Discussion
Hi, the in dash 6 disc is will break, ignition barrels on the early ones used to collapse at about 50k miles, they are very sensitive to tyre choices and alignment. The only real mechanical glitch of note is leaking water pumps, always worth changing when doing a cambelt. They're generally very reliable, can't comment on manual or auto, never tried the manual, but the autos are good, if a bit old fashioned compared to modern stuff.
Great car for not much money.
Great car for not much money.
I had an IS200 Sport for 7 1/2 years so got to know it quite well. Mine was a post 2001 facelift 2003 car which unless you know what your looking for is hard to spot. The only thing that changed mechanically was the Sport was lowered a bit more, but internally they changed a few things. They swapped the positions of some of the gauges around, added electric seats to the passenger side and the most important one, they changed the stereo to a similar looking but internally different cd changer that doesn't break like the early ones did. The way to tell the difference is the early ones had the cd slot at the bottom, and the later ones had the cd slot at the top.
The 2 things people always winge about are the power and mpg. I think the power/speed thing was a bit unfair because it was just a 2.0, if they wanted more power they should have bought a IS300. The MPG thing isn't really that bad, its just peoples minds are stuck in the modern way of diesels doing 50-60 mpg. I averaged about 28mpg most of the time, but did used to press on a bit and use all the rev range. Its a bit flat until 4000 then wakes up a bit and sounds like only a straight 6 can. And I think thats the issue people have with the power/mpg debate. If you drive it at lower revs it can get mid 30s mpg, but feels slow (but really smooth). The only things I ever had problems with were my front calipers seized so rebuilt them, the PAS cooler corroded and the back box needed replacement, other than that everything else was just serviceable items. I bought it when it was 4 years old and had done 55k, and sold it when it was 11 years old and had done 135k and I thoroughly enjoyed enjoyed every mile. They're all getting old now and can be bought very cheap, so there are a few chaved 'drift' cars about, but there are a good few 1 retired owner 50k cars about that are a real bargain.
The 2 things people always winge about are the power and mpg. I think the power/speed thing was a bit unfair because it was just a 2.0, if they wanted more power they should have bought a IS300. The MPG thing isn't really that bad, its just peoples minds are stuck in the modern way of diesels doing 50-60 mpg. I averaged about 28mpg most of the time, but did used to press on a bit and use all the rev range. Its a bit flat until 4000 then wakes up a bit and sounds like only a straight 6 can. And I think thats the issue people have with the power/mpg debate. If you drive it at lower revs it can get mid 30s mpg, but feels slow (but really smooth). The only things I ever had problems with were my front calipers seized so rebuilt them, the PAS cooler corroded and the back box needed replacement, other than that everything else was just serviceable items. I bought it when it was 4 years old and had done 55k, and sold it when it was 11 years old and had done 135k and I thoroughly enjoyed enjoyed every mile. They're all getting old now and can be bought very cheap, so there are a few chaved 'drift' cars about, but there are a good few 1 retired owner 50k cars about that are a real bargain.
Im also fairly interested in the IS200 but I've looked into the power thing and im thinking about getting an Altezza import instead. I already have a MR2 SW20 with 3s-ge at the moment as a weekend car so the Altezza with that 210 bhp 3s-ge would be nice to have as a daily instead of my boring (But brilliant) diesel astra.
Gassing Station | Japanese Chat | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff