Rabbers

I have spent the last couple of days with a bandaged wrist as the result of a quarrel with the driver-side door of my RC. This is what happened. Having parked sideways on a slope with the driver's side uppermost, and being unable to easily open the door to the holding position because of its weight, I gave it a strong shove so that I could swing one foot out onto the ground and hold a position that allowed me to get out. Unfortunately, when I caught the door to stop it crushing my leg on its return swing I felt a stabbing pain in my wrist, which I then worsened by pushing the door open as per my original intent. After a while the base of my hand and wrist became swollen, evidencing a classic sprain. This was, of course, entirely my own stupid fault, but, if I was taught any lesson apart from it being safer not to park a long-doored coupé on a slope, it was to remember to slide the seat all the way back in order to facilitate pushing the door open in similar circumstances and never in future attempt to counteract the force of gravity.

About ten years ago, which was the last time I was in the U.K. in my own car - an IS250 - I had a problem with alarm occasionally sounding off for no apparent reason, leading to more than a little embarrassment when it happened a couple of times in hotel car-parks in the middle of the night. It not being too far out of my way, I took the car to Lexus Cardiff, where I was told they would look at the car for a fee of £90 (if I remember right). When I said this sounded a bit steep, they replied something like "Well, you know, Lexus is a luxury car, so what do you expect?", whereupon I said no thanks and left. Back across the Channel the next day, the alarm having thankfully gone off only once on the Ostend ferry, I took the car to Lexus Brussels, explained the problem and watched the car promptly disappear into the workshop. It came back twenty minutes later with the mechanic's assurance that the problem was solved, having had something to to with a sensor inside the hood, and with a work-sheet stating No Charge.

Not to mention the Smart ForTwo trading on its Merc quality association while being mainly a Twingo in different clothing ...

Roy and Peter: I have no evidence one way or the other based on personal experience since I have kept no single one of three hybrids before my present RC300h for more than 75k km, but, based on what my dealer told me when I bought my first (an IS300h) back in 2013, the life expectancy of the traction battery was 200-250k km, making it good for up to ten years' use for most people. This is probably what Lexus advised him to tell his customers but it could also be that, as a Toyota dealer, he was basing the figure on his own experience with the Prius, of which he had sold quite a few units for use as taxis.

Yes, I would have thought the traction battery must have been changed more than once with this kind of mileage. As regards the mileage itself, the amount of driving many Germans do for work and pleasure never ceases to amaze me, and it clearly relates to the capillary nature of the autobahn network, which allows anyone to go just about anywhere and back in a day if they so choose.

The condition had to be seen to be believed. Every visible part required serious attention, so much so that the car might well have been quicker and cheaper to scrap (or bury in a lake) than to sell. A glance in the back indicated that it had been used - or was still being used - as a place to eat and sleep by someone leading a nomadic existence, a use facilitated by the absence of a front passenger seat. Be this as it may, and given the legendary zeal of the local polizei, the car must have been officially certified as roadworthy, and this alone is something of a tribute to Lexus long-term reliability quite independently of the mileage.

in reply to I would have agreed with Paul until June last year when, at a filling station on the German-Swiss border, I couldn't resist asking the owner of an amazingly seedy-looking early-generation IS300h with German plates how many km it had done. It was, in fact, the worst-looking Lexus I have ever seen. I was not entirely surprised when the equally seedy-looking but friendly owner replied 540000. He was its fourth or fifth owner and had done no more than top up the oil a couple of times over the 40000km he had driven it after buying it for €1200. He was planning to scrap it soon since it was driving a bit rough. He added that he would like to buy another Lexus if he could find one at the right price.

Chris: Tried your suggestion #1, alas without success. Thanks anyway. Have now reported the issue on the phone to my dealer who, based on experience, thinks the seat might need a new motor ... !!!!! The car is still under warranty and will in any case soon need servicing, at which time they’ll figure out what to do.

Although the steering wheel and wing-mirrors still reposition themselves when I fasten my seat-belt or turn on the ignition, the seat has ceased to simultaneously slide into position, i.e. unlike the steering-wheel and mirrors the seat stays put in its last position. All the other seat functions are OK: the 1.2.3 settings can be memorised and changed, the seat slides forwards when the back is folded and backwards when it is returned to vertical, and the control buttons in the seat-base all work as they should. The Easy Access function in the Customisations menu is set to FULL as it has always been. Is there some control function I don't know about or that I might unintentionally have de-activated?

