Rabbers

Could it have something to do with the tendency of some people to pontificate at excessive length?

I recently had a 2021 UX250h as a courtesy car. It had done about 24000km and was generally in good condition. I noticed that each of the tail lights had three or four droplets of water clinging to the inside of the upper surfaces. I duly pointed this out when I returned the car, and the workshop supervisor appeared genuinely surprised. Be this as it may, I would suggest owners keep an eye out for a potential issue while the cars are still under warranty.

Admirable post, Peter. Personally, I would further comment that my occasional irritation at the RC300h not being praised for what it is but criticized for what it is not has now turned to boredom.

Indeed. Substitute “especially” for “not even” in my last post.

I couldn’t agree more. No question I should have taken the UX to a car wash rather than doing it myself, but as regards my RC, I don’t allow anyone else to wash it, not even my Lexus dealer.

Tomorrow has now become today and I confirm I’m not moaning. So go ahead and moan.

Yes it does, in my thinking. And of course it was just humour.

This assumes I moaned yesterday and will tomorrow, which I didn’t and won’t.

I recently had an UX250h for a few days as a courtesy car. Being prejudiced against SUVs in general, I did not particularly enjoy the experIence (especially when comparing the car, admittedly unfairly, with the 2022 NX350h I was lucky enough to try a few weeks ago and which could well be the only SUV I might be tempted to buy). Be this as it may, my general lack of fondness for this type of car was unexpectedly augmented when I decided, perhaps against my better judgement but out of normal courtesy, to give the UX a wash before returning it to the dealer, snow and sleet during the week having dirtied the flanks and rear. Of course, one thing led to another so that the sponging and wiping of one area naturally extended to others with the result that I ended up washing the whole car. With no other car I have ever known or examined have I found myself cursing the presence of so great a number and variety of nooks and crannies, many of them reached only with difficulty and all of them capable of attracting and trapping amounts of filth whose removal would require the sort of effort that only an owner’s love for the car would justify. And, of course, this having been the only SUV I have ever washed or tried to wash, I had previously not fully appreciated how difficult it would be to access the roof without recourse to steps or an extendable brush, neither of which I had on hand or, given my increasingly bad temper, that I was willing to go and fetch.

I seem to recall Luther usually drove a seedy old Volvo (much better suited to dents in the bodywork than a Lexus).

I would have thought Idris Elba is too big to fit into an RC. But, if he ever did drive one, I’m sure the fact would not have escaped the notice of the many devotees of Lexus trivia who post in the LOC.

Maybe he brought the car with him from London?

Absolutely. Although less common in Europe than the U.S. at the time, product placement figured in the media budgets of consumer-goods companies I worked for in the 80s, and the practice was not new. One of the larger ad agencies we used even had a specialist department that negotiated brand deals with film and TV studios. Leaving aside car chases and action sequences, for which any or most other marques would have been equally suitable, I have always thought that some of the Lexus placements in TV shows were cleverly done insofar as they were appropriate to characterisations and therefore added depth to the productions. Take, for example, the brand-new IS250 in one of the last scenes in the final episode of The Sopranos. This is precisely the sort of car a wealthy father like Tony Soprano would have given his spoilt daughter as a graduation present, and it was entirely in character that she should immediately have kerbed the rims. Then there was the annoying girlfriend of one of the corrupt cops in The Shield who insisted he buy her a GS as the sort of car that would impress her clients as an aspiring estate agent. Even though I am not at all sure if it was a bought placement, my favorite Is, however, the LC In the Doc Martin TV series in the U.K., which is the perfect choice of car for the show’s highly individualistic (not to say eccentric) but scientifically discerning lead character.

Lexus’ product placements nowadays aim for a futuristic design/technology image exemplified by appearances in sci-fi or semi-contemporary fantasy/action movies. Placements in the late 90s/early 00s, exemplified by TV series like The Sopranos and 24 aimed, rather more simply, to mitigate Lexus’ staid, solid-citizen, “old man’s car” image by presenting it as the marque favoured by characters varying from vaguely disreputable to downright villainous.

I don’t know if my RC has a variant aircon system but switching between outside and recirculated air is automatic unless manually overridden by the relative buttons, with the sensitivity settings (standard and 3 x plus/minus) accessible and modifiable only via the vehicle menu.

Indeed it is - and, like I said, not always worth it.

Main Menu>Setup>Vehicle>Vehicle Personalization>Exhaust Gas Sensor

If the current RC300h manual is anything to go by, you would find the function mentioned under Using the air conditioning system/Automatic mode for air intake control and also Customizable features/Automatic air conditioning system/Exhaust gas sensor sensitivity. It is not described in any detail, so I guess the authors figure it to be self-explanatory once the relative settings appear on your display.

Not "secret" in either of the two RC300h I have had (and nor was it, I seem to recall, in premium versions of the IS300h) but a customisable feature of the climate control system with a maximum sensitivity setting of +3 from Normal. I regret to say that even when set to maximum I have rarely found it to work quickly and effectively enough to prevent fumes from preceding vehicles getting into the cabin, with the result that I usually find myself hitting the air intake switch manually before entering a long tunnel or sitting in traffic queues etc.

Far be it from me to doubt the opinions and recommendations of the CEO of a leading purveyor of superlative detailing products like Swissvax, but I would imagine that the growing market for ceramic coating has in recent years made a big dent in the sales of the high-end waxes for which his company is famous.

Never having had any car of mine ceramically coated I can offer no comments from experience, but I have often wondered why manufacturers, given the reported advantages of the process, don’t automatically apply it to all cars before they leave the factory.

I don’t know about actively liking it, but if the physical environment was right, which excludes all of Europe, I certainly wouldn’t dislike it. It is clearly designed to look at least as big as it actually is, which is is already very big indeed. Witness the horizontal grille bars emphasizing width, and the barely rounded extremities emphasizing overall bulk. All in all it is a worthy competitor in the “Full-Size SUV” segment. I am surprised Lexus hasn’t contracted Arnie Schwarzenegger as its lead testimonial seeing that he still seems to prefer Yukon/Hummers.

I take it this is an LX. I once saw an earlier generation one with Russian plates in a motel car park in Germany. Its driver, like the car itself, was appropriately huge and unsmiling and dressed in black. It was parked sideways across two spaces, presumably so that it could drive off more easily, not that anyone dared to park nearby.

Don’t know about that, but I am told that comely lady cricketers wearing pads and wielding bats can have a titillating effect on some spectators, though I understand they nowadays disappointingly eschew skirts in favour of pants.