Looking At Buying A 1999 Lexus Is200

[Damoo]

Hi all i'm new, I'm going to be buying a car in late april or around september this year, and a Lexus IS200 6sp manual has caught my eye, its listed at $14,250. What are the main problems with these cars? Are there any expensive things I should look out for? It has 18" Chrome wheels but I'm not interested in them, it looks like its the only modification.

Thanks in Advance.

[LEX51S]

Hi all i'm new, I'm going to be buying a car in late april or around september this year, and a Lexus IS200 6sp manual has caught my eye, its listed at $14,250. What are the main problems with these cars? Are there any expensive things I should look out for? It has 18" Chrome wheels but I'm not interested in them, it looks like its the only modification.

Thanks in Advance.

14,250 is cheap. it probably has high kms and has been thrashed and not looked after. id look into it more it sounds to cheap. you should be looking at about 20,000 and thats a decent not fantastic. although it is a 99 i guess.... maybe it is ok. but id look into it.

good luck

[Damoo]

Hi all i'm new, I'm going to be buying a car in late april or around september this year, and a Lexus IS200 6sp manual has caught my eye, its listed at $14,250. What are the main problems with these cars? Are there any expensive things I should look out for? It has 18" Chrome wheels but I'm not interested in them, it looks like its the only modification.

Thanks in Advance.

14,250 is cheap. it probably has high kms and has been thrashed and not looked after. id look into it more it sounds to cheap. you should be looking at about 20,000 and thats a decent not fantastic. although it is a 99 i guess.... maybe it is ok. but id look into it.

good luck

162,000km which isn't too bad for its age, though being one of those "top brands" I'd expect it to be serviced on the dot. Reason for selling is that he has 3 cars and one has to go.

[ALC01N]

Hi all i'm new, I'm going to be buying a car in late april or around september this year, and a Lexus IS200 6sp manual has caught my eye, its listed at $14,250. What are the main problems with these cars? Are there any expensive things I should look out for? It has 18" Chrome wheels but I'm not interested in them, it looks like its the only modification.

Thanks in Advance.

hi Damoo,

I'm new to the forum also and recently bought my first Lexus, an 09/'00 IS200 manual. I drove 3 beforehand, with all having more than 100,000klm's and my only consideration was gearbox bearing noise. All sounded about the same so after buying mine I changed the oil to find clean oil and very minor build up on the drain plug magnet. Research beforehand didn't seem to point to any issues to be aware of and after about 1000klm's driving so far haven't picked up on any additional problems. I think the price for yours is pretty close for the age, depending on condition. I found there were a few available around Sydney late last year and have enjoyed each drive in it since.

For reference mine was a little cheaper than yours, has ~200,000 klms and minor body dents. It had two previous owners, was stock and is still a good looking car with my thoughts being that Lexus/Toyota build quality is great and it had an up to date service handbook (given Lexus emboss the pages at service) which added a degree of confidence.

Cheers.

[Damoo]

Hi all i'm new, I'm going to be buying a car in late april or around september this year, and a Lexus IS200 6sp manual has caught my eye, its listed at $14,250. What are the main problems with these cars? Are there any expensive things I should look out for? It has 18" Chrome wheels but I'm not interested in them, it looks like its the only modification.

Thanks in Advance.

hi Damoo,

I'm new to the forum also and recently bought my first Lexus, an 09/'00 IS200 manual. I drove 3 beforehand, with all having more than 100,000klm's and my only consideration was gearbox bearing noise. All sounded about the same so after buying mine I changed the oil to find clean oil and very minor build up on the drain plug magnet. Research beforehand didn't seem to point to any issues to be aware of and after about 1000klm's driving so far haven't picked up on any additional problems. I think the price for yours is pretty close for the age, depending on condition. I found there were a few available around Sydney late last year and have enjoyed each drive in it since.

For reference mine was a little cheaper than yours, has ~200,000 klms and minor body dents. It had two previous owners, was stock and is still a good looking car with my thoughts being that Lexus/Toyota build quality is great and it had an up to date service handbook (given Lexus emboss the pages at service) which added a degree of confidence.

Cheers.

Ah yes, your input is much appreciated. Thanks.

I scanned this out of one of my unique cars magazines:

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/903/lexusis200.jpg

Its a Lexus IS200 buyers guide, I got a scan of it before but that was while it was still in the magazine, so it was crappy as, so i ripped it out and scanned it :)

Also, is the "Sports Luxury" model the one with the LSD etc? Thats the one that is for sale.

[andydecor]

Price seems ok, i had a good look around and about to pick up is200 sports lux modle in very good condition, 1 owner for 14k oon road, has just clicked over 200000ks but 9 year old what do you expect, most cases if only 1 owner and payed 40/60k and older family person likely had easy life, good luck anyways, hope to have mine in next day or 3 looks sexy, gona put nicer wheeels on it and mayby lower it and at extremes i may put body kit or at least rear spoiler on

[Simma]

Hi all i'm new, I'm going to be buying a car in late april or around september this year, and a Lexus IS200 6sp manual has caught my eye, its listed at $14,250. What are the main problems with these cars? Are there any expensive things I should look out for? It has 18" Chrome wheels but I'm not interested in them, it looks like its the only modification.

