i-s

The change to vertical battery occured in the transition from 3rd gen to 4th gen GS - all 2012-on GS hybrids, whether pre- or post- facelift have the same boot space. The most significant interior change is the operation of the screen - post-facelift cars can have full-screen sat nav, while pre-facelift are limited to 2/3rds, and the facelift cars gain the ability to control sat-nav/screen functions using buttons on the steering wheel (but I've no experience of it so I can't tell you if it's better. The pre-facelift controller is pretty bad). LED Headlamps were an option on the pre-facelift cars, but one rarely taken up (ours have them). However, the post-facelift gained a limited matrix feature which the pre-facelift don't have. I am not sure, but it is possible that the LED lights became standard on Premier spec models post-facelift. Executive trim was also available in the UK - it was a cut-down version of Luxury, for lowering P11D prices for company car users. Be aware that it isn't quite as simple as "pre-facelift" and "post-facelift" however. Our car is a 2015 Premier, so it's a late pre-facelift. However, the sat nav is updated through a microSD card hidden behind a flap with the Mark Levinson logo in the centre console. This is in common with Post-facelift cars, while earlier pre-facelift (2012, 2013, I think 2014 also) were updated via a download on a usb stick. Also more in common with post-facelift cars, ours has the HUD, which wasn't even available as an option on earlier pre-facelift GS450h. My point being that the car received a series of rolling updates over the years, rather than getting everything at once and a late pre-facelift might share more with a post-facelift than it does with a 2012 model.

Warning: this post isn't going to help with your problem in the slightest. Sorry. I tried changing the indicator bulbs (ours are the LED headlamps, but still have filament indicators) once - no joy (slight variation in base moulding made it impossible to get the bulb in). But after owning a P3 Volvo V70 (2011) I'm astounded by how difficult it is to change bulbs on some other cars. Why can't they all do what Volvo did with the P3 cars? It was literally a 30 second job to remove the entire headlamp unit from the car, to take it inside in the dry and warm to change a bulb. See from 1:10 to 1:40: Pull 2 tent pegs, slide the lamp unit out, unplug the connector. So.... not helpful, but a bit of "what could/should have been".

So, I have to ask the obvious question...?

Exactly this. AC dehumidifies the air so it will fog less. Dirty glass (even if the car is only a few weeks/months old) will gather condensation much more quickly. Give it a really good clean with something to break down grease, then follow up with just plain water and a lint free cloth and plenty of elbow grease.

In the end I went with 2 coats of Reload followed by 2 coats of 845. Even though you can argue that this sort of work shouldn't be necessary on a new car, I find it a mixture of theraputic and bonding with the machine. And the feeling, when you look back at it in a car park and think "Daaaaaammmmmmnnnnnnnnnnn!", knowing that you did that.

Congrats, hope that this one is a keeper, but I'm worried you won't find it so because of your issue with the transmission. As for the 12" screen... I'm unconvinced that it's actually a big deal, at least for pre-facelift models. On the 8" screen your sat nav is full-screen, whereas on the 12" screen your sat nav is only 2/3rds - in fact, you basically have the same size sat nav display in both cases. Having the separate info pane next to the sat nav display isn't hugely useful in my experience, so I don't think that the 12" screen is utilised at all well or represents a particular upgrade over the 8" display. When the GS got its facelift and they introduced full screen sat nav then I would say it was worth having (although I don't think I've ever seen a facelift without it, so perhaps the big screen became standard then anyway).

We don't need this as we already have one, and was waiting to see if someone that actually needed it was going to shout up. The allure of free stuff is strong....

