Linas.P

I have already explained the difference between crime in US and UK and the tactics of planting "trap" cars. So not going to get into it again. As well, I reckon joyriders would not be able to crack even standard Lexus security. When it comes to police arrangement I find it quite funny as police MUST attend at short notice to crime scene either way - that is their job. They can use whatever excuse, but fact is they just can't do their job properly nowadays. Second funny thing, is that I remember in one "mythical" country police used to offer similar service, but that was in late 90's. That is - you could get tracker/alarm which was connected to police network and thus insured quick response and high rate of recoveries. However, when 21st century rolled that quickly got discontinued as it became politically incorrect for police to charge the fee for doing their job for which taxpayers already pays via tax. This service got transferred to private company and works well until this day, main reason why it works well is because not only the private company offering it is armed, but police would actually use reasonable force when called to assist.

@Phil xxkr I guess you are right, sometimes my comments can be cheeky and blunt, however if you look into context you may notice I wasn't really targeting anyone or trying to offend - just kind of my personal style of writing. To simplify - if you planning to get tracker, then you need a service, not simply a device. As you could see even people working in that service everyday and who have multiple inside connection in police could not recover the cars in time. So for you or me there is no chance. I understand that lower cost could be attractive and I do not criticise the choice based on that, I criticise it based on clear lack of options how to recover car even if you know where it went. And that I hope you will understand is a big issue for tracking device? As for made in your own country thing, I do not think that british products are particularly bad, but I consider that to be a particularly bad marketing tactic. This is as well very popular across the pond where amuricans are ecstatic about "made in amurica" products... just because. First of all, it tells me that they had no better important and objective features to put in marketing - because what is important for a good tracker isn't where it is made. Secondly, it is little bit narcissistic if not xenophobic - are they suggesting trackers not made in UK are not as good, or that simply country of origin defines the quality? And if they do - then third... they clearly regard themselves superior without merit which is never good when it comes to delivering best product to the market. Obviously, there are products where it matters - I do try to buy British strawberries or potatoes (food product in general), not because they are best, but because they are likely to be more fresh and that is what matter on food products, but not on trackers. If we compare above with Automatrics, then you will clearly see what I mean. They do not claim they made in UK, what they do they show you dozen and dozen video on youtube to see how their product works. And there is no better proof than seeing a car completely disassembled to pieces and tracker still working. However, it shows another thing - product may work, but process of recovery in UK does not. This is exactly the reason I do not recommend any trackers (including Automatrics), unless you have no choice as your insurance stipulates you must have one. Finally, consider whenever you actually need to protect your car. It being SUV it is currently in higher risk, but it being 8-9 years old... I really doubt it. You see - for us losing our cars is equivalent of entire value of the car and therefore it seems like a lot of money. For thieves stealing them - they just get paid for the job... As such when car value drops to certain degree it is no longer worthy enough to steal. As well their clients (or bosses) are willing to pay that fee because it makes financial sense. For example - even if you want to get crashed 2018 RX... you looking at 15-20k in auction, as such it makes sense to arrange the theft because maybe that will costs say £5000 + risk. 2012 RX only costs maybe £5000 in auction without any risk... so why steal it? Obviously, there could be some opportunist thief or drug addict who may attempt it (although I doubt such people would have skill to go past standard Lexus security), but at that point bright yellow wheel lock would be much more efficient method to protect your car and cheaper.

Yes, but here we are talking about population as a whole, not me or you. Overall, there are far more people who can charge BEVs, and far more charging points overall than there are places to charge HCEVs. BEVs are non-starter for me as well... I was contemplating BMW i8 for long time, but I just have place whereto charge it... and it isn't even BEV, it is just PHEV. Sadly again - our government does not see it this way. Majority of the people can own hybrids and that would quickly and realistically reduce emissions, but government does not support this and one would need to pay full road tax for them and same BIK as most of ICE cars. Nor hybrids are available for employee car schemes either. The only cars which are really promoted now are full EVs, but realistically there are many people who not only cannot afford them, but can't charge them at all, especially in the cities where it would be most beneficial.

To be honest... it isn't tat far fetched... especially in US where 5-6L SUVs and Pick-up trucks are common place. Probably, a little bit late for Europe where ML63AMG and BMW X5M have been tried and kind of flopped... the only one still hanging about is G63AMG, but attraction to the model is quite far detached from practicality and it is almost a meme. What surprises me is that they kept boring RX350 dashboard/cluster... instead of taking GS-F dials.

They just launched new Mirai last year... problem with Mirai is not the car, but where to refuel it. In US... you can pretty much drive HCEV in California... in the rest of US.. not so much. Same in UK... something like 17 stations in whole country. So it is not the car which is a problem, it is refuelling.

Are you suggesting UK made goods are better? Most likely not the case... Key for trackers is not the tracker itself, but the company fitting it and recovering the vehicle. The reason why something like Automatics work is because they fit trackers so well that even after ripping the car completely apart thieves could not find it + they are professionals and can find and recover the vehicle 24/7... but for that reason you paying hefty subscription fee. In short - any standalone trackers are useless... what would you do even if you know where you car is? Take taxi and go there with kitchen knife? Call police? Have you watched my videos? Police 100% going to just ignore it. So the only option is to pay expensive subscription. Other "pro-active" option is immobiliser... that is as well better than tracker, because it means your car could not be moved away... instead of trying to recover it at later time... or parts of it. As I have already described... after market immobilisers are highly effective, sometimes even little bit too effective. So there is no reason to invent the wheel.

Situation in UK is different from US. I agree with your first statement that we need to work on fundamental issue of car theft in UK rather than looking after own car only. However, the bait tactic would not work in UK... maybe in some particular areas, but as a whole it would not work. The US tactic is focused on opportunistic attacks, joy riders, drug addicts and are strategically placed in ghettos and poor neighbourhoods. The cars they plant there are usually cheap cars which are known to be easy to steal. The cars are stolen there to go to commit further crimes in rich areas, gang violence, drive by shootings etc. not necessary because they are valuable by themselves. Don't forget that inequality in US is much more staggering than here. In UK attacks are targeted to specific car model, for specific order and are highly sophisticated and organised. As such it would not be possible to plant the car, because you don't know what is required by particular gang. Sure if we just go by general trend and plant few expensive german SUVs, some performance cars like RSs, AMGs etc. that would be good start, but importantly they would stand out as sore thumb... generally in UK you cannot park just anywhere you like (like in US), what are you proposing? to park on somebodies drive way? and if not then the random car on the street just going to look suspicious. If it is suspicious to us, it will be double suspicious for thieves...

I am not aware that dash material changed over years in mk2 IS. Any source for that?

Again, I completely agree with most of your points, especially that issues of are of Lexus own making. They continuously failed to offer decent choice (even where they had cars readily available in other regions) and they continuously failed to adapt to the market needs. Lucky for them SUVs are booming and that is their final lifeline. The problem with diesel gate was that it was only bad publicity, but if you look into taxation - diesel remained best option for fleet buyers for a long time, in some cases it still is. One of key things when it comes to high volumes business sales is low tax and low BIK, Lexus always failed in this regard as they simply did not adapt to UK tax benefits very well. Again you right - other makers managed to be flexible and dynamic. When people anted diesels they offered diesels in all sizes, shapes and prices. When suddenly people didn't want diesels, other makers managed to go from petrol, to turbo petrol, to hybrid and to PHEV in a matter of few years and always offer what people wanted. Lexus was far one of the first in hybrid market (arguably too early) before anyone appreciated hybrids, then by the time people came to appreciate hybrids, the Lexus ones were no longer that good or competitive. CT may have been good selling car, but not as good selling as UX... and Lexus would rather sell more of UX, that is why CT has to go. I know it seems they have discontinued CT, but as far as I am concerned CT was just replaced with UX. Sadly taxman does not see it the same way. As for EVs I agree, but PHEVs is best of both worlds.

As well there are simply secondary immobilisers... they work similar to how key works, but the difference is that their radio frequencies are different from what thieves may expect and many even use dozen frequencies at once making it very difficult to boost the correct frequency to start the car. On top of that - unlike the key even if thieves starts the car and manages to drive off, the immobiliser will cut engine as soon as it out of range. Even cloned keys would not help. In principle those immobilisers are no different from switch turning-off particular critical function, the only difference is that you don't need to flip the switch in the car, so there is no way of disabling immobiliser from the car, you simply have to have immobiliser chip inside the car and for it to work at all times. And as far as I know they interrupt multiple different circuits at once. All the Luxury cars I ever rented (and I only rent luxury cars) had additional immobilisers and they are very sensitive. Say if you get out of the car just to pay for parking, they cut engine out immediately. Obviously, it is very annoying when aftermarket immobiliser malfunction in the middle of winter 300 miles away from home... guess how I know! So the solutions are there, but as we already discussed, whenever any of them would work will depend on how determined the thief are.

I agree with you on the most points, especially that Lexus brought it upon themselves (being niche player), by giving customer basically no choice when it comes to engines or even equipment, wheels, colours etc. Marketing was hit and miss as well, cars like IS220d and on top of that offered only with manual didn't improve the matter either. Finally, they failed to capture key market for new cars - that is business and fleet buyers. This happened because Lexus failed to adapt to UK tax and emissions requirements, first by not offering low CO2 diesel, later by not offering PHEV. All these factors contributed in cars basically becoming niche, low volume and private sales vehicles. I agree that current mk3.5 IS is best looking IS ever and I am sad we won't see it here. The only think I disagree with is that they will bring it back at any time soon. I cannot see any demand in UK and Lexus arguably doesn't even have competitive offering. 300h was never very competitive even from 2013, because at that time diesels dominated, from 2018 car must be PHEV or EV - again Lexus does not offer that. What will happen for mk 5... nobody knows, this must be at least 10 years away. I highly doubt Lexus even makes proper mk4 at all. But in either case I don't see IS as a model ever being offered in UK. We may see fully EV or PHEV ES, which may be AWD (see Lexus Direct4 concept video), quite similar to what Volvo does with T8 Dual motor, but I cannot see IS being brought back.

I am sure your youtube videos are great piece of information for anyone who is planning to do it. However, we still haven't agreed whenever the fluid change is even needed, or when it is needed.

Yes, but likewise back in the day all the thieves knew all the common "hidden switch" locations and would cycle through them within a minute. The only advantage doing that today would be that nowadays thief do not expect such "antique" tricks so maybe not going to be prepared to look for the switch or know possible places for it.

Yes that is procedure I have, the only difference is that I have .ISO service manual with web-navigation and not .PDF file.

Those are quite interesting and handy pictures for people who have not seen how it looks and he even cut the filter open to show how it looks inside. What I mean is - to replace the filter, you will need to drain all the fluid held in transmission (first by undoing the plug and then by removing the pan) - total oil drained will be ~3L. Once you assemble everything back together you will need slightly more fluid, because some gets wasted... so again ~3.5L to refill. Not 2L, not 6L... for ordering I guess 4L is correct just in case it takes longer and more ATF is wasted. Hello there ☝️ I actually did it once as well... I do not pretend to know anywhere near as much as you do, but I did it. Well - some so called (by you) "grease monkeys" did it, but I was watching them by and telling them what to do, because frankly they didn't know any better. Let's say they were just doing it by feel and some "common sense", but I was the one to make sure they follow the steps in procedure. Regarding filter, as I said mine was pretty much clean after 193k... even the magnets were pretty much clean. I mean there were no visible particles anywhere in the gearbox and only when we took the magnets out and cleaned them, then it was clean that there was some metal dust on the magnets. Fluid was admittedly quite disgusting and as well little bit of foam was forming when it was draining, which if I am correct should not happen as foaming prevention is one of the key things in ATF.

Yes, that would be another ~3L... Total is 7.2L in E960A, but half of it stays in torque converter as you said. Still not sure by what Colin means regarding "only 0.5L in the pan"

Not sure what you mean... if you just take the pan out all the fluid in gearbox will drain, which is ~3L in total. When you put everything back together and refill you will needs ~3.5L of fluid to to pump it, cycle through the gears and get-it up to temp. Because some of that fluid is simply going to overflow and leak during the process there will be some waste - hence you will need to add little bit more than you drained.

If they changed the screen, then whole unit does not need to be changed. It is easy to assume they damaged something internally when replacing the screen or didn't connect the buttons properly. Sadly, there are no information of how to fix the head-unit itself or wiring diagrams as far as I know... so the only option is to replace the unit. The instructions only shows how to remove the unit from the dash. I personally wouldn't worry to much as I have very low regard for built in sat-nav on mk2 is (I consider it useless), so I would simply upgrade it with android unit which comes with all new keys anyways. If you really want to keep original unit, then the only option would be taking it out and taking it to someone who specialises in electrical repairs.

I guess the idea is that in future the cars will be autonomous, so you don't need to look at the road when driving at all. Some concepts doing even have front windows, steering wheels or front facing seats. Similar thing you need to learn to do in the Tesla today... that is if you paid £10k for being allowed to test their Beta software - using Tesla screen is pain when driving, but that is because they expect you to switch to autonomous driving to change settings. I guess it works but we will need to get used to it... but if you not slaving in Elon's industry as a free tester who pays for early access then you stuffed.

You talking cross purpose. If only 2L of fluid being drained and refilled (which I consider waste of time for many reasons), then filter won't be changed and could not be changed. To change the filter you must remove fluid pan and replace gasket and refill ~3.5L of fluid. Either that, or you can't replace the filter. Probably not, but it would not be worth it, because filter is cheap, but to replace it you must drain all the fluid in the gearbox, because fluid pan has to come out. So if you taking the filter out, replacing gasket and 3.5L of fluid, then spending £20 on the filter is last thing you want to cheap out on.

I don't want watch it again, but I believe from the memory owner said he forgotten to fit the lock. But again... it is depends on how determined they are. If they really cannot find the ways to steal it, but they still need the car... they simply wait until you came off in the morning and car-jack it. I don't want to scare anyone, but really there is no single solution for car theft in UK. It is possible to reduce the odds of it happening to you and usually it is enough. Quite simple solution is to own older car which is not in big demand e.g. my old IS250... nobody going to steal it even if I leave the doors open... at worst I will find homeless sleeping in it. RC200t I currently have again not the car which is at high risk. High risk cars are mostly performance German cars M, AMG, RS... and Luxury SUVs... Lexus is probably least at risk from them all, but from Lexus range RX and NX are certainly highest risk, maybe odd RC-F as well, but rest of the range are either too rare or not valuable.

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Agree... the burden of proof is on your side, so I am fine which where I am. Every little helps, but people are saying "first million is bloody"... and I agree. You either need to inherit it or make sacrifices with your morale 🙂

They are... as any other imaginable obstacle. When it comes to thieves, the only thing which matters is risk vs. reward. So if you have bollard, if you have wheel lock, CCTV with movement sensing light etc. That increases risk for them and that may reduce their interest in your particular car, BUT if the reward justifies the risk then they do anything. Don't forget that they are worthless s c u m. Meaning that if they really wants you car they will braking into your home and make you unlock everything yourself in gunpoint. And there is nothing we can do in UK, because we are not permitted to self-defend (well technically we are, but criminals can come with knives, bats, guns etc. and we only have bare hands). Other thing to understand - they do not simply steal "nice cars" (maybe sometimes they do opportunistic theft like that), they steal on order. It means they already have customer for specific car, they either have non-recorded write-off which they then clone onto stolen car, or they have damaged car they need spare parts for. So if they took Lexus RX, means they needed Lexus RX specifically, because they needed to fix or legitimise similar car. If it happens that they have 3-4 cars to choose from they will steal the one which is easiest to steal, but if you the only one around then nothing will stop them.

Let's not start the same topic again... It clearly isn't cheaper on IS250 AT. We both know that there are no evidence to suggest otherwise.