Linas.P

The prices in Norway are astronomical, but so are the salaries - so no point comparing. Average British salary is like £24000... what is it in Norway? £40k? £60k? 2006-2008 IS220d in UK costs like £1500, because basically they are considered pile of junk by now. Only the later IS200d are £4000. But I do agree that cars in UK are cheaper than elsewhere - that is because when it comes to UK car ownership the car cost itself may be just half of the overall cost. Take for example IS220d... if you say 25 years old, then after paying £1500 for the car, you will have to pay another £1500 for insurance, £250 for road tax and on top of that car maintenance and fuel. So from £5000 which will cost you to own the car for a single year, only 30% will be the cost of the car itself. Not sure how it is in Norway (I thought tax on diesel cars is high?), but in other countries 90% of the cost is the car itself... you buy the car, the insurance is cheap, no road tax and you only pay as much as it cost to buy the fuel after that.

Yeah... but is kind of irrelevant... this is not addressing an issue with the time BEVs takes to charge... sure they can find things for me to do whilst it charges and make additional money out of me, but that is not what I want. I don't want to stop for 2 hours every ~200 miles to go into stinky theme park with random people or indeed visit Oxford. Nor I want to own an expensive and luxurious car, just to be put into the stinky bus with other dirty people and their kids, and to be driven to the city centre like animal, nor I want to be sticking to the schedule of any sort. If I have to get a bus for last 5 miles of my journey, that defeats the purpose of having the car in first place - what is the difference from just getting the bus to Oxford then? And this idea defeats itself on so many levels. They kind of took an issue of ICEs going into city centre, but converted it to BEVs... What is the point of park and ride if you already have an electric car... sure I understand that ICEs are not great for city centres due to pollution, but that is key advantage of EVs... so if I have EV, then I expect to be allowed to drive right into the middle of the city. Not to ride a nasty bus! In short what I expect from personal transportation experience - I want to drive door to door and if I ever need to stop, then I want to stop, grab a coffee, kick the tyres and move on in max 3-5 minutes. That is why people own their own cars instead of just using public transport.

You will be hard pushed to find GS450h nowadays for £4k, but there are absolutely thousands of different cars which are better buy at £4k than Lexus IS200/220d. But you right - Lexus diesel is never a good idea and always work out more expensive in long run than petrol IS.

Because it is synthetic - by default you get "Tahara leather" in ES and that is pure and simple fake leather. Sure it is best fake leather there is, but it is not real nonetheless. Same applies to FL IS, most entry level NX, all UX, FL RC etc. There was sneaky push for synthetic leather as standard in Lexus and you only get semi-aniline leather in Takumi ES, IS, RC, NX or higher end models like LC, RC-F, LS, RX.

Generally I agree with you, but I don't think you got your the price right... Cheapest GS250 costs the same as cheapest GS300h (£10k vs. £11k). Sure the newest GS250 will be significantly cheaper than newest GS300h - that is true, but that is because newest GS300h will be 2019 FL model, whereas newest GS250 will be 2013 pre-FL. When it comes to value for money - obviously used car will be much better value. I mean £2500 IS250 will be 80% as good car as £35000 ES300h (some may argue even better). So I think to keep it relevant the only comparison which could be made is late and nearly new FL 2017/2018 GS450h/300h vs. 2018 IS300h vs. 2018 ES300h - so those cars are comparable. And then we can see where the value is: 2017+ GS450h £28-34k 2018 GS300h £17-24k 2018+ IS300h £14-26k (28k-35k are 2020 cars only) 2018+ ES300h £22-35k So this now really shows how much better value GS and IS are compared to ES. One could get late 2017/2018 GS450h for the price of 2018 ES300h - that is good value GS, not only it is better quality car, but as well it has serious performance for the same price. Further - one could get GS300h for £5-10k less than ES300h, performance wise they will be equal, but GS is still better luxury car. And finally IS - late IS were actually worse quality than early ones (e.g. going from semi-aniline leather to tahara fake leather etc.) and this is where ES is in terms of quality and in terms of performance, except IS is more sporty handling car, again one could get £7-11k savings on IS without loosing much stuff compared to ES. So yes - ES is not great value for money if looking at "nearly new" cars and even worse if one is not fancy with latest tech and just wants luxurious and reliable car.

