2009 Lexus is200d.

[Heliwilly]

Hi,

Brand new member here who has been given the job of maintaining the above Lexus that my daughter is getting today.

First question. Is this the right Forum for her Lexus.

Second question. What is the “Go to” device for checking for fault codes that will work with apple devices ie iPad.

Thanks

Bill W.

[Linas.P]

I guess it is too late to warn you to stay away from horror which is IS220d/200d. The general advise goes along the lines - don't touch it even with the barge pole and if possible try not to park near to it just in case it is contagious... jokes aside Lexus IS220/200d is the worst ever Lexus model as far as reliability goes and it is plagued by a lot of serious issues with the engine. IS200d is slightly better in a sense that it is detuned from 177hp to 150hp and is less likely to have head gasket issue. All the rest of the issues still remains, so you "only" have to worry about DPF, EGR, Turbo, Injectors, 5th-injector, DMF is as well known to cause issues and is expensive to replace (solid ones available instead, shared issue with manual IS250), the clutch is expensive to replace (as well shared with manual IS250) and rear callipers are problematic (shared with IS250). So in summary compared to automatic IS250 which only has 1 minor issue, the IS220d has 5 serious, 2 medium and 1 minor, IS200d has 4 serious, 2 medium and 1 minor and manual IS250 has 2 medium and 1 minor issue.

The only person I would recommend this car... would be someone who is doing 20k+ miles exclusively on motorway... at that point most of diesel related issues are less likely to occur, the extra maintenance required would be paid for by savings on fuel and the only remaining issue is weird gearing which is not suitable for 70MPH... you kind of need to get to 80-85MPH for 6th gear to work. If doing less then 10k miles then automatic IS250 is way to go, works out about the same for fuel in the city, doesn't have expensive issues with gearbox and doesn't require any maintenance to the engine, except of recommended 5-6k miles oil changes. 

IS220d would be mk2, so you should use the next forum down below. 

As for the app - I guess you can use Torque with any cheap OBD2 Bluetooth adapter, Carista is useless for Mk2, but ideally you should try to get Techstream (you need Windows PC for it). I guess if car has no issue at the moment then Torque will do with basic scanning and code cleaning.

[Malc1]

Bill .  we hope sincerely that your daughter gets a good car with all these issues behind her . hopefully at 14 years young the prior owner would have spent all that's needed on her 

Good luck and our very best wishes for an economic outcome

Malc

[Linas.P]

6 minutes ago, Malc1 said:

 hopefully at 14 years young the prior owner would have spent all that's needed on her 

The problem is that IS200d/220d issues are becoming worse with age not better. EGR needs attention every 5k miles, DPF could clog every 20k if driving for short journeys, so it needs constant expensive maintenance to keep it on the road. I guess the head gasket could have been replaced (but that is not issue IS220d is known for), turbo may have been replaced, but turbo issues are generally caused by either EGR upstream or DPF downstream. Chunks of carbon coming from EGR can clog compressor housing and carbon from DPF can back-up all the way from DPF to clog the turbine. 

So sadly they are not the sort of problems which could be fixed once and then car is fine. If driven on short journeys all diesels will suffer from soot build-up and IS220/200d is worse than other, but in principle have same problems. 

[Las Palmas]

Some have bad luck with the Lexus diesels, but here many of them are driving around and none used for sale, so owners might be happy with them. I believe that as with many cars, a well-maintained car will be a good car to drive in and a mistreated one a disaster.

Hope you got a good one.

[Linas.P]

10 minutes ago, Las Palmas said:

Some have bad luck with the Lexus diesels, but here many of them are driving around and none used for sale, so owners might be happy with them. I believe that as with many cars, a well-maintained car will be a good car to drive in and a mistreated one a disaster.

Hope you got a good one.

