Linas.P

That was the best decade not even from Japanese car perspective, but arguably overall in terms of quality of live. Sadly, I have not really lived in the time to benefit from it.... 😞

You need to find the lowest point on the pipe, I assume that is going to be just under the rear axle. Anything after secondary cats should be fine. No that rubber melts at ~200-280C, so it is very unlikely that any part of exhaust get's that hot after catalytic converter. What I have personally seen is the hole in the back silencer, however I am not sure how the internal layout on IS250 looks, so it is hard to say if hole in the box would achieve anything. Based on some comments above (water pouring out of the back box) it sound like it may work, but I am not 100% sure. As for diameter - buy the rubber plugs first, measure their diameter and drill hole ~10% smaller than the plug e.g. say 6.5mm hole for 7mm plug.

No... ML was optional extra for all trims, same as sunroof or DCC. Yes often the cars with sat-nav have ML, but not always. Also I thought all RC-Fs pre-face lift had ML (despite theoretically it being optional), because it is hard to find one without it, but I have now seen 1 single example without ML. My point - sometimes even some optional things are always fitted, but it is definitely not the case for ML in IS with sat-nav, I would say only ~60% of cars with sat-nav also have ML.

Yeah it will be just too cold for it to cure. Rule of thumb with sealants - 20C+ and ideally dry place for application, then 24h no exposure to water. I remember making same mistake with ceramic coating applying it in cold garage in February... took 2 days to cure and then was kind of hazy requiring machine polishing entire car again.

Or DCC... MM can be sat-nav, no ML. Although it is small loss considering standard audio is very decent in mk2 anyway.

That is exactly what I have seen done. It wasn't a screw, but more like small rubber plug. Ad as far as I understand it was factory job on some cars. Also when I lost back box on my IS250 (at ~120k miles and 8 years old), it wasn't rusted, it just sheared off, looked like stress fracture. Got it welded back and it lasted another 70k+ miles after that (it never failed again, but car got stolen, so don't know how long it would have lasted). Also thinking about it - my old IS250 had it's all original exhaust by 200k miles, it looked rather horrible and rusty from outside, but there were no holes or any other issues apart of one backbox falling as mentioned. But I consider that car a little bit of outlier, high mileage and generally exhaust don't last that long.

Well I guess one can get whole crashed 2010+ IS200d for £1000, but you correct on both parts. 1. getting FTV engine already outside of the car will cost as much as whole IS220d in running condition. 2. once everything is done and engine fitted... you may as well have yourself IS250 both manual or even automatic. I guess it made sense to fix IS220d's when they were still around £3000-4000, but now that they are trending ~£1500 I just can't see any way to do it economically.

I don't believe I know anyone who have done it, main reason - it is likely uneconomical repair i.e. your car is worth less than the cost of buying and fitting the new engine. Now theoretically - could it be done? Yes, 100% - it is direct fit, take old one out, put new one in, they are identical engines, just one has slightly stronger head gasket. The only caveat - you will also need new ECU (engine computer) if you really want improved reliability. This is because never engine (engine model - 2AD-FTV) is slightly detuned (making 150hp instead of 179hp) compared to old engine (2AD-FHV). So yes - new engine has slightly updated head-gasket which is stronger, but key difference which makes it more reliable is that it makes less power and that is ECU that makes this difference. Also it is slightly more economical on fuel. You can make a compromise, little bit of "Frankenstein", and use 2AD-FTV with ECU from 2AD-FHV. This should give you stronger headgasket, but without reduction of power and without improvement of fuel economy. Here you would be trading little bit of improved reliability for keeping little bit more of power. Again - this is all hypothetical, because I don't believe repairing IS220d is economical to begin with and it is not like newer engine is that much more reliable, it is slightly more reliable and chances are it will last you as long as you keep the car, but it still inherently has same issues as older engine. In short - yes it could be done, yes it is direct fit and basically identical engine, yes it will work in place of old engine without problems, but if you really want improved reliability then you as well need ECU... BUT - it is likely uneconomical repair.

I have seen holes drilled into the bottom of backbox. In theory anything after emissions equipment is legal, however it would throw the emissions measuring probe off and likely cause MOT failure on emissions.

