"Lex" - 2007 Lexus IS250 (8/19/2007-11/28/2008)

11/28/2008 - Goodbye old buddy. While you treated me very well, not one trip to the dealer, never a problem (except for not wanting to shift up to the next gear once here and there) you were too boring. Alas I traded you in for the Z4, the car I have wanted for nearly 15 years. I do honestly believe you will give someone hundreds of thousands of trouble free miles and would likely make some middle aged man very happy. 

What will I miss about Lex? The ride was very comfortable, the shifts - almost imperceptible. I will really miss the ventilated seats (air conditioned) and the convenience opening (just touch the door handles). The turning radius was amazing - you could pull a u-urn on a 2 lane road whereas most cars would be making a left hand turn on a side street. 

What will I be happy to miss? I remember I wanted a bigger 4 door so that friends could ride with me - but the rear leg room was a joke. The ride was so pleasant it was boring. The traction control nannies could not be turned off on the fly. They couldn't be turned off completely for that matter! 

In the end, Lex treated me great, for 19,896 miles. He took us to St. Augustine, Savannah, the mountains of Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and all over Florida. 

08/28/2008: I am starting to get bored with the car - so I did a few mods this month. I added a Fujita F5 Intake, a Tanabe Medallion Touring Exhaust, and MRR GT1 wheels in 18x7 and 18x8 in the rear. I also added a lip spoiler to make the front end a little sportier. 

06/15/2008: While I enjoyed the system I built for a few months, I grew tired of the lack of serious low end from the 10's and not having any room in my trunk. I decided to drop the 10's, ordered one 12" Arc 12D, put it in a ported box, sold the JL500/5 and swapped in an Alpine PDX5. This change made the system entirely more enjoyable, and it also allowed me to remove the speaker when needed to haul things (such as 20 flats of St. Augustine grass!) 

02/18/2008: I finished the Lex's audio install (or at least one of them) today. As of this day the Lex had the following setup:

Factory Head unit with XM radio Rockford Fosgate 3Sixty.2 (OEM to Aftermarket Processor) 2 JL Audio 10w3's in a sealed box 1 JL 500/5 1 MB Quart QSC216 component set

The system sounded great, but the 10's just did not play very low regardless of the enclosure I put them in. The best part of the install was that I used factory style plugs on the amplifier and the Rockford 3Sixty.2 which made installation time consuming but later removal easy. The pictures below will give you an idea of what was involved...

08/18/2007 - Today I took ownership of a 2007 Lexus IS250. Obsidian with Black interior, 6 speed automatic, HID's, spoiler, XM Radio and soon to have illuminated door sills. Lex also has the wood grain package and ventilated seats. We purchased Lex from Wilde Lexus in Sarasota, and quite honestly this was the best car buying experience we have ever had.