Linas.P

It sounds like future will be very sad, but I think you are right - it is likely that instead of increase of the limit we will get reduction. Especially because PHEVs, Hybrids and BEVs struggle with higher speeds, as it severely reduces range. That is why it is often possible to see Tesla doing 60MPH in the first lane on motorway - if it would do 90, then it won't reach the destination. I personally support system like it was in Germany, where unless otherwise stated speed is unlimited and each driver decides based on road conditions what speed to follow. Modern cars are certainly safe to drive past 120MPH if conditions permits. But most likely the future going to be very gloomy for personal transportation - autonomous cars will be use for short distances (say up-to 100 miles at 50MPH) and if you want to get anywhere further and at decent speed, then the only option is going to be public transport (like trains). Things like GT cars which just travels continents at high speed will disappear.

It is surprisingly economical for the power it has, the only limitation comes when you decide that you need maybe touch more power. 70 indicated will be around 65 real, so yes it about makes sense. In most of Europe and as well in UK most cars does 80, which indicates ~86 so if you want to stay with the flow that is what you kind of need to do, otherwise you either block traffic or have to drive in between truck (which isn't nice) + at that speed 300h becomes kind of loud and harsh. Feels like you really murdering it. Besides 30mpg isn't really impressive for hybrid when any 2.5l petrol will easily do 40MPG+ and 3l diesel may do 55-60MPG+ at constant 80 and still going to do high 40s at 90. I personally don't like diesels, but it is just a fact that for motorway speeds they are still the best. In short it all comes down to what you mainly use your car for - city driving and country side A roads (up-to 60MPH) hybrid is great, for motorway driving (70+) diesel is king... and petrol fits in the niche if you not doing many miles at all. I would as well prefer any sort of V8... if you not doing many miles then what is the difference what MPG it does, so you may as well get yourself a smile every time you press the pedal.

That would be Mazda as well 😄 But I actually interested to hear about how BMW Supra goes, hope you didn't get 2.0 version?!

Here you blowing single even out of proportions, the same person would have done the same thing in literally any car. Has nothing to do with it being BMW, it could have easily been Toyota Prius or Honda Civic or literally anything else. In some strange way I do agree with you, but I just do not consider 1-Series to be BMW (in my mind it is still New Mini), so maybe that is why I do not associate morons with the brand. Probably, the issue we discussing here are related to "hot hatches" and BMW 1-Series is technically "hot", because I tend to associate stupid behaviours with hot hatches. I would blame this on insurance - for young people it will always be cheaper to insure hatchback than say sport coupe, meaning that all young and "hot headed" people get hot-hatches and that is the result. In other countries where insurance situation is better you see same issues with all powerful cars and not specifically hatches, but in UK I ten to agree hatches are main issue and BMW just happens to be leading maker in that segment.

Paul/Vlad - were tyres the same on cars you comparing? I think that would be the single most important factor. Premier certainty came with 18" wheels (same as F-Sport) - just different design. But there are several OE Lexus uses for the tyres and although most provide very mediocre tyres (Yokohama and Bridgestone mostly) there is still significant difference on how they feel. It may be that F-sport comes with "sportier" tyres than Premier. Pressure could be a factor as well e.g. Recommended on 18" is something like 36PSI, if tyres are inflated to say 30PSI, this could feel significantly softer than normal. This is ages old salesman trick - pump the tyres if buyer is younger for car to feel sportier, release some air for if buyer is older for car to feel more comfortable. Other thing to consider - on used cars previous owner often have different brand tyres, so when the car is on Continentals, Michelins, Dunlops or Goodyears it may be that car feel much more comfortable than OE Yokohamas or Brigestones. Even wear could be a factor - take brand new car with brand new tyres and tyres may be louder and harder riding than part worn tyres. As John mentioned - it is possible that there were other minor revisions in things like bushings, dampers etc which could improve the ride quality, but I doubt they would provide major improvement without fully redeveloping the design.

Yes that was annoying bit, and if you switch the engine off then you can't raise it. So it is the matter of remembering to put in D for a second before parking. Else you need to switch ignition again and press the button.

Actually I have used it a lot and missed the feature in RC. Yes there is only particular setting when it is useful … and that is when you driving in early morning west or in late evening east, sun is either rising or going down and thus blinds you over rear view mirror, then you raise the sun bling and everything is dandy. I did not think I will use it so much, but I did use it and there were several times where I was thinking in my RC "if only I had sun blind now"...

I don't know why it is, but I think it is related to some psychological trauma, maybe WW2 and economic woes of 20th century - UK was very very poor after WW2. As well very "socialist" government which ruled UK for most of 20th century (both tory and labour) did not help... destroyed british car manufacturing, passion for car, car culture and made it so that people look at cars like unnecessary excess and almost crime. Meaning little car is little crime... and large car is large crime... which results in some internal sub-conscious bias - people just want to get small things not to feel "guilty". Same for houses - real estate is expensive in UK, but what is amazing is how tiny the houses are. In US not only they have more rooms, but all their rooms are massive and airy, large gardens, swimming pools etc. In UK we get house for a £ million and it looks like doll house with tiny rooms, tiny windows, tiny toy garage and tiny front garden, where we put tiny pot plants 😁 As well all the infrastructure in UK, parking spaces, garages even some roads are tiny in comparison with other countries. I remember getting offer for council garage and when I went to look at it the entrance was literally narrower than IS250 itself. I even tried to fold mirrors, but there was no point - car just would not fit. Even worse, I thought maybe if I could get through the gate it may work, but then I realise the garage inside is exactly the width of the gate, so even if I somehow squeeze it in there was no way I would be able to get out (probably that is why brits likes convertibles so much). Importantly UK wasn't always like that - look at posh Georgian houses, even Victorian worker "huts" are relatively nice and spacious compared to how people lived in 19th century around the world... we need to realise that what we nowadays consider "normal terraced house" and what costs in excess of £600k and is out of reach for majority of population used to be considered poor workers home, more "well off" people would have lived in detached houses which now houses 8 families or more! I may be reading too much into it, but UK sizing is not normal and it is very very noticeable when compared to other countries, like wise US sizing is not normal, just in opposite way!

RCs are so rare that statistical likelihood of cat theft is close to impossible - so it is very hard to say as there are simply no data to work with. There is no reason why RC300h cat cannot be stolen, but with so few cars sold it is very unlikely any would have been affected. As well it seems that cat thief targets cars which are higher above the ground e.g. SUVs and where cats are easy to access e.g. Toyota Prius. This makes Lexus/Toyota higher risk, because they sell a lot of SUVs and hybrids, but for exactly same reason RC would be at the bottom of their list as the car is very low and it is tightly packaged with a lot of covers on the bottom etc. I guess your question is due to hybrid cars being targeted? But again I don't think car being hybrid make it automatically a target, cat being easy to access is generally the main reason.

In that case I may have misunderstood situation... for some reason I expect conflict all the time 😅 Not sure why you would want Advance, it is quite comparable to what Exec stands for in Mk3 - entry level tier just above SE. When going mk2 you always have an option for convertible, so you don't even need to save space for another car (unless that is what you meant), but I would look for at least SE-i. I was actually thinking to replace RC with IS250C, the problem is that they are rather rare and in my opinion overpriced, comparing to simple saloon version which is just as good. From other perspective - IS250C cover 2 cars in one, comfortable everyday cruiser and summer weekend fun to drive convertible, so maybe paying 50% higher price is not that bad of the deal. But I am still very sad there is no IS350C... how amazing would that be!

Not exactly sure what you mean, but for some context - the only issue with IS250 I had is that it lacked power, it was "okey", but just borderline... of being sluggish. So you can imagine I was really really not impressed with IS300h which is much slower and not as smooth. As well mk3 did not have as good standard equipment compared to mk2 it replaced. For example Standard audio in mk was 13-speakers and to be honest not much worse than ML, as well mk2 had keyless entry as standard and there were many more cuts. Like electric and leather seats were standard on lower trims (not all, but you don't need to go as high as on mk3) on mk2, memory seats were standard on lower trims etc. Even the entry level SE trim was relatively better equipped than SE on mk3... and don't forget mk3 "no trim" exists which literally has everything stripped out. As I don't know, I just going to guess that maybe you saying comparing IS300h with IS220d is insulting and unfair, but that is fact. IS220d was offered only in EU where fuel economy matter (unlike US or middle east where it doesn't), it was never offered anywhere else except of Europe and that is "entry level or entry level ECO option". in Line-up it was replaced by IS300h which again is only offered in Europe (perhaps Japan and Australia), but it is not offered in key markets like US and middle east. I appreciate that IS300h was massive upgrade compared to IS220d in all departments and in that context Lexus succeeded. However, where they failed miserably is providing upgrade for IS250 Lexus Replaced IS250... with IS250... and latter horrible IS200t (IS300 outside of Europe), so indeed 300h was never meant to replace 250 and arguably Lexus failed to replace this model overall. IS200t absolutely flopped and it wasn't for the reason that 300h succeeded. Simply people who wanted more from the car than either 250 or 200t have left the brand. And it is real shame... Lexus spent at least 400 million developing 2 new engines for next gen and they both suck. It seems logical that they could have saved all that wasted money and build IS300h on 4GR-FSE engine from IS250 instead of developing entirely new and anaemic engine for hundreds of millions. 200t was expected evolution, with current downsizing and "paper CO2" trend, but yet again Lexus failed to deliver - engine is neither powerful, nor more fuel efficient. The only advantage I guess it lower CO2 on paper (in practice it is far worse like all turbo engines).

I call it British Lilliput Effect (no offense for Lilliputs) - British tends to consider everything to be far bigger than they are and it seems people here are still comparing everything with original Mini form 60's... Sure enough NX is large compared to that, but otherwise it is Medium Size SUV. Globally, NX is considered small SUV. RX is considered mid-size SUV and then Lexus has "full" size SUVs as LX and GX, but we don't even get them in UK. In other Hand US are opposite to UK, where they consider LX/GX to be mid-size SUV. It always annoys me when you go to say hand wash and they have pricing e.g. Small car £6, Medium car £8 and Large car £10... they finish washing my IS250/RC200t and asks for £10... and I always have this conversation that it is not "LARGE" car. Usually the next point is - what about SUVs then... and then they point me to the direction where it says SUVs are £12... and then I say what about MB S-Class or BMW 7-Series and we usually settle for IS250 being "medium" car - despite entire world agreeing IS250 is small entry-level luxury car. Same for insurance - when I say they are crazy for asking £9000 to insure RC200t they say .... "what do you want - young driver, and large powerful sports car"... sure - I am over 30, car is 2l engine with just 240hp and call Lexus RC large is crime. I struggle to find another country where where 2L would be considered "powerful sports car" or 30 years old "young"! @Martin J - I just don't like driving SUVs, I don't like high centre of gravity and how they handle, as well "how easy is to get in" is not criteria when it comes to my mind when choosing the car. Simply said the criteria I have for what is "good car" is different. When it comes to environment - indeed SUV is much worse for environment than saloon or coupe with same engine. However, that does not mean I don't understand SUVs - if one really has dogs, kids, large family etc and needs larger more practical car - sure why not! However, reality is that ~80-90% of time cars have single occupant... Besides NX300h, is my favourite 300h... somehow it works best in NX... I absolutely hated this drivetrain in IS/RC300h... ES just overall bland car so the engine could not ruin it any further, but in NX it actually felt "right". Sure engine is still noisy under acceleration, but power delivery is far smoother and felt more instant than on other car with same powertrain. Maybe because of AWD system? As well NX is very competitive, I would argue the only real highlight of Lexus range, where you get most value and best proposition compared to other competitors. If I would be looking for mid-size SUV - NX would be at the top of my list.

Expectations are key and it seems I manage to set them right 😄 To be fair I could have never liked it considering I was coming from mk2 IS250 - much better built and equipped car with butter smooth V6. To be fair IS300h was IS220d replacement not IS250 replacement so it never even had a chance to impress me. It is strange you have life-traffic alerts, that is indication of "premium" sat-nav, in which case you perhaps have 10-speaker audio which is good (for all purposes as good as ML) - I was certainly not aware it is possible to have "premium" sat nav on exec. vs. In either case it is great to hear you enjoying your new car.

I was observing RC-F sales for a while and I cannot remember the time when there were only 2-3 for sale (IS-F yes). Most of the time is high single digits (like 7-8), sometimes it goes up to 10-15. 15 is probably most I have seen on the single day and 5 or 6 were the lowest. In either case I don't think there is any particular period, covid or anything else. It really only fluctuates by 1 or 2 cars per week , but when market is so small the supply and demand is really unpredictable, imagine that - if 3 cars sells it may be 30% of entire supply gone! In summary I would not read too much into the numbers, there being more than 10 for sale does not mean suddenly everyone are selling them or that value will drop.

You are absolutely right, and I responded saying - "it sells cars", but lets not repeat the same story 🙂

Sadly, they are not available, most of good manual are behind the pay wall, but you may be able to find some for free on google. I was able to find .iso based manual myself, but sadly I cannot share it here as it is copyrighted.

True, I thought same myself when somebody said that "when driving one can't see the car from outside thus looks of the car does not matter".

Apparently it is a car for people who do not care how it looks from outside, nor cares about oral opinions of other people... I don't know, but at least they say so 😅

Is that a bad thing?

... still you had an option of choosing "amazing car" called Rodius, but went with arguably better looking and more premium Lexus, some people may say you are showing off a little bit ? 😅

Says the guy driving high-end Lexus 😁 As for Lada you may need to check what communism means... they certainly didn't sell 20 million of them because they were "good cars".

It would be good for you to get service manual then as there are quite few steps, including draining the coolant etc. which would be required for this. And some other steps like removing parts of EGR which are not at all what one would expect to do for thermostat change.

I see your point, but I am not sure same applies when you choosing the car... in the end of that day the first thing you see is how the car looks and generally that happens before you figure out how it drives or how it looks from inside. As such nice looking cars are easier to sell than ugly ones... easier to sell means more profitable, so overall the looks is quite important. If it wouldn't be, then F-Sport, M-Sport, S-Line etc would not exist.

I guess recently Lexus succeeded in dispatching some of that stereotype with quite aggressive styling... and at the same time they sadly dispatched some long time Lexus owners... although when it comes to owners it is still unclear whenever it was Lexus staying or natural causes at that age. I was 22 when I got my first 2012 Lexus IS250 F-Sport... so not exactly fitting with stereotype 🙂

I think this is just good indication on how hybrid system works, there are places where it is amazing, but motorway is not one of them. Very similar experience I always had from 300h, just RC/IS has little bit better fuel consumption (~36) because probably they are lighter/more aerodynamic.