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Hi all, I replaced my radiator and water pump with a friend over the weekend at home on axle stands. Wasn't too bad, there is plenty of knowledge and diagrams across this forum, YouTube and the American forum. My radiator looked worse for wear, I think the transmission fluid lines were not far off from snapping off the radiator. That's on a 2008 with 66k miles for reference.

I quite like the idea of an SC440, that must be the quicker one.🙂 It's so long since I actually used the standard head unit I can't remember what it did and sometimes we mad SC owners forget to state the obvious. So checking my archives, I think the confusion is in the fact that the facelift doesn't actually have an external CD multi-changer. The 6 disc CD unit is part of the head unit itself. It should say 6 disc on the front of it. Apologies I didn't add to the discussion on LW as I thought the others had explained but clearly they can't always be trusted with audio questions despite the fact that some are indeed highly qualified in these matters. Probably too busy debating less important matters like politics, the meaning of life or the weather. We wait ages for a fault to appear on an SC430, Usually it gets dealt with in a couple of sentences and a picture or two and we all go back to the waiting room. I took mine apart just to see how it worked after replacing it with an Alpine. You load the 6 CDs into the head unit one at a time slowly until it's full. Hope that clears it up.

Sort of, but the breeze higher up won

Going on the plate it will have been not long after I bought it. It's now on 68k and still mint. My father runs it now because I couldn't part with it. Here you go Granite Sky if I recall. Yes. Sorry. A friend. Because having five cars would be silly.

Unless one has a GS 450h that is, Sir.

That looks amazing. I am not keen on modifications but your work looks very good and not too OTT.

Now, had one switched on autopilot ?

Anything to do with flying is also not on my list of achievable things, last week I flew my little drone in Cornwall, it's still there buried somewhere in the undergrowth waiting for a future Tony Robinson and his team to find it!

When I test drove what would become my IS250 after having had two IS200s, I didn't think I was ready for an "Old Man Auto". By the time I'd covered the distance from the dealer to the main road though, I was convinced. I wouldn't go back to a manual. Those memories of being stuck in jams around the M25 and all that stop start 1st gear clutch up clutch down stuff are best, for me anyway, left in the past :-)

Just a few minor updates as I haven't posted here for a while. New wheels, extended rear spoiler, newer head unit, Sprint-Booster, paintwork re-fresh where required. Otherwise nothing too radical apart from the OBD/Ipad install which got a mention in another thread. I did try to sell it a while ago but it's a bit too much of a scary proposition for most sane folk so I've carried on with a few more minor tweaks and changes. I like the addition of the Ipad and the OBD2 info in real time so the next task is to improve the quality of the screen surround.

I really hesitate to ask but there is a very obvious question here. Did they not come with a manual? If not, I expect PCM is right - I'd guess it's a plant cloche.

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

Hello All, The ongoing theft of cats on RX400H's has put me off and I am considering upping the budget to early 450H money, as the theft rate of cats seems massively lower. I was wondering if anyone who has owned both could comment on the boot space of the 450H. Is it any bigger than the 400H? Thanks.

Hello everyone, Thanks to various posts full of praises and encouraging stories for the LS400. I jumped on one and I'm so glad about this impulse buy. Enjoying it very much so far! 😃 Looking forwards to learning much more from you guys.

Feeling fulfilled and, if I'm honest, slightly smug - first let me tell you a story... It was a dark and stormy night, well actually it was last November when I bought my LC, just couldn't wait for the good weather, just had to buy it! We always enjoy a great road trip and our favourite destination is Scotland. You can imagine how much we were looking forward to talking the LC for a tour. Finally, last week we managed to get away, I have to say it was amazing, taking a true GT across mountain passes and straight open roads. We covered just over 1200 miles, not quite the NC500 but all the places we love none the less. As you can imagine, with a car needing regular fill ups, we planned a little to make sure we weren't caught short. Previous we hadn't bothered so much as we've toured around in a diesel BMW.... So we planed for 20/25 mpg based on fairly spirited driving, which we did. Imagine my surprise when the final average for the whole trip came out at - wait for it - 35.5mpg, even reaching 39.1mpg on one of the days. So, as well as having a wonderful time roaring through the Glens in a big and soulful V8, we even saved on our fuel budget - can't wait for our next road trip.

