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It would be fine to have the wheels stand out a bit - but only in a good way; so gold and bronze are out - they would only work if you had gold badge/lettering as a key for them to pick up on. Even that might not be a good look. Charcoal grey is a bit subtle and will look good as well as disguising brake dust. Sorry can't give you a paint name and the lids on Halfords cans no longer match the paint inside them and are just generic colours also not many branches have colour charts. Lexus may be able to help because charcoal wheels were fitted to late IS200's along with "smoked" headlights etc.

First for decent Traction in snow etc, although it seems counter-intuitive, you would need much narrower tyres. Generally wide tyres will be worse. But even if the ISF had 100% grip, low ground clearance makes it useless on fresh or lying snow or built-up between ruts more than about 10cm deep - the relatively delicate plastic front can't push it out of the way without risking expensive damage. Winter tyres are doubtless going to improve things when it is cold and/or "a bit slippery", but even they are not going to cope well with packed snow glazed with ice on untreated roads which I think expenditure-cuts may make more widespread from now on. Interestingly, in Scandinavia & colder US States, the frequent, severe snows are better and more extensively cleared on urban and busy roads than here, and their quiet roads tend to be really quiet with nothing to hit. Even though winter tyres etc. may be mandatory, and their cars & drivers well-prepared and thoroughly used to bad conditions; their winter accident rates and fatalities are many, many times ours. In reality they cope better but not well. The moral is that our relatively infrequent icy & dangerous conditions should always beg the question "Is it genuinely essential to drive today?" - but most of us mistake convenient for essential and drive anyway

If economy is a big factor in your choice then the 220d is unlikely to be right car for you. I would recommend that you investigate other 'prestige' cars before making your final decision. Just my two cents. Hiya dazed, Thank you for your input. If I can get a return that is something similar to my cousin and his 220d then I will be quite happy. He went to France and Spain recently for three weeks and his overall consumption figure was just over 49 mpg. I will be happy with that. Using the official mpg figures below which may not be entirely realistic, but should compare like for like reasonably. IS220D Urban 35.8 Extra-Urban 52.3 Combined 44.8 IS250 Auto Urban 23.9 Extra-Urban 43.5 Combined 33.6 (IS200D Urban 44.8 Extra-Urban 64.2 Combined 55.4 - rework of IS220D from late 2010) Your cousin achieved 49 mpg which is close to the average of Combined & Extra Urban equalling 48.55 mpg. The similar average for an IS250 Auto is 38.55 mpg. Also using the AA figures for average fuel prices October 2011 of Diesel £1.396/gal & Petrol £1.345/gal; over a 3000 mile holiday, fuel costs work out as follows: IS220D 61.79 gal, 280.78 litres @ £1.396/litre = £391.98 IS250 Auto 77.82 gal, 353.62 litres @ £1.345/litre = £475.62 This works out for fuel for the IS250 Auto to be £28 more per 1000 miles. I believe in general, this figure would be less - probably nearer £20. Now, it is my belief that the superb, smooth, silent and relaxing drive of the IS250Auto with much better performance when you want it is worth every penny of an extra 2 - 3 pence per mile. However, if the extra cost tips the balance; could you maybe think about a High-end Toyota Avensis Diesel, which although not quite a Lexus is a well-equipped car which drives really well plus is a lot cheaper to buy and run. And of course these days "Other cars are available"

UPDATE: Tracker came out today - well organised via emails + Texts & spot on time. Tracker Engineer was very professional with common sense too. The installers had failed to send Tracker the code for whereabouts in the car the unit had been fitted, so searched likely places - with no luck. It seems U/S Trackers can get to drain the car battery; so just leaving it and fitting a new one is unwise - as also is tearing the car apart outside your house to find a unit just a bit bigger than a sardine tin and deliberately hidden from potential thieves etc. Upshot is that Tracker are treating as a priority and pressing the installers to reveal where they fitted it from their records. Another appointment will then be made to sort it out......... I live in hope

