Linas.P

I had RC-F for a spin and honestly I was getting better fuel economy in RC-F than I did in RC200t... and for what? RC-F is at least a genuinely fast and fun to drive car, sounds great... makes you forget the price of the fuel, but for RC200t it was totally unacceptable. Yes - it is used in all Lexus 200t and outside of Europe it is called 300 i.e. RC300 in US = RC200t in UK. I know that IS200t is ~10% better on fuel, I assume because it has smaller narrower wheels and is generally lighter car (would not want to know what NX/RX200t does). As well I did have Brigestone Potenza RE050a on the car and they are rated F for Fuel, I potentially with better tyres the MPG would have been better, but RE050a are what the car came with from factory and I doubt it would be really noticeable... maybe 1-2MPG better with the most economic tyres there are. As well 265 on the rear is way way over the top for 241HP car.

Don't forget that screen replacements counts as claims on your insurance policy. So one needs to consider whenever it is better to do it via insurance or rather just pay for replacement themselves i.e. assume your insurance will go up by ~20% for next few years, if you paying £400 for insurance it may be worth it, if £1000, then you may be better off just paying the cost yourself. Autoglass is hit and miss, they are massive company and pretty much the go to place for all windscreens... sometimes they are amazing, sometimes they are not. When they replaced windscreen on my IS the heating part never worked again. To be fair, their warranty would have replaced the windscreen again, but car got written-off before I could be bothered to make the warranty claim. As far as replacement job, it was good, cannot complain, quick, clean, replaced the trims... although all the parts were non-Lexus... at the same time genuine Lexus screen would have been double the price and wait time for months.

In kwikfit? you serious? I think they would attempt alignment even if you drive in on 3 wheels 😄

ohhh yeah... it requires loads of light. I have light in garage, but it still triggers. You can point working light directly at the sensor and then it seems to be happy.

Interesting... sometimes clearing the codes is all it needs. C1201 is real pain to clear... so count yourself lucky it being historic. B1421 and 1424 are not real codes... they are just saying your light sensors didn't get enough light to determine how bright is outside. Presumably when you scanned them you were indoors or you did it in the evening?

It is little bit faster than that, probably ~7.2s vs ~8.6s. But say 0-30 there will be nothing in between them. I had it side by side with IS250 mk2 and IS250 stayed in front all the way to 40-50. But IS250 in reality gets 7.6-7.8 0-60, so there is not much in between them anyway and even at 60MPH IS250 is maybe a car length behind. Obviously, if you continue accelerating from 50, then 200t would be significantly ahead of both 300h and 250, but under 50 it really doesn't want to go. The lag from the stand still is ridiculous on RC200t... literally takes 1 second from when you press accelerator and the car actually start moving, so I think that is what contributes the most to overall poor performance. Then you get to the point where it just constantly changes gears... and only around 50 starts pulling quite decently. Regarding MPG - yes RC200t you are very lucky to see mid-30s on motorway, or mid-20s in the city. My average was something like 22-24MPG combined over like 8000 miles and I mostly did longer trips when I owned it.

But isn't it a big shame when once in a year you get that perfect moment and it is your car that is let down?! I do agree with you regarding constantly deteriorating driving conditions in UK - it seems that goverment has declared war on motoring as a whole and the heard of mindless sheep just follows whatever. The celebrate every time when somebody get's fined for going even few miles over the arbitrarily low and unnecessary speed limits and just trying to stick it to the drivers. As well I agree that RC is great tourer, especially in UK where you not going to get anywhere fast. Hybrid is as well relaxing to drive, there is no real urge to even try going fast, because it just isn't a fast car, so that leaves more time to relax and simply cruise around. That said - OP asked if it is sports car... I think the answer is - NO it is not.

