Linas.P

Well... this is always never ending discussion. I hate to remind people how slow IS300h is, but I only have to do it because people continuously claim it is "fast enough" as if this is objective truth and not personal experience/perspective. If you have personal question to me, then you are always welcome to drop me personal message and I will be more than happy to answer it. As well my name is Linas.

"fast", "ordinary driver", "irrelevant", "real world driving" are all subjective terms. You have opinion and that is fine, but you project your opinion onto everyone as a fact, and that is not ok. IS300h is slow car in comparison with other cars and by using Lexus own terminology, definitions and nomenclature. That is fact. There are cars slower than IS300h and there are cars faster than IS300h and people manage to safely drive them, so it shows that different levels of performance are sufficient for different people. But to say "it is fast enough" unless you are "brainless idiot", implies that nobody should ever need car faster than IS300h and I don't think you are entitled to imply this. Well that is called ignorance and ignorance is never good argument. I would as well point out that IS300h was priced above similarly powered cars and instead priced closer to the cars with comparable performance to 3L petrol (or diesel cars) i.e. BMW320i was cheaper, whereas BMW330i was closer to Lexus IS300h in terms of starting price. It is fair to say that Lexus was better equipped for each trim level, making it somewhere in between, but closer to 330, than 320... Fuel economy is definitely good in town, that is where hybrids are strongest, but absolutely unimpressive on motorway at any speed past 70MPH. Any diesel and most petrol cars are similar if not better. Obviously, what helps IS300h in UK is that we have retarded speed limits which are one of the lowest in the Europe.

not sure how right approach, turned into "more"... 😅 But I hope you got my point.

Answer - no... we won't see hydrogen IS. I am 99.99% sure about it. IS as a badge is dead. If there is going to be hydrogen car it most likely going to be LS first (Toyota Mirai shares same platform), the other option would be to badge Mirai as ES or new dedicated Lexus model (like HS), because Mirai arguably doesn't really meet requirements for performance and Luxury of LS. Badging it ES has it's own issues, because ES is FWD car built on inferior platform to Mirai and having 2 fundamentally different cars badged as ES would be confusing at very least - one would be FWD hybrid based on TNGA-K and another RWD car based hydrogen car on bigger TNGA-L. Probably more logical would be to revive GS badge or even better HS... which was dedicated hybrid vehicle in the days before hybrid ES. Further HS badge kind of suites the purpose very well... I believe it suppose to mean hybrid sedan/saloon, but it can be easily mean hydrogen sedan/saloon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexus_HS

And that is true and I said it myself - but why don't you say the way it is "an extremely reliable, luxurious and well built car", but fast it isn't. As well I would like to remind you that third lane is for overtaking only, that is not according to me, that is according to Highway code. As such there should be nobody pushing you out of third lane - you should overtake and immanently move over. There are idiots driving all sorts of makes and models of cars, having faster car doesn't automatically make person brainless idiot. Thanks for just proving my point - performance compares well with 1.8-2l petrol cars i.e. absolutely entry level models not meant to have good performance... meaning? Maybe it should be called 200h as I said?

As I said, prices simply got stuck for last 5 years on these cars and for good reasons. In 2014 they were just silly good value. I think you got simply unlucky, because £8k is completely unacceptable price for IS250 mk2, except for very much the best IS250 still in existence, because mk3 starts at ~9k. There may be 1 or two exceptional 2012 SE-Ls with every single option and with 30k miles... and ok I appreciate that it could cost more than cheapest 2013 bottom of the barrel IS300h SE or Exec model. But apart of these few exceptions £8k should provide you the car with pristine condition (i.e. better than expected for year and mileage). £5.5k would be what I would expect to pay for example where conditions reflects the mileage and age, again average 2012 car is 9 years old, 80k miles, so there could be some stone chips and general wear and tear, but no shoddy paint jobs etc. Overall I think you are taking more approach - these cars are not afraid of mileage as long as they are maintained properly and has service history 5.5k should definitely be enough to buy you late mk2 IS in decent condition.

