Linas.P

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.

Can't comment on ride, but the price seems to be above what average IS250 is going for!

That is good point - aftermarket coilovers almost always going to be less comfortable "out of the box". What they call "comfortable" basically translates into - better road handling and less body roll with just 20% comfort penalty, so it is relative - they are comfortable compared to more aggressive coilovers, but they still less comfortable than stock . To really get them to be more comfortable you need ones custom build for you, basically choosing spring rates everything yourself, a lot of trial and error, it is pretty much rocket science at this point. As well note - the less comfort may be somewhat related to age/wear, not necessarily F-Sport parts. For example when worn bushes start transmitting vibrations into the car body is not because they are too hard, but just because they worn out. So simply refreshing the rubber parts in particular can improve the ride. It won't be softer, but it will be less road noise and vibration.

A lot of speculated about F-Sport vs. "Standard" suspension, but actually all the parts are identical. Apart of perhaps spring that is 10mm shorter and likely little bit stiffer. Was SE-L on standard 17" wheels? If anything - that will make 90% of the difference, spring making maybe last 10%. You have already addressed the tyres, which can make a huge difference. I have SE-L as a project car and if you interested you can come and swap out all the suspension components if you interested, I wouldn't mind F-Sport suspension upgrade 🙂 Kind of side note - I have discovered by accident that stretched tyres are ridiculously comfortable, even if they look dumb in my opinion and I am not sure how safe they are. Basically I got 19" AM wheels with tyres and the tyres on them were rubber-bands basically. 215/35 in the front and 225/30 in the rear, I kind of wanted to get last breath of them (Falken Azenis FK510) and I thought the ride will be atrocious, not to mention based on load required I had to pump them to 40PSI to hold the weight of the car (max rating on the tyres is 50PSI). And the car rides extremely soft! My assumption that is because side wall is at angle. It probably isn't safe, it probably does not help handling, I do not recommend it, but it is unbelievably comfortable! Jokes aside - I don't believe there is that huge of a difference between F-Sport and SE-L, provided they are both on identical wheels and tyres. Seems like you have addressed the tyres, so perhaps next time consider downsizing to 17" wheels.

Sure for summer high performance tyres yes - Michelin, Conti, Goodyear are the leaders (Pirelli/Bridgestone - I don't really consider competitive, good tyres, but other 3 brands provides same or better quality for lower price, so I kind of exclude them), but for winter tyres Hankook and Nokian tyres in particular are one of the leaders in my opinion. As such I would expect completely comparable and very competitive performance from Hankook, I think it is good choice.

Agree - but because it is ultimately "implied contract" it is technically not illegal, and because there is acute shortage of parking boycotting it won't do, as a matter of fact that is what they want, car park still going to be full either way. So they just pricing out and "shadow banning" cars they don't like. Either - revolt or dystopian future... I would not be betting on revolt, I am really disappointed in British public... yes you, me, maybe another 5 people in the country will revolt (like whatever called "blade runners" that destroys ULEZ cameras), but 90% will just get along with that. So I would give 9:1 odds for dystopian future where only select rich will be driving EVs and the rest will be walking, cycling or maybe using public transport when we are allowed and when it works. But for the rest of the time people will be allowed to only be where they are allowed to be and when they are allowed to be. No more personal freedoms and just driving where you want in your personal car, no - modern slaves don't deserve that. Maybe I am overly pessimistic - as you said remains to be seen.

I would not be so hopeful - just look at what happened with "diesel gate", decades of wrong policy, they recognised it was wrong policy and nobody is accountable. The only people who were punished is the diesel owners who bought diesels because government said so and incentivised them to do so and now they are totally shafted as they can't enter the cities, I have even seen parkings that charge differently based on what fuel you running on and official emissions band e.g. you pay £1.80/h for lower band (say up-to 75g/co2) and £3.20/h for "band H" (like IS250 with under 225g/Co2), or £5.60h for diesel! So I am really pessimistic about them doing right thing - sure they will change the policy, but I doubt it will be for the better. I know there is pushback for EVs, because they reached their market cap (which I have predicted years ago) and I am sure there will be further pushback on the dates and bans of ICE, but I am sure the environments, taxations and restrictions only going to increase in meantime.

Or simple RC300, but proper 3L V6 and not the stupid 2.0t like in US RC200t which is only called RC300. Polar bears or stupid policy - basically rigged emissions tests, because here is the fact - if car burns more fuel it is more polluting... I know it is oversimplifying, but assuming the car engine works as it suppose to, all the emissions equipment (like catalytic converters) are in place the car that burns 10L/100km will pollute more than one that burns 8L/100km. So no matter what fake emission tests says - 18 years old GS300 has LESS tailpipe emissions than few years old RC200t. Yes RC may be more "efficiently inefficient" i.e. maybe by burning 20% more fuel it causes only 15% more emissions, it still pollutes more than older car. The whole downsizing and turbocharging backfired horribly... it works well to fool the foolish tests, but on the road they pollute more. As you said, honestly even RC250 would be better car, even if horribly underpowered it would still be much smoother and fuel efficient and would sound at least decent.

The ones you talking about for £10k+ more are ones in good condition, I am talking about starting price i.e. as low as you can get one for. Besides I don't like heavily modified ones anyway with "fortunate spent on them", because usually that fortune is spent in poor taste in my opinion. So I rather take little bit tired stock car and do it for my self. Yep - the same, I nearly bought one, but insurance was £36,000 so that was non-starter. Yeah don't know why - they seems to like to rust more. As well they feel rather dated compared to IS250. Had started my never ending non-runner IS250 last week and even in 5 minutes I was driving it from one parking spot to the other it felt like much more modern car, the reverse camera quality (which is trash) looked so crisp compared to GS... perspective does wonders! GS mk3 really has more in common with mk3 LS, kind of "old ways of building cars" and mk2 IS is for better or worse is the direction Lexus took after 2006, just altogether more modern car. Again it has cons - the build quality is not the same, but it has pros - handling is much better, rust protection just seems to be better etc. I really didn't think GS mk3 was pretty car, but to be fair it has grown on me since I got one, you can certainly live with one... ohh and don't let me start about the engine and what travesty is Lexus 8FARTS (like the one in RC200t)... why oh why they thought that is good idea. My 18 years old GS300 is a faster car as ridiculous as it sounds (7.2s vs 7.5s), it is more responsive because engine is NA, it sounds better, it is heavier, it has old 6-speed slushomatic yet is it much more responsive, lineal and predictable (does not hunt for gears even if a bit lazy in normal mode, but PWR totally solves that) and consider this - IT IS MORE ECONOMICAL! What?! my average now for over 6000 miles is 26MPG, get's easy 38MPG on motorway on E10, 33MPG on E85... whereas in RC200t I would struggle to get to 32MPG on E5 (back then pure petrol) and my average was barely 20MPG often seeing as low as 17-18MPG... worst tank so far on GS300 was 22MPG and that was basically during MOT and servicing period as it did a lot of idling and revving for emissions etc. Again just can't understand how Lexus regressed in 18 years from cars like GS300 and sweet, economical, powerful, good sounding V6 into failure like RC200t?!

Yes - I got that, but in UK it is usually £10-20 per tyre regardless of the size. Sorry - I misread your statement, for some reason I thought you paid 130 and 170 respectively, as if you had staggered set-up. 111euro is firmly in mid-range for 18", I have recently paid £363 for set of Yokohama tyres (+fitting), but it is staggered set of 225s and 245s, 225s were ~£78 per tyre, but 245s were more like £102. As well I would trust Yokohama more than Nexen in general, but again that is based really on having very poor experience with Nexen like 10 years ago, so not exactly rational.

