Lexus model reference
Lexus IS
What our record holds on the IS: the body styles and fuel types it was sold in here, and the road tax a used one pays. The UK sales period is not recorded, and this page says so rather than estimating it.
No reliability figure is published for the Lexus IS that this site could cite. What circulates instead is survey data from panels that select themselves, and warranty claim rates published by companies with something to sell.
Any percentage would be our own calculation. Which years count, and whether a facelift and a new generation sharing the IS name are one model or two, both move the answer, and neither choice is anybody official's.
So the field does not exist. We do not average the other Lexus models into a number and put it here, and we do not push a marque figure down onto the IS. What is real and specific is the paperwork for one car.
No fault ordering is published for the IS
A 2015 IS 300h at around 109 g/km is band B, £20 a year in 2026/27.
That figure is a worked example for the year and engine named, not a rate for every IS. Read the CO2 figure and the first registration date off the V5C before you budget, because both change the answer.
See every band for this tax yearStanding next to one
Buying a used IS: what the record settles
The UK sales period for the IS is not recorded in the dataset behind this page, so that row is empty. An approximate range would be a guess, and a guess would be worse than nothing here: the years a car was on sale decide which road tax regime it falls under, which is the main reason anybody looks the dates up. It came in one body style here, saloon, with 3 fuel types: petrol, diesel and petrol hybrid.
Which road tax regime a IS falls under depends entirely on the first registration date printed on its V5C. Before 1 March 2001 is engine size, 1 March 2001 to 31 March 2017 is CO2 bands, and 1 April 2017 onwards is the flat standard rate. Check the document, not the model name.
For running costs the fuel matters more than the badge. On the diesels the emissions section is where a neglected car loses its certificate: the particulate filter is inspected and the smoke reading is measured against a limit, and a filter that has never had a long run to clear itself will not pass on a good intention.
None of that is a substitute for the record of the actual car. The invoices name what was replaced, when and at what mileage, and the same job appearing twice in three years says more about a IS than any statistic about the model ever could. A mileage that goes backwards across a paperwork trail is worth walking away from whatever the badge is.
Lexus launched in Britain in 1990 with the LS400 and has sold only petrol and hybrid cars here since it dropped diesel in 2012. Its used stock is dominated by the CT and IS hybrids, which spent years in private hire work in London because they avoided the diesel penalties. The hybrid transmissions have proved durable, and the maintenance that matters is brake fluid and inverter coolant rather than clutches. That is context on the marque rather than on this car, and there is more of it, along with every other model line, on the Lexus page.