mspiteri

Thanks to everyone for the replies. Recalled, eh? That explains why they seem hard to get. I've noticed that you can get them from various outlets in the US, but once you add shipping they get a bit silly pricewise. I'll look at some of the non-OEM ones. Thanks Mark

My IS250 has the beige cream interior, which does not really appreciate muddy boots and weekend outings. I'm getting tired of scrubbing the carpets afterwards, so I remembered that according to the Accessories brochure you can get interior black rubber mats. Perfect. Called Lexus Cambridge, but was told "never heard of them, we don't get them" Hmm. Does anyone have these? Would you happen to know a dealer who can source them. Hopefully I could then ask them to ship them to me in Cambridge. Thanks Mark

I've just renewed my insurance. 2006 IS250 SEL-MM Auto, 10000 miles per year, fully comp, 250 excess with myself and my wife, with 2 claims in last two years, licenses clean Cambridge area Car on driveway 7 years NCD protected £350 from esure.com

You should buy a product called Langka - it makes applying touch up paint trivially easy. You put enough paint in the stone chip, wait one hour, put some Langka on a clean cloth and wrap it around a flat plastic card - 5-10 seconds rubbing over the blob - perfect smooth flush result! It is just fantastic. Langka can gently melt away the excess touch up paint letting you smooth it out properly - but it does not affect normal paint. In fact if you rub for long enough you can remove the touch up paint completely - so if you really mess it up you can sort it out and start again. The key is to work on it within 1-2 hours of application before it cures to being too hard. Mark mspiteri, Any idea where we get Langka from ? Infinity......... Sorry for the late reply - but someone else already got there. I had purchased it from that Frost car restoration website. Mark

The 250 does have the top tether but to be honest I do not use it because the car seat fits perfects, and I cannot see how it would possibly rotate forwards on impact as it's such a tight fit. That's what the top tether is for, to prevent the seat from rotating forwards using the ISOFIX attachments as rotation points. On the IS200, which I used to have, it was an awful fit, so much so that I never bothered with ISOFIX and used the seat belt mode instead for the Britax ISOFIX Duo. They have clearly got it right with the new car. Mark

There is a very recent thread about this. A couple of weeks ago I used Wicked Wheels, who turn up with their van and do the job on site. They were recommended by Cambridge Lexus. But it was more like £80 per wheel though. http://www.wickedwheels.co.uk/ Cheers Mark

You should buy a product called Langka - it makes applying touch up paint trivially easy. You put enough paint in the stone chip, wait one hour, put some Langka on a clean cloth and wrap it around a flat plastic card - 5-10 seconds rubbing over the blob - perfect smooth flush result! It is just fantastic. Langka can gently melt away the excess touch up paint letting you smooth it out properly - but it does not affect normal paint. In fact if you rub for long enough you can remove the touch up paint completely - so if you really mess it up you can sort it out and start again. The key is to work on it within 1-2 hours of application before it cures to being too hard. Mark

I would strongly recommend using Autoebid. I managed to get a big discount off list price that way. Mark

I use a Britax Duo Isofix - perfect fit, nice size. And I put it on a Grip-It mat to protect the leather - I bought mine online somewhere but I think someone has already pointed out you can get them from Halfords. Mark

I thought I would share this with the forum. A couple of weeks ago I kerbed one of the alloys against one of those speed restriction obstacles - around 3 inches of alloy rim shaved off. I looked into a number of alloy refurbishing companies, but most required around a week to do the work and me having to use the silly spare wheel in the meantime. So I decided to try Wicked Wheels, which do the job at your address in their van - complete with taking the wheel off, removing the damage, filling it in, painting and baking it. The guy has just been - it took him 25 mins from start to finish and I cannot tell where the repair was - it's that good a job. It cost me £80 inclusive. I am not sure they would have been able to repairs on my previous IS200's alloys, as those were some kind of polished aluminium, but the IS250 wheels are normal. Mark

Thank you for this information. I now recall other people mentioning this in earlier threads when they were taking delivery of their cars. My car was supplied by Lexus Worcester. I'll see if they can help me in this regard. Regards Mark Dear Mark, I have had the exact same difficulty getting hold of a Mesa Red Touch-Up!!! However, I think I have the answer to the problem. Lexus Parts Sale standard routine when searching for a Touch-Up paint is to add a '0'(Zero) to the end of the paint code. This long standing routine normally works. However, with Mesa Red and other new colours the routine has changed and they must now add a 1(one) instead of a Zero. Therefore, the touch-up does exist but its part number is causing difficulty for Lexus operators to locate on the database, so they tell you it doesn't exist - but it does!!! I hope this helps as Mesa Red is the best colour so we have to keep them looking cool DR Kildare this is very useful information. If I cannot get hold of the kit mentioned previously, I'll go back to the local dealer with this. I was in the USA last week, and I had the same thought as Rich_Bee. Unfortunately the nearest Lexus dealer to where I was was 40 miles away and I did not have the time to visit them - and they did not respond to an email. Mesa Red is called Matador Red in the US - they have the same color code anyway. It is a beautiful colour, although I seem to be having a run of bad luck with picking up stone chips in just three weeks of ownership and 500 miles. Mark

Yes, I have used Chips Away on a black Toyota MR2 a couple of years ago with mixed results. I was thinking of them as a viable option should I not manage to source touch up paint, or not do it well enough. Might just call them out actually as the chip is quite deep and fairly large (4mm diameter). thanks Mark

Unfortunately my 2 week old Mesa Red IS250 has picked up a rather nasty stone chip on the rear door and I was thinking of trying to rectify it with touch up paint. But, to my surprise Cambridge Lexus have said that this is not yet available to order or to purchase! What?! How can that be? The IS250 has been out for almost a year. Are they right or not? Does anyone else know where I can source the correct paint (3R1)? Thanks Mark

If you google search for Prius, Bluetooth, laptop you will find a long thread on the Prius forums about how to synchronise your contacts with the car via a laptop and a bluetooth dongle. The car's interface as described seems identical to ours on the IS, but nevertheless I cannot get it to work with my laptop. It could be that it's just my IBM laptop's inbuilt bluetooth stack that cannot communicate properly with the IS, so someone else out there might be successful. Good luck.

Some pics for you :) Jamboo's flaps Thank you for the link to the thread - I had actually done a search and come up dry; obviously I am incapable of searching properly! My car is the same colour as Jamboo's. I am thinking that the black on red look good actually. I'm very tempted as I'm getting a lot of water spray up behind the arches. Thanks.