Rabbers

Bernard, there is no need for the experiment. It requires no feat of the imagination to understand how and why cars are a danger to bikes. If the relationship between motorists and cyclists have worsened in recent years it is because the latter have been made to feel privileged by regulatory and media sympathy, leading to a situation where the cyclist population has increased in numbers (and average age) even in places where it was traditionally always very large. The general result, it seems to me, is that cyclists have developed unjustified degrees of self-confidence and self-righteousness that too often puts them in harm’s way with little or no awareness of the fact, and manifestly with an irritatingly excessive, albeit unconscious, reliance on the good sense of motorists.

While confessing to a certain moral embarrassment, I am taking the opportunity offered by this thread to record an increasingly negative evolution in my attitude towards cyclists. There was a time when my primary - indeed my only - concern as a driver was for their safety. Today, my ethical standards seem to have sunk so low that I find the objective of not hitting a cyclist to be secondary to that of avoiding the expensive repair of my activated pop-up hood mechanism were I to do so.

This was the colour of one of only four LCs I have seen on the road in Italy, and I thought it looked beautiful, not least because it was in a countryside landscape on a sunny day. This was two or three years ago, and I remember looking it up at the time and seeing that it was one of a "Limited Edition" marketed, I think, in 2021.

Yes, I think I really did dodge a bullet, though I suspect the RC’s shape and build played a role. I stayed in NORMAL mode as is my wont, not from conscious choice but as a form of non-choice in that I was totally focused on steering.

This is to record a somewhat harrowing test the RC recently survived with flying colours. Faced with a flooded road caused by torrential rain when driving home the other evening, I decided to turn back and detour to an alternative route. This I did only to be faced with another flooded stretch that was, if anything, even worse. I therefore decided to turn back yet again, and almost immediately ran into new flooding in the direction from which I had just come. As a consequence I was faced with the alternatives of trying to negotiate a wheels-high flood some 70-80m long or abandon the car at the risk of it being swept away if the two areas of flooding were to merge (which I later learned they did soon after). I decided on the first alternative knowing full well that I risked seriously damaging the engine and the electrics. So, with the level of the water now getting higher than my wheels and the situation not helped by successive bow waves from two SUVs that came towards me and threw water over my bonnet and windscreen, I drove through the water slowly and as steadily as I could. Once I was through, I saw a police car up ahead in the process of setting up a no-entry barrier, and the officers informed me that there was more flooding ahead but hopefully less severe than that I had just experienced. And fortunately they were right insofar as the flooded areas I encountered were no higher than half-wheel height. To cut a long story short, the RC got me through the next 15km to my home, not exactly without further excitement but safely. Once home, I anxiously checked under the hood and saw no traces of wet other than a small area of muddy spray and a few leaves and bits of grass on the plastic apron above the radiator. The next day I drove the 50km to my Lexus dealer, and, upon further inspection, the engine, the electrics and the brakes were all given a clean bill of health.

This also happened recently with my RC. There was no damage whatsoever, and I could find no explanation other than to suspect, because the car was one of a row parked parallel to the pavement, a direct and fortunately very slight bump from another parking vehicle or perhaps a pram or bike squeezing through.

I must say I was surprised to read this, never having had to reset the TPMS after changing tyres summer to winter or vice-versa. And nor have the pressure readings remained blank for more than a few hundred metres after the changes. Could it be that my trusty tyre guy has been doing things properly over the years without my ever noticing? I’ve made a note to ask him next time.

Interesting observations about the trend to thinner but not necessarily weaker body metal. … I recall first noticing this about two decades ago with regard to the bonnet area of the IS200, which I found to have a tendency to give under slight pressure whereas the equivalent sections of a BMW328 I had at the same time stayed rigid. I was a little alarmed by the comparison even though I could feel the IS’s surface springing back to its original form readily enough. My impression has been that the relative flexibility of Lexus’ metal became even more noticeable in later cars like the IS250, IS300h and the RC. I must confess that I have always found the springiness of the RC’s bonnet slightly disturbing while consoling myself with the thought that design and material specifications must have been fully reconciled by the car’s engineers in order to meet official, as well as the house’s own, safety standards.

I’m afraid I can’t help with the name of an alternative supplier to Lexus itself for a new bumper but, to judge by what appears to be the limited area of the damage, don’t you think a good body shop could do an acceptable filling and repainting job?

Probably purchaseable as an accessory I would think.

I’m not sure, Bernard, that we have all been too naive to understand what the Chinese have been doing these past few years. What we and our governments have lacked and continue to lack is the ability to organize an effective and united competitive response. To believe otherwise would be to accept, wrongly, that the Chinese are individually as well as collectively cleverer and more astute than we are.

