Linas.P

If you worried about performance then then IS300h is absolutely not the car for you. I had 3 IS250s over the years and I would agree it was best "all around" car I have ever owned, it was very difficult to find an upgrade for it and I have owned my last one for far longer than I used to own cars. In the end it was written off in small accident which sort of helped morally to say "it is time". Obviously, best thing to do would for you be to test drive one and see how it feels. I was looking at IS mk3 from the day it launched and I really wanted to like that car, but as far as performance is concerned IS300h has nothing in comparison with IS250. I hated how sluggish the car is from the first second I got into it on my first test drive and I just wanted to go back to IS250. IS250 is very smooth and the harder you push it the better it drives, and it actually sounds good if you rev it out. IS300h has massive hesitation form the start, then electric motor kicks in with instant torque and hits you over the head for maybe 0.5s, then there is huge dip and petrol engine kicks in, but then again due to how CVT works, it just stays droning at 3000RPM. Overall, I would describe the sensation which I get when launching IS300h same as if I wanted to throw-up!. Now to be fair mk3 IS300h never meant to replace IS250, it was replacement of mk2 IS220d and that is does well. IS250 was mean to be replaced by IS200t, but it turned out to be awful all around - much worse fuel economy for minor improvement in performance and even then only on paper. Overall, after trying various Lexus cars (IS and RC, 200t and 300h) I came to conclusion that the only feasible and true upgrade for IS250 is GS450h. It is build even better, materials are even better, it has about the same economy (slightly better) and it has serious performance. Nothing crazy, but it is sufficient for everyday driving situations and it is comfortable enough for relaxed driving without ever feeling like you killing it under acceleration.

Not specifically with Ghost, but generally third party immobilisers are the best way to prevent theft. This is because it is quite hard for criminal to know it is fitted and to be prepared to defeat it. If fob not in the car then it won't start and once thief is in the car they have no time to figure out what frequency immobiliser fob is working on (not to mention many are passive-multiband). The only issue is that immobiliser may leave you stranded... you stop for coffee, petrol or worse for a quick one in the middle of nowhere and your car won't start because it can't recognise immobiliser because battery is dead or something else went wrong. This isn't really that common, but it has happened to me few times.

CT engine is certainly not requirement, but something like IS250 convertible would be good choice. Old, rare and has sweet V6 - nobody interested in stealing it, it is it quite nice car. Kind of sad Lexus never made proper coupe during that era. RC and IS 300h/200t isn't bad option either - they are just too rare be be targets. IS-F/RC-F are only targets because they are powerful, people tend to track them, when they got crashed on the track insurance does not cover it and that means cars can get into criminal hands without being written off. This means criminals can reuse title and legitimise stolen car (clone crashed car onto stolen one). Overall, I would say as far as Lexus is concerned - most risky models will be new RX, NX and maybe UX, followed by RC-F. IS-F now getting old, GS-F and GS too rare, LC too rare, RC too rare and IS simply not in high demand.

With trackers nowadays, it it is best to choose one which support alerts e.g. if car is moved outside of marked area during the night it alerts both tracking company and yourself, so that leaves less time for thieves to make the car to disappear. If I had to choose, I would invest in good aftermarket immobiliser, that is better than tracker because in theory it should prevent the car from being stolen in the first place.

When it comes to cart theft it is a matter of risk vs. reward... Could IS300h be stolen... absolutely and sadly it could be stolen no matter what you do... provided that some s cu m will see rewards being worthy a risk. Now what you can do and there are several examples above in the thread - is to increase risk and hope it will be detrimental enough the thief won't bother with your car. Things like wheel looks, CCTV or motion sensor lights are just distraction for criminals and they may choose easier target if they have a choice. However, that said IS300h isn't very "hot" car for theft, Lexus are rare, reliable, not very fast, not very expensive - so demand for both cars and their parts are not massive and that is always goods from perspective of theft.

Even worse for me... Corporate, Investment and Private Banking... Everything we do is 100% legal and compliance is probably the biggest department in the bank, but moral and ethical aspects are questionable... This is how I came to know how "insurance companies" pays next to nothing in tax and reports almost no profit, despite making billions. Now I put insurance companies in quotes, because there are multiple parties - brokers, underwriters, offshore funds etc. But where the most profit is made, rest assured the least tax is paid. Again - is this insurance companies fault, or is it fault of banks who facilitate that... no - it is fault of the goverment of leaving gaps (I assume deliberately) for these tax avoidance schemes to work.

As I said before, I don't want to take it against people who work for insurance. Work is work and I am not saying because insurance industry as a whole isn't fair, then people working for it are as well evil. I certainly don't have anything personal against you, nor I believe something could be changed or planning a riot. It is not like I am saying - "hey chaps let's pull out the pitch forks and let's go stab some insurers". I mean same can be said about banking, banks are not always fair and have ruined many lives over the years... But that is not to say that I am a bad person because I work in a bank. I guess the only reason why I am trying to hold insurance to higher standard than I would apply to say banking, is again - banking products are not mandatory, not only you can go to another bank, but if you prefer you don't even need to have bank account at all. I just like discussing theoretically what would be fairer (that actually helps me to went some of the frustration and be happier). In this case actually I don't think Insurance companies are doing something unexpected or beyond what one expect from profit making industry - they have lucrative market with guaranteed profits, inelastic demand and they are milking it dry as long as it lasts. That is what for-profit business meant to do. Finally, I think this is mainly government fault - they have created legal requirement which forces everyone to get certain service (automatically removing supply and demand equation), but they have failed to make sure this service is provided on fair terms. As such they basically transferred what is arguably goverment responsibility onto private sector.

Interesting... This certainly was not the case when I asked to check the seat on my RC200t... What I said - "it seems that seat motors are weak and fails to raise it", Lexus Woodford never told me there could be cost associated with checking this. They just said - "sure, do you want courtesy car whilst we check". Now considering complexity of checking and resulting repair costs I would expect "investigation price" would have been considerable and if indeed I would have been responsible covering it I am not sure I would have taken it to Lexus as light-heartedly as I did. And thus I am very surprised I was not told this could be the case! You don't need to be afraid to tell me if I am wrong... if that is the case then that is the case. The only reason why I said it is not chargeable is because (as above) in my experience Lexus never mentioned that to me.

PWC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG - they all have amazing track record when it comes to hiding dirty industry secrets and fixing audits as needed. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blacklist-audit-firms-for-failure-to-root-out-fraud-urges-pirc-3vx3tq9zn Now I think you are right to say that there are 1000s of risk profiles, but because those are not publicly known isn't there clear conflict of interest? Who is to say they are not biased or unfair? Now sure if insurance would be optional thing, then it is down to the business to decide, but because this is legal requirement I feel that it should be hold to a different standard. For example I know that insurance companies checks credit score, but this is not widely known fact. And big question is why your financial information important? Isn't that straight away unfair that poorer people will pay more for insurance? I mean I known credit check is more than that, but equally I know that when there was mistake on my credit file my insurance skyrocketed right away... and when mistake was corrected it suddenly dropped again. And it wasn't something major - it was just an incorrectly reported missing credit card payment. Should insurance companies even be allowed to check detail like that? Should insurance companies be allowed to check where you work, whenever you married, if you have kids? The relevance of all those questions are highly questionable. And importantly it is only in UK they are included... at least as far as I know, there may be other countries like Ireland where that is the case, but in most countries they take very little details (pretty much VRN and driver licence number - that is all what is needed). And I mean appreciate you just work in IT and you care about systems, but then why say "it is all fair game"... I mean I am sure it is simpler just turn the blind eye on it... but that does not make things right or fair automatically. Now that would be fair enough, maybe they could say "he has more experienced and has NCB, but he drives like a nutter"... But for exactly that reason we did 2 generic quotes, where everything was the same and no credit check or car could be checked. So as far as my example goes - the way I drive could not impact it. The car in question was RC200t (yes not quite LFA). And finally, regardless of how I drive... insurance company cannot know that, because I have no fines and no accidents. I do have 3 non-fault claims and I know this is counted against me despite fairness of that could be questioned. So don't twist the question on my personal profile, which may be known to you because I told that here, but realistically can't be known at the time of the quote. Yes it happens in all industries, what makes insurance different is that it is MANDATORY BY LAW. So when milk price is fixed, or sugar prices is fixed it only makes the companies more profitable and maybe has minor impact on buyers, probably no impact on individual buyers. Still that is highly illegal, but maybe we overpay £100 in a lifetime on milk.. not big deal. Insurance is bug deal, because you can't just decide not to buy it.

