PhilipK

Thanks - I've been looking there as well, but almost all the SE-L's advertised on eBay are being sold by traders or garages, not by private sellers. My spreadsheet of every SE-L with Navigation that I can find for sale at less than £15k anywhere in the UK shows that there are 32 at present - 16 at Lexus Dealers, 14 at traders/garages and only 2 being sold privately! Do you mean Snows in Hedge End? If so, I've driven a couple of their cars, but they are either Silver (sorry, "Argento Ice" or "Brechin Slate") or too high a mileage for me. They have been very helpful and ring me up as soon as they get any new cars in that might meet my criteria.

That's the first time that I've seen this stated anywhere. On another car forum (BMW Z4, so not a huge membership) they had a similar issue and so the moderators just explained the costs involved and put a "Donate" button on the site. Enough forum members voluntarily contributed that they were able to cover the costs.

Can I suggest another perspective? On many/most of the other car forums I am on, you do not need to pay to advertise a car for sale. This means that there are lots of For Sale ads - which brings potential new owners who are interested in that car to the site, where they often start to browse other threads and,in time, to make a contribution to the forum. It also engenders a community spirit, whereby people prefer to buy/sell cars to other forum members. I don't have a Lexus to sell - I'm looking to buy one. I'd rather buy privately than from a dealer, and ideally I'd rather buy from a real enthusiast (you know, the sort of person who loves his or her car enough to join a forum like this!). But there is no way to find one - the For Sale forum here is as moribund as Monty Python's dead parrot (which, in turn, is hardly likely to persude people to become Gold Members just to have access to it).

My commute is about to change, and I realise that if I'm going to be doing many more miles than previously, I want to do them (1) in comfort and (2) in something a lot slower than my BMW M5 (to have some chance of keeping my licence!) I've decided that I'd like to try a Lexus IS, and I want all the toys, so I've narrowed my search to an SE-L with Multimedia. Must be an Automatic, not Silver, the later the better (preferably 2008+) and under 50k miles. It seems that I have 3 choices of places to buy: 1) Lexus dealership. Has all the advantages of buying from a dealership (car is guaranteed not to be stolen/written off, decent warranty, nice coffee in showrooms) but you pay a significant price premium, and the "right" car for me doesn't seem to be there just now. 2) Non-Lexus garages. I don't like buying from these - all they do is buy the cars in cheaply and sell them at a profit without adding (in my eyes, at least) any real value. 3) Privately. I'm happy buying privately, but there seem to be very, very few cars advertised privately (unless I have been looking in the wrong places). My daily internet search includes the Lexus web site, PistonHeads, AutoTrader, Gumtree and Preloved. Is there anywhere else that I should be looking?

I'm not sure that washing-up liquid is a good idea, as you say - I have read that it contains a lot of salt. Even a reasonable brand of car shampoo (e.g. Autoglym) shouldn't cost too much. Is the water very hard in your area? If so, it may be worthwhile rinsing the car with distilled or softened water before chamoising it (a dehumidifier is a great source of cheap softened water) - my experience is that hard water always leaves drying spots.

I had kind of introduced myself in this post: http://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/forum/topic/81109-any-isf-owners-in-the-north-west/?p=826079 There are all sorts of BMW forums - some frendlier than others. The Z4 forum, where I have been hanging out recently, is very acceptant of other cars and, as I said earlier, a number of people there preferred the IS-F to the M235i (I'd include myself in that - the BMW seems to lack any character). Do appreciate your efforts with the dictionary :-) - and again sorry if the video was taken in the wrong way. I genuinely only posted it because of how rare it is to see an IS-F video, and as many have said (both here and, believe it or not, on the Z4 forum), it was never a fair contest.

I hadn't realised that it was forbidden to discuss any cars other than Lexus on here - obviously I am still learning. I do not own, and have never (not since school, anyway) owned a football shirt. I have little or no interest in the game. I'm much more interested in Formula 1 sorry, a car related sport in which Lexus does not participate. Likewise, but I'm not too impressed with the way that BMW is taking the ///M brand (using it as a marketing tool rather than representing motorsport excellence), hence why I have been looking elsewhere (including the IS-F). My M5 is a 2001, and I've had it for 8 years now (the longest that I have owned a car, apart from a 911 Carrera 3.2 that I kept for 17 years). It has only done 45k miles and still drives like a new car, which is why I find it so hard to replace - I may get rid of the Z4M instead and replace it with a 996 turbo. Didn't really look at the XFR - I like a very hard ride, and Jaguars have traditionally been too soft for me.

Sorry if I ruffled any feathers by posting the link to the video - I only did so because the IS-F is a fairly rare car and there aren't that many videos posted that include them. I was on the Z4 forum (where I have over 500 posts) because I own a Z4 M Roadster. I also own a BMW M5 which I have been thinking of changing, and the IS-F is/was one of the potential replacements. For what it's worth, a number of the people of the Z4 forum said that they'd rather have the IS-F than the 235. Then again, they don't appear to display the level of bigotry and prejudice against owners of other marques that people on here do. Nor do they tend to post in text speak - but I guess that's a measure of their maturity. And yet they own BMWs - who'd have thought it?!

This was mentioned over on the BMW Z4 forum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiT4aaEXN5o#t=59

Does anybody here own the IS-F that was displayed at Elvetham Heath car show last Sunday? I hung around for a while to talk to the owner, but he/she didn't seem to be around at the time.

There's also a Mercury Grey one at Lexus Cardiff (CE13OAA), also 2013 and also priced at £44,950 (down from £45,950). It's advertised on PistonHeads, but not on the Lexus UK site. That, and the one in Leicester, are the only ones I've seen in Mercury Grey.

i am a first time poster here, possibly looking at changing my BMW E39 ///M5 for an IS-F. I've been looking at all the ads that I can find, and there are 24 cars currenly for sale in the UK. 4 of those are Cadoxton Slate, and there's not a single red one for sale anywhere!