wharfhouse

No idea - have never had and will never have a diesel engine - well other then in my yacht...! Diesels can be good for those doing very high mileage motorway driving but doesn't sound like that's what you are looking for.

Seems the same for all Lexus / Toyota - on my IS 300h when the on board computer reads zero miles remaining there is still about 10 litres left in the tank - that's enough for close on 100 miles... Never put it to the test but have run for about 10 miles beyond zero miles left! On my wife's Toyota similar story - that has a smaller smaller tank than mine but similar percentage left in the tank when zero miles is displayed. It's a nice fall back position to have when looking for a petrol station.

In this case at 150k miles and nearly 10 years on the original discs and pads I was going to replace them soon anyway - if they were newer though then I agree it would have been an unnecessary expense.

Yes, I don't think any cars I've owned (not just Lexus) have ever had calipers checked/overhauled at a dealers - even when I had cars serviced with independent mechanics they didn't do it - though I never asked them to. I suppose you have to weigh up how much you would pay for having this done annually vs the cost of replacing a caliper now and again - if I was replacing calipers every few years that would be one thing but after 150K miles I'm not complaining.

Ah OK - TBH I've always had brake fluid changed regular on all my cars - maybe not every two years but certainly after a few years as its hygroscipic and so indeed could over the long term cause corrosion if not changed. On my Honda Accord, the garage said the piston has become siezed (or at least not moving properly) so maybe your Jazz has similar issues of the piston sticking. I suppose there could have been some crud in the brake lines that moved with your fluid change though. If you have caught it early given your discs and pads are quite new if the pads aren't worn unevenly yet and the discs are in good shape you might be able to just change the caliper or just change the pads with the caliper without having to change the discs again. In my case the discs actually looked similarly worn each side though given the 150k mileage on them and how corded and pitted they were getting I wanted to get them changed anyway. However the pads on my sticking caliper had worn down significantly compared to the other side.

Brake fluid has nothing to do with a caliper seizing. I didn't ask why it had seized. There's been a lot written on this forum about slide pins corroding causing rear calipers to sieze. I've never done any additional maintenance on mine and so it could be due to that. General road dirt, salt, brake dust can also cause some corrosion in the piston area which could cause it to sieze too. Given I've done 150k miles without a problem I'm not too concerned and the although the rear discs/pads still had quite a bit of meat left on them the discs were getting very pitted and corroded and so I'd been thinking about whether to get those replaced anywhere. I was expecting that one or other rear caliper would fail at some point. A number of years back we had a rear caliper sieze on our Honda Accord around 100k miles - the other side however was still fine when we sold it at 160k miles. The downside of the caliper siezing is that unless caught early it can mean the rear discs need changing - Lexus charged me £355 for the change of rear discs and pads (as the caliper was done under the 10 Year Plus Extended Warranty) and so like on your Jazz if the other rear caliper goes relatively soon it could mean a new set of rear discs and pads again too and given the rears on the Lexus will last at least 150k miles that would be a bit annoying having had them changed this time!

