Linas.P

No...Unless it is recovered after insurance has paid-off and it goes for auction, at which point it may get category. As well in theory even if it goes as U/X (stolen/recovered minimal damage) the car history check can show auction pictures etc. but it doesn't devalue the car much and it can't really be traced. If found it could be argued it is more of "bad charm/moral thing"... I don't believe car being poorly driven for couple of days makes that much of real damage. As always I am horrified by British Police! There was no attempt to catch the thief, they seen the car pulling away and let it got... they later found the cars and not even considered sting operation, like waiting for thief to show-up or secretly placing tracker etc. Honestly in UK car theft is decriminalised nowadays... they steal cars, joy ride them for a bit and face absolutely no consequences. They said it was in "chop-shop", but in fact it was in "cool down place"... don't they know how criminals operate? Even if we look at the positive side - assuming they tried to return car to the owner ASAP instead of using it as a bait to catch criminals... even then they failed - people find out from the forum and social media before they find out from the police. The most important thing - this story has amazing ending and owner got the car back (which is very rare!) and I am very glad to see it!

Sorry - I only looked at first image and just assumed those are your wheels: - But yes looking at your pics seems like plenty of space behind the wheels.

I reckon they are not wrong, they are just praying on fashion and ignorance. Simply said it costs Lexus the same money to make NX as it takes to make IS, same components goes into both and whatever shape body they press out from the sheet metal really makes little difference. Yet they can sell SUV for £10k more despite it literally costing them same to make. To be fair I am guilty of it myself, because I am always willing to pay more for coupe than I do for saloon... yet coupe is literally cheaper to make because it requires less of various components - "paying extra for 2 doors less"! And all this non-sense that "market want's SUVs" is BS... no market does not want SUVs, it is just manufacturers that want to sell SUVs because they are higher profit margin cars. It is manufacturers who pushes the SUVs in all possible ways and now literally by force, because Lexus pretty much only have SUVs left, FWD Toyota ES and brilliant but not affordable LC/LS, all the rest are 121 different models of just SUVs. Obviously, there is less cynical look - coupes are expensive because they sell very few of them (but I mean if they sell them cheaper, then they would sell more...) and SUVs are popular because vast majority of people do not care how car drives and cares more about practicality of it. Very few people actually knows how to drive properly and even fewer really likes to drive and appreciates the subtle car dynamics differences. Not sure it turned out much less cynical, but that is true - SUVs are just sign that drivers cares less and less about driving dynamics and puts less emphasis on it. And society overall is actually openly hostile towards the drivers, so culturally it makes sense - now people want to distance themselves from drivers and distance themselves from capable and beautiful cars. Because if you have capable and beautiful car, or god forbid like driving it - then you are "damn evil motorist". However, if you bland box of stilts which basically takes you from A-to-B and gives you space to put your stuff in, and ideally you pretend you are doing it "just because you don't have other choice"... then you are fine. As long as you end-up driving almost by accident it is not a sin, but if you dare enjoy it... So yeah - people are conditioned not to like driving and SUVs just makes sense then, especially all sorts of cross-overs. Anyway... rant over...

The thing is - I can't connect with TechStream at all... 1201 is "ECU communication issue", so basically it does not allow any comms on can-bus. I had guy to come over to check the car and his professional scan-tool reported it could not connect to ABS computer. He speculated that because ABS pump is where can-bus terminates it could cause the communication to fail. However, if that were the case then simply disconnecting it should allow communication to resume, but it doesn't... so I was not very satisfied with his diagnostics. Yes Lexus are mechanically reliable cars, but electronically complex... so if something electrical goes wrong it's nightmare to fix or even find what needs fixing.

Sadly can't advise on garage, but you certainly doing a right thing - going through insurance almost never works out in your favour.

