H3XME

Yeah it may not be necessary as such, but for the curious ones it not a waste of money given the price tag. Especially if you take your car to a dealer for servicing. They drain it and put new oil in within 5mins just to get the job done as they're on the clock. I leave mine dripping for half an hour or so to make sure everything is out. As for the oil. I change mine every 6-7k. Twice a year. I'm due a change now so I'll take a picture of what's on the magnet after just over 6k Miles on a 155k miles car. BTW I can get you a bit of discount on both oil and plug too.. So price is even better 😏

Might wanna take a jerry can or two. Make sure you top up at every petrol station. Also, there is 0 premium fuel up there so if you will up with Momentum99 or V-Power, you have no chance.

It may not be related, but I've been using Mishimoto magnetic oil drain plug on my cars for years now. It's a really strong magnet and catches whatever metallic dirt they may be in the system. Works really well and for sub £15 "mod" it's worth every penny. As for oil, i religiously use HKS 5W30 synthetic oil. I have tried Shell 5W30 oil before and it may be just placebo, but I think the car prefers the HKS oil. https://www.part-box.com/product/mishimoto-magnetic-oil-drain-plug-m12-x-1-25-lexus-is250-and-more/ https://www.part-box.com/product/hks-super-oil-5w30-synthetic-engine-oil-4l/

I wanna incline towards the brakes. Does the car pull to a side under heavy braking? I've been driving the car for too long to notice anything like that enough to bother me. Although I can't let go of the steering wheel and go perfectly straight either, but when i notice it I generally just blame it on lorry rails (imprints) in the tarmac so the surface is never perfectly flat. Driving the IS250 compared to a GT86 the steering is VERY light in comparison, so I just blame it on that mainly. Sorry for not being much help.

Very clean car! Looks looked after. If the plugs have already been done, I wouldn't stress about changing them. If you want oil and filter, let me know. We sell performance car parts including HKS. 5W30 HKS Oil is what I use. Magnetic oil drain plug is also a worthy upgrade. You don't want metal shavings floating around 🙂

is it direct only? I was under the impression it was port & direct like my 86.

Haha, I love it when that happens. I did that a few years ago.. On the way to work I kept driving past this BMW E36 that was stood on the drive for years.. actually knocked on the door and an elderly lady answered. I asked if she'd sell it, and she said I can have it for £250.. when I got home I had a look on eBay again for a project and found a V8 Soarer for £450. I wish I got the BMW as well, but I ended up getting the Soarer for an absolute steal. Guy had it parked on his drive for 7 years. It had a suspected oil leak and seized brakes. Car didn't run due to a faulty fuel pump. I took it anyway as it was cheap. Got it home and found out that thel the oil leak is coming from an old rusty oil filter. Replaced the fuel pump, rebuilt the front calipers and serviced the car and it was sweet as a nut. When it's that cheap, it's worth taking risks. Some time later, I came across LS400 the same way. Older chap had it since new. He wanted £1500 though. I didn't end up taking that as LS400s were for sale for less than a grand at the time.

Everyone should check on the government site if their car is compatible to avoid potential issues.- https://www.gov.uk/check-vehicle-e10-petrol More specifically, they say that IS250 made between August 2005 and September 2007 is NOT compatible with E10 petrol. Mine is '08 registered car, I'd have to find out when it was built to know for sure, but I only fill up with 99Momentum (if possible) as we have direct injection engine and carbon build up could be an issue. 97+Oct fuel, "SUPER Unleaded" will still be available, so it won't necessarily make any difference to me, but if anyone here fills up with standard 95 unleaded, you should check if you car can take it 🙂

This is going to get a bit tricky with the introduction of E10 petrol from September. Older cars can't run it, so I think older cars (pre-2001?) should become cheaper because of it. Though, 99Momentum, V-Power and such will still be available, but not many people fill up with that. Only really enthusiasts tbf. I only run Tesco 99momentum in my IS250 because of direct injection and potential carbon build up, so I try to prevent it as much as possible. Can't say I feel any difference in this particular car when using better fuel, it's just better for the engine.

