Rabbers

Looking at the Autoscout.com site this morning I thought LC500 owners might find the following information on the geography of second-hand sales of their cars in continental Europe to be of interest, not least because the listings presumably also directly reflect sales since launch. About 60 used units, mostly with low mileages, are currently listed for sale Europe-wide. More than half of them are German-registered, and the numbers offered in Holland and Belgium alone exceed those of France, Italy and Spain put together. The hybrid model is virtually non-existent outside Italy (where the V8 is heavily penalised by bhp-linked road-tax), with the V8 being by far the more favoured in Germany - and Holland - where sales of the hybrid appear to have been close to zero. Frankly I don't know what to make of this, since, apart from the fiscal constraints accounting for low sales in Italy, I would have expected a more homogeneous picture.

Despite four or five days of springlike weather I still haven’t summoned up the energy to thoroughly clean and wax my RC, which is a major annual event requiring not only focus and maximum concentration but the coaxing of muscles into activity after months of hibernation. So, as an interim measure before the acquisition of sufficient motivation to do a proper job, I today rose bright and early, filled a bucket with lukewarm water, threw in a couple of capfuls of my trusty Optimum No Rinse Wash ‘n’ Shine, and delicately sponged the wheels and body to what I judged to be excellent effect. And, although it wasn’t strictly necessary but because I enjoyed it, I then lovingly passed a drying towel over the car not once but twice. I then came back indoors, had breakfast, and, while admiring the car through my kitchen window, wrote this post.

This is to enquire, out of curiosity, what happens if ceramically coated paintwork gets a significant scratch or scrape. After repair would the body shop automatically redo the coating or would the car preferably need to be taken back to where the original coating was done?

I’ve been trying without success to find an article I recently saw about selling a used car. One tip pertinent to the present thread is to remove fresheners from the cabin, especially highly visible ones of the type that dangle from the rear-view mirror. This would be in order to make fastidious prospective buyers less aware of an “unwelcoming atmosphere” in the cabin. Sound advice, no doubt, but dependent, I would think, on how welcoming the atmosphere originally was.

Never used air freshener in any Lexus I have had. Periodic leather cleaning leaves the car smelling like new or close to new. Many years ago I used a couple of expensive brands of freshener from fancy London perfume houses (Penhaligon? Floris?) whose component scents I don’t remember but whose main effect was to make me and my passengers sneeze.

Well spotted!

Great result 👍! Hope you didn't hurt your hand smacking the dash. I would have used a rubber hammer or hired a bongos player.

Clean the windscreen thoroughly, then clean the blades with a damp cloth or piece of paper. Allow them to dry for a minute or so, then activate. If either of them streaks, repeat the foregoing after checking for grit or specks of dirt or damage. If it looks clean and undamaged but still streaks, then change it.

I hope you get this sorted soon, Simon. On the subject of speedometers I am reminded of a TV interview I once saw in which a father holidaying in France with his two kids and obviously stupid wife claimed, believe it or not, that he entertained them on boring long drives by covering the speedometer and getting them to guess the speed.

I don’t remember exactly by how much, but Toyota used to charge less for the same wipers. Nowadays they are priced the same, no doubt as the result of a corporate directive for all packaged spare parts that carry both the Toyota and Lexus logos. I have personally never had a duration or quality problem with Bosch wipers, which are cheaper, and if I need new ones and happen to drive past a Bosch garage, I’ll stop and buy. Years ago, I recall being irritated when Lexus once or twice changed my wipers during servicing because the mechanic thought it necessary, adding a labour charge to the bill. No Toyota or Bosch spare-parts person selling me wipers has ever charged me for fitting them, almost always without being asked (not that I figure I couldn’t manage the job myself if I felt like it!).

Isn’t that still a bit too low in any case?

That was certainly a mean thing to do, and it could only have cheapened the image of the brand. I remember the days when the quantifiable value of a tankful of fuel was usually the final ploy available to either party when negotiating the price of a cheap used car.

Yes, it was and I am sure in most cases remains normal practice and behaviour to replace what you have consumed (which was easier if you started with a full tank), making checks unnecessary. One wonders, however, if levels of trust may not be diminishing.

On approximately this same subject, I have noticed in the last couple of years that my Lexus dealer no longer supplies courtesy cars with a full tank which you were expected to top back up. Nowadays the tank is a third full, and I guess this is because too many people have been “forgetting” to replace the fuel they consumed.

I would imagine that Lexus formally leaves the decision of how much fuel to put into a new car up to the dealer but recommends as a guideline that it be a full tank. For a customer not to get a full tank after being regaled with the formal Lexus new-car handover ceremony by the dealer would be so anomalous as to strike one as more than faintly ridiculous.

No, this one tended to skulk around the sides of things, which is why it managed to live a long life. Actually, now I come to think about it, if I owned a car-wash in my neighbourhood, I would welcome an increase in the cat population since the paw-prints they leave on bonnets, especially in cold weather, would certainly further boost my business.

Fair enough. As a non-user of car-washes, the spinning wheel brushes have always struck me as being particularly worthy of avoidance because of the stiffer bristles. I also recall once seeing a nosy and obviously unintelligent cat narrowly escape death upon inspecting one, and its yelp still haunts me.

Not worried about microscratches from the brushes, John🤔?

Yes, this describes the function, and, having checked the current online brochures for the 2022 ES in Italy and France, I see this is the first model year to have it. I have found no reference to it in the Lexus U.K. site, which, unless it was already previously available, seems odd.

I was recently perusing a brochure for the ES and came across a mention of a safety feature called "Curve Speed Control" (or maybe "Reduction" - I am translating from memory), which, as far as I could understand, slows the car down automatically when you are approaching a curve too fast. I know of systems with acoustic warnings to this effect, but not of one that overrides the driver's judgment. Has any ES owner experience of the feature, or is it something completely new?

Condensation is a strange thing, and it might well come and go before disappearing or staying. I confess I tend to check for it in my lights more often than is strictly necessary. This is because I have experienced it in headlights on three occasions: once in an IS200, when it seriously discoloured the metallic lining, and once in each of two IS250s, less severely but still irritatingly. Luckily, the cars were all under warranty when it happened, and the groups replaced no questions asked.

I liked in one of the articles how the U.K. Transport Secretary (?-Former) described the devices as "exciting".

Lexus cars are known for their quietness from the outside as well as the inside so we owners need not be overly concerned with the "noise radars" currently being installed in Paris. They are planned for other French cities and, if successful at reducing noise pollution and generating revenue from fines (take your pick of intended priorities), will no doubt quickly be adopted in other countries. Apparently, this fiendish piece of technology photographs motorists exceeding fixed decibel limits (which includes the sounding of horns) and, when the system comes into operation in Paris later this year or in 2023, will hit them with a fine of €135 per offence.

Yes.

Yes.