Having had a look at the MPG stats I have had to have a complete re-think. Musch as i would have loved to own a 250IS (I have always wanted to own a 6 cylinder car)I just couldn't afford to run one and so have reverted to the 220d. My cousin has had two of these and I have been really impressed with them, and so has he. Thanks to all for your comments. I will post again when I have my new car. A shame. Many find mpg differences between IS250 Auto & IS220D not huge. Official mpg figures seem nearly achieved for IS250 Autos and often nowhere near achieved or consistent for IS220D - as posts on here show. (Note: mpg now on the Lexus site refer to the reworked IS200D & is better than for IS220D). Nevertheless, Devon's hilly terrain is a bit different from the typical "Mixed" or "Extra-Urban" situations, and the engine will regularly work fairly hard; so the diesel could have a real mpg advantage if nothing else (well actually, definitely nothing else). Anyway, the best of luck & I seriously suggest that because you are impressed and satisfied by your cousin's IS220D - just enjoy yours and never, ever try an IS250.

hello mate,i think my catalytic is dirty and need cleaning or else need to replace it! engine warning lights on,power loss!noisy! i mean if it safe for the engine? to put lacquer thinner in the gas tank? Do NOT put thinners in your tank. In low concentrations it will not dissolve anything blocking your CAT, nor even really effectively if in high concentrations which would make flames shoot out of the exhaust. Worse though, Thinners will definitely attack almost all of the plastic, nylon, rubber or synthetic components the fuel passes through on the way to the cylinders. Also if combusted or partly so along with the fuel, thinners are super-rich in carbon molecules and will block the CAT even more.

If you are after an exceptionally fine car with decent performance, reasonable economy and a smooth, refined V6 drive; go for the IS250SEL Auto with the multimedia pack. The IS250 manual gearbox is not as good as the superb auto - the Tax disk for the Manual version actually costs more plus it provides worse economy. If you need to minimise fuel costs and are a masochist who gets off on disappointment; go for the IS220D which is everything you would expect from a 4-pot diesel car and only comes with a manual gearbox with peculiar ratios.

A simple rod aerial is never going to work all that well but just might be good enough after the digital switchover in April next year when the Digital transmission power will be increased by a substantial amount. A special-purpose type (like caravanners use) aerial is really needed but it must be omnidirectional. With DTV there is no easy way to aim a directional aerial because you will get no sign whatsoever of a picture, sound or anything at all UNTIL it is pointed in the right direction. DTV is all or nothing. It is not like the analog signal where a noisy picture can be sorted by aiming the aerial for the best results. The only problem with efficient omnidirectional aerials is that they are conspicuous, ugly and look like a metal art-work. So don't settle on an aerial type or position or drill any holes until you have tried a DTV converter, and even then really not until after April 2012. Best to leave this project to one side until then........ or just give up.

Just to add that rim protection of the OEM tyres (and presumably others offering this facility) is useless. Even at tickover, gently nudging even the lowest curb will push the rubber out of the way to scrape the rim revealing bright shiny metal as a vivid contrast to the "black" finish - so you just have to be careful. I don't think any of the alternatives you suggest would be bad tyres and the differences would be quite subtle. It is probably worthwhile looking for reviews which indicate whether the charactersics you want last throughout the life of the tyre.

My rant isn't against Direct Line (or as they are now, part of a group consisting of all the respectable Insurers you have ever heard of). Most Insureres ask for the car & equipment to be properly maintained and that would include the Tracker. I doubt if push came to shove they would try to enforce lack of theft coverage for the reason that a Tracker had stopped working. The rant is more about Tracker who don't automatically run test signals on some regular, automatic basis when they have the means to do so - after all your mobile is regularly polled with signals to establish it is "connected". Tracker assert the equipment is reliable and should last at least 10 years - but have no possible means of knowing this because they don't try to find out, leaving it entirely up to owners to contact them to request the over-air tests. I doubt the majority do. Tracker Horizon has a Thatcham Category 7 certificate (the best level), and I wonder whether the criteria for this includes or should include the provider making some kind of effort to check if their service works other than at installation and then to alert the owner if action needs to be taken. It is not like a TV where it is fairly obvious when it doesn't work, and it is perhaps a bit late to find a Tracker doesn't after your car is stolen. As a minor point, I think it is also slightly strange to offer a Lifetime of Ownership service without the equipment to provide it being also guaranteed for the same period - particularly if it is normally as reliable as they assert.

Fair enough. The wiring diagram on the site below might help. http://bahamutcars.free.fr/workshop/IS_98-05/menu_tree.html

When I bought the ISF new, my Insurers insisted I had a Tracker Horizon fitted. I have have recently discovered that Tracker have means of checking that the unit fitted to the is actually working (although as an owner you have no clue) by sending out test signals - BUT DON'T UNLESS YOU SPECIFICALLY ASK THEM TO DO SO. This means that neither Tracker nor owners know if the units are functional except (i) When they are first fitted (ii) If you ask them to check (iii) The car is been stolen and the system worked (iv) The car is stolen and it didn't work when you then know it is U/S. For the rest - the vast majority, they have absolutely no idea. Out of pure curiosity, I asked for a check and found mine is Kaput. Consequently, my Insurers advise that the Theft part of my Policy is now invalid until Tracker repairs/replaces it in a couple of week's time. Sadly, although the Tracker was purchased as a Lifetime Service for a huge one-off payment; their unit in the car is only covered by a 3 year Warranty - which expired 5 months ago. Because Tracker state the equipment is so reliable that it needs no checks or inspections unless the vehicle has been in an accident etc; you are unlikely to ask them to test it - so the Warranty is seldom going to be any use anyway unless on principle you remember to ask for tests before it expires. However, in their favour, they do come out to you and sort it all out for just another £99 when they can get round to it. So, if you have a Tracker Horizon fitted, suggest you ask them to check if yours is still working......

It really depends where you live and how much you need to use the car. For me in urban Surrey there have been 27 days of snow/ice to cause significant problems in 20 years so I don't bother with winter tyres, awkward socks etc. Last winter was the worst in years and just didn't use the car for 3 days when the snow was too deep for winter tyres to help in any way - the issues being ground clearance and the car being utterly useless as a snow-plough.

Make sure it is not even possible for the driver to view the TV picture when the car is moving because that is seriously illegal. The unit HAS to have automatic means of disabling TV or DVD pictures when the car is in motion if the screen is visible to the driver. Also hope your new unit receives Digital TV Signals because the original London analog transmitter turns off for good in April next year. Aerial position will be where it works best - just start off trying it out on a longish lead. Be warned, unless you are very close to Crystal Palace, DTV may not work well until April 2012 when the power is stepped up after the Digital Switchover.

There is no technical reason not to run the reversing camera from the reversing lights or any disadvantage in doing so - the camera draws negligible current. Also the reversing lights are conveniently already at the back of the car and easily accessible. Suggest for added protection you add an in-line fuse to the power take-off for the camera.

I have had 3 sets nicked so far. Since the last time, I do them up with a small spanner just too tight to undo with the fingers, and keep the spanner in the car together with the locking-wheelnut key. Several times since I have noticed them suddenly becoming nice and shiny where the **seholes have had a go & failed.

The problem with batteries in hybrid vehicles is that they WILL fail/lose capacity. ALL rechargeable batteries have a finite life. It is just a question of when they will fail. The design criterion is that they should last the life of the vehicle as defined by the manufacturer - Toyota guarantee theirs for 8 years/100000miles and in some US states for 15 years. Generally, they have been found to exceed the mileage side by a large factor, although the time factor is not yet fully proven because they haven't been around that long. It will be interesting to see what Lexus will do to help you with your problem - it is in their own best interest to maintain their reputation for long-term reliabilty given that the second-hand market and to some degree new sales are already depressed by rumours (apparently completely unfounded) of LIKELY and huge replacement costs for the batteries. Maybe a longer guarantee period would persuasively allay customer's fears and definitively prove they are not shared by Lexus? It would cost them nothing if there is no problem. After all Kia offer long warranties to convince people it is worth buying their products.