Thanks in Advance.

I just bought a Is200 sports luxury with only 77,000kms on it. Brilliant condition for only $13,000..... its a buyers market at the moment.... remember that.

[DANSLEX]

It is a buyers market indeed. I recently sold my 02 IS300 Sports Luxury. The car was mint, in perfect condition, with all options incl satnav. Sold it for 21K. Had it up for sale for over 2 months, no one wanted to pay 25K for it. Such is the market right now.

A 2000 model IS200 for 20K is a ripoff, considering you can get the much better IS300 with better fruit for a grand or two more. I think 14K is a fair price...

[SilverIS200_Peter]

It is a buyers market indeed. I recently sold my 02 IS300 Sports Luxury. The car was mint, in perfect condition, with all options incl satnav. Sold it for 21K. Had it up for sale for over 2 months, no one wanted to pay 25K for it. Such is the market right now.

A 2000 model IS200 for 20K is a ripoff, considering you can get the much better IS300 with better fruit for a grand or two more. I think 14K is a fair price...

I have to agree with Danslex, it definately is a buyers market so don't be scared to haggle hard. I picked up my 99 is200 about 3 months ago after looking continuously for about 2 months. I saw and drove about 5 is200's, all of which had 150,000k's or more. Only one of which was a piece of crap as some young guy owned it and try to cover everything up. I couldn't find a common problem with them, the only thing i noticed was 2 had leaks around the top of the engine (nothing major) and the one with 200,000 needed a new power steering pump. I finally found one with 106,000 on it and haven't had a problem yet.

[richie-is200]

hello, the is200 is a very reliable car and you can call it bulletproof there isnt major things go wrong and you will never have trouble from the engine,but here is a list of the common things that do go wrong: http://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/knowledge...p;id=41&c=5.

[Lex2JZ]

Hi all i'm new, I'm going to be buying a car in late april or around september this year, and a Lexus IS200 6sp manual has caught my eye, its listed at $14,250. What are the main problems with these cars? Are there any expensive things I should look out for? It has 18" Chrome wheels but I'm not interested in them, it looks like its the only modification.

Thanks in Advance.

yeah they are a nice car for cruising, i would definitely try and get the IS200 Caliente, those are great.

the only thing stopping myself from getting a 200 is the serious lack of power from factory and the fact that there is less options with the car.

its quite amazing that the IS300 sells generally for just as much as the 200's.

i guess you can always do a turbo JZ swap for more power haha. and try and get an 2002 or later.

good luck

[99GXE10R]

Hi all i'm new, I'm going to be buying a car in late april or around september this year, and a Lexus IS200 6sp manual has caught my eye, its listed at $14,250. What are the main problems with these cars? Are there any expensive things I should look out for? It has 18" Chrome wheels but I'm not interested in them, it looks like its the only modification.

Thanks in Advance.

hi Damoo,

I'm new to the forum also and recently bought my first Lexus, an 09/'00 IS200 manual. I drove 3 beforehand, with all having more than 100,000klm's and my only consideration was gearbox bearing noise. All sounded about the same so after buying mine I changed the oil to find clean oil and very minor build up on the drain plug magnet. Research beforehand didn't seem to point to any issues to be aware of and after about 1000klm's driving so far haven't picked up on any additional problems. I think the price for yours is pretty close for the age, depending on condition. I found there were a few available around Sydney late last year and have enjoyed each drive in it since.

For reference mine was a little cheaper than yours, has ~200,000 klms and minor body dents. It had two previous owners, was stock and is still a good looking car with my thoughts being that Lexus/Toyota build quality is great and it had an up to date service handbook (given Lexus emboss the pages at service) which added a degree of confidence.

Cheers.

Ah yes, your input is much appreciated. Thanks.

I scanned this out of one of my unique cars magazines:

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/903/lexusis200.jpg

Its a Lexus IS200 buyers guide, I got a scan of it before but that was while it was still in the magazine, so it was crappy as, so i ripped it out and scanned it :)

Also, is the "Sports Luxury" model the one with the LSD etc? Thats the one that is for sale.

Hi mate, i'm also new to the forum. about 6 months ago i bought a 99 IS200 sport luxury manual, with around 135000 km on the clock. It cost me $13000 with 12 months rego, from a dealer. Had it inspected by RACV beforehand and absolutely nothing worth noting came up.

A couple of little problems came up, but they were more annoyances than anything and i've been able to fix them all for next to nothing. The boot release lever in the cabin wasn't working, even though the boot release button on the key remote worked. Looks like the cable had just come loose.

Yes, the sport luxury model is the one with the LSD.

[yoodles]

the 4 months before i did my 1jz conversion i tried to kill my 1g.

it went for around 18000k's getting hammered cold and no oil changes, and the 1ggfe spent its last 4 hours of life jumping its limiter jsut to see if i could kill it.

nothing died and the only thing that died a bit more was the water pump that was still factory after 120'000ks

so i was rather impressed with the 1ggfe's unkillability

of course with the 1jz its very well looked after!