It is interesting how the prices of these cars have gone up. I got my 2008 IS250 S-EL in 2014 for £4000. It had 122k miles on it which was one the high side for 6 years old car, but I was more than happy to take it knowing it had easy miles on motorways and that was amazing decision as condition of the car was far better than mileage could suggest and after 6 years and 70k miles it never had a single fault. In 2020 I have sold it for £2700 with 192k miles and with N-category (non-structural write-off) after receiving insurance settlement of £3800 (I think they deducted like £700 for resale value). That was surprising because it means my 12 years old car with 192k miles in 2020 was worth same as a paid for 6 years old car with 122k miles in 2014! Looking at the prices nowadays they are just crazy, it seems people really started appreciating these cars for what they are. I can't tell you what to pay for IS250 as I can't influence the market, but I would not pay more than £5.5k myself - even for latest and best example. After all even last model year (2012) are now 9 years old and presumably has ~70-80k miles on the clock. Anything lower than that is not good sign either - car doing low miles locally will always be more tired than car doing many miles on the motorway. ~10k a years is good measure. As well, I am not sure why 2007 September would be a cut-off date. Between 2005 and 2008 it is the same car, so I regard the all the same. 2009-2011 is first facelift - different rear lights and indicators went on mirrors, there were few more subtle changes inside each years, so for models after 2009 you could add a little bit of money each years, because they got HDD sat-nav at some point, late 2011 got DLRs etc. and obviously final model for 2012 again had DLRs and latest revisions of all equipment. But if I look at the price I basically see them as 3 tiers 2005-2008, 2009-2011 (non-DLR), 2011(DLR)-2012. Now when it comes to ML... again it isn't really that important. I had cars with both ML and without ML and although ML is "better" the difference in minimal. The standard car has 13 speakers system, ML has 14 speakers + better amp (basically only adding centre speaker in the front). ML is slightly louder but not much and the main benefit of ML is high-clarity and high-definition sound, BUT only if you have good quality source. If anything ML only highlights imperfections in music if you have poor quality source (say MP3 ripped from youtube). So if you planning to listen to classic music out of original DVD with loserless quality ML is amazing, but if you listening banging tunes from youtube it may be the same if not actually worse. As for E10... I find this blown out of proportions... I drove thousands of miles on E85 in Europe as well as other ethanol mixes which were far greater than 10% of ethanol with absolutely no problems. Sure I would not recommend leaving E85 in the tank for months, but just using it on long journeys was absolutely fine. In short - if I would be in the market I would grab something like this myself: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202107285549824 if I would need to go with first facelift: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202107245408889 (althought I would never go for cream interior, they just don't las as well as black).

Well that is exactly the point... and the reason why knife crime is so common in UK, but pretty much non-existent in countries where carrying gun for self-defence if legal (that is ... most countries). Same reason why petty crime (in a sense that crime proceedings are very low) like cat theft is so common here. By the time criminals need guns to do a crime the catalytic converter no longer interest them - risk vs. reward simply doesn't compute. And it works for all sorts of low level imbecile crimes which are so common in UK, entry-level to be a criminal simply becomes higher and most people then are either too smart to offend or have to find ways of making living in legal ways... or are shot dead trying. Sorry if I sound like amurican gun lobbyist (because I personally despise them), but gun control and allowing to use guns for self-defence reduces overall number of crimes if implemented correctly, which is how it works basically in any country where this is allowed (except US... and few other bad examples like South Africa). It is indeed irrelevant in UK, because UK laws effectively forbids defending your belonging and only allows self-defence in circumstances where it is not longer relevant. Guns aside, there is no way for car owner to confront cat thieves, because everything is stacked against the owner. Even if owners dares to interrupt the thieves in the process and takes common tool... say shovel or fork and then if during the fight they would injure the criminal, they will be judged not for premediated bodily harm or murder. So the only option one has is to go fight 4 man gang and wielding baseball bats empty handed. This is just non-starter and criminals knows it. As well, just to be clear, you can't just go and shoot cat thieves in any country (maybe in amurica), but you could definitely go and confront them. At that point they only have option to run or to get shot, because as soon as they take step towards you, especially if they have anything in their hands, the self-defence law comes into action allowing you to shoot them. So yes - you can't just kill them, but they must run or surrender. In this case everything is stacked against the criminal and the owner simply needs to wait for them to make mistake. That is how it should be...

"I think it was emergency repair, they worked like a formula one team - one mechanic lifted the car, another worked on it and third one had a pit-stop sign in his hand... with serrated edges... " 😅 Add people ignorance to my list of points above and we have perfect storm for all sorts of crimes... To be fair I have seen once clip where scum were acting like mechanics, came with "tyre repair van" and had high-viz, which could give this impression. But again - I would say this should be easy for police to pick them-up if they would ever want to get involved. How many tyre replacement vans are driving on the streets and how far can they go. If police would react to it, they surely could catch them fleeing.

I will add my unpopular opinion here... if UK would be normal country with normal gun laws (not like aumurica) and with true right for self defence, this would not be the case. How it works in most normal countries. You see somebody committing the crime in daylight, you come out to stop it, you get confronted by the guy with machete or baseball bat, at this point you can shoot him dead (this is completely legal, because he has a weapon) and the crime is over and those scums will never try it again in similar fashion. Maybe it is slightly more complex depending on the country, some require warning shots (but there are exceptions if somebody coming to you with machete). Other option would be country with actually functioning police i.e. where they come to crime scene quickly, act on the reports, cordon the roads and have "manhunt" based on number plates and description of the car of suspects. Country where one cannot get away from serious and especially brazen crime. Now fair to say - cat theft is an issue everywhere, in Western Europe, in Eastern Europe, but NOWHERE it is as brazen as in UK. People may disagree, but UK is exception because of non-existent police enforcement combined with population which is not allowed to protect themselves and their property without risk of persecution and generally have all odds stacked against them.

That is absurd, they really getting brazen then. So what does B&Q does - surely they have cameras, security? But I guess security does not want to get involved and when they call police, police simply ignores it as they always do. As for gardening centres I do understand why they choose that... sadly scum will always choose the path of least resistance and gardening centres being mostly visited by pensioners they know they won't see much of it. I have seen video on YouTube for it being done in early mornings, it looks bright as a day, but it may actually be 5-6AM.

Do you mean this: ... anyone's guess what it means, because manual has following to say: Some has speculated it is same as "auto height off" switch in newer RX model, which should be fitted in cars with air suspension so that height could be set manually when wading for example and for car not to try to change it automatically, but it makes no sense to place this button next to power door and mirror controls...

All that is true, but considering most cats are sold as metal scrap rather than reusable part this negates the benefit of watermark. The only thing it remotely prevents is re-selling them for spares and creating sort of vicious cycle of theft/re-sale... I know in some other countries where this has happened with BMW headlights or mirrors, where part is basically re-sold to same pool of people from whom it was stolen. But that isn't what is happening with cats anyway because they are inherently valuable for their metal, rather than being part for specific car. It isn't strictly true. Many different makes are affected. I know my colleagues Ford Focus had it ripped as well. What makes Toyota more risky is simple matter that Toyotas are often petrol FWD with 4pot transversally mounted engine (same applies to CT and most hybrid SUVs). Why this matters? Well first of all most of other cars in this segment are diesel nowadays so cats are mostly not fitted to them in the first place. The layout and driving wheels simply makes cat much simpler to access (and steal), being 4 pot makes it so that there is single pipe with single large cat going back, transversal/FWD layout means there is loads of space (no driveshaft) in a way... so it is just more convenient for thieves. Hybrids are separate reason, for one they are still same transversal/FWD/4pot layout and secondly they simply have cleaner cats which are often as well larger, due to start/stop nature of the engine, but say Honda hybrids would have exactly the same risks as Toyota/Lexus. For example why Lexus IS250 v6 or hybrid GS450h are not targeted? That is because they have 4 tiny cats on 2 separate pipes and everything very tightly packaged making it impossible to reach two out of 4 and even other 2 squeezed on the sides of driveshaft and gearbox. In short it is not Toyota/Lexus which are targeted, but any petrol car with transversal/FWD/L4 engine layout, Toyota just happens to be most numerous/popular... whereas German cars are more often diesel.

I literally crashed mine 3 miles from dealership in less than 10 minutes (well it was van which hit me, but still). But in my case I have not paid anything. It is funny how different dealerships does it and how their explanation differs. In some cases it looks as if you being charged for courtesy car itself as there are no information about insurance. By the way you can absolutely say that you don't want to pay £15, that is what I did last time when I has service at Reading.

This is very subjective statement. IS300h is great car in many ways, but fast it certainly isn't. Lexus claims that nomenclature on their models i.e. 300 in the model name should mean performance equal to the power of NA 3L engine. IS300h is certainly not equivalent to the contemporary car with 3L engine from 2013 ... not even 2006. What would be good examples? 2004 BMW 330i (3L I6 engine - N53B30) would be comparable naturally aspirated engine, making 268HP and providing acceleration of 6.1s 0-60. Competitor for mk3 IS would be 2011 BMW 330i which sadly moved to turbo charged 2L engine, but it kept nomenclature with model name 330i (referring to it being equivalent to 3L engine like Lexus), it has 248HP and 0-60 time of 5.4s. Even if we look at hybrids, then again BMW 330e PHEV despite having 2L engine 330e does 0-60 in 5.9s (again example of BMW correctly sticking to their nomenclature). When I see "300" badge on the car I expect performance equivalent to 3L petrol engine - that is what Lexus claims themselves. BMW aside, we can look to Lexus own range for same model IS250 has 208HP 0-60 in 8s, IS350 has 306HP and 0-60 in 5.2s, so "300" has to fall somewhere in the middle i.e. ~257HP and ~6.6s 0-60. Lexus IS300h makes only 181HP and 0-60 in ~8.2s. So it is not me saying it is slow car, it is Lexus themselves miss-using their nomenclature and incorrectly advertising car to imply it is faster than it is. If Lexus would have named exactly same car IS "200h" then I would have said fair enough! Because, they named it "300h" it is objective to say it is "slow" for what should have been performance equivalent to 3L engine... Now whenever it is "fast enough", it is purely subjective and depends on what one consider "enough" for the car. If that would be generally accepted as enough, then we won't have IS-F, RC-F, GS450h or any other car which goes faster to 60 than 8s. Here again, if Lexus focus on their values like reliability and economy, it perhaps could be acceptable, but when you see marketing literature claiming it to be "sports saloon" with "irresistible/hart-racing performance" I think it is fair to say marketing is at very least disingenuous... if not deliberately false. So IS300h is definitely slow for what should be "exceptional sports saloon". Note as well, this isn't generic description, so there is no confusion with IS350. This is UK product page and it specifically says "IS-Hybrid". https://www.lexus.co.uk/car-models/is/

Yes that is last 3 times (in 2 years) I was offered "premium insurance", as well it is £15 per day, not £15 per car (I know because I had NX300h for 4 days). Before they just asked to sign the agreement and sometimes they may or may not pointed out to the excess. Actually, thinking about it, the only time I was told "by the way please note there is excess" was when I test drove LC. But I guess the assumption is that you should read any paper before signing it.

I think this £15 damage waiver "premium insurance" is a new service they offering. There always been £1000 excess on courtesy car, but previously there were no option to waive it. So I guess this service is good thing... I happened to have crashed in one of loaners Lexus CTs, it wasn't my fault but usually when it comes to excess it does not matter... however Lexus didn't charge me anything for damages (it was car with 80 miles on the clock! 😪).

ML is great, but that has nothing to do with terrible sat-nav. Likewise standard audio with 13 speakers was equally decent on Mk2, not to say ML isn't better, but simply that it wasn't really that big of a deal in mk2 compared to mk3.

