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Just an update on this. It’s now been 4 weeks and there is a noticeable improvement in both mpg and battery state of charge. It holds its charge a lot better and I am back to seeing over 50mpg daily on it now. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I like Doug as well. Annoying voice but picks out the random stuff you wouldn't normally pick out.

That certainly seems right. Earlier today I came across the NCAP report on the Lexus ES, which has been given Best in Class for 2018. The IS also got Best in Class for 2013 when it was launched. It's interesting to see the videos of the crash testing to see how they perform. It's on this page - click on Videos about half way down. You can find the IS report and videos by clicking on Best in Class on the left and then 2013.

They won't do 5. It's not German.

That was easy! I’ll send my bank details. Minimalist is sadly not on the wife’s shopping list.

Gawd, glad to hear that nobody was injured. Tsk, the truck driver shouldn't be relying on tech aids. Nobody should! I hope your insurance claim goes through quickly and with minimal hassle.

Hi all, This Sunday just gone I took a 500 mile round trip to Liverpool from Kent to view the F Sport attached in the photos. The road test was awesome and it has ML which totally blew me away when I cranked it up. I love the Fuji red and the options it has are bang on. I have been looking for the right package within my budget for about 9 months!! Of course it was a no brainer and I duly put a deposit on it and I will get the train back up to collect it on Saturday week. To say I am quite excited is an understatement, there are a few little cosmetic bits that will be done before collection as part of the deal. The sales guy, Richard, was great to deal with, no pressure sales and pretty much left me and the missus to it as we went over the car. He did say the previous owner was quite active on here. Not sure what his name is as I didn't take notice on the log book but the car was from the the Birmingham/Coventry area and Brighton prior to that from new. I was the proud owner of a mint 2001 IS200 that I had for almost 12 years but that finally threw in the towel Christmas 2017 with almost a quarter of a million miles on the clock with only a clutch being the most major thing replaced in the time I had it. The engine finally developed a fault which became too expensive to sort so it went to the great scrap yard in the sky..... sad times!! Fast forward to January 2019 and now I have the 300h as I am so so pleased with the reliabiity of the Lexus brand and I am looking forward to many miles of fun. I'm sure I will be lurking around on here as, no doubt, there will be questions I will have. Thanks for having me!! 😃 Cheers, Lee

Understood. John

I shouldn't worry about the in-house VAG magazine, they have to keep their principal advertisers happy, and their biddable readership. I read that Lexus are looking to sell a meagre 700 ES in its first year in the UK. Not a massive target. Enlightened folk like us (!) will buy the right Lexus for us, the problem is for greater sales amongst the Audi/Mercedes/BMW set is getting the - generalising here - image obsessed user-chooser company-car driver to realise it's not all about office car park Top Trumps and what Jeremy Clarkson thinks (or whoever it is people follow now). If only you could say to them: "drive the thing, and imagine it's 200 miles to go to home, its a wet Wednesday evening, brake lights are stacked for 800 yards ahead. Hmm, that understeer-oversteer balance doesn't seem quite so important now, does it? " [Channelling Alan Partridge there]. Some hope. Anyway, just so long as Lexus sell enough to keep it in the UK market, so I consider one in five years time... 😁

Dont want to share the footage from the dashcam until the claim goes through, but this was my view after bouncing off the central res (forward facing dash cam). I bet that driver also needs new underwear.

Having experienced corrosion in at least one wheel of each of three of my first four Lexus'es, all pre-2011 and bought new, I can understand Paul's thinking. However, having seen no similar issues with a 2013 IS300h and a 2016 RC300h, I thought, wrongly to judge by Les' experience, that Lexus had finally fixed what had become an embarrassingly serious quality problem. Strange though it may sound, despite my irritation every time the corrosion appeared, Lexus' unvarying promptness in honouring the warranty and replacing the alloys ultimately had the effect of strengthening my loyalty to the marque. Maybe I was lucky with the two dealerships involved - in fact I'm sure I was - but, measured in terms of courtesy and decisiveness, Lexus' behaviour in warranty situations could not have been more favourable when compared to BMW, Audi and Lancia - which were the houses with which I had most recently had dealings, usually with a lot of hassle over even the smallest issues. That Lexus, with its reputation for quality and reliability, should offer a warranty of only three years is absurd, especially when every dealer I have spoken to claims that the number of issues seen during the fourth and fifth years of a car's life is very rarely higher than during the first three. Lexus supposedly bases its three years on the fact that the majority of its customers outside the US (where I believe you get four) are corporate and not private and therefore less worried about longer-term reliability. Its main competitors, moreover, don't offer longer warranties, though we can be sure that if any one of the big Germans were to break ranks and extend theirs, Lexus would quickly follow suit. Conversely, the majority of Toyota customers are private and not corporate and, for this reason - and despite the company's good reputation for reliability - there must be growing pressure to bring the present five-year warranty closer to the seven or eight years offered by some Japanese competitors, notably Honda, but most enticingly by the Koreans, who seem to be basing much of their promotional activity on it. year warranty

Another one for 390-400 miles a tank. Even in this much cooler weather it very rarely drops below 360 miles. The worst I’ve had was 330 and that was because I turned Eco Mode off and drove it like I stole it! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Another thumbs up for dash cams! Another thumbs up for driving a safe car!

