eightk

I’m increasingly thinking it doesn’t work like that because there’s so few cars. Yellow and tan base car sells, yellow high miles sport stays at the same price - they don’t seem in any rush to shift it. My favourite colour too! Or they could hack ten grand off it, it sells instantly, then the other cars for sale… errr… stay at the same price. I think the way the trade works is they have a price cutting plan over weeks or months, then when it doesn’t shift at their rock bottom almost zero profit lowest price they either sit on it at that price or swap it into trade. There was another yellow car with 44/45k miles that went through two Lexus dealers and an independent before it disappeared. A structural blue car I looked at dropped more than ten grand I think before eventually selling, but it put no pressure on the prices of other cars as far as I could tell. Mine had to be a done deal by the end of the month according to the dealer. There were two similar cars on the market, my black interior, and a red interior car, both have now sold, there’s nothing comparable and the prices of the newer cars aren’t moving despite few sales. Supply and demand doesn’t seem to work very well in a very small market. The odd car pops up, seems good value and quickly disappears eg a very recent green over tan convertible - that went in literally days, whereas others just stick.

One of the massive draws of the LC is the engine... in my humble opinion. No turbos, incredibly technical-sounding turbine smooth V8 and a really clever gearbox. I remember watching Matt Watsons launch review of the LC - he was playing tunes on the h CVT gearbox. Then he drove the V8 and fell in love with it. I haven’t tried an h but I’ve driven other hybrid CVT lexuseseses and it’s not a sports car drivetrain. If the looks, quality and everything else the LC offers are the main appeal I don’t see any downside of the h, especially as an everyday driver, but it’s not for me. New golf or RCF or LC? No contest. Aston or LC? Maybe 50/50 until you sit in it, then it’s the LC every time. Tax at 30-40 grand does annoy but is irrelevant really in the overall scheme of things but when you get down to a 2007 Laguna 3 litre being advertised for fifteen hundred quid and realise 700 annual tax is half of asking then you’ve got big problems. Unsaleable I reckon. My Maserati was a painful 700 quid, the LC is 500-something but it’ll drop down to 2017 levels in a few years. The 700 annual tax cars will be at a grand a year by then, possibly more.

Problem they’ll have is every car with an engine was lumped into the same 180-odd quid a year bracket so they’d have a heck of a job working out who should be taxed more. I think they had three bands - petrol and diesel, hybrid and lpg, and electric only at zero pounds… for now. A one litre Skoda is the same tax as a 5 litre LC once the LC drops out of the five year Lux tax bracket. Oops.

Yes different things work for different people. I’ve done the Tesla thing and for those occasional long journeys they’re rubbish. I’ve done the diesel Audi and VW thing and they’re too complex and noisy and weren’t much better than equivalent petrols when you price in the fuel cost difference. I did look at Mercedes hybrids but they need a new starter motor every other Tuesday so they’re no good either. Lexus hybrids make more sense I think, because they are capable of building them properly. Small EV for short trips plus petrol for longer trips and/or fun. Narrowing it down to one car and I’d be petrol, 100%.

I do love the environmental aspect of this. You need to go and burn hundreds of miles worth of fuel in the hybrid you bought so you’d use less fuel. Genius. Same as my post-2018 petrol Kia with its GPF - it blocks every few thousand miles and the cure is kicking it’s arse for a few miles in best Italian tune up tradition, presumably throwing out the particles it’s carefully collected over the last 5000 miles in one great big cloud of stupidity.

Yeah, white and black interior. There’s a black one in Newcastle (around for 6 months +) and the Wigan silver one with resprayed wheels (12 months at least) that are long term adverts - you’d think they’d swap within the trade or something to get them shifted. You could be right with the 2-3 months - summer may not turn out as positive as dealers are hoping. Or then again… I think colour also plays a part as well as price or condition - there isn’t a single red one on autotrader… he says as owner of a red one…

Latest one on autotrader - white over black sport plus with 57k and HUD and ML at 47500 at a trader. A full five grand cheaper than Lexus cardiffs identical main dealer car. Factor in the warranty that automatically comes with the annual service and I know which I’d go for. Getting cheaper! Question is, when’s the best time to jump in if you’re a potential buyer?! Yes they’ll eventually drop below 40k but there’s only 17 V8s on autotrader and 15 on the Lexus site - that’s roughly about the stock levels they’ve been for at least since early 2022. Supply and demand are still balanced… for decent cars anyway. Compare with the 50 BMW M8 on autotrader and I can guess which will move south first. As far as the convertibles go there are now zero 2021 cars available like mine, cheapest is Lexus Burmingums silver 2022 at 93k with nearly ten thousand miles on it - I think that’s the highest mileage convertible I’ve seen yet. Cheapest ever convertibles got to 85k I think, but none I’ve spotted have been outside of the official dealer network.

Yeah, that. A base model with miles may drop towards 40k but a well looked after sport/sport plus in a decent colour scheme won’t get there anywhere near as quickly. And the list price as far as I know has always been the list price more or less. None of this 20k off (ze Germans) or silly cheap lease deals (Aston). Hewn from Japanese granite, concept car looks, and a naturally aspirated V8. You get what you pay for. They’re not a bargain and probably never will be.

I did read that Range Rover owners in London literally cannot get their cars insured full stop. Ghost immobiliser, fuel cut switch, or a really big angry crocodile left in the car seem to be the only solutions to make theft tricky, but those won’t help with the insurance - a Cat 5 Thatcham insurance approved tracker seemed to be the only option with my LC.