I was recently driving on the motorway when I noticed that the LDA had at some point stopped working although the icon remained lit. As the road was dry and the lane markings were perfectly visible I figured it was perhaps a momentary glitch or, at worst, an issue to be reported when I next have the car serviced, there being no hurry since I consider the LDA a useful but not indispensable aid. I had just about forgotten all about it when, having stopped to fill up, I saw that the section of the windscreen housing the LDA camera sensor located in front of the rear-view mirror had been centred by a large and opaque bird dropping. I promptly removed it and continued on my way with the LDA now working. I would normally not have thought this episode worth recording except for the fact that, based on several past experiences of the LDA camera being blocked by dense spray kicked up by trucks in heavy rain (which can similarly affect the ACC), I would have expected the "FRONT CAMERA VISION BLOCKED" warning message to appear on the dash. On this occasion it did not appear, with the result that I am left wondering if, despite appearances to the contrary, there may not still be a problem with the system.

Interesting post, Paul. The survey currently being run by the LOC shows that a third of members' cars are at least ten years old and almost two-thirds of them more than five, so that it is only natural that quality-related complaints should have been growing in number and might have become more severe in nature. That a good number of recent grievances should regard models of a low average age like the LC, ES and UX is, on the other hand, a very negative development, though it remains to be seen whether the impact on Lexus' reputation for reliability will be sufficient to weaken the marque's historically dominant position in customer satisfaction surveys. As for me, the few quality issues I have had over the years, starting with an IS200 and continuing with two IS250s and two IS300h's before two RC300h's including my present one, all of them regularly serviced, have been almost entirely confined to defects with some of the cars' bought-in components (i.e. ones not manufactured by Lexus itself or, as far as I know, within the Toyota group) such as corrosion-prone alloys and condensation-prone headlights. These were replaced no-questions-asked under warranty and usually reasonably promptly. I have had no build-quality issues except for a mysteriously noisy folding wing-mirror on an RC, and this too was replaced under warranty. Issues with electronics have been minor and always quickly resolved. Admittedly, since none of the cars were more than 3-4 years old or had done much more than 100000km when I changed them, wear-and-tear has never been an issue for me. I have always found it vexing that Lexus does not give a 5-Year warranty though I fully understand why it doesn't when its direct competitors also don't. And it could reasonably be argued that any move to lengthen the warranty would be to downgrade the marque's image by placing it in the same bracket as Mazda, Honda et al., besides Toyota itself. Ultimately, though, I think the main reason for Lexus' decision not to offer a 5-Year warranty from its easiest days was the serious (and continuing) risk of encouraging significant numbers of customers to keep their cars longer, thereby postponing repeat purchases and reducing new car sales.

I didn’t use a kit whereby you need to adjust the tone of the dye, though I probably should have. I bought - unwisely as it turned out - a pre-mixed dye that was claimed, indeed guaranteed, to match the Lexus colour I was wanting to restore, this being identified by a code. The claim was undoubtedly true insofar as the product would have provided a perfect match on new leather (for the restoration of which there would hardly be much demand). There are several suppliers of these premixed dyes. I bought mine, simply labelled Classic Dyes, from the online catalogue of Sewells Lexus of Dallas, Tx.

Being easier to correctly match than other colours, black offers the best chance of small areas of surface wear being restored so as to be visible only on close inspection, making the services of a professional unnecessary. As long as the discoloured surfaces have not been so roughened by wear as to present a different texture to the surrounding leather, they can simply be re-dyed using a brush in multiple light applications before finishing with a sealant once the required depth of colour is achieved. If the discolourations are confined to a self-contained section of the seat, e.g. a bolster, it will probably be useful to go over the entire surface of the section with one or two final applications of dye by way of further blending in the restorations. Cleaning and degreasing with a solvent before the first application of dye are essential, all the more so when the discolourations are shiny or are known to have been treated with wax or any silicone-based products that are likely to have created a barrier to absorption of the dye. When I last had black leather seats a few years ago the brand of dye and sealant I used was Colourlock, preceded by a generic solvent. The result was good but I daresay any reputable brand of leather care products would do just as well. I once attempted the same work on a creased and discoloured section of beige leather in an IS250, but although the colour code of the dye was supposedly correct, the resulting match was disappointing because the leather of the entire seat had faded to lighter shade in respect of OEM.

My 2016 RC F-Sport had both ACC and BSM as standard, but not Lane Assist. The car was Italian spec, similar, to my knowledge, to that of F, E, CH and therefore, I would strongly surmise, common to the rest of continental Europe. My guess is that the U.K. anomaly (if considered so) may have something to do with production runs of LHD units, but my curiosity frankly does not extend to researching whether the 2016 RC F-Sport specs for AUS, ZA, NZ etc., etc., as well as for Japan itself, replicate each other.

The absence of the distance-set button next to the lane-change alert button means that ACC is not present. I believe the U.K. was the only European market where ACC was not standard on the F-Sport version of the 2016 RC300h.