I've just removed/re-installed my 98 LS ECU and I have to say it was not super easy, but do-able with a 6/10 PITA factor.... the Scoty Kilmer video rather craftily does not show the removal of the upper bracket nut which is behind another small box of electrical tricks with it's own little bracket that hides the upper nut... this little box does not seem to budge, but wiggle wiggle got it out, eventually!! But as Stuart says, your 93 LS ECU is laying differently, so hopefully easier to remove. I purchased the ECU capacitors separately as a kit from ebay and I had a local ECU repair company remove the old and solder them in for £40 (took about an hour). Repair prices I've seen quoted on here range from £30-£80, so £150 sounds a lot. I don't think you should sell the car until you've tried replacing the ECU capacitors. Check this thread out https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-1st-and-2nd-gen-1990-2000/656360-all-my-crazy-lexus-issues-solved-ecu-leaking-capacitor.html

This is what I ordered 072 Enduroline Car Battery 75Ah

Sure..... Go minimalist, less is more.... 😉

I looked at it whilst on my travels as a potential project car and I would describe it as an 'opportunity.' It has an electrical fault with the headlights (they kept flashing, it may now be fixed) and various bodywork issues. The front and rear bumpers need to be taken off, fixed and refitted. I think it needs new arch liners, NS headlamp washer nozzle broken off and some paint here and there. The oil level low warning light came on too whilst idling, I wasn't strong enough to undo the oil cap either. It had no MOT so I didn't drive it..It had the feeling of a nice car that had fallen into the wrong hands in recent times. Most ISF enthusiasts would and should walk away but someone with the resources to restore it properly and economically, might, after going over it more thoroughly than I did, negotiate a good deal. I would want to do a proper test and inspection on ramps following them putting a new MOT on it and it would need to be substantially reduced from the asking price. If it is basically mechanically sound then at say £10.5k ish it could be a cheap route to own an ISF.

So you do not plant your right foot to the bottom then. I can't resist that powerful acceleration. My wife drives the RX during the week as I have one of the best cars for work ( a company diesel car which returns 60 mpg) and when I managed to get an excuse to drive the Lexus, I can not stop myself to feel that power of smooth acceleration. Maybe I will grow out of it one day( I hope not)

UPDATE: The clip was missing on number 5 lead so this was not firing at all, and there was water in plugs 3,4,5 and 6. So as my mechanic was down there, it was worth replacing all plugs, coils and leads. It is now fine. We will see. My concern is why was there what appears to be rain water in there? Anyway I will monitor and see how it goes.

No worries Lee, glad to help when I can

@Herbie, thanks for the video as I hadn't seen/heard of Aukey before and they maybe an option for the wife's wagon (she'd like dashcam's but doesn't want to shell out too much). They're neat and slimline too unlike many of the other cheaper options I've seen

Hi Ian, I have purchased in May 2018 RX450h 2012 with 161,000 on the clock and runs without any problems. One company owner from new with all Lexus main dealer stamps. I just test drive the car and called Lexus from the number on the service book to confirm if they have serviced and carried out all the jobs on the car and they confirmed it. I am so happy with the car and hope to use it for a long term 4-5 more years for about 8,000 miles a year. The high mileage specially on hybrids is not the same as with the combustion engines only. The combustion( petrol or diesel) engine is under the most stress when pulling off. The difference with hybrid system is you will have one or two electrical engines to get the car in motion and then the combustion engine will kick in to help if needed. This simple help from the electrical engine(s) is much appreciated by the combustion engine and that allows for high mileage without any major problems. You will be amazed of how well Lexus cars are put together. You will have a very good idea with comparing it to the SL 500. All the best and keep us updated.

No the Birmingham one. I used to work in Whitley for JLR, so would have been close to your one too.

Why are you going to pay well over the odds for a "Lexus" camera? And why did you strip it all out? You've done all the hard work and I've never yet seen a dashcam that doesn't connect by MiniUSB - you could have left the wiring in situ and just changed the cam. Have a look at this review - a dual system, front and back, for about £110 or you can get just the front for about £80. Irrespective of the cost though, this guy likes it so much that he's now got one permanently in his own car, which is good enough for me because this guy reviews dozens and dozens of things.

