SH20

I can understand now why my Lexus dealer gave me £29,200 for my ES which was 26 months old and cost £38,500 in August 2019. I thought if I was offered around £26K I would be happy. It's about time that used cars are benefiting owners these days instead of getting ripped off with stupid trade in offers against new cars that were common place a couple of years back.

Forgot to add it took only a week for my dealer to sort out settling the outstanding finance on my pcp with Toyota Financial Services sending the acknowledgement directly to me that the agreement had been settled in full by Lexus Leeds. I was left with £9500 equity from my original ES which I left on account with the dealer and their contribution of £1500 made up the maximum deposit of £11,000. When you consider Toyota Financial Services (or Lexus Financial Services) gave £2,750 finance allowance as a repeat PCP customer it made so much sense to trade in my first ES now 12 months ahead of schedule.

Once again Lexus UK went the extra mile arising out of a simple question I asked as to why there is currently no digital brochure for the 2021/22 ES300h. I simply sent an enquiry on the Lexus UK website because the link to Lexus car brochures currently only lists the 2021/22 price list for ES. I did state I had ordered a car in my original message but was a bit disappointed that no digital brochure is available to download right now. About 2 days later a chap from Lexus rang me direct on my mobile and I repeated the fact I had ordered a new ES for 2022 but there was no digital brochure to download, only the price list. He explained it was coming but in the meantime would I like him to make up a brochure from the data and images they have and send it to me as a hard copy. To my surprise it arrived today and it was just like an old fashioned brochure of quality printed material with 42 pages in all in a spiral bound A4 booklet with clear front and back protective covers. Clearly been put together by hand and had all the technical data, trim, model ranges and prices in it, enough to satisfy anyone who wanted to view the current model variations in book form. Not so sure any other manufacturer would have bothered to do this. Top marks to Lexus for wanting to help.

Back in Feb 2019 I traded my 2012 GS450h in against the ES and handed over the car then to achieve the £16,000 trade in fig rather than in August when the car finally arrived. Same thing for me was to wait and use the wife's car when I needed it. I agree Tony that new 12 inch touch screen will be a nice to have although the control pad became easy to master over time. The luxury fitments on the 2019 car that are not Premium Edition fitments are, rear screen and rear door blinds, driver's seat extension, air cooled front seats, wood/leather steering wheel, wood trim and driver seat memory. I think that was all so no real hardship. Given I had a rear screen dash cam I never once pressed the rear screen blind as it would have hit the camera and never used the rear door blinds as no one ever travelled in the back. Never used the air cooled seats either. If I'm honest the only thing I would want in the new ES is the auto seat positioning when you get in and out of the car, that was useful. Had we not had a second car then I would have no option but to hand the car in next year but loose some money on the final value. The 18 inch wheels on the 2019 model were a nicer design I think. Keeping everything under the magic £40K saved that ridiculous extra £335 a year after the first year on top of the £170 which the new car will cost in road tax. A Takumi ES in the dealers showroom was very nice though and probably worth all the money or not.

Decided to trade in my Aug 2019 ES300h with velvet black paint and Topaz leather trim fitted with a Premium Pack. Chose an ES Premium Edition in Messa Red with Hazel Tahara Trim, delivery around end of March 2022. The dealer worked out everything and it cost me £800 to change after 26 months of flawless motoring. The dealer valued my car at £29,200 which I thought was a good price. Two other dealers offered £26K and £28K. My original ES was on a PCP over 42 months at £319 a month after I put down the maximum deposit of £11K. Apparently if you are a Toyota Finance customer the dealer can now add a loyalty allowance of a further £750 to the £2000 finance allowance that Lexus will give normally for new retail purchases on a PCP/Finance This resulted in a final PCP quote for me after deciding I wanted a shorter PCP period of 30 months but now I will have monthly payments of £208, again paying the maximum deposit of £11,028. I'm guessing these very strong used car values for 2 or 3 year old cars is influencing deals on new cars. Bear in mind the UK Lexus dealer network of 46 sites has only around 70 ES cars for sale with some dealers showing only one ES car for sale, others two or three thus proving the strong demand for Lexus approved ES's. I regret not having real leather but having seen what Taraha trim feels and looks like it is remarkably like leather so I'm ok with that. My 2019 Premium pack has a higher level of spec that a Premium Edition has but again nothing that I can't live without. I elected to give my car in now to the dealer to secure the £29,200 and will happily wait for the new one. My wife has a 2021 Toyota Yaris hybrid which is a lovely car and no hardship to use for a few months. The velvet black paint work on my first ES was very demanding despite a ceramic coating I laid down after I had the car a week. I'm hoping Messa Red will be more forgiving.

Gaby I would suggest the chances of stealing an ES without the key fob is pretty low but these security bars that pass through the steering wheel have a poor track record for ease of removal when locked. If anyone is really intent on taking your car it would have to be lifted on to the back of a trailer or towed away but even then if you double click your remote fob when locking it will activate the deadlocks in the doors so opening the doors will be impossible even if a window is smashed. Think about putting your key fob and your spare fob in one of those wallet type holders which shield the key fob from electronic scanning devises which professional thieves use now as they know without the keyfob they are snookered and have no chance of scanning your key's signal if it's in a security wallet. You can buy them on e bay for a few pounds.

I have a 2019 ES in black and can confirm both sides of the rear bumper don't quite line up with the quarter panel by slightly less than an 1/8th of an inch and both sides of the front bumper don't quite meet the front wings by about 1/16th of an inch. I think your colour might influence how it might jump out at you but I would say these small discrepancies are nothing out of the ordinary even if we are talking Lexus. Similar issue with very minor anomalies with my wife's brand new Toyota Yaris where the bumpers meet the sheet metal. There is no real adjustment possible as all four corners of the car have very hard rigid retaining brackets fitted to the vehicle's main structure and the plastic floppy bumper corners snap into these corresponding brackets a bit like male and female plus the remaining clips and bolts dotted all around the edges of the bumpers. Why not go back to the dealer's showroom and check not just ES cars but anything else sitting there and I'll bet there will be variations to one degree or another.

Standardisation is also in play on the ES. No matter what interior you choose and no matter model you choose the fascia is only ever going to be black. Again when it was first introduced in 2019 in the UK depending on your car model choice and if you chose certain leather finishes the fascia would be a different colour. EG an ES with tan leather would get a mixture of browns in the door cards and the main fascia, I think the very light ivory coloured leather got the same treatment. Anything else the fascia was black like most of the door card trim. Such is the cost control that manufacturers have to apply these days. I had semi analine leather in a Lexus LS460 a few years ago and it was sublime in it's quality which is now only a standard fit in the Takumi. In 2019 although you got leather in a Premium Pack it wasn't semi analine but the quality is still evident. This Tahara trim Lexus produce now certainly looks leather like and has the feel to the touch and probably last longer because of it's synthetic nature but there is nothing like Lexus leather when it comes to quality. Our eco warriors will be pleased though but as long as we eat meat there will always be leather but sometimes large companies change their policies on resources simply to meet the minority of consumers who challenge them on whatever they feel they need to complain about on any given day.

Might be a mute point but Lexus have been manipulating the spec on the ES to give customers the impression things have improved. I bought a 2019 ES with Premium pack and the pack cost a mere £3500 on top of the £35,350 entry base price. Worked for me because it was under 40K so that absurd massive tax increase for road tax for 5 years was eliminated. Back in 2019 the premium pack was really worth having and from memory the full leather interior, 18 inch wheels, heated and cooled seats, wood leather heated steering wheel, rear screen blind, mobile charging, triple headlamp with auto adaptive high beam, folding mirrors, blind spot monitor, privacy glass, rain sensing wipers made the spec really special. Seems to me though that the lack of leather alone in the latest ES premium edition and a number of other items might make a person think at £36,555 the new Premium edition is a good price compared to the £35,350 base price + £3,500 for the Premium Pack back in 2019. In other words you are not getting anything like the spec in 2021 even if the name Premium Edition is supposed to imply a Premium Edition is just like it was in 2019. The only options for a Premium Edition that I can see are metallic paint, a protection pack and illuminated scuff plates plus a total of 3 accessories. Today if Lexus fitted all the Premium Pack extras they fitted in 2019 then the current Lexus ES Premium Edition would not be so attractive price wise. Likely I think to be closer to £40K.

Brake lights remain on during brake hold with foot off the pedal.

