Linas.P

That is not true. Any modification will increase your insurance... Improving brakes if you lucky wont increase the insurance premium. However, "Improving" is not really that straight forward and what somebody regards as improvement, might not be treated as such by Insurance provider e.g. IS350 brakes (or even "big brakes" kit) for IS250 is definitely an improvement - better wear, better stopping power etc... but insurance in such case would consider that as simple modification. As mentioned already - I do not consider my new brakes as improvement, nor as modification, because all specifications are equal to OEM. For this reason I don't see any reason to report them to Insurance company. I heard that upgraded security system e.g. gps tracker or Dash cam can potentially reduce your premium, but it is likely on case-by-case basis..

Not directly linked. Mr. Osborne "ring fenced" £10bn. Just to understand the figure - last year they allocated £10.8bn... (spend something around 12.3bn in the end) so that means they ring fenced less than they actually spending anyway - that said, £10bn is the lower limit not upper limit.. and what it means road expenditure should not go down by much and might actually stay the same or even increase. Still... they won't be spending anything near ~40-ish bn they are collecting. Secondly, as explained previously .. this expenditure is combined and large part of it will not benefit actual VED payers (more likely opposite). Finally, even what is going to be spent directly on the roads is not necessary going to improve things. Good example would be - does SMART motorway benefits us? - no it doesn't... it just slows us down and effectively takes longer to reach destination, but the congestion is "smoother".. What would be beneficial - more lanes, wider roads, higher speed limits ... but that won't happen.

Well .. officially it isn't and never was. What you are referring to is the period between 1920 and 1937 when "Road fund" was implemented and road expenditure directly linked to collected duties. Personally, I am in complete agreement with you VED = road tax... it can be called "pollution tax", "air tax", "nonsense tax" or anything else, but it will always stays "The Road Tax". Very easy to prove it - if you don't use your car on public road you don't need to pay it, so if you do use it you pay it for using road and not for some another reason. Based on that my opinion is - not only should it be linked to road expenditure, but as well subsidised from general taxation for stuff like bus lanes, cycling lanes etc. - which is not directly benefits "Road tax" payers (or in reality negatively impacts them). Sad reality is actually opposite, see nice graph illustrating it since 1979: Now the Government regards it as vehicle tax to cover "something"... it is not very clear what it is covering, but principal is simple - "you have car, means you are rich, so we take random tax form you and pretend that we are Philanthropists from money you paid". It is not linked to road maintenance and in no way secured for such purpose. In fact government was heavily under-investing to road infrastructure for last 40 years (as can be seen above) and at any given year they spent less than 30% of VED and fuel duties on road maintenance. Even then that 30% includes things completely unrelated and irrelevant for drivers who actually pays for using the roads e.g. bus stops and lanes, cycling superhighways, subsidies for rail-work and city buses etc. Speaking of new VED rules - they are designed to catch tax loophole - low emission supercars e.g. BMW i8 or other luxury cars which previously were able to avoid taxation or use lower tax bracket. I guess this is preemptive tax for hydrogen powered cars etc. so that in future they cannot avoid paying taxes. It accident ally can have "positive" impact - people will buy more powerful expensive cars, because there will be no tax benefits for buying hybrids e.g. we will see more BMW 750i , rather than 730d or 7-series hybrids... or more LS460 than LS600h... That is completely understandable because government made this to increase tax revenue, not to fight global warming. It is clear by the fact that the cars which pollutes the most, but cost less than £40k will benefit most, and the ones which pollutes least will pay more, especially if it happens to be as well over £40k.. even for cheap cars the increase will be 500-900%. It will simply be not beneficial to buy fuel efficient car if it is over £40k as well.

Well.. as I said you won't need to roll arches with 18" as they are by default designed to accept 18" wheels. The only reason why you would need to do it is if you get much wider rims than stock. I believe stocks are 8 and 8,5.... so 9 on the rear should still be fine. The minor difference in width and ET will have impact on wheel alignment thought.

I was about to point out shims... usually indies don't know what they are for and throw them away. As well did they thoughtfully cleaned the hubs?

You will be OK with clearance, because IS came with 18" option from stock, however I believe you have to play with alignment e.g. get wheel "spacers" to get your offsets right (I might still be wrong).

Well... actually your location is the main factor e.g. you cannot get similar price anywhere near London... I am paying £760 and consider it being "very cheap".. thought I am rather young.. last year it was £1160, and the year before ~£2700. Before I bought the car (3 years ago) it was £7600...