And that is it... no need to elaborate on how those regulations are completely unenforceable, or simply irrelevant for the topic we are discussing here? I mean sure Insurance companies can't simply go and steal money from accounts (I am sure they would be glad to do that, but "sadly" this is not allowed), but that does not mean insurance price could not be highly sexist, biased, unfair or discriminatory. And not even sure what you mean they are not "private"... I mean that they are publicly traded, does not make them public sector. In essence they are still for profit organisations, but they are tasked to provide what I would argue is social service.

They are... in theory. Tell me how insurance companies "private" database which "secretly" collects the data about customers for "fraud prevention" is compliant with GDPR. Could I get copy of all my data, including meta data and explanation how it is used? I actually should try and see what happens when I put in SAR, but I am sure request will be rejected because they deem it sensitive to the business ("fraud prevention"). PRA and FCA has nothing to do with insurance per say, they simply regulate financial part i.e. that you have right amount of collateral (so you will remain solvent when big claims comes in) and that you T&C, have right limits of liability. It does not regulate the prices of insurance you your relationship with customers. Sure FCA in theory has such powers, but they choose not to use them. The new regulation which forces you to offer the same price to existing customer as new is in practice unenforceable. Why? Because again the process in which price is decided is not transparent and FCA simply could not check if you have abused it. Well I guess they could, but they won't. You as well forgotten to mention FOS... completely useless, I had claim with them for unclear/conflicting information in insurance contract, but they said contractual matter is outside of their jurisdiction. They agreed that contract terms were unclear/wrong, but that they have no power to apply penalty on insurance company due to contractual matters and advised me to take insurance company to court. PCI DSS - again has nothing to do with insurance, this is just standards for handling card payments security. I mean c'mon... At least make half convincing … Do you think I and stupid and you just going to throw few abbreviations to me and that is job done? Regarding gender... you know it is not that simple. If it would be that simple insurance companies would be long sued (and they were sued in the past) for discrimination. But when insurance companies asks for 100s of irrelevant questions, it is easy to hide any bias or discrimination. I am sure you won't answer, because you can't, but here is the actual quote - explain me what it is if not sexism. Site - Compare the market: Male, 13 years experience, 4 years NCB, 30 years old - insurance £1400 Female, 0 years experience, 0 years NCB, 24 years old - insurance £1580 All the rest is the same. Name were made-up, accounts were brand new, vehicle was selected from drop down instead of entering the VRN, license number not provided. As well just for comparison... when I was 24: Male, 8 year experience, 0years NCB, 24 years old - Insurance £3300 Car insurance category was 29E instead of 40E. Obviously, I am not expecting to see convincing answer as you could not provide one... there is no justification. And I am not even saying it is "unfair for man"... it is unfair for everyone... it is not like £1580 is fair price for female either.

It think it would be even easier to modulate than friction brakes... there are no hydraulic fluid to push, no surface dirt to worry about, no brake pads to clamp and the sensors could modulate braking pressure much more precisely. Not that much different from drive-by-wire throttle... drive-by-wire anything to be honest. The difference would be maybe that pressing the pedal much harder, may not result in more braking, because the car most likely going to keep consistently braking at the grip limit no matter what and would never lock-up brakes under any circumstances, but that is kind of desirable anyway. I think the only confusing part here is "regenerative brakes" - you could not use regenerative braking on it's own, because it is designed as battery charging method, rather than dedicated to stopping the car. So I think it would remain the case that first part would be regenerative via engine (slowing down) and then electromagnetic brake to fully stop. The difference is that regenerative braking charges the batteries, but electromagnetic brake would use the energy to stop the wheels (which is not desirable). In short, yes it absolutely possible to use electromagnetic brakes to brake, but they would not be working on principle of regenerative braking. You don't even need EV for that - ICE or hybrid could do that as well in theory. I guess the reason why they are not used is that using electricity to brake is undesirable on EVs and simply having metal slab rubbing against friction pad to turn torque into heat is more preferable, than using electricity to do the same.

You don't think that checking faults under warranty should be free? or that dealerships of the say network may agree to cover for each other? I mean I may be wrong...

No, that is wrong, it may be the language used i.e. if you say "it seems something is crackling, could you investigate" - they may want to charge it. Because such question neither states that you want to do this under warranty, nor that cars was sold with such fault for you. However, in case of Swindon if you say - "you sold me car with crackling speaker and I want it fixed", then they could not charge for it (statutory rights). In case of Cardiff, if you say - "it seems I have crackling speaker, could you check/fix under warranty", again they could not charge (Lexus warranty terms). In both cases, you should not be charged for it no matter if they find the issue or not. I would say that issue is much more likely to be found and fixed when going the warranty route, then going statutory rights route. This is because Swindon would need to cover the costs themselves (pre-existing faults are not covered by warranty) and thus they may try to convince you that you are just imagining the issue. Whereas Cardiff has nothing to loose and everything to gain - if they find the issue they can get sweet warranty job. The only reservation I have - I have not checked if Swindon and Cardiff are part of the same network, if they are then they may try to cover for each other.

Yes... not exactly low mileage then 🙂 Still rather rare occurrence.

Where you right you right... not much to add here. But I am sure we can both agree, that in this case it is black and white, it is a law, you quoted it and i cannot disagree. I just pointed out it does not apply to market place sellers, but you have not implied it was marketplace so you were right. In other thread you still have not provided any facts, so it remains your opinion, based on logical assumptions, but nothing more.

In this case it made sense, trust me... 😁

I think you right in this case, although Amazon is actually a market place, so above is only right for the products which are sold by amazon itself. When it acts as retailer, then you are correct. Actually, I just hand another case recently where I tried to do exactly opposite - amazon was happy to give my money back, but I was trying to get manufacturer to repair the product instead. And just before that, I had and issue with kettle as well, in that case amazon was not seller so they didn't need to do anything about it, but after 9 month they just game my money back.

You can take it to any Lexus dealership, Lexus extended warranty to be honest is one of the best warranties around and any Lexus dealership will check you car for free and fix it for free (under warranty) if needed. Most importantly, the dealership will handle the claim, so no need to negotiate any claims yourself and generally they don't spare any expenses. I suspect it is actually beneficial for dealership to find as many problems as they could as it brings guarantee business.

Yes, absolutely... and that is why I always thought that legal minimum TP insurance should be either provided by government, or it should be strictly regulated to make sure it is fairly prices and criteria transparent and non-discriminatory. This being legal requirement there should be no behind the scenes shenanigans.. After that.. if you wanted comprehensive cover, gap cover, excess cover, cover for your belongings, modifications... or whatever else - that could be free for all, free market, whoever needs it could have it if they feel it is worth the price. And then I think the price would be much fairer, because once you could legally drive it would become nice to have and insurance companies would have no leverage (at gun point) to force you to buy product you may not need. As it happens now - you are legally forced to have the cover from the private company without any oversight or regulation and they can literally charge you anything they like, they don't need to justify the price, they don't need to prove it is fair and incriminatory... and if you can't afford it... well then you can't drive. It is basically private companies which decides whenever you could or can't drive...