Hugh, experienced the same thing, dealer said it was in need of a software upgrade to sort this out. It took about 20 mins and sorted the problem of one direction phone calls. Done under warranty of course. Steve

As stated before in this thread, it is clear other models of Lexus space saver wheels will fit the ES, e.g a GS300 or GS450h which have them as standard. The tapered wheel nut faces and corresponding wheel bolt hole face cause no issues and the steel space saver clears all the brake callipers. As long as the overall diameter of the space saver wheel and tyre wall are the same as the overall diameter of the standard alloy wheel incl tyre wall there is no problem. Likewise is someone says the overall circumference of the space saver should be the same or very near the same as the original wheels, there is no issue. The tyre wall on a space saver is deeper than the tyre wall on an original ES alloy wheel that's why the space saver wheel without it's tyre is usually a smaller diameter but the space saver tyre makes up the difference. I recall starting this thread some weeks ago when I posted photos of my GS300h space saver which was bought on ebay but didn't expect the post to still raise so many questions and/or comments. I'm guessing we would all have opted for a space saver as an option if Lexus didn't treat the UK as unworthy. If the cost of a space saver is more expensive than all the junk you get with those awful one use only tyre inflation kits it merely reinforces the fact that us poor Brits have been plundered by higher car prices in the UK than say the EU or the US and have done for decades. So if Lexus think they are doing us a favour by fitting an inflation kit to keep prices down or the weight down then that is a load of nonsense. Every car producer in the world that sells cars in the UK know full well we are the sacred cow and they charge far more in the UK than in other markets especially the US who just won't pay over inflated prices. Sure the US is Toyota's biggest market so they would say they can charge less but lets be honest here we get taken to the cleaners when we talk of new car prices. I'll get off my soap box now.

would be good to see how your tools fit etc, although I'm guessing your tyre inflation kit will not be able to be accommodated. You got there in the end. What a pity Lexus wouldn't offer a space saver to the UK yet the US get it standard as will some other destinations. If the argument was all about weight saving for us Brits and costs then I would argue the nett cost difference between the compressor, tyre inflation goo, the thicker foam tool tray is only marginally smaller than the a tyre, wheel rim and the thinner foam tool tray. At least a cost option for a space saver would have been nice to consider.

Yes the scissor jack was modified to take a bolt which allows the round steel disc to screw to.

The steel disc, the brackets bolted to the sill flanges and the black discs screwed to all 4 jacking points were made from scratch by myself. As a retired Engineer who can use a lathe I designed them mainly for when the car goes to the dealer for a service. Materials cost £40. Most dealers these days use 2 post swing arm lifts and raise the car on 4 round rubber pads which they line up on the 4 areas of sill flanges. Problem is too many times they don't centralise the round pad to the sill flange and if it isn't centralised and directly under the most suitable area of the sill flange it can result in the sill flange folding over slightly due to the whole weight of the car resting on these very small surface areas of the sill flanges. If this process is repeated over the years the sill flange can be flattened and I have personally had to straighten sill flanges to make them stand vertically again. The steel brackets and round steel feet can't bend over when the lifting arms are placed directly under them, they are just too strong. Now, I have even painted the 4 steel feet in bright yellow Hammerite paint to make them stand out when a technician swings the lifting arms into place. NB I also made sure the round feet are at the correct height from the floor so the lifting arm pad doesn't touch the plastic body sill panel. I also make sure I speak to the technician at the Lexus dealer and make sure he understands he must place the swing arm pads directly and centrally under my steel discs. They are often surprised to see these discs but all have commented that it is a good idea. Re: Non UK moulded foam tool kit holder: Doesn't surprise me at all that Lexus want a couple of hundred pounds for the part that fits directly over the space saver. If they charge around £300 in the UK for 2 front genuine winter rubber mats for an ES300h we shouldn't be surprised that a piece of foam costs 3 figures. I was pretty sure a UK ES owner would have to go abroad for the thinner foam tool holder. Lexus parts departments in this country are controlled by computer software systems and even if the parts man can see the US/European part on his computer screen his ordering system won't let him over ride the computer to order a US or European only part. When your friend sends it to you tell him to wrap it well with robust packaging as this type of foam is brittle and doesn't flex like rubber mats would. It may come in a large stiff cardboard box which will protect it more than wrapping paper and bubble wrap. It would be useful to see some photos of it fitted to see how the tools are located and just how different it is to the original.

