bixtape

Hi Linas , hoping that’s not your 250 ? I need to replace driver side window on my 2011 250 f sport , as it’s scratched it keeps being scratched on the outside when you pull the window up . I’ve got to take the door apart to further inspect but was wondering if you still have the window and how much would you want for it ? Also I reckon it should fit with no issue right ? 

Bought a pair of front calipers from rock auto without paying attention at the size and it turns out they don’t fit my new discs and pads therefore looking to sell them . From what I’ve seen powerstop are highly recommended by the Americans and compared to pagid , this is a bargain as the callipers come with the brackets as well. 
Cast iron 60-32
 

Wanting £170 and can deliver / ship at buyers expense. 
located in sunderland

Hi guys , I've seen other threads about head gasket issues , however I'm not yet sure if the head gasket is on its way out or it's something else , considering all the issues I'm having .

So about 2 months ago I started hearing squeeking noises and replaced the serpentine belt . After a month I started noticing whine noise on a cold engine and identified the water pump is on it's way out - just replaced water pump (aisin ) , thermostat ( aisin).The mechanic found out as well as the old WP leaking also the radiator h as been leaking and the tensioner pulley on its way out. I've taken a screenshot of the video he took. After all he's taken out about 5L of coolant from the system. 

He suggests that it's been like that for quite a long time (months) and I do admit topping up a little bit of coolant (some random one from Halfords which I kinda regret now )few months ago and when he checked the radiator hoses , they were very hard for a car that sat overnight with a cold engine . He suggests that potentially the head gasket is on its way out and I should check with a garage that deals with these kind of stuff to confirm whether this is the case or something else. 

The car has never overheated , the temp gauge has always been reaching almost the middle ( just a tad bit before the middle)  just like all other 250's and now having the new thermostat I don't think there would be a case of missing overheating. 

However I do have secondary cats as some of you might know that need changing , exhaust leaks and one of the downstream o2 sensors dead , which needs changing but everytime something like this pops up and I keep delaying it. 

I do experience a slight jump in RPMS from second to third gear , as there's an issue with the throttle body , however I believe that's because I'm running rich / exhaust leaks / cats needs changing.

My question is - should I buy a head gasket tester kit ? If yes - which one would you recommend , or should I go to a garage? 

I will be replacing the radiator in the next few days , can someone vouch for the brand Nissens having a good fit and reliability ?  

Should I replace the radiator hoses ? 

I'd be very thankful if you can point me out in the right direction, because I really don't want to be selling the car , I love it and I have no idea what car I would enjoy as much , but if identified 100% head gasket issue , I see no other reasonable solution 

Hi guys. So one of my caliper is on its way out and need urgently to get it sorted. 
I’ve got the calipers from rock auto but I’ve just found out that getting brake lines for the is250 is an absolute pain in the *****. 
Was thinking about getting braided ones but was told it will take a month to get them , so I’m screwed. 
I’ve just ordered Borg and beck from eBay which might come in time for my appointment with the garage and I’m wondering if they would be any good ? 
is it worth putting them on or keeping the current ones I have to then replace the calipers and eventually order the braided ones and again do brake line replacement ? 

I understand now Linas , thank you for clarifying this , I've never dealt with this or had to research so I was quite clueless , but I got it now haha.

Thank you so much for your input

I know what the plan is , now I just gotta do my research for shops and not get ripped off , thank you .

I will update this thread again once I've got progress with this and will probably summarize the whole issue at the end so the next newbie like me finds it as helpful as possible !

@Linas.PMy rear "exhausts /pipes" are new , i went to a guy who did it kind of properly ( still small leaks at the welds where the backboxes were , but this time much better...) 

if ive understood right you are going custom stainless steel for the centre and rear done by a shop right ? I know a reputable place close to me but I was quoted for a backbox delete £700 + and without the tips , so I'm crossing out this shop for sure . I'm just wondering if there are already complete exhaust systems ready to be purchased from a reputable website ? Or it needs to be custom as the shop needs to deal with the flanges too?

Edit: just read your reply after I posted this. 

Should I just freaking buy all the pipes needed to do the custom exhaust system and do a small trip of 5 hours to my pal who I trust the most and know I won't get ripped off or mess it up ( he's a welder for redbull haha ) 

Yes vlad , I've went with denso from rock auto with the advice from linas , he's been super helpful so I'm taking the right decisions now hahaha

So that exhaust system gotta be like custom or... ? Is there like a reputable website for our 250s where we can just get them from ? Or welding needs to be involved too?

