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Bratman91

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Everything posted by Bratman91

  1. I bought my first IS260 very soon after they were introduced and am now on my third one. I am not sure if you have already decided on this but, if not, go for the automatic. The 6-speed box is silky smooth and actually gives better fuel consumption than the manual box. An average fuel consumption of close to 30mpg is realistic and a long motorway journey can get close to 40mpg. However, this does depend on driving patterns and traffic conditions. Reliability is superb. I don't think that anyone has mentioned this but safety in the event of an accident is, in my experience of one very severe head-on crash, excellent.
  2. Is 50 days a reasonable expectation for a battery in a 2013 car kept in a garage to go so flat that it can't even send a signal to the traction battery?
  3. Many years ago and in my youth, I owned a newish Riley one and a half litre saloon (not to be confused with a Riley 1.5). It was a beautiful car but not exactly very spritely, with pedestrian acceleration and low top speed even for that time. I mentioned this to my boss, an older man who also owned the same model of car. His reply was "what matters is not the going, but the manner of the going". I suspect that the BMW has the going but the Lexus almost certainly will have the manner of the going.
  4. I believe that the current model is slightly longer than the previous ones and leg room in the rear is definitely better. The front legroom doesn't seem to me to be any more or, if it is, it is not noticeable. The front seats seem a bit lower so it may not be comparing like with like.
  5. I am now on my third IS250 automatic, the first having been bought almost as soon as the model was introduced a decade ago. I find that, in comparison to the two previous generation cars, the current one is very sensitive as low speeds to throttle movement. At medium to high speeds, there is no problem but around town, where split second decisions often have to be made because of heavy traffic, I find it difficult to make manoeuvres that involve, say, having to get into a busy roundabout, without the car almost jumping forward. It sometimes feels as though there are only two throttle positions - too slow and too fast, and that there is nothing in between. The throttle pedal doesn't seem sticky at all when testing it by hand in the garage. Of course, it may be me that is jumpy but I never had the problem with the two previous versions of the car or, indeed, any others of the many automatics I have owned or driven. Are there any other IS250 owners reading this thread who can comment?
  6. Oh, Dave, Dave, Dave - why buy the Mona Lisa and then pencil in a moustache?
  7. Thanks, DJP, for that clarification. I think that the OP must also have been comparing with the 2nd generation IS250 as he says that he had an IS250 for 4 years, and the 3rd generation didn't arrive until about 2 years ago.
  8. Any difference in handling and roadholding could, I suppose, be attributed to the different weight and weight distribution because of the different engines and drive. However, the styling is surely identical. Are you comparing a 300H with a 3rd generation 250?
  9. My 3rd generation IS250 is, as far as I know, identical to the 300H with the obvious exception of the engine and drive chain, and changes to accommodate them (eg smaller boot, different controls). Things like doors, lights, sound system, seats and interior layout seemed to me to be identical to my 250 when I have had 300H loaners if my car was in for servicing. Personally, I prefer the 250 because of its smoothness, bigger boot and less complexity to go wrong, but in a thread that I started to gauge other peoples' impressions, I was clearly in the minority. I just put that down to my being particularly discerning while those who preferred the 300H think that "new and improved" really means that. OK, I am not being serious - some good points were made in the thread (see the link below). http://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/forum/topic/103566-it-depends-on-what-the-definition-of-is-is/
  10. The tyres on my 3rd gen IS250 have a protruding lip that presumably is supposed to reduce the risk of curbing - it is certainly less than was the case with my 1st gen IS20 which had "normal" tyres. However, "reduce" is not the same as "eliminate" , as I have discovered to my cost. I have found that wheel reburbishment companies can do an excellent job at around £75 to £100 per wheel. Personally, any slight, and it is slight, colour mismatch is not worth worrying about. However, I am the World's worst parker and, even when I lived in the USA where parking slots are about 20 feet apart, I needed a run up of at least a 100 yards to get between the lines, so curbing is an ever-present risk for me.
  11. I don't think so - I have certainly not find anything on my IS250 (3rd Generation - pretty well the same display as IS300H) to suggest that you can. I thought that that was a useful feature and I wonder why Lexus dropped it.
  12. I use one of those miracle magnets around the fuel pipe and a vortex generator in the air intake - these give really good results in terms of performance and economy. I am being skeptical, of course, but my point is that what people report is often their perception and might not be substantiated under controlled laboratory conditions. Those miracle devices that were all the rage a few decades ago were shown to be absolutely worthless but that didn't stop thousands of people reporting miracle results. There may be benefits in using premium fuel but it is probably small and, in my view, would need to be demonstrated under controlled conditions to make it a worthwhile additional cost to what is already an expensive activity.
  13. It has one good feature - you can download the owners and navigation system manuals for your car.
  14. This particular part of the Lexus Owners Club forum deals with 3rd Generation IS models so you might get more replies in the other part dealing with IS250. Having said that and owned IS250s of each generation, I would say that the revs seem normal to me and warmup is fairly slow which tends to delay the rpm falling to normal. I can't say that the power steering ever seemed heavy but it certainly needed more than just light finger pressure except at speed. I would not be too influenced by the refurbished allows - I have had a superb job done on some of mine and it was around £75 per wheel. The damage was admittedly just slight curbing but, if "your" wheels were damaged anything more than that, then I would be worried that their integrity might have been weakened.
