dutchie01

Lexus LBX Morizo RR.  Yaris GR engine with 300hp. Just introduced at the Tokio auto show. 

I really think there is a market for the LBX and it will sell, for Lexus standards that is. Proven drivetrain, conservative in architecture and especially inside, Lexus premium. If you want a small car, premium brand, reliability, looks ,where can you go? Audi kills the Q2, Mercedes the A class, Bmw 1 series and Mini are more for the younger generation. Lexus is aiming the car at younger buyers but i see a different demographic. Affluent pensioners and 2nd or 3rd car in the household. The initial reviews have been positive  and the car seems a big step above the Toyota. I havent seen or driven it yet but it seems much more developed than the RZ electric for instance. 

How things have changed over time. The original LS400 was starting to sell in the states with 8000 units sold when two (2 )owners complained about the cruise control. They recalled all 8000 cars, called the owners when it would be convenient washed the car and filled to the max with petrol. Owners living over 100 mls away from a dealer were visited by an engineer to perform the recall. Compare that to todays reaction... Seems todays management is full of bean counters looking at spreadsheets instead of customers.

18 hours ago, DavidCM said:

I bought my wife a vacuum cleaner for our wedding anniversary.

The local accident and emergency department managed to get most of it out.

True story, many years ago we had just done the bathroom i gave my wife a brandnew digital scale for her birthday. All hypermodern in the color of the bathroom and  not only measuring weight but also fat percentage and i dont know what. Well that didnt go down well.... Its more than 20 years ago and i still am told off every now and then, all neighbors and friends know so lesson learned i guess..  

Just go and take it on the fly. In case you have a puncture use the kit and drive to the nearest village. France Spain garages in literally every place, they will get you going again. I once had a puncture in France no spare no nothing so they came to the rescue with a flatbed and guess what? they took me to the nearest village where it could be repaired the next day. Did spend the night in rural France in an Allo Allo village the hotel owner telling me to lock up here is the key as i am not there. Local pub i still remember everybody silent when i came in but a wonderful night it was. Just go and dont try to secure all and everything?

3 hours ago, PaulWhitt20 said:

Hi, Enjoy your new UX300e.  It will be interesting to see how it compares to the ES. I came from an IS and it is different. I can’t make up my mind if I like it or not. 
I haven’t got round the range anxiety yet. Currently on a full charge it says about 160 miles range, but in the real world that means about 100 so can’t travel any further than 50 miles from home. Haven’t tried public charging yet. 
see thread on ML set up here

 

Enjoy

Paul

 

2 hours ago, PaulWhitt20 said:

 

Any tips on how to beat the range anxiety?

Paul

Try the public chargers. You propably wont have to full charge for the trip you do so just connect and wait 20 mins see how far you get. Also have a look where they are on the app you have. Might be wise to get several as well.

100 miles range in winter is about thesame as the BMW I3 did when it was launched a decade ago. Paul were you aware of this before you bought it and did it bother you or not? 

1 hour ago, Malc1 said:

China must be the only nation without a housing crisis ……. reading the crisis amongst the house builders, Evergrande etc is simply of their own making and under China State type accounting can never actually go bust ! 
 

They've already built enough surplus ( empty ?) housing to re-house the entire Chinese population ….. FACT ( I’m reading !)

Malc 

Welcome to capitalism..

Nikki Haley will be elected president of the USA

Wars in Ukraine and Israel will come to an end

Refugee crisis will spin out of control in Europe and influence elections

China will enter an economic crisis triggered by the collapse of the housingmarket.

There will be an avalanche of Chinese car brands entering our markets of which 80% will fail.

The Lexus LBX will be a success and the RZ a total flop.

Lexus will not introduce new models.

The Vokswagen group will fight to stay alive and transfer production to China.

Jaguar/Landrover will change ownership

Max Verstappen will become F1 champion

I will spend as much time as possible in Spain.

Whatever the topic my wife is always right

Healthy new year to all!

24 minutes ago, GMB said:

 

I agree, Labour win and continue the nasty party's policies apart from giving away a few extra quid to the poorest and the strikers. Thus the country will spend more than it earns ( even more ) and run up debt and onerous interest charges and bond sales which will lead to even more difficult times in the future.  It won't be much better than that, but still a damn site better than the Tories feeding all their rich mates. But hey, pensions and taxes and energy prices and food inflation are all going up soon so why worry?

So what to do - Buy a house in Italy for 1 Euro and do it up and live off your cash until you drop dead?  That's if you are a lover of intrusive bureaucracy and criminal corruption.

 

Who can buy a one euro house?

“Is it true or is it a joke?” reads a section of the website case1euro.it, which lists €1 properties currently for sale in Mussomeli, 60 miles south of Palermo, Sicily.

It is not a joke. Rules differ from town to town, but in the case of Mussomeli, buyers must have the financial and practical wherewithal to:

• Support all expenses for the drafting of the deeds of sale (notary, registration, transfer)
• Prepare a project for the renovation of the property within one year of purchase, acquiring any permissions needed
• Start work within two months of the date of issue of the building permit
• Conclude work within three years
• Put down a “guarantee policy” deposit of £5,000 (£4,314), which they will lose in the event that the work doesn’t go ahead within three years

All well, but you will end up in a dead village, not for nothing they are giving housing away these places are almost deserted with only some elderly and hopefuls remaining. No young, No children no nothing. Population of maybe 150? No work nothing to da and so on. I would say go for it!. And the corruption? depends on how you look at it. Its culture, you help me i help you just join it and play the system.

In most European countries this has already happened. Based on Co2 everything over 6 cylinders is taxed to death. Models will become so expensive they are not sellable so out they go. Simple as that.

1 hour ago, wharfhouse said:

I've been through Companies House to try and identify some of them - they run everything through multiple holding companies and so takes some tracing - probably don't pay any UK tax on their ill gotten gains... Although you can get to a name there are of course no personal addresses in the Companies House records - just their admin addresses which are next to useless as you know any contact through there will be just be filed in the bin... 

May i suggest using Linkedin. I typed Parkingeye in the search engine and presto a whole list of employees, names, titles, email etc

1 hour ago, Mincey said:

My wife has just become an ex-wife and taken my Ferrari Fund with her. It's swings and roundabouts really. I now have a quiet life but my chances of jumping into something red, noisy and Italian when I felt like some fun have now gone. Would I have really wanted to run a Ferrari given that I knew how much maintenance was?  Probably not. I've driven Ferraris at Experiences up and down the country and it's a nice way to do it. Nobody is going to nick it, pee on it or scratch it. Your sitting next to an instructor who will guide you to getting the most out of your time with the car, and as long as you've signed the disclaimer, if you bin it you can walk away happy. Am I bitter? Yes.

Hang on James, its only money? Who cares about trivial things like cars, houses, holidays? You have to go through life and have seen the dark side to realy appreciate the positives. Cars are not part of that. Its about health, children, family safety food nothing else.

4 hours ago, GMB said:

You know, I never thought of it that way. That's proper and correct logic for you. And a motorbike is half as likely to get a puncture😉

True but i can remember my bike rear tyre did not last over 3000 km. Could be me though...

When you are in the area and have some time to spare. Definately worth a visit. Private collection family Louwman original importers of Toyota, Suzuki and many many other brands

https://www.louwmanexclusive.nl/en/louwman-museum-2/

Below a vid from last week of the Dutch Autoweek, ( Autoexpress). Its of course in Dutch but you can have it subtitled in English. Guy bought the car as a daily and wonders in what state it is and has it checked out. BTW a 430 is as rare as it can be seems theyre all gone or not sold in numbers. The 400 has been discovered by the tuning/carscene though. Below as it should be, 100% original!

8 hours ago, Jim1977 said:

Does the RZ have a heat pump for the heating? I know the BZ4X does. That certainly helps with winter range. Our Soul EV had a heat pump and the difference between winter and summer range was only about 25-30 miles. With the Lexus I can see this being more like 50-60 miles.

I suspect that the charging issues could be improved with software updates. I suspect that Lexus, being pretty new to full EV’s, have gone super conservative on the battery management and charging curve. My hope is that as they gain real data on how the batteries perform, they may relax the parameters and let the batteries charge harder for longer, and may also release some of the unusable buffer to give access to more range. Certainly the UX has a 9kWh buffer as well as the 45kWh that are useable. I would hope they could unlock another 4-5 kWh to us.

