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Not sure if in 2026 people still post plain old maintenance builds without carbon wide body and air suspension, but that's what I plan to do here for my IS 300.
Before that, I'd like to introduce you to some of my old loves, that went through my hands over past 20 years of my automotive jurney:
'92 Ford Escort Convertible, my first car ever (out of 19 total owned so far):
'98 BMW E46 328, my first BMW (out of 3 owned so far):
'98 Subaru Impreza GT (outside Europe famously known as WRX, out of 3 owned so far):
'85 Porsche 944, my first and only Porsche (so far), rebuilt from "barn find" state during COVID with my bare own hands:
'14 Audi A4 B8, my first Audi (out of 3 owned so far):
And now to my latest love: 100% stock 2017 IS 300 in a beautiful Deep Blue Mica (8X5) paint with just above 100k miles on the clock:
Bought it last autumn from the first owner, clean history, serviced in Lexus dealership only - great base for a long term relationship.
The first contact with every new car for me is good old boring preventive maintenance: engine/tranny/diff oil, filters, spark plugs and PCV valve:
Then, after long east-european winter, it was time for new shoes, as the base OEM 17s are basically a crime against the beautiful line of this car.
I used my personal rule of thumb: "multispoke fits them all" and went with cost-effective but solid set of CMS C23, 18x8 ET35 wrapped with Conti Sport Contact 7.
Additionally calipers got a layer of Performance Blue Metalic high temp-resistant paint from Foliatec. All that unleashed classy sport-sedan profile of IS MK3:
What comes next: - window tint + LED interior light bulbs + front PPF wrap - Android Auto module / Android standalone (TBD) - performance brake pads (DBA XP) + braided brake lines - sport suspension (TBD)
2017 Deep Blue Mica IS 300 maintenance thread