Not really - there are just objectively good and subjectively good. Obviously, with complex object like car it is difficult to say if it is bad or good, because single car can have dozen good attributes and dozen bad attributes. It could be argued that with more bad attributes car is bad, but then it depends on what actually matters for the owner. Car could be objectively terrible, but have 3 good attributes about it and all 3 of them very important for the owner, so the owner will consider this car good and this would be subjective. That is why in the reviews cars are scored in different areas against different objectives and objective score is given in the end. Objectively any car which scores overall low is bad, and overall high is good, but people can have subjective views about it and like the cars which are bad. When it comes to classic cars, this is not difficult to figure out... you will have "concours d'elegance" for those which have earned their title as a good cars historically and you will have "concours d'lemons" for those which are let's say "unexceptional"... stopping short of calling them crap. One thing to note - such events are often attended by car owners who have car which could be considered relatively good, but just isn't in pristine condition, but that is yet another topic.

Well then they would end-up with cars which are widely accepted as appreciating classics and truly valuable. Whereas now they have have bunch of cars only they are interested in. And all that is great! I certainly, can't tell people they can't enjoy their "unexceptional" cars. But likewise my first reaction to all those cars is as expected "what a bunch of trash" (which they are objectively speaking). I already mentioned that I understand why some people have subjective views about certain cars and that is OK!... just doesn't make those cars good and I am not into habit of giving "award for participation".

I certainly haven't, because that would be the car who can be deservedly scrapped, forgotten and never worth remembering. But I must admit - some cars are so notoriously terrible, that they even get some cult following... just trolling collector and people expectations I guess! Reliant Robin and few other monstrosities they made are firmly in this "troll" category. That is relief then 👍 By the way it think you would be interested in the documentary I have mentioned, if only I could remember the name of it. It was to do with how "efficient and modern" car industry is and generally interesting, sadly PSA have shot themselves in the foot trying to spin bad thing good way. At least in my oppinion.

Often... according to whom ? 😁 I think it is fair to say, be it my opinion, that if even engineers and the makers of the car didn't like their product and designed it deliberately to fail and become waste, then it can't be good. I remember documentary about PSA Group and it was head of design speaking about development of their cars. I am not sure how it was called, but it was from ~2002/2003 maybe. He said something along the lines - "our cars are designed first and foremost to be easily recycled, they are not overengineered to last 10 or 20 years. It isn't that we can't make the cars to last, but simple truth is that people don't drive their cars that long, so there is no point in engineering the car to last, as such we better understand our customer and we can deliver the car they like and need for 3-5 years, once warranty expires the car will most likely going to fail soon after and that is the way they are designed to give our customers most freedom". He was very proud as well of basically making this statement that they making trash for consumers to use and throw away and it was clear he thinks simply designing the cars to be easy to recycle is good enough. I would not bore you with details of how they spent 100 million euros to design specific fabric for the car which was easier to shred than normal seat materials etc. Now I thought - I will not touch another PSA car even with a barge pole. If company spends their engineering prowess not to design cars to be fast, to be good handling, to be powerful, to be reliable and generally what I consider to be a good car... but they only spending time focusing on what happens when it becomes trash it is... then they not making cars, they making trash and there is no reason to buy their products and for them to exist as a company. Now it is important to note that what PSA did in 90's and 2000's since have been adopted by many other makers e.g. Nissan, Mitsubishi, entry Level BMW (1-Series and entry level 3-series), MB A class in particular (so much so that MB even built plant in Hungary so that sub-par culture of building car would no poison their proper car models, the only A-Class they assemble in Germany are AMG models), VW group does that with Skoda/Seat and some cheaper VW (like Lupo, Up!), I am sure GM and Fiat are on board. Those cars are "fast fashion of the cars world" - they are sort of things you "wear once and throw away". They symbolise large part of what is wrong with this world and consumerism. Obviously, it is fair to say that in 70s or 80s, such planned obsolescence strategies were not as defined or deliberately used, but it does not mean there were not many absolutely horrible cars. Some by design, some by simply being made in a way where every single corner was cut and result was horrible car. Finally, I appreciate that some people may have some moral attachment to some particularly horrible car. Maybe it was their first car and they spent their teen years driving them and therefore those cars means a lot to them. Or their parents owned them or something along those lines, but that does not make these cars objectively good or worth restoring.

