Why Lexus is yet to break into the UK mainstream

[dutchie01]

I had to choose a new companycar after some SAABs and wanted to order another one but the company unfortunately went bankrupt. Sniffed around the usual German suspects but wanted something more individual, like the Saabs were. Walked into a Lexus showroom had a look at the IS 250 (just released then) and what sold me was the doors! You open the front door and give it a push to close it. The bankvault like Thud just told me enough. I ordered it without a testdrive!

[H3XME]

My very first introduction to Lexus was years and years ago watching one YouTube channel where a bunch of guys slammed an old LS400 on hockey pucks in place of springs.. 😂 That silly thing aside, they did a bit of a review of it and I was seriously impressed by the spec of that old 90s car they bought for a few hundred dollars.. I then started googling cheap Lexuses for sale, eBay, Gumtree the lot. IS200 never really took my liking as they are pretty basic and don't look that good either.. This was 2014 iirc. After a bit of research on different models etc, the 19 year old me had a great idea of purchasing a project. I bought a 1991 UZZ31 Soarer with air suspension, TV, cream electric interior, fully loaded car that looked so good but just wouldn't fire up. I paid £450 + recovery home. And now as I'm typing this out, I realised that the V8 Soarer was not only my introduction to Lexus, but also a practical introduction to working on cars and modifying them. After a bit of digging online, following logical steps as to why it may not run, I found the problem. It was a faulty fuel pump. I bought a new fuel pump, learnt how to replace it, then I did my first ever oil change and it started up. I was over the moon. I very quickly realised the brakes needed doing, front brake caliper was seized, so again, looked it up online and did a full caliper piston & seals rebuild. Lovely times. 

Anyway, I think it was 2017 when I first got an IS250 SE-I as my daily driver (insurance was surprisingly cheap and comparable to my 1.2 Polo at the time), it seemed like a reasonable choice, manual, LSD, rear wheel drive, great spec, and I've never really been a fan of German cars so as my list of requirements grew, the options shrunk. It was amazing, sat nav, M&L Audio etc. Only enjoyed the car for 4 months or so because an opportunity to buy a GT86 arose, so for a good while I didn't look back, but I got another IS250 end of 2019 which was my black one as some of you may know from my thread. I honestly don't know what I'd be driving now if Lexus didn't exist. I'm 28 this year, I don't buy cars from brand new, but when I think about getting a car, my requirements are: RWD, manual, reliable (need research for that), decent power/ 2.0L+ (& the more cylinders the better), ideally LSD. If you go on auto trader and put these requirements in, you won't end up with many results if you disregard germans.. oh, and don't forget to set the budget to 10k... you're left with Lexus, Nissan, Mazda and an old boxy Volvo 😂

[Spacewagon52]

People who leave, after owning a Lexus ............. often return!

[b4u2]

@Spacewagon52

Specifically lexus or I assume that will be with any car brand?

[Mr Vlad]

Quite right David. I got my first Lexus which was the is300h because I loved the look of them and I wanted to go hybrid. Unfortunately I couldn't get use to CVH because all previous cars were manual gearbox. However after a year in a Ford mondeo auto I sought and got another is300h. Similar happened a few years later when I had a RX450H which I couldn't afford to keep. Got another mondeo but diesel but soon after I hankered for another Lexus so after a year I got the is250 I've had now for 3 years and have no reason to swap it unless a lottery win happens lol but that'll mean a move and have a small collection of Lexus of which my is250 would be in.

[royoftherovers]

45 minutes ago, Spacewagon52 said:

People who leave, after owning a Lexus ............. often return!

They are usually,Private Owners as Co. Car drivers often go to Lexus simply to reduce B.I.K.

A Private Lexus owner has matured through age and experience and grown into a sensible person having learnt, often painfully, the downsides of non-Lexus motoring.

[Las Palmas]

2 hours ago, Spacewagon52 said:

People who leave, after owning a Lexus ............. often return!