  15. I guess the public made up their mind given that the 300h outsold the 250 28:1 in 2015 and so have Lexus given that the 250 is now discontinued. Sales figures are not always a good indication of the superiority of one product over another - the figures are often heavily influenced by discounts offered in order to encourage the sale of a particular product and the novelty value of new technology. When the IS300H was introduced in the UK, Lexus offered me one for almost the same price as a top-of-the range IS250, even though the list price for the former was much more. Perhaps this was because they were impressed with my urbane, sophisticated appearance and my handsome, mature but attractive features but I doubt it. My guess is that, having invested heavily in the IS300H, they were keen to promotes sales, make it appear a particularly desirable car and recoup their R@D outlay. Having developed the market for the IS300H, of course they have discontinued the IS250. Do I really think that my wife's iPad Air is better than my iPad 2 - well not for £600 it's not but the sales figures say otherwise!!
  16. Many thanks to those who responded to my original post - the comments were interesting and thoughtful, and were thought-provoking. They haven't persuaded me that the IS300 is a better car than the IS250 but, as others have pointed out, we are in only the very early days of electric cars (OK - I know that electric cars have been around for many decades but you know what I mean!) so I am open to changing my mind as the technology improves. I remain sceptical of some of the claimed advantages of electric cars and suspect that they will in any case be offset by disadvantages. Re-charging cars on your drive sounds great but what about the hundreds of thousands of motorists who have to park on the roadside or in positions where electrical outlets are not available? Having charging points as ubiquitous as parking meters will be hugely expensive to install and operate - this will have to be paid for and you know by whom! I also wonder if the electrical power distribution systems both in the home and in the street would be robust enought to cope with what would be an enormous demand if there was a widespread move to electric cars. Upgrading such systems would again, not be cheap or free. And I also doubt that charging cars on your drive would be free of tax as suggested. A widespread move to electric cars would cause a gigantic reduction in tax revenues and the government - any government - would need to recoup this in some other way. If, as I suspect, home charging would require a major upgrade to the domestic power system, it would be fairly easy to include a means of measuring consumption for car tax purposes. It has been said that there are only three certainties in life - birth, death and taxes - and I don't see motorists escaping much of the last certainty by switching to an electric car once they have become the norm.
  17. It's Friday so I thought that I would initiate some controversy to start the weekend off. I bought a new IS250 a couple of months after this model was introduced, and traded this in for another new IS250 about 4 years later. Car No2 was written off after a dispute about the correct side of the road to drive with a BMW 2 years ago. I had the opportunity to replace this with what was then the newly-introduced IS300 but, after a short test drive, did not like it and bought another IS250. My IS250 has just been in for servicing and I was given an IS300 as a loaner. This has confirmed my view that the IS250 is a far superior car. Its 6-cylinder engine is smoother and quieter than the 4-cylinder one on the IS300, it has a bigger boot and provides a far more refined drive. I particularly disliked the intrusive whine of the electrical drive system of the IS300 when slowing down and the way in which the petrol engine starts up when, for example, reversing slowly out of a parking space. This latter feature feels as if something has been struck and gives one quite a start (no pun intended). I cannot dispute the greater fuel economy of the IS300 but if, like me, you do not put in a high mileage, this is not a huge advantage and, I suspect, may well be offset by higher servicing and repair costs, particularly in the car's later years. So my fellow LOC members, what is your verdict on an IS250/IS300 comparison?
  18. Thanks for the replies, folks. I think that I will wait until I kerb the wheel and then get a professional refurbishment (hub cabs and wheel trims were so 1970's but they were a darn sight cheaper to replace!!!!).
  19. Does anyone know the colour code for spray can or touch-in bottle for 5-spoke, 18 inch wheels fitted to an IS250 Premier. I have some small blemishes on my wheels but not enough to have full repair.
  20. Sorry for the tardy response, ColinBarber, but I have been in north-east Italy for a week or so - great wine, superb food but poor internet. Sorry, also, that I missed the joke - the wine was great, though!
  21. It wasn't me but, just out of interest, how did you identify the car in all that spray as an IS300H rather than an IS250?
  22. Thanks, ColinBarber, I have now located the relevant section of the manual where the traffic information strips are detailed. I have also seen a white coloured road with red borders - I had never noticed one before. The road in question was a dual carriageway A-road with two lanes in each way and built to modern standards close to motorway ones. However, I am not too sure what you mean in your comment about me being too hard on myself and the Premium grade not being that bad. The Premium grade is very good indeed although there are features that were in the previous top of the range model of IS250 that were better. Memory settings for passenger seat, lights on foot plates and lumbar adjustment on passenger seat, for example. Nevertheless, the Premium's advantages of spilt folding rear seats, greater passenger foot space and better lighting system outweighs the earlier ones.
  23. After driving from Gloucester to the Lake District and return last week, here are my thoughts about the Satnav road colours. I asked my local Lexus dealer if there was an official de-code for the road colours but the question stumped them. Bright blue : the satnav route guidance (100%) Yellow with red borders: Motorways (100%) Yellow with green borders: A and B roads (90%) Yellow with thin green borders: Classified unnumbered roads (60%) Yellow, no borders: Unclassified roads (50%) Red: A or B roads which are Primary Routes (75%) Blue/grey: minor and local roads (90%) Broad Brown or Green strip alongside one or both outer borders of stretches of A and B roads (and, I think) Motorways. Sometimes the strips seem to have arrows embedded in them: No idea!!!!! (100%) Some of this is consistent with what you reported, Steve44, but other colours are not. For example, I did not see any roads that were white at all. I note that you, Steve44, have an IS300 F Sport whereas I have an IS250 Premium (a much better car!!!!!) so I wonder if there are different satnav variants and, hence, slightly different colour variations. It is incredible that neither the Satnav manual nor anything else that seems to be available provides information on what the colours and border strips indicate.
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