Rapidone

Ok, I've finally got enough cash to buy a used ISF. I've previously bought a used Is250 sel and now have a Gs 450h, it's got almost at 50k miles on 07 plate. I've not driven the ISF and would like to hear comparisons on ride and comfort of the ISF compared to the IS250 and/or GS. The problem I have is, I have to move an 80 year old lady on a regular basis, she had no probem with the IS250, and has no problem with the GS, although slightly higher seats would have been better in both cases. I'd love to get the ISF on a test drive to try it out on her, but the option doesn't seem available. I'd greately appreciate any comments from anyone that's driven the ISF and either IS250 or Gs.

A quick note on ecconomy during the winter, I'm getting about 30 mpg now, compared with about 35 in the summer. Lights, heated seats, AC, ice and snow stuck to every surface spoiling aerodynamics and adding weight, engine and tyres slower to warm up.

It's been pathethic. Maybe a little better than the IS250 I had in the February snow (running on battery mode only seems to feed power in more gently and gives less wheel spin), but not much. Snow mode on, traction control off (TC off, or it wont move at all). I was left for dead by every front engined fwd car. Looks like every other abandoned car near me is a BMW, RWD and snow does not mix.

I'm affaid i'm a fan of shiny wheels, especially with a black car. The brighter and more sparklely the better, never been a fan of the dull silver look, but each to his own.

My 06 model had them.

I've been trying to recreate the problem over the past few days and can't. I't appears to be working correctly now. Was it only a coincidence that the first day I decided to check was the only day on which the problem occured? The only explanation I can think of, is the cars' computer adapts to driving style and gave back full accelaration the next day when it became obvious that it would be requested regularly. Heh, it still gave 33mpg on the tank despite lots of foot to the floor tests.

I wouldn't want an Audi or BMW there are just too many of them and overvalued too as used cars. My choice of car brand was between Mercedes and Lexus. I was put off the Mercs because of reliablity issues and reports of poor service from the dealers. That left only Lexus. I'm happy if the rest of the UK population thinks Lexus is an inferior brand. It means I'll continue to get a superior qualilty car at a bargain price for many more years to come. Don't tell anyone else and don't let them in your car, you'll only make more buyers and push up the prices.

Heh, mid life crysis. The 450h seems sensible to me. Fairly good fuel ecconomy, fast, comfortable, 4 usable seats, reliable, very safe, super smooth accelaration. Heh, but it does have a 0-62 time better than the New Focus RS, lol. Mid life crisis would be Tvr Griffith 500, Porche Carrera, Evo X, Caterham, maybe ISF. Actually I would like an ISF, and a Caterham is probably small enough to fit between the junk in the garage as a second car for weekends during the summer. The 450h is the sensible single car option. There's nothing under the throtle pedle. I've been pushing the throtle three quatters of the way down since I got the car. Pushing it the rest of the way today makes no difference. Maybe the problem lies there. Is the computer recognising the difference between 3/4 and 4/4 throtle? Yes the car is still under warentee.

:) sounds like you had some fun. Thanks for trying and the fast reply. Now I have a reference point 240Kw, that's more like what would be expected, thx. The battery was on 6 out of 8 I think, anyway the highest before the top two bars. I've had the battery flat a few times after slow stop start up hill in heavy trafic. Accelaration is noticably lower then. As for how fast 100 comes up. It feels fast to me, but this is the fastest car I've driven so I don't any direct comparisons. It feels faster than the IS250 I had previously, but without getting a stopwatch out and doing a 0-62 test, the sense of accelaration is very subjecive. The speed certainly does rise fast, and what's more impressive is there is no impression that it's going to stop accelarating fast any time soon. It feels like the 155mph limit would come fairly quickly. Even more impressive is how quiet the car is at 100 and above, still easy to talk and be easily heard. Makes you wonder what the top speed would be if unlimited. Anyway I'll try again tomorrow and see what happens, I hit the motorway every day so can test it fairly safely. The car is going in for service soon. I'll ask them to check it when its in. Some poor guy will have to take the car out and rag it for a while. Must be a tough job at times.

I haven't given much thought to the power meter before today, other than looking at it when breaking to see the needle move into the blue energy recovery section. So today on the way home I wondered how high it would go. Foot to the floor on motorway entry it jumps up to 160kW and stays there. The dial on the meter runs all the way upto about 275kW. It wouldn't go any higher, tried power mode and traction control off, while running from 50mph upwards on the motorway, again with foot to the floor. 160kW is about 215hp. The car is supposed to do 341hp which is 254kW. Have any of you with the car tried this? What is the result? Now I'm worried there's something wrong with either the guage or worse, the car is only giving 215hp.

There are fewer new cars being sold. Fewer cars and a simmilar number of drivers, it's just supply and demand. I never did understand why anyone would buy a car brand new, the depreciation was always too high for the first couple of years. A smaller price gap between new and one and two year old cars would seem logical now, since people have less money to throw away. I've noticed at significant price increase on two year old IS250 SE-l since last october (At least £1000).

But surely you have only yourself to blame for this one. You paid for and drove the car off the Dealers lot knowing it had faults. Then you asked them to rectify the issues only then to whinge at the remedy they have offered. Seems more than a tad ungrateful of you IMHO. A proper wheel refurb takes a good couple of days, and if it is done correctly then you should be corrosion free for the future. I didn't know it had faults when I paid for it! It didn't occur to me that parts would be swapped between test drive and purchase. I won't make the same mistake again. They could have offered to replace the wheels with those that were originally on the car. They could do that in an hour, not 3 days.