I think Lexus only sold something like 120 of them, so they are just rare. As to why they didn't sell... yes I guess engine was big contributing factor. Basically 300h was a "compliance" model as up to 2018 you could buy one as company car under "salary sacrifice scheme" (under 149g co2/km), so I think quite a few were bought as company cars, still rare but nowhere near as rare, 200t obviously didn't comply with this scheme and it wasn't very competitive overall. It was more expensive than 300h to buy, and to tax (£20 vs £240), it was more expensive than comparable BMW 420i (closer to the price of much faster 430i)... overall it just wasn't very competitive. And again - whereas 300h is just simply slow, it has some positive angles to it. 200t just doesn't really have anything that stands out, the only reason to get it 200t instead of 300h is because it is faster, but it is not sufficiently faster to justify the extra cost... people who actually wanted faster car just bought BMW 430i... somehow 430i manages 5.5s from similar 2L turbo petrol, which as well has similar power (255hp vs. 241hp)... it is just kind of baffling that Lexus is whole 2 seconds slower with just 14hp difference. The colour combo is personal choice of course, but the one in Edinburg has that horrible standard audio system (as can be seen by the rotary dial next to gear leaver). It sounds absolutely horrendous, so I would avoid it for that reason alone. Although it seems all 3 of them have standard audio, so there isn't much of the choice at the moment. If I were you I honestly would wait a bit if you really want RC200t. Yes there are few of them, but there are even fewer people who looking for one, so when they come for sale they tend to stay on sale for very long. I am quite certain it is possible to get much better example for ~£16-18k than what is currently on offer. Now for sure I would not recommend it, but I am not going to repeat myself 🙂

If you have shot bearing then alignment wouldn't help... As well once you tyres are already unevenly worn (depends how much), then alignment again wouldn't solve it. That is why I am suggesting that it is best to do it when fitting new set of tyres. As well alignment wouldn't cause weird sounds and judder. The rear wheels should never be in red, so I think what the guy told you was a bit of BS. They could be slightly out of alignment, but should always be "within spec." and if they are within spec. then they would be still on green. Red means "out of spec".

Your best bet is to actually look for traders that are selling them... there is one in Leicester and one North of London, I think that is closest you can get (the 3rd one is Edinburg)... I do not believe anyone on the forum currently owns one... there are few IS200t, but I don't believe anyone has RC200t. And even historically maybe only 2-3 people on here had it. One should be lurking somewhere in Birmingham as I know the guy that I sold mine to was trying to sell it for nearly 9 months and I doubt he managed to sell it in the end...so that one may re-appear at some time again. Other option - try RC300h, because many Lexus dealers still have them, it is still mostly the same car and you may even be able to get 24h test drive, so you could better "understand" things that are in common between RC300h and 200t, so when you finally get into 200t you can focus just on the engine and gearbox alone. As well maybe try IS200t (Lexus Bristol has one), again you may be able to convince them for 24h test drive... now sure IS is quite different car from RC, it rides differently on 18" vs 19" wheels... it has better fuel economy and it is more responsive (smaller wheels, lighter car, narrower tyres), but you can still figure out few things between trying RC300h and IS200t... but finding RC200t to try will be rather difficult and to be fair... even if you go for test drive, understanding the car in 15 minutes with sales guy on the side is rather difficult.

Uneven wear would not be caused by shock absorber... if they are not leaking it would be hard to diagnose that shock absorbers are at fault. I mean you can do basic "push on the corner" test, but on modern cars it is really hard to tell, shock absorbers rarely get so bad that you can feel just by pushing (i.e. car keeps bouncing up and down after you push down). Worn lower control arm bushing would manifest in wear on inside of front tyres (wheels toe out under braking). Generally just check wheel alignment if you have issues with uneven wear, maybe you hit pothole or something and it knocked them out of alignment in general? I would recommend doing "4 wheel" alignment with every set of new tyres at minimum, and check alignment at least every 10k or after you hit pothole hard. Now I put 4 wheel alignment in quotes because you can't align rear wheels on IS250 much, but they are still aligned together with fronts. Basically front alignment impacts rear alignment and by playing backwards and forwards decent shop could dial in both axels. Looking at your symptoms I am wondering whenever it could be wheel bearing? Squeaking noise like from brake pads, but you not braking... although it would have to be totally shot to cause car to wiggle in the corner... wheel would be borderline falling off before that happens... so any mechanic would be able to diagnose that quite easily.

This is trim specific - lower trims only shows warning, higher trims shows pressure of each tyre, so you know whenever it is under or over pressure and which tyre it is for.

