xdeity

i have a 2003 is200 navigator, a while ago it was sluggish and i have the fuel filter cleaned which seemed to fix the problem. its now behaving in a similar fashion, only te fuel filter is still clean and its not all the time, usually lasts for a few days at a time, seems slow on acceleration, but sometimes the power comes rushing back unexpectedly, for example when i'm driving on the motorway i'll have my foot down and it wont be doing much but then all of a sudden the power comes flooding back and the acceleration comes in very quickly. after its done that the acceration and responsiveness until i switch the engine off overnight, when i go back to it and the engine is cold it invariably is sluggish again, regardless of the engine warming up, and then it may r may not get better, can last for days at a time. its quite overdue for a service but i cant afford it at the moment, but surely just being overdue for a service wouldnt make it behave like that, or would it. Ive tried using an engine cleaning product, cant remember which one it was but it wasnt redex. i've also tried resetting the ecu by taking the leads off the battery but that was no help either. one of my mates suggested it might be a collapsed catalitic converter, but another said there was no chance of that, so i thought i'd ask the people in the know. so chaps and chapesses, any ideas on what could be the problem. there is plenty of oil in it and enough coolant, although it is a tad low, but i'll remedy that soon, the engine does not overheat but fuel efficiency seems to have taken a total nose dive, and it was bad enough before. so, over to you, any ideas or fixes would be appreciated. has anyone suffered with this problem before. cheers for any help xdeity

hiya, wel, the insurance is sortin it, but its gone to boundary garage, and fortunately they changed the matiz for a corsa, not much better but better all the same. wanted to take it through lexus themselves but lexus bolton were very unhelpful and told me that although the car was not driveable, i would have to wait and they could not guarentee me a courtesy car, and if they could it wouldn't be a lexus. so i ended up going with boundary garage as that was the only other choice that the insurance said was acceptable. we'll have to wait and see whether they do a good job. at least they got me a courtesy car straight away. thanks for all your nice messages and i'll let u know what happens.

hiya gord, it happened in Bury mate, used that same road every day for years, never been a problem before, and i've hit it at much higher speed than that. had just set off from a set of lights. bummer. thanks for all the compassion peeps, its appreciated.

well, last night i was on my way home and was going round a bend, all of a sudden the back end fish tailed with no warning, span the car 360, i tried to right it, and thought i had done but it was too late, smashed side on into the curb. doesn't look like much damage except to the front bumper and two wheels but when you drive it it slides all over the place like there is suspension damage or something. suspect it was a diesel spill cause the road was quite slippy, but couldn't really tell as it was dark. only good thing was that i JUST missed the car that was next to me, driven by a very very very old man who i don't think would have survived the collision. been in touch with insurance and its going to some garage in Bury while i get a deawoo matiz (AAARRRRRGGGHH) loan car. so for a while i will be on the deawoo matiz owners club web site :( arrg

thanks for all the replies, gonna get quotes from all the different places recommended. thanks

my front tyres are desperately low on thread, should have got new ones when i bought it, lexus bolton agreed to change them but didn't and i never complained. only been 6 months and need new tyres. its the inside edge of both tyres. two things, can anyone recommend somewhere cheap to get tyres on them in the north manchester area, as i'm finacially screwed at the mo, and secondly, why would it wear so much on the inside edge of both tyres, doesn't sound right to me. national tyres wanted £185 for 2 tyres, can't afford that. thanks for your help ps they are the standard 17'' wheels on an is200 se

you are correct, and i had not noticed the to serious mistake i have written there. don't know why i wrote thayt, must have been tired. it was upto 80mph not 60 and i went into 4th gear as i slowed down. just as an update, i asked my colleage yesterday to do the same again going onto the M60 on our way hom from work. bearing in mind that i have just had the fuel filter cleaned out since the last time we raced. I ABSOLUTELY LEFT HIM STANDING. so it was obviously the fuel filter causing the problem. So a major performance boost may be gained from cleaning/replacing your fuel filter, unless it was a problem unique to my car.

it didn't cost e anything, he said it was just a quick job to clean it out. as i said, i am well aware of how to get the best out of a car, i have been trained to drive at high speed Got to keep that engine spinning, you can actually feel the step in the engine when the revs hit that magic speed. If I want to go Chav baiting I take the Van, nothing pisses them off more than a VW Transporter with two sets of ladders on the roof and 230 horses up front Lol, you don't need 'training' to drive at high speed, just experience (sp?) :) Speed is just a matter of relativitely. Doing 100mph to me feels like a normal cruising speed. there is a big difference between driving at 100mph, cruising along and doing things like high speed convoys nose to tail at 120mph, and high speed pursuits on road that have a 30 limit. anyone can drive at 100mph along a motorway, its not exactly hard, you just put your foot on the accelerator and let your car get to 100mph in a straight line. if you have done an advanced course, fair enough, but until you have you have no idea how complex high speed driving can be.

well, the car just seemed to be getting slower and slower over the past few days. i took it to the mechanics who work for us sometimes and left it for a few hours. apparently the fuel filter was full of gunk. got back in it and its like a different car. must have been due to the previous owner cause i rarely let it get below the quarter line on the fuel gauge. seems to be running way faster now

my mum just bought one of them for £50 quid from halfords, reduced from £200 on sale. nice bit of gear, but personally i don't think its as good as my lexus one, or my road angel navigator (although the road angel is VERY slow to load up)

yeah i wasnt aware of the powerband on a vvti and wasn't looking at the revs. i just listen for the engine peaking and keep my eyes on the road. i have reset the ecu, doesn't seem to be any faster, but havn't tested it against a boy racer yet.

