Linas.P

Valid question .... and why do we allow pension funds to be in tax heavens as well?!

Not much to explain - RC200t just has terrible engine and I didn't like it. Lexus UK does not sell any cars which would satisfy me, so I don't really have a choice. On the bright side I can't remember when I needed to drive anywhere, so having a car became much less relevant.

I don't drive a Lexus anymore and as for living in UK... that is complicated 😁

On paper it was identical 4GR-FSE making same 204 or 205hp, same gearbox, extra 150kg weight. But I think you are right, it must be something to do with emissions, when I tired mk3 it just didn't feel as fast or responsive - it shows less CO2, so maybe some emission equipment was changed and despite it making same peak power, it is entirely possible that power curve was different e.g. maybe it was same at ~ 3800RPM, but maybe it was 20-30hp down at say ~2000RPM which would result in it feeling slower.

My only reservation about above - innocent party may end-up loosing more money than they get from compensation. And here I am talking from personal experience - over 8 years I have insurance in UK I have paid £11300 for insurance, 3-non fault accidents... averaging £380 for repair (insurance estimates were ~3k, but that has nothing to do with reality), all 3 times it was scratch on the bumper. Now it is hard to say by how much the accident increased my insurance, but I know that when I got RC200t and got quote for £800, it was later adjusted to £1400 when insurance figured out I had non-fault accidents and were quite upset for me not telling it, despite comparison site saying "claims". So let's assume single accident increased my insurance by around 10% and I had them for 5 years, 4 years and 2 year respectively. This calculates to £1090 increase for non-fault accidents. Repair bill being £1140, this means that having insurance vs. not having it made me poorer by £10160... and even where it was not my fault insurance recouped almost everything by increases in premium on following years. That is why when you have small technical accident is better just to try to agree with another party in private as that overall will reduce the cost for both parties compared to having it declared to insurance. Isn't that defeating the purpose of having insurance in the first place? I mean sure this is nothing more than theoretical discussion - we can't do anything about it anyway... The rest is pretty much on point...

Lexus Extended warranty strikes again... The seat actually makes sense as a warranty job... but shock absorbers?! Or transmission oil pump on 100k miles car?! I mean it is really unbelievable that things like shock absorbers are covered, any other warranty would have them under "wear and tear" and I assume shock absorbers are the most expensive part here.

No I still don't think it is comparable... Bank does no care how old, young you are, or where you live, does not care if you alone, have kids or family and most importantly if you choose not to have account you won't get fined. It is truly free market and free choice. Sure if you want loan, then it is different story.. but you are not required to take loan by law either. And I know you are joking, but person obviously cannot just become older, not everyone can just move "north". But the key difference is that one is required to have insurance by law, but not required to have bank account...

no... it is 0-60 which isn't really even correct, because it was calculated from 8.4s 0-62, which in itself little bit optimistic. The outright 0-60 is just a benchmark, it does not tell much about how car does it... but that is exactly the point. Not only IS300h is much slower on paper and in reality, but as well it delivers that power in much worse way. Now I agree that different people will have different needs and for some 8s to 60 will be plenty, for some other it may not be enough. I always look into acceleration as a safety margin - I would rather have car which can do 0-60 in 5s and never use it, than have car which is much slower and have no option to use it when needed. I think the key point here is the what OP is focusing on... IS300h has plenty advantages over IS250 - it is more modern, it is more fuel efficient, it think it probably handles better and has better chassis (especially F-sport), BUT performance is certainly and significantly worse. So if somebody comes and say - "look guys I don't care about performance, I just want comfortable, reliable and dependable car"... absolutely IS300h is good choice. But if person comes and say "I am not sure I will be happy with performance"... then right away IS300h is not good option. Now fair to say this "line" will be different for different people, for me IS250 was already borderline slow, the smoothness and the sound of the engine made it feel faster than it is and I was able to live with it... but any slower and I would have called it sluggish. Given I choice I would have had IS350, because at ~300hp and 6s 0-60 that would be perfect for me. So my perspective is that IS250 was already just acceptable. I think the key is that mk3 IS250 are very rare and thus much more expensive, mush higher road tax and in effect same car as mk2 IS250 as far as performance is concerned. Actually, IS250 mk3is slightly slower because it is heavier. So I guess the answer is - why pay 4 times the price if you could have 90% of the same car for 25% of the cost? Other big consideration - for nearly the same price as mk3 IS250, you can get mk4 GS450h.... and that is all around much better car, better build, better equipped, better performance, lower tax...

Are you saying I should have some sort of a list for Christmas? 😁

In some countries even higher... I know accounts with negative interest and you still have to pay service fees! At such rate I may as well keep it under the pillow myself...

But let's look into bright side... we are not forced to bank with any bank and pay thousands against our will. In the end of the day we can keep cash under the pillow and nobody can say anything!

IS300h never meant to be quicker than IS250, not even on paper and in real life it is significantly slower. Official time for IS250 was 8.4s 0-62 or 8.2s 0-60 (same as for 300h), but the real times are closer to ~7.5s, whereas IS300h actually does what it says it does ~8.4-8.6s. https://accelerationtimes.com/models/lexus-is-250

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...