Ive heard of the abs/traction issues if there lowered but never heard of problems with a standard car. As regards ball joints, i was advised to check them on higher mileage cars as they can go after about 40k-50k.
abdr500, i think to say your going to need good luck with an IS200 seems a bit ott to me and way off the mark to me mate. They havnt won awards for customer satisfaction and reliability for nothing.
Apart from a faulty cd player and 2 pitted wheels (which were replaced free under warrenty), mine never gave me ANY problems in 2 years and 25,000 miles. Saying that though, i suppose there are bad examples of every car if there abused and neglected.