Linas.P

I was actually very afraid to do it at first and it looked like massive job, but when you do it once it isn't actually that bad - you need 1 long hex socket, deep 10mm socket and slim 10mm wrench and there is only one awkward bolt behind throttle body. Then just 16mm for spark plugs if I remembering right. All in all, I would say maybe 20 min job...

As far back as first automobile and probably even before, I would argue that even horse carriages had leather... So we potentially talking millennia. The furnishing of the seats in cars (and carriages) really comes from home furniture trends and techniques, so you could have couch literally made of wood, or covered is some sort of cloth, velour, fur or leather... again those were all option for centuries. Leather was always a luxury item, realistically only kings could have had their carriage upholstered in leather, especially the sorts of leather which would be comfortable and durable. Looking back to automobiles, I would say it was always default from the beginning. Take any "luxury brand" as example and leather was always option for high-end, velour sometimes came as default cheaper option, or on special order for hot/cold climates. For more common cars I think velour actually was short term fashion in "colourful" 70s an then it went back to leather in 90's. The reason for Velour is mostly because good quality leather was prohibitively expensive for most of the history, secondly until recently leather was only available in fairly natural brown grain, maybe slightly tinted (red, black, yellow, green), so if anyone wanted any sort of fancy and very bright colour it was not an option. So in short - leather was always sign of luxury, way before automobiles were invented. The proliferation of leather as default luxury option in cars I would say coincided with changes in technology, where leather became easier to soften, colour, seal and treat in the way that it became cheaper, more durable and in the right colour (so I would say 90's with introduction of sealed leather) - it is not some sort of "recent fad" or fashion. If there is any reason why leather was not used at certain period of time, it would have been some sort of limitations - cost, softness, colour, shape. Fabrics are just cheaper, easier to make into particular colour or follow some shapes. Some exceptions - hot climates, until cooled seats and air condition it was an issue, but does not apply for most of Europe (and World). Very cold climates, same again - if you building vehicle for arctic expedition maybe leather was not a default choice.

Tahara has all the drawbacks of leather and none of the benefits! Well - maybe the only "benefit" is that is vegan if anyone cares, but I don't and for me it is actually negative, I am becoming allergic to this word and ideology/religion of vegans. I hate Alcantara as well, because it is being pushed as an "upgrade" and some sort of fancy luxury material, whereas it has literally 68% of plastic bag material mixed with 32% of kitchen sponge. And because many people can't tell Alcantara and Suede apart it kind of works. Besides I don't really agree that Alcantara is more expensive than Leather - maybe it was true in 1970 when it was just developed, now it is basically the generic fake suede and sells for pennies. Even the genuine Alcantara made in Italy is like £60 1m2 retail, but I am sure wholesale is much much cheaper. I can't find any leather for so cheap, but even then there are many varieties of leather, perhaps in some circumstances it could be more expensive then cheapest leather, but for most part it is definitely cheaper material than good quality automotive leather which would be suitable to use in Luxury car. I appreciate it in racing cars - it is functional, non-slippery material, same as I appreciate carbon fibre there (weight saving) - but in Luxury car I expect real leather and preferably wood or metal inlays.

Definitely not a dealer job, it is not clear what is your car model, but I assume it is not 2020 if you have issues with exhaust falling-off and by the time it does (~10-15 years old car) the dealer job will be more than it is worth (literally). Simply get pattern exhaust from eBay (~£180-300 for back section) or get it custom made, dealer back section is £1800 for IS250 just for parts + labour, so you looking at ~£2000.

Kind of just repeating what others said - white smoke is water, not oil. I had one of my IS250s near 200k miles and it was burning little bit of oil, ~0.6L for 10k miles... so that is nothing, I could go without top-up between the services, but I used to change oil every 6k miles anyway, so it was never an issue. On one occasion I used 0W40 instead of 5W30 and it didn't burn any of it. In short - if you have to add say 1L once in 3000 miles that is more than acceptable. To advise any further it is important to know - mileage of the car, what is the service history, when it was services and how much oil it is actually burning. Could it be that wrong grade was filled, could it be the case that oil was underfilled during last service, maybe it wasn't serviced for a long time?

And that is why you buy Lexus with heated and ventilated seats. When I buy luxury car with supposedly leather seats I want it to actually be leather, smell like leather and cost like leather. When I buy burger I want burger with actual beef and not some stupid vegan substitute. In the entire pollution generated by making the car, the pollution which comes from leather for the seats is literally negligible. It is very convenient when there are people like you who actually buys this lame excuse. 1m2 of good quality leather costs like £400-3000, where 1m2 of whatever crap tahara is made of costs like £0.50... so to say it isn't "cost saving" or rather gauging and playing on people ignorance/lack of knowledge just makes no sense. And whenever seats are made from actual leather or vinyl in the lifetime of the car makes no difference. If you really want to be very environmentally friendly, then buy used car with 100k miles and drive it for 20 years until it has 500k, because then you can truly claim you have added no extra CO2 at the time you got it.