Not sure why would you consider scrapping it? Scrap money would be £400 if you lucky (probably less if they come to pick it up). Selling it even with faults would be 2-3 times that. If you would spend little bit of money to "recommission the car", fitting new battery, fixing puncture in the tyre, taking it to local car wash to do mini-valet, you may get even more. £2000 for running GS300 is really cheap and that is already 5 times what you would get scrapping it. How to do it - facebook market place or ebay probably would be easiest for cars with problems. Autotrader would get more attention, but people there would expect car to be driving and good shape. Also you can just put your details into selling section on this forum.

Really depends on how much and what kind of driving you are doing. If you doing a lot of miles and long trips, then your exhaust will be fine, if car sits for long times undriven and then does a short trip, then it will rot very quickly. I would say - worst case scenario ~8 years, but some probably last 12 years or more.

Video with sound before and after is mandatory with these sort of posts! 😄

Hierarchy... Luxury is most basic spec. Then F-Sport/Premier are kind of same level. Premier is considered top spec. but for example it does not get digital dash, which for me would be deal breaker. After face lift Premier was replaced by Takumi, so the hierarchy became Luxury>F-Sport>F-Sport + Takumi Pack > Takumi. Again F-Sport + Takumi being kind of the same as Takumi, but Takumi lacking digital dash, instead having some wood trim and little bit better base equitpment. As for what Luxury lacks - I would need to find the the option list, but basically all the options that are standard on F-Sport/Premier would be either optional or not available on Luxury. Luxury for example does not get Leather and by default has vinyl seats, smaller wheels etc.

Is there any immobiliser related fault? Basically the question I have - why do you think it is immobiliser? Immobiliser fault should look something like this - engine should start and stall immediately, engine could also crank after that but won't start. Based on your description engine does not seem to crank?

Interesting - I may try to do it next time. Previous when I tried I could not find the way to avoid it.

OP probably can clarify when the car was serviced and where - one of the big reasons to use Lexus service is to get Relax warranty on vehicles that qualify. It would be madness not to service premium car of such age at the dealership, but I guess everyone to their own. Lexus cars are reliable, but not invincible either and RC is not cheap car to fix outside of warranty, after all it was £40,000+ new, so parts won't be cheap (I know myself considering my £4,200 bill for seat, which in my case was fixed by warranty). All that said... something doesn't add-up. There is no reason why Lexus technicians would be scratching their head or why would they advise to replace the engine. Engine failure is really binary thing - it either has failed or it has not failed, I cannot believe 2AR-FSE which is used in all 300h models of the time would fail at just 54,000 miles, even if car was not serviced for 2 years these engine can take such abuse and run for a while (it does not help wear and tear, but they will run). So unless rod exited the block in quite open fashion, then I don't understand why engine would even be a question or speculated. Somebody just talks complete BS here, maybe priming customer for huge bill.... "ohhh it is £5,000 for inverter, at least it is not £28,000 for engine". No sorry, engine does not fit in this equation at all. Can hybrid system fail - yes it could and it could cause the symtoms noted. Initial symptoms sounded like 12V battery, and for that it would be just about time to pack-up. What is strange is that car died when running, which is not usual for 12V battery related faults, so it may be further issues with electrical side of hybrid system. The hybrid system check results would help here... when was that done? Was car rarely driven by any chance? That would explain a lot and also it probably would be resolved with new 12V battery and good trip for 500 miles. But then I am still puzzled why Lexus technicians are scratching their heads? This should not be difficult issue to diagnose?! Could it be jump start related? AA is generally good, but car service quality is in decline across the board, so I would not be surprised if AA guy shorted and fried something (which could indeed be headscratcher for whomever tires to unpick that). In short I am kind of puzzled myself - described speculation from Lexus does not fit description of the issue, also description of the issue does not sound like something experienced technicians would struggle to troubleshoot, also also considering age an mileage of the car I am struggling to understand why this isn't warranty job (yes it isn't under factory 60k/3 years cover anymore, but I would expect it to be under relax, am I right to think hybrid side has longer warranty 10 years/100k as long as hybrid health check is done?). Seems to me like some parts of the story are missing or omitted.

