SH20

The word refurbished is often quoted with alloy wheels. Mobile wheel repair services or smart repair as quoted by EVA which dealers are known to use cannot refurbish a wheel in the truest sense as they don't powder coat the stripped down rim, they merely repair the affected area and repaint and lacquer the wheel. They cannot replicate the oven element of a refurbished wheel if they are a mobile service. Refurbished is when the wheel has the tyre and valve removed and all the surface coatings removed completely in an acid based bath literally down to the base alloy. The damaged area is then repaired before the process of dry powder coating the rim which is baked in an oven at high temperature and liquifies the powder coating into the final hard coating which then has a lacquer coat applied to seal the whole wheel. That's why they look brand new if done properly. Mobile services are cheaper per wheel but not that much compared to powder coating. Typically a set of four GS450h alloys I had done cost £280 incl vat and they looked like new rims when finished including the rebalancing of the wheel as all the weights were previously removed. Your photo looks like a breach of the lacquer coat which exposed the unprotected colour coat of the rim.

Best angle of an ES is three quarter from the rear when the sun is still casting shadow. Mesa Red looks very subtle in these conditions.

Extensive waiting times in D with the Hold function activated will ultimately bring up a warning on the dash about putting the transmission into Park. I think it was around 10 mins or less, not sure before it appeared when I pulled into a layby to take a phone call. I'm not sure why the car's software thought it prudent to suggest this but there must have been a reason. However as NemesisUK said never shift into N with the engine running. This from the manual If the shift lever is in N, the hybrid battery (traction battery) will not be charged even when the engine is running. Therefore, if the vehicle is left with the shift lever in N for a certain period of time, the hybrid battery (traction battery) will discharge, and this may result in the vehicle not being able to start

I'll keep this brief. It only takes one person to feel offended or irritated in some way and before you know it we have "Me Too" on our hands. I may decide to cancel myself tomorrow on my birthday. Ha Ha. I am OCD but I think anyone with an Engineering background will always do "Micro Detail". No real harm after all. I can assure you that when you beat Cancer there are no words on any forum that can bruise an ego. Thank you to members who saw past the OCD and were more supportive of the original idea. Appreciate it.

As far back as 2013 I designed some bespoke jacking plates for a 2007 Jaguar XK which was quite low to the ground by design and I wanted a better easily accessed jacking arrangement that would help me remove wheels but also make sure a dealer would raise the car on their two post lift correctly. A local Engineering shop turned my drawings into reality. The aim of this design was to ensure a dealer would locate the pads of the swing arms in the correct place and therefore remove the risk of damaging or bending the car's actual metal body sill pinch seam behind the plastic outer sill cover. I've seen many sill flanges twisted out of shape because of mechanics who couldn't be bothered to get the lift pad directly centred on the sill flange. I've been transferring these plates on to all my subsequent cars without any drilling of the sill flange, working on the principle of two sturdy stainless steel bolts that pull the body of the assembly to the sill flange. The circular 12mm thick yellow jacking plate then screws to the main body. The main issue I had was having to remove them and refurbish/repaint them every 6 months due to the harsh road conditions the weather/road salt etc would inflict on them. As they are made of steel and despite using Hammerite for protecting the surface it was never enough so finally I thought I would have them blasted and then powder coated to see if that helps. Time will tell if this will be a longer lasting form of protection. The option to have these parts made from stainless steel was very expensive at the time so I opted for mild steel, something I now regret because of the maintenance I have needed to do so far. I carry a small trolley jack in a carry case and use a slightly larger diameter dished 12mm plate firmly secured in the pivot point of the jack. This allows the yellow plate to sit inside it as the car is jacked up. This ensures the car is being lifted with a greater surface area that a scissor jack on a thin sill flange. The jacking plates transferred easily to the ES300 and the photos show how the trolley jack makes it easy for me to raise the car when I need to. The small holes you can see in the yellow plates either side of the centre stud are for a spanner which allows me to tighten the plates securely. It's a spanner that you get with a disc cutter for changing metal or stone cutting discs which I reversed engineered so the two pins in the spanner lined up with two holes I drilled in the plates. A large stainless steel spring washer sits between the black body and the yellow disc to ensure it never backs off.

Rear seats folding down would have been a real bonus like a lot of the competition. Must have been battery location that influenced no fold down seats I guess.

