IS300FSPORT

Have any of you attempted a DIY?

How is the belt removed looking to replace it soon.

On 12/14/2021 at 8:44 PM, Jayw13702 said:

I use Falkens, always given good economy at a reasonable price whilst still being reasonably quiet

Yours now at 251k (33k) a year very impressive

Have you replaced any ABS sensors? 

Try Autotrader, Pistonheads, Gumtree, eBay, facebook market place.

From experience Autotrader is best not as many time wasters.

If your car is around 5 years old its good practice to have it done. It gets rid of the small metal particles that settled in during the wear in process that usually happens within the 1st 5-10k miles. The drain plug is magnetic & it does grab tiny metal bits.

Since the diff is sealed & the oil does not mix with petrol or go through a burn cycle it has a very easy life. I did mine at 50k /2015 reg to be fair the oil looked fresh, however the drain plug magnetic had black sludge.  After changing it felt alot smoother.

My recommendation on it is get it done once & then forget about it peace of mind more than anything else.

Although looking on youtube owners of older Lexus models have left theirs for 10-15 years especially on the older GS models without any ill effects. 

Focus on the drain plug magnet

Start from the basics:

-First check engine oil level & are you using 0w20 grade oil

- Have you by any chance sprayed brake cleaner into the throttle body? Or drove through a deep puddle air filter may be soaked tell tale sign.

(Have heard this noise before on a petrol engine after cleaning the throttle body but it went away within 30 seconds.)

Could it be a bad batch of fuel, top it up with 5-10 litres of V power see if it dilutes the fuel to see if it makes a difference.

*Has this noise started after undertaking any maintenance?

If so try & trace it back to what work was done.

If it is a fuelling issue injectors or spark plugs you would expect a misfire or engine code.

If its red fluid then yes its your transmission fluid.

If its clear fluid its the Air con pipe releasing water from the condensation pipe it sits directly above the CTV transmission case. Its perfectly normal & put your mind at rest your driving a Lexus afterall 

Clean the windows with shaving foam. Its a known trick that prevents windows misting up. Tried this & it does work quite well.

+ 1 for the change cabin filter easy to change out.

Wet carpets dont help either. 

Another time a rattle can occur more a knock to be honest.

Worn drop links

Broken coil spring

Re the rattle look for a loose exhaust heat sheild. Start from the manifold and get under the car & try moving it by hand there should be no play corrosion eats it away and causes movement. Iv had this issue on plenty of cars have ripped it off & continued my journey. Just dont park on grass if the heat sheild is missing risk of fire. If your real OCD it usually takes a biggeer washer to tighten back up. 

*** & dont touch the exhaust when its hot ***

dont ask me how I know about this 

Failing that check any components in the engine bay i.e loose air filter box. Anything loose? 

Direct from Lexus x4 Spark plugs £58.36

Part no: 90919-01263

https://lexuspartsdirect.co.uk/product/lexus-is-phase-3-spark-plugs-2-5l-petrol-hybrid/

The recommended mileage is 60,000 for replacement.

Another option is to disable the sound beeper try disabling it  not sure if its a techstream job or if it can be done manually like earlier lexus models look on youtube.

Try cleaning inside the belt holder mechanism compressed air or hoover. 

They generally dont go wrong unless you buy one with high miles thats not been maintained. Your maintenance in theory is your warranty, but it is good insurance if you have the spare cash to take out a warranty. 

Its not your typical German models that require parts thrown at them frequently. Lexus owners sleep well at night 

The brakes on Hybrids can go on for 100k+ if the disc and pads have life. Generally a strip down works to get rid of the squeaks clean the caliper, wire brush pad housing, regrease the caliper pins and your good to go. The brakes may not need replacing but the brake dust does you no favours they can seize up. Clean up and reassemble usually does the trick, this worked for me & it was the rear pads sticking.

For the life of the Hybrid Battery go with 15 reg onwards.

If you go for a 13 reg in 2023 its 10 year old, the main dealer Service only covers Hybrid Battery upto to 10 year old providing you get it serviced from Lexus they extend the warranty for 1 year, something to think about although to be fair the failure rate is low.

