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Note: LED lights draw less current for the same brightness and may need load resistors to artificially increase the current drawn to a similar level as the filament bulbs to stop the car's bulb-fail circuits permanently indicating "blown bulb". This load ressitor often draws more current than the LED. When you fit LEDs, there are three things to bear in mind. (1) The load resistor can get too hot to touch particularly when associated with lamps that are ON for long periods like sidelamps - they need to be mounted where they won't damage (melt/burn) anything. (2) If LEDs fail (and they do); the lamp-fail circuits will no longer work. (3) There may be theoretical type-approval issues making their use illegal except in vehicles for which they have been approved.

The auto gearbox in the IS200 is just as reliable as the manual box - but it does marginally dull the performance and give slightly worse mpg. Until you get used to it, the drive might seem a bit unexciting. IS200's auto box is very good, but not quite the same or as excellent as the auto in the IS300.

Check door-closure switches front and rear consistently operate the interior light. If intermittent can also cause auto head-lamps not to switch off. If you have to replace, be warned they are on very short, tight wires.

Unless you are really hooked on a LSD; avoid the Sport. The performance is identical and it is slightly lowered for cosmetic reasons only. However, the biggest factor is that Sports are is likely to have had a much harder life and so be a bit tired. Worse still, they may well have pointless modifications. All models late 2003 onwards and the LE have better interiors, HIDs and more goodies. Whichever you get, do not expect massive performance - in fact it is so smooth that it seems slower than it is - or expect wonderful economy.

You certainly seem to have everybody's rotten luck in one lump with your car. Sadly the "Sport" is often a bad buy, having been well-abused by owners when they find there is nothing sporty about it apart from the name and an LSD. Hopefully, all your issues are now well sorted and behind you. I suppose the lesson is not to rely on "Inspections" etc. from those who might gain by not noticing what they hope are minor faults - because they would have to fix them. As to the cam-belt change, assuming that it was actually done, it is hard to make a mess of doing it. That being so, if you have suspicions, change it yourself and fit a new water-pump (unless it has already been changed) while you are at it because they are inclined to dribble.

The LS & GS are spectacularly world-class quiet, and the IS200 is not quite in that category. Sound level measurements at the low levels involved are notoriously difficult because they do not differentiate the types of sound that are particularly annoying. However, in its class, the IS200 is very quiet and I would say that subjectively mine was no noisier at 70 mph than at 40 mph on a reasonable road surface. As an example, if following speech in something like a play on the radio set to a lowish level at 40 mph, there was never any need to turn it up at 70 mph, although you might have to slightly at 90 - 110 mph. Note: If you can hear any wind-noise: Check the fit of the doors/rubber seals.

The only real thing to watch is that the sides of the car get coated/embedded with brake-dust/metal-particles because of the way the air flows. The metal particles rust if not removed, which looks especially bad against white paint. This is a problem for a year or two until the paint toughens up. The wheels can also get to look "rusty" at the rims for the same reason and the front alloys always quickly coat with black dust. Maybe ceramic brakes would help this although their improved performance is probably not going to be necessary. Take great care never to scrape the black-chrome alloy rim-edges against kerbs etc. There is no specific touch-up paint from Lexus for them. Also, avoid allowing the front of the car to ride up over tallish kerbs in car-parks, because when you back off the under-lip can catch and pull the front bumper assy away! The ISF is crap in proper snow. Apart from the poor traction you would expect with RWD & wide wheels etc, there is not enough ground clearance for fresh snow of any real depth. I understand a SatNav update allows change on the move. Frankly, I think that this is generally dangerous anyway - close to equivalent to texting on the move. So no big issues. Just enjoy. You will probably even find it isn't as thirsty as you expected, and the Auto is so good that you will seldom use the paddles except for fun.

Don't know where you can find these figures. But when cruising at those speeds, engine and transmission should be virtually inaudible - the aircon/heater blower at full tilt is much noisier. Engine noise naturally increases with hard acceleration but should never be obtrusive. Road noise predominates and heavily depends on tyre make/type as often mentioned on this Forum. What it also depends on is tyre age - the materials harden and become less resilient before wear is a problem. Lower profile/wider tyres are also noisier. All round though, the IS200 is about the quietest 2 litre car you can find.

