H3XME

@Lukejjwhite @samplify @ahmed-abrar You've gotta be "careful" with spacers.. Asking what 15mm spacers will look like on your car means nothing. What we need to know is: Your current wheel spec - width & offset Suspension setup - are you stock, are you lowered, if so, how much lower? Your goal - do you want to be flush with the arches? Bit less than flush? Do you want slight poke? Your tyres - 255/40R18 on 18x9J rim will look very different to 225/40R18 on the same width rim. Fitment is a witchcraft and it takes a long time and a lot of math to figure out and execute well. Depends how particular you want to be. There is stance OCD or "just slap some spacers on" kinda approach. I'll be happy to help with this if I know the above details. I know that I couldn't use 15mm spacers because the stock wheel studs were hitting the back of my wheels, so 20mm was the minimum. I ended up with 22mm spacing - 15mm hub centric + 7mm slip ons.

Try these! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/233344171876 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/391599577993

I've seen & had a fair few rusty cars.. those photos look like you've got water dripping directly on that area. Yes it looks mainly like a surface rust. It often looks worse than it is. The dealer says the AC lines would have to come off, so it's possible the condensation is just falling onto an unfortunate place and if the car doesn't get driven enough then it probably just collects. They might do something about it as it seems to be a one off or at least not a very well reported problem. Please do report back, it's an interesting one to say the least. I have 0 rust on my 170,000 mile IS250. Toyota's tend to be solid!

Oh yeah, doors won't fit at all. Maybe worth haggling over.

They definitely do, you can feel it straight away. I didn't have any issues with the factory seats in terms of comfort either though. We just went to the Lake District yesterday, 3hour journey each way and stupidly decided to take my girlfriend's 2021 Polo and our backs were aching by the time we got home! It's journeys like this that prove how much of a grocery getter a little hatch back really is..

Welcome! I'm sure you'll love the ownership of your 250. Mine is also Manual SE, but the first owner opted for full black leather, heated & cooled seats & sat nav. You're quite lucky that your car did not come with the sat nav as you have more options than me. For example this android unit https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333943764484 is something I'd quite happily try, but unfortunately finding one compatible with a car with factory sat nav is difficult! The factory sat nav itself is cr*p and I'll always use Google Maps or Waze, but it just looks better with the touch screen. The car itself ages quite well, so I guess not having a touch screen is the only thing that will make you realise you're in an older vehicle. I'm all up for modifying, but if you just bought two brand new shocks, just enjoy it as it is and don't do anything stupid like me 🤣

I am not sure to be honest. I did briefly think about doing the rears too as the same place I got my fronts from had the rears up for grabs for £60, but I noticed the SE spec rear seats don't come with the middle armrest that I use daily for its retractable cupholders as the 1 front cupholder is just in the way of changing gears in a manual car. I want to say they will fit because just from looking at it, the shape looks too similar, but who knows for sure. If you can, I'd recommend going to the place that sells the whole lot you're thinking of getting and just testing the rears as we already know the fronts fit.

That's what you get when you desperately try to make something appeal to the European buyers obsessed with MPGs.. and that's the only reason anybody drives a diesel.. mpgs.. Ironically, the IS250 is very similar to the diesel in terms of MPGs, so if anybody is buying the 220d at this point - it's not worth it, walk away regardless of how good the condition seems. The trouble will arise.

@samplify I think that it might be unbalanced wheels.. If the alignment is okay, then it's either bad tyres, unbalanced wheels or binding brakes..

I have tested this as i do 42 miles a day and 40 of it on the motorway. Full tank of e10 is cheaper, but i get less miles out of the tank.. so i stick to the more expensive and better e5 (tesco 99momentum) but it actually works out better as i can do more miles. Price of fuel considered, it still works out better to buy the more expensive fuel, but i guess it very much depends on your driving

Thanks! It will be okay, the two pin connector will plug in, it's just the plastic "cap" around it is a different shape, so once it's off or trimmed it'll plug right in.

I have already mentioned this in my build thread, but for better exposure I thought I'd make a new thread to make this easier to find for people who are thinking about doing this. A couple of weeks ago, an idea popped up in my head. "will 3IS seats fit 2IS?" Somebody on the US forum said they will fit 1IS and 2IS.. apparently they all share the same base, but I didn't see any photos or read about anybody who actually did it, so it was still very much a mystery. Anyway, I decided to have a look on eBay for some used MK3 (IS300h) seats. Fortunately for me, a scrapyard 10mins away from me had two seats out of a 2014 IS300h SE. £120 later I was driving home with them. Fitting them was very easy. Take the seat rail bolt covers off, take 4 bolts out, unplug everything from your factory seat and it's out. Undo one nut that holds the seat belt buckle on your 2IS seat and put it on the new 3IS seat. Now you can take put the new seat in. So far, very easy.. however, only the seat belt sensor is plug & play. You can't plug anything else in as the connectors look slightly different, so you will have an airbag light on in the cluster. You can either ignore it, cover the bulb by removing the cluster, put a resistor in the plug so the car thinks it's plugged in OR make it fit. However you gotta do something to pass the MOT as they will want to fail you because you have something lit on the dash. As for heating & cooling which I previously had.. That's gone because the IS300h seat was from an SE model that didn't come with it. If I went for F-Sport seats or something else, it would work, but those seats would be electric and I'm not sure if they would work, but I don't see why not. My factory seats were electric leathers with cooling & heating. The connector ends might differ in shape so it won't plug in, but if you get the "cap" off, it'll plug in, same with the airbag light that I will be attending this weekend. But yeah, long story short, 3IS seats do fit 2IS. And they don't look out of place either. In my opinion anyway..

