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Hi, and welcome to the story so far of my IS250. I figured since I have started to change a few things, and with some more mods & upgrades planned, I should probably keep tabs on my progress and try and document as much as possible. I enjoy reading this kind of thing about other people's cars, so hopefully you will too. If nothing else, it'll be something useful for the next owner to have a gander at when I eventually part company with it. So, the car then. It's an Argento Ice (1G1) 2011 F-Sport with optional Navigation unit, and it's an automatic of course. I traveled just under 200mls by train, to Darlington, to buy it from a thoroughly nice chap and fellow LOC member in late August 2016. This is my third Lexus IS and my second IS250 F-Sport in a relative short space of time. The previous one being a 2010 model in the rare Sable Metallic (4T5) but this was sadly written-off inside a year with only 27K on the clock. Finding another low-miles F-Sport to replace it proved to be quite difficult and after a couple of months of fruitless searching I was starting to give serious consideration to buying something else. Then one day, someone on the forum announced that they were selling-up... Being honest, silver was not my 1st-choice when looking for a replacement. In fact it was probably near the bottom of the pile in terms of desirability, but the price was just too good to ignore and it sounded like a great car - one owner (a LOC member, no less), 36K miles, FSH & it had been kept in a garage since new. At this point I was thoroughly fed-up of having to borrow other people's cars to get around so I was prepared to compromise and a deal was quickly struck. On the day I arrived to see the car in the flesh for the first time, any misgivings I had about the colour disappeared the minute I pulled-up to the seller's house in a taxi. It was a gloriously sunny day and the IS looked absolutely amazing, sitting there, spotlessly-clean on the driveway. I knew right then and there that I would be going home in it. I quickly told the driver to keep the change because I couldn't wait to exit the taxi and have a closer look. After chatting with the seller over a cuppa and pouring over the car's history and piles of receipts, it was evident that the car had been well looked-after since the day it was purchased from Lexus Nottingham in April 2011. The test drive was pretty short. Just a mere formality really as I was already very familiar with how an IS250 behaves on the road and there was nothing to be concerned about, so the deal was finalised over another cuppa and then the car was mine. There was a generous amount of fuel still left in the tank at the point of sale, but I brimmed the car at Scotch Corner services and planned the journey home on the sat-nav. The obvious choice would've been to head up the A1, but I wasn't in a hurry so instead I headed west on a relaxed cruise along the A66 towards Penrith where I would join the M6, and then subsequently the M74 as I crossed the border before eventually turning off at Abington services in the Clyde Valley to join one of my favourite driving roads, the A702. This is a road that I'm very familiar with and it has it all; great scenery, sweeping fast corners, dips, rises, a few sleepy towns & villages to cruise through, twisty technical sections and plenty of long straights and clear sightlines for overtaking opportunities. Best of all, there's no speed cameras so you can really explore the limits of whatever you're driving. Taking in this road whilst getting to know my new car truly was the icing on the cake. (forgive my lengthy into and waffling but I really did enjoy the whole buying experience of acquiring this car, so I thought I would share it...) Anyway, here's a couple of pics from the sales ad showing how the car looked before I bought it. My first six months or so with the car were fairly uneventful. It had just been serviced, MOT'd and kitted-out with a new set of tyres shortly before it went up for sale, so all I had to do was get it taxed and enjoy it. My first modification (if you can call it that), was in November when I prepped the car for the miserable Scottish winter weather - by swapping out the OEM floor mats for the set of genuine Lexus rubber mats that were included with the car, and by switching to winter tyres. The winter setup was a carry-over from my previous IS250 consisting of 18" 3rd-gen F-Sport wheels shod with 225/40F / 245/40R Pirelli Sottozero 3 tyres, so this was something that didn't cost anything, and arguably looked better than stock so I was happy for my car to wear these for the next 4 or 5 months. The 2016/17 winter weather was particularly awful. Not to the extent that winter tyres were required, but it just seemed to be constantly raining and/or very windy, especially on the occasions when I actually had some free time! So during the dark winter months I just planned what I was going to do next and armed myself with some knowledge, and also picked up a few parts. Fast-forward to the spring and it was time to switch back to summer tyres. A successful PPI claim had given me some funds to play with so I wanted to upgrade to a set of staggered 19" wheels. Sure, the stock 18's look good on a 2nd-gen IS, but 19's look even better!. My initial plan was to save up for a set of graphite OZ Superturismo LMs, but these are pretty expensive and rarely show up on the used market, so I mulled this over for a number of weeks before deciding on my alternative choice of wheel - the OEM "blade" wheels off an IS-F. Produced for Lexus by BBS Japan, these forged and relatively lightweight wheels were hardly a