin for the profit will be very vey small, so it won't ever be a nice car somebody could be proud of... at least that is my opinion. Other possibility - somebody will buy it hoping they can get £20k for it (which is silly for Cat-S), do very poor repair job and then we will see it lingering on AT forever. Final option which I think would be very sensible - turn it into race car. I have seen at lease 2-3 ending-up on the track after being wrecked and that is good thing. Why take perfectly working car and strip it for the track, if you can take car with "salvage title" for cheap. That would probably be best possible outcome.

I just feel how remaining ones have their price increasing now, as well seems to have been nice car before the point where it most likely became parts car: https://www.copart.co.uk/lot/67927421/clean-title-2008-lexus-is-f-auto-sandy

First question I would ask - where did you get the car from and was it advertised as such (i.e. that sat-nav does not work because card is missing), because if it is dealership or any trader (that being not private person) then they have to make it right. So my first step would be to go back to seller and ask them to solve it, before spending any money to fix it yourself.

Which happens every single time... so all decent fitters comes with the mouldings to replace. I am yet to see person who is able to take of moulding without braking it. And yes - most of the time it is clips which brake, but every third one is not the clip itself that brakes, but the small tang on the moulding... and that is it, it can't be fixed and has to be replaced.

The tank may fit, but I am not sure it uses same pump and other bits, besides not sure if it is good idea to use diesel tank in petrol car. I guess in theory if it is cleaned very well... but if there is even a little bit of diesel left in some corner it could end-up quite badly. Other thing - there is possibility diesel tank uses different coating inside from petrol tank. In short that it fits does not automatically mean it is good idea to use it. As well, I think it should be possible to refurbish the tank if it is rusted from outside (which I assume it is). Unless it is so rusted out that it already leaks I can't see why can't it be cleaned, coated and put back in to the car. I would be very interested to see that tank and why the shop advising to replace it - sounds a bit extreme to me.

That is certainly very unusual (I even reckon this is first IS250 in the world to need this done) - why do you need to replace your fuel tank? As for cars which shares it - yeah there won't be many - IS300 and 350, not sure if IS-F uses same one. But point is - none of those cars are more common, nor cheaper. As for used ones - I am quite confident there must be many IS250 being sold as parts by now, but for aftermarket I am sure there are none made, it would be quite unusual to find aftermarket fuel tank for any make, they just usually don't go bad so market for replacement is non-existent.

Somehow I can't see how wearing seatbelt would have made any difference, unless it was sarcasm or irony.

Not sure just clearing it is a solution. If it would be O2 sensor I would expect the error to appear right away as soon as you turn on the engine, that it only appears after driving I would be guessing it looks more like gearbox solenoid issue (but it could be something else). Gearbox solenoid issues would need to be addressed as it could turn into very expensive issue (gearbox replacement). I it unfortunate that code scanner does not show what code it is, not sure what else to advise apart of going to service where they have professional scanner to see what it is.

I am kind of late to the party, but my renewal came last week and it definitely includes nominated driver... or so it advertises. Contacting Lexus GB may have been good for all of us! As well, I thought AA was always the LRA partner.

I had screen replaced and fitter from Autoglass came with new mouldings, fitted them and they were fine. I don't think parts were genuine as it was just matte black, whereas original was part body colour (gloss black), part matte, but they fitted well and my old ones were very broken, so I was happy with that. Just for reference Lexus ones costs ~£89x2 for mouldings and £8x12 for clips, so Lexus parts alone are near £300, which explains why many fitters don't use them. Pilkington Glass is one of the biggest car glass manufacturers, so it isn't "cheap or bad quality OEM". Not much to advise here - they have to come and fit the right mouldings and make it happen without braking them or using superglue. If it takes them 5 times, then it is their problem, but they have to do it right. Not sure you can insist to use Lexus parts (depends on insurance conditions), but you may reason with them that fitting wrong mouldings 5 times will cost them more than getting genuine part once.

This does happen sometimes, but that is not ideal from perspective of troubleshooting. When you clear the code, does it come back straight away when you start the engine, or only once you start driving?

Doing it every 2 years wasn't the worst part (many countries does it without issues) - stating that it somehow helps with living costs was the real brain dead thing.

Yes, manual seats have benefit of going lower than eclectic and in IS250 I found driving position to be a bit higher than I like, I would always sit down and try to adjust the seat down thinking it was not fully down. mk3 actually had very few real leather options, most of them were some sort of leather imitation.

I definitely prefer leather over whatever this is made of, but I must say they almost look like they meant to be in the car. However, I would most definitely miss memory, heating and cooling.

It didn't go well with motorcycle helmet visors, but somehow they now trying to apply same faulty logic for glasses. You are right, they probably thinking this way, but the idea is quite stupid thought (and I obviously I am talking about people who decided to compare it that way), because the key difference is that you only put glasses on when you need them, if at any point it becomes too dark you take them of, whereas tinted windscreen is permanent. I remember driving with quite dark sun glasses and it was fine on the motorway, but then I turned into B-road going trough dense forest and I had to take glasses of, because it was too dark despite being middle of very sunny day. Issue solved. I assume "night driving" glasses are just clear polarised lenses, so they have no tint (or maybe yellow tinted, but there is trade-off), but are still polarised to reduces glare which is always good... which brings me to the other point - the amount of people who forgets to turn off high beam, or have those nasty fake xenon's, or just generally misaligned headlights, or drive with fog lights is just criminal... or in other hand nowadays there are plenty of idiots just driving with DLRs!!!

I thought methane was coming from the other end, but sometimes one learns something new!

Next thing - £5000 fine for welders, because with those damn mask they are hazard! (lol)

With BMW you need to spend quite a bit more to equip it to the same level, some more poverty level trims are very basic. That said - yes they are much faster and more fuel efficient (if diesel) and petrol actually sounds good. So all depends on what is important for you in the car.

Not sure about differences on automatic vs manual, but I remember there was something like holding the TC button for 5s, whilst pressing the brake, then releasing the brake and pressing accelerator or something... (don't quote me on that it was years ago I read about it) and apparently this switches off TC where it basically does not kick in. Because even holding TC button for 5s doesn't "fully" disables it, just allows the car to go a bit more sideways before interrupting.

fully - not possible, some say there was some procedure following certain steps by pressing and depressing pedal etc. but I have never confirmed it is actually working.

yeah wishful thinking. It is MOD! You are danger to the public... well or at least convenient cash cow! Insurance in UK is outright criminal.

That is the point. And funny enough, your car is probably less of a risk to public than trashed out Peugeot with 4 different tyres, two of which are so underinflated that they make screeching noise. But it will never be stopped because it drives 5 miles below the speed limit... and that is considered "safe" in this country.

That is part of the theory and part of the exam in the country where I got my license. They are asking such things like - how do you know what pressure should be used etc. Quite comprehensive. In exam I think I was asked to open the bonnet and show where the screenwash goes, so it was easy, but in the actual driving school you I was extensively taught and tested on this knowledge. As for the tyres - you can get 3 points and £1000 for each, so if you have 4 bald tyres that means 12 points and £4000... not light! But the question is - when was the last time actual police has stopped you?! I live in UK for 15 years now and I have never been stopped.

I think here you contradicting yourself - saying that MOT is just as rigorous as TUV and then in next sentence saying that between two MOTs car rotten to such level that it is structurally unsound. Now I know for certain that some MOT centres are very good, but some are complete trash - put the probe into exhaust, take £45 and 15 minutes later calls you that car is ready to pick-up, that is before we even talk about fraudulent ones which for £100 can pass the MOT on the car without even seeing it. So the issue here is not that all MOT centres are bad, but because government defined rules are quite lax or not checked/enforced there so much room for interpretation that nationally there is huge discrepancy from one centre to another. TUV, like most tech inspections in Europe are government run and strictly controlled centres, so the TUV you get in small village near Hamburg will be exactly the same as the one you get in the middle of Berlin. Now my view about nanny states is well know - how many more rules should we have, signs like "slow down, sharp turn" would be funny if it wouldn't be so annoying. Here is where I partially agree - tyres should be responsibility for the driver, just visually inspect them every other week and that is all that is needed, but most of the cars I have ever wanted to purchase had advisories or fails for the tyres and makes me think that people are either blind of they completely don't care. If they don't check tyres regularly, then one would expect that they would check at least before MOT, but they don't do it even before MOT. As for advisories - I see your point, but if advisory is leaking shock, then it could easily be leaking for 6 years, or I have seen advisories for crack in the tyre on classic car which did like 1000 miles a year. Point of advisory is not to just sit on MOT certificate, it is to advise customer what needs to be done before next MOT, I would even argue that advisory which comes-up twice in a row should be considered fail. I come back to the same point - those who care will continue to care and for them MOT is just going to be unnecessary expense and annoyance, those who don't care will continue not to care. Finally, I have to admit that underlying reason for this change is stupid, if they care about cost of living then there are so many other areas which can help - like dropping added value tax on insurance (which is literally tax, on the tax, on the tax), how about dropping fuel duties, how about introducing pay by mile road tax, or affordable government monitored third party insurance cover, setting up parking charge limit nationally. I mean there are so many major expenses when it comes to motoring that MOT is really last of the costs. And it just signals wrong thing - they are willing to drop safety standard (even if I consider it to be negligible) for the sake of living costs?! Surely safety should be last thing to compromise on, no matter how small is the change. So I agree with you - this is "utter pee" as far as cost of living is concerned and there are dozen other areas which change would have no safety detriment. In short before they set-out to help motorists/citizens they should look into what costs them the most, yes transportation would be major area, but then I am sure that fuel duty and insurance will be two biggest contributors to the cost long term, followed by road tax and car maintenance and MOT would be the least concern for sure. Even if I support it because for me it is just waste of time, this suggestion is just cheesy nonsense, because it doesn't help with cost of living at all.