bobbyc

Welcome to the club Steve and I am sure you will find out anything you need to on here.

Walk away from this car. As people have already said they have a few issues as it is and there are no shortage of decent examples elsewhere with full lexus service history. The 60K service is the "biggy" and for the IS250 can cost up to £700, therefore if his mate has done it, you can bet it is to save money and will not have covered all the parts which Lexus would have done. Lexus are great cars, (ever the IS220d has many fans), however they do need to be looked after in order to run as expected and if I could'nt prove that this was the case I would walk away. Lucky you and your family were not hurt, but it could easliy have been far worse. How would your wife feel sitting in that car in the future? Get your money back and look for another Lexus....

Hi All, Over the last few weeks I have noticed an increase in the number of different Lexus I am seeing on the roads of Glasgow. In the past you would see the odd IS220d and maybe a RX300, however it seems over the last few months the number driving about has increased. I have seen a lot of CT, IS (200,300, 220d and 250) RX and GS. Most seem to be a few years old (with the exception of the CT which seem to be new models), therefore I am wondering if people are now turning to the fact that Lexus made an excellent purchase for second hand cars. Thankfully it has not got to the stage of BMW or Audi, where every second car is one of those, however I would be interested to know if anyone else has noticed this. Cheers Bobby

Hi For £7k you should get a really decent IS250 around 06 - 08 with between 45K-65K miles on the clock and full lexus service history. The difference in price seems to relate to the various specs more than anything else.

It can sometimes be quite hard to notice if you disc is wraped. From what you are saying it could be the disc and I believe garages have a tool which can check the surface and confirm if it is damaged.

could it be a wraped disc if it starts when braking? Normally this is worse at high speeds and can cause the steering wheel to shake quite a lot depending on how bad it is. Does it ever happen without you braking first?

That must be very annoying, but it is clear your Lexus has plenty life left in it and when compared to a similar age and mileage Merc it seems to have won hands down.

Would a clutch and flywheel not cost considerably more than £700 to replace? I would have guessed at closer to £1500 at a dealer.

Hi Craig. I would certainly recommend the IS250. In relation to fuel I get about 24 mpg doing school runs, 27 mpg on mixed round town and 38 mpg on a decent motorway run so it is not too bad for a v6 2.5 petrol. The road tax is only an issue if like me you don't research it and buy a manual which is £480 per year (a Ferrari F430 spider v8 4.3litre is only an extra £20 quid per year). The auto is about £250 a year. However if you remove the road tax issue I am very impressed with the IS250 and find I enjoy it more and more every passing month. It is very refined, quiet, goes fast if you need it too, although it does not really give you the urge to welly it and has great equipment level. The SEL is the top of the range with all the toys, however I have the SE which has sunroof, full leather seat and trim, Mark Levinson premium audio and Sat Nav with reverse camera so excellent compared to similar BM and Mercs. As always it comes down to personal choice but I can't fault this car and very few people on the forum have had an major issues.

Great new on the MOT because it does not sound like you have had a good run of luck with the car. At the moment I am just grateful my IS250 is proving reliable because my wife's Mini Cooper is about to get set on fire if it does not buck up its ideas. They are great little cars to drive but the build quality is shocking and if this is what you can expect from BMW then I am glad I never considered one of them. Ever my wife you loves the car is talking about trading it in for a Mazda or Honda because she is sick of it breaking, creaking and rattling all the time.

Hi Leon The sat nav disc sits behind the clock panel. You need to use to little screwdrivers to push in the holes at either side and the panel should then clip off. Be careful not to break it when you take it off. This should allow you to remove the DVD and see if it is damaged or if it is in fact the unit which needs to be replaced. I believe that new original discs from lexus are £150, however you can sometime pick up ones on ebay but you need to be sure they will work on your unit, otherwise you may think the unit is damaged when it is another faulty disc.