booby prize and were actually a good choice for what I want to achieve. My overall goal for the car could be described as "OEM Plus". To try and make some tasteful improvements to how it looks and performs without ruining it, and to add a bit more of a sporting flavour without it looking out of place. At the end of the day this is my daily driver and I still want it to feel like a Lexus so I'll be using high quality aftermarket or genuine parts from within the Lexus family where possible. In this regard the IS-F wheels are ideal, so when a newly-refurbished set showed up on eBay, I snapped them up. Once the wheels arrived (from Latvia!), my next point of deliberation was tyre choice. I had narrowed the short-list of candidates down to three - Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 3, Dunlop Sport Maxx RT2 or Michelin Pilot Super Sports. In the end I stumped-up for the more expensive Michelins as they've been proven quality for years and are still featuring as an OEM application on various performance cars. Whilst, on the other hand, the other two are quite new on the market with less known about them. Regarding sizes, I took the safe option and went with stock widths as I didn't want to run into problems when I lower the car a touch. I didn't weigh them but just by handling them during fitting and removal and moving the various wheels in and out of storage a few times, the new wheel & tyre combo certainly felt lighter than the OEM F-Sport alloys, despite them being larger. What isn't in question though, is just how much sharper and more precise the steering feels with them, plus grip is superb. Refinement suffered a little of course, but I would say only a little as the car still rides extremely well. On my initial impressions, I was more concerned about the increased road noise and thought I had made a huge mistake, because, boy were these things loud! Thankfully they got a lot quieter after putting a few miles on them but they're still probably louder than a lot of other tyres on the market. I would happily buy them again though. Around this time I also gave the car it's first proper detail during my ownership, and it was badly-needed. After months of being caked with dirt and rock salt, the sides of the car felt like sandpaper, There were literally hundreds of tar spots, so an extensive decontamination and clay bar session paved the way for a course of Super Resin Polish and a coat of Soft99 Fusso Coat. This restored some much-needed shine and lustre to the paintwork, and for the first time in ages, it was actually protected from the elements. (Obligatory snow foam pics) April saw the car pay a visit to Lexus Edinburgh to be serviced and MOT'd and it sailed through with no advisories. In fact, the service manager commented on how clean it was, and how he had to double-check whether they had washed it or not. Next up, was to install a dash-cam. In my previous car I had the relatively cheap, but excellent A118c. And I was in the market for a new one because I carelessly forgot to remove it from the wreck before it was taken away. Anyhow, suitably impressed with how it had performed, I was all set to buy another one when I noticed that there was now an A119 on the market. This promised to be even better and could be installed just as discreetly as the older camera, so I ponied-up an extra few quid to grab one, along with the optional GPS module and a CPL filter. This time, I wanted to make use of the parking mode so that meant hard-wiring it into an "always-on" circuit, so I tapped into the keyless entry system. I was a little worried that this would drain the battery and leave the car unable to start, but so far so good. I've left the car parked-up for 3 or 4 days at a time without any trouble. This is especially impressive, since, after reviewing some footage that was captured whilst parked, it would appear that the motion sensor is pretty sensitive and will trigger the camera into recording an "event" quite easily, So, at times (like when it's raining) the camera can effectively be recording 24/7, yet it doesn't seem to be too much of a burden on the battery. This is something I'm mindful of though, so I'm keeping an eye on it. For the past couple of months, I've just been concentrating on keeping the car clean, but a couple of days ago I done my first "performance" mod when I swapped-out the standard air intake for the official F-Sport one (PTR03-53100). I'd had one of these in my eBay watch list for about 2 years, just waiting for a deal nice enough for me to pull the trigger on. Well, such a deal showed up a couple of weeks ago so I jumped on it. Some pics I took during fitting. Installation was a breeze, very straightforward and quick. I took my time however and cleaned my MAF sensor at the same time, and also cleaned-up some parts of the engine bay that were dusty & dirty before putting everything back together. As for the intake, it's a nice piece of kit. Being an OEM upgrade, you would expect the quality to be very good and the fitment to be perfect, and it is. The general consensus seems to be that this will free up around 3-5 bhp, but that's not something that can be felt. What is noticeable though is the induction sound. There's very little difference, if any, during normal driving but when you push the revs above 3K you're greeted with a fantastic throaty roar. My next move will probably be to lower the car another 10mm or so via a set of H&R springs that I bought ages ago, but until then here's a few pics of how the car looked with the 19" IS-F wheels. Quick Links: F-Sport Gear knob Winter Wheels prep & installation Interior LED upgrade New & current wheel setup IS350 Brake upgrade