Although I did the space saver in the wheel well and made the false floor I made the decision to reverse it all and just carry the space saver in the boot. For me the tool holder needed to go back in and I modified it to take a few extra things, a steel disc which screws to my modified scissor jack which marries up to the special feet I made which are physically mounted to the sill flanges. A hard UPVC wedge and a multitool. The steel disc can also be screwed to my small trolley jack and dependent on which jacking method I choose to use I know either method will lift the car safely. I have never believed the weight of the car should rest on a scissor jack which relies on a slim sill flange. I made the jacking disc arrangement because I was tired of having to straighten sill flanges bent over by incorrect jacking by dealers or tyre fitters. I have used this jacking system on all my cars because the system can be swapped onto any car with normal sill flanges. The blue wedge is merely to offset any serious gradient issue I might face so I can ensure the scissor jack is horizontal as possible to the car's body when jacking up the car.

Gary, page 5 of the ES300 posts you can see my original post dated Aug 14 2019. The thread is titled 2019 ES Mudguards EBay I took some pictures after I fitted them. You will see how good they fit.

Forgot to say, go to ebay and type in mud flaps 2019 Lexus ES300h. Scroll down till you see the same picture that Andrew Last has posted in this thread. These are the ones I bought. It says China as the location and once e bay convert the dollars to £ Sterling it's about £25 with a nominal charge for delivery. Trust me these are the real deal, no need to worry about trying to get a refund, you won't have to.

Yes, same here, mine came from China in 7 days. Bought them on ebay, £25. Lexus UK can't supply any mud flaps for the 2019 ES300h. These flaps were designed by a non OE equipment supplier to fit the ES300h and there are no modifications needed at all. They fit perfectly and match up with the factory locating blanks in the wheel arch liners. They follow the contours of the front wings and the rear bumpers. If and when Lexus finally get round to offering mud flaps they will charge substantially more than £25 that's for sure. I even fitted some Lexus graphics on the rear mud flaps.

The dummy floor I made originally ( although later discarded) was made from MDF at 8mm thick see start of thread. I covered it with some sticky back felt bought on a role off ebay. It had that slight faux velvet feel to it. I then stuck a Lexus graphic on it. I used a large cardboard box to make a template of the spare wheel well and kept shrinking it till it matched the shape of the wheel well. I too used a tool bag for the items in the moulded tool tray and one or two tools went in to my mini trolley jack case. But eventually decided to re install everything and went back to how the car arrived, just carried the space saver in the boot from then on in a motor cycle wheel bag. I assume the tool tray holder I can see Andrew included in this thread is the USA or European one which will allow for some of the original UK tools to be stored. I can't see it being able to store the tyre inflation cannister and compressor due to the size of them but the hand tools and jack will have their own recesses.

All hail to professional detailers who know what they are doing. Swirl free top coat always looks impressive, the trick is to try and maintain it by careful cleaning. Ceramic coatings will mark but has less impact than ordinary top coats. If you touch the surface over the weeks , months years you own the car it will result in some degree of imperfection but those that care will strive to maintain it and those that don't get hung up about the surface of the paint won't be too fussed if they have defects that are minor. Going back to the space saver and I should have mentioned this before. The US and other countries get space savers as standard, it's what those markets expect but they also get a pre formed foam tool kit holder that fits on top of the wheel but it's much thinner and designed to accommodate what tools you need to change a wheel. So for this people who bought a space saver in the UK and knowing their original moulded tool kit holder won't fit as it's much too thick you could actually purchase a US tool holder from the US but you would still need a chassis number to buy one. Or, if you have friends or relatives in the US maybe they could assist. Depends how much you think it's worth attempting. After making the dummy floor and fitting my space saver wheel in the wheel well I reverted back to having the tool holder sitting in the wheel well and just carrying the spare in the boot. Just to say also the ES's alloy wheel bolts fit the space saver fine as both the alloy wheel and the steel space saver both have identical tapered wheel holes so no special or different length bolts are needed. Think about it, the US gets a steel spare so no way they would be expecting owners to start using a different set of wheel bolts. Imagine the litigation that would follow when owners sued Lexus for not knowing enough about wheel hole facings and types of bolts after changing a wheel and it falls off. Spoke with my own UK dealer today who confirmed they have finally got round to offering us poor smucks who bought an ES in late 2019 without Apple Car Play/ Android Auto that a software upgrade is now available for £80. They sent an email recently offering this . In view of the 2020 ES models having ACP and AA as standard you would have thought they would give us the upgrade for free. My wife's 2021 entry level Toyota Yaris has APC and AA as standard but Lexus couldn't be bothered to fit it in my £38,500 ES back in 2019. Disgraceful !!