Certain people may disagree but with higher mileage examples comes wear & tear regardless of age. Maintenance record is critical & let me assure a full main dealer service record does not mean anything. Having been in the trade they can skimp on certain elements alot of the time it is a checkup the technicians undertake not doing actual preventative maintenance.  The following items likely need replacing or require attention after >100k+, Hybrid filter clean,  Oxygen sensors, corroded exhausts usually back box, lower control arms, drop links, tie rods, ball joints, shock absorbers, MAF/MAP sensors, coolant flush 100k, spark plugs 60k interval, differential fluid, CVT gearbox service, brake fluid 2 years, belts, water pump, etc &  if your not handy at DIY this is where it gets expensive. There is no lifetime fluids for long term ownership buy around 60k and maintain it yourself if possible just my 2p on it.

Top tip for you make sure it was serviced every 10,000 miles or annually. So if its a 2015 should have 7 service stamps. Main dealers wont tell you if it has a gap i.e not serviced every year. I know somebody that got bit recently on this. Ensure tyres & brakes dont need replacement in the next year as well to save you abit of cost. & check previous years advisory work has been completed otherwise you will be picking up the bill. 

https://www.gov.uk/check-mot-history

It is best practise to use new washers. 

1 hour ago, Linas.P said:

Nonsense. First of all when buying car with 100k+ you would expect normal service to be carried out in line with schedule, so water-pump, coolant, aux-belt are moot points - they should be done already. So buying say 110k mean you just missed few most expensive bills. Suspension, shocks other suspension parts won't be worn anymore significantly than they would be on 80k mile car. In fact mileage isn't even that relevant at all - car which did higher miles on motorway will always be in way better shape than low mileage car which spent it's time in city. 

Brakes and pads again it is in no way 100k milestone, you can buy car which is 40k miles but brakes were never replaced and it would need to be done, or you could buy 160k mile car with brakes which were done 10k miles ago. The sort of stuff you talking about here are standard points of inspection when buying the car.

Undercarriage corrosion will always be worse on low mileage car assuming they are same age, the car driven more has more time to get warm and dry out most vulnerable parts for rust like exhaust. The car which sits and just does local miles will be the one corroded the most. As well, a lot depends just on how previous owner cared for the car - again you can buy 160k car which feels and drives like new, because everything was done in time or you can buy 50k mile car which is trash because nothing ever was done on it. Again it does not matter how many miles you Lexus has, once it is 10 years old it will have no warranty and replacing car on 50k miles car will cost same as on 150k miles car. Now obviously, there are exceptions everywhere and all sorts of caveats, say if you buy car which was used as rental or taxi in the city with high mileage, then yes it will be trashed - city miles and poor maintenance is what trashes the cars. Although good way to avoid ex-taxis and rentals is to go for higher trim like F-Sport, taxis tend to be entry level trims like Luxury or SE (not that Lexus IS taxis are that common in UK).

Overall - low mileage cars are the worst value for money, the best value for money is to buy as new car as you can and with as many miles as possible. Again - if car is 6 years old and has 120k miles, then most likely it was driven on motorway, for long journeys and often and that is good for any car, if car is 10 years old and has 25k miles then stay away from it, it sat all it's live and that is not good. This obsession with low mileage car really has nothing relevant to reality. Sure there trashed out high mileage cars, same as there are trashed out low mileage cars - point is, mileage on it's own is not an indicator of condition of the car. When buying Lexus it is even less relevant, the key on Lexus is service history and no just stamps, but check invoices if you can access them, make sure that owners replaced what was required, not simply paid standard service prices and rejected everything extra for years. 

Fair enough your entitled to your own view will leave it at that. 

Funny you should mention that I did consider getting a can of black spray paint on the diff case, but I didnt fancy doing a half hearted job. I'd need to wire brush all the surface rust off primer it & then spray it but that involves time & effort. I have seen plenty of high mileage GS models from the 90s none reported to have the case corrode away. So its just cosmetic doesnt bother me in all fairness. Once you start cleaning & spraying one area the rest of the under carriage looks corroded so where do you stop? Im ok with it looking like an honest car its not a garage queen so its going to have some form of wear showing as long as its presentable at MOT it does not bother me. 