Having had my NX Sport for nearly two weeks, today was the day for my first clean. The car has the 'Williams F1' ceramic coating applied by the dealer (well, by an indy the dealer uses) so today was also a good chance to assess the quality of the application and finish The good news is that the paintwork is flawless. Regardless of the merits or otherwise of the Williams coating - which I didn't pay for - the preparation of the car was evidently done very well. My basic regime today was the same as I use for my other cars, although with the Williams coating present I didn't (at this stage) clay or actually prep the paintwork, which I would normally have done. - Snowfoam - Bilt-Hamber Auto-Foam - Wash - Bilt-Hamber Auto-Wash (three bucket method - body, wheels & rinse) - Paintwork & wheels - CarPro Re-Load sealant - Tyres - Bouncers Dress to Impress - Glass - Dodo Supernatural followed by Auto-Perfection Pro Clear - Exterior plastics - Chemical Guys New Look Trim Gel

Hi I purchased a black IS 300h F Sport in April. It's covered just 40k miles but I've never been happy with the paint work. Swirls in the sun and lots of minor scratches. Anyway to cut a long story short I went to a local detailing company and thought I'd share the pics with you. They had the car for a day and a half. They clay bared the car first, then set about the enhancement. To finish they used a sealant, and did the wheels also. They only charged me £180 and Im sure you will agree it's an amazing job. The last pic shows you a 50/50 shot on the boot lid as they were carrying out the work.

Hi, the car is at home. When you pick it up, don't put the manual in the boot. As you"ll never find that little button that you accidently hit and that makes that you won't be able to open the boot anymore. Ben

Of all the car adverts you have seen on TV and in magazines, which ones do you actually remember from a few years ago? Adverts are meant to keep in our subconscience - but which ones do you remember? This was my favourite - at the time!

With a keyless car, it is a pain to keep searching for the keys to use the fob to open gates and garage door, so have have built a Lexus one. I used an old spare remote, took it apart and the soldered 2 wires to the micro switch and attached the wires to a momentary push switch mounted in a blank switch panel. Now just press the button and no need to try to find my keys. Photo of finished job to follow.

Looks great, my lights are looking a little dulled and could do with a polish. think ill have a go at this myself.

While I think about it the DAB radio is not that intuitive so possibly worth setting up some stations in memory as part of the handover. Go through how to find different stations - you have to select a different ensemble. If you don't know this it can appear that the car won't find any DAB stations if set to an ensemble where there are no stations within reach. An ensemble is BBC National, BBC Local, Local, etc. I haven't yet taken delivery of any car that had exactly the right tyre pressures set so I normally check these myself at home under the right conditions. Then reset the TPMS to register the new pressures.

As eamonn said, no air suspension on the Advance models but a better spec with addition of sunroof and LED headlights.

A Japanese Toyota badged Celsior (Lexus LS430). The Lexus brand was only used in Japan since 2006.

The brand name “Lexus” was not used in Japan until quite recently and all models were Toyota badged “Celsior” including the LS430 models. Air suspension was also an option I believe on all Celsiors from launch in 1989, the 1994 Celsior I had until recently was on air suspension and even had Sat Nav. Additionally the Celsior models had 4 levels of specification A,B,C and C-F the latter being the top model with reclining and massage rear seats and rear entertainment console including a Walkman cassette player in the rear armrest.

For what it's worth my 16 year old LS is in top shape, no reason to sell it at all. The reason I'm now looking to sell it is to buy a later GS300 which will cost me more to tax, the only reason....I want too!

@Ace8800 Pictures we love pictures, snow er no we don’t want that 🙄 🐀

I've owned every generation of RX bar the 1st so will try my best to answer your questions. 1) the dead battery affected the 2nd gen RX400h as it had a small battery. The 3RX appears to be unaffected. I left my 2012 RX F Sport garaged with the alarm on for 4 weeks frequently with no issue. 2) The 12 month warranty covers everything bar wear and tear. You can also exchange the car up to 30 days/1000 miles whichever is first if you're not happy. Tyres should be changed if they are under 6mm and the car should be serviced if it is due a service within the next 6 months. 3) The vehicle does not need to be serviced by Lexus. Anyone can service it. However, you would need a separate hybrid health check if servicing independently costing £59 to give you 1 more year of hybrid warranty. If you opt for extended warranty, you can only service it by Lexus. When servicing by Lexus they include the hybrid health check FOC I bought my 3RX new. It cost me £190 for 1st service, then I took a service plan for 2 full and 1 intermediate costing £990 and then £245 over 5 years. The price has recently changed last year and is now fixed. It can be found on the Lexus Website. I paid an additional £27 for half price MOT at Lexus due to having service plan. I had no other costs during this time bar wipers which I bought myself and tyres at 26k which I bought and got Lexus yo fit all 4 for £50 total 4) Seems a fair price and it's low mileage. The 60k service is an expensive one but it's miles away. Don't let the dealer talk you into getting a 60k service done at 6 years as they change the spark plugs which are mileage dependent, not time dependent. Worth remembering that the cars are priced on condition and desperate need to sell, how long it's been lying on the lot and tax breaks for the dealership. It's highly likely that a well priced one needs shifting quicker than one priced a bit over expected I would expect you to negotiate £500-750. You may be lucky at this time of year and get £1000. Don't expect any more. For the GS don't expect anything more than Autotrader valuation p/x price. The GS will be flung through auction so won't make much profit for them. 6) it's a petrol hybrid so will be undeniably reliable at those mileages which a diesel would get choked on. Having said that don't expect great fuel economy. I would imagine 25-30mpg which considering the engine and weight of the vehicle isnt bad at all.

No doubt.. the difference before and after is night n day. The xenons swiched on gave it that extra sparkle, i guess that was the masters desire yeah @Big Rat Booked it in for this sat to get some 50% tints all round and rear diffuser wrap like i had on my last one. Ordered the rear roof spoiler and plastidip for the front grill too. I'll get more pictures up when everthing is done later in the new year. Btw totally off topic, but its snowing in Brum. . .again!

PS check a sunroof carefully (see my comments on recent post about sun roof problems)

Hi Jeff I am a young 75 year old (can’t be middle aged as I am not ready to grow up yet) When my old Toyota truck finally gave up on me 4 years ago I bought a RX350 (2005 but only 28000). I researched the hybrids etc and several other large 4x4s and concluded that although the hybrid version of the. 2005 RX cost about £3000 more when new it would have cost nearly £8000 more when I bought the 350. You get a lot of petrol for £8K! Like you my cars have always been serviced by a local garage. It’s less expensive and more convenient than driving 40 miles to the nearest Lexus agent. I was told that most of the servicing on the 450 is the same as the 350 and the only thing Lexus agents have to do is to check and change the coolant in the inverter (I think that was right). I do about 5000 miles a year, mostly in France, and I reckon the extra cost of the 350 over a hybrid is about 750 a year allowing for the extra road tax and lower mpg but I reckon I would save about £3-400 on not using Lexus for servicing. If you keep the car for about 5-7 years as you have for the RS then I doubt any buyer would care about a Lexus service history as long as the stamps/receipts were available to produce. Personally I would look at a good 350 which will cost you a lot less as they don’t have a good market with the current hysteria about emissions and mpg. I get about 24mpg but on my mileage it isn’ worth bothering about. The 350 is a lovely car. I don’t like the look of the newer 450 and I think the front is very ugly. Other differences are that the 350 is AWD whereas the 450 is a FWD on petrol and RWD on electric with both when you put your foot down.. I thought the alternating drive would feel quite strange but actually I didn’t notice it on a recent test drive. Lexus dealers do, IMO, overprice and the same spec car will vary surprisingly between them. Anyway follow your heart and enjoy it whatever you buy.