Maybe coming to this late, and can't disagree with anything at all that SH20 says. I use a DAS6 Pro (from the aforementioned CleanYourCar) and various products. I'm currently working over the Tesla - with soft paint and being brand new and not badly swirled I've gone straight for Carpro Essence on a microfibre gloss pad (getting much better results with that than with a foam pad with essence). Topping with reload and I might see how well 845 or 476 will play over the top of reload. I've previously had over 6 months of durability with 476 on top of autoglym EGP, so that seems a strong combo. Some useful products that I'd recommend: Farecla G3 Paintwork Renovator This is a very gentle polish that is appropriate to use by hand or by DA, and it uses diminishing abrasives (ie the scratchy bits get smaller over time as you work it, so they cut smaller and smaller to a gloss finish). I've never had a problem, even on soft paintwork, with this polish over-working (but have had cases of it bouncing off very hard (BMW) paint. It's fine on Lexus paint). Won't give huge correction of deeper scratches but great for gently zinging up older swirly paint. Carpro PERL General purpose for interior and exterior plastics and tyres. Nice satin finish and better lasting without "fling" or oilyness. This can replace several other products (eg bumper/trim gel, tyre dressing, interior rubber/plastic shine) Collinite 476/845 Paste (476) or Liquid (845) versions of Collinite wax. Superbly long lasting. 845 is much easier to apply, but in both cases the key is be sparing! You only need the thinnest haze and buff off. Bilt Hamber Clay This clay is so easy to work with as it is happy with water as lubricant rather than rapid detailer or anything. That speeds things up significantly, as you can put a clay stage in between washing and drying. I've also not had marring problems with BH clay. Only ever use clay before a polish/protect, as it will strip anything else you have off and all clays can mar to some extent. Gtechniq G4/G5 G4 glass polish is fantastic for getting contaminants, mineral etch and water marking off glass with minimum effort, either by hand or by DA (was great for doing the whole windscreen/roof/rear screen extent of glass on the Tesla). G5 is a brilliant rain repellent that works better and lasts far longer than RainX. G5 on the rear screen means a rear wiper isn't missed so much. Ultimately, however, it's much more about technique and time than specific products. There are actually very few bad products on the market, and the internet echo chambers simply make it seem like product X is massively better than product Y. A good example of how there's really not that much new under the sun is Collinite - still among the very best, and it's been around forever.... Here's a 1958 advert for collinite 476:

I've seen it on a few vehicles. Typically it's because they try to get a pretty tight tolerance with the pad ears because if they are looser then you get click/clack noises when coming on/off the brakes (or when changing direction from forwards to reverse) as the pad moves in the caliper. Those tolerances are fine when new, but as the carrier builds up some corrosion/muck and the pads (where the backing is usually cheap mild steel that will rust easily once the paint goes through) corrode (and so they swell) then the whole thing binds. Garages, especially main dealers, are much more likely to want to replace something than spend time disassembling and cleaning it.

We have a CTEX MXS3.8 in our 2015 GS450h since the 12V battery started having problems. Still haven't got to replacing the 12V, but the CTEK looks after it, and like Britprius said, it comes with a connector that you can permanently plumb into the battery so you're not messing with croc clips - plug in and go.

Assuming a regular single-piston sliding caliper then if the pins are free, have you checked the pad itself? I had a similar issue with the front brake on my Nissan Leaf - pins were free and easy, but the brake was heating up (and brakes on the Leaf NEVER got hot as regen did 95% of the work). The inside pad was totally stuck in the carrier because the pad ears had corroded and swelled, jamming it in there. I got it out, cleaned up the edges of the pad ears, cleaned the stainless shims, cleaned the carrier and put it all back together again having checked that the pad could now move freely. That solved the problem.

On our GS you can't recall the seat position unless the car is in Park. Might that be it?

