Knightshade

Negative- Bluetooth comes with navigation- has nothing to do with the ML sound system

Check the lexus website. The lux package is different for AWD. Indeed. Hadn't bothered to check the AWD when all the rest were the same. Bizzare that the AWD lux package is different in options having nothing to do with the drivetrain, even from the RWD 250. Lux on the RWD 250 with manual or auto and the 350 are all identical. My apologies for the erroneous generalization.

3 months.... after that you can get one of the other special deals floating around (ie the $77/yr or the $5/mo for up to 4 months)

Yeah, you're not likely to find one -at- invoice in your area... So. Cal where there's like 50 lexus dealers they'll do 250s that way, and 350s later in the model year...even then that'll be cars right on the lot though so you're stuck with how they configure them in your area... and you're flatly not getting a special order at that price, even from someone who's ok with doing special orders. I understand how ya feel on pricing, it took a while for me to accept the idea of paying ANYTHING over invoice, but Lexus simply doesn't have any reason to work that way, they're the #1 selling lux brand in the country, they're not desperate for sales especially on a car they have no problem selling anyway... a couple areas like so cal are the exception due to competition.

Wow... yeah I was looking at 350 and 250 both RWD... bizare they'd have a different lux package on the 250 if it gets AWD vs. RWD changing options having ntohing to do either

In the Southeast region, if the car has the lux package, then it will have the Levinson. Which has nothing to do with what's in the luxury package. Lexus options cars by region but Lux package has a very specific meaning and set of content... it's on Lexus.com regardless of where you order it (in the lower 48 US anyway). Order Lux in special order, even in the southeast, and Levinson doesn't come with it- it's a separate option. Here's what's in the Lux package- Luxury Package $3,495 Auburn bird's-eye maple interior trim Perforated leather-trimmed interior Power tilt-and-telescopic steering column Lexus Memory System to control power driver's and front passenger's seats (except lumbar), outside mirrors and steering wheel Heated and ventilated front seats Illuminated doorsill scuff plates Power rear-window sunshade Rain-sensing intermittent windshield wipers with mist cycle Electrochromic (auto-dimming) outside mirrors with auto tilt-down in reverse Bi-xenon High-Intensity Discharge (HID) headlamps Adaptive Front Lighting System (AFS) That's it. You can also get the Lux package w/18" wheels, which is a separate option code on the order sheet and is $4325 MSRP but is exactly as above plus this- 18 x 8.0-in alloy wheels with 225/40YR18 tires front [4], 18 x 8.5-in alloy wheels with 255/40YR18 tires rear

If it didn't have vented seats it wasn't the lux package. Luxury package is the luxury package, anywhere in the lower 48 states at least. Even just the premium package, the lowest option pack on the car, has heated and vented on the seats.

XM/Sirius is port installed if you order the car (which I recommend doing if you can't find exactly what you want)... I have factory XM and it's pretty nice- note that the factory ipod adapter does NOT work with satellite, so it's one or the other. There are aftermarket ipod interfaces that work with sat. if that matters to you. Auto-tilt mirrors in reverse- I find them useful fairly often... note they only come on lux or sport packages (also exclusive to those 2 packages are memory seats; plus they both include all the other nice lux features like rain-sensing wipers, HIDs with AFS, etc...)... since you're in the northeast you'll enjoy the heated seats, but that comes with both Lux and Sports too... Personally I say sports package because it gives you -everything- the luxury package does except the power rear sunshade (which I've yet to meet anyone who uses) and it's $500 -less- plus you avoid the woodgrain that I think doesn't look right in a sports sedan and also get the sport pedals which look a lot nicer. You also do get the sport suspension but there's honestly not a huge difference between that and the "normal" one... 5% stiffer shocks and a .5 inch front drop...that's it... Mark Levinson is definitely worth it... $940 for more spoeakers, better speakers, and more power... difference is significant having heard both. I do -not- recommend getting navigation though. It's $2500-3000 (depending if you get ML or not) and it does considerably less than the aftermarket Garmins that cost 300-400 bucks. Lexus will then further screw you on map updates each year to the tune of 250-300 bucks versus 50-75 bucks from Gamin. Get a nice Nuvi 660- it'll do more functional nav (since it still fully works while the car is in drive unlike the factory system, has bluetooth, and also does realtime traffic that the factory system can't... ) 300-379 depending if you find it on sale or not... Lexus navigation was very nice in 2000... by todays standards it's massively out of date on features and very overpriced. If you're comfortable driving a RWD car in the snow don't worry too much about the 350... just get a spare set of rims and put GOOD snow tires on em, put the car in snow mode, and you'll be fine. It's worth the extra 100 hp for the majority of the year it's not snowing. My 08 350 was a special order BTW (since that's the only way to get sports package in the southeast, and the only way to get Mark Levinson without nav) and I can't say exactly what I paid, but it was a very very good deal... I negotiated it as "Special order for X over invoice" and the dealer agreed to that, so what options I picked didn't matter for changing the price, it just added the invoice cost of those options to the original base+x.... I think that's a lot better way to negotiate than the "X off MSRP" many dealers go for, because every option you add throws more MSRP markup into the total. Note there are many dealers who hate special orders, or won't offer much discount on em- Simply find a better dealer if you run into that.

Mark Levinson isn't in the Lux package, it's an entirely separate option And as always if the dealer doesn't have exactly the car you want, order one. Why pay 30-45k for something that isn't exactly what you want?

The dealer wash is easy enough to avoid if you're working with the dealer before the car arrives on lot... the port wash I doubt there's anything you can do to stop even if you asked.