Fair enough... and I disagree with them and call it just "marketing BS". Brembo may indeed say that - not exactly impartial.. are they? That said they are not wrong, but the conditions where it matters are simply not present on normal road going cars and normal conditions... anyway I am not disagreeing with you... I pretty much mentioned all the same things they did, except I don't believe it actually matters on the road going cars. Rally cars - perhaps. IS350 AWD came with bog standard 17" wheels, so all the IS250 wheels fits the larger brake callipers, except of 16"... your 18" are guaranteed to fit them. As far as I know nothing else is different in IS mk2 overall, even IS-F comes with same master cylinder etc. And the reason is - again surface * friction coefficient. Larger brakes provides more braking power because they have larger pads rubbing on larger discs, not because they apply more pressure to the pad. As well like other mentioned IS350 brakes do not actually make car to stop much quicker, perhaps a tiny fraction... what they provide instead is longer service life and more repeatable braking, they fade slower and they dust less (theoretically). In my experience I was not happy with IS250 brakes, but not because they were "not strong enough", rather because they required a lot of maintenance (which to be fair 80% were rear callipers not front)... secondly I slowed down once (literally one time) on autobahn from ~140MPH to 80MPH and I warped my drilled discs and they were noticeably faded for good 15 minutes. Even driving on NC500, where you cannot even exceed 50MPH because of damn caravans I could feel them fading... so what IS350 brakes gives are simply more mass to dissipate heat and they don't get overwhelmed as quickly as standard brakes (allegedly). Now again - I didn't get to fit IS350 brakes, but it was always in my wishlist to do... and now I am planning to do it to my new IS250 (if I get it going again). -------------- Edit... actually I just realised I did have IS350 brakes... just not on IS. My RC was fitted with them standard and I never experienced any issues that I had with IS250. Just felt like more robust system overall, despite RC being heavier and more powerful car.

It would be interesting to know what exactly excludes BMW 8 series from being competitor to LC? Let's start from similarities 2+2 GT Coupe, 2 doors, costs ~£80k, V8 or thereabouts performance vice, Luxury brand, large car (near 2 tons), sub 5s acceleration, premium materials inside, comparatively exclusive, halo-model for each respective brand. When it comes to MB it is actually little bit harder as both E53/63 and S-Coupe S500/S65 can be considered competitors, except E-Class is slightly smaller/cheaper and S-Class is slightly larger/more expensive. Aston Martin DB11 is competitor as well. Maserati Grand Turismo is direct competitor indeed, it literally has GT in the name and has things that makes great GT. Technically Bentley Continental should be considered competitor of LC, but the matter of fact is just that GT-Coupes segment is quite diverse. So my question is - what are the differences in terms of market segment between BMW 8-Series and LC apart of subjective dislike of the looks? I can't find any, they occupy exactly the same market. However, I can quite easily say what is NOT in GT segment - 911 and F-Type are "Sports Cars", so despite being upmarket they actually compete with RC-F, BMW M4 etc. MB SL is roadster, so that is different segment although I guess it does compete with LC Cabrio in practice, despite technically being different market. The Stinger is an exec saloon, so it is roughly in the market with BMW M5/M4GC and similar cars.

One thing that surely makes them exclusive is the original selling price. £82k for 840s and 100k for M850s means not many were sold (at least by BMW standards), not many sold means you are unlikely to find yourself in the place where have M3 and you park next to another two M3s... sure you may park next to other BMWs and indeed one may mistake M850 for M4 at a glance... but you know for sure people will take a second glance... because "ohhh wait that is odd M... it isn't M4?!". And by the way - since when being mistaken for M4 is offensive? So I would not call them "odd ball", but they are certainly quite rare and exclusive. And I am not saying Lexus LC is any less exclusive... is just again all comes down to many things. If we just want most exclusive "current gen" car for under £100k, then Lexus LC500h is probably the car to go for... but if we want all-rounder, easy to live with, comfortable to sit 4 and still have enough space for all the things you need for weekend... and still be exclusive I think BMW 8-series or S-Class Coupe actually are better choice and for less money. And just to be clear I am not slagging of LC500, but everything has price and all the cars are compromise, it just happens that LC500 cost more yet you as well have to compromise on more things. That is nice way of saying it is currently overpriced for what it offers. Likewise I am not criticising people who bought LC500, both used and new. You know somebody bought that S-Class Coupe for £135k+ and now it's £50k (I am thankful for a charitable person who absorbed that ridiculous depreciation), somebody may have bought LC500 I was looking at in 2020 for £42k and now made their money back and made £10k profit on top. But honestly at the prices as they are now I just cannot see how LC500 represents "good value". Interesting way to look at quality by the comparing the bolsters. I am not saying it is wrong, but to be honest I have never even considered to check how the bolsters look on the car, certainly not as priority... usually my worries starts from engine, gearbox, maybe suspension, exterior cosmetics (many cars are crashed and poorly repaired, even small bumps/scratches and poor repair job can cause issues in long-run) and only then I look into interior. On all expensive and serious issues Lexus fairs better - they are not known to have any suspension issues... Yet BMW springs have tendency to collapse, ball-joins requires frequent replacements etc. Engines and gearboxes... on Lexus side usually bulletproof.. BMWs - plastic parts in the engine, poor gaskets weeping oil everywhere (at least it's good rust prevention). I must be very clear again - up-to 5 years old it probably does not matter, but Lexus is usually solid buy (dependant on price) even when it has 80k, 100k or 120k miles, BMWs are not. So if we look at cars with 25k miles this just becomes irrelevant, but when we look at long term reliability at 100k+ Lexus is better. Now talking about bolsters specifically I think it is compromise... Either you have hard bolsters which stays firm, but rubs the leather through, like was the case on my 40k miles BMW 328xi and 55k miles Lexus RC, or you have softer bolster which colipases, but the leather stays intact. The IS250 SE-L had softer bolsters and I indeed driver's right side bolster had collapsed on all of them. I as well had IS 250 F-Sport and that had firmer bolsters... I assume it would have worn trough, but I only had it up to 20k miles so never experienced any issues. If you ask me personally - I would rather have soft bolster which collapses, than hard bolster which wears the leather trough. Collapsed bolster is way cheaper and easier to fix (you probably can even do it yourself), and can be done in the way that it is impossible to tell and looks like new. Worn trough leather is much harder to fix, more expensive, requires specialist skill and not always works out perfect. Either way - I never associated car quality with how it's bolsters wears out, but I guess everyone to their own. Perhaps BMW is better in that respect.

I think we need to clarify the meaning of "broader appeal", because it seems quite clear that it is the one thing BMW does not lack. Now I get what you saying - you don't see "what appeals others" and it just sounds like you simply don't like BMW as a brand... I for example don't like Audi and whatever they put out I could never understand why people so obsessed with it. For example I would say exactly the same thing about Audi R8 - I just don't get what is the appeal of it, but I am sure many people see something in it. Likewise I can see why someone would choose LC500 over M850i, as I said money being no object I would probably do the same. LC500 seems like more original design, has it's genuine benefits, but has genuine downsides as well. Practicality being one and price another big issue - I think the way they are positioned LC500 is direct competitor to M850i and when one could get 2 years never car, with half the miles for £10k less... LC500 just doesn't compare well. Just little advise to better adapt to the community - in Lexus world BMW is considered very unreliable and troublesome, which compared to Lexus they probably are (conditionally), but compared to rest of the cars they are decent. There little bit of partially justified snobbism between Lexus owners, because Lexus reliability and build quality is second to none, but in other hand it really only becomes important when cars are 10 years old and have 120k miles+. If you take brand new BMW and brand new Lexus, I am sure they both will give you 5 years of trouble free experience, yet Lexus could give you 10 extra years... whenever it is relevant or not for most buyers that is another question. So as I said - many on here would NOT consider BMW as the car that "starts every day, never breaks, is solid and quality made", there is some truth in that, but overall people tend to oversaturate the issue and apply conditions that are likely not even relevant for most buyers. Sure Lexus LC500 will go for 200k miles and 20 years just with minimal service and without any repair work outside of what scheduled in the service... very cool! But how many people on here are planning to spend next 20 years in LC? Probably none...