True to some degree. The EGR/DPF problems are "all diesel" problems and related to people using the cars wrong... is honestly user error (expect nobody educated people how to use them correctly) - diesel should never do journey which is less than 30 minute or 50 miles, that is what kills them, hence they are so bad in the city, diesels should only be used exclusively for longer journeys and they are great at that.

The other problems are Lexus specific - like head gasket on IS220d, or injectors, or stupid DMF, or expensive clutch. Just to be clear on how expensive - £1000 is starting point for Lexus clutch job add another £600 for DMF if it needs to be changed (cannot be resurfaced like normal fly-wheels) and usually it just makes sense to do DMF with clutch because most of cost is labour and you can't do DMF later without the clutch... so the choice is either spend £1600 today, or spend £1000 today and another £1600 next year anyway. And £1600... that is how much most of IS220d are worth, that is why so many of them are scrapped... they just not worth keeping on the road. 

[Las Palmas]

14 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

The problem is that IS200d/220d issues are becoming worse with age not better. EGR needs attention every 5k miles, DPF could clog every 20k if driving for short journeys, so it needs constant expensive maintenance to keep it on the road. I guess the head gasket could have been replaced (but that is not issue IS220d is known for), turbo may have been replaced, but turbo issues are generally caused by either EGR upstream or DPF downstream. Chunks of carbon coming from EGR can clog compressor housing and carbon from DPF can back-up all the way from DPF to clog the turbine. 

So sadly they are not the sort of problems which could be fixed once and then car is fine. If driven on short journeys all diesels will suffer from soot build-up and IS220/200d is worse than other, but in principle have same problems. 

It is the same engine as in some Toyota cars? Never heard about bad diesels from them other places than here on the forum. If there is a returning problem every 5k miles, is it something taken care of when car is serviced? Expensive to do that? Here there are many of the diesels driving round without black clouds after them, unlike many other old diesel cars.

[Linas.P]

9 minutes ago, Las Palmas said:

It is the same engine as in some Toyota cars? Never heard about bad diesels from them other places than here on the forum. If there is a returning problem wevery 5k miles, is it something taken care of when car is serviced? Expensive to do that? Here there are many of the diesels driving round without black clouds after them, unlike many other old diesel cars.

Same engine as Avensis 2.2TD... don't know if they have same problems as Avensis does not interest me. EGR cleaning is not part of any service schedule, so it it never get's cleaned... in principle not very complex job - just remove it and get soot scrubbed out of it, but if you not doing it yourself, then expect a trip  at least once a year to some independent shop and £200 bill just for that (and that is what I pay for entire service for IS250).

All IS220d/200D I have seen on the road (very glad I am not seeing them often) had black smoke from the back... all diesel owners say their cars do not smoke and all of them are wrong (or delusional). Accelerate hard and almost all of them will have black smoke coming out of the back. 

The theory is quite simple - when above 50MPH and with engine at 2000RPM+ and at working temperature DPF regen starts, so in theory the system should be "self-cleaning", but that is only true if you regularly drive 50MPH+ at 2000RPM and with engine fully warmed-up... meaning motorway driving. If car is used in the city, then it simply NEVER get's to regenerate. 

[Las Palmas]

2 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

The theory is quite simple - when above 50MPG and with engine at 2000RPM+ and at working temperature DPF regen starts, so in theory the system should be "self-cleaning", but that is only true if you regularly drive 50MPH+ at 2000RPM and with engine fully warmed-up... meaning motorway driving. If car is used in the city, then it simply NEVER get's to regenerate. 

That is what I did with the Golf 2.0tdi DSG before MOT. Drive fast 10 minutes in low gear and exhaust was cleaned. Do not know if engine was cleaned as never had any problems with it from 2005, only regular service more or less yearly, till we got the CT.

[Heliwilly]

I don’t know why everyone is knocking the diesel Lexus. I have had diesel cars for years and never had trouble. I presently run a diesel Jeep.

The car my daughter has bought has 200,000 plus miles on the clock and the engine and running gear are fine and quiet. Maybe it is just one of the good ones?

