Linas.P

Same here every time, I guess my target is little bit higher - 2-3 years and ~30k miles. I know that for average brand that is well worn, but all the Lexus cars I had were pretty much as good as new. In current crazy market such deals have dried-up, but pre-pandemic one could expect 50% off for such car returning after it's first lease. As for scratches, smell and fingerprints - I have far higher level of expectation than any new car ever, all cars comes with small scratches, all even thought cleaned before delivery will have some smear or fingerprint, so I am really not fussed. I know that any car I will get will be detailed by myself anyway and to the level exceeding any mainstream dealer delivered new car. And perhaps I safe my health not breathing in the new plastic gassing out the chemicals for first few months (although that may be myth from the past, I assume modern and decent cars like Lexus don't use some horrible volatile chemicals anymore). Talking about smell specifically, once you get even 30k miles Lexus clean and if you don't use any excessively smelling cleaners and assuming previous owner was not smoking, spilling milkshakes or doing some other crazy stuff in the car then it will smell like brand new car every time. This one would be able to check before buying - obviously never buy the car if you suspect somebody was smoking in it, as that smell is pretty much impossible to remove, I have done it, but then car does not smell like new anymore anyway . When I sold my last RC I think it already had 54k miles and it still smelled like a new car. So it is just a matter of knowing what to use to clean it and what to clean.

Yeah sadly it was US centric view, I believe UK numbers were ~ 20% of sales and ~4% of total car park, but all the rest of the issues would be similar to US - lack of infrastructure to generate the electricity, lack of infrastructure to charge. This is by the way even worse in UK as unlike US majority of people don't have off-street parking, nor garages and overall US infrastructure would be much easier adapted to BEVs as they have generally more car centric infrastructure. So in US it is challenge to convert/upgrade the infrastructure, in UK is challenge of creating it from scratch. In other hand UK probably benefits from being smaller, more urbanised and therefore range issues are much less relevant here than in US... and climate is much milder, compared to at least half of US getting proper winters and snow. All in all, challenges in UK are more comparable to that of the state of California which has done quite well for BEVs, but even they have a limit and rely on extremal inputs to support the growth. Unlike California however, UK is not as tightly integrated with EU and is taking active steps to distance itself, which will only hurt BEV adaption (for better or worse).

Interesting take from kind of unusual source, but I think the take is more or less correct:

I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic, it is just how long it takes. If they have one car being delivered that week, I am sure they can wrap it up in few days, if they got 20 cars that they received it will take longer. Anything more than 2 weeks I would say would be unreasonable. There is actually Lexus instructions on what exactly dealer needs to do before handling over the car to customer, it includes multiple checks, cleaning, removal of packaging material etc. As well if car has some shipping damage, scratches, or it is dirty it may take additional time to polish the scratches, clean the car etc. Car as well may have dealer installed options, like protection pack, ceramic coating, rubber mats, muds flaps etc. etc. again extra time should be allowed if you opted for those. Still I would expect that to be done within less then 2 weeks, unless something is missing or went wrong. Again I have not bought brand new made to order car from Lexus specifically, so I am not really talking from experience, but I have seen the instructions of what takes place before it could be handed over and it is not as simple as just scheduling appointment. As well what needs to be considered - cars are not perfect "off the ship", or from the factory. I think that latter is less of an issue with Lexus as Lexus is known to be factory inspected before shipping, but other makes are not so good. Still for example if car took long time to ship it could be the case that starter battery is dead on brand new car and has to be replaced.

Not that I have personal experience, but from what I have heard it is 1-2 weeks usually. Perhaps depends on how busy they are.

I don't think that is quite the same as with new car - for new car it is sentimental thing, for repair it is more of "fair use vs. abuse" i.e. expectation is that technician won't use your car to go get drive-trough burger, pick-up kids from school after shift and commute into work next day, picking-up some penalty points on the way.

Rust one what? Not the A/C coolant line? They are aluminium, so they can't rust, maybe you mean "oxidised"? As well noticed type in my previous comment.