This is particularly likely to happen this time of year if you have parked where the sun shines for part of the time and evenings are quite cool. Any residual moisture (which is inevitable) in carpets, seats, trims etc. is vapourised by the heat from the sunshine, and when the car falls into shadow, the windscreen rapidly cools and the vapour condenses on it. You then come out to a car with the windows already steamed up. If it still dry weather, turn on A/C, screen-blower at full tilt and drive off with windows open. If it is damp, don't open the windows. The effect is worse with today's heavily raked windscreens than when they were more upright.

This is called vignetting and is almost inevitable with a simple wide-angle lens used in a mass-produced camera with little depth to the sensor. It should not be severe so as to obscure where you are likely to park or exist anywhere but at the top corners of the image where it does not matter - because parking in the sky is not expected.

That works out to 18.8 mpg which is a bit poor. Try a short experiment. Brim the tank and drive until nearly empty but keeping below ALL speed limits, NEVER accelerating hard, ALWAYS easing off instead of heavy braking - boring and you will have to allow a couple of minutes more for each journey. Work out mpg from miles done and how much is needed to brim the tank again (Divide litres by 4.544 to get gallons). If the result is in the thirties for mixed urban & motorway driving and in the twenties for urban only; then your poor mpg is just down to driving style - probably more suited to a lively 4-cyl car. If it stays poor in the experiment; start looking for something wrong with the car. The IS200 isn't a particularly economical car. The manufacturer's figures are in the specs at the top of this page on the forum. As always, these are a bit optimistic; but you should expect something fairly near them.

Don't expose the metal by melting - that probabaly won't work. Nor will liquid metal which isn't conductive. Scrape to expose clean metal "strips" with a scalpel. Then solder on lengths of very thin, flexible insulated wire to bridge each of the gaps. The wires have to be long enough to allow for any folding the ribbon cable needs when installed in the stereo and also stay separate. Use a small low-power soldering iron with a small bit (2-3mm) and thin, flux-cored solder and do it quickly to avoid melting more of the "Backing" than you have to. You can get all you need from Maplin's. If you haven't any soldering skills, you will probably wreck it. After the electrical repair, hold it together & insulate the lot with thin flexible tape - brown, wide parcel tape is good for this. Sounds complicated but only takes a few minutes to do this. Don't get your hopes up. The ribbon cable was probably damaged when someone tried to investigate why the stereo didn't work in the first place. Best of luck.

Easy to fix by anybody in electronics who uses a soldering iron. So ask around your friends.

Obviously you really mean so that passengers can watch DVD's. It is unfortunately extremely illegal to have a car-installation where it is possible for the driver to be able to view DVD's playing whilst the car is moving, and is rightly considered much more serious than using a hand-held mobile. There have been prosecutions for this, and in the event of a fatal accident attributed to it; the charge could be manslaughter. You must have auxillary screen(s) invisible to the driver, with the DVD display on the front, central screen disabled while the car is moving.

A good, sound principle. However the gearbox/torque converter is designed to withstand the hugely greater strain of overcoming the inertia due to the car's mass when you eventually pull off - most of the engine's available power could even be applied with a heavy right foot. So what you say is fundamental and true; but the strain when stationary in D for a while is too small to be a significant contributor to shortening the life of any of the drive-train. So whatever suits best. I suppose N is safer than D because if your foot on the brake relaxes or slips off; the car is never going to lurch into the car in front. On the other hand, in D everything is ready to go when the traffic starts to move again.......

I hope you mean if you press the right-hand pedal hard then OK - but if you mean you can't pull off gently and slowly when you want to; there is something dreadfully wrong with your ISF If an ISF is as it should be; there is no car easier to drive in slow or stop/start traffic - even in Sport mode.