Another couple of questions.

Where is the best place to get bits and pieces for a Lexus? The under bonnet covers are all just laid over the sides with all the fasteners missing. Where can I get these fasteners?

I also need a Battery tray, as the Battery is loose and the threaded fastener nearest the front of the car is missing. The clamp that fits over the Battery is either not the right one, or it is an incorrect Battery fitted, as it doesn’t seem to sit correctly across the Battery.

Thanks

Bill W.

[Shahpor]

Ignore these is220d naysayers Bill, as an ex Lexus diesel owner myself, I was quite happy with mine 🙂

200k miles? Wow, that must be one of the highest out there!  Obviously well looked after it seems.

As for parts, you could try Lexus Parts Direct for the fasteners, although they aren't the cheapest:

https://lexuspartsdirect.co.uk/product/lexus-trim-push-clip/

To be honest, for the bit you are after, you are probably better off finding one being broken up on eBay.

[Linas.P]

5 hours ago, Heliwilly said:

I don’t know why everyone is knocking the diesel Lexus. I have had diesel cars for years and never had trouble. I presently run a diesel Jeep.

The car my daughter has bought has 200,000 plus miles on the clock and the engine and running gear are fine and quiet. Maybe it is just one of the good ones?

Another couple of questions.

Where is the best place to get bits and pieces for a Lexus? The under bonnet covers are all just laid over the sides with all the fasteners missing. Where can I get these fasteners?

I also need a battery tray, as the battery is loose and the threaded fastener nearest the front of the car is missing. The clamp that fits over the battery is either not the right one, or it is an incorrect battery fitted, as it doesn’t seem to sit correctly across the battery.

It is not "knocking" it is just saying what are the issues related to these cars, they are known to fail land be expensive to fix. And besides of that - it is objectively the worst Lexus ever made and if there is one car NOT to get with Lexus badge then IS220d would be that. It is nothing personal, it is just Lexus tried making diesel, made an absolute mess out of it and never made another one again.

I know forum is a little bit wrong place to do numbers as people don't usually come to forum unless they have an issue, but 90% of the issue related to Mk2 Lexus IS are the ones related to IS220d... and the ones related to IS250 more often tends to be previous damage, or lack of maintenance, but not something inherent to the model.

200k miles may actually be a good sign, probably means that car was doing loads of miles on motorway, rather than short city trips and that is better.

3 hours ago, Shahpor said:

Ignore these is220d naysayers Bill, as an ex Lexus diesel owner myself, I was quite happy with mine 🙂

200k miles? Wow, that must be one of the highest out there!  Obviously well looked after it seems.

As for parts, you could try Lexus Parts Direct for the fasteners, although they aren't the cheapest:

https://lexuspartsdirect.co.uk/product/lexus-trim-push-clip/

To be honest, for the bit you are after, you are probably better off finding one being broken up on Ebay.

You should as well note that you had particularly good use case and 120 daily miles on mostly motorways, I already said that if that is sort of driving one is doing the IS220d/any diesel may not be a bad choice. Further you were expert owner doing your own preventative maintenance and that is what helped the car along. But that should not be expectation of any owner. 9 out of 10 ownership stories ends-up in tears... 

[Mincey]

Over the past few weeks I've been playing "Diesel or Petrol" whenever I see a Gen 2 IS. Diesels have outnumbered petrols 5 to 1. And before anyone asks, yes they were different cars.

[Linas.P]

38 minutes ago, Mincey said:

Diesels have outnumbered petrols 5 to 1

Overall in Europe maybe?

In UK:

IS250 ~14,100 (which includes like 500 mk3 and 1000 250C)

IS220d ~ 15,250 (including ~700 IS220d).

But time clearly wasn't kind to them... despite starting at ~1:1, now there is ~7,800 diesels left, yet still ~12,000 petrols. So diesels lost nearly half of the cars whereas petrols only 2000.