I agree with first point - 8-series lacks originality, particularly inside I felt it does not go far enough to stand out from say 4-Series. Crystal gear selector is simply not enough to justify double the price from purely visual perspective (whereas LC500 feels almost custom crafted compared to RC). Now whenever that is really bad thing - I am not so sure, 8-Series looks striking in flesh, it is extremely fast, it handles extremely well and if you like BMW looks, then you will like BMW-8. So yes there is too little to separate it from lesser BMWs, but it isn't necessary bad thing. Now sure Lexus LC is more unusual car and if money were no object i.e. I were given both of them brand new for free I would choose LC500... but money is an object and I just can't see how LC500 is worth 20k more than newer BMW 8-Series (adjusted for mileage). It just isn't... and by the way whereas you can live with BMW 8 as single car in household, I would argue you can't with LC, to own LC one needs to have separate car for going to shopping etc. The particular issue is the boot, which is pretty much non-existent in LC. BMW 8 has massive boot, folding rear seats... I mean you can put bicycles there if you wanted to. In LC boot you can put a purse... and that is pretty much it. BMW has standard 3 years warranty + 12 Month purchase warranty if you get it from dealership. Then it has standard deal of what they call "insured warranty" or what Lexus used to call "extended warranty", in fact BMW one is much cheaper as well. LC extended warranty used to be £1995 or something crazy like that and BMW 8-series is £895. Now sure Lexus Relax is something else and really add a lot of value especially for cars like LC, that said BMW "insured warranty" is little bit more comprehensive, but it costs more money. All in all, let's just say BMW will cost you £2400 more over 3 years period because of warranty, but likewise in 4 years times Lexus will be out of the warranty altogether, whereas BMW will still be able to get the warranty for extra 3 years. And I am sure Lexus 100k+ extended warranty won't be cheap for LC. And finally I am not so sure about the last bit - all expensive coupes have tendency to sink like rocks in first few years, true for 8-Series, true for BMW i8, true for LC or MB S-Class Coupe ... or any of them. However, let's look into realistic ownership scenario - let's say you get LC500 for £49k, it already has 80k miles, you own it for 3 years, put another 20k miles on it, now it is out of warranty, 8 years old Lexus... how much money you expecting to get for it? I reckon £20k if you lucky. In the mean time you will enjoy very cheap ownership indeed. £180 road tax, £2000 for services and warranty is included. So you get back £17k after 3 years ownership. Let's take example for BMW - 2020, 50k miles for £45k, after same 3 years and 20k miles, I reckon you will still be able to sell it for £35k (that is what 5 years old 8-series are now going for), and yes your service will be more expensive and you will have to pay £895 for warranty to avoid horrors of BMW ownership, you will pay £600 extra on road tax... and in the end of ownership you get like £28k back. So Lexus ownership will work out at just over £10k a year and BMW ownerships will be half of that. And I mean sure, you can say - "don't buy 80k miles LC", but if we looking at comparable mileage it will be £58k... so it will depreciate even more and cost of ownership may workout even worse. And for BMW 8-Series it is not necessary to get M850i, if you happy to go for 840i, those are selling as low as £35k and I reckon they will depreciate less. LC is special car, but I don't think it is "that special" to cost double in terms of ownership over newer BMW. I would say - slightly more usable rear seats. To the point where I would call it proper 2+2... and not 2+0/5x2.

Yes I have TechStream, but I suspect there is something more wrong with my car than just ABS pump, because as mentioned mine is in limp-mode. And yes £600, should clarify - that is Lexus price for brand new one. There are many for as low as £12 on ebay, but I do not believe they will be anymore alive than the one I am replacing, so it is better to find refurbished or at least tested unit, because time fitting it and bleeding it isn't free either. As for connectors getting corroded - I put it down to covid 😄 but seriously... basically I think this happens as result of cars being parked for long periods of time... I have a lot of electrical issues with my car and it is all down to bad connections... and I found dozen corroded connectors in places where it is impossible for them to corrode e.g. one of the terminals near ECU, which is sealed connector which itself sits in the sealed box. It just cannot get wet! How did it corrode?!

Wrap jobs nowadays cost ridiculous money, so I would not even want to guess - a £1000, maybe £2000... perhaps a little bit cheaper up-north. ML is great, but Pioneer "Premium" system is good enough -honestly little difference between the two. Pioneer will do 90% of what ML does, but ML has an edge especially when clarity is concerned, that said if you want ML to sound good you need good source for the music. Playing some MP3 from the phone actually going to sound worse on ML as it will simply reproduce and highlight all the problems. Whatever you do don't get poverty-line standard 6-system as that one is horrible, it is basically on par with what you would have found in 20 years old Ford Fiesta and I really don't know how it passed the requirements to be fitted to Lexus. In pre-facelift cars the standard system can be identified by rotary dial (Premium/ML has like a laptop mousepad), not sure if there is visual way of telling Premium/Standard in Facelifted cars, but ML would be marked on both rear windows sill speakers and in the centre-bottom of centre console. As for oil change - I would assume you use Lexus dealerships until it turns 10, because that is the only way to keep it under warranty (and to be fair you definitely want to keep it that way as when my driver seat failed the warranty forked-out £4,200 for repairs). As such for oil service just follow annual service schedule or 10k miles, whichever is sooner. I personally think 10k miles is a bit much, so on normal petrol car I would change oil every 6k miles, but I reckon on hybrid it is less relevant. Options depends on what year car you looking to get. Pre-facelift 2016 - ~2019 (there were some cars in mid-2018 that got LSS+, but no facelift) you basically had 3 trims - "Luxury" (the worst), F-Sport which got F-Sport dials standard (which I would get if I were you) and Sunroof, ML and Protection pack as options or Premier which had ML standard, sunroof, radar cruise control and protection pact as an options, but you could not get it with F-Sport dials. All the rest were standard. From ~mid-2018 all cars are fitted with LSS+, but facelift really started in 2019. LSS+ gives you radar cruise control, pre-crash safety, lane assists (on top of lane departure warning), rear-cross traffic and blind spot monitoring. Sunroof remained as an option on all cars, but trims got called differently - "Luxury" got dropped (because it became synonymous with poverty-line, but I continue to call it Luxury as it basically retained all trim options and just got LSS+), F-Sport, F-Sport+Takumi and Takumi. I think maybe F-Sport + Takumi got ML and sunroof as standard something strange like that. I guess notable omissions pre-face lift F-Sport could not get radar cruise, but Premier could not get digital dials. Post-facelift F-Sport get's everything and Takumi really only get's some wood inlays, but still no digital dash. Otherwise there were very little that you can actually choose - ML, Premium-Audio and Sunroof were the only real options. So called "protection pack" gives you mud-flaps (which are kind of needed), rubber floormats and boot-cover and metal boot lip scuff-plate (maybe as well door handle clear film protector)... either way "protection-pack" can be retrofitted after the purchase. As I mentioned there is in between model for early 2018 which got LSS+ and new infotainment screen, but kept exterior of pre-facelift. There is one listed as "F-Sport + Premier Pack", but in fact there was no such thing... so this is just normal F-Sport in that strange in-between facelift period spec. The grille is the same shape and didn't change between pre and post face-lift, only headlights, mirrors and taillights (and larger infotainment screen)... however Lexus did some funny mix-up. On pre face-lift "Luxury" and Premier has more basic grille, whereas F-Sport had large grille... on face-lifted cars Takumi and "Luxury" got old F-Sport grille and F-sport got new slightly different grille with vents on the side. As well Takumi got old F-Sport wheels design and F-Sport again got new wheel design. I guess when I say grilles are the same - they are the same overall shape and size and only the type of mesh and some details are different. ES is very different car from RC, FWD, based on Toyota Avalon and in my opinion significant drop in terms of built quality/materials and driving dynamics. It is fair to say ES300h got updated version of the engine and is more efficient/more responsive, but that is the only positive. As well when it comes to prices I personally consider them crazy nowadays. In 2019 I bought 2017 RC for £15,500 - that was 2 years 10 month old car with 55k miles. Similar car now (basically 2021, late 2020) costs double of that. In 2016 I bought 2008 IS250 with a bit of miles (120k) for £4000... similar car now (~2015 IS/RC) would cost 4 times the price. I mean sure inflation is a thing, but I don't believe there was 400% of inflation between 2016 and now... So they really need to start come down quite a bit before the become reasonable again.

And if you not afraid of little bit of miles (guaranteed motorway, because nobody is making 50k in the city in 2 years in M850i) then it get's better - https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202111270001581 Just small correction there - M850i Launched at £100k, there was some limited edition for £121k, but neither of cars we posted are that limited edition. So yeah - 40% depreciation on 8000 miles and 55% depreciation over 50k miles.

Did your car as well got limp home mode? Because I am battling same issue and I was told it is ABS pump, but in my case ABS pump connector is not corroded and I was kind of reluctant to pay £600 for the pump just to find out if that is true or not. Like you I have permanent VSC and ABS lights, but I only get one code - 1201 and nothing else and my car has limp-home mode (does not rev past ~3.5k).

