Linas.P

Definitely recall, I said same thing elsewhere - right thing to do would be to recall every car, but it seems they are not biting that bullet yet. To fix issue properly I assume they need to replace ECU, reprogram it at very least, although I assume if it wasn't designed for encryption it is fundamental enough to warrant replacement. That is a lot of money. Other thing which may happen (and has happened), they may do it for US and leave UK to suffer, UK just isn't their key market and honestly they don't care what happens here in grand scheme of things, they have showed it times and times again over the years. The other problem - this is not considered safety issue so DVLA does not give a flying f... I still think this is consumer protection problem. This isn't individual car, or small number of affected cars... this is issue with ALL the cars for like 5 years period (actually it is broader than I thought, before Colin listed all affected cars, perhaps only saving grace - not all cars are attractive for thieves). On top of that - let's just face it, it didn't come from nowhere, Lexus already had security vulnerability with keyless entry, so they are not Tesla that is coming from nowhere and who didn't know what the "real life" looks like, they knew any vulnerability will be exploited by thieves, they not small company either (Toyota certainly isn't and this is system comes from Toyota, RAV4 is widely known to be one of the most affected cars due to easy access of wiring). So it is absolutelly inexcusable they that they have not considered every aspect of the system. Like engine start and immobilisers has to be isolated from the rest and it should be buried under panels etc. This isn't even new concept - if you tried accessing immobiliser even on old Lexus/ Toyota you would know that is 2 hours job with dash out and then you need to program them once done, which is another 30 minutes. It is just unthinkable that they left CANBUS totally open and you can just plug into it and do whatever you like.

You got me confused here - so if I understood you correctly... you afraid of CANBUS vulnerability, but you looking to replace it with UX, which has same vulnerability? Or is it because Lexus offers some sort of protection for UX, but not ES?

That is obviously almost all IS300h and maybe handful of IS200t.

Also in many countries that receive such cars there is a view that Europeans were colonists (which we were), so buying cars that was stolen from some sucker is morally sound and justified (even if that sucker may be their relative trying to build their life in UK). My point - I don't think the fact that car is stolen detracts much of buyers in countries where they are sold. Maybe it is not explicitly advertised, but I am sure nobody have any illusions of how the cars ended-up there.

I thought you car is red?

I get what you saying, but also - Lexus response was absolutelly unacceptable. As far as I know they haven't even admitted there is any fault. So sort of - "ok we learned a lesson at your expense, we promise to be better in future". And to be fair I don't blame Lexus too much, I think this should be some government body to chip in, like diesel gate. I don't know - some sort of consumer protection agency i.e. car brand left an major vulnerability, as result cars lost value, so they either compensate for that, take cars back or they fix it. When buying new NX I am pretty sure it does not say in sales brochure that your car comes equipped with major flaw which means any teenager can connect to your CANBUS under the bumper and override it in seconds. I guess sadly it is sort of grey area - everyone understand this is not how it suppose to be, but there is no specific law to say what to do and what are the rights of the parties involved, so this perhaps should be deal with class-action lawsuit type of deal, but in UK we don't have such legal mechanism. Also, I guess Lexus defence could be - "it is not our fault that UK has absolutelly shocking criminal situation and abysmal police support, cars are fine unless somebody maliciously attacks them". And that would be very true - in UK car crime is basically decriminalised, car thief has more protections than motorists just driving on the road, the way laws a laid out car thieve looks like some sort of vulnerable group. In the end of the day, flawed security design on Lexus side and total ignorance from police side leads into situation we have now - where you can't have a nice car because it will get stolen. And that is not only Lexus, I am sure we all seen how Bentleys, Ferraris and McLarens are being car jacked in the middle of the day in the centre of London. And as far as I know they don't have CANBUS issue, point is - police allows for thieves to get away, owners have no way of defending themselves either (no guns allowed), so thieves are getting more and more brazen with their craft in such power vacuum. Ohhh... and finally insurer, they are there just to drain last ounce of blood... few cars got stolen, say £2million write-off for them... so now they going to jack the prices for 10s of thousands of owners, and make 100s of millions out of it. Just nice excuse for profiteering.

