Hello everyone, I’m Steve and live in the Newcastle upon Tyne area. I’m originally from the States and moved here about 10 years ago to be with my now wife. I recently sold my hawkeye Subaru Impreza STi and picked up a silver 2006 Lexus IS220d (not sure of the official package, thinking SE?) with factory sat nav, leather heated/cooling seats (sadly grey interior and not black, but it was cheap and I was willing to be open/fluid enough to work with what was given), the Mark L. audio system, all on the cheap (under £1000) and I have to say, I’m impressed and pretty satisfied with it. Plus the MOT was until June 2020 with no faults or advisories, and quite a bit of service history with it as we’ll from new with the last 6 years having a service every few years instead of yearly. I made quite a bit of cash off the Subaru if I’m honest, and I’ve always liked my Japanese cars, but I don’t do loads of miles to work and didn’t really need anything ridiculous like what I did have with the Subaru. Anyways, for under £1000 I was really happy with getting something with leather heated seats and diesel and that was considered a more “luxury” car. I’ll apologise now for not having any other photos than the one I got from the Autotrader haha
Didn’t do too much research into them before buying (I probably should have by all accounts considering the horror stories I’ve read on here), but I wanted something a bit better on juice (the Subaru averaged a whopping 12 mpg on my short commute to work), and that my wife actually liked so we could use it on weekends when we do most of our running about. I’ve had it a week now, and I’m averaging about 37 mpg which I think is fantastic for a 2.2L diesel (my mother in law had a 2L Scenic that averaged about 28!). Sadly, I actually don’t have a massive commute to work, so again the no research before buying could be a bad thing here. But to be honest, if it lasts 2 years with minimal problems, I’ll be more than happy with it.
At any rate, I am happy with it. I love the way you kind of sink into the seat, and having a warm arse is lovely on the chilly mornings coming in haha.
Obviously for the price tag it does have some small issues. It’s got 186,000 miles on the clock, all of which are motorway. The previous owner did a lot of commuting between Newcastle and Liverpool. There’s some trolly rash on the rear passenger side bumper along with a cracked reflector. The front passenger quarter panel has a load of scratch marks on it, which I didn’t even notice when I was looking at the car originally, probably because it’s silver, but again, it was under £1000 for the car. The bonnet has a few areas where the paint is bubbling, probably from bird crap sitting too long on it by the looks of it. The headlamps have some yellow oxidation on them as well, but it should be easy enough to clear up. The alloys aren’t in the best condition and the interior is pretty worn and needs a good clean, plus the drivers seat has some damage to the leather I think. My biggest concern is there’s 2 small rust spots on the driver door that I want to get taken car of rather quick. Few other tiny bits and bobs that you’d expect with a “banger” car haha. I did notice I filled up with V Power diesel the other day (£84 total! But nearly 500 mile range compared to £65 to fill Subaru with 190 average miles to a tank!) that diesel seemed to be leaking out from somewhere, although I couldn’t find/see where.
Been scouring the internet since I bought it and came across the forum. Particularly loved the look of @Yorkie740 (I think)’s IS. Don’t think I’ll got crazy with mods or anything as it was only a £1000 car. Maybe if I end up keeping it then I would be tempted to throw a bit more money at it. So my immediate plans for the near future include the following:
Red out taillights via tint
Change to a white Headlamp bulb instead of yellow
Yellow tint on fog’s
Lexus LED puddle lights
Deep clean in interior
window tint (30% all around maybe?)
Fix the rust spots on door, possibly fix paint issues
hydrodip the interior pieces to the Lexus Woodgrain that I’ve seen on here to modernize the interior
respray alloys in a slightly darker colour than the standard silver to make it pop a bit more and update the car a bit mire.
Fix the annoying sound in makes from front passenger side (sounds like a loose drop link?) when it goes over bumps in road
update sat nav CD
investigate cruise control not working? May be trying to set it incorrectly though
Potential long term:
Change to IS250 rear bumper/convert the 229d bumper to a 250 bumper and dual exit exhausts
Lowering springs/coil overs depending on if I keep it longer term and want to drop cash on it
Eventually maybe weld the diff and convert to a drift car
upgrade the whole sat nav unit
Change interior to black
front and rear lips (unless I go for the cheap £7 Indonesian rubber ones, which, I actually might do)
Little tuning time improve hp/torque, but depends on what it costs and the gains/disadvantages to it are.