Still have the CT, but could return to Honda, Nissan or go to Hyundai. Toyota??? (have had 2 very good and 1 extremely bad plus the CT which is more or less a Toyota). Will not go back to Alfa, Citroën, Lancia, Peugeot, Rover, VW. Never had problems with Matra (no longer existing brand), Mercedes, Opel or Renault, but the models they have now are little inspiring.

Possibly a Prius if Toyota come with a combustion engine hydrogen model. Think they will.

[b4u2]

I was just filling up petrol at costco and just happened to have been behind a Lexus RX450H beautiful car it was really eye catching. There is something about them that just pull me. The owner told me he came from a m5 so I have no idea what is and how they compare but I think maybe it's the shine and coating that lexus have which just always seems to be very noticeable and eye catching. Wondering if anyone else on this forum can relate to what I'm saying 🤔 

[Mr Vlad]

Yes I know exactly where you're coming from. The look of Lexus cars is 2nd to none and that includes exotica.

[First_Lexus]

1 hour ago, b4u2 said:

I was just filling up petrol at costco and just happened to have been behind a Lexus RX450H beautiful car it was really eye catching. There is something about them that just pull me. The owner told me he came from a m5 so I have no idea what is and how they compare but I think maybe it's the shine and coating that lexus have which just always seems to be very noticeable and eye catching. Wondering if anyone else on this forum can relate to what I'm saying 🤔 

One of the things that attracted me to my NX, and now my RX, are the looks - they are a bit ‘different’ (in a good way). I think rarity helps too, as the German brands are far more common (sorry, I meant popular!)

[dutchie01]

3 hours ago, royoftherovers said:

They are usually,Private Owners as Co. Car drivers often go to Lexus simply to reduce B.I.K.

A Private Lexus owner has matured through age and experience and grown into a sensible person having learnt, often painfully, the downsides of non-Lexus motoring.

Happy in their own skin, owned various makes through the years and does not care one bit what other people think of him?

[Linas.P]

8 hours ago, Spacewagon52 said:

Thank you Phil, Linus, Bill and John. That is very interesting, because you came to the brand by accident. A conversation I had with a Lexus salesman reinforces your joint experience. he said, "All we need to sell more cars is to get people to enter the showroom!" Once they are shown / demonstrated the Lexus product they will purchase.

Giving extended test drives / loan for 24 hours is one option. I suppose the downside would be tyre kickers, who want a free car for the day. Unfortunately with Lexus that is only part of the "capture" of a customer. People, who do not know the brand, need to own the car for at least 3 months to fully appreciate the quality of these cars.

Not that many people would justify hiring a car to see what it is like.

If dealers can get them in a Lexus, even an older one, they would be hooked. I also agree with Linus, there is still snob value rfegarding MB and BMW / Audi.

That is true to some extent, just having people into dealership is not enough, but 24h or even over weekend would definitely help people to actually experience the car... One good idea seems to get some deal with major rental companies to sell volume to them at discounted rates (the way I have experienced the car first time). I can't see why rental companies would not want to run Lexus and benefit from more reliable fleet.

That said - sadly nothing could get me to buy Lexus in UK/Europe today... they have literally 1 model which I consider a car (that is LC500) and from all the rest of their offers there 0 that would interest me. So whereas "getting people to experience Lexus" could have worked 2006~2013 (in my particular case RC-F/GS-F were still available until ~2021), then since 2013 they simply don't have anything to offer for "experience" anymore. 

I think it goes back to point you made before - NOBODY complains about the quality of Lexus cars, but the choice was increasingly a problem in UK/Europe and few years ago it became showstopper. I would like to comeback to the brand some day, but apart of waiting for LC500 to drop to affordable price I can't see how else it could happen... literally no cars Lexus sells will ever interest me, even as used 10 years later. 

[dutchie01]

The sound of reliability. Below latest vid from Savagegeese is touching some of the points from this thread, reliability, long term ownership, what is luxury etc. Check it out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[H3XME]

15 hours ago, dutchie01 said:

The sound of reliability. Below latest vid from Savagegeese is touching some of the points from this thread, reliability, long term ownership, what is luxury etc. Check it out!