Rather eat a light bulb than pay any attention to motoring journalists who feel it is their duty (and how can we live without their wisdom on all things cars) and who trash products like Lexus and Toyota and any other manufacturer. They need to try a real job like folk whose contribution can be measured and counted in long hours in a factory, hospital or building things people need or people who volunteer to help others who are in desperate need and do so without reward. No we have to listen to journalists bemoan how things are just not quite right , not fast enough, too much over steer or under steer, blind you with things they read about or copied from a manufacturer's press release and say not good enough or have the wrong badge on the bonnet to give a car kudos. All hail to car designers, brilliant Engineers who improve products all day every day without us having to put up with people who can use a laptop and type 60 words of drivel a minute. They salivate over a MBW M3 or Audi S4 and tell us how great they are. This type of journalists wet dream become money pits after 4 or 5 years when they are out of warranty and cost thousands to fix. Take a look on Youtube and witness serious failures and defects on these sort of cars. Service your Lexus or Toyota every year and enjoy a 10 year warranty period with little or no warranty claims. You can only imagine the Board of BMW, Mercedes and Audi choking on their Bratwurst sausage at the thought of offering that on their overpriced model lineup Too much?

Ordered 26.10.21, drove car off the forecourt 7.1.22. Ten weeks 3 days. I think I might have received someone else's cancelled order.

Yes the flaps fit on a 2022 model as they did back in 2019. All panels are the same so I just transferred them to my new ES. No difference at all.

Hi Pete, yes you will be fine as the wheel is advertised for the GS range of Lexus models. All GS models of this era have the 5 hole wheel space saver and I bought mine off EBay for a similar price. Bear in mind if you bought one retail from a Lexus dealer you would be talking £200 minimum. So at £47 it's a bargain even though you have to pay postage. The 80 on the sticker is 80 kph equal to 50 mph maximum speed. Also check the pressure if you buy it as this needs to be around 60 psi a lot more of course than your ES tyre pressures. When I bought my second hand GS450h space saver I immediately fitted it on one of the front hubs and also on one of the rear hubs to check for clearance and on both hubs the wheel spins freely, no obstructions. Your existing wheel nuts fit as normal and the tightening torque is 82.5 lb/ft. Don't worry if you don't have a torque wrench, you'll have changed a wheel or two in the past so use the same leverage you would use by instinct like most people do. Your wheel nuts have a convex or rounded dome face and the wheel has corresponding concave or dished face holes and even though the space saver is a steel rim as opposed to your alloy wheels the wheel nuts fit both wheel types. Hope this helps, looks like you are on your way.

Not at all Pete, I firmly believe that all car Forums exist to assist or seek information by fellow enthusiasts. I was equally active in the LS460 and GS450 forums as well as Jaguar and Bentley forums too. I have learned so much from other contributors who strive to help with technical and non technical info. I'm already thinking 2-3 years ahead and think that a Takumi ES300h (Used I might add to limit the years I would have to pay £500 + road tax) is a likely choice.

Thanks Pete, the nylon wheel cover I used to cover the space saver when I carried it around in the boot is actually a small motor cycle wheel cover off EBay (again) and the Lexus logo was also sourced on EBay under a Lexus vinyl graphics/badge search. Very cheap and you get around 5 in a pack for a few pounds. Type in LEXUS CAR SEAT / HEADREST DECALS - Vinyl Stickers - Graphics Logo badge X5. The first seller comes up as cheeky_chappie_decals who I have used many times. Click on his visit shop link and you will be amazed at what you will see incl choice of colours.

Pete , all space savers need to be approx the same overall diameter but not imperative. The 18 inch wheels on a ES Premium Edition need a space saver that gets near the overall diameter of the wheel and tyre. That is why space savers look like the wheel itself has a smaller diameter but its the space saver tyre that has a deeper tyre wall section and so overall it gets near to the diameter of the wheel and tyre your car has. Bear in mind space savers are an emergency wheel restricted to a maximum speed of 50 mph but will have no impact on driving the car should you be thinking of gear ratios and/or wheels spinning at different speeds because they differ in overall diameter slightly. My ES has 18 inch rims with an overall diameter incl the tyre of 26 inches. My space saver is off a Lexus GS450h and is a genuine Lexus wheel with an overall diameter of 25 inches so the 1 inch difference will have no real effect while driving. Go to E Bay and type in Lexus spare wheel securing bolt. You will see the first offering at around £10, free delivery and would fit. The seller is IVparts . You can type in Toyota spare wheel securing bolt and you will see similar stuff. PS The photos of the rear LS460 winter mats are attached as are a couple of pics of the LS460 I had. Fabulous car. Cheers Steve

OK Pete I'll photo the LS460 rear winter mats later on today, in and out of my ES so you can form an opinion. But as I say they may only come as a set of 4 and the fronts would be surplus plus they would cost well over £100 now as they cost £96 in 2015. The LS was the best car I ever owned and you may not believe this but in the past I owned 3 Bentleys, 4 Jaguars and then moved over to Lexus in 2015 and the LS was the first of my 4 Lexus cars. The LS was a 2007 one owner car and the owner who owned a caravan park ordered it with every option Lexus had at the time. It had metallic dark red paint and cream leather. It was just outstanding and very low mileage and only sold it because I wanted to move over to a hybrid so got my first hybrid a GS450h Premium and then of course the 2 ES300's over the last 2 and a half years. Now won't consider any other brand. What about other winter mats from other Lexus models? RX, NX etc. Maybe your Lexus dealer's parts man could explore what they might know/have that might fit an ES. Steve