Chances are they just want them as a cheap drift/track car before they get scrapped. Not really that unusual. BMWs and MX5s aren't as cheap as they used to be, so IS200 and IS250s are the next best thing.. rwd, manual, cheap.

I don't mind cutting into the car to mount it. That's not an issue. I'm just useless when it comes to anything electric. Wiring will be a challenge as it's not going to be plug n play. I saw a very nice solution to an aftermarket 8" sub in the is250. Guy just mounted it behind the rear arm rest.. I have mine down at all times anyway to use the cup holders as there's only 1 upfront (stupid).

I have done it in the end. Got a replacement sub from a scrap yard. Funny thing is, I blew another one up a week ago.. I might have to get another sub and be more careful with the bass.

The few common issues there are with IS250s are generally little things that are cheap and easy to fix - compared to the diesel it's even more economical to fix should anything go wrong. I don't see the benefits of having IS220d to be honest. For the sake of extra £200/year on tax for manual IS250s it's a no brainer.

No need with every service. I greased mine up 2 years ago after getting new pins. Changed discs and pads the other week and it was still very well lubed, calipers slid right off. To be safe, I'd do it every 2 years or 20k miles whichever comes quicker. It's an easy job, but when you're doing an oil change/service it's a PITA to take wheels off and calipers just to grease them up. Doing it annually is excessive. Sure, as anything goes, there's a difference between well looked after cars and poorly looked after cars. However some engines are very sensitive to negligence - perfect example of this diesel. I personally don't see the point of owning IS220d when the MPG and tax difference between Petrol and Diesel is minimal (for automatics anyway). I average 42mpg on the motorway at 74mph. Town, my average is 23 but if you don't drive like me, 27-28 is doable. I tried. This diesel is riddled with potential headaches you wouldn't have to worry about with IS250. I'm not saying don't get the IS220d, but given the age of these cars, it's gonna be harder and harder to find a good diesel, much harder than IS250.

Sure there is a law for everything. You would have to seriously ***** someone off for them to go to such extent. It's a virtually invisible mod until you start digging for stuff under the car. Most modifications are to owner's discretion. Something as stupid as wrong size/format number plates is probably the most common thing I see, but there's not much of an enforcement when it comes to stuff like that.

You absolutely cannot compare a turbo car to N/A car. 20% power increase is a general figure with no supporting mods on a turbo car. If you want more, de-cat and better intake (if OEM is restrictive) is the way to go. With N/A car you have nothing to tune unless you go straight for a de-cat and that give you roughly only 10% increase in general. I'd be all over IS350 if it was manual, but sadly, never was, and it never even made it to UK. This doesn't mean you shouldn't modify or do anything to a car that isn't the "performance" version of your car, which in this case would be IS-F. The best way to get power out of IS250 or any other N/A car for that matter is Supercharger/Turbo. SC is better in this case due to high compression on these engines. There is a couple Lexus cars you can tune. RC200t and the IS200t. 4 banger turbo, get over 300hp easy, but I wouldn't go that way because in a car like that, it just seems wrong to have only 4 cylinders.

Having a de-cat is not illegal as such. You can still pass MOT with only one lot of cats if the car is hot before testing. If it passes MOT, it's road legal.

Well, taking a stock NA car to a tuner is pointless, yes. However, like I said, headers and mainly full de-cat is the most substantial mod you can do to any car if you want power. Even on 4GR-FSE engine. We have 4 cats in these cars, remove them, get a tune and you can easily get 20hp increase. Nevermind the horse power, the torque increase is the most noticeable thing, for that alone it's worth spending the money + tune can increase the throttle response which isn't great on this car. It's a common thing, but I'm not surprised people don't do this on these cars - I mean look at the clientele. It's not exactly a sports car and people don't buy it to get any sporty feeling out of it - I might be one of the few curious ones. But that doesn't mean you can't get a little bit of something out of it with the correct mods. I got an IS250 to explore the platform. It's cheap, reliable, sounds good, rwd, manual, 200bhp and most importantly has LSD. Can't really get anything like that for similar money. I'm gonna have a go at installing front camber arms from a different Toyota this weekend. I'm surprised there is nobody in the UK that goes to such extent (with suspension mods) with these cars yet - considering IS200/300s became quite popular to modify. Sure, many have lowered it and what not, but trying suspension components from other Toyota's is kind of an unexplored territory and it's exciting to try these things. Many parts are cross compatible but if nobody tries it, we'll never know. I'm not here to preach about what you should or shouldn't do, but saying that something doesn't work etc when it does is wrong.