I think that pretty much sums it-up! I often see traffic jams on the other side and they always are in the section with reduced limit... obviously this would be just conspiracy, but it seems variable speed causes more jams than they solve from my observation. Most of the time when the traffic occurs on unlimited stretch I can see cars slowing down to maybe 60MPH... but when there are variable limit of say 50MPH, often the actual speed drops to literally 10MPH. Again - I agree that in theory they suppose to smooth out the traffic and make roads more efficient... but this does not explain why they are often used on empty motorways at night or for ghost roadworks which are not there. Likewise I don't think breaking variable-limit should be treated the same as breaking THE limit. Then there is as well issue of having to constantly monitor variable limit... because well it is VARIABLE... so you concentrating less on driving and more on checking every gantry as limit can literally change from one gantry to another every 400m or whatever. Then there I think we should recognise that there are different ways of making motorways to flow better and as it happens variable speed is least efficient way which generates most money. For example enforcing strict lane discipline and allowing unlimited speed could improve the flow as well. Because in theory the higher is the speed, the higher is the throughput of the road. If anything variable speed limit seems to be curing only the symptoms and not the problem - the problem is that 1. road capacity is not sufficient, we simply need more and wider roads with more lanes or 2. the layout is not optimised e.g. constantly going between 3 and 4 lanes is less efficient than constantly having just 3 lanes , multi level free flowing crossings should be used instead of roundabouts with traffic lights etc. or 3. there is no discipline on the road so middle and outside lanes get hogged by slow moving traffic which refuses to move over and allow faster traffic to overtake. As well the whole theory about variable limits is kind of flawed, because not only it does not address actual issue of why there is traffic jam in the first place, but as well slower moving traffic reduces road capacity not increases it. Besides all the calculation is as well wrong, because algorithm assumes drivers actually keeps the distance... they don't. Like it or hate it, but cars in outside lane already moving at 90MPH bumper to bumper, so it may be dangerous, but is it already most efficient way... The whole theory that by reducing the limit, you can reduce the gap between cars and increase capacity is simply wrong... so there is nothing to gain by making same cars drive bumper to bumper just at 50MPH... it doesn't smooth anything out, it just slows everyone down. And as well algorithm assumes cars are driving at 70MPH... which they are not. It was a while since the actual speed on motorways was measured, but if my memory servers in 2016 80 percentile speed was 86MPH (that is actual, so indicated was over 90). As well road are not parking lots, the point of the road is to allow the cars to go from A to B FAST and not to slow down traffic so much that cars could be as close as possible to each other, there is no utility in motorway if you can't drive at 90MPH on it. But it all comes down to all the points we already discussed and actually I think it is evidence of what I was saying... making roads good costs money, making everyone drive artificially slow and fining them for not following retarded speed limits actually makes money. So no imagine you are some sort of minister ... what are you going to do 1. make entire M25 to be 5 lanes wide consistently and upgrade all the junctions to be as free flowing as possible and allow 90MPH limit for the cost of £100bn or 2. introduce variable limits for something like £170 million (this is just the cost of speed cameras and electronic signs) which makes the road borderline useless 22/24h per day and as bonus get ~£140 million income from fines every year. The conversions to "smart" motorway already paid itself off on M25 within just over a year. What I am trying to say - there is no motivation for actually making the roads good! Why make it good if that loses you millions of £ in income?

Agreed - UX is basically adaptation on CT... CT was released for the times when hatchbacks were popular (well Lexus kind of missed the real hatchback peak by at least decade), but at the time it was logical offer to add in the range... and nowadays when market is about crossovers and SUVs, they simply replaced CT as entry level model to small crossover. However, they can't go smaller than CT/UX... in fact this proposed LBX isn't smaller, just today I walked past Yaris Cross and it is pretty much the size of CH-R, just much more basic inside... you can clearly see cheap plastics and basic dash. So in principle again LBX is not smaller car than UX, it is just worse car than UX... and I wasn't exactly amazed about UX either. I mean it is okey small cross-over, but I would not call it very luxurious. Context matters. I think when we were discussing "mainstream", it was implicit that we talking about "luxury mainstream" i.e. BMW, MB, Audi type of segment... not a "mainstream" where Lexus competes with Dacias and Skodas. As well at no point I said - "I think I know what they need to do be more mainstream - on top of having small-SUV and mini-crossover they need another stupid micro-crossover!" Lexus could have been mainstream all along if they wanted to be... sound simple, but the problem always was choice and the price. And I know it is like "ohhh genius moment... just make them cheaper", but it is exactly how Lexus became mainstream in US. They came with the car which was better than MB and they sold it at 30% discount... that is what you need to become mainstream in any market. Lexus in UK has to sell at 20% discount compared to German cars... this is the only way. And they have to offer all the models all the time. So if Lexus would have taken the market seriously, always introduced all the models they had and sold cars for 20% discount for decade and then maybe 10% discount for another decade... they would be in similar position say ~top 5. And as for LBX - it definitely dilutes the brand, because there is no way to make car cheaper than UX and still "luxurious". If they wanted to be more mainstream, then they could have just cut the price of UX by 20%... that would certainly work... although I don't know what Toyota would do with CH-R then... because CH-R is already almost the same as UX and as well almost the same price. Really unbelievable when you think that Toyota is selling shoe box sized mini crossover for nearly £40k... What?! Since when you have to pay £40k for pretty much entry level car?! So I think I will double down on my comment - they just becoming fashion brand, sticking their badge on every Toyota model and instead of selling luxury cars, now they are moving into market of selling brand image and "lifestyle". Starbucks of cars!

