GSLV6

I can understand the raised eyebrows with real world mpg V's makers claims which are done according to EU stipulated rolling road tests, but the real purpose of these tests is to determine things like tax band and to offer customers a comparason, like for like, between new cars. On average, if you take the claimed mpg and multiply by 60 to 70% that lands you closer to actual combined mpg. The mpg of a GS300h I borrowed was actually pretty good at 45mpg, given it's 2.5 litre 4 pot engine. That's at least 15mpg more than I got from my 2.5 litre 6 pot bmw petrol. The RX again is pretty good really when judged not by claimed mpg, but when you sit and consider what other 3.5 litre V6 hauling around a 2.3 tonne mass, with high frontal area would let you see close to 30mpg avarage. That's as good as the BMW X3 and X5 diesels, and on flat mixed driving that average can easily hit high 30's with care. Whilst not an economical car, anyone with the money to buy one generally has the finances to run one without resorting to LPG conversions which with the complexity of the car in the first place and cost of the proper conversion, I'd have thought wouldn't pay dividends at least not where an RX is concerned. I would never consider it as I don't do a big mileage in the first place, perhaps just 7 or 8K miles annually. I prefer thinking of the RX like I do my BMW GSA1200 bike....one of the best all rounders going, with a great driving position, great comfort, decent handling and a real do-it-all nature. Not best in any one area but possibly a vehicle that'd be hard to better by anything else on the market all things considered. MPG, whilst not the lofty figures claimed, are actually pretty reasonable. They certainly better my previous Volvo S60 2.5T, BMW 325 and on average, even my Lexus GS300. Oh, I never use the ECO mode. I usually have it in sport mode and find very little difference in economy but prefer not to have that awful lag between the pedal being pressed and anything happening. Best I've seen on a 20 mile mixed drive was 44mpg average. Worst was about 18mpg over several days where I was hauling a 500Kg payload up and down some pretty extreme hills!

That's interesting but i'm a little confused here...are you saying Renato, that Honda (UK) offer a 7 year warranty because I'm pretty sure that's not the case (except maybe for corrosion). We have a 2016 Honda and it's just out of warranty which extends (like Lexus) to 3 years. If you want to extend it you can. We bought it used a few months ago and were given a one year extended warranty with it. I can't think of any other manufacturer except perhaps Hyundai or Kia that offer much more than 3 years. Merc are 3 years, BMW 3 years and most other luxury cars are the same, including Lexus.

400 odd miles is roughly 30mpg from an RX (65 litre tank). I usually top up when the indicator tells me that I have about 50 miles left in the tank and once topped up (brim full) I get between 330 anfd 360 miles before I'm back to the same point, so roughly 400 miles sounds about right. However, that's mixed driving and nothing extreme. Last year whilst in Exmoor for 3 weeks the tank was emptied in under 260 miles. That's the price you pay when lugging 2.3t plus luggage up and down very steep hills (worked out at under 20mpg). The hybrid adds nothing to climbing hills but you burn more juice to lug all those batteries and motors about. If I lived somewhere like that, the RX wouldn't be for me. That's where diesel makes more sense.

It depends what it is. Engines like the GS300 V6 rarely go wrong so big ticket items are very rare. I've heard of a few issues with water pumps going on the V6s but that's mainly where incorrect grade coolant is used which causes corrosion and advanced wear/leakage. Shock absorbers are more common and most GS Mk3's will be lucky to get past 60 or 70K miles without one or all needing replacement but that's common to most cars. OE parts can be expensive. I think I paid over £400 to replace one of my GS shocks and few aftermarket parts are available for them. To provide a balanced perspective, my GS cost me £1800 in repairs over a couple of years but only as it has reached a mileage where those things would need looking at. Had I kept it, chances are it would have then chugged along for another 5 years with nothing needed except regular servicing. Over a 5 year period our Skoda Fabia vRS (Mk1) cost us almost twice that in repairs which extended to a replacement turbo, brake caliper, suspension bushes, engine mount, water bottle joint failure, door panel seals failing (letting water in), cruise control packing in, EGR valve problems, inlet manifold clogging up...the list goes on. My Father's Toyota Camry never ever went wrong in all the time he owned it but from what I remember, parts prices were not dissimilar to Lexus. Labour is the real killer. Find a specialist garage that you trust, look for a good, sorted GS300 and buy with confidence would be my honest opinion. There's still a fair few low miles examples out there waiting to be snatched up!

GS300 is a wonderful car. If you can afford the running costs it's one of the most reliable, engine wise, made. Generally speaking it's the bolt-on consumables that will start inflicting cost on 10yr old plus cars. Check exhaust pipe (Y section on the GS V6 ones prone to fatigue and corrosion breakage about this age), check shocks...they're expensive to replace and the GS in the Mk3 guise (my favourite version) had a few issues (300 and 430 and 450h variants) with early failure of shock seals. Brakes need checking for disc wear and check water pump for leaks of coolant (Gs is chain drive so unlike belt drive cams, water pumps aren't as routinely replaced). Only other gremlins can be with TPMS playing up, boot lid soft close not working properly (ECU sometimes needs re-flashing) but other than this they're about as reliable as it's possible to get. A Honda Civic would be much cheaper to run in petrol guise but not a patch on ride quality, refinement, space or power. In your shoes though, until some NCB is accrued it would be more sensible to look perhaps down the range at an IS petrol. Cheaper to insure and run but with the usual Lexus refinements. Can't comment too much on the foibles of the IS as never owned one but only know from speaking with a Lexus technician that the higher mile diesel IS's are more prone to (costly) problems than the petrols.

This does seem to be a long standing issue with Lexus. I've lost count of the number of complaints I've read about Lexus wheels corroding due to poor coatings or similar. I had all four of my 2007 GS wheels re-furb'd due to extensive corrosion. Three years ago that cost about £340 all in, so well worth the hassle but to see this on new-ish cars is disheartening. Such finish and corrosion issues Lexus suffers from seems all too often to be swept under the carpet, and too many people seem to put Lexus on a pedestal about how great the finish and build quality is. Truth is, unpalatable or not, that they are nothing special in some respects and bank on too much smoke and mirrors marketing about how good they are. Sure, the paintwork is pretty decent, interiors also very good...thought to cable routing good, engines good but lack of attention to the underside protection and joke wheel finishes are not what you expect from a premium brand and it's things like this that would make me think twice about shelling out more than average money for one again.

Good to hear you're getting it sorted. Keep us updated whether coilpack or injector was at fault?

Another vote for the RX but It's a tough call for me. If I didn't need so much load space then I'd plump for the GS300 but not any of the newer ones as I simply don't like them as much as the Mk3. To my mind, that was one of the finest Lexus cars made, along with the LS430/460 models. Having owned one and driven the newer GS450h, the later model was more uncomfortable, nowhere near as compliant on the suspension (much harder sprung) and lost some of the gentleman's club aspects of design that its forebear was endowed with. Both the older LS and GS cars always pulled off the trick of making the driver feel special every time they got into one. Less so with some of the later GS models but that's obviously a very personal thing. The Mk3 GS300 was reasonably economical, buttery smooth, fast, quiet, luxurious. GS430 lovely too but a bigger cheque book needed to run one. For my needs the RX is the best all rounder currently available. If living in cloud cuckoo land where money was no object, ideally I'd have an LC500, RX450h and a Mk3 GS300 for "slumming it" in as an everyday hack!

I once took my Mk3 GS300 to about 135mph and it was very stable at that. It would do alledgedly 148mph (not limited) so the 270-ish BHP 430 wouldn't I'd have thought exceeded the limiter speed by much. More powerful versions, perhaps by a little more? Not had the RX abroad yet but know that's limited to 124mph and wouldn't want to take it past that anyway!

Had similar issues with my 2007 model. Front lateral beam (support for the rad) was badly corroded as was front of engine block itself. Bonnet was also corroding along parts of the inside face seam and around the bonnet lifter strut mount, where in both cases the aluminium under the paint had powdered and bubbled the paint. I tried a warranty claim to no avail since the previous owner had applied a few stone chip paint blobs to the bonnet top (and appeared to have re-blown in a small area along the front edge) it was claimed by Lexus that as the bonnet had "been painted by people other than Lexus" this rendered the warranty void. This has nothing to do with corrosion of the seam but that argument fell on deaf ears. Not the way to impress brand loyalty from customers. I was also told that the remedy is not treatment and re-spraying, but replacement of the affected panel. In my case, as the corrosion on the bonnet underside was severe, I had to have it re-sprayed after first taken to bare metal and all corrosion treated. Cost of that and blowing in side wings was £750. Front beam wasn't addressed. The car had previously been owned by someone living close to the Bristol Channel and that possibly was a contributing factor. I note too that my RX rear subframe and suspension linkages were a little rusty as these appear to not come treated in any way from the factory, which is disappointing. Not even galvanised. Lexus need to up their game here and properly see to a decent underseal on these cars, not least as it's what one would expect of a car costing upwards of £55K. I treated the subframe with XCP professional which I will shortly repeat as it's been about 6 months since I applied it.

Had exactly the same with my 2007 GS300 boot lid. Had the ECU re-flashed and it never happened again.

Good that you got to the bottom of things Rob. Our 450h is certainly very quiet in the cabin. I echo other's thoughts on tyres too.....OE fitment Dunlops = bad, just about anything else = better! Michelins (Cross Climate and Primacy) and Avon ZX7s are popular amongst RX owners for good reason. Seals can harden with age or age badly in certain environments, especially if left in strong sunlight a lot of the time. I regularly go round all my door seals with silicone grease (Ebay....£2.50 or so a tube which will last years) and ensure that after cleaning, seals are thoroughly rubbed with silicone grease to keep the rubber in good condition. I do the same for bonnet seals and the rear tailgate seals and this does seem to keep everything in good order. For obvious reasons, you cannot (and should not) grease any part of a seal contacting glass, but I guess rubbing some carefully along the outside may help prolong their life. I do this with all our cars.