I think i-s you would have no problem whatsoever if you tried G Tech Crystal Serum Light or CSL for short. I have only done one car with a ceramic coat and was anxious myself about applying one to my brand new ES300h in Velvet black. However CSL is different to other more costly GTech ceramic coats in that it is extremely easy to apply. It was designed for ease of use for people who want to do it themselves rather than professional users who tend to use the higher cost coatings that cure longer than CSL. Assuming after your paintwork has been rectified and all, if any, swirls and light scratches have been successfully dealt with, the polish residues have been removed with a good quality degreaser such as CarPro and your paint surface is in a virgin bare condition the CSL can be safely applied. What I learned with CSL is doing one panel at a time it best practise. Mask off the panel to avoid going over the edge to adjacent panels. Applying it with the supplied cloths, wrapped around a suede applicator for flexibility allows it to go on like silk and is very wet looking. No need to go over and over the same area, just have enough CSL on your pad and the speed it covers the panel is very quick. Before you know it the whole panel is covered. As soon as you finish applying CSL start to wipe/buff the panel with a new folded in 4 micro fibre cloth turning the cloth regularly so only a clean area of the cloth is wiping off the residue. You will definitely lift off residue but you won't lift the coating from the surface of the panel. Buffing only with a clean side of a micro fibre cloth prevents you dragging CSL back across the panel as remember the micro fibres will be full off coating which after all is basically glass. You will be able to buff a wing panel in about 30 seconds. That's how fast the process is. DO NOT USE THE TOWEL AGAIN ON YOU CAR, IT WILL HAVE CERAMIC COATING IMPREGNATED INTO THE FIBRES. YOU SHOULD THROW IT AWAY OR USE IT FOR DIRTY JOBS ONLY, NEVER ON NEWLY COATED PAINTWORK. Ideally apply in your garage if you have one and avoid using the car for at least 12 hours to allow for a decent curing time. Don't think that GTech Crsytal Serum Light is somehow inferior to more expensive options in the GTech range. If applied correctly the finish will be as smooth as glass and feel like silk to the touch which waxes will never achieve. A bonnet or roof should be split in to two halves or 4 quarters and try and avoid overlapping the coating. You'll be surprised how quickly you work with CSL but no ceramic coating, no matter how expensive, is immune to abuse or lack of care in cleaning the car post application. If normal glass can scratch then ceramic coatings will also scratch and only by washing and drying the car in the right manner will result in a finish that will look great for months to come. NB Leaving CSL on longer than necessary before you wipe the residue off the panel in the belief it will be more beneficial will get you into a whole lot of pain as this stuff will be almost impossible to buff back if you don't wipe off the residue off as soon as you finish applying it. I give my own car a clay bar and a machine polish every 3 months, not to enhance the coating as you can't really improve that but more to ensure all contaminates are removed and a light machine polishing just enhances it's look, after all velvet black solid paint is the hardest colour to maintain. Have a go with CSL i- s and try it on the smallest panel on your car, I think you will be very surprised. When I purchased CSL it cost £85 for a 100ml bottle, enough to do an ES300h. Not sure how much it is now. I buy all my detailing products online from Clean Your Car Ltd of Huddersfield, fantastic Company. One last thing, ceramic coatings are very hard and much harder than the lacquers that car manufacturers use as a top coat for their paints. So removing ceramic coatings can only be achieved by aggressive cutting compounds with power machine tools or actual wet or dry sanding. I guess a person must decide is waxing a car regularly best for their needs or will a coating have more appeal.

Without doubt the £3500 extra for the Premium pack over the base price of £35,000 back in 2019 was a no brainer. So many extra options over the base model. The Takumi was just not worth the extra money and the higher road tax for 5 years.

Yes, same colour combination as my ES. If solid black is maintained correctly it always looks stunning. Most solid black and metallic for that matter look awful in bright sunlight only weeks after delivery due to very poor washing.

Good to hear that you agree in principle that dealers valet departments are car paint wreckers who don't give a damn. They just get told to remove the factory white tape protection and then give it a wash. they then ruin the lacquer by using a rotary polishing mop for speed and low quality micro fibre cloths leaving swirls and fine scratches all over the car. What interior colour did you choose to go with your black paint, is it metallic black or solid black paint?