Agree that most of them staying within dealership network definitely factor in the price staying high. BMW i8 can be warranted by third parties, but indeed that won't be cheap. However BMW 8-Series compares quite well with LC and getting 12k miles 2020 car for £40k is actually no brainer, you can even get M850i for £43k. Obviously... argument could be had whenever L6 compares with V8, but both have their benefits. If V8 is important then again even M850 is cheaper and then M8 exists, but that costs more.

Indeed, I had spare cash recently and thought maybe I buy something cool to drive again, but with market being so uncertain I just decided not to risk it. As I said - in any sort of economic turmoil used Luxury cars are the first on on the chopping block. As I mentioned there are now i8s on the market for £30k and with decent miles, but I don't want to be in situation paying £30k this year and car plummeting to £20k within a year. Clearly used cars are in big bubble now, when that bubble burst it could result in anything, prices may reset all the way to what they should be or even below. But that said even BMW i8 for £30k is way safer buy then LC for £50k. I am quite confident BMW i8 won't cost less than £20k in 3 years time, so my risk is what ~£3k a year. But I can easily see LC500 selling for £25k in 3 years time... and I wouldn't want to be one stomaching £8k+ depreciation a year on what already is 6 years old car. Let's not forget - BEV bubble is already bursting, there is no demand, dealers not taking them in, actually they could not sell the new ones, people struggling to sell them privately, it is just a matter of time when they will bring rest of the car market down. And unlike housing bubble (which is massive bubble) there are no backstops, for housing government and banks will do anything to maintain it in the bubble, even if it comes down to spending tax payers money to keep it inflated, with used car markets there are no back-stops, when it busts it bursts and then it is a race to the bottom. So currently I would be very very worried to hold onto expensive car and even more worried to buy into one. Seems like perfect example "buying it when price is high and selling when it is low".

Which is both their achievement and biggest loss. Sometimes being too far ahead in something is not great... and that was reflected in poor sales of Lexus hybrids. If they were PHEVs, it would have been different story, but Lexus somehow was way too late to that game. Likewise as Shahpor said, now they becoming more relevant and guess what - Lexus no longer sells IS in the UK. So the limited supply which was sold in very small numbers appreciates. As for prices, currently prices are all over the place, not only Lexus and not only IS300h... it may be temporary thing, it may be longer term, I think it is much more to do with external factors than some sort of Lexus 4D strategy (like car supply/demand/economic situation). It is ridiculous to think in 2016 I bought 2008 IS250 SEL (which would be now equivalent to 2017 IS300h F-Sport/Premier) for £4000... what is what used to be 6-years old Lexus price. Now you can't get one for £8000, not even £12,000. Well and I guess it is possible to argue 2016 was good time to buy mk2, as last of them were coming out of leases, first mk3 started coming out of leases and everyone just wanted to dump them. But 2008 IS250 will still cost you £4000 today... after 7 years! I has mine crashed, written-off, got £3800 from insurance and still sold the car with Cat-N for £2500... this is just not how used car market suppose to work, so I would argue this is temporary phenomenon. That said I have heard pure EVs are sinking like a rocks in value, there is no demand for them, no dealers want to PX them, no dealers want to take them and people taking massive price cuts privately. I wonder why that is?! So if you have where to charge one, this may be time to look for BEV. But Lexus prices are ridiculous at the moment.