Yes... I would not say £1600 on IS220d is red-flag. Because that is fairly normal price for it. However, the issue is more fundamental - sorted IS220d are extremely rare (probably do no exist). The reason is rather simple - most of things which goes wrong on IS220d will cost ~£1000 to fix, HG, Injectors, DPF, Turbo even EGR if done in service... just cleaning will be £500. Which means when car itself only worth £1500 nobody will be spending that sort of money to fix it and keep it in great shape. In short - by now most of IS220d's are uneconomical to repair. If anyone insists on the diesel, then the only option are newer IS200d... and at £4000 there are still many other cars which are better for that price.

Understanding how business works in China that isn't surprising, when these companies are basically controlled at high level from CCP. Considering most large companies in China receives what could be considered unfair "state aid", I think this will lead to more protectionism in EU and US. Basically, adding punitive import duties thus making Chinese cars uncompetitive here (same as China does to "foreign" cars in China).

That is absolutely the single biggest issue for me at the moment, and I would argue BEVs market overall. If EVs would charge quickly, say 100 miles in 15s (somewhat comparable for petrol), then they could have 100 miles range and still would be fine for me... I could plan my driving around stopping every 100 miles... because let's face it - I probably would need to stop anyway... for coffee, for pee or just to stretch legs. Could I drive more - yes I probably could, but thinking about average long drive I had say London to Snowdonia or Lake District... we would stop 2, 3 maybe even 4 times... if not for me then for passengers. So then it just becomes the matter of having charging infrastructure. And when I say 100 miles I mean actual 100 miles as a worse case scenario... Because most of current 180 miles BEVs would barely do 100 miles with everything on (heater, AC, music, 4 people with their stuff etc). And you certainly don't want to be "that EV driver" when everyone comes back to the car after climbing the mountain in the rain and you say you could not put heater and AC on because that means not reaching home and getting stuck in the middle of nowhere... Obviously, 100 miles would be annoying for Euro Trips, because there you can do serious miles and only limiting factor is car range... even say my IS250 was not the best with ~350miles, compared to say BMW 530D, where you can cruise 600miles @120MPH all day long. Sure if somebody does it everyday say for work and they need to stop 5 times before reaching the client, that is not ideal, but then maybe they don't need GT coupe either. @Barry14UK ... 😁 nahhh still SUV. If they make same car just ... actual Mustang, then absolutely. @Zotto Tesla for performance - absolutely, have no issue with that, but when it comes to luxury and built quality they are pile of garbage. Chinese smartphone on the wheels... that would be accurate description of Tesla. @rayaans Actually, I am quite "sad" about these 450h+ news if they true. I have always said that issue with Lexus range was lack of engine choices and 300h turned out not to be that universal engine which meets everyone's expectations. Likewise I said if only 300h would have larger battery and more powerful electric engine maybe (sounds like 350h) or plug-in capability like BMW330e (sounds like 450h+) then IS and RC would be great cars. So now when they had discontinued both IS and RC... they finally bringing those engines in! Damn you Lexus!

I didn't say it has to be Toyota or Lexus - any feasible GT coupe or sport coupe ... Obviously definition of "feasible" is personal thing, so what I define as feasible is a mass produced car with, with at least 300 miles range, under 6s 0-60 and the price up-to or just around £40k new. That is sort of the price/ performance where Tesla Model 3 sits, meaning it is possible to make EV coupe which is "feasible", yet nobody makes one yet. Your list doesn't have any feasible EV coupe either - Taycan, E-tron GT and MB EQS are not Coupes, despite it being in their name. They are all Saloons. But even then they are feasible... by which I mean they all costs ~£100k. The most viable would be Tesla Model S/3, but as I said Tesla is not a car - it is experiment on wheels. Old SLS Electric, again not feasible - only 100 made and now sells at around £500k a piece and it could only do like 40 miles range. Polestar is not electric, but it is PHEV, but again it is horrible and it is limited production and costs £140k... for what is essentially 2 door version of Volvo S90 which costs £60k... so again not feasible car. If we looking into PHEV examples, then the closest to feasible is used BMW i8, but at original £100k price not so much. The rest what you said are all valid points, but does not defeat my point that market is filled with "boring" SUVs and Lexus is going to introduce another boring SUV. As for market "wanting SUVS" - that seems like chicken and egg situation...

So what you did address the condition of callipers? But indeed - copper grease is terrible idea as "lubricant" for slider pins, almost guaranteed way to get the stuck.

Yeah, not something I could do in my pre-facelift or any of other cars I tried with AVS. Speaking specifically about RC200t, engine response was dreadful in any mode but Sport+, however Sport+ keeps revs very high even after you let off the accelerator and it sets AVS to it's most aggressive setting, which just rattles car too much on broken London and east England roads. As such I was always split between having unresponsive engine/gearbox or harsh ride. My conclusion was that AVS was great as a mean to make car more sporty, but not really to keep it comfortable.

That is my understanding of how AVS should work in all cars, but perhaps implementation is indeed different. In my RC it felt like it was off in eco mode, car was softer and allowed some roll in corners, but even in normal mode I could feel AVS doing "something" like reducing the roll a little bit... It would be even stiffer in Sport/Sport+ and I could not feel much difference in terms of AVS - in both modes car was very stiff and planted in corners, but certainly too hard to drive on the roads (probably good for track)... and only difference in Sport+ was that car was holding revs much longer when letting off the accelerator and it was more sensitive. If Lexus would have personalised mode like BMW, then my ideal set-up would have been AVS on Normal, Accelerator on Sport+ and Gearbox rev holding on Sport. Sadly, Lexus does not allow them to be adjusted individually - it is either all or nothing. Never tried RC without AVS, so don't know how it compares, but I have tried IS with both and assumed same to be true on RC as it shares most of parts with IS. From my experience in IS mk3 - AVS and non-AVS cars felt the same in eco/normal mode, but AVS car would be more planted and level around the corers once set Sport or Sport+ mode, however I could not compare how it differed on gears/revs and accelerator as they were hybrids/CVT. So IS behaviour seems similar to what John has described on GS and opposite from what David stated on RC-F.

Despite reservations about benefit and feasibility of BEVs, I am not against idea of electric propulsion in cars as long as it is provided in truly competitive product - not funded by public and not forced upon the population. That said - could you please point me to the direction of feasible BEV sports coupe, GT coupe or even Luxury saloon? I exclude Tesla here, because Tesla is technology company and they don't make cars, they make technical feasibility study on the wheels... Teslas are horrible cars when it comes to reliability, build quality etc. And as far as I know they make no coupes for the time being. I mean if there would be EV version of Lexus RC or LC, I would be very interested. However, the news refers to yet another boring SUV... as I said.

Sadly another boring SUV... what they expect the customers who wants normal cars to do?

If the callipers were not cleaned and greased during the service then they could get stuck, normal Lexus service does not grease the callipers. Yes - stuck calliper can cause excessive brake pad wear as you experienced. IS250 callipers are not the best design and are prone to getting stuck, the only long term solution is looking after those callipers.

🤣

Yes that is interesting perspective... I was very surprised when I realised RC-F didn't have AVS as standard, whilst it was standard on RC300h and RC200t F-Sport. I never tried non-AVS RC-F, but I have suspicion that it had different shock from RC which were by default had - well they have to be on high power sports car. So this is assumption, but I believe regarding to RC-F is correct - standard shocks hard and AVS can go as hard or softer, but for non "F" cars, I think that is opposite AVS by default similar, but could go harder.

Sadly it is not as sophisticated, there are such systems (in S-Class I believe) which scans the road ahead and selectively dampen each wheels as they go over pothole. AVS decides damping for entire car e.g. under braking it may stiffen front so the car does not dive as much, and in sharp left turn it may stiffen the right side to prevent the roll.... but if it happens that pothole hit the corner which was stiffened, then it will hit harder. Other thing, it may adjust rebound after wheel hits pothole so that wheel could grip again sooner than using normal shock absorbers, but that does not help comfort either. My experience is mostly from RC with AVS and GS is obviously more comfortable car overall, but the concept is the same on both. And what makes it even worse is that Lexus does not have user customisation for each setting, only 3 driving modes e.g. Normal, Sport and Sport+. Now on RC if I wanted to get most response from the engine I would like to have Sport+ selected, but that automatically sets AVS mode to the hardest, which too hard even for me on broken british roads. So I have to set the car to normal mode for suspension, but then the engine response is terrible. In short AVS is aimed at improving handling, without compromising comfort too much, but it does not improve comfort. I wish it would have switch which would allow to set suspension to more comfortable, but there isn't. So you can consider AVS car as being equal to non-AVS car by default and AVS car can get harder and less comfortable, but it can't get softer.