This is a gold dipped Land Cruiser! Another thing EU never got.. they are quite cheap in the US and im sure one could import one from the UAE for cheap but LHD 😕 

[H3XME]

15 hours ago, Linas.P said:

That is true to some extent, just having people into dealership is not enough, but 24h or even over weekend would definitely help people to actually experience the car... One good idea seems to get some deal with major rental companies to sell volume to them at discounted rates (the way I have experienced the car first time). I can't see why rental companies would not want to run Lexus and benefit from more reliable fleet.

That said - sadly nothing could get me to buy Lexus in UK/Europe today... they have literally 1 model which I consider a car (that is LC500) and from all the rest of their offers there 0 that would interest me. So whereas "getting people to experience Lexus" could have worked 2006~2013 (in my particular case RC-F/GS-F were still available until ~2021), then since 2013 they simply don't have anything to offer for "experience" anymore. 

I think it goes back to point you made before - NOBODY complains about the quality of Lexus cars, but the choice was increasingly a problem in UK/Europe and few years ago it became showstopper. I would like to comeback to the brand some day, but apart of waiting for LC500 to drop to affordable price I can't see how else it could happen... literally no cars Lexus sells will ever interest me, even as used 10 years later. 

Linas, there will be time where we will be able to import a pre-facelift RC350 from Japan for less than 15k. just give it a few years! 

Cheapest RC350 I found was £24k shipped. Facelifts go from £36k+ https://carfromjapan.com/cheap-used-lexus-rc-2019-for-sale-63973a7793450232e17d4ca9

https://carfromjapan.com/cheap-used-lexus-rc-2019-for-sale-639b460b07925b3128e228bd

[Malc1]

I think I'm about to be paying for a brand new car in Delhi, a 7 seater tho'    Trying to convince my guy there, who's car it will be, business use and of course, for his family and his driver .......... to look at any Lexus offering there might be .  if any ..  I'll let you know as it all unfolds

Prices of brand new cars there look amazingly inexpensive compared to here 

Malc

[Mr Vlad]

As for IS350 why is it they're only being looked for in Japan? What's wrong with Australia or New Zealand? Those prices are comparable but shipping might be more I don't know.

[Linas.P]

43 minutes ago, H3XME said:

Linas, there will be time where we will be able to import a pre-facelift RC350 from Japan for less than 15k. just give it a few years! 

Cheapest RC350 I found was £24k shipped. Facelifts go from £36k+ https://carfromjapan.com/cheap-used-lexus-rc-2019-for-sale-63973a7793450232e17d4ca9

https://carfromjapan.com/cheap-used-lexus-rc-2019-for-sale-639b460b07925b3128e228bd

That makes absolutely no sense mate... why import Japanese RC350, when one can buy British RC-F for similar price? 

RC350 only makes sense in specifically being much cheaper than RC-F, because it provides 80% (or maybe 90%) of the car and if in US it costs half the price then it is a winner. When I can pick-up RC-F for £28k, then RC350 for £24k isn't really good buy... 

I personally believe that will continue to be the case until like 15 years later. Something that happened to IS-F and IS350, there was time where people were asking about IS350 from Japan and my answer was "are you stupid - you can get IS-F for £10k", now that time long ended IS-F went up in price and now costs £16k+ and IS350s are lingering on facebook market place for £6-7k and they do make sense in comparison, but we are talking 16 years old cars.

So I due expect similar trend for RC - RC-F will go down all the way to £15k and maybe even rebound back to £20k, whereas RC350 will go down all the way to maybe £10k... but that is not before like 2030!  

Just now, Mr Vlad said:

As for IS350 why is it they're only being looked for in Japan? What's wrong with Australia or New Zealand? Those prices are comparable but shipping might be more I don't know.