I assume they just forge some documents locally and they still perhaps have some sort of Toyota dealer or whatever, so it is not much more complicated than replacing lost key. All that Lexus knows is that somebody with legitimate local ownership documents needs key, local staff probably accepts bribes and turns blind eye and pretend they didn't know it was not them who imported the car into the country. I guess in theory somebody can legitimately import the car from abroad, so there has to be way to get keys. Now sure Lexus/Toyota could start asking for VINs and start doing due diligence on every car, but there is nothing that can't be forged and especially if local staff is onboard it would be hard to pin down the thefts. I assume Lexus/Toyota just focuses on being car companies and leaves the theft for police to investigate. Long story short - they just get replacement keys.

Am I getting Nobel prize? for what? 😁

Not much to say - it is dependable car which can go far as you want. It is kind of obvious, but I would get best tyres I could, as it would be quite inconvenient to have blow out when doing 220km/h somewhere in Germany. Don't believe you need to cross any countries that require winter tyres on your way to Italy, but perhaps dropping in snow socks would not hurt if you planning to taka any mountain roads. Further, many countries will expect triangle and high wiz (France for sure). Also - I tend to do fluids before long trips, had few where I was traveling 4000-5000 miles in two weeks, going out with the oil which is already due for replacement would not be ideal for wear.

And reliability also plays the role here - not only IS is now comparatively old car with little value to be had, but also it is 100% reliable, so there is simply no demand for parts. I would assume many thieves that brake the the cars for parts do so with or as legitimate business later on selling the parts on places like ebay. But if car does not have any common problems, then all the parts are rather worthless. Take for example IS250 computers and ECU. They can be worth £1000, because that is how much dealership charges, but because they almost never fail you can get ECU for IS250 for £20, there is just no demand for used Lexus parts. Whatever get's worn are usually wear and tear components one would not get used anyway. So that also partially why I say reliable cars are of less interest. High-mileage also rarely matters for thieves, if they get car with 180,000 miles they still going to lie engine done only 40,000 - not exactly type of people with morale to be truthful about condition. Probably more relevant for selling whole cars in Africa, but again the market there is such that cars can be easily clocked and buyers will accept any car regardless, as long as it runs at all. My understanding is that the actual sucm that steals the cars gets set fee for doing it... like £2,000... maybe up-to £5,000 for some very expensive "special order" cars. So if car is worth less than £10,000 it is almost safe from theft, there is simply no margin that can be made on the car. Let's say IS300h is worth £10,000, certainly after theft some scratches, missing service history etc. it may not be worth that. £2,000 to get it stolen, £2,000 for all other expenses + risk related with type of work it is, likely weeks of hide and seek play between various hiding places and final sale price (because it has to be quick) of £8,000? Such car will be hardly worth anything, not to mention the profit probably needs to be split between multiple people, paying of their part to their leaders etc. I think - prime targets are Luxury SUVs with price tag between say £45k - £85k, not expensive enough trigger half of police force or have entire team working on recovering it, not too expensive to then sell in target market (Africa) and has enough value in it to cover the costs. RX/NX fits perfectly in that category.