2C is just basic condition on which the policy and restrictions are based. It is like having fines over any speed above 0 miles per hour - simply cannot be complied with and as long as you not standing still. You said - "nobody says humans should stop living", what I am saying - to achieve 2C goal we have to stop living and even that is not enough. We can still agree that trying to slow down the climate change is desirable, but this 2C goal has to be removed altogether as it is no compatible with continued human life on earth - that is all. The next point - I understand you are just messenger, so I am not attacking you, but lets look at what is being stated... you just take it at face value without analysing and questioning data at all. Let's start with this statement- "Past climate changes led to extinction of many species, population migrations, and pronounced changes in the land surface and ocean circulation." So everyone agrees that natural climate processes are causing all this and have caused all this many times in the past, as such none of that could be classed as "catastrophe", it is just natural occurrence related to climate change. That rate of climate change is as claimed - "This speed of warming is more than ten times that at the end of an ice age, the fastest known natural sustained change on a global scale" is simply false! Look at the speed of warming between ~150,000 -120,000 years, or ~350,000-340,000, we can even look in recent years and it is OBVIOUS, that the statement is plainly false - the temperature raise between ~20,000-10,000 years ago (i.e. since last ice age, which is incorrect terminology as we are still technically in the ice age) was significantly faster and just ~10,000 plateaued. When looking at it from correct perspective it again is obvious that change since industrial evolution and since 1970s is so tiny that it doesn't even appear on the graph. Again - I am not picking on you, but the claims made in the links and quotes you have provided is provably wrong. The problem with Co2 data from UK is that we import a lot of Co2 i.e. we net importers, cars, electronics etc. majority is made abroad and we do not count that as our Co2, so this gives wrong impression on how clean we are and what causes the most pollution in UK. I classify catastrophes the same - I can see you provided list of catastrophes, which is very good, but link between catastrophes and climate change is speculation at best. Look at the graph above again - we are now at the point where we were at ~135,000; ~250,000; ~340,000; ~425,000 years ago... So to say that natural disasters and catastrophes are MORE FREQUENT now we need to prove the number is higher than it was 100s of thousands of years ago. There is no such proof, we don't even have proof that they are more common now than they were 1000, 2000, 5000, 20000 years ago. That they are becoming more common in last 50 years, is first of all irrelevant, because it is too short period to correlated with climate change which again takes 10s to 100s of thousands of years, not 50 years and secondly here is no proven correlation this is climate related at all. It could be simply statistical or data error. For example maybe there was drought in Ethiopia 400 years ago, but because humans didn't live in that area of the country back then... nobody died. Now they live in the environment susceptible for draughts and complain that climate change is causing deaths?! No - their choice of habitat is what is causing deaths, not climate. So all the "catastrophes" are at best cherry picked data and hypothesis that correlation between frequency of these events and temperature raise is related. It could be related, I would argue it is likely related, but this is not proven and other thing is not proven is that these "extreme weather events" are not just natural for the temperatures we living in. And we won't be able to prove it unless we can travel in time 100,000 of years and document frequency of extreme weather events for 100s of thousands of years. Do you even realise how flawed are these statements from scientific perspective? They basically saying - we only started recording the "extreme weather event" for last few 100 years, and properly for last few decades and based on this extremely inadequate and extremely too short data set we making conclusions. This is just bad science - if you tried to submit such claim in basic university research project it will be marked as 0, because it is nothing more than hypothesis.

In my experience it worked well, expect of very light rain/mist, where I had to use singe wipe option from time to time as the sensor was simply not triggering quickly enough on mist. I had coating on widescreen, so realistically only light mist was the problem anyway as heavier rain would clear itself at sort of 30MPH+. As well make sure you turn the sensitivity right way, from memory it was not intuitive +/- was upside down from what you would expect them.

First of all - I appreciate you answering these three parts, but as clearly stated we already agree on most of the facts in two out of three of them - I agree that climate change is happening and that human activity is accelerating it. To what degree? I said 90%... so even I am saying humans contribute greatly. So the only point of contention - does it or does it not cause "catastrophes". I have looked to both of your links and have found no evidence of so called "catastrophe". I can only speculate, but I need your confirmation here - do you use "catastrophe" as synonym for "temperature rise", "sea level rise"? If so - then no, they are not "catastrophes", if no - then I still can't see any consensus or any evidence of any climate change caused "catastrophes". Although I found this image which encapsulates the issue quite well: If one needs any evidence that information in this discussion is inadequate, then this just shows how utterly horrible unbelievably inadequate it is! They taking COMMON BASELINE for temperature for years 1951-1980! This is so ridiculous that I can hardly believe it - for the climate processes that takes literally tens to hundreds of thousands of year they use the 39 year period as baseline! What you expect then? Now on top of that - the video which started this discussion specifically points in temporary Methane event which may be temporarily contributing to climate change, so in such a short timescales it may as well be relevant for "temperature anomaly" as shown in the picture above. The 2C target is important, because the climate policy we are subjected to are based on premise of achieving this target i.e. your "ship of doing nothing sailing away", that is based on this 2C target. So the reason I am taxed to drive my car £300 a year is directly linked to this target, the 2030 (or 2035) ICE ban is directly linked to this, the 55% of tax I pay on flights is directly linked to that, the ULEZ and many many things that impact me directly are ALL linked to this target. So - yes it is important indeed. I never said we make no difference, this is just incompatible statement to what I have said - I said we contribute 90%, so obviously we make a difference. The mathematical point is strictly relevant to 2C target and as you hopefully now can appreciate why it is important it makes more sense? I really don't care about temperature rising, because temperature is not rising because of us, we only make it rise faster, same for sea levels - ice will eventually melt with our without our activity, and the new ice age eventually will start with or without our activity. If you looking for science to support that - I suggest looking to my very first post (and maybe few following posts), it is all there with the temperature and co2 levels for last 300,000 years, which conclusively proves that this fluctuation we are experiencing and currently accelerating is just periodical process. So basically it is two different and completely independent processes and they are both true - humans are increasing Co2 levels in atmosphere, as result temperature raises faster and ice melts faster, that is true. What is also true is that at this stage of glaciation the temperatures are also raising naturally, co2 level increases naturally and ice melts naturally. The end result is the same, we just going to get there faster with human activity.

