wharfhouse

I have to date not fitted a webcam. If I believed that the authorities would be able to (and actually take the time to) prosecute on the strength of a webcam from my car I may reconsider but from what I understand the best the perpetrator caught on a webcam would receive is a letter in the post telling them not to do it again - unless an accident actually takes place in which case it would then be an insurance issue most likely. I'd be interested to know if law breaking driving has actually been prosecuted from a webcam without an accident occurring?

It's too simplistic though to say that speed is the cause of death in one third of fatal accidents - as I was trying to say in my post it's not speed per se it's idiotic driving in many cases - yes they may have been speeding by some arbitrary speed limit but more often than not the accident occurs through the driver making a stupid manoeuvre or losing control. Simply lowering a speed limit further still will not stop the idiots. Neither will more speed cameras or vans. A few more patrol cars actually out on the roads might help more as they would stand some chance of stopping the idiots before they actually cause an accident. I appreciate the police are pulled from pillar to post and have a lot of respect for what they have to do but until we simply stop dealing with the symptoms and get to the root causes where do we stop lowering the speed limits? In my 4 days in Devon (including travelling there and back from Berkshire) I didn't see any police patrol cars but did witness some shocking and downright dangerous driving.

Yep

I remember it well from the first time around and seeing it again now it is just as true today, if not more so. When I was younger and there were no speed cameras I was stopped a couple of times by actual police cars, a couple of times for speeding (not by a huge margin and both on a motorway) and once for undertaking in the inside lane too early for what would become a left lane off the motorway. I didn't get a ticket but did get a ticking off. Probably made me a lot better driver (being educated face to face) than an anonymous letter in the post from a camera.

Unfortunately that is the truth - lowering speed limits is just a race to the bottom. I have seen this only too clearly. We moved to a new house on a small development 26 years ago with access from our road onto an A road - initially it was a national speed limit on the main road. There were always some ******* driving at stupid speeds. So they changed it to 40mph past our road - that did make some sense as people had to get in and out of the development. But there continued to be some ******* driving at stupid speeds. Then they changed the rest of the road after the 40mph ended to the next village to 50mph. There continued to be some ******* driving at stupid speeds. Finally they changed the speed limit from 40mph to 30mph next to us. And guess what there continued to be some ******* driving at stupid speeds. As the speed limits were lowered the ******* that continued to drive at stupid speeds decided that they had to overtake the other drivers that were trying to a) be sensible around what was obviously a hazard area regardless of speed limit and b) obey the ever reducing speed limit (occasionally they put a camera van on the road, though usually when it's busy so not so easy for the ****** to speed!). So now the ******* were in even more of a rush as others around were driving slower and so went even faster to try and pull off an overtake - I've had two of then overtake me whilst I was slowing down and indicating to turn across the main road into the development! A pedestrian crossing was erected in the 30mph limit to try and make it safer to cross the road (there was some mumblings about how it might also slow drivers down). The ******* ignored that and continued to speed through. Calls for cameras were made after speed monitoring was done - it showed the ridiculous speeds some ****** were doing but a camera was rebuked saying that until there was a fatal accident they wouldn't consider it - go figure on that! Finally, just recently there was a head on crash (I don't know the details but I am guessing one overtake too many) with both drivers ending up in hospital. I suppose we might end up with 20mph soon. Will it change anything. No, the ****** will still do what they have done regardless - probably in many cases untaxed and uninsured so will never be caught. The camera van will probably make his quota of fines from those largely driving sensibly. The anti-car people will be happy that they have managed another small victory in lowering the speed limit further. The camera van will be happy to be justifying their existence ticketing more drivers. And the ****** will continue to take no notice and carry on as they have for the past 25 years!

Yes will definitely have a holiday there - but don't think we would be able to move there to live when we finally retire and sell up here.

I've often found islands have better bus services than the mainland - Jersey and the Channel Islands are somewhere we plan on visiting soon. May be a bit out of our retirement price band though...

Haha - maybe but hope to have a few more years before having to rely on a bus - in fact is there even a good bus service in rural Devon 🤔

In my business life we often set goals and objectives and one major consideration is that they had to be realistic and achievable. None of these vision zero goals meet either of those criteria so are all worthless. Yes, work to reduce the number of fatalities but be realistic - it will never be zero unless we all never go near a road! In two of my other interests - sailing and hill walking - I accept there is some risk that I might die due to some unforseen accident. I wouldn't stop doing either though and do my best to mitigate the risk but accept that there is a real risk in both.