Well, I guess if you put it that way, then yes - Lexus reliability is one of key marketing tools used (not sole, but certainly not irrelevant), so if Lexus wins on reliability survey, they obviously capitalise on that and some people may consider it when buying cars, thus to some small degree increasing volumes sold. The more popular is the model, the more in demand it is, the more likely it is to be stolen. So yes - reliability in that sense contributes. I guess the reason why I said reliable cars are less in demand is little bit contrived and not necessarily relevant to Lexus, but when it comes to theft for parts unreliability of certain cars sometimes makes them a target - something like BMW M3 and M5 bearing issues, where at some point there was strong demand for second hand engines and cars were likely stolen just for their engine as it was easy £10,000 flip. As for selling stolen vehicles... very rarely whole vehicle is sold in UK (or the country where it was stolen in general), as far as Europe is concerned I would say that is almost never the case. Simply because in Europe/UK we have robust enough systems where such car would be found out sooner or later. If the car as a whole stays in country, then it would be re-bodied/re-VINed, which was the case for more performance/track oriented cars, not sure if it is still popular, but back in the day things like Lotus Elise, BMW M3, Porsche 911, Boxer were in this camp - basically car get's crashed on track, insurance does not cover track use, so there is unreported car shell with documents that could be legitimised. But that would not apply to Lexus much, RC-F perhaps, but the yare just too rare to become an industry. So my guess would be - all whole cars are exported out to Africa... and for that reason buyer neither cares where the car came from, nor really benefits from lower price and with local standards it would be acceptable that new to them car comes with ripped off bumper and some hanging wires. I doubt thieves care to even fix anything, it may be something seller in Africa deals with, but basically there would be complete separation from sucm in UK that steals it and sucm in Africa that buys it and the buyer themselves. So it isn't as much of "double edge sword" in my view. As for selling cars for parts - at that point it also does not matter... Even CANBUS weakness overall in my opinion does not matter - NX/RX are stolen because they are in demand, if not for CANBUS issue, there would be something else. Worst case scenario they could come and just tow the car away, or hijack it... sure CANBUS is convenient, but not the only way to get the car. I remember anecdotal story about BMW X6 when it came out and BMW right away expected that cars will have huge challenge when it came to thieves (I believe it was in ruzzia), so they had individually codded keys with factory immobiliser which at the time was challenging to steal. Thieves solution - they forged the ownership documents, paid dealership employee a bribe and sent them to BMW factory to get the keys. Few weeks later they got the keys and simply drove the cars away like their own.

I think CANBUS issue only exist for specific models with headlights ECU, at least that is my understanding of the issue, so later IS may be similar, but if they don't have that particular type of ECU which has undecrypted CANBUS going to the lights they are fine. IS/RC/GS being older platform I would assume they don't have this issue, even in facelift. Only later (~2018+) ES/NX/RX have it, also perhaps UX and LBX, but being lower end models maybe they didn't get such "advanced" features, also I am not sure if LC is affected by same or similar issue. Maybe being flagship LC got more advanced headlight features ahead of other models (~2016?). But again that is the issue with ES - thieves do not care how easy the car is to steal, if nobody needs it they don't need it, so there must be something in ES that interests them, or maybe there is true unknown demand for ES? Maybe middle east? who knows... As for insurers, I think they will always overprotect themselves, they do not care which particular model is vulnerable, remember they do not care about consumers, they care about making as much profit as possible. So in their mind perhaps - any Lexus 2018+ is high risk, any BEV regardless of the model is fire risk, any BMW 3 or 1 series is risk of idiot owner... so they just group those cars in these blanket black and white categories and they really don't care to find out what exactly is the issue. Insurance being mandatory it means they just found and excuse to increase their profit by 50%, why waste the opportunity? Now naive between us would think insurers are really advanced and they get expert opinions etc. because overpricing insurance would mean losing to competitor who done more research and can insure the model that doesn't have particular issue for more, thus louring the client away. That is just not the case - demand for insurance is inelastic, one is legally forced to have it no matter the cost, there isn't real competition between insurers either, they are all just in for bloodbath. So it is kind of simple - as soon as statistically significant number of claims happens on some vehicle for them to notice, they just blanked that model or brand with higher insurance, I really doubt there is much of sophistication or that they actually care what and why.

Yeah - sorry, regarding service plan. I have no experience with 5 years, but what usually happens to me - I come to do service and they ask me if I would like to take service plan out, at which point they usually offer discount if I prepay for 2-3 years. Example - let's say 60k service is £685, when it comes to pay for it service manager would say - maybe you would be interested to take service plan instead for something like £805 if you prepay today, which which work out cheaper than £685 major + £265 minor obviously. At least that was my experience maybe 5 years ago and I am not sure if Lexus still offers such discounts since Relax Warranty was introduced and Essential Care was discontinued.

That is interesting idea, but definitely not... More reliable cars makes them LESS, not more attractive to thieves... although if I would be thief I would dread to go near Range Rover, if not for fire risk, then for the risk of getting caught, when the piece of shaite inevitable brakes down... Lexus cars increasingly became more interesting for thieves, because Lexus is genuinely competitive make when it comes to SUVs, they are genuinely sought after and sells relatively well for Lexus. Secondly - because Lexus (and Toyota) messed-up royally with CANBUS security. Totally unacceptable, both in terms of not considering it, but also in terms of response - the only way here is to recall ALL the cars and encrypt CANBUS (which I assume would require some new computers to be added/replaced and it would be major cost), but they won't do it, so they have pretty much abandoned owners in this regard. That said - we need to understand CANBUS issues is not what makes cars attractive to thieves - they don't care what car it is, they don't steal the cars and then try to figure out how to sell them and how much it is worth. Car thieves simply get salary for doing it, they get told what car is needed, they don't just randomly steal cars based on their liking, nor even based on how easy it is to do it. So it means somebody is asking for NX and RX, either part of whole cars... I am baffled that ES is being stolen, but that is probably my issue, I just don't understand who would want ES and they are not even that popular anyway. My only guess would be - ES300h shares a lot of parts with NX300h, so perhaps that is just an impact from NX being in high demand.

Not a slouch... can't comment as that would get me banned 😅 But it is experience of comfort and serenity, also there is no urge to go fast or race anyone, because of the "no slouch" part - I was greatly offended by ratty 20 years old Clio overtaking me from the lights and cutting in front of me and after that insult I never even tried to prevent this from happening again. So overall very relaxing car to drive - other cars driving fast don't bother you, because you know you are not capable of matching them anyway, not even 20 years old Clio. I would note that ECO mode is not economical, in my experience you will get better MPG in Normal or even Sport. ML is good as you said, especially in RC. Lexus Sat-Nav is kind of junk, clunky, slow inaccurate - I assume you have android auto on your car? Quite surprised 2020 RC already got it, but if you do then you are very lucky and you should continue using it, there isn't even any comparison between it and Lexus system. I would assume that you right about an app - RC is still fundamentally based on Lexus tech from 2013, even thought it was facelifted the core of the system is the one from IS300h that came out in 2013, so I would not be surprised if Lexus Link app functionality would be limited and would only work on latest models. Lexus is not amazing with this stuff, even LC500 only got Android Auto in last couple of years, overall integration of tech is also poor (e.g. Merc, BMW, Audi has long figured out app integration pretty much across the range), Lexus seems to focus on SUVs, so the best tech and integration experience would be on SUVs like NX or RX. Coupes are just ignored when it comes to R&D in tech side. My RC really looked dated tech wise compared to same year NX, despite costing the same.

CT2000CT H - is that new model of terminator? 😁

I assume you get no codes? You would need to look at live-data to understand why it is stalling when warm and in idle. EGR could be related, but I can't see link between car being warm... if EGR is blocked then it would be just generally down on power, cold, warm idle or on power. Same for all other things you mentioned - fuel pump, when it fails it fails, injectors could be linked to rough running, but it will always be rough. I would almost suspect some sensor being an issue, so when car warms-up sensor gives some sort of incorrect reading, causes maybe lean burn and car starts stalling. Something like MAF, or oxygen sensor, again you will need live-data to look at such intermittent issues and even then it will be pain, because you looking for needle in a haystack, or rather for a straw in the mountain of needles. IS220d - is worst Lexus ever made, there is no doubt about it. What you describing is pretty standard experience people get with these cars, especially in recent years when they got to the price point and age where they are neglected. If you got one from new and always stayed on top of maintenance, they still worst Lexus ever, but not much worse than competition (say BMW 320d), however by now that all of them are sheds an uneconomical to repair I it highly recommended no to buy them, if you ask this question on the forum, the answer will always be "avoid like a plague".

Seemed like bog standard UK taxi... is it worth importing Prius from Japan?

The cover is available, but from memory it is scratched (will need to check). No tools came with the car unfortunately and the towing eye would be part of the tool box.

Kind of mine now, apart of frame 🙂 I do have all doors and windows, but I will need to check if they are not scratched. In my experience all windows get scratched eventually with wear ant tear, so I would assume there will be scratches on 18 years old car. Whenever better or worse than you have is hard to say. What I am saying - if you want window that isn't scratched, then you probably will need new one. As for fitting - they will fit, but Lexus did have few different "tones" of tinting, so it may not be matching to the one you have. I will get window cleaned and will send you some pictures.

The saving grace for LC is that they are simply not in demand to be stolen. The hot on the list are SUVs, that is what everyone wants, the parts are in demand, the cars are in demand for exporting etc. LC is just not that car that is on the radar, it is way to rare to for somebody to try to "legitimise" it locally, it is way to rare that somebody would try to rebuild/re-VIN a wreck, it is too expensive and not suitable for driving in Africa. So although technically it may be prone to CANBUS attack, it is simply not the type of car thief target. I would be highly worried about RX and NX, I have seen few ES stolen (really surprises me as to why ES?!), but LC just not the type of car.

The battery from RC300h will cost you an arm an a leg from Lexus. Hybrids needs AGM batteries and they are costly. Also Yuasa batteries in my experience are junk, they last their warranty period and that is about it. Again, at least in my experience they all died after ~3-4 years. As for why... for batteries to last car has to be regularly used and if not regularly used then they have to be trickle charged. I have never thought about it before, but since covid and since I started using car less I have ruined several batteries as I simply don't drive regularly enough and I don't have option of trickle charging.

HIDs (Xenons) with better bulbs like aforementioned Osram Nightbreakers are alright, but the Halogens in their standard form are hopeless.

Interesting solution, because standard halogens on IS250 is awful to the point where I think they are dangerous. Does the LED headlights actually illuminate better at night? Because I know some of the bulbs claims more lumens, they seems to be brighter when looking at them, but they don't illuminate any better/further at night. So the question - how is the actual experience? They still look kind of bluish, despite being 6000K, but maybe that is just how camera captures the shade, in theory 6000K should be totally white. That said I remember having 6000K xenons, 6000K LED for side-lights and 6000K halogens for high-beam... all were Osram, all were 6000K, but the shade was different on all of them. Xenon and LED was close, LED slightly bluer, but halogen was still kind of pinkish. So I guess it is more like ~6000K and actual light technology also matters. I also believe they should be fine for MOT, pattern looks identical before and after, not sure why they would pick-on it. Sure they have more lumens, but I doubt they have as much as cars with factory LED or Lasers, so as long as pattern is right I assume they should be ok.

Yeah - I wonder how much work is required to put memory in. It probably will be body control ECU (one of them) + master switch + memory switch. I know wiring for steering column should already be there. I think what would make or brake the deal would be wiring - if it is there, then it should be relatively simple, but if it isn't then world of pain. I mean I know that I definitely have all the parts for it to work, it is just a matter of figuring out what exactly is needed. But I reckon from scale of minor to the end of the world, this piece of work would be towards the harder side. Actually, I wonder if leather and ML is already retrofit on yours? Any clues? Because leather retrofit is probably most common thing ever. ML can be retrofitted, but it is much more work as wiring is different and speaker locations are different, that said if somebody was working of whole car it is doable. I myself will try to retrofit radar cruise (eventually), will see how that goes.