Welcome Lee ! Great looking car and good choice of wheels. I’ve had mine 6 months now and it’s flown by, still look forward to getting in it in the morning to go to work.

All done. In the end there were 2 compressors to choose from both by Denso and I bought the wrong one, schoolboy error. Apart from them looking very different the price is different too, £285 v £355, Mine is the expensive one! Independent garage near Ringwood did evacuation, compressor change, regas and test for £140. All good now but I'm £1600 lighter after that and the MOT, that's nearly the value of the car!

I had problems with my SC’s battery going flat and thought the same, so disconnected them but following week battery flat again, was told to switch stereo off prior to parking up as amp will still be live and drawing a current if you leave it on and switch ignition off... not had a flat battery since

That’s not a filter it’s just a separator bowl, undo the the tap on it and drain it down. Don’t forget to use the prime function after.

Hi Ian, I'm not certain this will help but I thought I'd share my story with my RX400h. (After finding so much help when I was looking for a car) October 2017 and my wife wants to replace her car. She uses it mainly around town and drives to work 3 times per week. We also do the occasional long trip to the continent. We wanted a spacious and comfortable car for the longer trips for 2 adults and two teenagers. It also needed to be slightly higher up than a normal car. We started looking at standard SUVs (Nissan Quasqhai etc) but weren't keen.We decided the best bet was to go upmarket, looking for something older to fit our budget but still reliable. After much research we narrowed it down to the Lexus RX400h or Volvo XC60 . Why not the Volvo? - well nearly all were diesels and after issues with DPF previously we wanted a petrol, so the Lexus it was. We knew we'd most likely be looking at a car with 100,000 miles plus and over 10 years old. To be honest there was a lot of dross out there. Many with the timing belts not being changed ("I'm certain it's been done but I've lost the paperwork..."), tatty interiors (torn seats) etc. After much searching we found a decent private sale with 131,000 miles, full service history but it needed a service. It had minor things needed doing (Roof bars needed powder coating, some interior trim replacing ) but really just needed a good clean. The main thing was the timing belt and water pump was done at 100k. I can appreciate the concern with the hybrid but I think the technology is pretty robust and talking to my indie (Toyoda Tech) you're more likely to have other issues than the hybrid battery. If the hybrid does go (from my understanding) you can replace it but it's not cheap (used battery on ebay £600). However,compared to the cost of replacing parts on Mercs (SBC brake unit in Mercs will fail at some point - £1,000 to replace) or Range Rovers / Volvos, this is pretty reasonable. Either way just over 15 months later with 143,000 mile on the clock apart from the first main service the car has been perfect. It's ticked all the boxes being quiet comfortable and spacious. The only thing I've done is replace and upgrade the battery (£54 Yuasa 48ah) due to some strange system warnings come up when it's cold. Once changed no more issues. I'm also a Merc fan and have a CLS500 but annoyingly the kids now always ask to go in their mum's car! The only downside is it's not great on petrol but then again compared to the Merc it's positively economical. My advice would be don't be rushed in to buying something, make sure it's got a good service history and find a good local indie (Toyoda Tech have been great ..) Maybe we've been lucky but I'd not hesitate in getting another. Your 100K car I'd look for a local Toyota/Lexus Indie to look it over.

I can't take his reviews...although I can stand Doug which is odd. I still watch some of Harry Metcalfe's video's and recently I've been watching the carguys (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs73OB7y7xFhktZ8JU4TDCg) who have some great classic cars as well as new ones.

Well I though the concept looked great, the camo pictures looked good but I like the production version much less from the front or back. Although surely nobody can dislike a Zagato esk double bubble. And Smee ! I don't like him. Took one for the team though and listened all the way which qualifies me to suggest you give him a miss. That's 20 minutes of my life I wont get back but every day a school day as they say.

£345 sounds like a good price for pads and discs and labour! I'd take it at that price. I've not seen any third-party discs for the GS450h (floating rotor), and genuine discs alone for a mk3 are almost £200 - Maybe there's £260 of parts there, in which case £85 to have them fitted is as much as you'll pay at any other garage, so I'd go with the dealer on this one.

mmm a bit confused now Georges comment is inline with what the manual states however my key also looks like the second key and the smart function works on it including the boot

Back in the day they were so nice, speaking as someone who had one of the very first MR2's to hit the UK I always liked the Celica and Supra of that era. I think the new car is more Celica than Supra given the dimensions.

Sorry guys but this is the Supra I'd have... Haters gonna hate...

The one on the bottom of pic1 and right of pic2 (without the boot opening button) is the Valet key and the Smart doesn't work on those.