hi, thanks for the replies, gonna go disconnect the battery in a minute, will let you know if it makes any difference. TheDon, i have checked and the snow setting is off, so can't be that, thx anyway P38, the traction control is on, will find a boy racer to test whether it being off makes any diff PureSilk, what could you do to the car, what would it cost and would it affect my insurance. i wasn't aware of the VVTi powerband, i will give it some thought while driving and see if it makes any difference. and if none of that works i will have to take it in to lexus and see if they can fix it Adie, i seriously doubt i could afford a turbo kit, or the jump in insurance on the car (i am presuming it would affect my insurance) and then there would be the cost of gettin it fitted. cheers anyway though, i would really like one, maybe for christmas hint hint :)

Now I can't be 100% sure but I bought my car with the same type of use. 21,000 miles in 4 years, elderly driver. Thought it should be faster and wasn't happy with the MPG at all (was getting around 22mpg on 90% motorway use). I reset the ECU by pulling the fuse for a minute. After about 3 or 4 days I am sure the car felt faster and the MPG definitely went up to around 27mpg. These cars do learn from the driver and will set themselves up to suit. I assume after that many years crawling around on short journeys make it a bit lazy and thirsty. Try a reset. hi mate, how do i go about finding the fuse for the ECU, like i said i know nothing about engines. cheers

i bought the car from a lexus dealer in bolton and they gave me a 12 month warrantee, do you think something like this would be covered, as there appears to be a lack of power or something that is causing this, would they do the checks for free. could this be something like a spark plug not working or something, i know nothing about engines, just looking for a reason

there is a big difference between a 160bhp gti car and an 80bhp corsa. i have almost double the bhp. surely this can't be right as i said, i am well aware of how to get the best out of a car, i have been trained to drive at high speed

he had me up to about 60mph and was WAY in front when we had to slow down. i thought it took off pretty quick, as fast as i have known it to go. checked with my mate, it is just a bog standard car with 60000 miles on it. the corsa pulled away from me in everything upto 4th gear and then we had to slow. gutted that the car i always wanted is so slow its not even upto small hatchback standard. i could unterstand it if it was a corsa vxr or golf gti, but this is ridiculous

last night on my way home from work one of my colleagues pulled up along side of me. he drives a 1.2 corsa, bog standard thing on an 02 plate (i think). just messing about i raced him from the line. i am in a 2.0 is200se with 153 bhp and he out accelerated me, in fact he left me standing. i know my car is much heavier, but i drive the odd corsa at work and they are rubbish at acceleration. can this be right, i know the is200 is no speedster, in fact its performance is somewhat underpowered, but this!!!!! could there be something wrong with my car, i know nothing about engines, but i have doe a lot of driver training and am quite aware how to get a car to accelerate to its best potential, so i can't understand how this could happen without there being something wrong. its not as if the car has been ragged, it only has 17000 on the clock and was owned by an elderly gent before me who only did 15000 in three years. i put some redex stuff in it recently just to make sure i was gettin the most out of the engine, doesn't look like that worked does it. any ideas, or maybe someone to tell me that the car is ok is always gonna get trounced by a 1.2 corsa. in fact if that is the case i might get rid of the IS and go get me a 1.4 corsa speed machine :duh:

think i broke the rules and my previous post was deleted anyhoo, looks like the wife has gone permenantly but i have decided to sell the house instead of the car, that will hopefully mean that i can pay off the loan on the car and then get a flat or something. seeing as how i got my house for a steal 8 months ago, and i have done loads of work on it i might even be able to upgrade the car to a 220d or 250, we will have to see. see there are positives in everything, even losing your wife and son.

strangely enough the wife has just left, so unless she comes back it will be going shortly, yes

been having a really annoying rattle for the last few weeks, and i don't know why it has only recently started but it was doing my head in, very intermittent. i seqarched the car all over for a loose screw or something and thought i was goona have to take the car in to lexus as the vibration was very loud. now one thing i have noticed about lexus is that the IS 200 has a gearknob that vibrates very hard compared to other cars, it it finally hit me tonight. the reason why its been so intermittent is that its only when i have my hand on the gear knob, nd what do i wear on my left hand, a metal wedding ring, and what happens when a vibrating gear knob touched a peice of metal, a really annoying vibration, thats what the annoying rattle was me and my weddin ring. so there you go, just had to share that.

cheers for that, what a bummer, gonna have to hire a van

can't figure out how the rear seats fold down in the is200, are they rigid or is there a way. cheers

i am 30 years old and have 3 years no claims (had a company car before that) coming quickly up to four years no claims and just got some quotes through confused.com. would have thought that it would have been far lower on a standard is200 se nav, but the cheapest quote was over 600. i live in a fairly nice area with a good postcode. wondered what the rest of you pay for insurance and through who.

not yet mate, will let them know tomorrow

just bought a cig adapter powered inflator for my car, cost about 5 quid from netto. anyway, apart from being slow at inflating my tyres all seemed well. it has a sticker on it about an auto cut off after 10 minutes, but i was not even close to that when it suddenly started smoking heavily and i could see the insides glowing red hot. i think i just managed to unplug it before it went up in flames, lucky. anyway, just a polite warning so it doesn't end up setting fire to someones precious lexus.