Rabbers

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.

Interesting posts, Tony and John. I‘ve often thought that the design of many Lexus models is seen to best advantage from a two-thirds rear angle. Some women too, but preferably when in motion

No way. I believe only 15 units were imported into Italy, of which the majority were re-exported unsold, mainly, I understand, to Eastern European countries. Since Japanese corporations are renowned for their collective decision-making, I would guess the 200t has became a symbol of collective embarrassment

This morning I took my RC300h for its 45000km service. It was driving nicely, or so I thought, and I had no issues to report. I was therefore surprised to be asked if I wanted the hybrid battery fan cleaned, which I understood is now something Lexus recommends at 45000km intervals to coincide with the scheduled maintenance. Figuring that prevention is better than a possible unexpected need to cure the consequences of an overheated battery, I said yes, and regarded the price of €65 as yet another expense among the many that derive from my congenital inability to undertake what to many people might seem an easy do-it-yourself job. Anyway, the job was done, I trust properly, and although I might have imagined it, the car seemed quieter on the drive home and, subject to closer monitoring over the next few days, it also seemed to stay in EV mode longer.

Jensen, to answer your original question, I wouldn't, if I were you, be too concerned about choosing between a pre-facelift and a facelifted RC300h. Those of us who have owned both models (F-Sport versions in my case) bought the second because we liked the first - and on the basis of nobody's advice but our own. We also knew that, as is customary with Lexus facelifts, the aesthetic and functional changes would not be dramatic. Speaking for myself, I did not immediately like the new wheel design and some of the changes to the body as much as I do now, so I would therefore not be surprised if some owners still prefer the pre-facelift model. This might also be the case with the interior, although it would be true to say that prospective buyers who test only the earlier model won't be aware of, and therefore won't miss, the numerous small ergonomic and aesthetic improvements which have made what was already a pleasant cabin into an even nicer one. The same comment applies to the driving dynamics and acoustic comfort, which, along with the fuel economy, are noticeably better as the result of engineering tweaks. As regards comparisons with other cars in a similar price range, I wouldn't presume to offer an opinion without having driven them. This is the case with current BMWs, but I did test-drive a Mercedes C-Class Coupé and an Audi A5 before settling for my second RC, and while I wouldn't sneer at either of them as alternatives, I still preferred the RC because of the smoothness and seamlessness of the drive at all speeds, the materials and build quality, and the remarkable good looks, which, added to familiarity and my confidence in Lexus service, as well as the exclusivity inherent in small numbers, remain an unbeatable combination. I would recommend that you test-drive the RC300h for yourself without reference to third-party opinions which, if professional, may well be based on vested interests or, if private, on individual quirks. Aim for a facelifted example to test and possibly buy if the opportunity presents itself and if you believe the higher price likely to be asked is justified. But you can be assured that the pre-facelift version wouldn't disappoint you either.

I don't know how or to what extent the new U.K. Highway Code might favour cyclists, as mentioned in several posts above, but I would not be surprised if, as in many countries in recent years, they will benefit from more and more privileges without any increase of responsibility towards fellow road users. There was a time when I tolerated cyclists as minor nuisances and perhaps even grudgingly envied the ability of many of them to escape harm by exploiting the good sense of others. My attitude changed when, as a regular visitor to Copenhagen (more so in pre-Covid days), I saw what can happen when officialdom penalises the use of cars while actively encouraging bikes as an even greener alternative to public transport. An entirely re-mapped inner-city street network, bike lanes that further constrict narrow streets, re-paved roads with added raised kerbs, single-line motor lanes, stop-go lights timed to favour bike speeds, enlarged no-entry zones, etc., etc. have bred a collective arrogance and sense of privilege in cyclists - and unprecedented levels of incivility in all road users - that must be seen to be believed and is particularly disturbing in a city that was not only already bike-friendly but generally considered traffic heaven by visiting motorists. Today, swarms of cyclists race from one set of lights to the next, seemingly with the perverse intention of preventing cars from turning, with the result that the cars, to avoid getting stranded in mid-junction, are then tempted to race the bikes. Slow-moving vehicles that swerve even slightly to avoid bikes scraping past on the inside invite abuse from ones jockeying for space on the outside, with the result that damaged side-mirrors are not unusual. But perhaps the biggest sources of irritation, not only to motorists but to the majority of cyclists themselves, are suburban commuters with athletic ambitions who change from and into streamlined cycling garb at their places of work and use the dedicated lanes as race tracks to and from home, bullying slower fellow cyclists and often invading motor lanes in order to maintain speed. Another more quaint but not especially charming development has been the proliferation of custom-built bikes incorporating boxes or platforms for the largely unprotected transportation of children and/or pets and/or shopping, and which, to the irritation of everyone except their owners, are not only too bulky but also too slow in moving off at lights and crossings. I am told that there is occasional public debate about introducing permits and third-party insurance for cyclists, but this would require the expensive creation of a whole new bureaucracy for registration and identification, the latter being the only way for the police to impose any kind of control. As of today, the vast majority of infringements of codes and rules, as well as the damages caused by individual cyclists, unlike those of motorists, are formally undetected and therefore go unpunished, and will remain so in the foreseeable future.

