My first is300 ! ! !
 

Hi everyone, Im new to the forum and picking up my 1st IS300 in a couple weeks. I already bought it, just cant take it home for a couple weeks.

It's a 2002 manual Is300 black on black with 115k miles on it. Look's to be in pretty clean condition. According to the seller it need's a new O2 sensor. Since I don't have paperwork of any maintenance records on the car I'm going to treat it like nothing's been done to be on the safe side.

What should I do to it when I get it? What are thing's that I should be looking out for ?

Register on this website. This is the official Lexus Owners site. You will need the vin of your IS300. When you have it, add it to your profile. If there is a service history for your car, it will appear on here
http://drivers.lexus.com/lexusdrivers/home.do

Now if your car has no service history you can find, then I would guess one of the reasons the car was for sale at 115k is because the timing belt service wasn't done at 90k.

So you should plan for a full 90k mile service package.
-Timing belt, tensioner
-Harmonic balancer (crank pulley)
-Waterpump
-Thermostat
-Spark plugs
-Spark plug wires (our cars have 3 of them, that attach to the coilpacks
-Intake manifold & Throttlebody gasket
-Air filter
-Oil change w/filter
-Transmission fluid change
-Differential fluid change
-Coolant flush & replacement

Some other things:
-If the top of your radiator is brown in color, it means it's old. At some point in the future, the plastic endtank on the top of the radiator will crack, and your car may overheat. It's best to change out the radiator when you change the waterpump since you will be draining almost all of your coolant anyway. This is also the best time to replace the radiator hoses. And the best time to change out the heater hoses is when you're changing out the spark plugs (you get a bit more room in the back of the engine where the hot heater hose is)
-If you have any oil leaks, get them fixed asap. Oil leaking from the hole where the trans meets the engine is the rear main seal. If you have to change this, you might as well replace the clutch at the same time. Leaky valve cover gaskets are best done at the same time as the sparkplugs because the upper intake manifold is off. This is also the best time to replace leaky cam seals. If you have oil leaking from the crank pulley area, or oil coating the inside of the timing belt area, your front main seal is probably bad. The best time to replace this is when doing the timing belt/waterpump.