Hi Jonathan I am sorry to hear you are having issues with your IS250. There is a few posts on the forum in relation to these warning lights and they can be anything from the fuel cap not being on right, o2 sensors going in the engine and the cat breaking. I once had this issue and it was after refuelling and when I replaced the cap it went away never to be seen again, However I am surprise that Lexus are saying they can only check it when the lights are on. They can surely do a code check and see what codes are being displayed even if the lights are not on. There will hopefully be someone else on the forum who has more experience of this than me, but from reading up on it myself it can be a thousand things and if it keeps appearing it is best to get it sorted incase it makes it worse. Bobby

No Bee I apologise this is slightly off topic. Is it really £2600 for a new exhaust on the IS250? I had heard comment that they were expensive but I have never heard of any exhaust system being that expensive. Can you not get bespoke exhausts for them a lot cheaper? Bobby

Hi, I am sure this can only be done at a main dealer and I think the cost is approx £300 which covers the cost of the key fob and reprogramming it.

Hi John, I have had mine just over 3 months and must admit that I enjoy it more and more every day. I think it is an excellent car and can't praise it enough. Hopefully you will have the same experience.

Blackcircle and mytyres are both good. Also if you are a AA member you get a good discount at National Tyres and they do weekly deals. All you do is log onto aatyres and put in your details and they will show you the deals. Depending on what tyres you are looking for it can be quite good.

I have a IS250 SE and on a motorway run I sit at 38mpg and can't get it higher. Round town you will look at between 24 - 27 and mixed driving will be about 30mpg. As people have mentioned it really depends on what your main driver is for purchasing the car. I do not think you will get above 38 mpg on a motorway in a IS 250 but you should easily get this on a IS220d. However you will need to weight this up with the fact in general the IS250 is more reilable and is less likely to break or need to be repaired. The IS250 is generally bomb proof however there can be issues (as mentioned before) and you really need to keep them serviced to get the best from them. IMHO the IS250 is the better bet if you can live with the MPG.

HI In relation to the LED bulbs are these just a straight replacement for the halogen T10 and do not require any further adjustments to the lights for them to be used? Thanks

I did the same as jason and went for the essential service plan because I was getting quoted about £1100 for my service plan and when I questioned what the difference was between the essential plan and the service plan I was told the essential pack did not do all the items. However they could only mention the coolant change at 100K which they quoted at £180 (not sure I believe that) and battery for key fobs (done this myself for £2). So they could not confirm the £500 difference so I signed up for the essential plan which also includes 2 mot's. They don't stamp the service book but you are given some sort of card which is stamped and attached to the service book.

Vauxhall Insignia 13 plate. had it as a hire car and it was terrible. It was like driving a whale, it was under powered, rubbish inside, had a button for the hand brake but you also had to press in the foot brake to get it to work. Therefore on hill starts you had to be like someone from riverdance. Terrible driving position, looked huge from the outside but did'nt really have any passenger room in the back. If they had offered me it for £3K I would have knocked it back. Horrible car in every sense could not agree on one thing I liked about it.

Thanks very much that has been helpful

Hi Thanks very much for the reply in relation to the bulb and having a read over it, it mentioned a few things which I don't process. Patience and slender hands being but two. Therefore may need to resort to the garage for this job. Am I right in assuming this would maybe be a 30 mins job for a garage? Also how do I know if my car is fitted with xenon's or HID?. it is a is205 se 2006. I don't thing it has either of these and is likely the halogen bulbs as mentioned but how do I double check?

Hi Dean Did you get your bulb done at a garage and do you know how long it took? Cheers Bobby

Welcome Anthony and it is good to see another IS250 owner from Scotland

Good Morning All, At the weekend I was checking my lights were working ok when in the auto mode and noticed that on the passenger side there is a very small bulb in the light cluster closest to the grill which was not working. It is very small and sits up in the corner of the unit. My questions is how easy is it to replace this bulb and how much does the part cost?. Also if I was to take this to Lexus to fit does anyone has a rough idea of the cost?, Finally if I need to take this to a garage to replace would it be ok to do this at a general garage or would it really need to be Lexus? Any help as always would be appreciated. Bobby