I want to dye the headliner and pillars black this summer, I was wondering if anyone ever done it before or any car? I'm only looking for a recommendation on a good fabric dye. Thanks

Just to put it out there, at 145k miles it might be worth considering replacing bushes. Diff and some arms. Mine is on 153k now and all bushes look fine, but the diff bushes are definitely worth doing regardless because the diff will flex less under acceleration.

100% agree. Standstill acceleration doesn't mean anything, losing 150kg will make a massive difference around a track. Later braking, better cornering, the lot.

Any online plate maker will make them. You just have to get him the sizes if it's not offered online as a standard size. I presume you want a massive plate to fit whole bumper cut-out on the back?

Don't forget, these gains everybody claims - such as 8hp increase from going with different headers is a stand alone gain. You change intake and headers to catless system which you then take to a tuner. That's where the real gains appear. Induction kit is waste of money performance wise, it just looks pretty and sounds better. Exhaust (cat-less system and headers) on the other hand, you can easily see 25hp gain on a car like this with a correct tune, not to mention significant torque increase. I'm eyeing up some headers from the states, and I will get them once I find someone capable of tuning this car. And that's the only problem in the UK. There just isn't really anybody who messes with these cars so getting a tune is difficult considering how locked this ECU is. Bottom line, it is doable and it is worth it for the NA gains. If you were to go through so much money on a turbo car and you'd get barely 30hp, that's disappointing for sure, but NA game is just difficult/restricted. And yes, the ECU is "self-learning" to a point, all modern cars are like this, but changing headers and ditching cats will throw CEL because the car doesn't know what to do - it's too much of a change and not something the car would just learn on it's own. My GT86 is a perfect example of this. Same 12.5:1 compression ratio, direct injection engine that's already producing 185bhp from the factory. By installing cat-less headers, you can feel car is more responsive as it breathes better, but the real gains come in to play when you actually have it remapped/tuned. Then you go from 185bhp to 220ish with an increase of 40lbs/ft of torque. Someone said "if this and that worked, the manufacturer would've done it" no, that's not right. You find most cars being restricted on power due to massive cats that choke the performance purely so they pass emissions. It's all about Greta and polar bears these days. Remove your cats and get it tuned, you'll have gain on every modern car.

Another thing I forgot to post about was my new seat. I'm not a big fan of leather seats - even more so when you want to go for a "spirited drive" or in summer. I put a BRIDE X Cusco collaboration seat into my IS250 I got from work last year. I was waiting 4 months for the BRIDE seat rail to come from Japan, but I finally got it last month and now it's all in. Took me about 45mins to fit it. Driving experience & position improved by a lot! It's a suede-like material so it holds you in the seat very well, it's a half bucket seat so you get all the upper body support without sacrificing comfort as you can still spread your legs 😂 Driving position is a little bit lower which is what I needed because I'm 6'2 and I found the factory seat a bit too high even in its lowest setting.

Small brake update I changed my rear discs and pads the weekend. Simple job this time round. I used standard replacement Brakefit discs (310mm vented) and EBC Ultimax (OE Grade) pads. Discs cost £83.56 (pair) and set of pads is £26.53 - If you need any parts like this, let me know I can give you discount as I work for www.part-box.com Some time ago I was struggling with changing the pads as I couldn't take the rear calipers off due to them being seized. Managed to hammer (with rubber mallet) the calipers off and replace the slider pins, although one of them was seized in so bad I had to drill it out. Anyway, 1.5 years and 20k miles later the calipers slipped right off. I checked the pins and they were fine, didn't even need re-greasing. Some people say you should do this every 6-12months but I really don't think it's necessary. I re-greased them anyway since the calipers were off, but I wouldn't go out of my way to grease them up every year. Every 2 years seems more realistic - especially if you binned the standard pins and replaced them with brand new ones at some point.