Don't forget that the extended warranty also includes UK breakdown recovery, European breakdown recovery and, I believe, MOT tests which when taken into account makes the £900ish for the two years a bit more of a bargain! JBP

Thanks! Really happy with this car it was very well taken care off. The car came it felt so much better inside than I expected for a 10 year old car. If has aged so well! I was not disappointed with the drive or aesthetics. These are the pictures from the advert , Its rained a little and haven't had too much time to admire the car yet. This weekend will be me and the lexus 😄 This is an SE-i not the SE-L so missing 2 or 3 things from being fully loaded but I'm not phased by that

This is apparently also true on the 3rd Gen GS (which I discovered after struggling with changing mine). Here's a photo from the manual:

I know what you mean Phil. The breeze higher up turns my straight down the middle drives into a Left Handers Fade !

We've had ours for just 11 months, and covered a mere 9,000 miles in that period. Previously we had a 2010 Volvo v50 SE Lux Diesel which I intended to keep forever, and I was covering 16,000 miles plus each year - sadly an injury made it difficult for me to change gear, so I had to go for an automatic. We chose a 2015 ct200 hybrid premier. The only two things that I missed from the Volvo was the sunroof and the size of the boot. The mpg is also lower, but it is petrol. REAL consumption (as opposed to that showing in the car) has proved to range from 46-56 mpg depending on weather and road conditions. The Pandemic meant that it didn't go on the road for 4 of the 9 months, so it is low mileage for me - However, apart from the road noise it has been a real delight. It's due for a service and MOT next week, and I'm hoping for a good result. We do have a service plan in place. Others on this forum will confirm that this is a great car and most seem to say it provides trouble free motoring. Oh, I should have said that my insurance premium rose by about £50 this year and the call centre person told me it is because it is a luxury brand - but so was the Volvo, so perhaps there could be another reason.

🙂 Most Porsche owners tend to think there is only 1 brand of car - I am not in that particular gang and even though I think the 981 is a wonderful car, it is certainly not without its faults! Every car needs to suit an individuals needs - for me, this one was about running costs, size and specification and it ticks all those boxes. I can see why people stay with the German brands to a point, and I was guilty of that but this car has definitely changed my outlook. When it is time to change, another Lexus will ceratinly be on the list, but it will all depend on circumstances/needs at the time of course. Best advice I can give is ignore the press on any car you re interested in buying and try it for yourself - they have very different needs/expectations to those of us who drive them daily.

Yes

Today they recalibrated the VGRS and configured the horizontal position of the steering wheel. It seems to be good now.

Yes David, so true. Fancy leaving this World with a bang up the backside whilst being decapitated or garroted by the belt!

Yeah, agreed...

The flight deck of Concorde ?

That looks simply superb! I can manage most mechanical jobs but electrical, no! I'd love to upgrade my screen for something that would work with an android phone but I simply wouldn't have a clue!

Excellent David. There are several on Youtube for Mercs too. I will increase your Stipendary, for the considerable efforts you are making to educate !!

I have driven small engined autos and owned an automatic 1.6 Golf. They are a completely different experience to a large 3 litre or more engine mated to an auto box. In the past I would NEVER consider an automatic. After purchasing my first LS 400 I realised how good they could be. Grasshopper / Master is from an old TV series that you are probably too young to remember, called Kung Fu. It was said, tongue in cheek, for the benefit of older members on here. No offence intended, honestly. You admitted you are fairly new to driving, and are going through a youthful phase with your choice of cars. In a way you are very lucky, as new drivers tend to be so young that insurance on sporty cars is so expensive or impossible to get. Enjoy your enthusiasm for fast and loud but you may eventually find that quietness, smoothness and luxury will be more appealing in the future.

I did the plugwires and the caps , rotors and one coil where I could get to all the screws . A few bits to take apart and Very many wires and fiddly to get everything nicely in place. It was a full weekends reasonable dose of car work for me to be honest.

It's a little bigger. You get about 1cm extra in length and whilst the 450h vehicle is 4cm wider than the 400h, the narrowest part of the boot up to 15cm wider because the rear suspension is different and doesn't intrude into the boot space as much.

Had I known all this I would have run a mile! The possibilities for problems here are endless! Calm yourself David - YOU OWN A LEXUS!

I don't think this will surprise you John ................ I went down the Betamax route! With the Sony C7! It WAS the superior format! Sadly it did not catch on here!