To be honest I would ignore it until the time comes to replace the tyres, as probably half the price of replacing the sensor is to take tyre, on off, rebalance the wheel. TPMS light is definitely not linked to anything else, as it would be quite useless if that would be the case. Washer fluid comes as warning on the mini-screen on the dash... as well it is annoying as hell as it keeps popping-up and beeping every 1 min. Carista would not be GS mk3 compatible. TechSteam can program the sensors. I am not aware of any OBD2 dongles that could do it.

I am pretty sure they will sell loads of these little shaity things, but that isn't really the point. Kind of sad to see that Lexus turning from actual "luxury car company", to "fashion company". Now sure - being a fashion and lifestyle brand is probably profitable as it attracts low IQ (Toyota IQ X anyone?! Is that foreshadowing?) customers who are none the wiser and would not understand how good/bad your product is. As well I can understand NX and RX, they are good cars, definitely not for me and I would not buy them as only vehicle, but they are not bad cars overall. I had NX for a week as loaner and I can't say I hated it, honestly it did everything I needed it to do as far as taking me from A to B in comfort... again I would not buy it, but it is not a bad car overall. I even joked that if you own LC then you need to have second car and ideally that would be RX... and this is partially joke as it would be wasteful for me to have 2 cars (I don't even have where to park them), but money being no object and in family where two people drive I completely see myself having LC with RX... then you really get best of both worlds - if you driving alone or with other half then LC is great, if you need to put kids, dogs or pick-up friends from airport you take RX. So I would not say I hate SUVs overall, I just don't like compromises if they were the only car I own. However... UX is not SUV, nor this little stupid thing... they are so called "cross-overs" and are absolutely useless and silly. They have no extra ground clearance, so they are no more comfortable than normal car, they don't have any off-road capabilities, most of them are not even AWD, they offer no extra utility over simple hatchback... e.g. UX actually has less space inside and in the boot than CT... so I really don't understand why they exist. I mean UX is already too small as a car... so I just can't imagine what would be purpose of LBX. And finally, as you already said - I actually don't mind Lexus offering SUVs as long as they offer diverse range of models where everyone can find something suitable for them... but it seems soon they going to have only SUVs on offer. Kind of weird they not bringing LX and GX as well... just make 9 damn SUVs as your model range and call it a day!

As well you can try disconnecting battery for 30-45min... would clear the code (although it would still stay in in history)... that is it isn't really a fix, so if you have TechSteam coming it is best to scan the codes and actually know what issue you dealing with.

