UKPulse

Well the Lexus warranty states... Any defect that is attributable to a manufacturing or assembly defect under normal use is covered by your warranty. This provision applies for a period of 3 years or 60,000 miles, whichever comes first, with no mileage limitation for the first year" I would say that driving an IS200 for 40K miles on UK roads, complete with pot holes and salt/grit of which Lexus must be well aware if they are to market vehicles in the UK as 'fit for purpose', constitutes NORMAL USE. For Lexus or the local dealer to attribute caliper failure after 40K miles to "normal wear & tear", I'd think they would have to produce evidence to support this in order to reject a warranty claim. Such evidence would need to show that most or all IS200 calipers fail in this way at 40K...??? :o Alternatively, they would have to demonstrate that your use of the vehicle far exceeds "normal use"! Whack that claim in mate! :)

When I bought my first Lexus (I'm on my second now!) about a year & a half ago, I also looked at the A4 (the 1.8T Quattro). What swung it for me was.... - The cost of adding all the extras to the Audi to bring it up to the same spec as the 200SE made it much more expensive (and that's money you'll never get back in retained value). - The styling of the Audi is pleasant, but really anonymous. - Ride quality in the Lex was much more 'planted' (sure-footed?) despite the Audi's 4WD system. - Ride is also more refined in the baby Lex If it was none of the above, then the local Lexus dealership would have swung it alone. I took a 200SE out for 4hrs and the amazing thing was that the demonstrator was a 2yr old car that had covered 20K miles. The car was immaculate, it didn't squeak, rattle or do anything it shouldn't - I figured that any car car that was still that good after 2yrs had to be something special!! I don't know of any other mainstream dealer around here that would have the confidence to field a 2yr old car when tempting a buyer. I was then given a no-pressure 24hr test drive.... after which I bought my first (and have never regretted it)!! :) :) :)

5" ...? Ooooh, suits you sir! Seriously tho, they look slightly too big for the headrest - notice how the seam at the side of the headrest bulges outwards (looks reminiscent of Jade stuffing her fist in her mouth!) :o Maybe if the bezel around the screen was slightly narrower, the sides of the headrest wouldn't be deformed quite so much - or if you dispensed with that outer-bezel completely...?

Hmmmm... my bumpers (back & front) have the same texture/shine as the rest of the car (the car is 4 wks old). Must be my eyesight that's shot? :P

I can only really second what the guys here have already said. I drove an IS200SE Auto for a year (22K miles), and thought it was a great car, my only real complaints were that the 200 Auto is really sluggish, and that when you push it the engine becomes a bit harsh and noisy... unrefined almost :o So why did I chop in my 200 Auto after only a year, in favour of a 300? Performance was obviously top of the list to start with. 0-60 in around 8s rather than a sluggish 11s, put me back in the rat-pack (although for a 3 litre, the Lex is still a bit behind the competition). But having had the 300 for only 4 weeks now, I'm finding that I prefer it to the 200 for reasons other than why I (thought I) bought it! :o Full leather is nice, but then the leather/ecsaine of the 200 was nice too. Tinted windows - well they're cool but you don't notice it all the time. Yellow fog lights? Nope. Boot spoiler? Love it, but not essential. Where it really scores over the 200 Auto is that it takes the ride & refinement up a peg or two. The engine is even smoother than the 2Litre, and you barely hear it under 80mph. Also the car feels so much more solid & 'planted' than my 200 did, and that's not forgetting that the 200 is already a beauty! As for the E-Shift... Well I'm a die-hard auto fan, and I'd love the 300 even without E-Shift. Having said that, I tend to drive around in "M" mode (so that E-Shift is enabled) to/from work, because that journey involves dual carriageways & roundabouts. When trying to get on to a busy roundabout, it's effortless to button it down to "2" then launch on to the roundabout... but then it's back to "M" which is effectively fully automatic again, and to be fair, for all other road types, that's where it stays. Is the 300 worth the extra? Well if you're getting it for much the same money - then definitely. You'll love it!

I've had my front windows tinted 35% to (almost) match the rears. Given that this is a plastic(?) film applied to the inside of the window, rather than actual darkened glass, are there any special precautions you should take when cleaning the inside of the window? I'm guessing that any kind of solvent (like Windolene) is out, in case it attacks the film!? So is it just water and a chamois ok? What do you folks do?

The big gotcha is that it seems the petrol companies 'swap' tankers/products under their Exchange Agreement. This means that when you go to a Shell garage, you could actually be pumping BP or Esso gas into your tank! :o The problem I have with this is that if you want to fill up with Shell Optimax because you want your car to perform better, how do you know you're actually getting what it says on the pump? According to this Agreement, some other petrol company's tanker could have made the last delivery... Maybe this Exchange Agreement only applies to the bog standard (RON 95) stuff, otherwise we'd have them under the Trade Descriptions Act? Who knows, the whole thing looks very fishy to me

Pizza...? :P I'm guessing it's wheels that are 'concave'? (i.e. the centre hub is maybe an inch/inch & a half inwards from the edge of the rim). As opposed to convex, where the centre of the wheel is proud of the rim? Of course being a complete novice when it comes to alloys, I'm probably talking complete b@ll@cks here @bazza - nice wheels mate. All that detailing round the rim looks like a tough job when it comes to cleaning? :(

Nice car... not so nice APR on the finance ;)

...or maybe the Nissan Skyline GTR-33 "Kombat" - just shy of 1,000bhp :o I guess fuel consumption & insurance costs would be something to write home about Don't thing that's gonna fit in the engine bay of my IS tho... :(

There are UK regulations governing such things... The Motor Vehicle Tyres (Safety) Regulations 1994 ...if anyone has a few hours to spare. ;)

....but styling thatlooks like you've collided with the local Halfords shop window? LOL... :P ;)

I've got one - brilliant it is! Stick a single carrier bag under it, & it stops the contents getting scattered all over the boot. Same here tho... I got rushed £47 for mine :(

Sounds like a great idea, but this is me being sceptical.... :( You're driving along, get a small puncture and the liquid seals it - if you're lucky, with no loss of pressure. You carry on driving, oblivious to the fact that you're now driving on a punctured/sealed tyre. You join a motorway, and start cruising at (ahem) 85mph.... Let's suppose that the puncture is a 5mm cut... close to the 6mm maximum they say it'll fix.... Put it another way - you fill your tyres with this stuff, then (as they say in their ad) you stab the tyre with an awl & it immediately reseals itself. Would you want to then drive around on that tyre, at potentially high speeds, for the next 12 months or so? It's all down to confidence in the product, but it's not a scenario I'd really fancy. :o If I get a puncture, I'd want to know asap & get the tyre replaced.

Hello there! You've come to the right place :)

It stands to reason that if you ask the question "What's better, an XYZ or a Lexus" on a Lexus message board, then you're going to see a strong bias - after all, most of us here have chosen a Lexus in preference to other cars. Having said that, I did try to avoid this "my car is better than your car" debate in my earlier reply simply by quoting published figures (and they do make interesting reading). The fact is, I don't slag off BMWs and if you take the time to search this forum, you'll see. I regularly travel 110 miles a day with a work colleague in his 325i SE. I have remarked before that this is a very nicely built and quite handsome car that goes really well (it'll out pace my IS300 any day). The only fly in the ointment is that he honestly believes his car is exclusive, but I don't happen to agree. We pass countless other BMWs on the motorway, and park next to countless other BMWs in the car park. The truth is that most modern cars are manufactured to perform way in excess of most drivers abilities - I have been round Brands Hatch in a bog standard BMW 318i being driven by a professional driver, and I was utterly amazed at what the car could do in the right hands (and with no traffic coming the other way)!! So given that most of us can never really exploit our cars true potential, the decision as to what to buy doesn't always have to lie in the testosterone-zone. In some cases it might just boil down to wanting to buy a car that isn't quite so ubiquitous. There is no doubt that BMW make very good cars (despite the stigma they seem to carry), but take any aspect of the car, and someone will quote you a different car that does it better, be it top speed, acceleration, ride, handling, value for money, etc., it just depends what you're after. There is also no doubt also, that Lexus have earned a reputation for building a high quality product, that has strong residuals, backed up by excellent reliability and great dealers, something the JD Powers survey has demonstrated on both sides of the atlantic. You talk about choice... Well at the end of the day, all I can say is thank goodness we all have a choice! Now, in the spirit of peace & friendship, why not pop along to the next Lexus meet and give us a ride in your M5 - I for one would probably enjoy it :)

Apologies in advance if this is a real dumb question... (did try searching, but no joy) Is it possible to fit a minidisc changer to a car that equipped with sat nav? I'm guessing that the reason Lexus don't offer the MD changer as an option when sat nav is fitted, is that the sat nav unit occupies the space in the boot where the MD changer would normally go? If that's the case, is the wiring for a MD changer already laid to the boot, and wouldn't it be possible to fit the MD changer elsewhere in the boot - e.g. strapped to the side? Also what make is the Lexus MD changer? A re-badged Sony perhaps? I'm wondering because the Lexus dealer price for it is mega-bucks! :o

Always happy to support the cause. BMW drivers seem to like taking a pop at Lexus.... then again, they seem to like taking a pop at anything that's not a BMW!

Quote buy a BMW - they retain far far more in retained retail value second hand, will be desirable long after the compared to Lexus model is history. Sheep, maybe, but you are buying into Munich legends, not Jap wana-bees. Ok the figures - BMW 320i SE cost new £22,880, retained value after 3yrs (36K miles) of 57%, cost per mile 59.8 pence. Lexus IS 200SE cost new £20,230, retained value after 3yrs (36K miles) of 59%, cost per mile 56.1 pence. [source : What Car? March 2003] ...and that is before you shell out £895 for a sunroof, £1,055 for electric seats, £250 for a CD player and £1,200 for leather on the BMW. Heck, they'll even rush you £75 for a centre rear seat belt! And as we all know, you never get your money back on the extras. Do the maths... Jap wana-be? I think you'll find the number of Lexus IS drivers who wanna-be a BMW driver is somewhere between zero and a very low number. Truth always hurts. Well I ain't feelin any pain...

Yup, good point about the performance - at 11.2sec for the 0-62 dash, my 200SE Auto was a good 2sec slower than the manual, so a manual version of the 300 would (I guess) be good for 7sec! Makes you wonder then why Lexus never sold the manual 300 over here? I'd assume they did their research and the outcome was that demand for the auto would be higher? Strange... True enough, a BMW 330 will waste my IS300 off the mark, but then there's other reasons why I didn't want the BMW (like I didn't want every other road user to hate me!)

I quite like the E-Shift system - maybe not as 'in control' as with the six-spd manual, but then I'd only really exploit a manual on twisty country lanes. For the more usual motorway jams, town driving, the B-road crawl to work, etc., the Auto + E-Shift rocks! (Gets lots of envious looks from mates too!) B) The downside is that it's only available on the '300 and I had to sell the house, other half, cat, etc. to afford it!

Yeah.... but it's how it gets there that counts! B) Mind you, on one of them Top-Geary type programs they raced an Elise round a track head to head with this new Bently-Turbo-Size-Of-A-Small-Farmhouse thing. It was neck and neck, despite the Bently weighing about the same as a car ferry! The main difference was that real people can afford the Elise, wheras the Bently is a gazillion quid!

Does having the "ECT PWR" button ON in E-Shift mode make any difference? I thought it only worked when you're driving in fully automatic "D" mode, by making the auto box change up at higher revs? If you're using E-Shift then you're controlling when the engine changes up aren't you? Eeeek... I'd hate to think I was missing out on anything :P

:( Dislikes : - No steering wheel controls for the stereo. - HIDs not available as an option on the '200. - Steering wheel only adjustable for height. - No trip computer (just that rather useless mpg indicator). - Corroding alloys. - Slightly below average mpg and performance for the '200. :) Likes: - Everything else! I love the car to bits, and wouldn't hesitate to buy another!!

Mine's 3 weeks old and the boot opens about 90% of the way! On my previous one, a 1yr old 200SE the boot opened either ¼ or at most ½ way... usually inversely proportional to how far I wanted it to open! ;)