Service costs at a Lexus dealer are shown here: https://www.lexus.co.uk/centres/reading/owners?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw1920BhA3EiwAJT3lScngHwmhI6EvL4fpkALTCLvr1BZ3cQt5XbxDA6Mo5txyxsqe4oe0ghoCdY0QAvD_BwE Annual cost depends on how many miles you do and so how many services per year you will need. You can of course save a bit of money using independent dealers but you'll still need to get the hybrid healthcheck done at a Lexus dealer to maintain the hybrid battery warranty. Then of course there is insurance - have you checked out what that will cost you? If you haven't got any no claims discount yet that could be a large annual expense. Annual vehicle tax for pre 2017 models is currently £10 per year, post 2017 models is £180 per year. The other annual cost is also breakdown cover (if you choose to have this) which will be around £100 per annum. Replacement tyres are around £120 per wheel (nearer £200 per wheel for F Sport trim as they have larger rims). My rear tyres need changing every 20,000 miles and the fronts every 40,000 miles but I'm not heavy on tyres as I do a lot of motorway miles. Annual MOT about £50 per annum. You'll likely have a few other incidental costs so budget another £500 per annum for that perhaps? As the car ages there will be other items that will/may need replacement through general wear and tear such as brakes etc. When I say looking after it well I mean making sure all maintenence work is done on schedule. Check over the car regularly and keep an eye on engine fluid levels (oil water etc) and tyre pressures. If you see or hear anything unusual investigate and if something needs repairing get it done and don't leave it. It can be tempting to leave something when money is tight but it invariably leads to something bigger going wrong and in a Lexus that can get very expensive very quickly. Hope that helps. If that all adds up to more than you can afford it may be worth looking at another brand as your first car - a Toyota would deliver a lot of the Lexus reliability if not in such luxury but potentially at a lower running cost and a newer car for your money. Good luck with whatever decision you go with.

For a few weeks my car has had an intermittent squeal. It would tend to come on after I'd been driving for around an hour and would come and go as the car went over road imperfections and when changing direction. Pressing on the brakes would stop it for a while. I thought it sounded like brake pads binding and so started checking the wheels to see if any were getting warm and the offside rear was getting warmer than the offside near side, though never hot. As the rear discs/pads are still the original and do look rather corroded I decided it was time for Lexus to take a look. They confirmed that the offside rear caliper was sticking. Apparently on the ramp it was very difficult to rotate that wheel by hand and on the health check report it said that the rear pads on that side were down to 3mm compared with 9mm on the other side. I'm actually surprised that the wheel wasn't getting hotter. So offside caliper has been replaced and new disc/pads fitted to both sides at the rear. I have the Lexus 10 Year Plus Extended Warranty on the car which covers the car up to 15 years old / 150,000 miles whichever comes first. My mileage is currently just a few miles short of 150,000. Lexus has replaced the caliper under the 10 Year Plus Extended Warranty just leaving me to pay for the rear discs/pads. That means I have claimed this year at least as much as the warranty cost me. Good to know that Lexus honour the warranty even at this sort of mileage - I had thought they may have claimed a seized caliper was a wear and tear item, but there was no argument about it. Other than new front wheel bearings at 80,000 miles (also replaced under extended warranty) this has been the only other significant (if you can call it that) fault with the car in nearly 8 years and 110,000 miles of my ownership (and I can't see there having been any faults in it's first two years and 40K miles before I purchased it). It would certainly be nice if I can get another 100K miles out of the car without any other significant work being required.

@Linas.P has given a lot of info above so won't repeat that. How well the car has been looked after and serviced is paramount. Mileage not so important. My IS 300h is coming up for 10 years old and has now done 150K miles (I bought it second hand when it was two years old with 40k miles on it). I have always had it serviced by Lexus. In that 110K miles I've owned it, very little has been needed very little outside of normal servicing. I had a windscreen washer bottle sensor replaced early on in my ownership (under extended warranty) I had front wheel bearings replaced at 80k miles (replaced under extended warranty) and also opted to get the brake discs/pads changed at the same time (they still had some life left but made sense as the wheel bearings were being done). The bonnet catch started not locking correctly, Lexus quickly fixed that during a service. I have just had the car into Lexus at 150K miles for a sticky rear brake caliper (which they have changed under the 10 Year Plus Extended Warranty I still have on the car) and I have opted to have the rear brake discs/pads changed at the same time as although they had some life left they are original and so now very corroded. That's it for repairs. Still even on the original 12V battery. Hybrid system performs the same as it always has (and the hybrid battery is under warranty for 15 years unlimited mileage so long as the car is serviced by Lexus or pay for the hybrid health check separately - about £60 - every 10k miles / 12 months whichever comes first). As for mpg I reset the computer 110K miles ago when I bought the car and the car computer is telling me my overall average in all of that time is 48mpg. Winter is always a bit lower, summer a bit higher. That's a mix of all driving, but a large percentage of motorway. The hybrid comes into it's own in lower speed traffic so you might do better than that. There are IS 300h reporting over 200K miles without major issues - the odd one has needed a new hybrid battery around that mileage and so worth keeping the hybrid health check up to date for higher mileage cars especially. Even if faced with a failed hybrid battery not in warranty there are options to getting cells refurbished - even getting a new one may be worth it for a few thousand pounds if the rest of the car has a lot of life left in it. But that is the worst case scenario. On pre-2017 models the VED is just £10 per year (due to go up to £20 per year next year) which is a real bargain and saves quite a bit over the years. The drive train is the same for all IS 300h by the way - trim levels are all just cosmetic and various (rather confusing) options. The more electronic toys the more can go wrong of course, so although nice as it is to have more toys in the car, note that anything on a Lexus is very expensive to repair - and there aren't a lot of parts available through breakers as the cars are quite rare. Some parts can be purchased abroad quite a bit cheaper if you are good with spanners. You said you are on a tight budget - worth bearing in mind that to last without problems these cars should be well looked after, so do budget properly for the regular servicing etc.