Yes, it can be a mentally taxing and physically exhausting job, especially if you go the extra distance and give the top of the tank a wipe as well.

I completely understand your point and might even see some merit in it, but I would like to put on record that although I don’t know how to ride a bike and my only equestrian memory is of a ride on a beach donkey as a kid, I nevertheless objectively consider myself a competent driver insofar as I have done no harm to man or beast in almost six decades of motoring. Also, while admitting that the experiences were more than a little stressful and that I generally preferred to be driven rather than to drive in places like Karachi and Delhi, Lagos and Cairo, to mention only the least car-friendly of them, I am proud to say that I always managed to return hire cars to Avis and Hertz free of dents, invariably to the surprise of their staff.

There is no way I would ever buy a car before test-driving it, just as I wouldn't buy shoes without first trying them on. I must admit, though, that I have developed a tendency to keep conversations with the sales people who hand me the key for the test-drive as brief as normal politeness permits, meaning that what I want from a dealership is service and maintenance facilities and not technical advice and information which I can get elsewhere at my own leisure and probably more objectively. The logical consequence is that I would be perfectly content to order a new car on the basis of an online configuration provided it allows for price negotiation. I suspect this would also be the case with a lot of other long-time Lexus owners who generally already know what they are buying and why.

The weirdest thing I ever had happen with a car was on a drive back from Denmark to Italy for Christmas in record low temperatures one winter in the 1980s. The car was a metallic light blue Lancia Gamma Coupé, very nice in its day, if somewhat temperamental. So intensely cold was it when I set out that the metal of the door frame on the driver’s side had become distorted, preventing the window from closing fully and forcing me to drive the entire length of Germany in snow and ice with towels and wads of paper stuffed Into a 5cm gap, the worst journey of my life. By the time I finally crossed the Austrian border into Italy in what seemed possibly the worst in a long series of icy blizzards, I had resolved to find a hotel and wait for a lull in the weather. Then, when I stopped to fill up, I saw that the door-edge was looking flush with the rear pillar and flank and that the window, amazingly, was now able to close and open normally. I am not the sort of person who attributes human characteristics to their car, but if there was ever an example of a car telling its owner that it was glad to be home, this was it. And I could swear that the radiator grille at the same time took on all the appearance of a big wide grin.

The proneness of the leather to crease is much reduced with the F-Sport seats because of the firmness of the padding and, as regards the door-side bolsters, by the flatness of the surfaces resulting from the stitching and paneling. The design is especially effective in a low car like the RC, where you tend to drop vertically into the seat on entry and exert sideways pressure only briefly when half-turning the body upon exiting. The result, rather than wear, is therefore likelier to be a surface shine that can be satisfactorily reduced by periodic application of a leather cleaner followed by a sealant. I can well imagine, however, that the benefits of the F-Sport design from the standpoint of reduced wear and possible creasing are not as great in a higher car like the RX where the contact between body and seat, and the consequent rubbing, is probably longer on both entry and exit. Therefore, if creases develop, they will do so sooner. The only "abnormality" I have seen in the F-Sport seats is a slight dimpling of the leather after use of the heating function, which I assume to be the consequence of the leather and the padding expanding and contracting at different rates, and which disappears after a day or so or maybe less. Based on these observations, I find the creases in the photos in Geoff's OP likelier to have been caused by defective quality, perhaps in the thickness of the section of leather or in the underlying foam.

Very disappointing decision on Lexus’ part. Are you 100% confident that the dealership really did submit your complaint? If you are not it might be worth contacting Customer Services directly. Or you might want to do so anyway. If the creases worsen any further in the near future - let’s hope they don’t - you would certainly be justified in making a new and stronger complaint. I am on my second RC F-Sport with red leather seats, and after 70+40= 110,000km, have never seen any creasing.

When Lexus decided to withdraw the IS, it was logical that the RC, as the coupé version, should have shared its fate. The IS/RC, and the GS, were conceived when Lexus' commercial strategy, now abandoned in Europe, was to be present in most of the market categories historically occupied by Mercedes, BMW and Audi. Seeing that these marques had coupés alongside some of their top-selling saloons, most notably Mercedes with the C- and E-Classes, Lexus followed suit with a coupé version of its own most popular saloon, the IS. Had this me-too strategy been successful, which it clearly was not, we might eventually also have seen two-door versions of the CT and GS. I am not sure that many people view the LC and the RC as having much in common beyond their badge and coupé configuration (and virtually unusable rear seating). While the LC is so beautiful a creation in its own right that it arguably deserves to exist on the strength of successful design aesthetics alone, it was intended to attract customers away from the Mercedes SL, BMW 8, Audi R8 and some Porsche Carrera models - a category I once heard admirably described as "affordable supercars", namely desirable high-performance cars whose purchasers can't afford or simply won't stretch for a Ferrari or Lamborghini or Maclaren etc. Nor am I sure, speaking as an RC owner, that I would ever compare my car to an LC without blushing, let alone think of myself as belonging to the latter group other than in my dreams.

Toyota builds better and more attractive cars than it once did while there are signs that Lexus' build and materials quality, though still high, is slipping - a tendency less noticeable to new buyers than long-term owners familiar with earlier generations of the cars. Only the LS, recently, and the LC seem immune to criticism and remain generally accepted as being among the best-built cars in their categories. Leaving aside the two Lexus flagships and, at the other end of the scale, the Aygo and the Yaris, this has led to the perception that the quality gap between the two ranges has been narrowed without there having been a corresponding reduction of the price gaps. This means that potential customers for an ES, an UX or an NX, and perhaps an RX, need reassuring that they are not paying too much in respect of a Camry or, where available, an Avalon, or a RAV or a Highlander, all of them good cars capable of eroding the appeal a Lexus. How much of a problem Toyota's corporate management considers this to be is difficult to say, but the recognition of a connected need for product rationalisation was certainly made clear when the IS, the GS, the RC, the CT and the Avensis were withdrawn from all or some regional markets with the declared intention, among others, of eliminating some product overlaps or duplications, real or perceived, that supposedly created doubts among potential customers. Theoretically (and highly speculatively), there might well be a case for merging Toyota and Lexus into a single commercial entity (TOYOLEX?) with all product overlaps eliminated and, perhaps, with the LC and the LS spun off to form a new super-luxury marque along Maybach lines. Or, equally theoretically, there could be a totally alternative case whereby the Lexus range might be radically distanced from Toyota's by means of an elimination of all industrial and technical commonalities, with quality substantially upgraded and prices equally substantially increased, even, perhaps, with all cars offered exclusively as maximum-spec or bespoke packages. In other words, ambiguities and concomitant unproductive customer comparisons between the two brands will not be resolved by the continued use of different names but only by the elimination of one or, probably less workably, by a complete divorce between the two.

I believe all-season tyres are not available for my RC but, because snowfalls where I live tend to be severe when they occur, winters would in any case remain my tyre type of choice if only for peace of mind. I have no experience of all-seasons or any technical knowledge of them outside of manufacturers' claims, so I didn't presume to assess their merits in my OP. However, leaving aside obvious variables such as the qualities of cars and the skills of their drivers and, perhaps most importantly, the psychology and behaviour of individual drivers in given conditions, the fact remains that I observed two cars without winter tyres having more trouble on a potentially treacherous but fairly routine cold-weather drive than three cars with them. Therefore, should the day ever come when I could choose all-season tyres, which at this time of writing would require me not only to get another car but also to move to another place, the memory of this particular drive would inevitably influence my decision, more likely than not negatively.

But, after all, Christmas comes but once a year …

Agree about the Passat, but the Giulia driver in this particular case usually drives almost as well as me.

I agree, based on my own general experience, that winter tyres inspire a good degree of confidence in adverse road conditions, actual or perceived, perhaps occasionally even more than they should.

-1 to +1 degrees C.

Earlier today I was in a mini-convoy with four other cars headed for a festive lunch at a country restaurant some 18km from where we met up. The weather was sunny but very cold, and although the road had been cleared and salted there were still frequent patches of ice and crunchy slush after yesterday's snow. A BMW 530 led the way in front of a VW Passat and an Alfa Giulia, and a Merc B180 brought up the rear behind my RC. When we reached the restaurant, the 530's occupants were already inside whereas I, and the friend behind me, had lost a bit of our earlier good cheer after struggling to maintain a safe braking distance behind cars that were visibly uncomfortable in the bends and curves. Things became clear when we learned that they were running all-season tyres - Michelins in both cases - and not winters like the rest of us. Though tempted, I won't point to this episode as being revelatory of a universal truth, but it was certainly a better advertisement for the latter than the former type of tyres. That there should have been any noticeable difference in performance was unexpected since the conditions, while decidedly treacherous, were mainly snow-free and dry. On a more positive note I should record that the credibility of the Michelin brand was redeemed in our eyes when the star awarded to the restaurant by another arm of the company proved entirely justified.

Rear tyre wear is a problem with the RC (and I personally also experienced it with the IS). You might want to look at a brief thread on this forum, see Rear Tyres Check Recommended, started November 9, 2018, and there have been several others on the subject. When I changed to winter tyres last month, the wear on the rear Summers after approx. 27000km (=17K miles) was bad enough for me to need to the buy new ones when I switch back next March or April, which will be not only expensive but also irritating since the front ones are perfectly OK, and I would customarily want to change the entire set at the same time. As has also been usual in my experience, the wear appeared very suddenly, the tread having been acceptable when I did a normal check about 3000km previously. I am not in the UK, so I don't know the best place to buy tyres there.

Welcome, Danny Boi. If, as I would strongly recommend, you go as far back in this Forum as 2016 when the 300h was launched, you’ll find very few objective complaints, meaning that you’ve bought a car that is as reliable as it is nice. I’m sure you’ll enjoy owning it.

I feel myself drifting towards a similar decision about the ES after looking at the new NX, mainly because I simply can’t get over my prejudices against SUVs. No question that the ES is comfortable etc., but didn’t the size and standard of cabin finish affect your decision at all?

Yes, but bear in mind that you prolong the life of your normal tyres by not using them, and presumably they are not exactly inexpensive either!

I no longer monitor my fuel consumption as closely as I once did. My driving patterns have largely stabilised after a growing tendency, shared with Peter, to stay off motorways, thereby reducing frustration and generally allowing me to take in the scenery. Like I always did, I fill up immediately or very soon after the low-fuel warning comes on, and then note the resulting forecast full-tank range. The 890-920km (550-570 miles) I generally see in the 2019 RC indicates an improvement of something like 6% in everyday driving scenarios in respect of the 2016 model's 840-860km (520-535 miles). The forecast range between and after consecutive motorway-only runs would sometimes drop below 700km (435 miles) in the 2016 RC, and although I don't precisely recall what figures I saw after the very few comparable drives I have done in the 2019 model, they were certainly a lot better, maybe even as high as 800km (500 miles). In summary, I nowadays prefer to compare successive projected tank ranges after filling up rather than frequently or constantly looking at the average consumption figure. But when I do look, I expect to see 15km/l (42mpg) or better, and am frankly disappointed with anything less than 15.5km/l (44mpg). I haven't for quite some years used ECO mode, or even thought of doing so other than briefly. I was therefore interested and perhaps a little surprised to read that Jason, if I understand him right, actually does, or did, for as much as a whole tankful. Never having seen much point to it except perhaps in long queues and abnormally slow traffic, I have not tried to figure out its presumably favourable effect on consumption - though I imagine somebody somewhere probably has.