Sadly I have to disagree - it was terrible and dated even compared to contemporary cars in 2006 and by 2012 it was real eye-sore. Say BMW iDrive on 2006 BMW 3-Series. Camera quality is as well terrible, compared to aforementioned BMW, but as well cars like 2008 Nissan Qashqai or Juke for example ( I am sure same applies to wider range, I just haven't driven many Nissans recently). In short Lexus infotainment system has always been subpar and it still is subpar to this day. In 2030s we will be able to say same about most modern Lexus sat-navs from 2020 - they are not great today compared to other cars of today, they are arguable the worst infotainment systems fitted to any of cars in this class (Audi/BWM/MB). And I mean objectively what we currently have in LC500, ES and LS (best systems Lexus have ever made) is about equal to what was in other cars in 2012-2016. For example new Lexus "widescreen" system fitted to Lexus models since ~2017-2018 is very similar to "professional" system you would find in BMW 4 and 6 Series from around 2012-2014... except BMW controls are far more intuitive and system overall quicker. Now I am not trashing the Lexus as a brand, it is indeed one of the best brands on the roads, mk2 IS250 is still one of the most reliable and dependable cars there are and I would gladly drive one, but being objective about infotainment system - it is very bad. So bad in fact, that I would not miss it one bit in car without sat-nav. Now again - if you just look into it in isolation. Rear view camera does it job, you can see where you parking... sat-nav somewhat works if you have up-to date maps (although I don't think you can even get up-to date maps DVD for early non-HDD IS now)... so despite taking 10 times longer to enter post-code compared to mid-range smartphone and giving you outright worst route it kind of serves the purpose because eventually you will reach your destination. But the important thing here - nothing exists in isolation... if there were cars which did it better in 2006, then it means mk2 was not the best... and because almost any car in the segment did it better - I think it is fair (and objective) to say it was bad.

30MPG is not bad at all. But I guess that is reasonable for A-road, doing around 60MPH. My driving was mostly city or motorway - in city I was getting 18-22MPG and even on motorway it is not great - sticking to exactly 70MPH indicated I would only get ~30MPG, it would go to 32, but as soon as there is little bit of congestion on motorway it would swiftly go down to 28. The fuel consumption was really unacceptable, especially considering it's isn't really that sporty or fast... as I said I would get better economy on RC-F in like for like driving which is just mental to even think about. I sold it mainly because I work from home since covid began and will work for home now (no plans going back to office). The car just sat unused and I start worrying that battery will die etc. at this point I thought "do I really need car" and considering £900+ for insurance and £235 for road tax + ~£500 + depreciation, I realised it will be cheaper for me to use taxi if I ever need it or rent a car from time to time. Spending like £3000 a year just to keep the car on the drive makes no sense. And even then - even when I find the time to drive it, the car was not really that exciting to drive to justify all this cost.

Please consider context of my comment - I said there are great old cars, which hare definitely worth saving, which are interesting and important to keep as heritage. But there are others which were trash when you new and are still trash nowadays and will always be trash, nothing admire and nothing to enjoy - unless people have some perverse masochistic needs to punish themselves... great examples would be Lada or anything that Daihatsu or Daewoo made. I am into classic cars myself and one day I would like to be able to restore them myself (my retirement plan), so I definitely appreciate good classic, but some cars are just not "classic" and will never be. I can draw analogy to wine here - if you have bottle of cheap crap wine today, you can keep it for another 200 years and it will still going to be cheap crap wine, just 200 years outdated. Same with cars - some of them are better to be scrapped and forgotten.