I don't know how would assessor would consider "Yellow stuff" pads.. and how he would see them either without taking calipers apart. One way or another I don't use Yellow-Stuff pads, my pads are Brembo OE equivalent low-dust and Mintex standard OE on the back. As far as disks themselves - they are as well direct fit and at least MTEC themselves market them as OE. If that would satisfy assessor it is another story, but at least for now I am not planning to have any accident

In the service the schedule it says "check Air con/ heating/ventilation". So I guess it is a simple check turning it on and off to see if it works. And quite clearly it doesn't.. to say the least. Trying to turn it for obviously won't help... so I will be enjoying some fresh diesel smell through the open windows next week. As mentioned Auxiliary belt can't slip... hence the RPM jumps. I will go to any A/C specialist place for check. I bet they would know it straight away what's needs replacing - I guess I am not first and definitely not the last with such issue. Hope what you are right John... I wish that only R134a refill and maybe fixing a leak or something. Thanks for replies.

I would only notify insurance if parts are non-OE compatible e.g. bigger or changes the way car, same stopping power. Holes in the discs and protective coating is "style" thing, not performance. If I would need to declare that to insurance, I would need to declare Lexus owners club sticker on the boot lid too... Same goes for the rims for example - I would only notify if the rims are something completely different from car specs e.g. IS250 came with R16/R17/R18 as standard. R19 can be fitted wth tires which keeps the wheel size the same... so that is kind of on the edge.. I would probably notify insurance for R19s.. and would definitely do for R20s. However, if I just pick up R17s with different style from OE.. I don't consider that modification. Anyway.. the disks will not be reported.. but that is my opinion and risk, by no way take it as a legal advice. I reckon it is possible to call insurance and as if they consider something modification or not..

ATS does free check ( I believe front axle) regardless you buy anything or not. Obviously, they expect you to do the alignment if they found it being not good. I do recommend them for alignment, but not for tires -> cheap trick get your tires from blackcircles.com and choose them to be fitted at ATSeuromasters. In this way you will get the tires fitted and wheels aligned by reasonable service, but you save on tires like 20%.

Well.. we will see - I would like to upgrade to IS350 calipers and rotor in the future anyway - so this is more of filler in the mean time. I am not expecting them to outlast OE.. and considering low-dust pads even match them. As mentioned, I don't like slotted "looks". As for cracks .. I was aware there are risk of these warping and cracking - only time can tell if that will materialise. The car is not used for anything else except daily traffic queues - so I guess they would wear below minimum thickness before developing any other fault.

I was attending Speed Awareness Course recently ... usual bu***** telling that car takes 96m to stop from 70MPH (correct in 1935 thought, when it was tested on cars which could barely reach such speeds). What's more .. they always seems to be stuck with the idea that all cars are the same and if it is true for the car traveling in the first lane at 70mph it is as well true for the car in mid-lane traveling at 85 and the car in the outside lane is again the same just traveling at 100mph. So then they assume that by the time car traveling at 70mph will stop, the car in outside lane would still be traveling at 78mph.. The presenter got quite upset when I pointed out that "if car in outside lane is ... lets say Porsche or McLaren - it could probably stop twice quicker than both other cars and would have some time to spare"... My point - 70mph speed limit for modern car is utter nonsense, even bigger nonsense is to apply it to all cars regardless of their actual capabilities .. both to accelerate and to stop. When it comes to SMART money making machine... it is possible that it works in certain isolated cases, but in majority of the cases it only creates unnecessary congestion and queues, and lets not forget pollution. It works very well to cover up total failure to invest in crucial infrastructure as well... yes it does help to slow down the traffic coming towards "bottle neck"... BUT wait... what is "bottle neck"... it is simple road network planning failure which meant to be improved, but isn't and never will be... just because there is SMART way to slow everyone down and "save" money on otherwise crucial projects and maybe as well generate some revenue for more SMART madness to be installed... so we can safely do 20mph on motorways. It does save some embarrassment for government, what it doesn't do.. it doesn't save our time, our taxes and our money.