100k + miles may be cheaper at purchase however long term it soon wipes out the savings & Lexus parts & labour is not cheap.

- Suspension shock absorbers springs corroded or worn out

- Suspension arms double wishbone rubber bushings wear out

- Water pump usually go after 100k, & coolant/invertor requires replacement

- Brake disc & pads likely due replacement too

- Aux belt

- High voltage traction Battery may also be tired

- Hybrid filter & fan requires clean and replacement

- Diff & transmission fluid replacement 

- Spark plugs at 120 (60k interval)

- Not to mention under carriage & bodywork suffer more corrosion at high mileage in the UK due to salty roads.

The parts soon add up so keep all this in mind at purchase & resale value also at a loss. Unless your good at DIY its v costly so be careful with high mileage examples. 

If it helps £16,800 for a 2015 F Sport in White & Rose Red Leather 

44,000 miles

Heated & cooled seats, Sat nav, 18 alloys etc

I paid that in July 2021 with a standard 1 year warranty.

& from looking online I havent made a loss yet. I was gutted at the time for paying around 1500 extra than what they were going for in 2020 but I havent spent a penny on it other than servicing & tyres which I changed out because they were budget tyres.

Lexus attracts a certain type of character marketed or usually in the hands of the more mature people.

Dont buy it if you intend to do mods on it, it just does not suit this type of car. Its actually a bigger version of a Prius & everybody knows theyr not cool & dont have the street cred.

Saying that if you keep as it is without turning it into a chav mobile you will appreciate how well built they are generall very reliable in standard form. 

All the best!

Greetings All,

I have been taking useful info from here since buying my car over a year ago but have not made any posts so here is my contrubution should it help anybody. If any of you plan on doing a DIY differential fluid change on an IS300H. Its a fairly straight forward job I have done mine at 50,000 miles on 2015 model it may well be the same on GS models too. Although my car has a full service history from Lexus none of the invoices listed the item no or job so in all honesty im not convinced its ever been checked or changed. The oil was fairly fresh Id say it could go on another 50k on normal use,  but for peace of mind and as I intend to keep the car long term I just changed it. I do appreciate some may argue its a lifetime fluid so why bother but the debris of the metal particles is what can cause a problem if left unattended. I didnt have much dirt stuck on the magnet either.

Tools required:

- 10mm Hex

- Brake Cleaner to wipe away old fluid

- Cloth/old rag

- Bucket to catch old fluid

- Extension and Ratchet

- Diff fluid 75w-85 GL5 1.3-1.4L so you need x2 1L bottles (part number 08885-81060) approx £17 a litre. Call it £35 with delivery from most retailers on eBay. 

- Fluid Transfer srynge/pump - £10 

- Wire brush

Steps involved 

*** Important & do so at your own risk ***

*Ideally the car must be level to get an accurare amount of fluid back in.

I drove the car onto a wooden step/ramp to lift it slightly at the front, leave it with the handbrake applied & in Park. Chock  the front wheels for extra pre-caution

jack up just under the rear differential to get it level, to the same height as the front & put 4 axle stands under the sills for safety.  However like me if you only have 2 axle stands put the 2 axle stands at the rear it is more important as you will be working at the rear of the vehicle.

Ensure the top plug is removed first this is the fill plug do not undo the drain plug without knowing you can refill! 

Then undo the drain plug at the bottom let it drain takes approx 10 minutes to drain. It has quite a strong smell like an old school garage. Once drained put the drain plug back on ideally with new gasket. Tighten up until its reasonably tight apologies I dont have the torque figure.

Refil the differential using the fluid transfer pump. Continue pumping until you get a steady flow dripping out until it becomes a drip. I used approx 1.4L the fill is upto the level of the drive shaft it will pour out once full so it cant really be overfilled unless you dont wait for the steady stream to turn into a drip.

I believe the dealer will charge in excess of £150+ so not a bad saving. Good luck its not a tough job just requires time & patience if you can do an engine oil change you can do this job. The recommended interval from reading on the internet is every 2nd oil inspect & refill as necessary & change fluid every 30k.

Hope this may help somebody someday.