Yeah totally understand that, although as long as there is 1 mile on it it kind of defeats the point. As I said I understand the sentiment and I would like to see cars "zeroed" at the point of pick-up, especially more premium nicer cars. That would be nice touch and give the owner that "unboxing" experience. I know Lexus removes all the packaging before deliver, but to be fair I would even like to have an option for them to leave it, so that owner could do it, it is after all experience in itself. That said we all know cars travels thousands of miles to get to us, not necessarily driven, but they go trough rough transport... hence new car detailing is a thing - they are technically new, but they been in the ships, driven by dock workers, trough the rough seas, trough the storms and quite often are already scratched in places. I guess the only way to get real 0 miles car is to get in front of the Tahara plant gate in Japan and pick it off production line. And the reason I am labouring "0 miles" is because then the argument becomes kind of irrelevant, what is acceptable/unacceptable etc. where to draw the line... I am not sure really, would I make an issue with car having 91 miles if it was made to order rather than off the floor? To be honest I doubt it... but I am in no risk of finding out as I honestly have no plans to buy brand new car ever, even if I would be billionaire I can't see myself doing it as can't handle depreciation - in this context I am much less sensitive to find miles on "new car" and much more sensitive knowing that the minute I drive trough the showroom door (figuratively speaking) and add 2000 miles on that car it just lost literally 30% of it's value. Now I guess that kind of makes it important to get new car with as little miles as possible, because the difference between 22 miles and 2000 miles is that 30% extra cost to get it new, and if the car you getting has say 200 miles, then perhaps it should be severely discounted. That is valid point. Hence I kind of grouped them in up-to 100, 100-1000 and over 1000. In perfect world first group would be exactly 0 and second group 0-1000, but sadly we are not in ideal world.

My one and only new Lexus I had was 147km on the day of pick-up (so ~91 mile), but I picked it up "from the floor", so potentially it had few test drives in it, but it wasn't an official demo car either i.e. it was not registered before I bought it. I was totally not bothered, because it was 2012 IS250 F-Sport + "Premium pack" (whatever that means, as there is no such thing officially, but dealer said it was limited edition to close off mk2 production run) and I paid equivalent to about £20,000 for it (so ~£10,000 off the list), as it was sitting on the floor for few good months by then. The only difference from F-Sport in UK was that it had full dark rose leather F-Sport seats and no shaitecantara, but again outside of UK shaitcantara was an option for F-Sport anyway and not the only way like in UK, so the dealer may have been not entirely honest about it being "special". I would say anything below 100miles is acceptable, between 100-1000 it becomes demo in my view, past 1000 - just simply used. But all this is purely psychological obviously, these cars are not collectables that sit on the museum floor, so whenever it is 100 or a 1000 it will be irrelevant after couple of months. That said I would appreciate if there would be literally like pull tab on the dash, where they only pull it when they deliver new car and it is irreversible and car starts for you at exactly 0 miles i.e. "technically brand new". Or more realistic - may some sort of code they can run to "zero" it to give this sentimental feeling of newness. If it is not exactly 0 - then it kind of doesn't matter, if it is 5, 10, 25, or 147.

I think Assym 6s beaten 5s on all metrics, perheps depends on size, but both are excellent tyres. I would replace tyres first, then do all 4 wheels alignment, always do that when fit new tyres, because I see tyres as long term investment basically, they should last 30k miles after all, so giving them best chance to work is when you fit them. And only then I would start looking for problems with suspension, I know it may sound slightly counter intuitive as alignment will be required once you fix the suspension, but how are you planning to isolate the issue if you have poor tyres and poor alignment. So I would say first set the car "straight" and see if the issue remains as otherwise it will be very hard to identify what is actually wrong. The other possibility if you doing everything at the same time, and could get obvious things inspected on suspension, then do that before fitting tyres and alignment, things like worn out ball-joints, or wheel bearing, check that wheels don't have play in them etc. and only then replace tyres. But to be fair it is very hard to identify issue with suspension unless something is very obviously lose and worn out to the level where wheel have a noticeable play in them.

