H3XME

I was selling and buying a couple of cars since lockdown, I'd recommend Arnold Clark, they have always offered more than others I tried. (Tried dealerships, We buy any car etc). Give it a shot

That's really good!

You shouldn't go down to 0W20 if your car ran 5w30 all its life. There will be tolerances from the heavier oil, which increases the chances of it leaking into places it shouldn't.

You mean air con gas? Kwikfit do it for £59 for our cars. As for alignment, a really good garage by me does a laser alignment for ~£70 so to say it was all done by Lexus for 170 isn't too bad! Only 40 quid difference and all done at the same time, I would've had to travel to 2 different places. I'm surprised they didn't charge for the diff oil though. I think it only takes 1.1L anyway, but still.

I've been saying for a long time that these cars are not bad on fuel if you try.. if you try it's possible to get good mpgs.. with some cars you just can't get anything decent no matter how much you try and on the flipside, in a lot of small engine modern cars you'll get decent Mpgs without even trying.. Went to Guildford on Thursday last week to pick up mrs' new car, FK7 Civic Sport (1.5l 4cyl turbo petrol with 200hp).. I reset the mpgs before taking it out on a test drive on the nearby country lanes where I properly tested the power delivery etc 😄, went back to finish the paperwork and went back home to north west Birmingham. Motorway down by London wasn't great as you can imagine, even at 10:30AM. 60mph - 50 - 40 - 30 and some standstill traffic and by the time we joined the M40 it was smooth sailing at 72mph on the adaptive cruise control. Got home with 53mpg AVG for the day. If I drove the Lexus like I did the civic that day, I'd get home with probably 38.. I don't think I'd break 40s with the amount of slowing down and speeding up. and around town that civic still gets around 40 and it's a nippy car. It'd definitely give the lexus run for the money it being only 1300kg with almost 200hp. I feel like the mpgs could be better if I was able to turn off Adaptive cruise control as the car was slowing down unnecessarily too much even on the mildest setting. In my Lexus I'd just change the lane if I was approaching a car while on cruise control.. the Civic would start slowing down before I even got to the point where I'd normally be changing lanes.

No, they are road legal, just like Toyo R888 and Nankang NS-2R

Since the weather was so nice I decided to have a go at dying the headliner black. It wasn't too bad of a job itself, but the heat made it awful sitting in the car... I wasn't gonna take the headliner out of the car, so I needed a hot day to do it on so it can dry inside, and it did, quickly. I will have to take all the plastic out and spray paint matte black (maybe), I'm not sure yet, but I can't leave it cream.. it sticks out like a sore thumb! It proven to be difficult to take a photo of the headliner as the outside light and the lack of it inside was messing with the camera so apologies for poor photography.

Update: Had the Accelera 651 Sport fitted a couple of weeks ago. I have them on the front as the cords were showing on the old tyres (camber wear). I don't care what the reviews of other Accelerate tyres say, but these 651 Sport with 200 tread wear are fu*king amazing. Day & Night difference compared to the similarly priced Toyo Proxes TR1 I've been using. Incredibly grippy in dry and surprisingly good in wet too. I don't know what they're like in terms of aquaplaning on a REALLY wet motorway, but wet roads are just fine. Better than TR1 and those are to be "Wet" tyres. I'm chuffed with this purchase. The front just sticks. I tried to got at turns in a way to provoke some understeer which I could have with the old tyres but nothing happened, the car wouldn't understeer at all. I went for them because quite a few people on the GT86 group use them on the track & all round and the feedback is very good. Better than Advan AD08R. Accelerate Track tyres are completely different to their road tyres - those are awful. I'd recommend them if you want good grip, but they are track tyres, softer and therefore won't last as long as your regular road tyre which is fine with me because I change tyres every year due to camber wear anyway. Photo - I do have to say that they come out really stretchy. I lost some ground clearance, despite my old tyres being the same size (225/40 on 9.5" rims). You "should" really be running 255/265 on this width rim if you hate the stretched look, but anything over 225/235s is a complete overkill on IS250..

Yeah the runflats are awful! That's the first thing we did when my dad got the car. Get normal tyres on it..huge improvement. No doubt, 2 cars built for 2 different purpose. I was more so comparing IS250 to the saloon E90.