Although I've once or twice needed to dig myself out of snowdrifts, I've never had any serious mishaps in snowy or icy conditions on normal roads and in normal traffic. So, apart from the usual uncomfortable feeling of not being in complete control of the car and the belief that other drivers are less worried about possibly hitting me than I am about hitting them, my dislike of anything but the lightest snow is not based on any specific bad experience. It is based, rather, on the fact that I live at the bottom of a long and steep incline consisting of sections of old cobblestones and age-worn granite slabs. The presence of compacted snow and/or dense slush on these kinds of surfaces means that winter tyres as an alternative to chains are an absolute necessity. In such conditions, provided that SNOW-mode is on and TRC and VSC are off, and with 1st Gear engaged and creeping speed maintained, the RC can negotiate the hill satisfactorily in either direction, though I invariably expect a few rear wobbles, especially when moving off after undesirable but occasionally necessary full stops. Both of the IS300h's I had before my first RC, one of them with the same fatter rear tyres as the RC, seemed to keep a straighter trajectory when moving off on compacted snow than the RC, which may have been the result of a gentler pedal response or a more favourable distribution of weights, but the differences between the models is really no more than marginal. The thought of having had to negotiate the hill in the IS250s that preceded my first IS300h brings back unfond memories of frequent losses of control and sometimes quite violent fishtailing as a prelude to ending up sideways, my prayers for snow-free winters having usually gone unanswered.

Indeed it does, though it has been depressingly observed that the festive spirit has, like snow, a tendency to turn to slush. Personally I like snow as depicted on postcards more than in real life and I am equally partial to videos of supercars doing controlled skids on icy tracks in places like Lapland as long as they don't encourage imitators in my own neighbourhood. Generally speaking I am not at all sure whether cars objectively lend themselves to manifestations of seasonal jollity. I once saw a car with what looked to be custom-fitted Santa's Hat covers on the wing-mirrors but the idea, while not wholly devoid of festive charm, seems not to have caught on.

Some years ago at a motor show I bought a bottle of a German brand of leather cleaner/conditioner called Munth Reinigungsmilch. Like those of other items displayed by what I suspected was a disgruntled former Swissvax employee, the formula was claimed to be identical to the Swissvax product and temptingly offered at a third of the price. I found it very good over several years of use and would happily have bought it again, but the brand seems to have disappeared from the market. Not having used the Swissvax original I was never able to validate the equivalence claim, but I don't doubt it is a very good product. My experience of the brand is limited to the tyre dressing and the quick detailer, both of them good but not vastly superior to some other far less expensive equivalents. I am probably not alone in wondering how Swissvax successfully pursues a policy whereby its prices make those of most other premium manufacturers look cheap.

Approx. 70km south of Milan.

Pirelli SottoZero (currently gen. 3) from November through April.

Looks good in all kinds of weather... 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

I'm not sure if we are talking about the same seat design, but after 71000km in my first RC F-Sport my bolster remained in pristine condition, and, fingers crossed, its counterpart in my present second RC F-Sport shows no signs of deterioration after 23000km. This I attribute primarily to the stitching of the bolsters, which has the effect of flattening the contours and making them less prone to creasing and friction than is the case, in my experience, with plumper unstitched surfaces. Of course, I would not presume to analyse the differences in punishment inflicted on seats by the individual rear quarters of individual drivers.

The RC is certainly not a car that lends itself to an elegant fluidity of motion on the part of those getting in or out, though alternative memory settings are a considerable help on the driver's side. When within earshot of third parties I have trained myself to stifle an embarrassing grunt from the effort it takes to lever myself out, but my main complaint regards the unavoidable need to swivel my rump on the seat through approximately 90° when swinging my legs in or, especially, out of the door. At the risk of sounding neurotic, I have to admit that I am afraid of thereby forcibly over-polishing the seat leather with the long-term risk of giving it an unnatural shine, not to mention creasing the outer bolster - though the latter possibility is fortunately much reduced in the case of the F-Sport seat design by virtue of the parallel stitching.

Have you actually tried measuring the distances, perhaps with a non-scratching cloth roll-up tape of the type used by dressmakers, in order to objectively prove or disprove?

Back in 2016 when I changed my IS300h for an RC300h and the touchpad was, of course, much more of a novelty, I posted the following comments (see RC300h v. IS300h New Car Choice-Part Two, RC Forum, 6 November 2016): "Although I am told most people disagree, I liked the touchpad and found it as easy and as instinctive to operate as the "mouse". Because my hand fell naturally on it, I did not need to consciously learn its position and keep glancing downwards as I feared. It did occur to me, however, that right-handed drivers in l-hd cars will always be favoured for longer tasks such as, for, example, the entering of satnav data with it." My opinion has not changed since that time, and I have noticed that the majority of negative comments over the years have continued to come from U.K. journalists whereas most continental European reviewers (in Italy and France, at least) tend to be neutral and rarely negative. This suggests that I may have been right about the touchpad being likely to find more immediate favour among owners of LHD cars.