Yeah, it's a half inch drop in the front, good if you like a slightly raked look to the car... it's not a HUGE handling difference (and thus not a huge rough-ride difference either), it's just a little bit stiffer... you wouldn't notice a handling difference for 90% of the way folks drive, the sports pkg is just slightly better for that bleeding edge 10%. As I said, biggest reasons I got it were it was $500 less for all of the same features (minus the power rear shade that I can't imagine ever wanting/needing/using), I thought the metal trim looked better in a sporty car, and I liked the sport pedals too... the sport suspension was a nice bonus.

All 08s have the liquid graphite rims... stick to the sports package, it gives you all the good stuff in the lux for $500 less, plus sport suspension, sport pedals, and best of all NO WOODGRAIN :)

Hey Lex Law how did you get the Luxury package on your 250 because everything I have seen & heard is that package option was only available on a 350? Thanks for any input. http://www.lexus.com/models/IS/features/pricing.html Be sure it's clicked on 250- You'll see the X package, Lux package, etc for the 250 Oddly there's no Sports package though, despite every individual bit of the sports package being available on the 250 in other ways between the X and Lux packages... Lexus is strange :)

Here ya go- http://www.clublexus.com/forums/showthread.php?t=306103

Yes, he's selling you a lexus warranty, not a toyota one. Both types of dealers can sell em even though only one kind performs the service.

A dyno shows horsepower at the wheels of the vehicle. (technically it measures torque at the wheels, then calculates horsepower from that) A car manufacturer advertises horsepower at the -engine- of the vehicle. There is typically a loss of anywhere in the 15-20% range between the engine and the wheels due to drivetrain losses.

The borla off-road is a full (read- illegal) catback that deletes the secondary cats... gains should be in the 10-15 RWHP range... it's probably as large a gain from a cat-back as you'll get, though several folks have reported the build quality isn't the best...the intake didn't do anything for him but make it louder though. A pretty extensive review of the Borla, including the poor build quality, is here- http://www.clublexus.com/forums/showthread.php?t=310178

As to other things to increase 0-60 times- You can change your wheel/tire size for better effective gearing You can remove weight in a slew of ways (including lighter wheels/tires, removing spare and jack, smaller battery, and more extreme things) Probably some suspension mods you could do to improve overall launch and weight transfer- but might be at the cost of ride quality Not a whole lot else really... esp. in the realm of keeping it street legal... these just aren't especially mod-friendly cars. In general, the best bang/buck way to add a lot of power to an IS250 is to trade it in for an IS350 (and for an IS350 to trade for an IS-F).... that doesn't help someone who has have AWD though.

The gain from which part? A dyno graph of the mazzuri headers on a 250 is here: http://my.is/forums/f167/is250-350-headers...oup-buy-350501/ gains are pretty much in the entire RPM range there. Intakes as I mentioned are pretty much near-zero gain regardless, but dyno for the Joe Z is here- http://my.is/forums/f155/faq-joe-z-d-afi-i...ct-pics-283691/ Be sure to scroll down to the dyno sheet from the -manual- IS250 to be able to see useful results around 3000 rpms, but again gains are in the whole rpm range really, albeit much smaller than the headers.

You'll gain about 5-7 hp from the Tanabe...actually that's 350 numbers... so prob. more like 3-5 on a 250... Which is about the best you'll do with any street-legal exhaust system. If you don't care about legal there are some that delete the secondary cats that gain 10-12 on a 350, so prob. 7-10 on a 250, but cost over $1000... If you don't care about legal though you'd be better off with the Mazzuri headers for around $750-800 plus install that will add moire like 25 hp to a 250 but aren't street legal either (they delete the primary cats) You'll gain about 0 from the intake. The factory intake isn't restrictive. If you -really- want an intake spend $109 on a Joe Z intake pipe- it'll still look factory and you might pick up 3-5 hp, while retaining the cold air features of the stock intake box... and that's about the best you'll get out of an intake on an ISx50.

So then you're risking $200 a year, average...or about $4 per week... to insure you have no repair costs for 3 extra years. If you're wrong, you're out $4 a week, less than the cost of a fast food meal. If you're right, you can potentially save thousands. Not the worlds worst gamble. Consider this too- the -averge- Lexus owner doesn't know about the forums. He likely paid $2500 for his warranty. So if it "costs" him $600 that means he had $1900 in repairs. Which means you're actually -making- money on average if you get it at Troys price. So in short, that number makes me even more confident the warranty is a good idea :)

Yes, I've seen plenty of medical bills. I've also seen what Lexus charges for even simple parts. There's not as much difference between the two as you seem to think :P

They come pretty low from the factory from everything I've seen/read- I asked my dealer to adjust them higher- they stated they are "within factory spec" and refused to do it, so I'll just to do myself when I get some time... it just takes removing a couple engine covers and a screwdriver anyway...

It's an insurance policy really. In theory if you take good care of yourself you don't need health insurance for a fair while either. For many folks that'll be true. But the one time something DOES go wrong, it can get crazy expensive very fast. If that's a risk you want to take, go ahead. If you'd rather spend a little bit (and in this case we're talking less than the avg. person spends on health insurance for ONE year to have the car covered for an extra 3) and be sure you won't have repair costs, then do that. Personally I've seen what Lexus gets for their parts though, and even though I could do a fair bit of the labor myself I'm still prob. gonna get the 7yr/100k before my factory 4/50k expires, despite knowing there's a fair chance nothing major will break.

Ah, ok... this thread might be of some help to you on seeing how the OEM unit install is- http://my.is/forums/f159/xm-install-is350-ml-pics-332717/