Welcome Kat. I think there's quite a lot of crossover between Lexus and Volvo ownership - Both are marques that appeal to those who want something well built, not german, comfortable, not german, with a different style and not german. Like Lexus, Volvo's supposed reliability and longevity have been elevated to mythical levels by fans when the reality doesn't match. Our V70 was mostly reliable over the 46k miles we had it, but the gearbox wasn't totally happy (shunt into drive, caused by sticking solenoids in valve block) and we felt that it was time to move it on before anything expensive happened (just shy of 9 years old). The S40 is question is one of the most "Ford-ish" Volvos, and i think as it's a 2.0D (Ford TDCI engine) that means that the "auto" is actually the Ford Power$hit gearbox which was a disaster... For all their failings, the Aisin-Warner (aka Toyota) gearboxes fitted to the Volvo engines were better than that. Like The-Acre I think that Volvo's current range has brilliant styling (standouts for me are the V60 (better proportioned and more wagon-y than the slopebacked V90) and S90 (has the length required, the S60 looks like it got rear-ended and squashed the rear passenger door) and the XC60 (easily better looking and nicer inside than the X3 and GLC. I'd have to drive both to choose between it and an NX in that class). I hope that the SPA platform offers significantly improved driving characteristics over the P3 V70 that we had. My main bugbear with the current volvo lineup is actually drivetrains... They don't offer any drivetrains that appeal to me. I'm not one that's chest-beating about "it's absurd that they don't have a 5 or 6 cylinder engine blah blah blah" - the 4 cylinder provides plenty of output (320bhp in the T6) and Volvo isn't and shouldn't try to be BMW. The 4 cylinders are fine.... it's just that I don't want to buy an ICE car. I generally dislike PHEVs (not very good as ICE cars, not very good as EVs) and no one else integrates the hybrids in the way that Toyota/Lexus do. The XC40 isn't my kind of car, but I'm glad to see that they're coming out with an EV version. The Polestar 2, however, is disappointing - it's a £50k+ car that is built on the lower-end Volvo CMA platform (mac strut/ control blade) which for me echos our P3 V70 too much (built on the mondeo mac strut/control blade setup and badly compromised because of it. Our GS450h is the same weight as the V70 but drives so much better through having a far more sophisticated platform under it). Once Volvo get some EVs with proper platforms underneath then I'll get interested again - same goes for Lexus!

After 3 and a half years, I'm pretty sure this will have been resolved by now.

That's very disappointing. I would again sound caution, especially in the light of your post about your enjoyment of the 250, about the 450h. You've already experienced and disliked the CVT, and you know that you do like the 250 drivetrain. Surely better to hang on for the right 250 rather than get a 450h that you already know you're not going to like and want to move on in 6 months?

As Nemesis said, it's more likely a radio antenna. This is a common confusion with Volvo P3 V70s (2008-2016), where people wonder why their side-window demisters aren't working...

The overhead to produce an electric car as compared to an equivalent petrol car is about 3 tonnes of CO2. On current UK grid average (216g/kWh for 2018. 186g/kWh 2019 YTD (will increase as winter kicks in, tracking for just over 200g/kWh for the whole year. Source: https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=1-year&start=2019-01-01&&_k=zbwgrc)) a typical EV will emit 34g/km (based on 2018 figure, 4 miles per kWh). A 40mpg average petrol car will emit 165g/km, and a 60mpg diesel will emit 128g/km (this is simply derived from the amount of carbon per litre of these fuels - this is not changeable). Thus in the UK there is a saving of around or greater than 100g/km of CO2 per km driven. That 3 tonne deficit from production is neutralised at 30000km, or just under 20000 miles. That's to say nothing of the overheads of fossil fuel - there's an 11% overhead in refining (ie for ever 9 gallons you get out of the end of the refining process, you burned the equivalent of 1 additional gallon), the impacts of transporting tonnes of crude and refined fuels around the place (if you drive 12000 miles per year then you're using over a tonne of fuel per year that has mostly been shipped from abroad. Then there's the impact of "consumables" - engine oil, filters, transmission fluids, spark plugs, etc. Over the life cycle of an EV it works out significantly lower CO2 emissions than an ICE vehicle. Keeping an old ICE vehicle going for longer will gradually lower its lifetime average CO2 per km (because the build overhead is spread over more km), but it will never get anywhere close to an EV.

What is the size?