Just written much the same regards my experience of the Merc auto box...!

TBH that doesn't surprise me - looking at the video it was made in 2013. The description is "All New Lexus IS300h Hybrid F-Sport vs Mercedes C250 Diesel" and there's no reason to doubt that. However, rather than the IS doing the 0-60 in 7.1s I would say the Merc is doing it in longer than it's 7.1s published time. It's been shown that the IS 300h is slightly quicker than the published times (which is 8.1s 0-60) and we also know that the Germans sell their cars to a lot of people who never actually test the car but buy / lease from the specs and so giving the absolutely best 0-60 time is more important to Mercedes than eg Lexus. I had a Merc C200 (though petrol and not diesel) back in 2017 for 6 weeks when my IS 300h was off the road waiting for parts due to some accident damage. The Merc was the biggest POS I had driven for some time. The auto box had a mind of its own and was at times downright dangerous in making up it's mind to do something. On paper I think it was meant to be faster than the IS 300h but definitely didn't mange to reflect that in reality. If doesn't look like the video is done by "test" drivers and so it's probably just two dudes pressing the pedal to the metal on the go signal. Manufacturers quoted 0-60 times are often done with some interesting "launch" techniques and so this more "real world" video backs up what many of us suspect in how some of the manufacturers times are arrived at. It's also possible that the Merc would overhaul the Lexus over a longer distance. Now I don't really care about the manufacturers numbers and the IS 300h has worked for me for the past 8 years and 110k miles in all types of driving - and I came to it from a number of BMWs (amongst other cars) many of which on paper were faster. I've said it many times before - everyone has different needs and if outright performance is uppermost then the IS 300h is probably not the car for you. But many of us use a car over a broad spectrum of needs and living with a car for a few years (or even a few months) can deliver a very different experience to having one for a day or two. Out of all the cars I've owned I've had two that have been exceptional against that measure and more than the sum of their parts - IMHO - a 1997 reg BMW E39 528i that I owned from new and covered 210k miles in and my current 2014 reg IS 300h that I've had for nearly 8 years and have covered 110k miles in (the car is now at 150k miles). Although stated in his usual interesting manner, I think @Linas.P has probably summed up the situation nicely - when you own an IS 300h over a decent length of time then put it against a Merc C 250d like that, who really cares...!

Perhaps the previous owner fitted one of the auto folding add on boxes that can be purchased online and that has stopped working?

The Lexus service plans are administered by EMaC. In the T&Cs it states that "The Customer may transfer the Balance to a new Contract..." to cover I would assume for example when selling the current car and buying a new one - however, if it is moving the balance to a different Customer (e.g. who is buying the car) then there isn't anything in the T&Cs that cover that I can see. From discussions I had with my dealer when I took out the Service Plan, I was of the understanding that if I sold the car I could simply cash out what was left in the plan and hadn't been spent on services and that the plan didn't move with the car, the new owner would take out a new service plan to meet their needs - but that is just what I remember from a discussion I had. It's interesting that the car you have purchased has some of a service plan left with it. If you purchased the car from the dealer with this as part of the deal then I would have thought it's up to the dealer to sort it out whatever way they need to with EmaC so long as you get a "free" "Full" service which in your case would be the 100K mile one - btw Lexus now only do two fixed cost services - "Full" and "Interim" - there are no differently priced services by mileage/age and they simply do whatever is in the service schedule for the mileage/age when the car is presented to them - so there isn't a "big" 10 year one, it's simply a normal "Full" service.

Yes I have been doing 2 year service plans with 3 services every 2 years (as I do around 15k miles per annum) for a number of renewals - what do you need to know?

Yes, to stay with a sensible sized non SUV looks like at some point I'll have to change brand too - had a string of German cars and some others (including a Honda) previously before I got the IS and have/had been extremely surprised and pleased with the Lexus IS for many reasons that made it more than the sum of its parts and that's why I've kept it so long - a real shame to have to change brands again after only having the one Lexus.

But in 2020 the replacement was expected imminently and so many potential owners would be waiting for the facelift/replacement, including me, to order a new one. In 2016 I'd bought a 2014 model with a view to change it as soon as the next gen IS was released - but if course it never made it to the UK much to my frustration.

Yes I thought the same when I had a few as loaners - the IS boot swallows a surprising amount so long as bags are soft rather than hard cases.

At the time Lexus pitched the ES as a replacement in the UK (& Europe I believe) for the GS and IS but in practice it is neither and has not sold in any great quantity - personally I would have thought the IS would have sold more than the ES. The ES has it's own values of course but they are not those of the IS or the GS. The GS was later discounted completely but the current IS lives on in other regions , though whether that will continue with a new IS is an unknown right now - maybe as a BEV???

Same predicament for me - I'd have changed my current IS 300h for a new facelifted one if Lexus had brought it to UK/Europe and would probably be looking to change that again for another new one now. However, as Lexus dropped the IS and I have no desire to get the ES and at this time not a SUV either then I've kept my 2014 IS 300h going - now approaching 150k miles. I have continued to use Lexus for servicing and so I think I will see how long it remains economical to run it for as it's still as comfortable to drive as it always was and only £10 a year for VED! Now we have a new government I'll also be interested to see what pans out with them before I decide which way to jump regards any future car purchase...

Try steering left then right when doing about 50mph and see if it increases or decreases the noise as loading and unloading the wheel bearing through the weight transfer will often change the tone / level of noise. If it does then chances are it's a wheel bearing that's on the way out.

My 2014 Is 300h has now covered 149k miles. I've had the Lexus 10 Year Plus Extended Warranty on mine (although less than 10 years old it had exceeded 100m miles) for a while and so kept to dealer servicing. Will probably continue to do so for as long as I own the car. In the bigger picture of running costs I don't consider the cost of dealer servicing a huge issue and the hybrid healthcheck is also included in the service which warranties the battery up to 15 years of age.

Here are the Lexus cars Carista support: https://carista.com/en/supported-cars/lexus - doesn't look like a 2007 is though

It's possible but not through the Lexus in car settings - it requires the dealer to change it or if you want to do it yourself you will need to purchase Carista (app and OBD dongle) or Techstream. Here is a link to the customisable options that using Carista opens up for the IS: https://carista.com/en/supported-cars/lexus/is/3rd-gen - see under Lights Exterior section which has the option of : Turn signal click volume Low Medium High

I put my phone in a mount that slots into the CD player slot and so looks the same as you have there - just that the unit you have is a bit bigger than a phone.

The car isn't concourse condition having covered 149k miles so I'm expecting a few things starting to show some wear now and so stopping it splitting further and making it look reasonable will be OK.