Yeah Dunlops - RT and RT2 had crabbing, so does Uniroyal RainSport 3, so does all the tyres excellent in terms of aquaplaning. I am not sure if there is a tyre today which is focused so much on good wet performance, basically everything is compromise on tyre and to get excellent aquaplaning resistance one has to accept crabbing. Simply said they have deep and distinct ribs as a thread pattern which is excellent for pushing the water out, but as a downside when turning the wheels when stationary they could be crabbing, especially on colder morning. As technically one should not turn the wheels on stationary car (I know theory is quite far from practical in real life) and I knew what is causing the crabbing, that never concerned me, but some people can't live with it... even replaced perfectly good tyres just for that.

Few review mentioned that this tyre in particular caused them to think alignment wasn't right, car was wondering on the road and that bearing was worn out... surely as I said, take a bucket of salt before reading reviews, but may that have something to do with your suspicion of something being wrong in suspension?

Didn't quite realised how old is this tyre - the Autobild tested it in 2014 against such competitors like literally ancient Uniroyal RainSport 2 (that is before Michelin acquired them and made excellent RainSport 3) and Dunlop RT, not even RT2... and still it was 48th out of 50... ouch.

Sorry mate - there is no other way to put it nicely, but they are danger to life and massive waste of money. I know exactly what you mean when you say there are reviews with people that drive "decent cars", even high performance ones, but you need to deduct that majority of people are idiots so reviews are inherently flawed. I have seen 1 star reviews for amazing tyres like Dunlop RT2s and Assy5s and so on because delivery was late, or because they got puncture... I have seen people saying Michelins only get them 5000 miles and poor fuel efficiency... why? Because obviously they ran them underinflated, tell-tale sigh - in the same review they say they had to replace them because outside of tyre worn out quickly . And I see glowing reviews for "cheap and cheerful" chinesium death traps that should not be called tyres, because people just don't know any better. So take any review with extreme prejudice and bucket of salt! Apart of many being literal idiots not many of us are racing drivers or tyre experts, including myself, so how you expect people to judge the tyres when they never put them trough any sort challenge or comparison?! Yes sure they will drive just fine on motorway, hopefully if they at least round, which by the way is not guaranteed with chinesium tyres. Who is there to say that when you take bend at speed and there is sheep on the road and you have to brake your rears won't overtake your fronts?! Wouldn't that be brilliant? In short - driving on motorway, or in the dry is not tyre test, what you want is for them to be safe in extreme circumstances, that is going trough standing water on the road at speed, hard braking, especially in corner with lateral force etc. And only that is going to tell you if tyre is any good. And I know the answer to this - "I am not racing my car and I am not speeding, and I keep my distance" - fine... other people don't do that and you may need to react to something which isn't your own making, kids are dumb, they will run in front of cars, animals run in front of cars, other drivers may cut you off etc. Point is - you may have to brake in emergency and tyres (not brakes) are the only thing that keeps you on the road. So driving safely is good, but tyres should be fitted in preparation for extreme circumstances. Now there is other angle to this - from monetary perspective it just doesn't make sense. There is two possibilities here with cheap tyres - either they are hard compound, they will last the mileage, but they will be hard and extremely unsafe on wet and in colder days in general, or they will be soft compound and grip will feel alright, they will overheat on hot days and they will wear quickly. To some degree all tyres are the same compromise, but premium tyres have better technology and they blend the compounds in such a way that they get best compromise out of it. So what is good that you saved 30%, when your tyre only lasts 30%, from monetary perspective they actually cost more per mile. As well... £75 for 17" tyre? That is horrible price... I paid £68 for Yokohamas on 18" (be it with £40 discount for 4, so they were £78 basically), so they aren't even that cheap! So yeah - sorry for the rant, but there is no place in my world for chinesium death traps, NONE of them are good, just consider they don't exist. If saving money is the goal, which I struggle to understand considering one tank of fuel is nowadays probably £90, and yet decent tyres probably only cost £20 per tyre more... then midrange brands are the answer - Toyos, Yokohamas, Kuhmos, Verdsteins, Sumitomos etc. are the way to go. They are not as good as premium tyres and probably don't last as much, but at least they are safe. And as well with little bit of research you will find out that for example Uniroyals are made by Michelin in Europe, Sava and Debica are made by Goodyear/Dunlop, Sumitomo is what owns and makes Falkens and Maxxis, so there is plenty of choice in this middle bracket which is usable. But all the budget tyres are without exception trash, there are tests to prove that, so - objectively speaking trash! Sadly, Pace was not on this test, but it will be there in the middle of the pack, short summary - stopping 1m before the obstacle and 6 meters past it could make a difference when the obstacle is back of the truck, or if you sensitive a child:

