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love it, brilliant, could almost attach a lawnmower gang to it and have some real fun ..... what surprises me, having scrolled thru' many of the Ls400s appearing for sale on that site is the vast number of offerings where the traders just don't mention the mileage on the car ........... who would even bother to look at them !!!! Malc

Hi guys. Long time no see. Last time I posted something here was because I had some weird screeching noise coming from the right side of my car. The noise is long gone, I suspect it was due to my new Mintex discs which were possibly rubbing on the back plate. I kind of ignored it because three garages including Lexus in Leicester didn't know what it was. The noise just seized to exist after a month of driving. So my review is as follows. I've had the car since April 2014 and already covered 9k miles in it. The IS200 build quality is amazing; there are no faults with the car and it drives like new - touch wood. The car feels very premium, mind you my 2005 SE model has all the extras installed: 6 speed manual transmission, satnav, sunroof, leather heated seats, all electric (even the boot), limited edition gun metal grey rims, etc. The car doesn't eat any oil which is good, however because it is quite heavy and has 6 cylinders it eats quite a lot of petrol, then again if you're worried about fuel then this isn't a car for you - and c'mon, the engine note is music to my ears. I do feel that it's underpowered as 157bhp isn't enough for me to overtake someone without having to panic all the time. I think that it could have been perfect without an extra cylinder, with higher gear ratios on the manual gearbox and at least 200 horses onboard. Its traction control is beyond amazing, it thinks for you and corrects you very well. I have reached its highest speeds... Will not mention what speed but it was very-very close to the end, and it didn't feel scary at all, the car felt very solid on the road with the premium Pirelli tires. Now the sad part. My Lex has been damaged by idiots (as seen in pics) who shouldn't be allowed to drive on the roads. It is so bad that I had to buy a dash cam so that I could catch the b*****ds who hit and run - this happened several times; it's disgusting to come back to your car and see the damage on it which was anything from leaving a dint in the supermarket, to driving off and scraping my bumper real nicely. Another sad news is that I will need to downgrade myself to a small car as my wife needs to learn how to drive and we'll be buying her a car and myself one; this means saying goodbye to my IS200 as I can't afford to keep three cars in the family. I will be very sad saying goodbye, as the car was amazing and I am not sure how I'll cope with something of less luxury. One negative thing to note is that the IS200 is very hard to sell. People want to pay you below its market value and everyone seems to be afraid of petrol.

That Volvo is amazing!

sorry just read your thread here - ignore my question in the other thread - glad it got sorted in the end

Phil, Glyn Jones of Heswall on the Wirral is a Toyota Indie. Try phoning him and ask his advice. 01513429944. Regards John

Hi Billy, nice looking IS :)

The aim of 700miles (=1126km) on a single tank is realistic provided that a certain amount of self-inflicted irritation and temporary loss of driving pleasure are not issues. Once, and only once, I managed 979km (=608miles) with 55.9 litres (=12.3 gallons), this being the amount of petrol consumed between a full-to-the-brim tank start and the appearance of the low-fuel warning. Arithmetic tells me that at this rate of consumption I would have got to 1158km (=720miles) before running dry about 10 litres (=2.2 gallons) later. I am not planning to repeat this experience because: (a) the effort in terms of self-discipline is frankly not worth it; (b) I am sensitive to rude gestures from other road users who want to go faster or overtake, and © I obviously (and shamefully) misled those same road users into thinking that the 300h is a slow car. In other words, having come from a second-generation IS250, I proved to my own satisfaction that the 300h can be an amazingly economic car to drive. Generally speaking, I now fill up when the low-fuel warning comes on every 870-920km (=540-570 miles) or so, with maybe 170km (=100 miles+) to spare, and I really no longer think too much about transmission modes or the occasionally excessive weight of my right foot.

I had an IS200 Sport and then swapped it for a '07 GS450h SE-L just over a month ago. The GS is back at Lexus for some warranty work, and for the last week or so, I have been driving around in a '14 IS250 Premier and have clocked almost 1000 miles on it. The following is my quick opinion after driving all three Lexuses for relatively extended periods: Interior quality - IS200 feels like it has the most "solid" interior of the three. After 13 years and 130k miles, it is still creak and rattle-free. The GS on the other hand has a mixture of creaks and rattles depending on the ambient temperature and road conditions. The IS250 loaner has 2000 miles on the clock yet it does rattle slightly on certain coarse roads. Ride quality - GS wins hands down. Very smooth ride and excellent seats. I find the IS250 to be rather firm (not uncomfortably so) and the IS200 is somewhere in between. Handling - IS250 stands out here, it does feel like the successor that the IS200 would be proud of :). Very sharp car and I really enjoy driving it at the moment. Audio quality - This baffles me. Both the GS and IS250 are fitted with Mark Levinson systems. Yet, to my ears, the 8-speaker system on the IS200 Sport still sounds the best! With all presets at neutral, the GS sounds bass-heavy whilst the IS250 is treble-heavy. To me, the IS200 has the most "natural" sound of the three. That's my take on how the IS200 stacks up against those cars. :)

I was recently looking at swapping my Lexus IS200, 51 plate for a Mercedes CLK230 supercharged of the same year, i know these can suffer badly with rust but the person assured me that it only had one small patch by an arch. Well after driving a lot of miles, the car had rust on every arch as well as the cills, but it was when i got into the car that i realised how nice my Lexus was, the wood looked so cheap and shiny, like plastic... some of the things inside didn't work and there were gaps everywhere, you'd close a panel in the centre console and you could slide pound coins through them. Then i took it for a drive and it felt like it had been smoking 200 bensons a day for 50 years... Considering this car was like £40K or more new, it was shocking and i could not wait to get out and back into my Lexus, it felt like bloody heaven ;-)

I have the same metallic rubbing noise - when turning - doesn't seem to have any effect on anything though. Just sounds annoying when you have the windows down on a sunny day...