DTH

Cheers for the update Tinka. Just coming up to 3k miles in the first month of ownership and time for my short report. I've done 5 visits to the petrol station (thanks Tesco for the x amount off pence per litre ... the last one was 14p a litre off petrol @ £1.25 / litre which almost made it feel like 2003 again!). MPG on the on board computer has settled at 55.7 which isn't a million miles off from the receipts v mileage (in fact the paper receipts say 56.9 mpg). It's taken me two weeks to sign up to the connected services off the portal, but still don't know what benefits it brings. The re-route / avoid traffic jams off the premium nav seems to know the smartest way home anyway. Any advice on how to fully utilise this would be grateful. Thanks in advance. I've nearly run 4 people over in the last month... once taking a short cut through Moss Bank park in Bolton whilst a cricket match was under way and the players were messing around on the cut through road, putting their bags in their double parked cars .. Izzy sneaked up on 'em! The last one was in central Manchester at the weekend, dropping Mrs. Rosun off with the mother in law for some shopping, when every kind of space cadet / zombie was in town (It was gay pride day if that excuses it). Foibles remain with the RDS display. I love to play "who sung that song". What I get is ... Cameo ... Wor.. when a full screen would say ..... Cameo .... Word Up ... 1986 ... reached number 1 etc. Please Mr. Lexus, if you are reading this, then upgrade to full screen RDS. Another bug bear is the drivers side window. I'm a smoker, I spark a fag up and drop the window a couple of inches and get covered in water because there are no seams from the front / top of the window. The solution is to take a dishcloth into the car so I now have the most polished drivers control panel in GB. I'd love to know how the EURO / NCAP / MPG figures get deduced. Stick Izzy in sport and it aint 8 point whatever seconds to 60mph. More like 6 or 7 point something. She's quick. And also slippy... take your foot off the accelerator in a 'normal' car and the speed descends on a logarithmic scale ... not in the IS300h... it feels like it could accelerate uphill. I'll report back in another 5000 miles (2 months or so) with updates. Thanks forum members.

1500 miles in two weeks and the mpg now fluctuates between 57.0 - 57.3. I never thought I'd be happy tootling along in 30mph traffic jams before now!

Izzie it is ... Thanks. I've got 3 girls so she had to have a girls name. First proper run out (270 miles there and back) and the overall mpg has now stabilised at 57.3 mpg. Thank God for those 50 mph roadworks on the M1 near Sheffield. Filled her up and got 692 miles remaining on the calculator. Another run out tomorrow to Bournemouth and back .... the heady days and high life of an IT consultant eh? Thanks for all the feedback chaps. I know I've done the right thing and my hands don't stink of diesel any more. Much appreciated.

Shame I'm an Android 'boy' then. I'll give it a couple of months and I'm sure I'll get the hang of it. I'm mid 40's and in IT so too old to RTFM (Read the Flipping / F***king Manual). I just wish there was a IS300h guide for idiots out there on the internet! Any school boy errors / tips / tricks would be appreciated. Even though the old Merc was 3 years old there were certain things that they did better especially around the Sat Nav / Phone / Speech recognition (even though I'm broad Northern) / Information display, and this is me who used to have the first generation IS back in 2001 when Mercs used to rust in front of your eyes. Very impressed with the fit and finish though, I quite like the 'leather' topped dash and although the seats are thin there's a plushness to them that I hope lasts over time. I'll keep you posted on the next couple of trips. Probably in the other topics about MPG or range. One thing though .... I need a name for the young girl. Call me soft in the head but if you give a car a name it sort of makes it personal and you can put up with certain idiosyncracies... the youngest child has suggested Suzi. Any advances on Suzi?

Greetings from the original poster. Well, it's here. SE with premium nav in sonic titanium. First impressions were "Why is everything buried so deep behind the user interface?" Although after having a play with the haptic feedback on the mouse I'm not now so hit and miss. I don't like the radio, rather I don't like the radio display. I love seeing what track is playing but the screen does not seem to show the full artist and title on the DAB radio, instead half the screen is taken up with settings and presets. MPG wise, she arrived with 120 miles on the clock at an average of 56 mpg and I've doubled the mileage and managed to sneak it up to 57 mpg. It certainly draws attention in a sea of dark metallic 3-series / A4's / C-Class in the office car park! Many thanks for all your help since the turn of the year in making me make the right choice

I averaged out at 33mpg over the 7 years I had my IS200SE. Sounds bad but the flip side was that nothing went wrong in those 7 years (apart from a side light bulb blew). Factor in the lack of any repairs and they are one economical car. (The driving mix was probably 80% motorway @ 80 mph / 20% town crawling). Hope this is of use.

One other thing that is confusing me. If I opt for the Sat Nav I get a reversing camera, right? Therefore I don't need parking sensors. I usually hit things when reversing rather than when going forwards so a rear camera would be ideal. And what is SE spec cloth like? Is it half leather / half cloth? Velour like? The local dealer never has an SE in the showroom or any on PDI that I can check over. Thanks again people. This is one really friendly forum.

Many thanks for all the responses. Still undecided on colours / options to specify. Are there any must have options to spec on an SE? Slightly disappointed that one cannot spec leather / auto wipers on an SE. It seems that Lexus might be missing a trick here as a few colleagues are attracted by the low company car tax rate but turned off by the goodies that are not available.

Thanks for all the responses. I think my mind is made up and it'll be an IS300h SE with Nav and parking sensors that gets ordered. I've managed to blag an extended test drive (3 days) and so long as it's not a million miles away from my current mpg (53.3 mpg over the last 70,000 miles) then I'll order one. Anybody got any colour suggestions or should I let my wife choose?