And if it’s a low miles Sunday type car also check the reservoir for interesting slimey stuff that can block the pipes and jets. I’ve had that problem before and the only solution was taking the reservoir out and cleaning it - fortunately the pipes cleared ok after switching the washers on for ages.

Ask them to leave a bit on - free racing stripes!

Oh. The PPF I had fitted was clearer than that, not as, errr, ‘milky’. Still, enjoy! Only joking, that looks lovely.

Cheap! It’s the standard model so no alcantara, sports seats, carbon cills etc and no LSD, rear wheel steer or sport plus pop up spoiler but it’s got both the HUD and ML options (ML badge is visible in between rear seats) and the big plus is the glass roof which makes a big difference to the airiness inside. Standard model is giving it a disservice - it’s still got every bit of kit fitted standard that you’d be paying the Germans for as options - radar cruise, lane keep assist, blind spot stuff, heated wheel and heated cooled seats etc.

The newer version gives an option of setting ignition-on exhaust start up ‘state’ with a switch on the unit, then the remote to control on/off. The earlier one I have has no switch on the unit, just the remote. Press that and the bypass opens or closes. I need to fiddle more to be sure it’s doing what it’s supposed to as I’d have thought the relay wouldn’t just be momentary and should hold it’s on or off state. I’m not sure it’s doing that.

None of these cars make any rational sense. Heart over head. Question is, is your heart bothered about the 0-60 or about how the car actually makes you feel? Do you look back in a car park as you walk away? Do random people talk to you about it? Do you get James May’s fizz? Look at the LCs history and how it came into being. Watch the designers and engineers being interviewed on YouTube. Watch the YouTube reviews. It’s universally loved, yet nobody buys one. Really odd.

Hi, I fitted it no problem but I did take the boot seal, the entire carpeted side trim and a bit of carpeted trim across the boot hinges out as well to make it easier to plug in. I’m not sure I could have done it as per the instructions as it’d be very tight in there. The remote clicks the relay, some of the pins change voltage and I *think* it makes a difference but it’s not exactly obvious. My mistake was fitting it almost as soon as I got the car… so now I need to take it back off and play spot the difference. Everybody raves about it but I’m on the fence until I can do more miles without it fitted and compare properly. Not what you wanted to hear I expect!

It is definitely good news we’re having no more stupid smart M ways but re the existing ones I suspect it’s down to cost benefit. Converting entire live lanes back into hard shoulders will cost millions more than adding extra emergency areas… and we’d be stuck with even more roadworks.

A cat 5 or s5 insurance approved tracker can be fitted with the option of an immobilised circuit - no app or no fob present and it can’t be moved. Most insurers now require one if the car value is north of 60k. Canbus theft is the next step from key signal theft and it affects loads of manufacturers not just lexus.

I picked Xpel film because it’s all precut on a machine - minimal knives near the car. The sills have been done in part Matt and part gloss film so you can’t really tell it’s on there - they may have been done by hand as they might not be part of the LC pattern. The PPF is amazing - I was shown a gloss piece that they attacked with a wire brush - loads of scuffs and almost completely matt by the time they’d finished. Ten seconds with a heat gun and it morphed back to gloss. Seriously! I’ve ceramic coated wheels before but not paint. I’ve got Gtechniq Halo ceramic coating to put on which allegedly flexes with the PPF and allows it to self heal. What could go wrong….

The design changes to get the screen in at a closer position where it’s reachable (try and touch your clock when you’re driving your LC - it’s miles away) do seem to lose the sweep of the dash, and the clock, and the more I see the photos the less I like it. But I understand why they had to do it. The Ultimate has canards moulded to the front bumper. Not keen! Given the low production numbers of the LC I think there was an opportunity to offer more bespoke colour schemes rather than chucking out special editions. Think Atelier Lexus - pick your own wheels, bumpers, spoilers, colours inc paint to sample, select seat colours, stitching, contrast panels etc.

Gold wheels is still on Lexuses site. I’d bet the dealers have done those wheels to avoid a proper refurb job. Not my cup of tea. The private sale red over tan with 43k miles looks ok at 51, only a grand more than the yellow sticky 80k one.

Good that they're on it and coming up with solutions, a damn sight better than JLR for instance. The article I linked to is heavy going but it does propose a software solution which from my idiot's point of view looks like it'd be easy to implement. Simple electrical switches preventing the gearselector operating, stopping the starter motor turning or isolating the fuel pump are easy, cheap, and unless you know they're there they work well enough to confuddle even the most determined pondlife. Go read your fusebox covers!

Good news it was the right car but the police don’t sound very on the ball despite them finding it in the first place.

Just in time for “summer”! Must be nailbiting waiting so long but it’ll be worth it. Genuinely a brilliant car and the soft top amplifies the V8 quite a bit. I’ve had Xpel PPF done on mine, including the carbon cills - well worth doing them I think. I’m supposed to be doing the post-PPF ceramic coating myself but I’m too busy driving it!

The 360 is a definite omission for their halo sports car… but it’s got a rear camera and front sensors I suppose, both more than my last car had. To quote the desperate BMW salesman when we test drove an i3 with zero cameras and questioned the lack of them on a 30 grand hatchback “it’ll help you hone your driving skills”. Riiiigghht. Tech wasn’t even on my radar when I was looking at AMG GTs and LCs. Looks, noise, performance, heart over head 110%. You only live once.