I had a chat with the service dept at our dealer and he said they are being conservative with the servicing too, for example changing coolant, brake fluid etc every year, until they learn the optimum intervals. He said they are knowingly over servicing them. Again this is their conservative approach prioritising reliability over everything else. No criticism with that philosophy, just a shame they didn’t do all this 10 years ago when the likes of Nissan and Kia etc were. 

I have already emailed Lexus UK with some suggestions for the UX, and was surprised to receive a reply that they agreed with them and had forwarded them to their app developers and software teams. Great that they are listening, but a shame they need input from someone who has had the car for a few weeks rather than coming up with them in the first place

I find the whole RZ story painful to be honest. The above remarks are just unbelievable and makes me think both the Toyota and Lexus models are underdeveloped and brought to market in a rush. The BZ4X seems to be an average car and comes to the bottom of almost every EV statistic. The Lexus, beeing a premium product, should have been one step up but it isnt. Even the introduction of the BZ was a disaster plagued with wheels coming loose, airbag and software recalls. Toyota corp basically ignored the BEV market and still seems to do so. Lots of marketing speak but the reality is they want to produce 250.000 BEVs in 2026 from a total of 6 million cars. The plan is for Lexus to go full BEV and one can only hope they up their game with at least 800v charging and a wltp of 450 miles. Not even sure if the current first generation BEV will be supported/developed further as i would not be surprised they will be replaced in 2026 alltogether.

On 12/18/2023 at 5:58 PM, Tulpen said:

I've never paid much heed to car magazine reviews. The way they drive has very little in common with the way most of the rest of us utilise our vehicles.  I mean, why would you want to floor the accelerator in an LS. You have more than enough spare power to do what you with just a small pedal movement. The LS gets you from A to B quickly and in sublime comfort........appreciate it.

Could not agree more. Most of the motoring press are spoiled brats. Time and again they receive invitations for another car launch in nice destinations in Spain, Portugal, Hawai. All expenses paid and a boatload of cars to drive around in. Tech support available and wine and dine. After a testdrive and pic/vid opportunities of a couple of hours they receive goodie bags and fly back. They then come up with nonsensical claims as "the steering does not feel very sportive and the gearchanges are a bit slow" In a family hatchback.... In case of Lexus its always about the cvt. Floor the throttle and look into the camera with a droopy face. All based on a couple of hours driving an absolutely nothing to do with day to day use. There are not a lot of indipendant journalists out there but savagegeese is nr 1 on my list. BTW i loved the cvt in my IS especially in city driving. A bit like a BEV before they did exist.

And what about cars? prices went up to rip off level? for instance a BMW 320i available from 27k back in 2015 now starts at 40K. Thats 34% more!

RX450h

never use second hand tyres for the simple reason you dont know the history. Could be from a write off big bang accident and internal thread could be damaged. Dont save money on safety. Btw, like Linas said you think you are cheaper but as it is an inferior product you will have to buy new ones really soon. Another topic is brake distance. no comparison between A and C brands. Best to surf the net look for an offer of a quality brand like pay 3 get 4 and go for it

32 minutes ago, ColinBarber said:

I assume you have never driven with winter tyres in the snow?

Wintertyres are totally different than summers. The rubber is different it stays soft at low temp while summers become rock hard. The profile and depth of the grooves secure grip in snow of all sorts bar iced roads that when you have to visit a local pub and leave the car!

Jokes aside the difference is simply unbelievable. Summers in snow just no grip and outright dangerous and on winters you simply plow on RWD FWD or AWD. My IS250 had a snow button that worked miracles. Making sure there is less power to the wheels by driving off in 2nd or 3rd and not revving abobe 2500rpm. Then on top of that the abs and tractioncontrol kicking in. 

1 hour ago, NemesisUK said:

Family and friends drive their RWD Mercedes and BMWs all over southern Germany and the Alps throughout winter and never have a problem. Winter tyres used to be mandatory but now just recommended but should one be involved in an incident that the police believe was contributed to by not having winter tyres they throw the book at you!

Tyres are everything when driving in adverse conditions.

And the insurance withdraws cover its all in the smallprint

Morning Doctor, i got a bonce in my scroates which is a bit of a gotspe?

5 minutes ago, Boomer54 said:

St Mick, he of the mouth, will rake in 100 million of that RyanAir profit. Not bad bonce if you can get it.

Indeed not bad at all. And cabin crew gets 8 pounds per hour....