I used to be able to justify it when the phones were very innovative, but as of late I can't see much of said innovation. Well I guess it needs to be defined, back in the days of say Galaxy S2, to S3, or S3 to S4, or S4 to S5, there was genuine step in specs screen resolution 20% higher, screen size 10% higher, battery size/life 30% higher, camera +50% megapixels, S5 added water resistance, S6 added metal frame and curved screen and the price was going up slowly almost with inflation. By like £50, sometimes maybe £100. But by the time we got to S10 to S20, there was honestly very little between them, S20 lost 3.5mm jack and that was pretty much it, for the rest you need to look at the spec. sheet with magnification. Then Samsung also switched to "tick tock" release cycle like apple... S20 was pretty much S10, just some features, cut, charger removed from the box, the camera cut out moved from corner to middle. S22 was pretty much same as S21, even externally identical, perhaps 1mm here and there, S23 and S24 again - I struggle to see why do I have to spend £1000 on phone one year and next year to replace it with nearly identical phone. Also as mentioned Samsung followed apple in egregiously overpricing their flagships. Galaxy S used to be flagship at the price of ~600-£700 + inflation, but then they introduced Ultra. So whereas logic says S10 should have been replaced by S20, that is not true, S10 was replaced by S20 Ultra and S20 was basically a step down in quality from S10. That is why when I replaced my S10 with S22 I felt like going a segment down, S22 despite being obviously much more technologically advanced device (because it is 4 years newer) is a solid upper-midrange phone and not flagship. Honestly my S10 is snappier and nicer to handle than S22. S22 Ultra a different story, but it was £1179... Now sure - Samsung does appreciate loyalty, so if you upgrading EVERY YEAR, then they will knock down £400-£600 trade-in. So if you got S23 Ultra in same fashion (trading your previous S22 Ultra), then with trade-in it worked out probably less than £799, then before launch you could pick-up S24 Ultra for £1299-£600 trade in for Z-Fold 5 or £500 for S23Ultra + 512GB free memory upgrade for pre-order + Galaxy Gear watch (worth ~£299), so reasonably speaking your S24 Ultra will cost you £1299-£500=£799 + free memory upgrade that is worth £100 + free smar****ch that is worth £299, so you paying in ballpark (or even less than £600) if you upgrade every year. It was the same when I pre-ordered S22, I got £200 discount for ANY Samsung phone in ANY condition and I just had dead A52 in the draw + Galaxy Buds Pro 2 (which were probably £249 to buy and they are honestly the best wireless earphones I have every tried (they are very loud, very clear, very deep base, good battery life, good microphone, good active noise cancellation, excellent active noise filtering boost - feels a bit like superhuman as you can snoop on conversations across the train it is a little be eerie...). So I paid £799 for the phone + very very viable free earphones that are worth their price. In short - you can always have latest and greatest Samsung phone for ~£600 a year + a lot of various freebies depending on what they have on offer that year, sometimes it is honestly crap and useless, but sometimes it is something you may want to buy yourself, so it could be quite sweet deal. But even then I am struggling to justify £600 a year, as the phones are simply not different enough, or not better enough to upgrade. So I rather pay ~£800 every 3/4 years, to get 6 month old "flagship" and that works out for me as £200 to stay somewhat with the trends. I also still have Note 4 - still works well, but it is unbelievably slow, borderline unusable, I can't believe what updates did to it (it was very snappy and smooth phone at launch). Was considering to even put a custom rom on it with some clean vanilla Android 8 or something, but it would be obsolete either way. Finally - Samsung did innovate with foldable and they did set the new big trend, defined the next step in the smartphone development for sure. However, there is difference between practical innovation and public technology testing. Galaxy Fold was a public technology testing, the device was very rough and fragile at the start and I just can't see how it is worth to pay £1999 to be a test subject (or was it even over £2000?!), I hoped such prototype phones will trickle down into mainstream, but it has barely happen, only about to happen now. So it just shows how much it has changed. I remember they launched original Galaxy Edge, just around the time Note 5 came out, it was probably around £1000, when Note 5 was £600 and Galaxy S5 was £489. It was that sort of prototype - technology showpiece for few fans etc. But next year there was S6 and S6 edge, with the price difference of only £50 and both under £600. So it took Samsung 6 months to bring "future showcase device" into mainstream for affordable price. Fold was launched 5 years ago and Fold Z 5 was still well over £1000... £1649 if I noted correctly... so it is still way way into public prototype testing realm and well too expensive for mainstream and even then S23 Ultra was a better phone overall. So it is a difference between overpriced gimmick and true innovation. I consider that until device is not available at reasonable price for mainstream - it is a gimmick. I think foldables just about to break into mainstream, I bought Z4 Flip as a gift, but again only because it kind of worked out around £650 with discounts for me. Now I guess why it took so long for Samsung to do it ? It is because competition drives innovation, Samsung was way above the curve and there was no real competition in folding screens space, so Samsung could afford to keep the prices high. Hence my hope that Z Fold 6 will be sub-£800 phone once all the rebates, trade-ins and gifts are included and I could finally upgrade.