Hi Sayed, I am sorry to hear you been charged these ridiculous amounts for fixing the car. Nothing on IS250 should cost so much to fix! Lexus dealerships are reasonably good for maintenance e.g. annual services, they no longer make sense for cars older than 10 years or over 100,000 miles (previously they had "Essential Care" option, but now it was discontinued), but they are not horrible either . So if you choose to take your car there just for annual service - it is still alright, not amazing value but decent. However - NEVER use them for any work outside of service, their hourly rate is £195, over double that of any other independent garage and parts prices in UK are just ridiculous. Sadly, specialised A/C places no longer exist as suggested by David, I could not find any in London and I think specialised anything are things of the past, now everything is replaced as "units" and nobody fixes anything, some family owned business maybe exist somewhere in the country side, but from my experience gearbox specialist don't exist either. Not in bigger cities anyway... That said £1315 is absolutelly ridiculous for the leaking pipe and should have been rejected, same for £1193 for high-pressure one. Sorry for long preamble, but I think it is important to explain what requires replacing here so that you can find better place that fixes what you need and not entire A/C system for thousands. So the A/C pipes are aluminium, unless damaged they DON'T LEAK, what leaks are rubber seals, but Lexus does not sell just seal, they sell whole unit and that is why the price is astronomical + it is astronomical because of UK pricing, I don't know why but in UK all the parts are priced ridiculously. Here is the exploded diagram of A/C system: https://www.amayama.com/en/catalogs/lexus/is250/2-sedan-left-xe20-2010-r-3504/electrics-4/heating-air-conditioning-cooler-piping-402 And here are the prices of the original Lexus parts delivered from Japan (everything, both high/low pressure pipes and seals): It is kind of hard to tell what is low and what is high-pressure, but the prices should not exceed ~£160-210 (+ import duties, so sometimes +20%). Point is - nothing costs £500+ there. More important thing, most likely what you needed were just those o-rings for £1.36!!!!!! So what you need to do, first of all avoid any big chains Halfrauds, Kwik-Frauds etc. they don't know what they not only charge ridiculous hourly rates, but on top of that (unlike Lexus) they don't know what they doing. Find local garage near you that says they do A/C work and recharge, ask them to do leak test to identify where it is leaking (they have special tools, they can add dye into the coolant to find the leak), most likely it is going to be dried out seal or o-ring which are usually quite universal, they may charge you maybe £20 for it whereas it is really worth £1, but that is still much better than £1500. If indeed somehow the actual pipes require replacing, then use the site I have provided above (few more sites exists in US as alternative - Rockauto, PartSouq), order only the part you need form them for whatever it costs, say £80, it may cost another £80 to replace it. And that is what leaking A/C should cost to fix, that is £200-300 job at most, not £2000 job and it really pains me to see these prices, but you did a right thing to check before splashing another £1000 on it. Finally, as little bit of preventative maintenance - keep A/C on ALWAYS, this prevents seals and o-rings from drying out and exactly the issues you having. Second part - I tend to do A/C maintenance every 2-3 years, some members here would disagree, "because it is sealed system", but £80 every 2-3 years to recharge gas and replace lubricant is much cheaper than dealing with exactly the issues you are dealing with now, and they as well perform vacuum check, so it will helps you identify any similar issues early in future as leaking pipes would fail on vacuum and you would have good indication that system needs to be repaired before it get's too bad.