It is being done for excuse of it, but mostly for cost cutting. It is undeniable that making seats from recycled plastic bags is cheaper than from real leather. From practical point of view it is actually hard to say what is more practical to have - leather of vinyl, but from point of view of "luxury" it is undeniable that leather is more "premium/expensive/exclusive" material than plastic. The problem is that people want to have their cake and eat it too - they want luxury car, but they want to pretend they care for environment. If they really care about environment then they wouldn't be buying brand new luxury SUV. So companies creates this "eco-friendliness" illusion so that people can feel better about it and saves a lot of money too. I found it annoyingly fake and disingenuous, in old days you either had "luxury" car with leather option or you had a plain simple cloth. Now it seems all cars have leather, but 50% (and increasing) is now fake. In other hand if we would keep the cars for 10-20 years I don't see issue using real leather, after all it is almost by product of meat production (thought they may want to take this pleasure away too), however in our consumer world, most new car buyers changes the cars every 2-3 years at which point it is probably fair to question if the leather actually adds any value and if that is sustainable. Lexus started introducing this with CT, later IS, RC, ES and NX lower trim levels all came with Tahara "leather" which is fancy name for vinyl and the only way to still get real leather is to order Takumi or F-Sport. The only good thing is that when you get leather in Lexus it is at least very nice semi-aniline leather.

This would be interesting indeed. I think it is moot point of whenever android system is "highly" or "lowly" rated - literally any system will be 10 times better than what Lexus fitted 16-17 years ago. Imagine this - the baby born when that system was made would be 18 next year!.. and that system wasn't even very good at the time. As for buttons being other way around, I can't see that as an issue - buttons are built into the unit itself, so they will work regardless and at least for me it does not matter if it says "Map" on the right or the left. I guess if somebody has extensively used the built in system before, it may take 2 days to remember that buttons are the other way around, but overall that is no different as buying new car and then realising that some features are located in different places.

If you have metal shavings in the pan then replacement gearbox is most likely. The only other option would be full rebuild, but I was not able to find any place in London which would still do that. Seems specialists doing that sort of work have gone extinct in UK. Besides I guess rebuild in UK would cost more than good used gearbox. However, if you just have solenoid performance issue, it could be that AFT and filter replacement could do a trick. My experience is from IS250, but gearboxes are very similar in GS300 (a960e vs a760e). In my case gears were hanging on overrun and I would get VCS light and Solenoid A or C performance code. Driving normally it would not occur, only when I floor the car and instead of changing just before rev limiter it would go all the way and hit the limiter and stay there and would not change unless I would lift for a second before changing. Note car had nearly 200k miles on the clock and AFT was not touched for at least 120k, fluid was dirty, but there was nothing unexpected in the pan. AFT and filter change cured the issue. In case it wouldn't work I would have gone for set of solenoids, there was generic set sold at ebay for ~£140 at the time (genuine ones are ~£800, rendering replacement not economically viable at that point). However again - if you have any foreign object or probably worse - metal pieces, then I tend to believe it is ruined and not worth fixing.

Where he even finds these bottom of the barren absolutely worst available Lexus? It seems he deliberately looks for worst car and then tries to upsell it. Credits to him he actually mentions in the advert it is Cat S, because many cars are sold on ebay only because sellers don't want to disclose it is Cat S and Autotrader shows it automatically.

First of all nobody uses 1970 V8s anymore. Modern petrol engines are mostly very efficient. Diesel is ok, but only suitable for long journeys, making them very compromised, BEVs are opposite - only suitable for short drives. That said Hybrid or PHEV is probably best compromise? I think the key question is if we even need to reduce pollution from privately owned cars. In the end we talking about less than 3% of pollution. Perhaps we need to leave the cars alone and stop this hysteria for the sake of justifying crazy taxes on motorists (which is basically the whole premise of entire discussion and ICEV bans)? What is contributes the most? Manufacturing - 40%, so we need to stop consuming, but problem is that our entire economy based on forever growing GDP, meaning that our economic policy requires never ending consumption and is thus inherently unsustainable. Cars are chosen just as scape goat to divert attention from real issues. For example instituting mandatory long warranties and introducing penalties for 200% of annual profit if company is found to use planned obsolescence, this would make companies to make more reliable and longer lasting things, but those things would cost more, this would reduce consumption and pollution. But remember this is exactly opposite of what our economic policy requires - it requires more consumption, and more production and cheap disposable items. In short - what sits in final corner is unsustainable economical, social and financial policy, which encourages never ending growth, which encourages never ending raise in pollution. So to fight the climate change we need to fundamentally change how our economy works... and nobody is interested in even admitting it, never mind solving it.

Same here... when I noticed that even w a n k in wikipedia link about w a n k e l engines was censored... it made me chuckle!

Alternative could be getting yourself a Techstream as it would have most of configuration available for the dealer.

If you think it was "lack of foresing" then you are mistaken. Problem with modern ICEV is that they last they longer than profitable and despite best efforts to introduce planned obsolescence of some companies (making plastic engine components etc.) it was not enough to force all people to orderly throw away completely good 5 years old cars and buy new ones. BEV is a perfect solution to force everyone to upgrade, fossil fuel companies have their funds well diversified into renewable energy, hydrogen, battery technology and they are even receiving government (that is our taxes) subsidies to build even more "renewable" energy sources. Key thing to consider is that cars are not even important as far as global warming and CO2 pollution is concerned (they produce merely 2.4%, or which 2.1% is diesel and 0.3% is petrol and hybrid). You may call it conspiracy theory, but current proposed bans on ICEV and so on have nothing to do with climate, but it is rather convenient way to force people to upgrade their cars. As well BEV does not eliminate all the pollution, average BEV produces ~30% less CO2 compared to average ICEV, so the difference of converting all the cars to BEV will be total of 0.8% of CO2... what about remaining 99.2%?! And when it comes to long-range BEVs like many Tesla models, they actually pollute more than average ICEV car, because they are not "average" BEV car. The 30% claim is based on lifecycle pollution over long test period of very early BEVs - like first generation Leaf with 24kWh batteries, that does not apply to modern high capacity BEVs with 100+kWh, because majority of lifetime pollution in BEV comes built into the battery production and bigger battery means more pollution. Now sure technology has improved and 100kWh battery does not produce 4 time more pollution, but it still produces 60% more!.. Now where I agree BEVs makes sense is ... city centres. Here we have completely different issues not related to climate change. That is kerbside emissions and they have negative effect on people's health. BEVs works here, because they have no tailpipe emissions, but let's not confuse this issue with climate changes. Besides methodology of measuring "kerbside emissions" is absolutely ridiculously wrong and maybe makes sense for cyclists the most, but not much to anyone else (they measure gases at kerbside, 1 metre from the ground). And where they measure that cars contributes 60% to kerbside emission, that does not mean that pollution in your living room is 60% from the cars, it is most likely to be 80% from gas heater instead. Anyhow... to conclude. To make best of BEV technology, it seems to me that their battery capacity should be limited to say 25kWh and range no more than 50-100miles, making them ideal city cars, but not suitable for anything else. Making long range BEV just means a lot of pollution, even more than ICEV, and benefit of that is so minute, that it isn't even worth worrying about. Simply said BEV is not replacement for ICEV, it is replacement for bicycle/public transport - car for local/city centre commute.

Just that nobody was slagging BMW in this thread, but you are right - on the forum overall people to tend look down on BMW, especially where reliability is concerned. And I guess it has it's merits - BMW is not as horrible as some say, but Lexus is definitely more reliable. But you right in saying that as far as driving dynamics goes RC300h is disappointing*. Looks fast when stand still, but just doesn't live-up to expectations when on the move. The caveat here is that different people have different expectations for the car and for some it is just right, I thoroughly enjoyed the car on fast country lanes ~40-60MPH and even found eCVT enjoyable to use with paddles, because of instant response. However, in any other domain it was not very impressive - on motorway fuel consumption was meh, on start stop traffic the initial start was very disappointing (0-30/40), but again some people don't launch their cars from every light, so they may never come across this issue. I just vividly remember the occasion on my way to return the car after weekends' test drive where I have notice rattle can Clio with awful wings and riced-up on silly wheels pulling alongside me, clearly in wrong lane and banking on overtaking me in ~50m for roundabout exit and cutting me-off. So I have prepared to launch as hard as I can to prevent such embarrassment to happen, Sport+ mode, ready to stab the pedal... and as you may imagine the ****ty Clio had no issues smoking me from the start and cutting me off without much problem. So much for luxury "sports" coupe! I think the most important takeaway here - test drive of both is must before buying, preferably longer one. Not sure about Netherlands but in UK Lexus does 24h test drives and in my case I was even able to take car for whole weekend.

Could it be DMF... considering it does that at certain RPM/Gear... although I would expect that to happen regardless if engine is warm or not if it would be DMF. Warm car at 2500RPM and 5/6th gear could be right conditions for DPF regen, it shouldn't shake the car just put some smoke from exhaust. How long it was doing it? Because considering you doing 250km/day, it should have regenerated probably in single day or two at most.

Ok so you clearly have one bad cylinder as minimum should be 142Psi for this engine. Although all things considered 120Psi isn't all that horrible (unless endoscope shows blown head gasket or noticeable visual damage), if there is nothing obviously wrong with it I may even risk just replacing WP and running as it is, at this point who know - it may run for 10 miles, 10k miles or 50k miles. After some time maybe the last cylinder will pick-up again. In other hand you may be right - if somebody was running it with blown water pump, then it easily could be the case of overheating, blown head gasket and hell knows what more. Overheating these engines can cause really nasty things!

I would not say that anyone were "slagging-off" BMW here. If anything everyone suggested test drive first and I even said that for longer trips I would rather take BMW330e. On top of that difference in tax and insurance really pushes decision BMW way. On other hand it would be hard to argue that RC is not way more attractively looking than F30, BMW is really bland and when it comes to Lexus RC - you either love it or hate it. And I do agree that G20 is on par when it comes to built quality if not slightly better, which isn't surprising as it is next gen car, but the question was specifically F30 and RC is definitely better built and more luxurious for that generation. Other thing to note - BMW has a lot of optional equipment so it is very hard to compare, most of the time Lexus has better trims and option from factory and entry level BMW trims are really poor, but on other hand fully loaded BMW will have more toys... so it really depends on options here. So I think, all things considered, your criticism is unwarranted.

Yeah, makes sense - engine can be had for £400-600, hardly worth doing head gasket because it won't work-out much cheaper. Although I would say you should get engine up-to temp before any meaningful compression test can be done.

I would agree, it looks like port was never there, starving camshaft of oil and causing issue. Despite being notorious for various issues, these engines are not know for camshaft issues, so this is indeed unusual. You may be just out of luck for 2010 car, would it be 2011 you may be just about lucky to get last of 10 year's warranty. Now that said, maybe somebody could confirm - wasn't 2AD-FTV under 160k miles extended warranty for all it's dreadful issues? Or did it only apply to earlier 2AD-FHV? Other avenue for resolution - what about warranty for part? I guess the only issue is that you carrying out work yourself and Toyota/Lexus may not be inclined to warrant the job even if the part was faulty. I would doubt free engine is likely, but I would aim for all free replacement parts, or even better taking the car to them and letting them fix it, so that they can properly warranty the work as well. Your luck may vary, but I feel you have strong case in your hands as fault here would be clearly caused by significant manufacturing defect!

Damn it has some travel on it! All the ones which sells in UK are nearly new ~10000 miles for most. Very few LCs in UK have travelled more than 20k. As well it kind of make sense that LC500h in particular is not very popular. For most part it cost just as much to run as V8, in UK it get's "luxury car surcharge", in Italy it seems to be hit by "superbollo" and so on... and for people who can afford the car and don't shy away from paying higher tax it makes no sense to go for V6 hybrid when for similar price/tax one can have "fire breathing V8"!

The pricing is different in UK, that is why. And I am sure road tax will kill you in Netherlands as well... if 300h costs 1000 Euro, then I can only imagine what 500h would be. Back when I was buying my RC200t, there were LC500h for as low as £43k and those were year old cars with like 8k miles. As everything has increased in price during pandemic, especially nearly new cars... it has changed now and despite 2 years passing and those cars are now being 3-4 years old, they cost £53k... still with low miles thought!

Is there anything particularly bad with the engine, or just checking because of the mileage? My old IS250 is now over 200k miles, I sold it at 192k which was something close to yours if I remember the mileage correctly. At that mileage I had no engine issues, but on other hand my car was serviced meticulously from new, never missed the service and I even replaced oil every 5-6k miles starting from ~140k miles. Never failed MOT with single exception of fraudulent garage, who ripped the rubber on drop link, failed MOT and then tried to charge me £200 for replacing single drop link! So I would not be surprised if the car which wasn't well serviced would be worse for wear in the engine, but I would not write-off the engine just for mileage alone. As for unit I guess you mean ID box... not sure - it requires removing dash to check and I wasn't particularly excited about doing it yet. There is something fishy with ECU - it dropped the VIN, I can't clear DTC so it maybe miraculously decided to explode just on the morning when I decided to take car to the service. I have decided to gamble and ordered different ECU (£30) - I would be surprised if that fixes the issue, but you never know, sounds better than ripping the dash out for no reason, or gambling on 10 times more expensive fuel pump.

I kind of wants to start but immanently stalls. OBD2 returns no codes, but via Techstream it shows "B2799 - Immobiliser communication issue", so I am assuming that is what it is. But I can't explain how that happened considering it was running for over a week and just suddenly stopped overnight.

I think that is because most hydrogen engines benefits from forced induction and "hot-V" makes it easier to fit turbo, like in F1. I note as well that in the video the torque curve for hydrogen engine looks all over the place, but overall seems to be making very similar power to 2UR-FSE, maybe just slight dip at very very the top end, which would not be noticeable in practice. Another argument can be made that hydrogen addresses low end torque issue for petrol version, because it has heaps of it starting low down - I guess that is because the curves are for FI engine. Imagine that as a crate motor 😄 (I know it would not be that easy).