When it comes to depreciation that is perhaps true post pandemic, but it is certainly not universally true. I do agree with the interior thought - if you compare RC to similar year BMW 4-Series then RC really feels like quite special place to be in, you could get that in BMW as well, but you will be spending £8000 for options like extended leather, comfort pack, digital pack and so on. That is not to say Lexus does not have it's own issues, but BMW poverty line interiors can really get very basic. Going back to depreciation, for example when I bought my RC, I specifically bought it because it had depreciated tremendously compared competition. To recap in October 2019 I bought RC200t which was first registered on January 2017 with 54k miles for just £15,500... so this was 2 years old car (just about to turn 3) at Lexus dealership and sold for 35% of it's original price. I could not buy similar MB C200 Coupe or BMW 420i for anything like that price. £15,000 would have bought me 2014 BMW 420i with like 120k miles and I think cheapest C-Class Coupe would have been ~£16,500k. Ohhh and by the way it fully loaded with every single possible option available - and this is not usual sales pitch where they say "ever option", but in fact they just list all the features that comes standard and not a single option... no - when I say fully loaded, I mean it had everything and nothing else could be added. Now sure argument can be made - "yeah but 200t was kind of trash and literally nobody wanted it" which is true, but at the same time BMW 420i is considered "poverty line" on BMW side (similar 2L Turbo engine), yet they didn't have anywhere near as much depreciation before pandemic. Same is true for RC-F... I remember in 2017 used RC-F with mere 30k miles were popping up well under 30k, there were several cars listed at £27,000 and even £25,700... comparing that for example with M4 which kept it's price way better. I even remember having discussion about why Lexus are so expensive to lease, and it was basically all down to depreciation, because Lexus used to depreciate a lot, this automatically means you paying a lot more on the lease as most owners would usually choose not to pay balloon as the car would be worth below it, and that meant Lexus had to put lower balloons on lease, which then automatically increases either deposit or monthly payments. Take same LC500 for example. Launched in late 2017 for £89k, several examples with mere 5000 miles were selling at under 50k by late 2019, some as low as 42k. £39k drop in 2 years is A LOT, some were under half-price... again compare to BMW i8 which was launched in 2014 and by late 2019 it was around the same price ~£50k... but that took BMW 5 years to lose about 50% of value (original prices for them I believe was £99k). And it took Lexus LC only 2 years to drop to the same levels. Even today when LC is 6 years old and kind of historically overpriced when compared to BMW i8, it still works out it has depreciated at same rare ~7.5%/year for Lexus and ~7.3% for BMW. In summary - I don't think it is true to say that "Lexus always keeps it's value better than BMW", yes it is kind of true for last couple of years, but I would not bet it will last forever.

Thinking about it... it is ridiculous how LC500 kept it's value... I know the shenanigans with car supply in last couple of years increased the prices of many used car, but LC500 was particularly impacted. I remember looking at one in January 2020 and at the time LC500 was about to break into 30's, I was toying with idea of upgrading RC to LC and the cars on sale at the time were 2-3 years old most with less than 10k miles on the clock, some as little as 1000 miles and one I was interested in particular was 8400 miles maybe and at £42k. At the same time I was as well considering BMW i8 and they were just slightly more expensive, same price more or less ~mid-40s, but with 30-50k miles. Look at it now - i8s are long min-30s and LC500 V8 barely goes below 50k. I mean I still can't believe that 80k miles, 6 years old LC500 cost more now, than 2 years old 8k miles cars did 3 years ago. Perhaps I should have risked it back then and would have made at least 10k on the purchase... although Lexus pretty much valued my RC as worthless at the time and I would have lost same £10k on the PX. Now whenever we see LCs back at mid-40s this year is hard to guess... seems like most of the supply remains with dealers and that is what propping-up the value. Truth is - if you own LC now it would be unbelievably difficult to sell one in private, the PX with other makes would really hurt, so it is likely that one of the best options to sell it back to Lexus. Not sure if they buy LCs, but I was certainly approached by Lexus in 2021 to sell back my RC at more money then I paid them 2019. If that is the case with LC then I can see the staying where they are. On other hand if Lexus does not take LC as PX (and frankly there is very few cars they can offer on PX, unless somebody maybe wants to go into more practical RX or maybe niche LS) then we see more of these cars traded to other makes like Porsches, BMWs, MBs etc... and see them going down in price as other dealers are not so much interested in keeping LC values as high as they are now. As well LCs being mid-40s would represent 10% YoY depreciation, which is kind unlikely considering LC is already 6 years old, because large drops in value are rare for cars over 5 years old, most of cars see double-digit depreciation only in first 3 years. In other hand if economy continues to worsen, then used luxury car values are usually the first thing on the chopping board (anyone remembers £25k Lamborghini Murcielago in 2009?), followed by classic cars values. In which case it can even go lower - all in all if the LC price drops it will be mostly external factors and little to do with the cars themselves. I would guess - 50/50 if we can see them back in mid-40s.