I am nearby in SE9 and mine got cut off this week. I wonder if it's same gang - 2 white men with a Blue Audi. Apparently there's also an "Irish looking guy with a white pickup" caught on camera stealing one from a CRV. It's a plague around this area, multiple thefts recently, thieves caught on camera, including faces, their cars and registration and still no results from police. I am also thinking of getting a cheap metal one and relying on the fact it's worthless. Has anyone had their aftermarket/generic cat stolen yet? Is it worth putting a plate to protect a generic cat, or relying on the professionalism of the thieves enough?

Thanks Partner.....I really did expect a substantial contribution from such an esteemed contributor to this Forum, William.

Just a bit of fun John! No offence!

No, not the same thing at all. It literally allows screen mirroring but even that doesn't allow some things to display while in motion, even sat Nov! Miracast is a bit of a pain to use in honesty. Android Auto is much much better.

It's a different thing really. It will let you display the phone screen on the vehicle's screen but you perform all the operations on the phone. Android Auto gives you a display that is more suited to a vehicle which you operate from the vehicle's controls.

There are different refrigerants out there and the correct one must be used however it is the oil that is extremely important on a hybrid as the compressor is electric and conventional oil is conductive which will cause energy leakage and a shock hazard. ND-OIL 11 must be used.

Not as prevalent, in fact it is unheard of at this time but whether that is because it is too difficult or just because cats from older vehicles are more valuable, and therefore are targeted, isn't really known. We know the cat is further forward on the series IV, but we haven't seen pictures to tell if the front is still accessible or not. Heard of a few cases with it happening on the series III but no where near as bad as the series II 400h.

No problem. Yes, I have fitted the coilovers. Feels like driving with sport mode. Not too hard with softest selection.

As a complete aside to the excellent advice above, and completely regardless of condition/mileage, do bear in mind the cat theft issue that 400s seem to suffer. If you're confident that it's in a pretty safe place at home, work etc then that's great, but if it's constantly on the street or in a public car park you might not be so lucky. You might find that the previous owner has already suffered it and had a straight-through pipe fitted to replace the cat.

OK, this is coming along I'll try to find time over the weekend to finalise Malc

Thought you might like this

Thanks Barry, the update is much appreciated. No real surprise that the original cannot be produced. Hopefully Cheltenham will play its full part in the application for a Goodwill contribution. I am pleased that you have decided to apply for the Extended Warranty. Mine goes into Chester at noon tomorrow to have the secondary bonnet catch replaced under Extended Warranty. I will ask how much that would have cost me had I had to pay and will report back for completeness.

My point exactly, Piers.

Can't beat a Lexus Warranty!

Thank you very much Barry for that detailed and I expect, painful explanation. It was necessary for me to ask as without it any advice or comment I could offer would have difficult. In a nutshell, I feel that you found yourself between a rock and a hard place. We have all been there at some time in our lives and non of us wish to return. The (Non Lexus) Garage which performed the M.O.T. was local to you and presumably had your confidence. So, it either discharged its rsponsibilities satisfactorily or it didn`t. Being non Lexus, it might not have been up to speed re the air suspension, but it was a registered M.O.T. Testing Station and can therefore be deemed to be competent about all matters suspension notwithstanding its dearth of Lexus knowledge. So, that moves us onto Lexus Cheltenham, which knowingly or unknowingly put you between the rock and the hard place. They knew you were away from home and they were therefore best placed to present you with the dilemma and had an excellent opportunity to increase revenues at your expense. I am most certainly not saying that they did so. I am merely saying that in the grand scheme of events which you outlined, they were best placed to spring a surprise. If they had been acting with the best customer service in mind, they might have offered you the suspension parts which they replaced and suggested that you speak with your local Lexus Dealer about considering an Extended Warranty. They did neither and indeed sought to entice you to buy such a Warranty from them. I would ask Cheltenham for the parts to be returned to you for examination and for you show them to the local garage which performed the M.O.T. for comment. Do not be surprised if they cannot (for whatever reason) and then before you relate the entire sequence of events in writing, to Lexus Customer Services UK. you write to the Dealer Principal at Cheltenham with a copy sent to the MD or CEO of the Lister Group and await comment. Then if necessary write to Lexus Customer Services UK with a request that they consider making a goodwill payment to you on the twin bases of you having been put in a difficult position by Lexus Cheltenham and your vehicle having a full Lexus Service History. And do not forget to ask Exeter to offer you an Extended Warranty at approx £45 pm for 12 months, covering the next 2 years! I hope you find my thoughts to have been useful and please do keep us all updated as to how things go.

Life is a one way ticket Phil. No return trip. :):):)