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Just as an FYI, the driver's seat cooling fan on my 2018 LC500H stopped working. Bought the car last December from Lexus Hedge End, noticed only recently, but checked at dealer and new fan fitted without any fuss today.

Interesting. But accessibility doesn't define a public place, plenty of case law on that. For example, company car parks intended for use only by staff and customers is not a public place. Or a community centre car park, or an internal roadway on a university campus. The purpose of access is key. If access is intended for private purposes only then it's not a public place. If use of the land is intended to be used by the public, or its use by the public is tolerated then it's public land. That's the principle, each case will turn on the facts. I'm confident my driveway is not public land!

I don't think that is all correct or clear cut. Section 5, Road Traffic Act 1988 requires the offence to be on a road or other public place. I doubt a private driveway classes as a public place. In addition, Section 5a (2) provides the following statutory defence: "In relation to being in charge of a motor vehicle, a person is not guilty if they prove that the circumstances were such that there was no likelihood of them driving the vehicle whilst the proportion of alcohol in their breath, blood or urine exceeded the prescribed limit." Not my area of law but keys not in the car I reckon is pretty safe. Keys in the car but not in the ignition? Debatable. Sleeping in the back? Not clear cut but certainly arguable. What's not debatable or arguable is getting a good lawyer with the relevant experience should you need it!

I would definitely ask about the security, there's a tracker and geofence device being fitted to cars at some dealers at least. I'm sure you'll want to know if yours has been done and if not when. If not before you pick it up, then what arrangements are they making? Hedge End have been super helpful whenever I've had questions or small issues that needed sorting. I opted to fit a Scorpion canbus immobiliser and S5 Tracker to both mine so not something I've personally asked about.

Sounds like a great car, the colour combo is one of my favourites. Got my 450h and LC from Hedge End, can't fault them and would be happy to buy from them again if that helps!

Thanks, but I have the Scorpion Can immobiliser and tracker, I don't think the plates will make much difference except more damage if the scrotes try to remove them.

My Dec 21 is not listed for a recall, hasn't had the plates fitted...

I went from about £500 to £875 this month with same company, tried Compare and could only shave a few pounds so stayed where I was. That's with a tracker and Scorpion immobiliser.

Apparently I'm still awaiting moderation; I'm just going outside and may be some time...

Posted this, let's see if they leave it or moderate it and/or reply... Reading the press and the Lexus Owners Club Forum it appears that Lexus is experiencing a serious theft problem involving the ES, RX and latterly the LC. Apart from the distress and worry, a knock on effect is that they are becoming much more expensive to insure, with Lexus own insurance refusing cover in some cases – if that’s not an admission of a failure for owners, what is? And how many sales are now being lost and what’s this doing to the confidence in the brand? I own two of these vehicles, an RX and an LC. My question to Lexus is what are you doing about this theft pandemic? Please don’t post a standard answer, speak to your local center (who are strangely unaware of the problem), fit extra security, etc., people reading this are not stupid, they buy Lexus for goodness sake, or are thinking about it! Land Rover have grabbed the bull by the horns and are offering upgrades to their vehicles and recently announced an owners insurance scheme. Come on Lexus, let’s have some real action, not just a steel plate for the RX which isn’t even being publicised (because there aren’t enough to go round?).

What's the basis of the appeal? If you are saying their database is wrong you need to back it up with evidence and pointing to other cars might not cut it (it wouldn't in court) if they are working on stated emissions (presumably from DVLA). If the DVLA or TFL are wrong you need to show why. Check your V5 emissions against the Euro 4 standards, if they are in tolerance then a copy of the V5 is indisputable evidence. Alternatively, get a letter from Lexus stating your car's Euro standard, again, indisputable evidence. Don't fall into the trap of just telling them they are wrong, they will just say they aren't. Sorry for the grizzled old lawyer bit but I've seen many people being right but losing because of lack of evidence or just thinking being right is enough... It's obviously not a date issue with the TFL database then.

This might be a date thing. The Lexus link above says they are compliant from January 2006 but the 55 reg ran from 1 Sep 2005 until 28 Feb 2006. Digging a little deeper, Euro 4 appears to have been started/available from 1 Jan 2005 but not compulsory for new registrations until 1 Jan 2006. Perhaps it's more about the date of registration than the reg number, i.e. TFL are working to the compulsory date of registration rather than the actual compliance of the individual vehicle? They say they work on the declared emissions of the car but that doesn't mean that's what they do in practice. That doesn't make it right but might be the point that needs arguing - knowing that is half the battle. If you can check the emissions stated on your V5 against the standard or get a statement from Lexus (or perhaps it even says Euro 4 on the V5?) stating your actual car is Euro 4 that might solve it. Good luck!

There wasn't a sticker though I wasn't planning on using it if there was. My view is you're just providing information which may help them though I can see it both ways. Theft attempts of these cars are generally non-destructive other then peeling back part of the body to get to the CANBUS through the light, I think that just breaks some poppers which are easily fixed. Anyone setting out to steal one of these is going to be a professional (not a joy-riders car, let's face it!), doing it to order, and isn't going to be be put of by a steering lock - there's a video on another recent thread showing the best of them being removed by amateurs in less than 30 seconds, some much quicker. I paid £877 for the immobiliser and tracker with a two year monitoring pack. Agree the ad is a bit misleading, I mentioned this to them and they said they were going to make it clearer.

Bought my wife a year old RX450h with 3k on the clock (Lexus Hedge End, who were great throughout) back in December and then started reading all the theft horror stories and suspected that at some point the scumbags are going to get to the South Coast. In the end decided to take advantage of the Gold Member discount on the Scorpion X CANBUS Immobiliser and S5 Tracker and had these fitted yesterday. Lauren at Scorpion was very helpful, excellent comms, very accommodating and pleasure to deal with. Fitter was also very pleasant, efficient and a very neat job, basically I wouldn't know anything had been done to the car. He was great at showing me the set up, how to make changes, walked me through how to change the PIN, how the tracker worked etc. Made sure everything was set up, from the car to the app, before he left. Getting the car going is now just the extra step of inputting a series of button presses on the steering wheel (easy to do and easily changed), probably takes an extra 5 seconds, if that. Car fires up and does everything else but will not 'start' without the code (fog light indicators in the dash flash when you get it right and the 'Ready' light comes on). The tracker app was super easy to download and set up, took a couple of minutes, my account with Scorpion had all been set up so all I had to do was put in my email address, confirm it was me via email and I was good to go with all the car details pre-loaded. The app works very well, I can see where the car is on a map (which you can select, I chose Google Maps), when it's moving it shows along with speed, direction and at the bottom it has written details (road it is in and the post code, changes in real time as it's moving). It even tells you the state of the battery. The tracker comes with a tag - if it moves without the tag being in the car the Tracker Call Centre and me will be alerted. The app also has the option for an electronic tag to be added to the phone so that the physical tag isn't required, the phone acts as the tag, you can even set the sensitivity so that the app tag can't be read from longer distances. All in all I'm much happier that the car is protected, my experience with Scorpion was first class and I'd certainly recommend them based on my experience of the people and product so far.

Hi Billy, no it wasn't me (my wife never believes that!). I thought they were original to the car, I don't recall any receipts for wheels in the pack I had for them. I assumed they were more black, do look good though! Mark