dazed

£6K is too high in my opinion and I say that as the most recent owner. I owned it for 7 years and 150,000 of those miles. While there's nothing wrong with the vehicle, you could do better for that money. It was well looked after - the independent who serviced it from 100K was a Lexus specialist and knew his stuff. In my experience he was more competent (and better value) then the Lexus dealers I've dealt with. Apart from the usual consumables, everything is original - and therein lies the dilemma for any potential buyer. I'm thinking exhaust, shock absorbers, water pump etc. One or more of them are likely to need replacement in the not too distant future and this should be factored into any offer.

Agreed. I've tried moving the car around on the driveway (which is quite large) but to no avail. Interesting. The neighbours have had a different car in their driveway for the past few days - most likely a visitor. Will wait until the car goes and see if I can eliminate it from my enquiries. There are no radio masts near me (I'm right out in the sticks) - just getting a 2G mobile signal is a challenge. The fobs work perfectly away from my home. I can see that this sort of issue has the potential to cause much friction between neighbours, particularly on modern style housing estates where a dozen or more cars might be in signal range of each other. I was hoping that it might be possible to have the car and fob shifted to a different frequency if necessary, but I suspect these systems use frequency hopping trickery like Bluetooth to avoid interference (ha ha) and for security.

After 8 years and 160,000 miles I've suddenly found I'm unable to lock/unlock my IS250 (MY2012) on my driveway. This has happened in the last couple of days and is a full on problem. I can get in the manual way (setting the alarm off in the process) but it's not a particularly convenient workaround. Both my fobs have new batteries in and the car locks/unlocks perfectly everywhere else - it's just my driveway where the problem is occurring. As an experiment I turned off my mains at the fuse box and powered off all battery powered portable devices in the house but it failed to solve the problem. Is there anything I can do to try and rectify the problem without resorting to knocking on neighbours doors and asking if they've recently bought any new gadgets? Thanks in advance.

It depends how much space you want. NX is a larger vehicle with a decent boot. UX is a smaller vehicle with very little boot space. Your requirements will determine which is the best for you.

Exactly. Didn’t Lexus think to measure a box of Cornflakes (14 inches) when designing the car. if it can’t even handle the weekly shopping run what’s the point of it? 🙂 Rolling back the cover every time I want to use the boot doesn’t seem like a very good start when evaluating a potential replacement car, particularly when my wife’s car (a small supermini) has 18 inches of clearance.

Is the cat located in a particularly vulnerable position on the CT or are other cars similarly affected? I had always assumed that the cat is located as close to the manifold as possible where the gasses are hottest.

I do care about music, but not in a car. I don't need talking out of CT ownership - I've already decided it's not for me. The fact that it's EOD is neither here nor there to me. Old models have their upsides - no nasty surprises and attractively priced deals. The UX just left me totally stumped. Much more expensive, less economical, an even smaller boot (despite not even having a spare wheel). Definitely not for me. I did look at the Corolla, but the 1.8 seemed under powered and the whole interior felt a little Fisher-Price to me. The touch screen was also very sluggish to the point of being unusable (IMHO). The 2.0 version was better bet powerwise, but the boot was too compromised by the battery to make it useful, plus I felt it was too expensive.

Just an update from me, the original poster. I took a look at a CT with the tech pack and wasn't impressed with the user interface or the method of controlling it. The software had obviously been designed and written from the perspective of it being used in a touch screen environment. Lexus had then bolted on an Atari style joystick (in terms of capability - not appearance!) to navigate this interface. Scrolling down a list was awful. Once you had reached the bottom visible item you had to move the highlighted control to the down icon on the list box and 'touch' that to continue scrolling. Controlling it was hard enough in a showroom. I couldn't imagine using it while driving. The final decision to rule out the CT was the boot. Although the volume was reasonable, the height (at just 13 inches) without releasing the parcel shelf was insufficient for my day to day needs. Sadly, Lexus don't seem to have a car to suit my wishes or needs - it's SUV or bust with them now. After 14 years I think a Mazda 3 beckons. It isn't perfect, but it does tick more boxes for me than anything else . Failing that a mk7 Golf. BTW if anyone is thinking of buying a new CT, then my advice is haggle and haggle hard. They clearly intend to shift the remaining UK stock ASAP.

Thanks for all your responses. I'd be looking at second hand, about a year old - don't see the point in paying the new car premium.

I'm thinking of switching to a CT and have noticed that cars with the Tech Pack seem to command a fairly hefty premium (up to £2K). Bearing in mind it seems to mainly consist of a slightly larger screen and LED headlights (neither of which will make much of a difference to my overall ownership experience) would I be best off ignoring them - or am I missing something significant about the package. I don't mind paying extra, but I need convincing that it more than just clever marketing. Any input from owners would be much appreciated.

Well, I've never thought of a car as an investment - they always seem to depreciate in my experience 😞. But in the case of the CT200h I would have thought the lack of an equivalent replacement model (with even more questionable bells and whistles and perhaps a slightly better ride/handlng/economy) would actually help slow the depreciation of the existing cars.

Misting from a shock absorber is obviously very subjective. Four years ago my local Lexus dealer noted it as an advisory on my MOT, but the following three tests carried out by independents didn’t note it despite me having taken no action. Couldn’t help feeling that Lexus were just looking for work.

Well, my Lexus IS250 (auto) 2012 has over 150,000 miles on it and it's still perfectly sound mechanically, and utterly reliable. It was serviced and MOT'd last week. No problems, clean as a whistle - as usual. The chap who services it for me (an independent Toyota/Lexus specialist) says it runs as though it only has 50K on the clock. Basically, if a high mileage IS250 has a full service history and MOT, hasn't been through too many hands and looks clean, then I'd say go for it. Realistically, mine's only worth £3,000 now, and if I sold it the buyer would be getting an absolute bargain and a gem of a car.

New battery fitted successfully and everything working as it should be. I didn't realise the old battery lived inside a plastic "cover" that housed the temperature sensor until I took it out. Obviously very important that only the correct battery is used as I doubt the cover would have fitted any other battery. The acid in the old battery was down to the minimum level indicator. It had provided good service though - 8 years and 160,000 miles. New battery is the Bosch one recommended on here by various posters.

Thanks for the quick response John - obviously much appreciated on this occasion.