EvilRacer329

I ordered my F-Sport Takumi in Terrain Khaki in August, according to the Lexus app it's currently in Derby where final checks and paperwork are performed, so expecting a call from my dealer any week. I've been told it will have the body-coloured arches, I can't wait. Will share photos as and when! Nick

@BarryW - that's good news. It does look slightly smaller, I think - and it's amazing how quickly the litres add up. Does your E-Four model have the removable lift-up panels on the sides of the boot? Presumably the battery is still tucked away on the right, but the FWD model also has two quite deep compartments on the rearward corners that I like to stash stuff in - they lift up on flaps with little pulls. I've got a new Takumi F-Sport UX on order to replace my current one, and I keep wondering if I shouldn't pay a little extra for the E-Four system to be added after all. I don't believe that I need it for snow etc. but do find the front wheels scrabbling for grip pulling out onto roundabouts or junctions in wet weather, especially when the steering wheel is turned. Do you find you notice the system doing anything much? What were your reasons for stumping up the extra cash? Do you notice there being an impact on fuel economy at all? Nick

Just called my dealer - apparently my August order, which still hasn't reached the production line, will now arrive in 2022 spec with the coloured wheel arches. I've asked them to check what other changes I should expect, any other surprises... Last thing I want is to find they changed something I really liked! Nick

Oh hells! Body-coloured arches?! I deliberately chose the darker-coloured car I have and the other one I ordered because those plastic arches look terrible on brighter-coloured cars. I would seriously consider having my arches resprayed to match, but if Lexus will now do so from the factory I may need to call my dealer and ask them to modify or even delay my order if that's what it takes... The configurator seems to be broken right now, so I'll have to check later. Nick

Ethanol technically has a lower calorific value than "pure" petrol; that means you need to burn more of it to get the same effect. In an internal combustion engine that means you have the throttle open harder to get the same effect you might with regular fuel. So in theory, if you drove exactly the same way, same temperatures, same speeds, acceleration rates, and a hundred other factors, you'd theoretically notice a fractional decrease in fuel economy with the new E10 petrol. I've been touring on the continent on motorcycles for years, and most of the fuel over there has been E10 the entire time. I track my fuel economy religiously and have never noticed a consistent difference in real-world use. As for the rest...different brands etc...the internet is full of studies showing that, unless your engine is designed for high-octane fuel you won't get any benefit from choosing 98 or higher. And as for different petrol brands having an effect...I'd want to see the scientific study before I'd agree that it's anything other than psychosomatic. 🙂 Nick

It's gone? I was always told by my dealer that I'd lose it if I chose to fit a tow bar, but I never got around to it on my 2019. I've got a new 2021 on order at the moment and I actually find that feature really useful! Are you sure they cut it? