USED Lexus IS Saloon (05 - )

My car

UPDATE, see review below. After battling with Lexus Stoke and Lexus GB, I have succeeded in rejecting the car!! After a face-to-face meeting with the centre manager and sales manager of Lexus Stoke at my own premises, they have eventually agreed that my car was below the average one would expect of a Lexus. To anyone wishing to do the same, my advice is be fair but firm, consistent in your arguments, and above all, RECORD everything. I actually recorded the face to face meeting, and was able to use the guys' own words to my advantage. When recording meeetings though, be sure to advise that you are doing so.

In short, if the car does not live up to your expectations, or their promises, you CAN reject it. It might take a while (14 weeks in my case), but it can be done.

My car

I bought this car second hand,06 reg. Initially no problems encountered. Lovely car to drive, v comfortable & loads of extras. However, after 4 months things started to go wrong. The airbag light showed alarm. I contacted Lexus Assist (very good service), and car had to be towed to garage (70 miles away). It transpired to be fault in seat belt, the garage also found a problem with the catalytic converter and replaced - 2K euro worth of parts. Whilst the car was in the garage I asked them to service (costly). 2 weeks later I got the car back, less than 2 weeks later the power steering failed. Luckily it was when I was reversing out of a car park space, a very nice gentleman assisted me as the car was too heavy for me to turn the wheel to get it back in to the parking space. the car had to go back to the garage - towed again 70miles away. The power steering rack had failed. 5k Euro worth of parts. The garage told me that they had had other IS220d's back with the same problems but never the same car in such a short space of time. the put it down to high mileage (64K km). I only owned the car 6-7 months and figured it was time to get rid of it. Too costly to maintain (luckily still under warranty when all these things happened). Plus not reliable. I had always thought lexus were very reliable but after all my experience I will never buy another. Very difficult to sell when I came to sell and depreciated more than any other car I had owned ( worse than Renault Laguna!)

My car

I had planned to lease the diesel version, but two test drives convinced me this was not a good call: the gear box was loud and clunky, the turbo lag shocking and the 6th gear utterly pointless unless you want to break the motorway speed limit on a regualr basis.The engine just lacked any refinement, and the gear ratios were all over the place.

That's the negative side. On the plus side, it's one of the best looking cars on the car, and I wanted to go with the Lexus. Step up the petrol auto: completely different piece of kit. Quiet, refined, powerful and worth the extra money against the diesel anyday of the week.

On the average side, the boot space isn't great, the rear passenger space is limited, and on the diesel the handbrake is in a very strange position.

Having read many of the reviews, I'm struggling a bit with people going on about the great interior quality.I don't beleive its sigificantly better than any other car in this price bracket, and dare I say, probably not as good as BMW. Again on the positive side, the 6 CD player is good to have, but the sound from all the speakers was OK without being as good as people were making out.

So in conclusion, this is a very good car to drive,its looks great and I'm hoping its going to be a pleasure to own, as I've just ordered one.

My car

Unsettled ride and noise, very poor gear change not a nice car to drive at all. Had VW passatfor 9 years was miles better than this.Poor to start at times. Service from Lexus not good.