Well, it is actually pretty simple - if the new rotor is 28mm thickness and can be worn by 3mm, that means 1,5mm on each face, so the lip can bet at most 1,5mm high. So yes - you are right even after 2k miles you rotor going to have a lip... maybe 0.15mm which means your rotor is 10% worn. When saying "new" .. it would be great to mention how many miles are already covered (pictures taken after ~700 miles) and as well consider the fact, that on IS250AT rotors are actually poorly designed. They are undersized for car weight and power, that is especially noticeable on AT, less on MT. That said rotor wear is excessive to almost everyone's expectation - some rotors were replaced only after ~20k miles. Low dust brake pads make it even worse, as reported by some users, sometimes the pads can outlast the rotors. As for the lip on my new rotors... well theoretically there is already some kind of "lip" - I would expect it to be no more than ~0.00375mm or 2.5%. IF that is correct the rotors would last 28k or about average with "low-dust" pads. I believe the coating itself looks a bit like a "lip" as it is fairly thick, probably like ~0.3mm. So that is why my new rotors looks like having a "lip". I must admit my disks lasted fair mileage ~45k, but that's on OE Confort pads which generate extensive dust. If you zoom into the picture below, the lip is quite noticeable and I would say just over ~1mm. As mentioned previously, I believe the disks were still "legal" though probably worn over 70%. Additionally, it is clear that they are excessively rusted inside the vents, hence I think new disk coating is bit pointless as it would not provide any improvement in such rust prevention. Another fair point - majority of those layers are probably rusted brake dust and dirt rather than actual metal from rotor.

By measuring minimum thickness. The front rotors are 28mm new and minimum thickness before replacement are 25mm. Meaning you have 3mm of steel to wear before replacement. Usually, you can tell by the "lip" if the rotor is near minimum thickness. I believe the rotors can be actually used longer, but you won't pass MOT with the rotors below minimum thickness .. even if they are still perfectly safe to use.

Just wanted to share one subtle "enhancement" I have recently installed on my IS250. This is purely cosmetic and really depends on personal taste. Some might like it, others hate it... So my front rotors were up for changing - probably still more than 25mm, but dealer would mark them as amber (or even red) due to the pronounced lip. The decent update would have been getting IS350/GS350 brake calipers and rotors (which I still planning to do in my dreams), but for time being I wanted to upgrade that dull and rusty part with something more suitable looking. I wanted for brakes to look more "performance" oriented so I was considering "drilled" design. Never liked Slotted/Dimpled brakes too much (again personal taste). The only rotors I have found for reasonable price were MTEC made p/n: MTEC1576 Front 296mm and MTEC1621 Rear 291mm (check if you rear ones are vented or not as vented ones are 310mm - p/n: MTEC1614). Additionally, I added protective coating "gold edition" ... anyway that comes to the taste... I knew that the face going to wear out when quickly, so it is really just nice detail around it... essentially replacing rust with some "gold" coating (other options were silver/grey and black). Parts: http://www.mtecbrakes.com/mtec1576.html http://www.mtecbrakes.com/mtec1621.html http://www.mtecbrakes.com/special-edition-brake-disc-coating/gold-edition-2-discs.html I throw some Brembo low dust OE-equivalent pads on front and some Mintex cheap stuff on rear (in fact Mintex front pads were more expensive than Brembo). The end result (as expected) is very minimal difference and in my opinion subtle.... I know I know ... I need to refurb my rims before taking any more pictures .. they are really poor right now. Generally, I am happy with this tweak, but I would not recommend MTEC coatings. This is because I expected the coating to be more like "metal plating" - essentially some hard wearing coating which protects from rust, but does allow heat dissipation etc. In reality is some kind of heat resistant paint, which can be easily damaged when installing, secondly only outside of the discs is covered i.e. face and the back, but not inside vents. I do understand that covering vents in this coating would prevent rotors from cooling and therefore they are left naked, BUT the surface which rusts the most is exactly the inside of the vents... so protection vise this is not great design. P.S. Dealer was not impressed with this and gave amber. In fact they might have been missed them but the re**rd who installed them threw away anti-squeal shims. I have noticed that some time after I have left the garage, but it was little too late. Next time when installing the pads I will make sure these are not missing. So lesson learnt - don't allow id**ts near your car or watch them carefully. I must admit I had no space to upgrade myself and I was foolish enough to allow the mechanic to fiddle with my car unsupervised. The replacement part is: 04945-30140 and it is £30-70. The relief ... so far there are at least no squeal. P.P.S. Obviously, I wanted to spray calipers and dust shield (on the rear) matching colour. But I only have 2 options: either pay fortune to do them properly ~£150 per caliper (removed, prepared and professionally sprayed with heat resistant caliper paint) or do them for reasonable price ~£20 by same person who lost my anti-squeal shims (using spray can... which will bubble-up and burn after 100 miles). The third option - doing myself properly, unfortunately unavailable for now.