Most of IS220d issues are caused by people not using them correctly (same as most other diesels), diesels are just not meant to be used on short journeys in the cities. How majority of people are using cars? For short journeys in the cities! That causes all the usual issues - DPF, EGR, Injectors, Turbo etc. Now sure IS220d had the famous head-gasket problem, so that is potentially the only real issue unique to IS220d that competitors do not have. Your car being low mileage and you mostly staying on motorway, I honestly would not expect any problems to crop-up. This is how the car meant to be used and even rather awkward gearbox is much less of an issue when you staying at constant speed with cruise control on. The problems only start when people use these cars wrong and instead of fixing underlying issue i.e. having wrong car for wrong type of driving, they start messing-up with removing DPFs, EGRs etc. and getting into never ending list of issues.

Normally it is under the central storage compartment in most Lexus cars, basically where you would put your elbow when driving. But I am not confident it needs resetting, or that resetting requires accessing it. The reason I am saying this, if SRS module would need resetting, then you would get a fault, basically it would still think that one or more airbags were deployed, despite them being replaced. Secondly, I am not sure you need to physically access the airbag module to reset it. It is not like it has big red button on it saying "reset". Again normally that would be done via diagnostics computer. I am not sure if I have RC workshop manual (I will look around), but I suggest to do some more digging before ripping the panels apart (not that it takes that much of time really, if you know what you doing maybe 5 min).

Because they don't help stopping. Actually the plain discs have best stopping power, because they have most surface - friction x surface area = most braking power. The drilling is coming from ancient times, like 1960s Le Man's racing when the pad compounds were very bad (organic compounds) and when heated-up they used to "gas-out". Gassing out brakes then would have created like a little barrier between pad and disc, reducing friction and thus resulting in less effective braking. So drilling the discs were obvious answer to let those gasses escape. Modern pads don't have such issue, so drilled discs exists for nostalgic and kind of ignorant reasons i.e. people seen them on race cars growing-up and think that somehow that is related to better performance, without understanding why that was done in the first place. All other designs, including "modern" drilled discs, perhaps has some application off-road, like rallying. Basically if brakes get covered in mud and water, when braking that could generate steam and it results in less effective braking - slots, dimples, c-hooks etc. allows dirt and water to escape from braking surface and makes braking more effective. But that doesn't apply to road cars, not even in the heaviest rain. The only circumstances that I can think of would be deep puddle or ford, where you are basically wading the water and getting brakes fully submerged, then upon your first braking the brakes may not work as efficient as they should, but that is why it is advisable to drag brakes a little bit and maybe brake few times after exiting the ford (that is actually the question in drivers test). Modern racing cars still sometimes uses some "fancy" design, some say slotted or c-hooks allows to "dress-up" brake pads, but that is not normal car use case, this is only for race cars where they replace brake-pads for every race and replace brake disks probably for every second one. For the normal car - "dressing-up" just means excessive wear and brake dust, so not desirable.

Yes - it is about the looks only, but as far as stopping power they are likely worse 99.99% of the time.

I think it is the case of child-eating evil socialism: Step 1 - neglect the roads, Step 2 - tax until it hurts so that nobody could drive, Step 3 - make it impossible to dive anywhere because of ridiculous fines and traffic, Step 4 - force everyone to cycle or use public transport... I am not saying that conservatism or liberalism is better, because in UK we seem to have either left leaning populism, or right leaning populism... there aren't any real values or democratic checks an balances... just populist trying to get into goverment to enrich themselves and their friends.

It doesn't need to be "that much" out of alignment to cause such wear and indeed potholes can easily knock out the wheels out of alignment. To be fair potholes are most likely the only thing that usually knocks the wheels out of alignment. If you hit very big one then a single pot hole could be enough, but running over 1000 small ones will have same effect over the time. As well remember that most of RWD "sporty" cars wear inside edges anyway and IS300h is no exception, knocking wheel out of alignment just speeds-up the process. Generally speaking, every time I replace the tyres I do 4-wheel alignment and I do recommend it for everyone. When you fit new tyres it is best time to do it, because you have "known good" tyres with even wear etc. so you get best alignment. Likewise economically it is the best time to do it, because it makes sense to protect your new tyres and to get most miles possible out of them. Doing alignment on used tyres is kind of pointless, first of all simply because of cost and secondly, if they already have uneven wear then aliment is quite unlikely to fix it.