Was i..... and cost of leather seat base with intrigated heater element would of been £1350 plus vat had it not of been covered by extended warranty i had...on the LS600hL. And most likely other LSs and other models the leather and heater element are intrigated together and aren’t separate hence the price,,,, and indeed ended up being a £10-20 relay that was at fault

Hey Herbie I had meant to come back but I have been off work for a while. I spent half of one of my days off investigating the issue, and found some posts elsewhere that relate to exactly this issue. There is a known issue with e RX400h of the age I have which is that when your starter battery goes to a very low level the warnings kick in and eventually the battery eventually fully ran out. The starter battery is very small for the size of the car and has been changed for the 450h I believe (from what I have read). Number one cause of this issue I have found is loading the vehicle, there are other causes like people sitting in the car with the radio on and the engine off, when you load the vehicle even with the doors open (even if you shut them when heading back for more stuff) the battery will drain very quickly. I had the boot and the side doors open a number of times (did not use the electric boot) and I believe this drained it to a very low level, did a short trip to the shop, turned the car off, then went to set off for the main journey with the battery low and the bells and whistles all went off. Spent the whole xmas period stressing over it. Came home, first day I got time to do it I whipped out the starter battery and charged it (note to self smart chargers don't display the charge level but the power needed to charge the battery, I thought when it dropped down from 5 to 3 the battery was not holding charge). Popped it back in and every came back to life. Reset windows sorted radio presets. Hoping that will be the end of it as I use it daily but will be getting receipt from the seller and getting warranty replacement on the battery if needed.

Things to look for... Service History - Look for Plus 60 (60k/6 year service) to check if that has been completed (including Spark Plugs) as that is the biggest service it needs (about £900 from Lexus). Check invoices (if available) to see if water pump has been replaced as that is the only real weakness on the ISF that I am aware of. If you get a chance to drive it, try both normal and sport mode. Normal mode the throttle has a dead zone for just cruising whereas Sport mode is instant throttle response. Snow mode.... I believe it has the E-Diff rather than mechanical LSD (you can tell from steering wheel. If it has blue section at bottom it has mechanical LSD). Other thing that's fairly common is the aux belt slipping a bit under hard acceleration. Mine has done this since the day I bought it 3 years ago and doesn't bother me. Quite a lot of them do it if you look on youtube at ISF's being launched. Squeaky front seats are a quick tighten with a 10mm spanner. The safety recall will more than likely be the passenger airbag recall. Day job completed by Lexus so no cost to yourself. Don't be surprised if front tyres are worn on inside. Common with most of them although mine wear evenly for some reason since I have had alignment completed by Wheel Alignment Specialist in Southampton. From the pics it looks like it has Conti Sport 6's all round so a good sign that previous or current owner has put decent rubber on it. If brake discs/pads look like they need replacing then a relatively cheap consumable if you get some Brembo or Pagid discs/pads from Euro Car Parts in one of their numerous 50% off all brake sales. The MOT history is a bit random... the parking brake efficiency is a common one. Mine is being adjusted before it's MOT next week when it has a 10 year service as well. My main concern is the unreadable mileage and the 45k mile jump in MOT between 2010 and 2012. Also with it being a 2009 then why would it need an MOT in 2010 (assuming new cars are still exempt from MOT's for 3 years). That kind of mileage and the gap for 2 years... Could have been a track day car for a company maybe? Would it need an MOT if it lived at a race track? If the Service History lines up and you can get it for 10k then you have got yourself a potential bargain. Also... Just notice the tailpipes don't look standard. They look like these are fitted... https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/for-Lexus-Is250-Is350-GS-LS-Is-f-ISF-Style-Custom-Muffler-Tips-Twin-Dual-Oval/1342371713?iid=152232848229&chn=ps So possible that an aftermarket exhaust has been installed. The standard tailpipes are over £400 a side from Lexus so you can understand why replicas would be fitted instead if previous tailpipes were discarded. HTH

Not the best morning for my car. An Artic lorry must have thought he was an LA police man, and did the pit manoeuvre me at 50mph in the road works on the M62 this morning sending me spinning from the inside lane, into the central reservation. Luckily no one else was involved and other than a stiff neck and bruise on my ankle from the foot brake no injuries. Car did its job well. The truck driver was genuinely distraught by what he did, said the truck has a new blind spot monitor TV thingy and it said it was clear! If only trucks had Windows and mirrors eh! Think my dry dry January isn't going to last past 8pm tonight! Can't believe how little damage on the car considering. managed to finish my journey to work but insurance want to pick car up as it no longer wants to drive in a straight line and there is a horrible drone and vibration. Stay safe people. If I can strip the audio I might upload the dash cam, not seem it myself yet, and not sure if I want to again though!