Ohhh ... yes. If challenged they would come back with some cool defense story. My point - there should be so kind of trust and relationship between dealer and the driver - should I feel like offended in such case?! (I kind of already am offended, but by the list of other issues with that dealer... and this is just one more to add to the list).

That seems reasonable - bare in mind most of the serious garages does alignment check for free. Though, I would recommend doing tracking on the new pair of tires (probably I sound a bit like "mr. obvious"). That said I don't like Evergreen (and majority of "value brands"), but you can keep the rear ones if they still have some thread left (that would help for environment as well). I would not buy ones, but if I found them on my car with reasonable depth and matching pair I would probably keep them in place as well.

Hello All, My car just developed interesting fault. Surely expensive to fix, but interesting in a way to investigate and nail the real cause. So to start with - few days ago (like Tuesday this week) my A/C started making some noise ... like squeakyish/grinding noise, but it was intermittent (happened like 2-3 times altogether). I had a service coming up 2 days later so didn't really bothered to investigate, nor had an opportunity. Thought, "if there was something obvious Lexus service will pick it up" and if not I will take a look over weekend. So Lexus Woodford did service an MOT, got all green except one amber. They said my drilled rotors are far too lavish, hence they put amber to accompany them (to clarify it is amber for "non-genuine front rotors and pads", they are Mintex drilled discs with Brembo OE-equivalent low dust pads - will post new thread in Modifications forum). The rest are all green including "Aircon / heating / ventilation" as below: On my way home from the dealer, I have realised my windows are starting to steam-up and the air from A/C is getting hot... clicked on "Windows Defogging" and the realised that A/C light is flashing > stopped by traffic lights and clicked "Off" and "Windows Defogging" again to restart A/C. This resulted in the weirdest thing ever in any car I have owned > the engine RPM started jumping and when I have clicked on "Off" again the engine cut-off as well (see video below). You can notice A/C light is solid while RPM is jumping. From under the bonnet it looks like compressor clutch tries to engage unsuccessfully or that compressor is actually completely stuck. Actually, I can see little sparks coming out of the pulley (see video below - sorry it is bit dirty ... Lexus panels does great job keeping all that dirt and rust inside). It only happens on idle, if I am cruising at speed then A/C light starts flashing straight away. Now based on the fault description I have found that this fault can be caused by faulty compressor clutch coil. I do believe this is not the case, because faulty coil would result in flashing A/C light and as well would fail to engage compressor, but in my case it seems it is trying to engage compressor and after multiple failures gives up and starts flashing. If I drive at speed trying to turn A/C results in flashing A/C light straight away - no impact to RPM etc. So my second guess would be that compressor itself is mechanically faulty/stuck and engaging clutch causes stress to the belt and RPM starts dropping. This would be sad news.. as replacing compressor would cost 10x more than just replacing coil. Any other thoughts? As well wouldn't you expect Lexus dealer to pick up such faults? I am not joking .. it happened 3,5 miles away from dealer after “All Green verdict”... Any help or opinion would be greatly appreciated, thanks

Well that was done as part of full service - I would be surprised if dealer would accept it as standalone work... or in such case would charge less than £100. That said the price is correct - various prices over years for oil: the cheapest £14.52 (quantity 11?) and the most expensive £19.23 (quantity 14?) + £1.73 for 2 gaskets (weirdly that works out £0.865 each?!). Surprisingly I have traced back ... the first gear oil change was done at 41013 miles when car was barely 2 years old... Dealer cashing out? While this is a bit of surprise check of transmission and diff oils are part Full service, thought I would not expect that car barely 2 years old would need "top-up". It states "replace as required (model dependant)" - which for me sounds like "n/a" on automatic IS250, unless 10+ years old. In details it states GEAR OIL ZEP75/90. I have no clue what they referring to by quantity (it seems they used 14 of 100ml bottles). That said previous owner had loyalty card and 12.5% discount was applied for all works and parts.

Today, (following not so great service experience at Lexus Woodford) I was reading through the service history on my car. It appears that Lexus Hedge-End was filling my car with wrong oil for last 3 years (before I have bought it). They used Castrol GTX 5W30 C2.. no wonder the car barely passed emissions test last year. Lexus Woodford filled the car with "no name" 5W30 (still can be Castrol, but they just didn't bother to type it on the invoice) .. were not bothered to discuss 0W20 or 0W30 options and pretended never knew of such oil being used by different dealers. I am now tempted to throw the "no name" stuff and replace it with Magnatec 5W30 A5 while Tesco bargain prices lasts. Assuming they replaced oil filter that should be fairly easy. On the side not my car now seems to be "cleaning the air" after service. Exhaust emissions test states that on Fast idle it emits 0.000 Co2 (max 0.2) and on natural idle 0.001 (max 0.3). I wonder - maybe they plugged nearby Prius while running it?

Considering you have got all the parts I can guess it is to late to say it is not really DIY... but I guess you already know it and are determined to do it ... On the matter if that can be done... yes surely dealer was doing mine ever since 96k for £15-£19 per change, so again a lot of risk doing it wrong and it actually costs more to do it yourself. But I guess this is not a point... it is rather the case of experiencing everything yourself and I do appreciate it. Maybe sometime you can ever share some of your knowledge with other .. which again would be really appreciated... so Goodluck!

I would say - before looking to any faults you should replace all 4 tires ASAP (fronts the least). It is surprisingly not legal requirement and you won't fail MOT only because of different brands. That said you might still fail the brake test (and subsequently MOT) because of uneven braking distribution on front axle... and I am almost certain this will be the case. For me it seems mad that somebody would drive the car with odd tires on the same axle (no offense please). In extreme braking situation you will certainly have uneven braking distribution, hence ABS and all other systems (like EPS, EPB) would not work efficiently, you are likely to lose control more easily. Evergreen is obviously cheapest brand available (hence the high noise), not matching front tires obviously reduces road holding, which is already compromised by cheap tires. Now thinking just about tires alone ... if the person who previously owned the car put such cheap tires on the car and even not bothered to change both front tires at the same time (any decent mechanic in any shop would recommend it) how likely the tracking is done on the car? All 4 wheel alignment would have been the cost of the tires... so I can guess - 0% possibility that you car have wheel alignment done (ever) under this person ownership. So: Noise is because of cheap tire and odd tires in the front. Road holding is bad because of the same reason. + it is unlikely that tracking is done, which would again attribute to both points above. Now when you have all that done (to begin with please just replace front tires... for the sake of lives saved in road accidents) you can start looking in other problems... which I am sure are not the case. Now you need to set your expectations right for Lexus - just to set bottom line - I would start from saying - Lexus IS250 SE-L (2005-2009) steering is far from accurate. I have previously owned IS250 F-Sport (2012+) which had somewhat improved steering, but it really comes to what you are comparing it to. It is comfortable, but in terms of accuracy and feedback somewhat average... if you want accurate steering look for BMW. That said it is not bad, but not the sporty one. Obviously you expect better steering that in Golf or Passat... So innacurate steering might be what you are referring to... or might be something else. Front wheel alignment is recommended every 6 months or anytime you change tires (if you change rears, then all 4 wheel alignment). All wheel alignment is recommended at least once a year. Rear obviously cannot be done on its own, so anytime you do rear all 4 wheels needs to be aligned. I am saying this, because not everyone knows it and places like Kwikfit or your local tire fitters unlikely to tell you that if you just replacing rear tires... furthermore they probably do not have all necessary equipment to do all 4 wheel alignment on IS250.. so for them is pointless. Fronts on IS250 can be done almost anywhere, but for all 4 wheels I would recommend ATS or Lexus Dealer. Halford claims they can do it, but in fact not all centers can. I am certain you will enjoy your car if at least minimum standard of maintenance is met.

My point was - I wouldn't like it done to my car, but that is the service I would expect for such repair (or rather avoid). I would advise to speak with the person who presumably will work on your car even over the phone. If he state that they will "drop some mud and sand it" - challenge insurance. This is not acceptable and it is not quite "as it was" before the accident. Then they can either increase the quote and ask the service to do proper job or find another place. Insurance decision is not like "final" it is your thing to reach agreement with them which suits you. Generally, as it is not your fault you can expect the repair to the condition as it was before accident and not out of your pocket. That is the reason car is insured at the first place. The place you least want to be - is to accept this raw deal, have your car inappropriately repaired and two years later have them failed e.g. cracked filler or even rust.

That is still reasonable, as long as they "pop" them straight. The worse you can expect is to get thick layer of filler painted over top. I would especially cautious about that ding in rear fender - it is quite hart to straighten it as it goes over style line. It is likely that they won't straighten it properly and just fill it. I would not expect third party garage to replace the door either unless there is hole in the door. I would second - if it is not your fault push for Lexus repair. I would accept it even with excess, but it shouldn't be.