MartinH

I see prices of those first ES cars are now sinking down to the low 20s. But the best IS eg 20-reg Takumi are still fetching high 20s — surely a measure of what a flop the ES has been. IS customers value the car's (relative) compactness.

Cannot see the China embassy equipping itself with Japanese cars tho?

I've had good service from Michelin CC and they stay planted in very wet conditions. One tactic of course is to slow down a bit when it's very wet

Those are pretty jaw-dropping results

Yes, something north of £4K! It occupied a berth on the Lexus Edgware Road service floor for about three months in 2020 (at the height of the pandemic). The problem had to be referred to Lexus GB, and in turn to the Lexus tech bods in Japan. The problem was extensively discussed, with long advisories arriving overnight (by fax of course) from Japan. These had to be translated and, frequently, sent back to Japan for clarification. I think Sunil and his team were quite pleased to see the back of the green IS250, but full marks for bottoming the problem!

Not that I recall

Well I feel I am miscast here as that guy who neglects his car, leaving known problems to the next owner. During my ownership it has always been serviced by the main dealer, who saved it from near-certain death in 2020 when the fuel system and electronics failed. Even after a big, and I do mean big, discount to list price on the required parts, the bill to me mounted to most of the likely resale cost of the car. After that rebuild, the car ran beautifully, and has continued to do so since. So I have no plans to sell it on, not least because nothing much in the current Lexus range appeals to me. The arguments about what to replace the IS250 with are well-rehearsed in another thread!

I'd never seen the Car Care Nut. I like that he inspired Shafiq to build his own bikes, a diverting and pleasing hobby with a tangible output. So much work now is just doing stuff on a computer, with no tangible output but for your fee or salary.

Quite a variety of opinions here! My take is that if the plugs are worn-out, there is likely to be a perceptible degradation of performance and (more easily assessed) fuel consumption. Both seem as good as they've ever been at present.

Eurgh that trail looks horribly gnarly 😬 Well done!

That's about the price Fish Bros (Lex Swindon) quoted to supply and fit the 6 plugs needed here

Plainly the onus is on me to scrutinize all my service invoices. However since moving from London to Somerset, a great deal of past paperwork has been purged!

Closing on 100K — modest for 2007 car. Note that it is not I who will face the task of removing them, if removed they are to be. I have not diddled around with sparkplugs since I owned a Morris Minor, and someone (who?) inducted me into the use of the gap gauge. Scouring the electrodes and setting the gap correctly quite perked up the performance, I recall, but that is far away and long &c...

Yup, it does not qualify for Relax. Probably the most most important question to ask is: how much longer do I keep this car? New plugs will have a service life of at least 5 years (say 50K miles), but there are likely to be other, possibly weightier, failures in that timeframe.

Yes, car has Lexus service record since I bought it in 2011 — possibly the vendor, Toyota Rotherham, changed the plugs before it was sold to me at 50K miles and did not upload the work to the Lexus db?

Car is booked in with Lexus Swindon for 100K miles service (after spending most of its life looked after by Lexus Edgware Road). I am told there is no record of the spark plugs having been replaced in ten years. It is not a minor item, adding £250 or so to the bill. Several posters here assert that the recommended 60K miles replacement period is too cautious, and the plugs can go on... and on. My car is still running great and still achieving nearly 40 mpg for longer, steady trips. Shall I forgo the spark-plug replacement?

Everesting on an MTB? My word that is a massive shift! Did you get it done?

Hmm, the worry with those carriers is that if you get rear-ended with two proper bikes on, that could easily be a five-figures loss!

If your Android phone has a 3 mm jack outlet, can you not plug it into the analogue input in the console? (I assume it has one.) I use this method in my 2007 IS250.

Strong advice from Lexus Edgware Road was not to use E10 in the 2007 IS250. The reason for this has been extensively discussed in another thread. Consensus (such as it was) is that non-metallic components in the fuel system are degraded by E10's higher moisture content, and eventually fail. At least Lexus warns its customers of this; a friend of mine had to scrap his well-liked old V5 Golf after the fuel-system internals perished on a diet of E10.

Not big enough perhaps?

I have used Thule square-section bars with model-specific clamps to the door reveals since forever. Works on the IS250, and worked on two Toyota Camrys (and several Citroens before that). But I don't know what sort of fitment you need to attach bikes with through-axles to the roofbars — if anyone has a product to answer, it will be Thule.

My dilemma the opposite...inexorable maintenance by Lexus Edgware Road, car been on the Lexus database since new staff car in 2007, runs so perfect I completely missed the diary entry for MOT. In June. Can I get an MOT appointment now, at the registration breakpoint of September? Of course not! So it's the bus for me until the end of next week 💩

How though?