The 10MPH example is maybe little bit exaggerated, but it is certainly related... As discussed previously, speed reduction is alternative to road improvements or even maintenance, but if the goal is to extract money from motorists, then improving the road is not desirable... actually it is better to leave it to crumble and introducing increasingly unacceptable limits and then blame drivers for not following them. There is actually one much more relevant example and very common in UK. So called "smart"-motorways, I think the plans to make them have been frozen or about to be frozen, but many roads were converted and already operates like this. And by the way the part of using emergency stopping lane is what is being frozen/reversed... yet they haven't said anything about "variable speed limits"... and this is not some sort of mistake... they keeping variable limits, because they are absolute cash cow. And for those that don't know (don't live in UK)... variable limit means that you could get full fine and 3 point on the license even when driving at the normal speed e.g. 60 or 70 MPH on motorway... because those limits can go as low as 20MPH (although usually they don't go below 40). And I have been on empty motorway at night many times with this stupid variable limit in place for no reason for miles. Literally driving at 40MPH for 20 miles for no reason... and if you drive at 70MPH then you will pretty much going to get done for dangerous driving, 9 points if not outright ban, £1000+ fine etc. It is treated exactly the same as if you actually would be speeding by 30MPH! And this is exactly the type of measure we discussing here... it is the case of not making the road suitable for purpose (i.e. not wide enough, not enough lanes), then arbitrarily reducing speed way below what would be deemed reasonable, as such making compliance poor and then raking just ridiculous profits, from motorists who I would not consider were even speeding e.g. I do not consider somebody driving on 70MPH motorway at 60MPH speeding... even if suddenly variable limit goes to 40MPH. And by the way they use extremely scummy tactics on these variable limits. I have seen multiple limes where you go past 10 gantries saying 60MPH, then on random gantry says 50MPH and then next one is back to 60MPH. As you can imagine as you coming towards speed limit you look at what speed is displayed, maybe for 2, 3 gantries and then just driving at that speed... nobody is expecting that there will be one short section somewhere with slower speed, as well 50 looks awfully similar to 60, especially if you not absolutely check every single gantry. And I know it sound like excuse, but this is just reality... when you go past dozen signs saying it is 60, you just do not expect one to suddenly be 50... and they playing on that exactly. And as well this is very relevant to what I said earlier - speed cameras and speed limits should only exist to make roads safer... but tell me honestly, what do you think is safer 1. actually looking at the road in front of you or 2. constantly looking at he gantries above your head just in case speed suddenly changes or there is one odd gantry showing 10MPH less? I would argue variable limits makes roads more dangerous. So no only they don't make roads safer, not only they are just "policing for money", but I would argue they make roads less safe... and since when this is alright?

US is really really outdated and has sort of third world mentality, another country with such culture is China... it is considered that "fooling the fool" is almost like a good thing. Regarding the Trump it is true - again country is split along party lines and they would tolerate literally anything as long as they get the decision they want, they don't even care how it is achieved. Trump has been literally charged for sexual assault couple of weeks ago and I just can't understand how person like this could even run for president... it is truly beyond me. So he would not be able to get work anywhere now (he isn't like on s*x offenders list, but still... probably should be), but apparently there are no safeguard whatsoever who can stand for election?! Scandinavians definitely have corruption, but it is more "reasonable", that is - they know what they need to do to make country prosperous and then whatever is left they as well misappropriate, but the don't get to the level like we in UK where people can't afford homes, can't afford travel, can't even afford food... yet BP and Shell can still profit £50bn just in first quarter of the year... or NHS track app can misappropriate £20bn for for app which doesn't work and everyone is off-the hook. And by the way I would be fine with some level of corruption - as long as country is prosperous, roads are in good condition, NHS is functioning, housing is affordable etc. I really do not care if somebody awards the contract to their cousin or wife. But when we get to the point when only safe speed is 10MPH, because on one hand roads are just ruined, on other hand it is convenient, because government loses so much fund due to corruption that it needs to plug the holes from speeding fines. At this point I think is crossing the line where some harsh punishment for corruption is in order... I am not sure about gofundme being an example of "optimism", there are many examples of fraud where people pretend to have cancer or something and take money from people poorer than them.

Should be called PYC then 😄 As well Yaris is kind of poverty line no-nonsense version or Corolla i.e. Yaris isn't "smaller" it is just more basic/worse car compared to Corolla... and Corolla/Auris = CT. My point is - I just can't see any good reason why Lexus, a "luxury" brand, would offer a car that was fundamentally designed to be more basic and cheaper version of Corolla? Isn't that direct contradiction of what the Lexus is about? Or they just going to stick the badge on all the shaite there is?! At this point I wouldn't be surprised if they released a version of Aygo X by the end of the year called BCW (beer can on the wheels)... and then next year we will have iQ X called RCB (revolutionary cardboard box) ... and finally Lexus mountain bike in 2025 (that last one would be cool on the second thought... maybe the only cool thing in recent years in fact!). At this pace we all going to be walking by the year 2030.

