Well I am not a happy bunny. Had my IS200 SE from new for just over 4 years now (4 years and 5 days to be precise) and it is going to cost me over £2,000 just to keep it on the road.
It failed its MOT last week on emissions. Had the service (70,000 mile) as advised by local MOT guy at my Lexus dealer today, only to be told the manifold cat had gone and the exhaust one was only operating at 50%. Advice is to change both – parts alone are over £1,400. I know cats do go in the end, but 4 years or 70,000 miles is a bit poor.
Four new tyres (one has < 10,000 miles on it but is wearing badly on the inside – surprise, surprise).
Both front steering ball joints have gone – that will be another £260 sir.
Also the brakes are binding – we will need to strip them.
So far this is without doubt the worst car I have ever owned. I am on my fifth radio (all 4 previous have gone to “ERR-3 and stuck CD” heaven), fourth set of wheel hubs (all the other have gone rusty), second set of wheels (originally looked awful after 2 years), second set of suspension (original was shot after 40,000 miles), the paintwork chips if you look at it (took a chunk out with my finger-nail for gods sake, but Lexus refuse to accept there is anything wrong) and now all this. It has only ever been serviced at an authorised Lexus dealer and always on time.
Anyone else had so many problems. Personally I like the car, and having owned from new was considering keeping it another couple of years or so – but if it is going to end up costing me a couple of K a year on top of normal running costs (fuel, insurance, road tax, consumables) I cannot see the point.
OK, rant over – it is just I am very, very