Well, they want to take the car back for 2 to 3 days to fix the wheels. Seems like a long time when a wheel refurb can be done by a man in a van an hour or two. They also want to see the wheels again to see what the damage is. Like they don't already know. :/ So now I have to find time to go visit them on 3 more occassions. It seems the Lexus customer service ethic is only as good as that given in your local Lexus dealer franchise. My advice, buyer beware, make sure you get information on the reputation of the dealer before you deal with them. DO NOT assume the Lexus sign on the franchise means you will get good service.

I'd be very interested to here your coments on the difference in tyre noise between the two cars.

I considered the S class before getting the 450h, but was put off by the reliability reports, so didn't test drive one. I can say I'm glad I didn't get one. The lag between pressing the accelarator hard and anything happening is huge. Like a turbo lag or the computer thinking about which gear would be most appropriate. Then there's the constant rumble from the diesel engine. On the up side, the seats are comfortable, not a single squeek from the trim and a more solid feel to the car. The suspension soaks up the bumps very well, but maybe a little too soft. Anyway there is no way I'd swap the 450h for one.

Would be nice if there was another forum member living near you, willing to follow you on a drive to compare mileage.

Keyless entry and cooled seats. Before having them, they seemed like just another toy, a bit of a gimmick. However, after having them for only a few days you wonder how you lived without them before. I loved them on the IS250 and now on the GS. The keyless entry is the best feature on the car. As soon as the cold weather was gone the ventilated seat was permenantly turned on and won't go off again till winter. The only problem is that the choice of car for the next purchase will be restricted to cars that have these features. I couldn't go back to being without them now. Years ago, I heard some tv celeb talking about a heated toilet seat, once you have had one you can't go back. Now I think I understand what he meant.

I'm starting to wonder if there is an issue with the car. The engine feels like it's continuing to run after the computer has told it to swithch off. I mentioned that there is a judder as the engine shuts down. Dirrectly before this, it feels asif it's spluttering and running badly and the vibrations car be felt through the car. It reminds me of some old cars that used to keep running for a few seconds when the ignition key had been removed. I've no idea if this is normal for this car or not.

Suspension normal and performance normal, neither on sport setting. I tried flipping from normal to power and back again, doesn't seem to make an difference to the effect I described. When I say "A while", it's about 10 to 15 minutes of smooth efficient motorway driving between 60 and, er I better say 70mph, don't want to incriminate myself. Anyway nothing stupid, just normal motorway speeds.

I changed from 06 IS250 SE-L (not MM) to 07 450h SE a couple of weeks ago, and I've a few comments. The accelaration is the biggest difference, not only because it's alot of fun, which it certainly is, but also it's very useful. It makes driving in traffic much less stressfull, the power is there instantly for pulling out into small gaps. The 250 felt sluggish in comparison. I thought the 250 was smooth in accelaration, and it is, but the 450h takes it to a new level. The only time I noticed the gear change in the 250 was under hard accelaration, but the 450h never jerks, it's super smooth. The speed gain is very deceptive, the car doesn't feel like it's accelarating fast, it just arrives much more quickly at familliar corners than you expect. I've had a couple of close calls arriving with too much speed at tight corners I know well. The noise from the rear tyres is noticably lower in the 450h, the battery pack blocks it out. I'd still prefer for the tyre noise to be lower, but it is an improvement. Yes, the boot is tiny. I expect the resale value of the 450h to be hit badly by the lack of boot space. The car won't be a viable option for alot of people. The 450h feels very heavy when asked to change direction rapidly, you can almost feel the battery pack jump from one set of springs to the other. However it copes fine with sweeping corners. The 450h seems to cope much better with uneven roads than the 250. I've been happy to keep my foot down longer and been able to carry more speed on the same bumpy straights than when in the 250. Fuel consumption seems to be about 10% better in the 450h if driven very carefully. I've had 43mpg on the drive to work, with the round trip being about 37mpg, about 3/4 of which is motorway. I had a very hard drive of the car, with 2 people and a full tank over some of the best roads in the pennines and made 27.5mpg. Empty batteries at the top of the hills and full at the bottom. Road tax is less, insurance only £50 more per year for me, fuel should save me £100 per year, and I'm told the servicing costs arn't much more. The 450h is a whole lot more more car for surprisingly little extra purchace cost when bought used. I won't be going back to an IS unless it's the ISF. EDIT : Beware when running on batteries only (stealth mode). I had a close encounter with a group of school kids that decided to cross the road without looking, they didn't hear the car. Fortunately there was no contact, but they did look very surprised.

Am I correct to assume that product is only going to be suitable for solid colours and not metalic? Wouldn't the colour in the product cover the shiney bits in a metalic paint?

When driving on the motorway at say 50mph+ the car won't enguage battery only drive. I assume there is a speed above which it won't opperate. Now sometimes, after being on the motorway for a while and then going back to slow speed on the A-roads, the car still won't work in battery only mode only, any accelaration however light turns the engine on. When the car is stopped for a couple of seconds and then moving again, it's still the same. However, if the car is stopped for a while say at lights, a judder can be felt a while after stopping, asif the engine has just stopped (despite the screen display showing the engine not running before the shudder). After this has happened the car will happilly run on batter only mode again. Has anyone else experienced this? Care to comment?

Very nice looking car, especially the finish on the paint, and I agree with the gold badges. How did you get that lovely finish on the paintwork?

Have you considered a cassette adaptor with connector for ipod?

Well, I got a call from the dealer today , in responce to the feedback I'd given Lexus UK. They are going to sort out the wheels for me and fix the door issue. I have to say I'm pleased the issue is going to be resolved. It's much better to have a local dealer to use for services and warranty issues, than having to drive 30 or 40 miles. If I'm happy with the job they do, I'll use them in future. We'll see.