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Is300 Vs Is200

marshy

By marshy
in Lexus IS200 / Lexus IS300 Club

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marshy Enthusiast

marshy

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I thought I'd share my experience of two weeks behind the wheel of an IS300 after two years of driving an IS200SE.

The autobox is very smooth, the 5 speed unit and 3 litre engine is a really nice combination. Is the autobox a Lexus/Toyota part or is it bought in? The manual override is also great for getting the car in the right gear before overtaking, I find the kick down a little slow sometimes especially when it jumps two gears in quick succession.

I really miss the wide-angle rear-view mirror. There was virtually no blind spots on the IS200. I suppose the auto dimming rear mirror on the IS300 goes some way to make up for it. It does work very well and night driving is much easier on the eyes. If I am not mistaken the wing mirrors dim too, very nice, absolutely great when you get someone with badly adjusted lights behind you.

The fuel consumption is terrible around town. It really is much more thirsty than the IS200. As soon as you get above 50mph and turn cruise on there is very little difference. I am getting about 420 miles per tank where as I used to get 450.

It feels much more stable on the road too, does that extra 1 litre make much of a difference to the weight of the vehicle? Is the IS300 suspension the same as an IS200? I suppose the tyres might make a difference, I am on Dunlops currently and my IS200 was on Yokos.

The HIDs are very bright and give a lovely white light. On full beam it really does look like daylight outside, night time driving is a joy again.

The full leather seats are a little colder on the botty than the half leather ones of the IS200 but I can live with that...

That’s about it so far. I am very impressed and glad I made the change, I would recommend the IS300 to anyone else who thinks the stock IS200 is underpowered.

:)

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ColinBarber Grand Master

ColinBarber

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The autobox is very smooth, the 5 speed unit and 3 litre engine is a really nice combination. Is the autobox a Lexus/Toyota part or is it bought in?

Toyota use Aisin-AW for their auto transmissions. Basically a Toyota division that was made into a separate company - same sort of thing as Denso.

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Brettster Grand Master

Brettster

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I used to get a max of 250 miles per tank in my auto is200 and it cost me around £55 to fill up with optimax

im getting the same amount from my GS300 and it only cost me £50 to fill up when the orange light came on !!!

all my driving is stop start traffic tho :(

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lexicon Proficient

lexicon

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Good ain't it?

I agree with the 'box - mostly very smooth and more responsive in "M" than I thought it would be. The kickdown is irritating in that it will only downshift 1 gear at a time, so I use manual mode nearly all the time.

The interior mirror takes a bit of getting used to after the wide-angle one, and yes, the outside mirrors dim also (just a bit) - I miss the permanent heating though and they seem to get mucky quicker as a result.

If your SE was standard, don't forget that you now have sport suspension which makes quite a difference to the way it feels.

The HIDs are great - but main beam is still standard bulbs.

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lexicon Proficient

lexicon

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Approx how many miles are left in the tank when the orange light comes on?

Morse i aint 100% sure but i think its 15miles worth of driving  ....  :huh:

Dont recommend letting ya tank run that low pick up the ******* in the bottom

Nearer to 50 than 15 - might vary a bit from car to car I guess but my 200 & 300 both seem to have about 2 gallons left when the light comes on.

Depends how brave you are :)

420 is about what I get to a tank - that's about 30 to 40 miles down on the 200.

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squarehead Experienced

squarehead

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Thanks for the feedback Marshy.

But do you really honestly think that the extra cash is worth the extra performance as the IS200's spec is almost as good as the IS300 (or is it?), is the handling better & ride any better?

I've often thought about trading my IS200 for a 300 but the automatic puts me off, not that I'm knocking the IS300 at all, It would have been nice to see a model difference e.g. BMW 320i & 330i diff. OEM alloys & bumpers.

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Jiberjaber Mentor

Jiberjaber

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The best I have had out of a tank has been 408miles (59L) (31.2mpg).

I managed to squeeze 60.4L in to the tank on Friday but had only got 376 miles out of the last lot (28.1 mpg) but I had been canning it a little.

All the above was on Optimax, I have since (as of yesterday) reverted back to normal UL to see if there is any difference. Only just put the first tank through yesterday 29.2mpg out of 314 miles, but I shouldnt see any difference untill I get upto a couple of tanks of normal UL.

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Damer Mentor

Damer

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If I do a bit of M'way driving I can get 400+ out of my auto. Lots of town driving brings it down to circa 350, thats on Optimax or the BP Premium stuff. Drops down alot if I use supermarket petrol.

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marshy Enthusiast

marshy

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Thanks for the feedback Marshy.

But do you really honestly think that the extra cash is worth the extra performance as the IS200's spec is almost as good as the IS300 (or is it?), is the handling better & ride any better?

I've often thought about trading my IS200 for a 300 but the automatic puts me off, not that I'm knocking the IS300 at all, It would have been nice to see a model difference e.g. BMW 320i & 330i diff. OEM alloys & bumpers.

The IS300 is certainly a more refined car. The gear ratio provides much lower rpm when cruising, 80mph is below 3000rpm. The trouble I found with the IS200 is that below 4500rpm you might as well be driving a 1.6l. You really have to rev that 2l engine to make it perform. Yes I know it's a precision Japanese unit and red lining in every gear is not going to cause harm, but it's the scream that I just couldn't get used to. The poor thing always sounded as if I was whipping it to within an inch of it's life.

The IS300 is definitely quicker but in a much more subtle way. Maybe it's the reduced noise but I have glanced at the speedo and been truly shocked sometimes as the attained velocity.

It's not just down to the engine it’s the complete package. The full leather seats, the dimming rear mirror, the HID headlamps, stainless trim on exhaust, centre arm rest, rear tints etc etc. All items I didn’t have on my IS200SE but just make the driving experience more pleasurable.

The IS300 is also rarer. Have a shufty for an IS300 in Autotrader. I checked yesterday and every single one is from a dealership. I just checked on lexus.co.uk and they only have 7 IS300 with satnav compared to 71 IS200s.

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eddiea1 Proficient

eddiea1

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The fuel consumption is terrible around town. It really is much more thirsty than the IS200. As soon as you get above 50mph and turn cruise on there is very little difference. I am getting about 420 miles per tank where as I used to get 450.

I run my IS300 on Optimax and Ive never managed to get more than 350 miles out of a tankful..... :angry:

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