The thing is that shocks will not affect the steering feel the same way those LCA bushings will so it's different. When I swapped my stock suspension for coilovers, it improved the overall feeling as the car was less boat-like. It eliminated a fair chunk of body roll, so going into a corner obviously feels better and the car feels more planted and you have a better idea of where the front wheels are. I want to get those HardRace LCA bushes as well as they're meant to stiffen up the steering. I'd like the steering to be a bit heavier, which generally can be adjusted through the ECU since it's electric but nobody really tunes these cars.

You should. I understand that it's a silly thing that shouldn't need to be mentioned but my ex had her rear windows tinted and when the insurance technician came out to fit a black box he refused to touch the car and they cancelled her policy because it wasn't declared.. I personally wouldn't declare it if I was on a normal policy, because the car could've come from the factory with privacy glass (most new cars do). I say if I was a normal policy because I'm on a modified policy for all my other mods, so in my position I'd just tell them, it wouldn't cost me a penny, but some insurers are as*holes. I very much doubt anybody would question it on a new car like IS300h though.

Yeah, I just clear it, but it's not a solution. Although I'm not really sure I'd call it a problem either.. Something isn't right but it's not causing anything. I don't know about your case, but in my case it is P420&430 bank 1 & 2 catalytic converter below efficiency - so I think it's just the cats are on the way out. Slowly dying but it could be something as simple as o2 sensor that's right by them.. Either way, the car works as it should so it's not bothering me.

I wouldn't worry too much if the car is running happy. My VSC light comes on every now and then. I feel like mainly in winter it'd come on frequently but now that it's warmer, it's been off for 2 months.. Had this for just over a year. Error code s P420 (I think?) Bank 1 & 2 cat below efficiency which is possible that they're on the way out because the first time it came on was in Jan/Feb last year when we had a bit of snow and I was messing about in the car park red lining the car for quite some time 😂 my mate's cat in his GT86 failed on the track - again under harsh conditions.. not to mention my car is verging on 170,000 miles now so the cat will not last forever. (btw I'm also using momentum)

Nothing in the theory about any of that. The examiner can ask you about silly things like "Show me how you turn on the fog lights" but absolutely nothing about maintenance.

Well yeah, it's not real leather. It's leather-like.. Synthetic leather maybe? I don't know what they use. Either way, it's nice to have a car seat and not an old arm chair😂

There's a lot of full leather ones around as 99% 300h's had them. These Base model seats are hard to find, but I like it. I think it's better especially now I lost heating & cooling. Although I was driving without it for a year anyway when I had the "bucket" seat in. I don't really miss it personally so not really a loss to me. My car doesn't have memory, so can't lose what I never had!😂 but yeah I agree, they do look like they're meant to be in it. They also feel very nice. Definitely changes the overall driving feel. Crazy how much of a difference a seat makes. The seating position is lower than in the factory seats. So that's a big bonus for tall people. I'm 6'2.

Well they’re both in now. Facelift - completed it mate. 😂

Trust me, it does not interrupt. Lets you do anything with it off. The only extra thing that the pedal dance does is that it disables the electronic brake force / panic brake function. Your wheels won't lock up.

Most likely. To be honest, even if it was true, how many people would actually follow this?.. barely anyone

This doesn't look too bad, but given "*The sports muffler and diffuser must be mounted together." it's going to work out quite expensive.. we're talking thousands for this setup, so local exhaust shop is still your most viable route. As for TRD parts, I'd order from Fensport.co.uk I believe they are official distributors of TRD in the UK. I know quite a few people that had issues getting stuff through Nengun. Nengun don't actually list the mufflers either, only the diffuser.

I think that people who write these up and make these decisions are deluded drug using hypocrites. I wouldn't worry about sh*t like this because it just makes me mad. I saw an article earlier about using air con this summer might get you £5k fine too because the "rules" state that you car has to be properly ventilated LOL. Do they think the air con is connected to your exhaust pipe or something?

Mine is on 169,000 miles and doesn't burn anything.. oil gets changed every 7000 miles so twice a year, but yeah, I don't care what the book says, if your car is burning 1L every 1,000km/600miles, you have a problem despite the book suggesting it's "ok" 😂