I am in no rush so I'm going to repair the whole issue , I'm not giving up on this baby , I've put quite a lot in it and been taking care of it ( apart of trusting wannabe welders ) and not planning on changing the car in the next at least 2 more years. ( 2 years , and 25k miles so far ) 

By changing the whole exhaust system do you mean the headers too ? So I'm going to do my research to replace the cats that have the exhaust leak with brand new ones , but changing the headers too , isn't that a massive pain in the ***** getting to it and also quite expensive ? 

By the end of the month I should've ordered the cats but I doubt I would be able to deal with the flange on the side of the headers... It will have to be following month most likely....

Wow man I'm so glad exactly you have the same issue like me and I'm saying this in the nicest possible way 😂😂 

I've been thinking about this and decided that if welding can fix this issue I would travel , before you said this lol 

You are the guy who i trust the most to be honest , what would you suggest is the best way to go in my case ? I've got a friend of a friend who's a really good welder however he's 5 hours away from me , but if welding will resolve the issue properly then welding it is . I think either ways the flange at the downpipe needs to be dealt with , even if I get new cats , I'm sure that old rusty flange will cause a leak in future ....

I hope you can see the pictures through this link as for some reason I couldn't upload them directly onto the thread 

https://ibb.co/sWh0hjg

https://ibb.co/DYfXj4q

https://ibb.co/dLVCWpm

https://ibb.co/VpRgB4m

https://ibb.co/k5yX14J

Hello guys long time no see . I haven't updated the thread but the time has now come and I'm financially ready to spend more money on this car 😂 

I've finally received 2 denso downstream sensors to replace them with the hope to fix this whole issue . HOWEVER , due to me being fixated on the exhausts i've overlooked the pipes around the o2 sensors and have now found a leak before bank 2 and now everything adds up. The situation is not looking good . I didn't proceed with changing the o2 sensors as per my discussion with the legend @Linas.P there's no point doing so since there's a leak and also who knows how much metal Is actually left in the area.

I think the story gets even more complicated in a way now than before and I really need help your help guys

Here are pictures showing the flances at bank 2 . It is clear that new cats are needed but what worries me if I'm going to be able to attach these new cats to the old flances? 

Considering how bad the welders in my area are , I don't think there's a point for considering of fixing the exhaust leak ? 

How should I go about this ? 

I'm looking into buying 4 new tires as well . From what I've read it seems like you can't go wrong with the Continental premium contact . I've got my eyes on 6 and 7 gen. Looks like the newer gen 7 is more loud but currently couple quid cheaper at Halfords £110 per tyre with fitting . I'm thinking about going with the newer gen 

Right so after reading everywhere, I decided to risk it and change the lower control arm bushings with the rcf ones from Japan for £90 as so many people recommend them. Can confirm this fixed the wobliness and the car feels spot on . There was no play when jiggling the tire left to right , up and down , also no noise when moving the tire while the car being lifted. The squeeky sound has to be from the brake pad as I broke one of the anti rattle clips. Trying to find new ones at reasonable price to them along with my brake pads as maintenance.

The old bushings seemed OK, but had  very small cracks compared to the new ones. Highly recommend anyone experiencing these symptoms and hasn't changed these bushings to go with the rcf ones. 

I'm pretty sure all 4 wheels now need wheel alignment and new tires . Will be buying new tires in August. Should I wait to fit them and then do the alignment or just do it now? 

Yeah I can tell that they weren't very competent.Just remembered , the mechanic at kwikfit suggested the outer wear of both front tires could be due to that they are different brands? Even though they are the same size ? Lol 

So the plan for tomorrow is when I get the car lifted I will check the bushings ,ball joints and wheel bearings on both sides as well as checking for leaks from the shock absorbers. 

I've been considering getting 4 new tires. Any suggestions for the fsport 18" wheels , considering last winter ? I'm on a tight budged as I got few things going on 😄

Either ways the alignment will wait till I get new tires and this time it won't be kwik fit for sure lol

Sorry forgot to mention the wheel alignment . 4-5 months ago the car was feeling strange again but I did alignment for the front which made the car feel smoother. I went again a month ago as they do free checks and the outter tire wear was showing more and more ,the front was spot on and the rear were in red again but was told it's normal and they are within spec. Only thing I was told is that the rear bolts are rusted out and might be an issue aligning them and also the lad suggested . When I go back home I'll search up for the picture to show you the alignment.

I do drive quite a lot and do hit potholes from time to time but what are the odds messing them up for such a short period. I guess it's worth going again to kwikfit to see if maybe indeed they need another alignment , it's free and is opposite my house so not a big issue.

48 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

Uneven wear would not be caused by shock absorber... if they are not leaking it would be hard to diagnose that shock absorbers are at fault. I mean you can do basic "push on the corner" test, but on modern cars it is really hard to tell, shock absorbers rarely get so bad that you can feel just by pushing (i.e. car keeps bouncing up and down after you push down).