On iTunes maybe, but to use App Store you must link credit card to it, so basically it is ID check as well... because you can't be just Mr. Joe Blobs with e-mail ihatecrapple@gmail.com. You can indeed create alt-account with all made-up information, log-into App Store, but you can't download any apps, because as soon as you try to do it it will ask for payment method (even for free apps), and obviously once you add credit (or debit card) they know EXACTLY who you are. I had this comical moment with Apple support, because I had issue validating my credit card, because obviously all the info on my account was made-up and when they ask me for my account e-mail address it was something like applesucks8345@mailinator.com. At that point they advised me that "perhaps credit card is not validating because I had made-up info on the account", even thought for credit card I obviously had to enter my real details. So basically there is no escaping all knowing apple spy network... if you want to use their ecosystem.

It is personal choice here, but it could be life and death choice in china. I also know that some chinese who have left china had been harassed based on information china was able to collect on them abroad, in fact I know one person myself who had bought iphone in china (they have segregated icloud etc.) and they were still harassed based on information crapple shared with china. Only once they got iphone in UK they managed to lose the tail (still weird choice to go back to the company that sold you out). For google I just create account for each new device and only use that account with that device. I mean I am sure google can still figure out based on IPs and what not that it is same user using multiple accounts, but at least from targeted marketing algorithm it seems to work. Still (this may be paranoia) but if you speak out loud about your holiday plans in the room, few hours later you get adverts for package holiday to the destination you discussed... well it is still better than be re-educated in one of the china's camps. Ironically - you can hide from targeted advertising by using chinese phones, because their google services do not connect to main google servers, or at least it is not so obvious. So in some sense if CCP can't reach you and hurt you, then as foreign national you may get more privacy using chinese phones. As for crapple - I can just confirm they are horrible, from developer perspective they are horrible to deal with, from user perspective they are horrible to deal with, they basically IDs you personally, because you must give them your credit card details to download even free apps... so you can't be semi-anonymous with them like you can on android and their control freaks as well.

My colleagues are also all on iphones, generally in UK iphones are very popular, certainly way more popular than Globally or in rest of Europe. Not really sure why they are so popular. I personally never liked iphones, just my preference. Bu they also been quite dodgy recently with removing features rather than adding them, also with introduction of Pro... basically if you don't get Pro then you getting "mid-range" phone, for the price that used to be "high-end". Also I just don't like how restricted everything is, basically you buy the phone, but apple still owns it and dictates you what you can and can't do. Just can't live with that. In my experience Samsung provides 3-4 years of updates for operating system, but they continue with security updates for quite a while. I am not sure what they promise, but certainly more than 5 years. At least that is true for their "flagship" devices, so Galaxy S, Galaxy Fold all getting at least 5 years of updates. I guess depends on where one draws the line, but 5 years in my experience were plenty, longer than that and phone becomes really obsolete anyway. As for Chinese phones - they simply can't be trusted, some models may get updates, some may not get-updates... simply the number of different devices they spit out each year means that it would be very hard to stay on top of their all updates for many years. I think 2-3 years if you lucky. The Oppo Find X that I got in 2018 only got 1 update after like 18 months and that was it, over time apps started glitching and crashing on it and by ~2021 it became almost useless. To befair nothing major has failed on it, battery got to maybe 6 hours, also it had sliding camera and it developed the fault where sometimes you would slide camera cover and it would not turn on, but then usually if you close and open it, then it would turn on, not sure if that was software or hardware issue. I guess with time it would have stopped working completely, but had not done so in time I was still using it.

I know you didn't, I am just saying I had constant problems with them.

It is unobtanium guys... Particularly in UK these were never sold and never fitted to the cars, if any exist then they would be imported from US. In US they were available as optional extra and very few were sold. Don't know the numbers, but it will be "high-hundreds or low thousands", meaning miniscule number. Most likely they were fitted to IS350s and they highly sought after items even in US. So if you looking for one - ebay.com or maybe ask around in US Lexus forums like IS.my

Bosch S4... also Vatra (I believe it is same as Bosch just different sticker). Then also Exide, but in UK they tend to be very pricey for no reason. Panasonic is what probably was fitted from factory, but I have not seen any place selling them. Would stay away from Yuasa... this is what you would be commonly offered by places like Halfrauds or KwikFrauds. In my experience you lucky if they last their warranty period.

Well yes - I guess that is my point. I would be happy to participate in experiment if it would be significantly cheaper... it is significantly cheaper in China. So if I visit China like I did in 2018 and I see it for £250, then I would be more than happy to "throw that money away" to marvel at devices from the company that takes risks. I do understand what you saying, but the price of £1700 or £1200 is the price of the tired, tested and reliable device, not prototype which may or may not turn on in 6 months. Also as I said it is priorities - if I still be upgrading every 6 months as before, then that money would be wasted either way and then it doesn't matter, but when now I keep devices for 3 years+ I started valuing how they last long term. But I also understand different people have different priorities, so for some this totally works and makes sense.

Yeah, nowadays they have "high-end" and then "true" high-end. As always we can thank apple for this mess - I think they started it with iphone x, or maybe 11. Basically before you get either Iphone or galaxy S and that was the high-end phone of the year to get, then apple introduced "pro" for like £1500. At first it looked like either you get normal phone or overpay for some gimmick, but now the normal iphone or Galaxy S are actually mid-range, for example I have S22 and it just feels cheap even compared to my previous S10, because the one to get suppose to be £1500 S22 Ultra (or it was 2 years ago at least, S24 just launched now). Well and obvious they have these foldable phone now which used to cost a lot, but again rumours are Samsung is going to get competitive on pricing again. As for foldable phones - they are still fragile. When they were not water-proof I didn't even consider them, but I bought Z4 Flip as present and it was quite good, the special screen protector failed after 15 months, but it was replaced by warranty for free. Screen seems to hold just fine for now and Samsung does £150 subsidised replacements. But foldable phones are still fragile in comparison to normal ones, you definitely need to take extra care with them. I honestly can't care about latest and greatest now, somehow few years back each phone release used to excite me and there was some significant upgrade, but in recent years I really struggle to see what am I getting for extra money. Same applies to both Samsung and Apple - I can't even tell the difference between iphones after 12, Galaxy S likewise... last 3 or 4 are pretty much identical... S21, 22, 23 and now 24 really offers more or less the same package. If anything I probably prefer my old S10 (generally would like to have more compact phone, but there are no more compact high-end ones). As such I just keep the phones until they fail now... had S6 edge, to be fair it had not failed, but got quite slow after 4 years, S10 - I cracked the screen after 3 years (still works fine, just glass has chip) and S22 still going strong after 2 years, so if rumours are true then maybe in 2 years time I will pick-up discounted Fold 6. As for all other brands I personally find them irrelevant, so if android then it is Samsung, if not android then it is iphone... Never found Google Pixel to be any good, Sony, LG, HTC etc. are all pretty much irrelevant now. Motorola is basically chinese company as well and they kind of hang around in mid-range and then there is probably 100 different chinese companies. Generally they have impressive spec sheets, but features are just not polished and do not work half of the time and that is even considering Samsung features are often not fully polished. Also again in my experience they simply fail in less than a year, it starts little by little, but in 12 month it usually turns into brick... sort of maybe camera starts turning off at first, then it doesn't turn on at all, then microphone starts glitching, then people can't hear you anymore and by years' end they stop charging, or holds 4h of charge... or some combination of similar issues. As for malware - 1 it is real thing, but 2 - I kind of agree, there is nothing useful they can find out about me and I am not planning to go to china at any time soon. So it isn't real concern, but it is there. Also perhaps I would be little bit worried logging in into my banking account, they probably wouldn't bother stealing my 2p worth of savings, but I in theory they could if they wanted to. Also also - that is not to say google or apple does not spy on us, the difference perhaps is targeted advertising vs. "re-education camp" in Xinjiang. That said I think my key issue is their quality and "longevity" and their price isn't even that good in UK. For example I bought Oppo Find X in 2018 when I was in China and my girlfriend bought Vivo something... whatever. Point is in China Oppo Find X costed something like £290, whereas here it only launched year later for £899. And similar story for Vivo, it was even cheaper, if memory serves - like £155. So yes - at those prices they are amazing devices and I don't even care if they last 6 months, but at UK price I just never going to pay £1000+ for chinese phone, for one I kind of know they are not worth it, because they actually sell for maybe £250 in china and secondly, they are made to that level of quality. So yeah - if ever needed "burner" phone for some reason, then I may just get one of the cheaper ones for under £200, but I will never regard them as premium devices in the same league as Samsung or Apple.