That is good argument and probably the one you should have led with... although to be fair I could have done more research myself and I am still taking it at face value, if it is really under 10% of education (I had an impression it is more, but simple google search probably would have revealed such basic and crucial information) then I think it would be fair to say this is more of just a "virtue signalling" than it is a real sustainable policy. Yet that somewhat pivots back closer to original topic - private cars are only 2.4% of pollution yet most of the climate policy focuses on them!

I hope you not suggesting that I am pedalling this stereotype? As well I think you identified one more issue which is important - that academia in general, not only schools but at all levels... are left leaning and in right leaning government there is fundamental misalignment of values, friction and that further complicates improving education. By the way it is not necessary fault of right leaning government either, but left and right wing politics are damaging to education which fundamentally has to be apolitical and seeking the truth no matter the party. So it is the problem that academia is left leaning as much as it is a problem that goverment is right leaning. I would point out that education was still failure even under Labour, values may have been more aligned, but overall polarisation of the educations does not help. I am not even going to start to mention the issues with certain topics our friends from the lefts tries to teach kids nowadays, as this would surely get this thread locked. You see - it is alright to teach 7 years old that, but it would get one banned on adults forum - go figure. You as well pointed out another problem - no allowing idiots fail and trying to make everyone a winner, so instead of getting good education kids get participation trophies. This is just unhealthy and further damages the education. Sure there is a little bit nuance in that - if the education fails to interest the kids and motivate their strengths there is risk of turning "different" kids into idiots. Left has it's hand in this pie as well where certain character traits are turned into failed grades despite the child being rather smart. Above I think I have already covered few of your point - in short I agree that just education alone can't fix wider societal problems. There is loads to unpack, but I still believe private education does not help anything and exists as simple workaround instead of fixing the problem. Sometimes eliminating unfairness, even just giving impression of more level playing field can a positive effect. Even if we say is just an excuse, it is undeniable that it could be highly demotivating for kids to go to public school if they know that in private school they would be treated better. They may still fail even in private school, but why have this excuse if we can remove it. I guess it is similar to immigration and job market (sorry for dropping another bomb on this thread) - most the people that complain about "migrants thanking their jobs" would not work those jobs themselves, but because there is perceived unfairness and lack of transparency in the system they feel left out. So even perceived issues could be quite serious... it may be wrong to say that "rich kids have grades for free", but it still has negative effect on the education, it may be wrong to say that "immigrants takes jobs away (...and yet somehow as well are lazy, do not work and just live on benefits somehow)", but it still creates distrust in societal problems.

Yes Audi and MB are horrible, Land Rover is firmly sticking to the bottom, but BMW/Mini are rather decent despite what people say about them. Sure - they are not Lexus, and I am really glad Lexus getting recognition it deserves, but still not falling apart when looking as some may suggest.

Nope, Lexus does not have any gearbox service schedule, remember - it is "sealed for life" 😄 Lexus Hainaut/Woodford quoted me £340 for AFT on GS300, so IS250 must be similar, maybe slightly cheaper (less fluid required). But this is drain and refill only, no filter, nor gasket. The part alone ATF, filter, gasket is ~£200, but I would say it is easily 2h labour, so at Lexus prices of £180-195/hour I can see it being ~£600, but that should be "full service" with filter and gasket for that price not just AFT drain/refill.