Thanks Blisteringblue and all you other respondents. I totally forgot about the diesel v petrol discrepancy pence per mile fandango. No doubt HMRC will be looking to close the loophole in the near future so I might as well fill my boots while it lasts. I can see what the leasing companies are up to as well, providing higher than benchmarked (for the P11d values) quotations but then putting the onus on the company car tax payer to pay less tax. Doing the sums here the Lexus works out approximately £50-£100 per month cheaper than equivalents from BMW / Merc / Audi although the initial wooden dollars (lease cost) extracted from the salary sacrifice are significantly higher (£80 - £120 per month more). I've got one coming on a three day demo so I'll see how I get on comparing like for like and will keep you informed. Once again, many thanks to all. Your input and comments are really appreciated.

Thanks for all the feedback. Much appreciated.

Ex IS200SE owner (2001 - 2007) who took the diesel dollar / company car tax option of a diesel instead of the 'take the cash' option when the IS clicked over to 165,000 miles when all that went wrong was a blown sidelight bulb. Daft / Crazy ... yeah I know. So, the lease on the current company car (Mercedes C220 CDi - the company car tax efficient one .. 109 CO2 kg/something?) is due to be returned in June. I've done the sums of cash v company car and as I live in area where crash for cash (OL11) is considered a skilled occupation, the sums (down payment + tyres + batteries + exhausts +servicing + insurance + 40k miles per annum) tend to make me favour taking the car instead of the cash. I've driven the IS300h for about 2 hours and was very impressed, but can someone who runs one day in day out, putting say 100 miles a day on it vouch for its real world MPG / livability. Especially hacking up and down a motorway for 80% of its life. Many thanks in advance of all the responses.

The belt change was about £300. The all up cost of the service was £1100. That included 2 new tyres a 90k service new front discs / pads / calipers. I managed to get the rear discs / pads done for free as they had corroded from being replaced a year earlier. This was done at Lexus Stockport and no they were not my pictures. Hope this helps.

Sandeep, I went through the 90k barrier earlier this month. The ball joints went on mine at circa 70k from new. Can I offer some advice? ...... get the timing belt done now. Don't wait for the 100k service interval. Mine was shot to pieces and was hanging on by a thread at 90k.

If you're using the headlight washers these are particularly thirsty.

Cheers Chaps, Had a word with the dealer (Lexus Stockport - nice guys). They are going to order me a new one and stamp it up for the services they have done. After that I'll be posting it around the 4 corners of the country getting the other 6 stamps put in there. Thanks for your help.

Anybody out there had the misfortune of losing their service book? Car went for its 80k service and was told that it was not possible to stamp the book as it wasn't there. After searching everywhere I've come to the conclusion that it's lost. I've got receipts for four of the last eight services but the car has been serviced all over the country at five different dealers Two questions therefore: 1. Can dealers retrospectively stamp the service book? 2. Do they keep records of when and at what mileage the work was done? If anybody has been through this scenario any tips of how to make the process easier would be most welcome. (apart from not losing the service book!)

It might be the location of where you attempted to lock the doors. If, when you got home your spare keys locked it perfectly but your main key did not when you were elsewhere. It's happened to me before almost always when shopping at the Trafford Centre. If I move across the road to the ASDA car park it works perfectly.

Was this topic started on April Fools Day? Having owned both brands (and a few others also), it all came down to individual choice. My company lets you opt out of the Mondeo / Vectra fleet and take the cash instead. Having weighed up the choices I plumped for the Lexus because I did not know what it was and was smitten after a test drive. It all comes down to the fact that everyone is different and everyone has different reasons for ownership. Even to this day people still ask what sort of car is it and what's it like to drive etc etc. Please don't forget that Lexus is a new company / brand and that BMW started life building aircraft engines.

Amarillo.... Wasn't that a song by Tony Christie? "Show me the way to Amarillo, Every night I've been huggin my pillow, Cryin' over Amarillo, and sweet Marie who waits for me .... sha la la la la la la la"

I never thought of doing that. I'll give it a go and see if it makes any difference.

Anyone else experienced this.... I wash the headlights and the offside washer does not retract fully flush with the bumper. The jets work fine but it appears that there isn't enough oomph in the spring to pull the cover and mechanism back through the recess. The nearside washer works OK. Annoying but a size 10 shoe soon sorts out the offending nozzle.

Sorry about the delay in updating. The discs were replaced under warranty and I can now stop on a sixpence. Thanks Lexus warranty dept but why the hassle?

It happens more often than not when you've done a short trip as the previous journey. It happens to me when I need to nip out to the shop late at night. The engine starts fine first time from cold at night but first thing in the morning it takes two or three goes to get it going. Apparantly BMW's are affected in a similar way. Answer = walk to the shops.

Thanks fellas, Here's an update..... Not being mechanically minded (and sick of being bounced between Lexus Head Office / Dealer / Warranty company) I've asked the dealer that diagnosed the problem to speak to Lexus H.O. customer service. This discussion is ongoing. No offence to Lexus customer service but they tried to blame me for a combination of: a) Leaving the vehicle standing idle for too long b) Using the brakes too heavily / not hard enough c) Living in a temperate climate where corrosion is to be expected d) Driving 60k miles which is the expected life-span for discs (the front discs are perfect) It is safe to say that 20 months / 60k mile happy, pain free & contented Lexus ownership is slowly evaporating due to inept customer service. If I'd really wanted to be shafted like this I would have a bought a BMW, they really do know how to shaft you !!