It is kind of subjective - AVS makes the car to handle better, to have less roll in the corners as it could adjust rates of each shock absorber on the go. What it doesn't do - it does not make car more comfortable (some people may even argue it is less comfortable). In theory AVS should make car more sporty without making it less comfortable and that is what I think it does, but some people find the "sportier" handling not as comfortable. Smaller wheels with thicker tyres will inevitable make the car "softer" although choice of the tyres is important as well. Overall based on what you said, it doesn't seems like you would benefit from AVS greatly. However, I am not sure I would bother driving if my work would be half a mile away... but that is none of my business I guess.

Good luck with that, When I have made a claim for Financial Ombudsman about Esure Insurance, they took good 6 months to make a decision on it and although in the end they agreed that T&Cs are confusing and conflicting with other documents in my "documents pack", they concluded it is a matter of contractual law and it is outside of their jurisdiction to enforce. They offered me to sue insurance company privately for recourse. So please consider if it is worth it. For me it was worth it just purely on principle because in general I don't like how insurance companies operates in UK, but you should decide for yourself if you principals are worth the time it will take to prove anything.

I would absolutely agree with you here if it would be possible to make it comparable. The reason I don't go into the details is because in UK insurance is collecting excessive amount of details (in my opinion again). It warries a little bit between the company to company, but generally there are few dozen questions with often indefinite ways of how they could be answered - as result leaving indefinite number or possible quotes. If we just oversimplify and say there are 50 data points, with 50 different answers each this creates this number possible combinations - 50,445,672,272,782,075,000,000,000,000 (not my math I just used online combinations calculator!). I assume insurance does not have that many risk profiles, but there would be hundreds if not thousands... Meaning that every single person in UK will get different quote and trying to compare them is mostly meaningless.

You know my personal opinion on that Roy - all those things about insurance companies are irrelevant, because if you get hit or worse you hit somebody you will be screwed either way. At the time of the accident it may look like you got the better deal, but every single penny will be taken back from you in a way of increased premium for many years to come. So just get the cheapest cover to comply with the law and that is it. It is true that certain details will make certain covers better value than others e.g. if you have once cover for £500 and another for £550, but the one for £550 has lower excess and includes breakdown cover, then the later is actually better value. I cannot argue with that. However, that is very personal and I can't advise on that - maybe one already has breakdown cover, so why get another one with more expensive insurance? It is funny you mention that, today when checking the quotes again I have noticed the label next to Admiral quote - according to Confused.com which is owned by Admiral, the Admiral is voted the best insurance company for 7 years in a row (not sure if you can see irony in this statement).

LV and AVIVA are certainly on comparison sites, but generally I agree - there are some companies not on comparison sites which may provide different quote. Although based on my experience I could never get lower price than comparison sites provided. It was more along the lines that they provided almost double the price on the quote, but then they agreed to provide "50%" discount which basically brought them in line with the quotes on comparison sites. Maybe they are trying to play on psychological factor that you get "massive discount", but in the end they all provide almost the same price.

Few weeks ago my cheapest "non-blackbox" price was with Admiral, and Hastings Direct was another £80 cheaper with black-box. Just did another quote today and Ford Insurance came just £12 higher than Hastings Direct... and Hastings direct is now £764... All over the place basically.

The only thing I would say - there were real poverty line GS300h's, I think SE or Exec with funny small wheels, tiny infotainment screen and really just most basic stuff. So it is important to compare trims like for like. The two GS450h's I tried were both pre-face lift, one was Premier and another one was F-Sport, admittedly interior looked a little bit dated, but overall quality was outstanding - soft touch materials, well insulated, little bit of V6 sounds but not too much and was very solid feeling car. The ES I tried was certainly F-Sport with Takumi Pack, but it had very cheap looking wood imitation black plastic dash, contrasting with some "aluminium" look plastic inserts and the door arm rest with windows buttons were very hard textured plastic which felt like it belonged in Ford Transit van and not Lexus. It was literally brand new ... something like 400 miles so there were no funny sounds, but even sound insulation didn't feel as great, the engine was quiet, but it felt like interior almost amplified road noises. Overall it felt "light" and fragile.