I've always been more concerned with bodywork, wheels and tyres. Being a new car, all should be ok but I check them nonetheless. I stand at the front on each side and look up the side of the car looking for dents/dings/blemishes. I do the same from the rear looking back along the side towards the front. Two keys. Full documentation set - should be in a black pack. Ask the sales person to talk you through what docs you should get. You should have a warranty booklet, a service book, a (car) user guide, a satnav user guide and maybe 1 or 2 others. Handover should be good, never had a bad one from a Lexus dealership. Check the invoice matches the details you signed for when you agreed to buy the car, ie the new car order form you signed. Just make sure the numbers are the same. Make sure you take the things along that they ask you to bring on day of collection, especially if part-exing something. Make sure you are getting a new model year NX, there may well be some old model NX's still out there. I'm afraid I can't tell you how to spot the two models but there is a thread on here about the new model year differences. It would be a shame to pay all that money and get an old model year new one and not a model year 2018 model. Unless you've done a good deal on one of the last models of course. The differences are slight and both would still be new cars but I think I'd prefer the slightly updated model if I was collecting in January 2018. Personally, I wouldn't bother checking that everything worked, I'd trust Lexus manufacturing and the dealership checking everything. Get your phone connected before driving off - normally they'll take you through this. Also set your home destination in the satnav if fitted, again they'll normally do this. Finally, look out for any kamikaze pilots on the way home to make sure no one prangs it when it is still shiny and very new!!!

I can't answer most of your questions but, as young thinking, fit 66 year old, I bought a 4th gen RX450h 6 months ago because it was what I WANTED. I had a 7 year old IS220d before that. I do about 3,600 miles a year and it cost me £760 for the 1st intermediate service plus a full service next year at my local Lexus dealership. Yes, maybe I am mad but, hopefully, I'll still be around in 6 or 7 years to be mad again.

With a bit of TLC these cars repair themselves! Keep us up to date how it is performing. Well done.

@Ace8800 Oooh will you just look at that sparkly eyed beast in its lair just waiting for its next outing to satisfy her masters every........... desire............and......... I think I'm losing it all this crimbo stuff it's not good for you Big Rat

Sorry its been a few days...i wanted to test it out and its SOLVED all problems. I still need to clean the egr anyway but so far so good. I wanna thank everyone for their input its all been a major help. Now its time to see how everyone else is getting on lol.

I drop her off at the door (my wife that is, not yours!) and then go and park. A compromise that she is happy with. Also, by the time I've parked she's already started the shopping which reduces my time in the shop!

I just checked mine. The engine is definitely in the same place on my NX as it was on my IS albeit turned through 90 degrees as mentioned above. How can we trust everything we read on the internet if the graphics in our cars are also wrong?

Clips arrived today. Clearly Chinese copies but look the same to the untrained eye. 10x for £2.18 ain’t bad. Popped the replacement in and had a closer look at the panel while I was at it. Not idea why the manual says to remove it when changing the dipped beam as doing so really won’t give you anymore room. Osram Night Breaker Unlimited have been a good improvement over the standard Osram bulbs in before. Not much more distance on the road but brighter, clearer and also light up signs better.

Nice job, the car looks brilliant. I do like the protection strips. They don't look right on some cars but on the NX they look good.

Haven't washed the car for over a week but woke up to a bit of beading this morning so thought I would post a few pics: