Linas.P

That would be ridiculous, hopeful it is not only 4th Gen. But if it is, then I now understand some owners being extremely concerned.

Yeah - all the apps... Google Maps, TomTom, Waze etc. all do NOT show speed camera locations automatically when you in France. On the positive side (depending on your perspective) you will never get French fines. I have been flashed few times last year and haven't received anything (not sure why, to be honest as I wasn't going that fast, I think once 77 in 70). Also in my previous car on my way out of France and into Belgium I have forgotten I am not in Germany yet and definitely been flashed twice for speed (this was in like 2016) and never got any fines either. That is quite good way of looking at it - because in France they don't have modified cars they are actually quite amused of seeing them. And unless something is dangerous or ridiculous it is more of positive attention, not in a way of trying to punish you (even if they could, which for most mods they can't).

Yeah - spot on, it seems it is not big issue before one realises that that 884 RX represents significantly higher proportion of cars than 6015 Fiestas. Also note - RAV4 which is most vulnerable car for stealing is also in 6th place.

It is 90%+ same as IS250, with exception of engine and gearbox, also bigger brakes, but they are the same as GS300/GS450h. So parts are not (more) of an issue than for IS250. As for insurance - as mentioned you need specialists who does insurance on imports, although I would not bet on "same price as UK cars" or "insurable at all". Basically if you live in countryside and you are driver with a lot of NCB and generally pay little for insurance it may be true that it will cost the same, however one may find that they simply CAN'T insure imported car at all. Probably should not apply to anyone above 30 years old with decent driving history, but still -insuring imported car is little bit more tricky. Swapping IS250 automatic is easier, as it is literally plug and play. IS250 manual is also simple enough, just need to tidy-up some unnecessary wiring for gearbox.

I know you don't see it that way, but that doesn't mean we are no punished... I certainly am punished. I agree with you that this is more about "windows dressing", but that is mainly my point - I could be on board and can make sacrifices if I see it as necessary evil and if I can see it working, however I am strongly against it exactly for this reason (it being empty sacrifice). Why should I sacrifice for politicians "keeping appearances"? Besides I would genuinely support actions that makes our environment better, so I see this as doubly bad as not only we focusing on wrong thing, but also we are distracted from doing the right thing. Not all transition has to be inconvenient and expensive, a lot of main sources of pollution could be tackled without public having to do anything at all about it. For example consumerism is big issue and if we can cut on low quality disposable goods, then it will be better for everyone and people would actually save money in long run. We are very efficient in manufacturing ICE cars, the inefficiency comes from battery production. You kind of right (not sure if that is what you intended to say here), but much of that inefficiency is currently hidden by simply buying batteries from China... and all the rest of the shaite. So we have this warped perception of pollution, because we don't count pollution of all shaite in import from China. This doesn't help either.

No - not an issue. Think of literally 10s of thousands of cars driving from UK to Nürburgring every year. They are barely road legal, nevermind OEM. Yes France has stricter laws regarding modifications, but they apply to French cars only... with exception of what I said clearly and obviously dangerous mods. So as long as your car does not look something like this: ... you will be fine. Germany also not an issue, it is more relaxed than France in a sense that you can certify mod on your car, rather than needed national certification of each mod for each car model. Not sure about Switzerland, but again - the strictest country in Europe is France when it comes to car modifications, it only get's better after that.

You cant freely take modified British car to France. Yes - France does not allow unauthorised/uncertified modifications. Down to things like wheels - you just can't put aftermarket wheels on car unless they are specifically model certified. The way it is dealt with is via similar process as MOT in UK i.e. if you take modified car without certification it will simply fail. However, when it comes to foreign cars France would rely on country of origin to inspect the cars. So if you car has MOT in UK, then it is good to go - it is none of French business what is modified on your car, it is not for them that are certifying it. As long as your car is somewhat road legal they not going to pick on modification. By "somewhat" I mean no stupid camber, no flames shooting out of the bonnet and similar. For them to take action your car would have to be obviously unsafe for public roads. In short their rules do not apply for cars registered in UK and just visiting, expect of things like tyre thread depth which you have to comply when visiting. My assumption would be that exhaust should not exceed certain noise levels as well, but possibility of you being pulled over for that is non-existent... unless you stop in front of police and start revving the engine.