Congrats Nigel, good choice. It's a shame that they couldn't do anything for you on the F-Sport but I'm sure you'll be happy with the Advance which gives good bang for the buck. I'd shed the Dunlops as I found them awful in the wet, noisy and not to my liking. A change to Avons saw improved handling, a smoother rise, less noise and amazing improvements in grip, especially in the wet. Know what you mean about the rear bumper protector...still haven't fitted one and do have a few scratches but easily rectified and I'll be fitting one later this year. It's worth buying a rubber reat mat (the one with the raised edge all round) as this keeps the interior nice and clean. The centre seat if folded is prone to having scratches along the plastic protector near the top if you use the car in full estate mode often (I do) so I learned to keep a blanket in the back which covers the parts prone to scratching. Also worth pointing out that rear (and front) bolster parts of the seat are prone to scuffing or being scratched if people slide around to get out and are wearing coats with zips or jeans with studs. Had my rear seat scuffed with a nasty 6 inch scratch when a rear passenger moved sideways to get out a few weeks back and inadvertently was sat on their coat's metal zipper....I was not best pleased! There are decent leather repair kits available for about £30 though so not the end of the world. I'll post a few details of my repair if it works out well.

It could well be a faulty coil pack is this is exactly the sort of symptoms you get Ryaan. As the engine warms up, contacts can close and the fault can disappear. This was especially problematic for VW/Audi/Seat petrol cars a few years back and coil packs would be very short lived on those. If they can identify the cylinder which is misfiring, it may be worth having that coil pack replaced to see if the problem goes away...ditto a new plug for the sake of a few pounds. I'd be very surprised to learn that it was an injector but it's possible I suppose.

Trouble is, you really never know whether an account is hijacked until you pay but at least they sort refunds out in that event.

Should come with two keys. As long as you have the master key (black fob) and not the valet keyfob, you can buy a spare "dumb" transponder unit and program via the ECU. I think you may require an OBD kit to do this, available for little money. Otherwise the dealer will charge around £280 for a spare and have that programmed for you (you need to supply them with the master key for this service). If you don't have the master key, you may need the security system replaced and new keys provided which Lexus charge up to £1200 for or about half that from an independent. There may be other alternatives and I'm sure a search on here should shed some light on what to do.

That's what I use Herbs. The only problem with them is that tyre life is very short by comparison with most other premium makes. Expect between 6 to 10K miles from ZX7s on the 450h (and I drive carefully!)

Ebay were great. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing they recognised that it shouldn't be dealt with as a regular refund case so made an immediate refund which I have just received. I'll now look for a replacement.

Welcome to the club John and I'm sure you won't be disappointed. As above, the only thing regularly to crop up with short trips is that the deep cycle leisure battery life can be foreshortened by half with short trips. Mine had to be replaced after 3 years and I have been told that with regular longer trips (30 minutes plus regularly) you should expect 5 to 7 years from one of these batteries. I just look on it as a consumable item, much like the tyres and it's wise to buy one of those battery testers (not a multimeter but a proper battery condition tester) which will tell you battery condition and give early warning if trickle charging isn't doing enough to restore and keep charge. I do mixed driving with regular short, and one longer trip each week, with one trip of several hours monthly and nothing bar the leisure battery, has gone wrong. Replacement from Lexus was quoted as £148 but was covered under warranty. As far as comfort goes, few do it better. I have back issues too and wouldn't drive anything else now, so your wife I think will be pleased with it. It will take you some getting used to compared with the dynamics of the XE but once you do, you won't look back.

Well what looks too good to be true usually is. I was contacted by ebay to say that it was a fraudulent listing from a hijacked account and that I had lost my money, so I now have to go through the claims procedure which will move at the pace of a glacier so will now look elsewhere. Ebay is not a good place to buy these things.

I checked with Lexus insurance (who I'm currently with) and they don't offer any discounts for dashcam fitment. What sort of "premium discounts" are you talking about Dan? (ie what does that mean in pounds, shillings and pence?).

I sometimes wish that I could take mine out of the car and into the sitting room....now there's a thought!.......

Will do John. If anyone else is interested, it's an Ebay seller (just put 312GW into search box and you'll come onto the ad unless they've now all sold).

I tried the GS450h (new shape), NX and RX. The GS and NX (seats) were both spine bashingly uncomfortable after just 10 miles into a test ride...way too firmly sprung for my liking, but I do suffer from spinal injuries so am particularly sensitive to anything with a hard ride. The RX is much closer to my older GS300....not as compliant or controlled perhaps, but close and the seats are more supportive on the sides. I've sat in it for some very long journeys and it's all day comfortable. You'll struggle to find anything in today's market as sumptuous as 3RX seating other than older LS and GS cars. (ok, Volvo 's pre-2015 S60 and V70 are exceptions!).

Well, after almost buying the Aukey (kept going backk to the DR02) I found a seller selling off a batch of new and sealed Nextbase 312GW dashcams for £28 each! (lets just hope they're genuine stock and not Chinese rip offs but customer feedback is all good). Needless to say I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth and bought one. No brainer for that money. If it proves unreliable I can always go to either the A119sV2 or the Aukey DR02 (both are very similar and both are highly regarded). Will update the thread after I get a chance to try it.