Firstly, the problem is squarely down to the Trader that sold it to you whether a Lexus Dealer or Independent. They are obliged to deal with it in a timely fashion by repair/refund/replacement. They may subsequently choose to reclaim repair costs from Lexus or a Lexus Warranty but are not entitled to delay repairs for approval although this is offset by their efforts to keep you on the road. High parts cost gives a clue that buying an extended warranty after all this has been sorted can be a good idea, although for a GS at £995/12month or £1850/24month, it isn't cheap.

Since Supermarkets are major players with huge clout in the Fuel Market; there is no question that they are palmed off with junk petrol. However, things can go wrong, mistakes can be made, and when they do, huge numbers in proportion to sales are affected. Super Grade fuels claim improvements which can really only affect the average car in ways that specialist measuring equipment is needed to detect. Generally, the extra cost is likely to be more than the value of the improvement. The IS300 has a lazy, unstressed engine, and should run well on any fuel in the range of grades specified. Maybe a sensor detected a problem temporarily caused by the fuel you recently bought, or equally possible the sensor itself is making a bad connection or is becoming faulty. If the light keeps coming on, check the Lambda sensor first. I do not know where it is on the IS300, but it is usually somewhere on the exhaust manifold or pipe nearby.

Had a chance to drive a New IS200D as a courtesy car. It gives a much more refined drive than the IS220D. The power band seems to have been stretched and smoothed out and is coupled to a gearbox with ratios that fit the engine. However, compared with an IS250, you still cannot ignore the 4-cyl Diesel's noise, vibration and slightly feeble performance.

If your IS has to provide the majority of the funds for a replacement; keeping yours with known up-coming costs may be a better bet than something else with an unknown potential for problems. Basically, the IS has reliabilty and longevity better than virtually any other car of similar age or quite a bit newer. I don't believe the "possible" problems with your auto gearbox will actually turn into an issue. Obviously some have failed, but this is rare - I have only ever seen one mentioned on this forum.

This is the first indication that the potentiometor on the rear axle which controls the headlight height is damp and soon going to fail. Paul Interesting! The dealer report indicates that that they have totally re-programmed all the headlight telemetry and it's all "back to specification" - and on the two drives home since it's been sorted I've taken the "country route" to check it out and the lights performed perfectly. But............I think I prefer it without the electronic intervention - the temptation to keep the wheel away from central makes for some pretty jerky cornering - so I'll have to forego the auto switch on facility and try to work out for myself when exactly it is that I need to switch the lights on!!!! Turn the AFS off then. Select it from switch on RHS below steering wheel. It doesn't add much - if anything - to driving anyway.

To sum it all up. Nobody should buy an IS200/300 for economy. Nobody should buy one for tyre-burning performance. Trouble-free, looks that are still stylish and a pleasure to drive - that's enough.

Happy enough if the car's system added DAB but not to replace FM. DAB doesn't even work at all in my house without external aerial and I am not in some marginal area like the Hebrides. I like the updates to the ISF - but certainly not enough to change mine for the latest model. The "sport" switch was always in a stupid place - in fact, all the switches by your knees are in a stupid place and cannot imagine what they were thinking to ever put them there. Two things make me want keep my ISF: (1) I can't think of anything that is actually, genuinely all-round better. The nearest is the Maserati Quattroporte for sheer good looks and noise plus the added frisson that it will soon and expensively break down. Maybe the BMW M3 or the equivalent Audi for outright performance & handling if owning them didn't label you as obnoxious. Maybe the good-looking V8 Jag if all its technology ever worked at the same time. The real good stuff is way out of my price range. (2) All the time I keep the ISF I can pretend that it isn't depreciating faster than an Alpine avalanche.

If you were satisfied with the claying and other preparation you did last week; just wash the car to remove any grit, dust etc. that has accumulated since and which could scratch the finish. Then apply your wax. Wax can safely be applied to a clean surface at any time. Plain waxes will build up, but waxes (usually in liquid form) that leave an obvious white residue will remove the previous layer.

From memory think it comes on at about 7litres, but would never trust it to be accurate. Just take it as meaning do not pass next filling station.

The shortest distance for the adaptive cruise control only leaves a gap a Smart-Car could fill, and have got used to a wet finger cleaning the camera. I can live without DAB Radio because they work so badly in cars. My wish now is that you could simply plug a lap-top in and set up your preferred defaults from a straightforward menu - rather than looking up in the handbook the series of demented presses of unlikely things that can eventually only set up part of what you would like. On another tack, I am curious how much longer the ISF will remain in production. Surely the IS250 family must soon come to an end?