My guess is that there is established JDM logistics... people were importing unique Japanese domestic models for nearly 30 years now, so they know exactly where to buy cars, exactly what paperwork is needed and that is why they are more readily available than AU/NZ cars.

Further is Japanese culture and taxation - Japanese don't really buy used (not as much at least) and taxation quickly kills older cars. In short they don't keep old things, so the values of used cars and demand for them is very low, therefore price is low. Whereas AU/NZ are different - they keep the cars for long time, domestic used market is strong and prices are very high. 

[Mr Vlad]

Very good point Linas. One thing I k ow and am sure you do to is that some folk just don't like a V8 and love the V6 and vice versa.

[H3XME]

2 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

When I can pick-up RC-F for £28k, then RC350 for £24k isn't really good buy... 

This is why I said in a few years. I wouldn't be spending 24k on a 350 now when for extra few grand you get the F.

We'll see. They will drop eventually..maybe when they reach 10 year old mark in 2-3 years.

[Linas.P]

14 minutes ago, Mr Vlad said:

Very good point Linas. One thing I k ow and am sure you do to is that some folk just don't like a V8 and love the V6 and vice versa.

I think that has to do more with price than anything else. V8 is often the premium option and sort of diminishing returns, so often sensible option is to take V6 and get as I mentioned 80-90% of performance for half price. But this logic doesn't work when cars costs the same. Apart of that I have never heard anyone why said "I prefer V6 over V8"... maybe I am not in the right circles 😄   

13 minutes ago, H3XME said:

This is why I said in a few years. I wouldn't be spending 24k on a 350 now when for extra few grand you get the F.

We'll see. They will drop eventually..maybe when they reach 10 year old mark in 2-3 years.

I think you are underestimating how long it will take -  simply because RC-F will be over 10 years old in 2-3 years as well, so their prices will follow the similar trend - it will take 5-6 years before RC-F price inevitably deviates from RC350 simply because of the numbers built and rarity. But I generally agree - there will be a time where one can import inexpensive RC350... eventually. And let's not forget one can as well get RC-F from Japan and usually the more expensive is the car the bigger is the saving... so in the end of the day after all taxation it may be the case that economics of bringing RC350 vs. RC-F into UK just doesn't work. 

But that said - grey imports won't make Lexus mainstream in UK anytime soon and mere fact that we have to go such length to get a car in UK from the brand that sells same model in UK is kind of stupid from Lexus GB perspective.

[Mr Vlad]

Auto trader Australia. 2017 is350 with full service history and 54k miles £24.5k. That's a ruddy bargain. That's just an example. 

[royoftherovers]

1 hour ago, Malc1 said:

I think I'm about to be paying for a brand new car in Delhi, a 7 seater tho'    Trying to convince my guy there, who's car it will be, business use and of course, for his family and his driver .......... to look at any Lexus offering there might be .  if any ..  I'll let you know as it all unfolds

Prices of brand new cars there look amazingly inexpensive compared to here 

Malc

A `55 Cowley should be niely run in by now Malc!🤣

[Linas.P]

1 hour ago, Mr Vlad said:

Auto trader Australia. 2017 is350 with full service history and 54k miles £24.5k. That's a ruddy bargain. That's just an example. 

It would be interesting to know the cost of importing from Australia. As I said - as this is not common thing to do, there is simply no knowledge/established logistics for that... in other hand maybe with current government direction buying from "commonwealth" would have some tax benefits. As for car itself in Australia - that would be certainly preferably over Japan, because clearly no issue dealing with Japanese menus etc. 

As for price - well it isn't that great, about the same as British RC-F again, which is just expected really.  

[Mr Vlad]

I looked Into transporting a car from Oz to here. To my surprise there are companies dedicated to do this. One off put is 2 forms of tax. Import and vat so an extra 30% on top plus the transporting and the 2 tests before it would be allowed on our roads makes it unfeasible unless one is oh so dead set in getting one.

RC-f at 24k? Wow bargain. Just need a lottery win now.