Interesting Pete, I look from time to time on other models forums and I have seen your posts in the ES forum. I owned a LS460 SE-L and bought a set of winter rubber mats when I had that car. Very reasonable price at the time and held them back when I sold the car. I now use the rear set in my own ES300h now and they fit very well in terms of shape, the rear footwell of a LS460 is a similar shape and size as the ES. Can't suggest anything if you want lambswool etc but I'm assuming you have the front winter mats in your ES which you correctly say are the only set Lexus do for the ES. I bought the LS set as a set of 4 so not sure if the rear pair can be bought only as a rear set. You could ask your dealer I guess.

The tray was £278 incl vat. The space saver wheel was £45 (used) on ebay (Lexus GS450h) and the securing fitting that holds the wheel still in the wheel well was £8 (used) on ebay which is a standard item on all Toyota and Lexus cars.

The first photo in the thread Pete shows how I carried the space saver in my boot in my first ES for 2 years and my fuel figs were never below 50.4 mpg combined. Maybe the weight of a space saver might affect mpg but to achieve 50 mpg for a car this size is good in my book. I guess there is an argument that a flat tyre is something that happens and most drivers have experienced one but it is the exception rather than the rule. It's just that I hate the idea of using an inflation kit and then having to buy a £150 tyre for a simple puncture that could be repaired after a space saver is used temporarily to get you home or to the tyre shop. That goo from the inflation kit is not something tyre shops will entertain removing to get to the puncture site.

The tool tray graphics show the two types of tool trays that exist and a full size spare would need the two piece tray on the left compared to the tool tray on the right which I fitted for a space saver wheel. A chassis number would drive the choice if ordering a Takumi tool tray in the US from a dealer. You can see how the "bucket" which the actual tools would fit in would pass through the middle of the flat tray allowing the bucket to end up in the space of the upside down full sized alloy wheel sitting in the wheel well.

Interesting that the link shows a Takumi model with an 18 inch alloy wheel in the wheel well. The space saver wheel I have is approx 4 inches across the tread pattern of the tyre and it touches the underside of the tool tray I have just fitted. I did notice however that the pictures the Lexus dealer printed off of all the variations of tool trays there was one picture of a tool tray surround with a large round hole in the middle of it approx 15 inch in diameter where a round bucket shaped polystyrene tool holder obviously fitted through the hole of the tray which then must occupy the inside of the Takumi full size alloy wheel. Clever.

After a special order was made to purchase the space saver wheel tool tray, it arrived today. I used to carry my spare wheel in the boot (Photo) because of the large original tool tray/inflation kit arrangement and it was something I just accepted until the part number 64779-33280 was made available by another forum member who wanted his spare under the floor like the US and most of Europe have. So it's done and gives me the solution I wanted since I took delivery of my first first ES back in 2019. Perfect fit of course but at a hefty £278.15 incl vat. I was quoted £231 but wasn't told it was plus vat. No discount as it was a special order because it's not a UK spec part. The dealer let me try it in the boot to make sure all was well and then I paid for it. In 2022 my new ES cost £35,725 after all discounts and PCP allowances so the £278.15 I spent to get where I needed to be was an expensive option that somehow I justify to myself. Plenty of storage space for stuff over and above the basic tools the tray was designed for originally. You can see the huge difference in depth between the two trays. Now I have a more spacious boot.

Mesa Red and Hazel Trim

Best supplier of detailing products by far in my opinion is Clean Your Car Detailing Products Ltd of Huddersfield whose online shop is legendary. Just replenished some stock myself as a result of collecting my own new ES last week. In my basket at the moment is a Blo Air-RS Car Dryer which blows warm filtered air, 30 degrees warmer than the ambient temperature, with a 5.5 hp motor, variable speed function and a 600watt heating element built in. At £150 though I just need a push from the side of my brain that handles pleasure to buy it. I've moved away wherever possible from touching the paint apart from the actual washing of the panels and after pressure rinsing have been using a less powerful and cheaper air blower to shift the bulk of the water but it's on it's last legs hence the need to buy the Blo Air RS machine.

I've seen a lot of Youtube videos by this German chap (Autogefuhl) on lots of different cars. He is very thorough and understands what he is reviewing.

Another example of Lexus customer care.

Still a good choice the NX. I stood next to a showroom NX and was very impressed with the interior, not sure what spec it was but no wonder it's their best selling car.