Yes more good examples. I've just come back from a few days in Devon and it's a place that we have been seriously thinking of moving to in some 5 years time. I'll have to have a read of the Vision Zero now and see what that is all about...

As many have commented on here, the trend is clearly to lower speed limits, whether that is motorways (it won't be long before all are "smart" and the lower speed limits will be on most of the time), A roads or towns, and add more cameras to force compliance (just look at the metal gantry festooned "smart" motorways that are a complete eyesore). It's all in the name of "the science" (which is a few quangos that somehow manage to justify to the government whatever is their pet - public funded - project at the time). I have spent many years of my career driving high mileages for work (and a lot of miles for leisure too) in the UK and Europe. I've had "fast" cars in the past and enjoyed them safely given the right time and place - and probably spent too much money on them! But in the last decade I could see the writing on the wall. It doesn't matter what logic is applied to the contrary it's clear where this is all heading. That was part of my decision in 2016 to get a Lexus IS 300h. On paper (and journalist "test drives") it doesn't seem to stack up when compared to some of the traditional competition but in the real world we are now in and inescapably moving further to then the IS 300h (along with other similar models) just "works" - comfortable, quiet, fast enough (given traffic and the many restrictions we now have), and even saves on the petrol bill as we all have to tootle along blindly in a big line of traffic at artificially low speed limits for mile after mile... The standard of driving is atrocious on many of the journeys I now make but the mantra is still speeding kills. Nope, idiotic driving of any type kills. Which can include speeding but is as likely to be for many other reasons that no-one can be bothered to investigate or change the behaviours. Fingers crossed I've got a good few decades left in me of driving but I've given up on expecting anything to "improve" in the way I think it should. No-one is listening to those of us who have spent much of our lives on the roads. The decisions are now made by those who probably never or at best infrequently actually drive themselves around the country. Going forwards I am falling into the bracket of a car just gives me a reasonable amount of freedom to get from A to B - the choice of model being to achieve that in some comfort and as stress free as possible - and to pursue other passions and spend my hard-earned money where the joy hasn't yet been removed...

They have been a bit more flexible due to lockdown - and as John says as they sold you the Extended Warranty after you had the last service so there will be no issue there as they look at the service / car history before selling the Extended Warranty and would not have sold it if they had concerns. Make sure you keep to the Lexus service intervals at a Lexus dealer going forwards though (there is a bit of wiggle room in the T&Cs for going over the interval but it's not a lot).

Oh dear - have to say that since we first went into lockdown I bought some clippers and have been doing my own ever since...!

John - unfortunately I don't have the "New Lexus Extended Warranty" T&Cs at the moment - in the above post I was referring to the old Extended Warranty as the OP said he already had one in place. My Extended Warranty expires in November and I intend to renew at that time and so when I get the new Extended Warranty T&Cs I'll certainly post at that time unless someone beats me to it.

If you have the Lexus Extended Warranty then in my experience (and others from what I have read here) the cover is comprehensive and Lexus cover many items other warranties do not. However the only way to find out is to book the car in with your local dealer. For the Extended Warranty to be valid you must have had the car serviced (on time/mileage) at a Lexus franchised dealer and so if you have had the car a while hopefully you know your local dealer quite well. Lexus may charge an investigation charge (this seems to vary as to how they approach this) but if they then can fix it under the Extended Warranty then you will not pay anything but if it's not covered by the Extended Warranty then you will have to pay the investigation charge and/or any additional charge to fix the problem once they have diagnosed it.

The T&Cs of the paid for extended warranty for cars over 10 years or 100k mile old may not be the same as the old Extended Warranty - until we get to see them can't be sure what is covered yet but looks like there will be some form of extended warranty cover to 15 years / 150k miles once outside the Relax cover.

For the £10 a week it looks like some form of Extended Warranty which could be better or worse than the Relax (given the terms of the old Extended Warranty were better than Relax) but until we see the T&Cs can't be sure of the details at the moment - but I was told it would also include breakdown cover as well which if you are on the Relax warranty is not included so would have to be purchased separately.

See towards the end of this thread for what Lexus Reading told me regards Extended Warranty and servicing of cars over 10 years or 100k miles old. Nothing official from Lexus UK yet but Lexus Reading shared this information on the phone with me so check with the Lexus dealer you use to confirm.

Yes - you would expect a dealer to do at least the basics of customer service. Some years ago my wife was looking for a new Ford. We went to one franchised Ford dealer who like in your case the sales guy couldn't seem to care less whether he sold a car or not and so we voted with our feet and went straight to another franchised dealer in the next town who couldn't have been more different - they bent over backwards to do the sale - so they got the business. My local Lexus dealer is Lexus Reading and I purchased my car from them and it's been serviced there ever since and I have been happy with their customer service - in fact when my wife wanted a new car we walked across to the Toyota dealer next door which is owned by the same company (Jemca) to purchase a Toyota for her and again were well looked after. Hope you enjoy your new car as much as I have mine.

Absolutely no defence for the way you were treated and I would have walked as well. However it was a Toyota dealer (rather than Lexus) and so maybe that had something to do with the lack of interest - a random car they wanted to move on? That said it's not a good advert for the dealer at all. We have purchased from Lexus and Toyota (respective brands in each case) and had excellent service at both.

There are two I see regularly in the Premier Marina in Gosport (Hampshire) - quite surprised me to see them so close to each other... I think one of them belongs to someone living in the flats there (a V8 version) and the other (a hybrid version) has a boat in the marina - he parked next to me the other week. They look really nice cars "in the flesh" - maybe one day I'll get the money together to buy one, if the yacht doesn't take all my money in the meantime - they are even more of a money pit than cars!!!

The main benefit of the service plan is it fixes the prices for a couple of years and you can pay it interest free monthly if you wish. It also gives a discount (I can't remember how much though) on any other parts that are needed outside of the normal service schedule, for example tyres, brake pads, MOT etc.

Quite - I don't get all the angst about the 12V battery in Lexus. In my BMW the battery died with little warning and I had to get a jump start and fitted a new battery as it was by then quite old. In my wife's Honda she flattened the battery leaving the radio on (without the engine running) whilst waiting to pick up my daughter - I had to go out and jump start the car and then replaced the battery a few months later as it didn't hold charge again properly. In my daughters Fiesta the battery died with no prior warning - just wouldn't start the car after being left for a day in a car park. She got a bump start to get home and I went and replaced the battery for her. Batteries fail, sometimes with little or no prior warning. Lexus are no different in that respect. I have always carried jump leads in my previous cars and now carry the jump starter pack (which is great for a hybrid as they need so little power anyway if the 12V battery dies) - simples!

I purchased a DB Power 400A 12,000mAh Portable Car Jump Starter at the end of 2016. I can at least say it worked when needed to help someone else (started a diesel van with a flat battery).

If you look back through David's posts it seems like he did not have a good experience when going to the dealer for a drive of an IS 300h car and then after purchasing a 2019 IS 300h was let down 5 times in the first 3 weeks due to an issue with the 12V battery. The battery was replaced by Lexus and his comment was "Since the new battery was fitted “so far so good”.". Clearly there was an issue with his 12V battery - could have been due to the time it was at the dealer before being sold or due to the previous owner - we will never know. Certainly in normal operating conditions the 12V battery on a 2019 car should not have been an issue (I am still on my original 12V battery on my 2014 IS 300h with 103k miles on it). I can understand his frustrations having just purchased the car though and maybe not had the best dealer experience. On any car purchased second-hand however this issue could occur, especially after the issues of cars stood not being driven over the pandemic, and certainly doesn't make them "unreliable". Carrying one of the glovebox starter packs is a sensible idea for any car (I carry one just in case and in fact used it to start someone else's car in a car park the other day to get them mobile). Yes, there are a few additional thoughts for a hybrid such as keep it in Ready mode when using the electrics rather than just using the 12V battery (but I follow the same thought for any other ICE car having experienced a flat battery in an ICE in the same circumstances and at least a hybrid only starts the engine now and again) and not to leave the car in N in Ready mode but only in P or D otherwise the traction battery doesn't charge (but that's in the manual). Once we all have to move to BEVs and the new procedures needed for those, goodness knows what will happen if the above is such a big issue...