Should have announced it on 1st of April.

I wrote like 5 different drafts of the comment and ever single one was way too long and philosophical. It is interesting discussion, even if not exactly related to the topic, but you probably right - the problem lies deeper, we as society have never been free before and it just cannot be expected for people to care for each other. For last ~100 years we were on the journey to more democratic country, but in last few decades it seems like 1 step forward and 2 steps back. Seems like we losing it recently, but it is constant fight... "freedom is not free" and I guess that goes back to my point - seems like people in charge are now putting a lot of deception, pointless reasons to fight about.. divide and rule. And obviously, in society where everyone looks for themselses it is much easier to create divisions.

That was my first thought as well... but no... how could anyone choose SUV from JUST 4 models! As well UX is already same as CT if not a little bit smaller (at least in terms of interior space)... so I honestly have no clue what niche this LBX suppose to fill. As well whats up with the name? LBX? Really?! Honestly, I have long lost hope that Lexus would release something interesting and not another stupid SUV.

Not much else to say, perhaps test drive should resolve any further questions you have 🙂

I think you should create your own thread as this is kind of stuck on old and unrelated thread now. Depends on what you looking for really... if you don't care about fuel consumption, then it is relatively practical, well handling and comfortable cruiser. It is not Sports car, way too heavy and underpowered, it struggles a lot from stand still, fuel economy is rather horrible and cars is generally very "unresponsive" i.e. it doesn't like being driven hard, thrown around too much, it is not "agile" as would be expected from sports car. How bad is fuel consumption? Well it is bad, RC200t uses more fuel than RC-F in my experience for daily driving. To put it in numbers - my long term IS250 consumption was 26 City / 38 Motorway and average ~28MPG. Same roads, same driver, same "heavy" foot in RC200t I was getting 18 City / 30 Motorway and average ~22-24. RC-F... I only had for couple of days, but I made sure to reset trips to do some comparison. On the same commute route I got 22 MPG where RC200t was getting 18 MPG and on motorway RC-F regularly does 32-36MPG when driving at 70 - 90 MPH. RC200t would get at best 30MPG at 70, at 90 it would be 26-28MPG and I have only ever seen 38MPG once when driving on 18 miles of roadworks at 50MPH. And I don't want to make it all just about fuel, but RC200t just has unacceptable consumption considering what it is - if it would be some fire spitting monster with 700HP and 3s to 60, then fine, but it isn't particular fast, nor fast accelerating, nor sounds that great, yet it gulps fuel like there is no tomorrow. Driving RC-F it feels good to rev it and waste some fuel as it basically turns your money into symphony, but it feels horrible in RC200t because it turns your money into vacuum cleaner sound. It is important to note - I had very particular expectations and if you don't have same expectations then you may be alight. I for long time had IS250 (actually had 3 of them), the car was great, very comfortable, very reliable, but lacked little bit of performance 50HP maybe. I have tried RC300h and it was great car, but is noticeably slower (unacceptably slow for me) and doesn't sound good either. So what I expected from RC200t was - same everything as IS250, but newer car, newer tech, more power and lower fuel consumption. That is what it offers actually - it has 35 more HP and about 10% better fuel economy on paper. Now in reality it was very unresponsive i.e. you have to wait for power to come, it was actually slower up-to 50MPH, so in hypothetical drag race at the lights IS250 would be ahead of it all the way to 40MPH and only at 50MPH RC200t would overtake... and it didn't sound great and used even more fuel. So it was complete failure from my perspective. I came to RC200t hoping it could give me half-way house between IS250 and RC350 (which is not available in UK), but it was actually worse than IS250. RC300h on other hand - at least it is economical, yet it is slow, but so is RC200t. So all in all I would say RC300h is simply better car than RC200t and that is why they outsold RC200t like 10 to 1. To be fair between 50-120MPH RC200t is quite fast and pulls strong... but where can we go at 120MPH in UK?! Now again if you don't have high expectations for the car, then maybe it is alright... it has some positives, looks great, it is practical with folding seats, if you get F-Sport it does feel kid of "special" inside even if there are some cheaper touches on plastics etc. So it is not all horrible, but the engine just kind of bad. I have quite extensive review of both if interested: