Linas.P

Just to get this out of the way first - I generally agree with what you said yourself, what I disagree are the generic articles which combined generic-half-truths around internet and present them as facts applicable for ALL cars. Some things they say can be considered "general tendencies", but others are just outright false. Further, even in isolated cases where they may be true articles don't go into details explain why and how, so just making themselves useless. Neither mentions torque steer, which I tend to think is quite important especially when slippery and ~200hp. As well I agree that I am biased towards RWD, because it is inherently better in most circumstances when it comes to driving dynamics, handling traction, feeling etc. I have owned several FWD cars and I really hate how they handled. And indeed, when correcting RWD car you need to do what seems counter-intuitive at first, hence it is called counter-steering. This is a basic skill one has to practice if owning RWD car and it becomes very natural very quickly. "brakes, and increases steering angle" - really? I have so many issues with this statement in isolation. Think about this situation again and tell this is really the best action. I mean I agree that this is what inexperienced driver will do, but is it really positive action on any driving wheels?! Neither normal, nor expert driver should be putting car in "drift" if they not planning it. When driver looses the grip unintentionally then s*** will hit the fan either way. There are like billion variables, but if car enters slippery turn too fast it will be on the side of the road hugging the tree either way. Questions is just how slippery it was and how much too fast it was going. Yes RWD will be in the ditch backwards, FWD forward, but if driver is really inexperienced and the speed high enough it will be in the ditch regardless... especially if they follow "brake and turn" action. When moving away from standstill (and accelerating), you always going to have more grip on rear wheels (unless you reversing). Maybe there are extreme examples where that is not the case, but weight transfer to the rear will always be much stronger force than small difference between weight balance on axles. Hence FWD will always struggle with grip when accelerating, especially from standstill. I know there is one flat-earther in this thread who has different opinion on physics, but lets not go there... 😁 Now... we can invent situation - you are on ice where cars just spins wheels on the spot and theoretically FWD grip will better. Let's assume very biased scenario ... say 60/40% distribution, equal Kerb weight and equal tyres on the rear and front, then yes front wheels will have 20% more grip in front. However, this almost never translates into real life scenario. Lets take for example Honda Accord 2.4i vs Lexus IS250 ... will Honda have more grip? NO... first of all because weight distribution is going to be much closer to 50/50% (Lexus is 52/48... like brexit, Honda is 59/41 - pretty much as bad as it gets), secondly because Honda is overall lighter car (1440kg vs. 1570kg) and finally because Lexus as standard has wider tyres (225/245@17 vs 195). The percentages are just relative from best gripping tyre assuming all else being equal - Honda F87% R56% Lexus F99% R100%. So in the end of the day when comparing two specific cars it turns out that even at standstill FWD not necessary has more grip. Same calculation can be done by OP on his previous "Nissans, Rovers, Hondas, Renault etc" and it is likely the Lexus will have more "grip" relatively speaking, just by virtue of being heavier car and having wider tyres really. I mean we can really go into a lot of details (which I don't mind), but we not just discussing it theoretically. OP already has IS250, question is - should he or shouldn't he drive the cars differently in some particular way, especially on slippery roads. I have driven IS250 extremely recklessly and extreme conditions and it is very forgiving car. I think the answer here is - he simply needs to learn the limits of his car. And here I agree old cars... from like 80's and before were not as forgiving. BMW was in no way special, any ore powerful than average RWD car without traction control + no skill + wannabe race driver and we have bad results. Would results be different on FWD car.... no... results will be exactly the same, just in old days powerful FWD cars did not exist. Well... if you not DK and neither you want to hug the tree, then you should not be doing it in any car AWD, FWD, RWD... This is by no means just specific to RWD.

I just started reading and what a ton of BS... obviously I blame the author of article and not you Luigi, but c'mon... Absolutely, opposite... perhaps it with very low power or very old vehicles that is true.. but when you drive modern 200hp+ car that is exactly the advantage of RWD, not FWD.... as FWD has to both power the front wheels and steer the car they actually struggle for traction far more than RWD cars. Again ... on slippery incline RWD as absolutely always better... to the level where one of the tricks in FWD car to get up-hill is to drive in reverse... why? Because you get most traction at the lowest point of the car (that is Rear Wheels), so with FWD you will be better off reversing up the hill... they claim somehow that FWD somehow better for that.. just false. As well clearly author has not understood what traction means... because traction is literally how much tyre grips the road... yes sure there are more traction if you have more weight on certain wheels, but with weight distribution on modern cars FWD and RWD usually has very similar bias... something like ~54/46... so yes front wheels will have few % more traction if the front and rear tyres are same (as we know that is not the case), but as well because they need to both steer and power the car that negates the advantage. I mean to the level that in practice on modern cars that is no longer an advantage. Besides author clearly ignores basic physics and weight shift under most circumstances... There are 2 conditions where traction actually matters - braking and accelerating. When accelerating RWD will have more traction because weight transfers backwards and when braking it does not matter because there always going to be most traction on front wheels and you not accelerating so driving wheels don't matter. So the only argument which can be made is that when simply driving at constant speed the FWD will have more traction, but that again is not where traction actually matters. After reading just few paragraphs, I can straight away say that whoever was the author... does not know how to drive and just recirculating myths and theories. This was the first article... Second article is much the same, just makes conflicting claims both within itself and compared to first article e.g. it says that FWD provides more feedback to driver when wheels are slipping, yet both first article and second article claims that overall feedback and steering response is worse on FWD... so how comes it provides better feedback then? Neither talks about Torque steer either, which is a massive issue on slippery road... In summary - it is hard to explain differences via forum, the best solution is this - try for yourself in safe environment and you know exactly how it behaves:

Yes obviously driving wheels affects how the car handles - that is RWD handles better under any circumstances, provided you have skills to back it up. AWD are great for off-road, but for daily driving it has more issues than benefits. I have owned both AWD and RWD IS250 and RWD is far far better. I guess more to your question - should you change the way you drive the IS250 compared to your previous cars... I would say no under 99% of circumstances, in daily driving conditions even if it is little bit slippery it does not matter. There are some extreme circumstances where FWD behaves differently, but you kind of need to deliberately try to put yourself into such environment. Obviously, correcting car if you lose control is different, but with experience you get to know both. My only advise - when it starts snowing find some empty car part and try it out. I am not saying drift around... just try braking suddenly, accelerating suddenly, turning sharply, accelerating when turning, braking when turning etc. This will help you to figure out limits of your current tyres and overall behaviour of the car. Really comes handy when you have unexpected moment or event to avoid such moment to begin with. Besides Lexus IS250 is balanced for "safe" balance, rear tyres are far too wide, meaning that when it comes to cornering grip it acts like FWD car (understeer before oversteer). On my old car I was trying to balance it back to more neutral by fitting narrower rear tyres(instead of 225/255 I had 225/245), but even then it wasn't enough, I feel it needs wider front tyres to eliminate understeer (probably 235/245). On top of that Lexus has fitted very intrusive stability control which you could not turn-off (there are some methods which apparently works, but that is different topic). This stability control although annoying at points really prevents you from losing control completely unless you are really deliberately trying. As for driving in wintry conditions, the only factor which matters is tyres - it does not matter if it is FWD or RWD... on summer tyres you will slide equally with both. Again as I said, I do not alter my driving based on driving wheels, only based on road conditions and only difference in the end is just how you correct the car when you loose control, but it is always better not to get into that altogether... and I already covered that above.

Although, I think he was trying to fit mk3 Fsport dash to mk2, which is level of additional complexity.

If it is not in your 2008 IS250, then somebody just stole it (not sure how it happened - maybe previous owner too it out to save weight), but 2008 IS250 should definitely have one as standard. Mk3 hybrid does not get one.

I thought in leather repair kit you generally get like dozen of different colours which could be mixed to achieve exact match? I would not trust if somebody says they have exact matching pre-mixed colour when it comes to any painting, I mean even painting literally a white wall, paint colour almost never matches. When it comes to more complex colours it almost always has to be matched on the spot.

.... in the mountains. I mean fair enough the title just says snow, but when reading first post I straight away wanted to clarify what OP means by "mountains". I agree completely that NX can handle snow with ease, provided the road is good otherwise. I would not say the same about potentially harsh mountain conditions. Just google Pyrenees and pictures like that pops-up: Surely, this is not a place for NX to be, but on contrary, depending on where OP lives it could look like this: At which point I would say ... NX would be more than enough. So it really just depends where exactly in between those two conditions OP is planning to drive.

Same here... My experience with glue and inflation kit is very bad... well to be honest I have only been in such situation twice and to surprised of nobody each time I had to call for car to be recovered. What happens usually, if you get a puncture you most likely going to notice it when it is too late - that is the case on both occasions. Once it was screw in the tyre and I noticed weird noise and mushy steering input - when I stopped tyre was completely flat and detached from the rim (not completely off, but no longer sealed). Second time I hit deep pothole hidden by the puddle and pretty much the same thing happened - tyre unsealed itself and upon further inspection the inside of the rim was cracked and inside of the tyre had like 2 inch long rip in it. In both occasion inflation kit was completely useless (I didn't even try to use it), but in both occasions spare tyre would have saved the day. On contrary, I have used spare tyre at least dozen times and it helped me to get where I was going and in several occasions even saved the tyre from being trashed. Once you use glue you should not drive on that tyre for long or reuse it, the inflation kit is meant only for reaching service centre and replacing the tyre. So my conclusion - always have spare tyre. And if there is no place due to hybrid battery I would rather sacrifice my boot space and jut put it there.

cross-climates are good tyres... for mild british weather and slush, but they have their limits. Not the tyres to climb steep and slippery mountain road, completely useless on ice (on ice they are exactly the same as any summer tyre).

Not sure if it is an option in Spain/France, but there might be NX200t available. That has a proper "full-time" AWD system which can send up-to 50% of power to rear wheels. And auto gearbox can be manually limited to 1st gear and provide additional engine braking on downhills. Obviously, if you interested in Lexus because of hybrid system this will be moot point - RC200t is 2L 4cylinder turbo-petrol. However, if you generally considering the looks and the build quality it may be an option + it will be more capable off-roared (not by much, but maybe just enough). Now I need to be very clear - I do not recommend this car, mostly because of the engine which has terrible fuel consumption and I feel it is under-powered. It is under-powered in my RC200t, so in NX (larger and heavier car) I assume it could be even worse in both power and fuel efficiency. But money is yours so you can decide what fits you. Besides, mine is mated with 8-speed gearbox which has very very short gears and it continuously grinds them for no real purpose . Just generally poor combination of large, heavy car, with under-powered engine and poorly adjusted and ill fitting gearbox. Unlike RC, NX200t has 6-speed auto and perhaps with longer gears it is better fit for the engine and does not feel always lost... I personally have not driven specifically NX200t so don't know. But again, just to let you know there is such option.

No problem... Although, I would not count on it as selling point. People generally simply expect brakes to work and that is it, however keeping car in presentable condition is always good idea and gives potential buyers a better impression. So.. it certainly wont hurt, but I doubt it will add value. good luck with it and make sure to post some pics!

I was always under impression that IS300h had no space-savers (I am like 99.9% sure). That said MK3 IS space-savers exists from mk3 IS250 and 200t, the only thing is that they are extremely rare. What I assume is the case, somebody has mk2 IS250/220d space-saver and has listed it as mk3 space-saver to get attention of mk3 300h owners who are likely looking for space-savers as car does not come with one! BUT... all above are moot points and just fun facts. Yes wheels holes, PCD, offsets etc are identical between mk3 and mk2 and thus space-savers will be identical and will fit.

True, although what you usually get are refurbished calipers (almost never truly new), sometimes prices includes exchange (meaning they expect your old calipers back) and finally, if not painted they will look crap after a year. I just checked and I paid £391 for my calipers full rebuild + paint via BCS and that was with 30% discount. the full price was £509.16. However, you need to consider that shipping was £19.99, the rebuilding was £132, new parts (seals, slider pins, gaskets) £33 per caliper and the actual painting was like £269 before discount + I chosen custom colour, so it was more expensive than regular. So it really depends on what you need. if you calipers are fully functional just dirty and rusty and you only want them in regular colour (like black, red, green etc) then perhaps BCS can do it for like £149. But if they are stuck or sticking, then you will need them to be rebuilt which obviously adds cost. BRC probably just assumes all will need doing, hence £499. I suggest to wait until BCS has discounts (they often do as much as 60%) and do it then.

very old... like 2020 CT? Although admittedly 2020 UX brakes felt very natural and I could not distinguish where it is in regen or proper braking - in short brakes were very progressive. The last NX I drove was 2017, so not sure maybe newer ones are better, but it was similar to any 300h (like IS) where you have initial very mild slow down and you can feel a little step when actual brake pads engage. Admittedly, by far the worst car I have driven in this regard was CT - I assume small disks, hence when it starts braking it has to do it with quite a lot of initial force. For 300h I probably overstate the problem, brakes are decent enough, however trying to use only the regen would still be finicky. Just putting myself in OP shoes - I am not sure I would like to be looking at instruments when negotiating down a steep and slippery mountain road. Certainly, not great in comparison with other SUVs which have downhill "descent control" (DAC). It seems like new RAV4 hybrid has lost DAC as well, but I am sure it was a feature on 2018 model. I am not trying to talk OP out of getting NX as I am sure it is great, well built, comfortable and luxurious car... for a city SUV. If I would be going to ski once a month I would not worry too much, it is good enough for occasional mountain road... (heck I enjoyed my IS250 RWD a lot in alps, although french police didn't take same view and send me back few times). However, if I would have to live there all the time NX probably would not be my first choice. Chris - how about trying the car yourself? If Lexus dealership is not too far maybe you can test drive it? Or even get 24h test drive? Here we could only speculate, because it is highly dependant on exact road, your skills etc. You know I tend to think of myself as good driver 😁, but perhaps somebody who drives in the mountain everyday (I certainly cannot claim that) you would feel no discomfort conquering the peaks in NX.

Hi Ahmed, It would be sad if BCS really gone out of business, they did rather great job on my calipers. At least for me their site still works https://www.bcs-automotive.co.uk Generally, you can enquire in any places which works on alloys as the process of painting is rather similar. However, if you need to get your calipers rebuilt then you need to look for specialist company like BCS. Wheel painters usually can do it provided you give them relatively clean and functional calipers. P.S. no sure all CAPS are necessary 🙂

Yes you can select virtual gear, but not to the level where you can engage engine braking. As well yes - you can try "light braking", I guess what you mean is pushing the pedal ~1/5th of the way before actual brakes engage and only regen works. However, this extremely finicky on hybrids and you need practice to know exactly when the actual brakes will engage. This to be honest reminds me other important point - brakes on Lexus hybrids are little bit unpredictable for exactly the same reason - regen. I got used to it fairly quickly, but on the first day it was little bit stressful - at first you press the brake and car doesn't really brake almost at all (regen isn't strong on 300h), then you panic press it further and suddenly it just brakes at full power. Embarrassed myself in traffic few time. You can get used to them, but in short at first only regen will work not the actual brakes, only after pushing maybe 2/5th of the way the actual brakes will engage. And you really need to get used to that to feel approximately when brakes will engage. This is not really an issue on the dry roads, but my be extra level of complication on slippery mountain descent. In short, what I am trying to say brakes on NX will not be very progressive. You can learn to take advantage of only regen braking by braking very lightly if you know where exactly the point is. I would not want to depend on that when trying to negotiate slippery downhill road to be honest.

@Zotto - that is actually good video to show overall that it is not completely impotent, but at the same time not exactly capable off-roader. Actually, it represent the car quite well. You can see the guy get's stuck in few places, but then with little bit of run-up can still do the incline in second attempt. Other good representation is on how AWD works. As I said NX is "full-time" FWD car and AWD only engages temporarily, which is quite clear in the video. I assume they have switched the traction control off here and that is exactly would I would expect NX to do - if TRC is ON it would inch little bit and stop, when you switch it OFF - it will continuously spin front wheels only and you would get only occasional input from rear (which is enough to get you moving). TRC works fine actually for like winter motorway driving and makes it really hard to loose control even if you try. But if you stuck or you really trying to climb in NX you kind of need to keep TRC-OFF as on really really slippery road it just wont move at all. This is probably main difference between "all time" AWD and system in NX. On full AWD if you turn the traction off car will continuously spin all wheels, on NX it will only spin front wheels.

Not really, snow mode doesn't do much on Lexus, just makes accelerator less sensitive and may shift earlier, keep higher gear to reduce the slip (e.g. it starts in second on automatic, so may pick lower rate on CVT). Neither, NX not RX has any sort of hill descent mode, which would be very useful in your case - CVT as well means you can't really do proper engine braking (or at least to the amount where you can slow-yourself going downhill), so going downhill and braking might get a little bit sketchy to be honest. Going uphill probably not as much of an issue - especially if you can do a little bit of run-up then AWD system can keep you more or less straight. Overall, it sounds to me like road you planning to drive on aren't too bad, but at the same time NX will be nothing like X-trail. You will need to babysit it more, think about road ahead, probably do "run-ups" sometimes and the inclines which you can doing in first attempt with X-trail may take few tries. But it should not be as bad as you simply could not reach certain part, it is still SUV, still has some AWD and with decent tyres it could do it. It just may not be on first attempt.

Well the NX is fundamentally a FWD car, which isn't really an issue just a thing to consider. First of all, it would be good to clarify what you mean by "mountain roads" e.g. it is like French Alps where you basically have good asphalt and it just get covered with slush snow and may freeze over overnight (although they usually clean them rather well) or is it proper wild mountain road. If it is first, then I am sure NX is fine. The questions is only the tyres then, preferably you have winter tyres or at least all-season and snow-chains depending on what is required in your country. If it is second, then - no. Sorry NX is not off-roader and AWD system is not for off-road, it is only good for slippery but "good road". If you loose grip on one of wheel going on the asphalt covered with slush it could more than handle it. But if you planning for extended climb on dirty track then it is not car for you. And finally, yes as somebody mentioned it is not like your battery is going to go flat and car turns FWD. However, it is not "full-time" AWD system which you can climb mountain with like on say Subaru, it only engages at the time when slip is detected to correct the course a little bit.

Do you mean "knocking noise" or "clicking noise". See below - if it is like in the video then the answer is dead battery. Not totally dead, where you would not be able to unlock the doors etc. but dead enough not to be able to turn over the starter. This results clicking like below:

I am jealous... because my car has all options available on UK model, but it obviously does not have BSM, nor ACC. Yes I tend to believe BSM and ACC comes together, because UK spec. Premier has BSM. Lane Assist probably only available with LSS+ so Lexus kind of left themselves some space to offer some additional features with face-lift. I still find it strange that Lexus allowed to choose ACC as an option in Premier, but not on F-Sport. This only becomes stranger considering you could have it as an option in continental Europe. Like why would they limit their own sales? Is surprisingly difficult to find past brochures, especially for each individual market. As far as I can tell AUS brochure mentions ACC as an option available, but there are no feature list to confirm on brochure whenever it is exclusive to nay trim like in UK (p16 2016). Perhaps it is not exclusive, considering Australia had RC350 RWD and AWD and RC300 RWD and AWD. Then they had like 6 different wheel options (p8 2015), whereas in UK we only had 1 option for each trim Luxury, F-Sport and Premier. https://www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au/brochures_2015_lexus_rc https://www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au/brochures_2016_lexus_rc Basically, it seems in UK we were simply not allowed to customise the cars at all - take it or leave it. The only thing we had better is that our brochures were very clear in terms of options one could not have: https://media.toyota.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Lexus-Full-Price-List-October.pdf (as you can see on p13 - ACC/PCS marked as "not available").

Very simply. 2016 RC F-Sport - never had ACC. It was not an option you could choose on the car. You have only 2 options - find 2018+ F-sport with ACC, which is standard with LSS+, or get 2016 Premier (but then you lose F-Sport dials). Or third option - RC-F. Either way, before 2018 when LSS+ became standard, ACC was extremely rare feature. It was not available at all (meaning you could not order RC with one even if you wanted), which is quite bizarre frankly. As well 2016 RC does not have for whatever reason BSM, but has lane-warning, but without lane-keeping assist. Not sure if it is similar in other markets, but in UK the spec. was this strange mix of features and limitations.

I guess that is besides the point, I am just saying waze is not some professional speed measuring tool, but I do agree that at very least up-to ~90MPH is is far more accurate that car speedometer itself. At higher speeds I found any mobile phone GPS app accuracy hit and miss... and if you go like 200MPH+ (not KPH) it refuses to work at all. I tend to believe this is linked to mobile data or tower triangulation being used for more accurate results - at high speed phone cannot keep-up the connection meaning that GPS data becomes incorrect. Obviously, we going into proper off-topic now, but I take your point - it may have been actual 200KPH, it may have been just indicated. I guess we never know unless OP confirms this.

Quite interesting... although in my old IS250 Waze has failed me - as it would not show more than 120MPH in one occasion. I could clearly feel car is still accelerating, but waze won't move any further. So I would be careful with "WAZE calibrated accurate" speed, but at the same time at least from my experience it could show less, but perhaps not more.

Not sure what makes comparison wrong or right? The comparison I suggested was between 3 real life cars all of which I have driven at 200KPH (or been "driven in", in case of Q5), so I know what is the fuel consumption without any theories involved and I am not trying to justify it by anything. I don't remember exact MPGs, but starting from most fuel efficient to least would be Q5 3.0TDI, Lexus IS250 and Lexus IS300h. Obviously, IS300h will be more fuel efficient than NX300h, so I just assume NX will have even worse MPG. The best two cars for fuel consumption at 200KPH, were BMW 530d and new MB E300, to be honest I was closer to 250KPH in E-Class and it was still about the same as 530d, but that is apples to oranges as 530d was 2007 and E300 was 2019, so I assume new BMW 5-series would be like for like comparable with MB E-Class as well. Regarding the weight at constant speed - partially true, partially false. Yes weight of the car will impact fuel consumption more when accelerating than when cruising at constant speed, but even when cruising more weight = high consumption. So additional weight from batteries is not completely irrelevant.