The SatNav for the IS200/300 dates back to the days when such things were expensive parts of a magicians toolkit. I really think Lexus should accept their update discs are currently priced higher than better, newer complete SatNavs and as a service to their customers reduce them to say £15 which should still yield a profit. Of course, no chance!

Cleaning the car is not a mystery. Detailing is not new or a Process - just a recent word for normally thoroughly washing and polishing the car. It helps to know what you are trying to achieve by each step. It is never quick and always involves a fair bit of effort. Remember it is a car and not an exhibit, so the job is for satisfaction and not an obsession. 1. Wash/rinse grime, grit, tar etc off. Do not use a Car Shampoo which will apply wax you only have to remove at the next stage, or Washing-up Liquids which contain finish-damaging Salt, or Industrial Detergents that can directly attack the finish. Ordinary Bath-Foam is fine for this and rises easily. 2. Use very fine abrasive whose particles scrape off old polish, dirt embedded in the paint and also can minimise micro-scratches by wearing the surrounding finish away to the same level. These all work the same way. The stuff you want to remove prefers to stick to the gritty abrasive particles which have to be ultra-fine to avoid scoring the finish. You can use expensive, inconvenient Clay or Colour Restorer for Metallics (finer particles than for ordinary paint) which is much easier to use and contains the same materials. Half the job is done rubbing it on, the other half when you rub it off. Removal must use clean cotton cloths or clumps of removed stuff will scratch the finish. If this stage is done very frequently, there is a danger of permanently removing too much of the very thin lacquer finish on most cars. 3. Quickly wash/rinse to remove any loose dust etc. 4. Apply a thin coat of clear Wax. Polish off with CLEAN soft cloth. A buffing mop can produce a gleaming finish which will not last long because less than very skilled use removes virtually every trace of the wax you have so carefully applied and is more likely to leave swirls. Buffing/polishin off is to spread the peaks in the wax into an even, thin layer whilst filling any small pits in the finish. The very best results may not be apparent until a couple of washes later. 5. Optionally, a couple of days later, wash and apply a final coat of finishing wax. Any sooner, then the existing wax will be dissolved and removed by the new wax. 6. Wash car once a week or so. You can use a Wax Shampoo which tends to replace the wax it washes off. Using a good natural Chamois-leather seems to work best and polishes up the wax as you use it. There is a wide range of waxes available. Excluding those with abrasives built-in, there is not a lot to choose between them. Most of the wonder additives work as well as raspberry extract does for Shampoo. Use whatever works best for you. How long the shine lasts is down to how quickly the wax is degraded by sunlight, washed off by rain, worn away by the sand-blast effect of driving through the fine dust in the air etc. Then there is the interior...........

Unfortunately, that won't work. The Lexus adaptive headlight system is disabled until the car is moving at 12 mph.

whats your secret???i get 220-260 to a tank LOL i get the same as you Ormi! The answer to this is not to have a turbo! Ormi & Sparkystav, your 220 miles to a tank is 14.3 mpg and 260 is 16.9mpg if you use up every drop in the tank. Extra performance is never free - although my ISF (5l V8) is never as bad as these figures! Look on the IS200 spec to get a rough idea of what economy can just about be achieved - but in the real world rarely is.

Sorry, no solution for your immediate situation and I hope you can work out something that suits your needs. But once you have got past this hurdle; try to only buy cars outright and those you can afford to run even if you have to work your way up to something recent and desirable. When you strip away all the glossy talk about "agreements" of every sort; they are designed to make money for someone else plus whatever fiscal advantages they may seem to have at the onset can too easily disappear with legislation, the economic situation and your own fortunes. Having done that, avoid future employment that ties you in to travelling large distances without first seriously calculating if a job at a distant location etc. provides a genuine advantage over something more local - extra Salary is pointless if it is used up (or worse) just getting to work.

Nothing to be scared of really. Have read of an occasional head-gasket issue with the IS250, but there isn't enough space here to deal with all the IS220d disappointments. IS250 economy doesn't seem to deteriorate, but the diesel has a whole battery of expensive causes for increasing fuel consumption. The diesel has "awesome torque" but funny, it isn't reflected in any of the performance figures which are all worse. Finally, the IS250 doesn't smell or clatter - the IS220d doesn't much but is still a 4-pot with roughness you can feel with your feet. With either, an extended warranty can give real peace of mind - but at a price.

Only if you are desperate to save money and are very easily pleased.