Crispy

Thanks for the tip Robin H. Here are some pictures. You will notice some colour variation depending on my camera skills. Strangely enough, in the flesh, the car shows a similar variation in colour depending on light strength.

Will post some pics if someone could point me to some instructions. My Lexus only unlocked the driver door by default which was a pain. I prefer to have all the doors unlocked. The manual points you to the Lexus dealer. Rang the service dept who gave me some vague instructions and suggested I contact the salesman, which I did. Just as well as the service dept had got it wrong. So to have the car unlock all 4 doors when you touch the door handle I followed these instuctions:- 1. While standing outside the car, unlock then relock the car. 2. Press and hold the lock and the boot buttons on the remote control together. 3. When you see a picture of the car with all 4 doors open on the instrument panel screen, let the buttons go. When you unlock next, all 4 doors will unlock together. Note: this only changes the unlocking process using the door handle. If you use the remote you still get just the driver's door, then have to press again to get the other doors. The only thing is it is a little hard to peer into the car to look at the instrument panel if you have tinted windows. Didn't ask how to change it back to just one door but I guess you could repeat the process and let the buttons go is you see a car with only one door open, just guessing though.

Since first becoming interested in the IS250, I found the UK Lexus owners site a great source of info on the net. Thanks everyone. The Australian site has little about the IS250 and the US site has more comments about the IS350 and AWD versions. I took delivery of my gold IS250 yesterday and thought you may be interested in some details of an Australian IS250. The trade-in – Honda Accord VTi, 2.4l, 5 spd auto. Made in Thailand and courtesy of a free trade agreement between the two countries, new prices dropped some $4,000, 6 months after I bought it. So depreciation has been heavy. Bummer. Not a bad car, but a cruiser not a performer. Like all Hondas, developed rattles and creaks after a short time. The Lexus – IS250 automatic, gold with cream interior. Looks fantastic! Don’t buy one until you have seen this combination. The colour on the Lexus web site isn’t close to the real thing. The only options available on the base model (if you could call any Lexus base) are a sunroof at $1,500 and automatic transmission at $2,600. Cost for me was $56,490 (with auto, no sunroof) plus on road cost of $4,017 giving a drive away price of $60,507. At current exchange rates that is roughly £23,200 + £1,650 = £24,850. I guess our base model could either be viewed as your base IS250 with leather climate controlled seats with electric operation and mica paint or your IS250 SE with 16” wheels and mica paint. The deal – managed to spend $1,000 less than my budget. On top of that pursued the dealer to include window tint in the deal (a must for the Australian climate and a saving of up to $600, depending on film quality). The dealer – A very positive experience with courteous staff. No pressure sales techniques here. Ordered the car on 21 Nov and the dealer promised delivery by Christmas. They kept their promise as I took delivery of the car on 22 Dec. Luckily when I ordered the car they had just been given a new allocation of some IS250 models. They said some buyers of the Luxury Sports model have to wait until March. The dealer also provides a complimentary car clean each month and gave me a couple of CDs, a basket of goodies as well as some classy number plate covers on delivery. The pre delivery service was a little sloppy with the radio/climate control stack not having been cleaned since it left the factory. On a positive note everything else was spotless so this was really only a minor oversight. Likes - Virtually everything. What a car! However a few highlights for me are:- - Instruments – love just turning them on, brilliant clarity. - Sound system – great sound, lots of features - Luxurious leather interior – very upmarket in cream and the colour is practical in a hot climate too. In spite of comments to the contrary, this is easy to keep clean as I have had a couple of cars with a light interior before. - Refinement , superb fit and finish– an expensive car needs to look and feel like one and the IS250 definitely doesn’t disappoint. - Heated and cooled leather seats. Great on a hot day and very comfortable as well. - Climate control air conditioning. The pollution sensor proved its worth in peak hour traffic switching from fresh to recirc when exhaust fumes were detected and then back to fresh when the coast was clear. - The engine – quiet at light throttles with a purposeful growl when pushed. - Fuel economy. I live in the suburbs and use public transport to get to work so my car use is usually a combination of highway and suburban roads and with little or no city traffic. Therefore I can usually achieve the manufacturers claimed combined fuel consumption rating on my past cars. In the case of the IS250 that is 9.1 l/100km (31 mpg). Just driving it home from the dealer, through heavy peak hour city traffic, a brief freeway cruise and a few suburban streets it registered 10.6 l/100kms (26.7 mpg) so 9.1 l/100kms is definitely achievable. Not bad for something straight out of the factory. Dislikes - Road noise – only occurs on textured road surfaces and is not excessive, but the silence of everything else makes the road noise more noticeable. Lexus needs to work on this a little to make it a little less intrusive. Even so, is quieter than the Honda, which was itself a quiet car. - Auto paddles – seems to be a delay between selecting the next gear and it actually changing. This results in anything up to a 750rpm increase before than change occurs, so you have to be thinking ahead of the tacho. Not really concerned as I wouldn’t seriously use this feature except for engine braking coming off the freeway. - The screen display between the tacho and speedo needs to be bigger – it is a pity it only allows one piece of information to be displayed. A little bigger and they would have been able to combine some of the 7 screens you have to cycle though. Lastly the final test of any new car. Showing to it to your friends. Performed fabulously here. One friend, who is not into cars, told me I would have to leave as he was getting jealous (once I stepped him through the long, long list of IS250 standard features). Priceless!

I saw the same picture in another web page or magazine reported as being the the coupe version of the LS430. Liked the look of the computer generated image of the silver IS250 coupe though.

Hi :) I have ordered a base IS250 (called "Prestige" by Lexus in Australia) in gold. The colour is referred to as Sandstone Mico is Oz, Mystic Gold in US and Amberley Gold in UK. Interestingly, the interior colours also have different names in different countries, Bisque in Oz and Cashmere in the US. Although not all exterior colours are available in Australia (red and green not available) the dealer did say I could order any IS250 colour but they would require a substantial deposit. I have looked everywhere on the web and haven't seen one picture that shows the IS250 in Gold. The colours on the Lexus web sites are not very good representations. The Lexus dealer advised the IS250 gold was the same as a gold GS300 they had on the floor when I ordered the car. Has anyone seen any pictures of the IS250 in gold? Thanks