Goodbye

[amolkarnik]

I have sold my Is200 now. Should be handed over by the end of the week.

Thanks to everyone who helped and contributed over the past 3.5 years. Time to move on though.

[Fidgits]

What have you got to replace it?

oh, and bye :)

[aido]

All the best mate, and as Ian says, what have you moved onto?

Hope you're enjoying the new purchase anyway :)

[amolkarnik]

What have you got to replace it?

oh, and bye :)

BMW X5. 03 , 3 litre sport with lots of extras and 24k on the clock.

[aido]

Nice one, they're very nice, one of the lads I used to work with had one, massive cars inside!

All the best and enjoy :)

[amolkarnik]

They're very spacious. The 3 litre engine is very smooth and eager. And i've been averaging 23 mpg over the last 800 miles which is very good for a huge automatic that weighs in at 2.1 tonnes.

[Adie]

Lovely car mate IMO. Good luck with it :)

[MrADeveci]

Nice purchase, a step up IMO :D

[chips229]

Hi,

Good luck with the X5,sounds like your getting about the same MPG as the Lexus from a larger cc engine :D

Chips.

[amolkarnik]

Some pics for you...

[Scarlet Pimpernell]

Well done mate - it appears to have the Nav system too. Great choice of colour combo.

Did you try an RX - if so how does it compare?

[amolkarnik]

Its got the leather, auto box (I know this is standard on the RX), satnav (DVD), TV, comms pack, uprated stereo, rear aircon, traffic master, Xenon lamps, sports pack, sports steering wheel, 6 cd changer, rain sensors...

Drove the RX 300 at the time. I think the X5 handles much much better, is quicker. Also feels far more solid than the RX and classier on the inside. The Rx is too American.

Dont mean to dissapoint you guys, but the Lexus never really did it for me. It was ultra-reliable and never failed me. However it was always missing that something. One of the main reasons I bought the Lexus was the value it offered for my money, but for the 3.5 years that I had the car, I always felt second best to a BMW (missing the small touches, fuel economy was awful, handling though great wasnt quite 3 series etc.). Now that I can afford a well specced BMW, I'd need to see Lexus bridge a big gap before I go back.

Before I made up my mind to go back to the beemer, I had a mates 330Ci for 2 weeks. Sedate motorway driving regularly returned 29 mpg and aggressive driving still did 25 mpg. These are IS200 figures and I had a lot more fun. Perhaps the IS350 might tempt me back.

That said, the resale on the IS was very good.