I agree with that, my problem is rather prioritisation - we starting from smallest and least polluting industry (Transportation) rather than most polluting (Manufacturing). As such we are inefficient in making those vehicles which suppose to be greener to be. Also for me it seems that BEVs are more of political tool to control and punish the population rather than genuine attempt at solving climate change. I know it sounds little bit like conspiracy theory, but one has to question why we are forced in using public transport "because of little pollution caused by cars", but we actually encourages to consume as much as possible otherwise? Yes I agree - source of our fuel are still evil dictatorships, if not in form of ruzzian czars then in middle-eastern sheiks... having fuel source which does not require to be dependant on authoritarian regimes would be welcome, sadly BEVs are just not there yet and trying to force them upon population right now feels like sub-optimal solution.

Absolutelly, I just used cheap winter tyres on car in arctic conditions and they were very dodgy (not much choice - it was rental). It was -20C and therefore main roads were dry, even summer tyre could have handled that, but going on slippery side roads was a real challenge. And we talking here about literally brand new tyres with probably less than 100 miles on them. Yes there are situations where even cheapest winter tyre outperforms best summer tyre, but they are very specific situations. Otherwise, same like one can tell shaite summer tyres from good ones in summer, likewise one can tell shaite winter tyres from good ones in winter. If anything it makes more difference in winter than summer, my opinion is that summer tyres are easier to make so if companies can't make good summer tyres, they have no chance to make good winter tyres.

Usually such deal would only make sense if Toyota had Century cars that could be sold for general public, but they don't, so it would not make much sense. That said - it would be interesting to see royal family or government using them, quite good value also me thinks... certainly better than Jaguars and Range Rovers.

Absolutelly not. Maybe depends on exact conditions, but particularly in UK that cannot be further from the truth. For set of cheap winter tyres to have an edge it has to be deep snow/packed snow conditions that basically does not exist in UK for more than few days. Also Nexens are one brand I avoid, old memories, so perhaps I unfairly discount them as budget tyres, but I have once replaced brand new set of Nexens, because they were horrible.

If we are talking about 20-30 years perspective then anything is possible, I would not speculate where Iran will be in 30 years. Also I agree with your second point - west underestimates how evil and efficient dictatorships could be and relies too much on China. Same mistake as relying on ruzzian oil, becoming too dependant on dictatorships is generally bad idea. Likewise I agree that AI will shape our future very soon, I am just not convince we will need BEVs in the future or that they will help environment, so anything in that direction in my view is wasted effort. Primarily because cars are minor contributor to global warming. If we want to tackle global warming we need to look into other sources of emissions.

To be fair Lexus is kind of fading away. Hard to say what it will become, but it is increasingly similar to Toyota. From true Lexus models there is only LC left. I guess LS could be considered "true" Lexus because Mirai used Lexus platform rather than other way around (although platform being owned by same parent company makes this point is kind of moot). It also could be argued RX does not have direct equivalent in Toyota range, but all other Lexus models nowadays are just Toyota with lipstick: NX = RAV4 ES = Avalon UX = CH-R LBX = Yaris Cross GX = 4 Runner LX = Landcruiser CT = Auris Now not all cars are bad, and some provide extensive improvements - like GX550 is great looking mid-size SUV, NX is quite a lot more premium than RAV4, but importantly RAV4 was fundamentally strong platform, so it is good car... but otherwise Lexus is becoming just top trim in Toyota line-up, rather than standalone Luxury Brand. When one is buying BMW, it isn't just some Opel badged differently and with more leather, same for Merc... I have always considered Audi as less luxurious than other "premium" brands simply because it shared a lot with VW, but even then Audi at least option of their Quattro system (with caveats), also Audi get's some unique performance engines that are not shared with VW, also also - Audi sometimes shares platforms with Porsche now... but Lexus really just takes Toyota model, changes some angles and creases in the body panels, adds more leather, adds worse navigation system with more confusing controls, adds better sound system and that is about all. All Lexus cars now get's identical engines with identical power as their Toyota counterparts and they are even slower, because they are heavier. They don't even try any arbitrary power restriction marketing like Audi, where same engine in Audi get's 320HP, in VW 280HP and in Skoda 265HP... I hate that in VW group products, but at least there is perceived benefit of having Audi + Quattro (even if it is haldex based). Whereas doing blind test in Lexus vs. Toyota it would be hard to tell the difference. Even pricing wise the gap between Lexus and Toyota is shrinking, Toyota is going more upmarket, Lexus is going more downmarket. Take NX, RAV4, BMW X1 and X3... at first it seems like RAV4 goes more against X1 and NX more against X3, but then upper trims of RAV4 actually costs more than lower trims of X3 and NX. And generally even starting price of Lexus vs Toyota is much closer. On BMW there is clear distinction X1 starts at 34k, X3 at 46k, but on RAV4 is 38k and NX is 43k. No X1 ever cost more than X3, yet as I said RAV4 can easily cost more than entry level NX or BMW X3. I really don't know why, but Toyota just does not try to position Lexus higher. Whereas Century has always been highly regarded and totally different car in Japan, I kind of doubt it will ever leave Japan, but I guess that is decision Toyota made - they are not making Lexus their flagship brand, no Toyota is the flagship brand itself. Lexus is losing relevance when Toyota itself is becoming premium brand nowadays, and they reaffirming that statement with Century.

No - not even similar. Also which V8 - 1UZ, 3UZ, 1UR? Obviously none of them would have mountings in same place as diesel, but some of them would have them in slightly more convenient spot. 1UZ would be simplest swap also easiest to fit, but you likely will also need different gearbox and bell housing adapter, custom aftermarket ECU. There are loads of things that would not be straightforward at all. Also you would be better of starting with IS250 (because petrol) and also because it is v6, so you already have banked exhaust and wiring meant for petrol car, diesel would be different with DPF, downpipes from turbo, very different wiring (but you would need custom wiring loom anyway).

Is this question, statement or what? What you want to know exactly? Technically possible, practically complicated. Generally would be interesting project, I would like to do it myself, but I don't have place or time to do it.

For Iran is draw at best... some of the stats you mentioned are interesting, but quite far away from being indicative of "hidden pro-western" sentiment. It remains to be seen, but my bet would be that iran will remain on the side of china and ruzzia in short-to-midterm future. So you are using chinese stats, because if you wouldn't be using them then you wouldn't say BYD overtook Tesla, because the didn't... Also BYD isn't a Tesla (not to say Tesla is great company, if anything I would predict they will be bankrupt in less than decade)... it is like saying Casio overtook Rolex in volume of watches that they have sold... no sorry wrong analogy... because Tesla is not Rolex, Tesla is more like Casio.. and BYD is more like Ching-chong-chow watch company which makes cars primarily for Chinese market. Their sales are primarily Chinese market and therefore the numbers are outright fake. Apparently they sold 270,000 cars outside of China (mostly poor developing countries) which is the number I trust, yet they state that is mere 3% of their total production... meaning they claim to have made 9 million cars total. This being Chinese numbers I would say it would be safe to divide it in half twice. Not to mention they not exclusively making BEVs even if they claims they have sold twice as many BEVs as Tesla. Also I know and I understand that some models of BYD looks to good to be true, but you guessed it - that is because they are not true. I have been in BYD factory and I have seen the cars they make (be it in 2018 and I assume things have changed since then), they look very nice from few metres away, but they are made of trash, literally fall to pieces in days of use. The only real value of BYD is their ownership of foreign car companies, the china business will always remain domestic only, maybe some other poor countries, but it will never meet our standards (this statement may age badly). China has strong central "government" (dictatorship) with strong central planning policies, so if they want to build 10 gazillion solar power stations, or billions of BEVs they can simply decide and do it and then report whatever they like. That doesn't make them advanced or green, if you thought greenwashing is bad in the west then it looks almost funny in China. Corruption is rampant, so when they say they built whatever million of something, then realistically 50% was never built and 50% of remaining 50% was defective and then 50% of remaining 25% failed within days of running. This applies to everything and brings us nicely on absolutelly 100% fake BYD sales figures. They not overtook shaite - they build EVs and park them in the fields to rot. It is all centrally planned, they been told to beat Tesla by government and they did it ON PAPER. Those cars were not sold, some of them probably were not even built. Also beating Tesla in sales volumes is kind of irrelevant fact, Tesla sales volumes are irrelevant, so what that they beaten Tesla? When they going to beat Toyota, VW Group in validated and accurate sales figures outside of china that is going to count. I can also invent any number myself, but it does not make it true. That is before even considering that EVs aren't even good for environment (my personal opinion) and current generation EVs will soon be obsolete massive piles of toxic waste. So china might be leading in some thing, but they are not necessarily good things. Honestly - you have way too much faith in China and non-sensical stats they provide. The whole country is backwards, culturally the people are medieval, it would have taken them 50 years to catch-up with the west and that was before they started making leaps backwards due to deranged authoritarian regime which wants to control power at any cost. Now final thing regarding China... which could look like I am contradicting myself here - our governments sadly fails to curtain their regime influence and we may end-up too dependant on them. Sadly they remain too convenient and profitable to do business with that we still look past things like genocide happening there... and they with their centrally run dictatorship are more efficient than us and may catch-up or even overtake us if we let them. So they not looking for "investment", they have already secured it and Microsoft has few billions to burn anyway. Yeah makes sense. Most of my shorter posts are written by AI already which impersonates my style of writing quite well, I just adjust it slightly and it is good to go. It is both far more advanced that people think... and far more dumber that people thing. Although much is to do with artificial limits added. For example Chat GPT was amazing when it launched and now it is barely useable, because they basically castrated it and created so much rules preventing it from working properly that 9 times out of 10 I get answer - "I’m sorry, but I can’t assist with that. Let’s move on to a new topic."

Seems like any solution that would solve all the issues... my view - if with 40s technology we managed to solve nuclear fission (not even we, maybe 5% of world scientists in US), then I can't believe with todays technology we can resolve nuclear fusion. However, the funding is just not there.

It is always old men that are thinking long term... just the way it is. Not necessarily that I disagree with you, but for each of your point I can play devils advocate... Why do you think Iran's secular democracy would be pro western? Or why do you think it would be democracy, it may as well just be another form of dictatorship? In short - fall of current dictatorship is most likely to be replaced with another dictatorship, not democracy and there is very little reason for any form of government to be pro-western there. I just can't see the reasoning behind this claim. Secondly - I hope you not using China's own stats for their adoption or readiness for anything? Because if you do, then I sadly need to inform you they are ahead of nothing, all their stats are made-up, they don't make as many EVs as they claim and those that they make are rotting in the massive fields because they either do not work, or nobody wants them, or they fail as soon as somebody tries to use them. All this green revolution in China are totally made-up story. And whatever little they have is all stolen technology, they haven't invented anything meaningful since probably year 900, when they figured out how to make gun-powder. Also I will believe that batteries can be made with 70% less lithium when I see them. I may be old fashion, but I am not into religion and EVangelism is a religion, sadly scientific journals seems to be penetrated with that nowadays. To be clear here - I am not saying it didn't happen, they may have found a way to make battery with 70% less lithium by using AI, however that is not the same as saying "they are ready to make that battery using mass production methods at anytime soon". Now I am sure such article as always says "we have working prototype and in 12 month we will start pilot of the technology, INVEST HERE!", but so far I keep seeing these claims times and times again for decades and billions invested and lost, but no working product. So needless to say I am sceptical.

I am with you on this, Hamas may be terrorist organisation who committed or are committing terrorist acts, but Israel overall policy for Palestine and generally Arab minority in the country is that of genocide. Overarching goal is to either eradicate people, or eradicate their culture whereas overtime "2 state solution" will not be needed as there will be no such people as Palestinians. Also it is kind of hard to accused Palestinians of anything considering they are living in open air concentration camp for decades now... and the only reason Israel can get away with this is memory of WW2 and holocaust. Kind of ironic that people who should know the best are the first ones to forget. Now that said - it is quite far from the topic of iran proxies and chinese response. I know that attacks on shipping is in response to Israel's invasion of Palestine, which is in response of Hamas terrorist attack, but we need to understand that Palestinians and their cause and Israel is really just as side story to larger Geopolitical gamble. ruzzia, iran and china are generally interested in destabilising west, ruzzia desperately needed to open new fronts, they did it in ex-french colonies to distract Europe/EU as France's military is big part (note France's support is nowhere the top of the list for Ukraine, France really playing minor role, even Germans who were really slow are now way ahead), then Israel was just what was required to compromise US resolve. I know now there are many issues, but war in Israel marked the point where US could not agree to any more aid to Ukraine. And now iran and houtis attacks on shipping is just wider destabilising actions, they need to be looked at in this wider context. Then suddenly it becomes clear why china isn't really worried about it, because it works out for their general strategy.

Sadly, there are no simple solutions for that, no "silver bullet" - practice and experienced is the only answer... but in UK there is nowhere to get that. So option 1 - get some winter driving experience, there is training for that abroad, also one can go for winter holidays more often, there advanced courses (although they may be focused on wet driving/aquaplaning in UK, but still useful). Option 2 - not to drive. That is genuinely workable option with UK having maybe 2 days per year of winter it is doable (I know I deliberately taking pssss here, but winter days are few enough to be able not to drive, it is genuine option). 3rd is not really an option in my view - but if one has to drive, like they went to meet family up north, it was 9C, then suddenly out of nowhere there is blizzard and it is -5C at night when they have to go back... and they have to do it because tomorrow they are going for long planned holidays. Then keeping distance, driving slow and taking extra care is the only way. It is not an option, because it is no point of being "mindful" or being "careful" if one fundamentally does not know what to look for. Sorry to say, but most British drivers do not know what they looking for in slippery conditions, that is not criticism it is just a fact and result of generally mild weather in UK. To be mindful of danger you need to know exactly how to deal with it. It is like saying to person "go pick-up that snake", we all know that snakes are poisonous, quick and can bite - still that does not help at all in picking-up the snake. So same with driving on slippery roads - one needs to know how to drive in those conditions and practice it, it is not enough to know it is dangerous. One thing NOT to do - get winter tyres and act like it is summer. Sadly, this is in my experience most common thing people do, not because they are stupid, not because they are not careful, but because with lack of real-life experience people just don't know what they looking for, they think they have prepared they don't all the steps on "top 10 tips winter driving list from Sunday Times", but they don't understand they simply don't have skills and experience to deal with situations they will encounter. Tyres gives you nothing if you don't know how to use them, may even give false sense of safety until it is too late. I am not saying don't get winter tyres, or not put -40C screen wash (by the way the thing is horrible if you driving on motorway at -10C), or not keep extra distance, but with all that preparation one still have to always default to option 3, unless they have completed option 1. How to prepare car for winter, that is separate topic - I like to use some lubricant on the rubbers just not to get them frozen overnight. Other useful thing - if google says it will take 15 min to drive somewhere, just double that and add 30 minutes on top. First of all you need to prepare car after the night (if it was outside), warm it-up first, properly for like 10 minutes, clean it properly, not just little slot on windscreen. Obviously, having right tools helps, keeping car indoors or under the cover even better. Driving Lexus I found that lifting wipers is pointless as all of my cars had heated windscreen, but if you don't have it, then lift the wipers when you park. All this prep takes time, hence just blanket extra 30 min for any trip, because last thing you want to do in winter is rushing. General mechanical prep - noting special, tyres should be good, should be same, should be at the right pressure (in winter pressure could be lower, but must be even), all the fluids should be right and to the right level. Small note on winter screenwash, -10C, -15C, maybe even -25C are alright, but when you get into real winter screenwash with -40C it is alcohol based and alcohol tends to evaporate, so if you driving in real winter (-20C or such) and you try to use it at speed it will internally freeze out of the nozzle and makes amazing icicles, so you need to slow down, ideally nearly stop before using it, but if you doing 70 on motorway, it will freeze. Also remember -10C, - 50C whatever, that is not a problem. Worst temperature is -0C, or let's say between ~ +1C and -1C. That is when you get black ice and that is when no tyres helps. Above that is just wet, any tyres will handle that reasonably well, once everything freezes everything is evenly slippery and below -5C actually dry, but that temperature around 0C is most dangerous. Aslo you can definitely see black ice if you know what you looking for, if not sure then slow down to relatively slow speed, make sure you have plenty space in front and behind you and start braking increasingly suddenly and you will figure out right away how slippery it is and at what point your car loses grip, it is good test to do if you not sure how slippery it is or hoe well your tyres can cope with it. 2 weeks ago I was driving for a week in ~ -10C-26C for a week with RAV4 hybrid (fake-AWD) and brand new, but crappy winter tyres. It was rather scary how bad were those winter tyres, they looked good, but they were unpredictable, obviously being new car with all safety systems it was alright. Today I just got back from snowboarding where rental company failed me in providing "winterised" car, paid extra 90 euro for winter tyres and found Michelin PS4* on the car, then they gave me snow socks as "solution", which is not exactly the same. However, I must say PS4* were amazing, despite -10C and very dodgy mountain roads. I don't know if it was the * (star - BMW special fitment) that made a difference or it was something to do with BMW 4GC which despite being RWD only handled slippery mountains roads like a champ, but I had great time. Did car lost grip - yes of course it did, it was performance summer tyres on icy mountain roads, but it was always predictable and controllable ride. It is true that getting up the mountain is always safer than getting down the mountain (which you can as well consider tip), but I didn't have issues either direction.

I think that is kind of the point as to why China sits on side-lines. It does hurt them in short term, but in long term their strategy is to destabilise "the west". So they are alright with Iran backing houtis and can accept little bit lower exports, also let's not forget - this creates shortage and it is buyer who bares the additional costs. I guess in long term it may reduce their export volumes, but short term it is just extra cost for Europe. Also Europe is likely able to pay that higher cost, so it is win-win strategy wise, they hurt their geopolitical rivals whilst not losing anything at all themselves. Also it is known that houtis generally allow ruzzian ships past and I assume same applies to China bound ships, obviously controlling terrorist organisation is hard, so eventually they will target some wrong ship, but 1 ship from 1000s isn't that big of a deal for china. Answer is simple - economist ties with dictatorships does not prevent wars, I would argue it makes them more likely. Same like spectacular failure of German policy towards the ruzzia, same here - china is totalitarian state, any trade with us they going to exploit and use it as leverage to undermine us. So we should stop looking into precedent of European integration, the only reason trade prevents wars in Europe is because Europe is democratic, no democratic government ever going to sacrifice economy over some stupid war, but dictatorships will. I guess point I am trying to make - we should start sanctioning china now, and cutting our economic ties now, not when they invade Taiwan or somebody else. Because all this globalisation and trade for them means - more money to arm and more opportunities to get necessary technology for war. Sure there was time when china was liberalising and becoming more democratic (if we can call it that), I think it was fair to give it a chance, same for ruzzia - in 90s they were becoming more democratic so they deserved the chance, the problem is that we are too slow to act when country turns totalitarian. That even applies to Europe itself, Poland just barely averted democratic collapse, Hungary is openly pro-ruzzian and EU/Europe/Combined West completely fails to act. Turkey is hardly an ally, yet they still in NATO playing both sides. That is why dictatorship looks at "us" and says "they are weak, we can manipulate them". Sadly, that is kind of true.

It was legitimately fast one, my guess would be RS 2.0, so it does 0-60 in 6.7s and as we know RC300h had no chances against it. It even had speed lines and little wing at the back (pointing upwards and giving it's rear a little bit of a lift as it suppose to), so that should have been my sign to back off. I still don't think speed and acceleration is acceptable for RC300h, but that is my opinion I guess.

UK insurance does not need to care - it is police job! Shipping companies do not care either - they rent you container, you fill the container, if you want to send it over to Africa empty - that is fine. It is border control problem and responsibility. That said - UK has no fffing border control, certainly not on the way out, it barely exists on the way in. So the way they see this - there is no harm if "illegal" stuff goes out, it is on the destination country to check. In theory that works, but when destination country is Nigeria or Angola we all know what happens. They are just corrupt and nothing get's checked, by the time car arrives there it already has all the forged documents or maybe not... maybe $100 is all the paperwork they need. UK is attractive country to steal from because we have loads of new premium cars in great condition, non-existent police response, non-existent boarder force. One can steal car from Germany, but apparently it is much harder to get German car out of EU, because Fontex apparently knows how to protect the borders and German Polizei takes no shaite for an answer. In EU there is no BS like in UK where they can catch person with tools, but without stolen car, or with stolen car and without tools and they can get away. No that doesn't work that way, if they get person with tools that is reasonable grounds for arrest, they will detain the suspect for say 72h and then comb thought his phones, chats, calls, locations etc. and track down what he was up-to. Also there are no excuse for driving stolen car like in UK, driving stolen car is in itself a crime. And I mean that is not only the case in German, most of Europe. Eastern Europe in particular, because they had a lot of issues with car theft, so by now they are very adept dealing with them. Also in most European countries there are not so much desirable cars - what are they going to steal? Dacia Sandero? Whereas UK is really heavy on particularly luxury SUVs. So yes - logic says LHD should be more desirable than RHD, but countries where the cars are going to have so little of traffic laws that it hardly matters, they are only technically driving on the right side of the road. Secondly LHD cars are much harder to steal and to export, as such I assume they are much more expensive to buy and therefore not as desirable, but UK is kind of soft spot really, with lenient laws, high burden to charge for car theft, police that isn't really interested in investigating car related crimes, people who happy just to claim on insurance etc. It is just many different issues in one.

They tried ironing it out for as long as I can remember... so 8 years perhaps... still hit and miss. Also it is highly model specific, I am sure most of features works on RX, but they are just not correctly disabled on RC. Overall, it is kind of sad because RC is really the car I want to like, but Lexus just didn't put effort into it, they knew it will be low volume product and the car always felt unpolished in my opinion. Not in any fundamental way, but especially around features, technology, how it is integrated together - digital dash is perfect example, it literally offers limitless possibilities to show any information, show maps like in other cars, it is just matter of developing little gadgets to display it... but it is as basic as it gets, there is so little customisation possible that it seems they never bothered to even try. NX and RC does not get LFA style instruments, but they have just so much more options and inflation available there. This is sadly quite common i.e. confuse RC F-Sport with RC-F and it happens both ways. I don't mind it too much when some private seller lists RC300h F-Sport in RC-F section, but it clearly says 2.5L hybrid, but it really pisses me off when actual Lexus dealers makes this mistake and it is very common one at that. After all they are the people who should be experts on the car and if they can't tell RC-F from RC300h F-Sport, then it does not inspire confidence. Your one isn't even F-Sport, so I just don't understand why they made this mistake.

In that case yes - UX has taken hit and it is in demand, so likely won't depreciate much for some time.