Normally base you just pull up and then you should see the bolts for the back, not sure if Lexus decided not to use the bolts on IS mk3, but on mk2 there are 4 or 6 bolts to remove backs if memory serves (or I may be confusing that with the bolts that holds the seatbelts, but in either case you would need them removed to b able to remove the seat).

Just note - 2006 IS250 manual will likely have £600 road tax. Secondly, IS250 is only a good car if it was well maintained, cheap cars in poor condition are just massive trouble. Hard to work on, hard to diagnose, full of expensive computers and parts. Manual gearbox never suited the car in my opinion either and it is more problematic/expensive to maintain + you get punished on the road tax. Some very early cars somehow avoided £600 tax (before March 2006 maybe?). So if you looking to get IS250, which is by the way amazing car when it is maintained, then look for decent example with full service history, ideally Lexus, but at it's age now I think part Lexus/part independent history would be sufficient, but it has to have regular maintenance. When something was sealed with some additive sealant that is BIG red flag, there should be nothing leaking and if anything is leaking then it MUST NOT be ignored and sealed with some additive. I think in conclusion you looking at buying car for £1600 and then spending years and thousands of £ fixing it, or you spend maybe £4000 and have years of fault free motoring, just replacing oils on time and what little it needs. Here is the thread regarding everything else you need to know:

So in 300 you get 2JZ - I think enough said right there! In 430 you get very good 3UZ engine, but it is not quite 2JZ levels... Depending on what you want to do - 300 will be better for modification and everything already exist in aftermarket and it is still pretty much alive (although getting expensive nowadays), because of little legendary thing known as Supra. If you just after reliable performance and wafting around then V8 430 is the way to go. Now coming from LS460 - word of warning here, GS mk2 is not quite at the same level in terms of luxury, these older Lexus models are extremely well built and very reliable (arguably GS300 and LS400 are two most reliable car EVER made), but they don't have that upmarket luxury feel you would have had in LS460. If you ever been in LS400 mk1 or mk2 that is the feel - it feels "premium Japanese", but not luxury. Likewise both will be much less fuel efficient than relatively modern direct and port injected 1UR in your LS460, both will be much lazier on shifts in their old 5-speed slushomatics than your relatively fast 8-Speed gearbox was (same as IS-F), so you really coming down from very top car Lexus produced. That is not to say they are bad, but just managing expectations. On other hand if you go for mk3/S190 this will be more comparable to what you had in LS convenience vice and otherwise still modern feeling, driving and efficient cars.

It does and there is some genuine benefit - longer warranty means more second hand demand which should result in higher residual price and lower monthly instalments, sadly I think Lexus simply lacks volume to offer best finance deals. As well there is slight psychological benefit - even if one is not planning to have car for 10 years, they still feel like they getting better deal of getting that warranty just in case. But in case of Lexus does not seem like this sentiment really translates into sales... I heard it is much more positive on commercial vehicles, like taxis, Toyota pick-up trucks and work SUVs, but let's face it - Toyota was always leader there, so nothing new. Previous Prius/Avensis has sold on known good reliability record, now it is just backed-up by official warranty. Audi has same issue (being luxury brand of VW), they simply overcome this by ignoring it and people still buys their cars... honestly Audis are horrible I have never considered them equal to MB/BMW or for that matter Lexus... basically all the criticisms I had about Lexus ES existed in Audi world for decades and applies to almost every single model, I guess Audi somewhat remedied that by offering Quattro for most of their cars and that differentiates them from wrong wheel drive WV counterparts.