Interesting that you would want the car identified as AWD. Personally I wouldn’t care one way or the other and, perhaps I’m wrong, but I can’t imagine that many other owners would either. Did Lexus UK’s promotional literature illustrate an LBX with AWD badging (*see note below)? If it did I would think that your dealer would be obliged to provide you with the badge free of charge if you were to insist. (*note) I just had a quick look at some online brochures for Italy and France and couldn’t find any pictures of the LBX with an AWD badge. I test-drove an AWD in Italy some months ago (see my post above) but I honestly can’t remember if was thus badged. I suspect, however, that it wasn’t because, being badged as an Original Edition model, any further lettering would have struck me as a visual overload.

Must admit I’m not well versed on the subject but are there high or low variants? 🤔

Decades ago when potholes were rare on European roads, I used to travel frequently on business to "third world" countries where damage to tyres for which holes were largely to blame was accepted as a simple fact of life by the local motoring populations. On the relatively few occasions when I drove hire cars I managed, thankfully, never to get a flat, simply, I think, as the result of being highly circumspect as well as lucky. Certainly, I never acquired sufficient experience or developed the sort of skill - which would be useful on many European roads today - that enabled some local drivers, especially professional ones, to determine the size, depth and nature of potholes at a glance and then negotiate them accordingly. In this regard, there were - and no doubt still are - two directly conflicting schools of thought. Namely, you either accelerate on approaching a hole in the expectation of "flying" over it or, at worst, merely clipping its edge, or, alternatively, you slow down, sometimes almost to a standstill, and gently steer in and out of it. I suppose the decision depends on finding the right combination of self-confidence and rationality.

Yes, I’m looking forward to switching back to my Conti SC7s next week after driving on winters since last October (as it turned out merely prudentially given the snowless and practically frost-free weather). I have become a firm Conti fan on the basis of the SC7s virtually faultless all-round performance on the RC300h compared to Dunlop SportMaxxes, Bridgestone Potenza 050s and Pirelli PZeros. The Contis are far superior to the Dunlops and Bridgestones in terms of grip, stability and quietness, though only marginally better than Pirellis in just about everything except ride comfort, for which they might be considered a little too firm. If I had to pick one outstanding feature of the Contis I would say it is their ability to transmit a feeling of precision at all speeds.

As my waistline attests…

The different ways in which rice is cooked in various culinary traditions could well be a useful subject for a PhD thesis. Suffice it to say, in the present context, that connoisseurs of risotto consider dishes like paella, pilafs, pulau/biryani and the like, in which the rice is left to take care of itself, to be barbaric. As regards MrsT’s observation, it could be said that her tendency in late career to use metaphors rather than direct statements to explain non-actions marked, alas, the beginning of the end of an otherwise glorious reign.

Tut-tut, Len. Paella should never be stirred but, as any (pedantic) valenciano will tell you, merely shaken using the paellera’s side-handles.

Not a question of right and wrong, but rather of gastronomic and cultural purity. VFR got it right in his first post about baked beans on toast (although, if I think about it, the connection with Heinz might well introduce an element of doubt as regards national identity).

After reading this thread I concluded that Mrs Beeton must be turning in her grave. Whatever happened to good old traditional British fare?

Don't know the place but it sounds nice - the sort of place, in fact, where you'd expect to see at least one Lexus in the car-park!

Not entirely devoid of wisdom and good sense.

I don’t know about Lexus’ older models but I believe the windscreen and side windows have a hydrophobic coating which might be negatively affected by the use of potent glass cleaning products.

I test-drove an AWD LBX the other day and, although I tried to keep an open mind, I quickly came to the conclusion, fully aware that I was comparing apples and pears, that I wouldn't want to replace my ageing 2019 RC300h with one. The LBX is quiet and comfortable, pretty rather than handsome in appearance, fairly nippy in town traffic, very well appointed with an excellent infotainment system, and feels sturdy and firmly-planted - but it is not a car I would want to use for motorway drives of any great length even though I personally undertake these less frequently than I once did. I was offered a hefty discount off list-price for immediate delivery from stock of a top-spec Original Edition version, which, added to a generous trade-in valuation for my RC, was tempting. But not tempting enough. In short, I reckon the LBX would be an absolutely perfect second car for anybody wanting or able to afford one, but only if its main use is in and around large cities.

I once had the same problem with a nail in one of the front tyres of an IS250, which was particularly upsetting because (a) it happened when I was more than 1500km from home, and (b) I had been planning to trade the car in for a new one and was therefore not enthusiastic about laying out money for a new tyre (or probably two). In the event I was lucky to find what turned out to be an honest workshop that put in a plug with the assurance that it would not only get me home but would last the life of the tyre, which had then done about 14000km. The first assurance proved demonstrably correct, though I admit to having being nagged by worry during the long drive home, albeit without any justification whatsoever seeing that I subsequently got another problem-free 7000km+ out of the tyre before taking delivery of the new car.