That only works if they know that you are truly getting this discount from other companies. So this means the risk profile is there and the "price floor" is strict - nobody will insure you below that, no matter what stories you tell and no matter if you leave them. Where this certainly works are renewals - every time my insurance was hiked during renewal I did a quote on comparison site, every time the price was cheaper and every time when I called the insurance they matched the price. It think once it was the difference between £1100 and something like £620 on my old IS250, so the margin they were attempting to f**** me by was huge. But they will never match the quote if you say your renewal was £1000 that you were offered say £600 elsewhere, but you say you were offered £500 and threaten to switch. I have all possible ways reducing my premium and I know the conversation to the smallest details. Insurance companies are certainly ripping of the people if they don't bother challenging renewals, and I kind of understand why... when insurance is like £280 and next year it is £287 I would not bother calling either, but when my insurance fluctuates between £2000 and £800 I kind of "notice" that.

Lexus usually gives extended warranty for "used approved cars", so it would be covered under that, but not original cover. In either case as Roy suggested you can still take the car back as dealership is responsible to sort it out, unless they have clearly stated it had such issue before the sale.

Maybe not in Netherlands... In UK as recent as ~ 2014 there were still huge tax cuts and discounts on diesel cars, so especially for fleet and company buyers there were huge incentive to buy them. Only really after "dieselgate" circa 2016-2017 that goverment started publicly discussing the plans on "discouraging diesel use" and phasing in taxes, mostly in the city centres. Secondly, because all the way until 2018 UK road tax was based on CO2, this means even until 2018 it was still significantly cheaper to run diesel cars. And if you have one from before 2018, you would still be paying far less tax compared to petrol car. Take for example Lexus IS250 vs IS220d - manual petrol owners pays £565 a year, diesel £250. For some reason Automatic petrol is cheaper, but still costs £325 per year to tax. Even with this new tax diesel cars costs just about the same to tax as petrol e.g. BMW 320d costs £145 vs. 320i £155... so although goverment does not push diesel as they did in the past, they do nothing to discourage the use. Besides BIK will still be far lower on diesel car, so for company car buyer it may still be cheaper to get diesel car.

Yes... this is not exactly common occurrence... as especially considering you car is low mileage if I remember right.

I think drivers have every right to be frustrated, because lack of infrastructure leaves them stuck behind much slower and unpredictable cyclist. You just cannot expect for people to appreciate you, when there are 20 cars stuck behind you doing 20 miles under the limit. And to be honest it does not matter if you are cyclist... you may be driving supercar, or you maybe be pulling the camping trailer. It is not the bicycle people are frustrated about, they are frustrated about obstacles on the road in any shape or form. Even in comparison with UK public does not hate cyclist, sure maybe they are not as popular as they are in Netherlands or Denmark, but UK will be easily in top 5 in Europe and probably in top 10 world wide. That is very clear by looking around - every single rule, every single law, every new road layout... literally everything is designed to restrict and frustrate the drivers in some way. And as for being safe or unsafe - you are the one who can decide, you can be in 1.5ton metal cage with air bags, or you could be in the open and in danger, or you could be cycling on the path on the side of the road and outside of danger. It is your choice and you should not put responsibility on other to care for you on other - care for yourself. It is like saying that it is unfair that bear weight 300kg and has claws and it can rip you to paces - just don't go into bears den! Now I can partially understand why cyclists are so defensive, because they always ride on the thin line between life and death (although they have free choice not to do it!), so perhaps it is not surprising that they are so awkward to speak with, shouts on pedestrians and rivers for no reason... and in the end talking about caring for cyclists - they always cut across red lights... just somehow doesn't seems like they care that much about their own lives.. and indeed about the rules. This is kind of catch 22... cars actually drive less miles in the cities, but pollute more. The cause of this pollution is congestion and cause of congestion is inadequate infrastructure. If the traffic in the city would be free flowing, this would reduce pollution multiple times. It is funny when goverment now pushes for BEVs... they just few years ago were still pushing for diesels, now they are banning them. What makes you think it is not going to happen again?