We've had Crossclimate+ on our Leaf and our V70. When the GS450h and the Tesla need new tyres then they will be getting Crossclimate+ also. They are ideally suited to the UK climate. Most all season tyres (eg the Vector 4 season) start with a winter tyre and somewhat improve its summer capability. You can see this just visually, with the traditional jagged snow/ice siping on the tyre. That means these tyres will perform very well in snow and ice (better than the crossclimate), and are quite well suited to snow-tyre areas of europe (where snow conditions will persist for weeks/months). However, generally they are less good as a summer tyre. The Crossclimate isn't quite as good in snow/ice, but offers the right balance for the UK (where we might see a few days of snow per year if that - and I live up in the Pennines. Southern areas maybe a dusting that lasts for a few hours), with more focus on cold wet performance as well as summer performance. Another factor to consider is Michelin's current design ethos about maintaining tyre performance as they wear. Although the Goodyear is better in snow when new, when worn down to 2mm the Michelin will in fact out-perform it because the Michelin maintains performance better: http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Article/New-VS-4mm-VS-2mm-All-Season-Tyre-Performance.htm As you said you'd like a quiet tyre, again I'll recommend the Crossclimate from experience - On our Leaf obviously tyre noise was a very significant factor (as it had no significant drivetrain noise on the motorway, and it had reasonably good aerodynamics for a hatch so wind noise wasn't a big factor - tyre noise was most evident), and the Crossclimates were very quiet (as they were on our V70 too, but the diseasel engine drowned out much of that benefit). The spectrum of their noise is different to other tyres, with less low-frequency energy (the stuff that carries through the body shell and booms) and more high frequency energy (that is more easily deflected/absorbed by the sound deadening in the car) - The crossclimates generate more of a white noise than a pink noise (if you're not familiar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noise) Ultimately there are a bunch of really good all-season tyres currently on the market - The goodyear, the conti allseason contact (but I've never liked any conti that I've had), the bridgestone A005 and of course the Crossclimate +. Based on my experiences with the Crossclimate I have no hesitation in buying them again, and over the others for the reasons I've laid out above.

It's the glovebox shelf.

Also make sure that cabin pollen filter has been replaced and that the insides of the windows are clean (humans are mucky things that exude oils and grease. This sticks to your windows. Dust then sticks to the oils. The dust provides a surface on which water will condense much more easily - clean the insides of the windows thoroughly and you'll find that there's less tendency to get condensation).

That's why I described our 4GS as a unicorn - it's a 2015 pre-facelift premier WITH HUD and all possible options (which on premier means ACC+LKA+PCS, All-LED headlamps and the sunroof):

We have Radar cruise on our 4GS.... it is a very very very rare option, even on the Premier spec. It's not bad, when you get used to it. One limitation that we didn't realise at first was that if the wipers are going at max speed (either set manually or by auto wipers) radar cruise will disable itself. For the most part it works well, just occasionally on a bend it will pick up a vehicle in an adjacent lane as being in front and slow down. I think that the ACC in a VW hire car I had recently was better - it didn't have that kind of false reaction, and it had an interesting logic to it (you could treat the ACC as a virtual bumper - once at minimum follow distance you could put foot to the floor and it would not move closer to the car in front - the Lexus will override ACC and accelerate).

I've seen this on our GS450h. It seems to me to occur when the hybrid battery is low and the engine is running to move the car and charge the battery - it seems not to be able to do both at once below about 5mph, but it doesn't stop the engine. When you come to a stop you feel the generator kick in and load the engine (and you can see it on the energy flow display). As Vince Donald said, it seems to work best by not messing with EV mode, eco mode, etc - just let it get on and do what it does. I'd love to have (much) more regen when coming off-throttle (but then I always drove my Leaf in B mode, and my Tesla has very strong regen, so I'm used to that), but it's not difficult to modulate the brake pedal to maximise regen without kicking in friction braking.

But what would an equivalent vehicle to your X have cost? A 2017 Range Rover Sport that cost around £80k new (Dynamic HSE SDV6) with 17000 miles on is now selling for just over £40k, so closer to £2 per mile over similar period/distance to your X. Plus a not insignificant amount of diesel! All mass produced cars depreciate until reaching some sort of cult or classic status (which even humble escorts and astras will). However, I think over the next few years we are going to see the diesel backlash continue and that will buoy the values of cars like the IS300h and GS300h compared to their competition. The current supply/demand situation on EVs means that I think residuals for EVs are going to be uncharted territory, but surprisingly strong over the next few years, even for relatively modest cars (because more and more people will wake up to wanting a Leaf/Zoe/Soul/etc as a second car to begin with, then once the bug bites they'll want another EV for main car which will hold values for e-Niro, I-pace, e-tron, EQC and Teslas).