fredsmith

Sadly not!

Can someone help or advise please? I am living/working in Switzerland at the moment, and brought my UK-registered IS 250 with me. Now, after a year driving on UK plates I need to have the car properly registered in Switzerland. This means an inspection, which in turn means getting some work done in advance. The main issue is the headlights. Designed for driving on the left side of the road, the lamps point left. In driving on the other side, the lamps need to point the other way. So far, so obvious. So I take the car to the garage to have the conversion done and they tell me there is no way of adjusting the beam. I have to have new lamps fitted, which will cost 2,300 CHF just for the parts. At current exchange rates this is around £1700. Part of me thinks I should sell the car in the UK and buy again in Switzerland. But car prices here are horrendous. About £40K for a new IS 250. About 18 - 19K for a 3-4 year old which is the age of my car. What to do?? Does anyone here have any experience of replacing headlights for European registration? Perhaps it could be done much cheaper in Germany or France? Is there really no alternative to replacing the whole unit? Naively, I thought perhaps the beam could be manually adjusted. Could I buy the unit myself elsewhere for much less, I wonder? Any thoughts / advice / or even just sympathy would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.

I don't want to describe it as the "base model" as it's such a pleasure to own and to drive, but it's not an SE or SEL. I'm very pleased with it. Everyone who sees it or gets in it just coos about it, and turns green with envy.

I'm astonished by what I've been reading on this thread. I had a 10K service on my IS250 a couple of weeks ago at Lexus Reading. Cost me £139 + VAT, including wash etc. They couldn't have been more helpful. Went through everything that had been done, and no attempt made to rip me off. In fact they were encouraging about how little wear my tyres and brakepads were showing. The 20K service will be more expensive as it's a more thorough service but I didn't ask how much it would cost. Overall, very pleased with Lexus Reading.

I drove into Nottingham city centre last night and finally found a parking space in a small side street. The space seemed only fractionally longer than my IS250, but i decided to give it a go. I reversed into it, got it wrong, and came out again. Reversed into it again but once more, didn't get it quite right. Looking behind me, I saw a queue of traffic building up so decided to wait, half in and half out, while they went past. But the first vehicle in the queue flashed me to try again. So I did. At the 4th attempt, I finally got tucked in just right. As the (now rather longer) queue of traffic moved past me, the vehicle that had flashed me, slowed down and the driver, a young guy of Asian origin, grinned and gave me a big thumbs up. As he drove on I saw he was in a Lexus RX, silver in colour. It was one of those nice Lexus moments. Thank you, whoever you were.

Hi JFB, I can't help feeling that you're being a little unreasonable. It's not Lexus's fault that you moved to a place outside their pick-up area. There has to be an economic cut-off point. I can understand you being disappointed but it's not the end of the world. Why not just explain the situation to them and ask for a Saturday service while-you-wait? Is it so bad to go along with a couple of newspapers or a good book or a laptop and just veg out in a comfy chair for a while, drinking Lexus coffee? Or watching their TV? Not sure where the dealership is in TW but perhaps there are some shops locally that you could wander round? It's not that big a deal. I guess the clue was: "I'm indifferent towards my 220d at the best of times" Maybe you're just sore with Lexus for some reason? Anyway, I'm sorry that you're unhappy with Lexus. I'm a new customer but have found the customer service so far to be really excellent.

Well they are part of the same policy, but yes, they are different strands of that policy.

Sorry, I've got the timing wrong. The new congestion charge for higher polluting cars comes into effect in October this year. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7240309.stm

The new 'Green Zone' that arrived last week in London means that cars with an emissions figure of 225 or above will now pay £25 a day to enter the area. IS 250 manual = 231, so they will pay the charge. IS 250 auto = 214, so they will not pay the charge.

You will find that the needle drops below the bottom marker. It's a better judge to use your petrol light. Thanks, but I meant the displayed message on the IS 250 which says something like "Range 100 miles". In the light of the earlier posts, I was asking if this is a totally unreliable guide to what's left in the tank? And does the reading go negative if you exceed these miles?

I'm sorry you've had trouble Geoff, but to describe your IS 250 as a "heap of scrap metal" because you've had trouble with the keyless entry seems unreasonable.

New owner here of IS 250 Auto... Do I take it then that the "range" displayed isn't that accurate? When the range reaches 0, how many miles or litres (roughly) may be left? Does the range start showing minus values from this point on? cheers fred

Hi All Before I start creating one myself, I wondered if anyone has an Excel spreadsheet for logging car expenses that they would like to share? I want something that will log my expenses, mileage (business/private), MPG and so on. Ideally one that also logs income like business mileage payments, car allowance, tax rebates -- and shows these against outgoings like fuel, HP payments, insurance, servicing etc so that I can keep track of how I'm doing financially. Thanks in advance. If no one has one, I'll create one and make it available. fred

It won't let you - it beeps at you if the key is in the car. OK, thanks Geoffers

Just a thought.... What if you left the key in the car by mistake when you got out. Surely you'd be able to lock the car by pressing the button as normal, because the key is within detectable range. Wouldn't you then be locked out?

I have a Snooper SatNav with a subscription. For me it's worth it, to keep up to date with the camera changes. You also get updated maps every year. If you don't need these things, you don't have to pay it, though presumably any SatNav will need to be updated from time to time?

Thanks Ian. It seems slightly Kafka-esque to have to join in order to discover whether it's worth joining though :D

Is there a list somewhere of those who do/don't participate? I'd like to know before joining.

I presume it's the same as I've seen in the BMW, where the doors automatically lock a few seconds after the carmoves off.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I managed to get a little more shaved off the price, with rubber mats and a tank of petrol thrown in, so I decided that would do me. It is definitely the new model with the auto-locking and adjusted seats. No doubt I could have done even better by being a pain in the arse but ultimately you have to ask how much of a timewaster you want to seem to be in order to get a tiny additional improvement. In the end I did take the Supaguard. I hear the sentiment expressed here but it was offered, so what the hell? Another additional thing I managed to get was gap insurance (to ensure I get the full replacement value of the car in case of write-off). I managed to swap this for the tyre insurance which seemed like a good move. There's every chance I'll never need it but it's a little bit of extra peace of mind. It's just the basic IS 250 Auto + parking sensors but still looks like a beautiful car. In the end I just couldn't run to the MM, and to be honest I didn't really need it. The quality of the basic audio is excellent, and I already have a decent Sat Nav. It was only the parking sensors I needed so I ordered them as an extra. Hoping to take delivery within a couple of weeks, and cannot wait! Thanks everyone for the advice and encouragement. fred

Steve -- no it's not an SE. It's the standard Auto. If £24,877 is list. I'm getting about £2,400 off. I don't have a P/ex but I do have a reasonable deposit, leaving me around £15K to finance. Hmm, mixed messages! I'll chat to them again tomorrow and gauge the possibilities. fred

I completely agree that there is a fine line between being a shrewd buyer, and being unreasonable. I've no desire to be greedy, but equally, I don't want to be the victim of a dealer's greed either! Trouble is, I buy a car on average about once every 5 years, which isn't frequent enough to keep abreast of trends. There may be some obvious things to request that I'm not aware of, hence my question. After looking at various quotes on the web, I'm beginning to think that the deal I've been offered is reasonable. Not spectacular, given the time of year, but reasonable. fred.

Thanks Keith, very useful info. However I did take a look at the What Car site and the £22132 they suggest is for the manual version. You have to add £905 for automatic, making £23037 -- so maybe the £22450 isn't such a bad deal? Especially as the supaguard offer is being offered free. I thought carpet mats were standard with a new Lexus? Seem to recall seeing that on the Lexus website. Anyway, thanks again. Good stuff.

After test driving several of the usual suspects over recent times (BMW 3 series, Saab 93, Alfa, Honda Accord etc) I'm committed to buying a Lexus. I had an extended drive in a 220d which I loved, but reading the correspondence on this forum, and talking to a couple of people in the know, my head's been turned in the direction of the IS250 Auto. So I've been talking to a couple of dealers in the midlands area over the past couple of days (I don't want to be more specific than that, in case they read this!). Trouble is, I'm never quite sure how far I can push these guys. Am I being offered a brilliant deal (as they tell me!), or could I do significantly better by being a bit cheeky/clever? I'm conscious that December is a ropey time for the trade, and the end of a quarter as well, so they should be desperate for business. At the moment I've been offered a new IS250 Auto with no extras for around £22,450. This I'm told includes a 10% discount off the book price. It also includes delivery and 1 year's road tax. After a strategic pause, the dealer added some sort of customer care deal including tyre insurance and Supaguard which he claims is worth over £900 (could probably get something similar much cheaper if I shopped around). I just wondered if some of the more experienced wheeler-dealers on here could offer any realistic tips about what I can realistically ask for either in further discounts or freebies. Any info greatly appreciated. fred.

OK, fair enough everyone. Sorry if I was a little defensive. It's a bit annoying finishing an extended test drive in a car that seemed great only to be told that it's a "dud". There are reasons why I preferred the idea of the diesel but if the difference is that stark, I will have to think again about the 250.