They can and to be fair I believe they do that as well, the so called "luxury" trim on IS/RC/CT/NX was really basic and on IS there were even lower trims with everything possible stripped out for pure poverty experience. But I think Lexus kind of missed the trick - poverty spec. should look "sexy" from outside, that is why you have E220d AMG-Line or BMW 420d M-Sport, so it looks like fast car but it is slow. So Lexus need RC300h F-Sport looking car, but with appointments inside from Luxury and sell it for £4000 less. Well I guess knowing my opinion of 300h/200t - one could argue they already do this, but BMW just manages to do it better, whereas Lexus has this rigid trim constrains - so to get F-Sport you must pay extra for all other things as well. Whereas AMG-pack and M-Sport badge is £1200 stand alone pack and you can have you 140hp 2L diesel looking like M4... from 200m away... I think what Lexus refused to compromise on was quality (and I praise them for that), so they are not in complete race to the bottom as other 2 brands. That said when comparing the models towards the upper end of the range I believe likes of BMW still offers better product which will last "long enough" and for first 3 years offers better value/performance. That said Audi and MB recently were horrible with quality, to the point where I would argue it doesn't even last 5 years 60k... and that is the problem regardless of how one looks at it. BMW is slightly different thought - they are firmly in top 10 (6-8 places in last few years) for quality and generally last as long as most owners want. Sure buying 10 years 100k miles BMW is still only recommended for brave or stupid, but there is clearly distinction between BMW and other two. I think recently Lexus kind of stepped up and lifted the the bottom cars since introduction of LSS+ and 10 year warranty, but that is not enough to sway the most... as again - what is the benefit of 10 years warranty if one replaces the car after 2 or 3 years?

Sadly we just need to admit that for new car on the road today with the perspective of 3 years ownership BMW just offers good deal. Are they as long term reliable as Lexus... obviously NOT! But majority of people do no own the cars long term, 3 years is norm, 5 years and 60k miles is absolute top for (I am guessing here) 80%? maybe more? So yes - Lexus objectively makes better cars, but only if you keep them for 10 years/100k miles... almost nobody keeps the cars for as long and BMW offers more competitive financing, more competitive pricing and better performance for first 3-5 years of the ownership. Now sure, one can buy 5 years old 60k miles Lexus with complete confidence, that is where I aim to buy my cars (3-5 years old, below 60k miles) and that is why I stay for a long time with Lexus, but the truth again is that only new car buyers matters. What used car owners care about doesn't matter for manufacturer, they get no direct benefit from second hand market. In conclusion - the culture has to change, the desire to own new car every 3 years has to end, only then Lexus can compete like for like with BMW which offer better short term car. Basically a fast fashion of cars vs. good quality and classic clothing...

I think that summarises the outcome... the second mechanic addressed large part of the issue and now you likely have burned off whatever remains... if it would have got worse then I would be concerned! But as yo said, it got better, so I think it would be safe to assume the smell will be gone soon.

In London 🙂 I quite honestly don't mind although car is close to 100k miles, so perhaps not a fair swap... I don't believe LCA bushings impacts ride quality at all, but surely they are better than worn out originals. So I doubt they would provide improvement in ride quality compared new to new, but neither they would make it worse and compared to old probably have slight chance of improving it a little bit. I can only find references to the price of ~$4000-6000, £900 would be steal if the yare as good as you say, because that would be cheaper than OEM parts.

My guess after little bit of experience - they will be very rusty, but on the positive note they are MASSIVE bolts, so they are unlikely to brake and it becomes just a matter of getting long enough cheater bar. As well they are cheap - last time I check it was like £11-18 per bolt from Japan. So I would say just order new bolts, it can't hurt to replace them: https://www.amayama.com/en/part/toyota/5228530021 https://www.amayama.com/en/part/toyota/5228630010

I doubt air fresheners will remove burnt plastic smell... I guess the idea of overcoating it with high heat paint was not a bad one, that said it seems like remedy should have been actually addressing the problem and wizzing it off with wire brush-wheel. I know they didn't do it because it would be extremely annoying to do that under the car... As for smell remaining, I assume some of the stuff got stuck somewhere nobody can see, like under the engine etc. Not sure what else can be done here, outside of ridiculous over the top solution of taking all the heat shield away, removing and cleaning entire exhaust system.