Worn lower control arm bushing would manifest in wear on inside of front tyres (wheels toe out under braking).

Generally just check wheel alignment if you have issues with uneven wear, maybe you hit pothole or something and it knocked them out of alignment in general? I would recommend doing "4 wheel" alignment with every set of new tyres at minimum, and check alignment at least every 10k or after you hit pothole hard. Now I put 4 wheel alignment in quotes because you can't align rear wheels on IS250 much, but they are still aligned together with fronts. Basically front alignment impacts rear alignment and by playing backwards and forwards decent shop could dial in both axels.  

Looking at your symptoms I am wondering whenever it could be wheel bearing? Squeaking noise like from brake pads, but you not braking... although it would have to be totally shot to cause car to wiggle in the corner... wheel would be borderline falling off before that happens... so any mechanic would be able to diagnose that quite 

Hi guys, I really need your help. I'm having the issue where when turning full right slowly it feels as though I go over a bump on an even road. Pretty sure it's drivers side. Other symptoms are :

Squeeking noise like from brake pads , even though I'm not on the brakes and only able to hear it when I'm in small street driving slowly (due to the echo) with open window

when going around the roundabout , the car wiggles , doesn't feel stable.

Outer side of the front tires are worn a lot more. 

I've spoken with the mechanic I go to and previously he told me it's the control arm based on the symptoms at that time and now he suggests it's the shock absorbers before we lift the car to check for leaks on Saturday. Previously he said that there's no wiggle in the suspension parts on that side, but suggested it must be the control arm.

In general there are no decent garages around me who can imediatelly establish the issue and I've received amazing help here before , so I really hope someone has dealt with this issue before and can point me in the right direction without me having to solely rely on the mechanics. 

I've ordered rcf lower control arm bushings couple of days ago but they will arrive in 2+ weeks time and today the car feels a bit worse , so I really need to figure this out asap as by the looks of it any of these parts cannot be found as aftermarket in the uk and gotta wait on long delivery times... not even sure from where to get them from even... thank you in advance!

20 hours ago, Sman101 said:

No unfortunately I still have this issue and no closer to fixing it.  My brakes are in good condition with all clips, shims etc present and in good condition(I actually changed them with new parts thinking it might fix).  In fact I have a brand new caliper on that exact side but it hasnt affected the noise in any way. 

New caliper and bracket? 

Hi mate , a bit late here , but wondering if you managed to sort out this clunking noise? I'm potentially soon about to resolve this - I'm missing a brake pad clip , which supposedly results into the exact same noise. Originally the issue was from seized guide pin for the caliper bracket , which I replaced but that's where I broke one of the clips for the break pads and I'm going to change the pads soon, hoping it will be all good

On 4/23/2023 at 10:02 PM, MrTrendizzle said:

Have you just cut the rear boxes off and replaced with straight pipe?
If you have a friend that can weld now, then i suggest you get the stock exhausts, have your friend cut along the side seem and put the straight pipe inside, weld it back up and you're golden. This will prevent you getting done by DVSA or the police and stop MOT issues as "it looks stock" The bonus being if it's too loud or you're losing too much pressure, you can open it back up, drill a few holes in the pipe and pack in some fibreglass packing to lower the volume a little and or create some back pressure.

I did this on my RX8 a few years back and while my friends all got stopped and given 7 days to re-mot their car i was let on my way as my exhaust was "standard" even tho it was loud. I just claimed i had removed the center box.  

 

This sounds good to be honest. I've been stopped by the police for being naughty naughty , however never said anything about the exhaust. No issues whatsoever pal 👌 I guess it's not too loud as realistically on normal cruising u can't even hear it. 

Also I've checked with my garage about the mot and was told we all good it will pass without any issues

13 hours ago, Linas.P said:

Smell itself could be due to bad reading.. ECU get's wrong reading, send wrong air/fuel ratio, for example when engine is cold ECU uses richer mix to heat-up cats, but if reading is wrong it may be dumping fuel all the time (perhaps related to your higher than normal revs)... cat does not work optimally and you get smell... The way to further diagnose this would be to look at "live data" e.g. if you have bad sensor it would likely show like just stable 14V or 0V (open or short circuit, whereas normal would be fluctuating ~1V). So for example if issue is caused by the leak, you would see O2 sensor output fluctuating as you rev the engine, but in wrong range... whereas if it is dead, then it will simply going to be stuck to most likely 0V.

Anyway - I am speculating a lot here... In short what I am trying to say - smell may indicate that cat isn't working efficiently, but not necessary that it is actually bad. It may not work efficiently due to many reasons. 

I am quite surprised it shows C1201 (which is comms error), nasty to diagnose on it's own, but sometimes shows it's ugly face together with other codes like for example bad O2 sensor... so most likely will disappear when you fix P0420.

The other funny code is B1421... it just means when you were reading codes car was inside the garage or it was dark, so ambient light sensor gives a fault code for that... very picky... if you shine the shop light at the sensor the code would dissapear 😄

Good luck with the fix and let's us know how it went...

Mate I've been researching and asking people around for a while and no one has been more spot on than you .  

I went to this guy who I met on fb car meets page. We will be redoing the backbox delete properly this time and what's more important is that he did diagnostics on the car and what did we see there?? Both o2 sensors at 0v when reving the engine!!!! Did a reset on them and now they are working fine as they should!!!!!!! The car shifts as it should now , there's no sudden 500 rpm rev when lightly accelerating !!!!!!!!! 

After the backbox delete I will drive around and continue keeping an eye on this and will update this thread. There's so little info in the uk when you get a poor backbox delete which causes you so much trouble specifically for these models!!!

Thanks again  mate !

10 hours ago, Linas.P said:

Smell itself could be due to bad reading.. ECU get's wrong reading, send wrong air/fuel ratio, for example when engine is cold ECU uses richer mix to heat-up cats, but if reading is wrong it may be dumping fuel all the time (perhaps related to your higher than normal revs)... cat does not work optimally and you get smell... The way to further diagnose this would be to look at "live data" e.g. if you have bad sensor it would likely show like just stable 14V or 0V (open or short circuit, whereas normal would be fluctuating ~1V). So for example if issue is caused by the leak, you would see O2 sensor output fluctuating as you rev the engine, but in wrong range... whereas if it is dead, then it will simply going to be stuck to most likely 0V.

Anyway - I am speculating a lot here... In short what I am trying to say - smell may indicate that cat isn't working efficiently, but not necessary that it is actually bad. It may not work efficiently due to many reasons. 

I am quite surprised it shows C1201 (which is comms error), nasty to diagnose on it's own, but sometimes shows it's ugly face together with other codes like for example bad O2 sensor... so most likely will disappear when you fix P0420.

The other funny code is B1421... it just means when you were reading codes car was inside the garage or it was dark, so ambient light sensor gives a fault code for that... very picky... if you shine the shop light at the sensor the code would dissapear 😄

Good luck with the fix and let's us know how it went...

I found a guy who does decent welds and I'm going to visit him today to have a look at the exhaust pipes and figure out how we will go about the redoing the backbox delete. I will keep you guys updated 👌

39 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

O2 faults can 100% be caused by leaks in exhaust... So definitely fix any leaks before spending money on cats or sensors. 

So the way I see it - leak causes wrong O2 reading > wrong O2 reading inevitably causes cat fault code. Now sure - it could be that O2 sensor itself is bad and that will also cause cat not to function properly (because remember - the only reason for O2 sensor to exist is to monitor cat function, and "below threshold" that means o2 sensor reading is wrong), or it could be just a leak... or it could be cat. I mean it is not impossible that cat (1 of 4) has failed after 100k miles. However, the way to diagnose would be to first ensure there are no leaks, then check the sensor and only then start thinking about the cat

What you are saying makes a lot of sense. I will start with the exhaust pipes in this case and have them welded properly. I forgot to mention 1 thing - that egg smell when flooring actually seems to have disappeared. I've used an redex petrol fuel system cleaner and it seems to be working. I did 1 shot 3-4 months ago with no luck , but a week ago I did second one and I've gone through couple of tanks and now the smell seems to be gone. This was recommended by some fella with a gs who had the same smell and it was gone after 2 shots of the liquid . Thank you for the help pal!

Hi people . After one year of owning my baby I finally discovered this forum lol. 

My lexus is currently 95k miles .4-5 months ago , I got the back boxes removed. The guy who welded the end pipes did an absolute **** and been running with a lot of leaks around the welds. 1-2 months after the delete I started sensing rotten eggs smell and followed by that the all mighty check engine light. 

I've changed the spark plugs thinking that could be the issue ( didn't help ) the smell is still there , even though it's not as bad as before , however the check engine light comes up a lot often now and goes a way after a day or 2. ( see below pic with the error code)

My question is - is there any chance the o2 going bad or it's defo the cats? I will be redoing the Backbox delete at some point to have proper welds done by someone who knows how to do it but if the cats need changing , this will wait a bit. 

Also to add another symptom - the car revs about 500 rpm higher for a sec when I'm taking off (does that only when very lightly accelerating) . When I had the spark plugs removed , we checked with the mechanic the throttle body and it seemed absolutely fine , no corrosion or any issues. 

Has anyone encountered this with his 250 at this mileage ? I've found some dodgy website which sells the cats for £350 , does that sound right to you guys? 

Has anyone sold their cats for recycle in the north east?