It is steel! I always struggle to put my magnetic oil plug back on because it's a really strong magnet and never wants to go back in the hole 🤣 Very good purchase for less than £20.. should there be any metal chunks floating about it will collect it. I had a quite bit on it my last oil change.. https://www.part-box.com/product/mishimoto-magnetic-oil-drain-plug-m12-x-1-25-lexus-is250-and-more/

They are generally just stuck on. You can grab a butter knife or something thin and blunt and peel it back and try to pop it out from the inside but you'll need to buy some good adhesive to make sure it sticks back on properly. Shouldn't put up too much of a fight to get off in this heat, the glue will be all melted. Might as well have a go if you're thinking about getting a new one. If you mess it up, no bother. If you don't, bonus

I agree that 3 series is more sporty, doesn't feel as heavy and generally bit more engaging for drivers. However, I'd pick the Lexus over the bmw equivalent (325i E90 saloon) any day of the week. Those E90s are really ugly in my opinion, unless you go for E92 coupe, those are nice but reliability of the Lexus is superior. My dad used to have a 2008 330i E92 coupe, and even though it drove really nice, looked really nice, it developed the infamous hydraulic lifter tappet at not even 60,000 miles. It sounded like a diesel with how much tapping was coming from the 3.0l inline petrol engine. 335i would be a completely different car but at that point you're not able to compare to the Lexus.. bottom line, I like to look of BMWs, and some aren't bad BUT they are everywhere. It wouldn't feel special enough having one because you see Johnny down the road (on every road!) with the same car even if it may have a different engine..

If you need to top up it simply means there's a leak in the system. Bubbling means there's pressure irregularities. I'd check radiator hoses. They perish over time. Check under the oil cap. If its milky it's the gasket because moisture is inside of the engine. If its good, I'd cross the worst case off the list.

It can also be something as simple as old coolant or not enough of it in the system. If you had blown head gaskets you would know..you wouldn't have to look for it to see if it's bad.

Well, the RX450h is 2GR isn't it.. only with hybrid, but the engine alone would be alright, but yes I agree 3GR would be a little cheaper, perhaps easier too.

I wouldn't bother swapping this car. I'd do a straight swap - another 4GR-FSE or go balls deep and swap something worthwhile in it.. otherwise you're wasting a lot of time n money for a very little gain that will not be worth it in the end. Even 2GR swapping it isn't that easy. Well.. suppose it's it's just as easy as 3GR swap but why. I'd rather source a 2GR if I was to do this. Or better yet.. 1UZ. Small lightweight V8 that'll be at home in this bay. Standalone ECU, custom mounts and you can even easily and fairly cheaply get flywheel adapters for BMW ZF manual box. That's what the drifters do. 280hp 270ft/lbs IS250 with a V8 soundtrack would be nice. Call it an IS400 😉

I don't think it's a common issue, but the head units do break sometimes.. My car had a headunit/screen replaced under warranty in 2012.. just died, instead of trying to buy a new one, I'd just get the 9-10" android unit from aliexpress for ~£200

Just like @AntC, my car will only SOMETIMES rattle after a short drive. Never on a cold start. Drive 10mins to the shop, come out after another 10mins and the car would have this 1s start up rattle, but like I said it's only sometimes. I tried different oils and it didn't make any difference. It's not causing any issues to be honest. That I know of anyway.. The car developed this around 135,000 miles.. it's only 174k now and it's not getting any worse. My mates car did it on cold starts when he got it with around 80k on, but went away with more frequent oil changes. Mine never rattled cold.

It's Toyota Mark II Blit - like the green one I sent. Someone just put an IS300 face on it and it looks very nice! Straight 6 twin turbo, rwd 😉 Japanese import only but you can get a low mileage one ordered for ~£8000

These are reliable but 8 owners is a risky game regardless of the car. I'd be looking at this: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202205175817606 One of 3 estates I'd consider for under 10k.. Then of course there is Nissan Stagea M35 which is the same drive train / platform as 350Z - realible power And last but not least.. Toyota Mark II Blit - 1JZ engined power wagon. Someone even lexus-swapped the front end on that car before. http://www.speedhunters.com/2019/02/the-is-wagon-lexus-should-have-made/

Wow you sound like a really unlucky buyer. Sorry to hear that! It's not common to come across such issue on IS250. You could get an engine swap for ~£1000 all in. Engines are about £600? That'll solve your issues. Definitely more financially viable than buying a different car but that's up to you to decide. Maybe you've lost the love for it now

I get it but 651s aren't really a road spec tyre. You want good tyres on the front when drifting. I'm gonna try them anyway and report back.

Well I heard good things about them on the forum. This compound is meant to be good. I only want good grip on the front and while the proxes suffice, I don't mind trying something better

Yeah Toyos aren't the best for economy but tend to have good dry or grip rating and the prices is very good. I need to change my front tyres (again, do it once a year) and I'm actually thinking of getting these https://tirestreets.co.uk/products/accelera-651-sport?variant=31649671872597

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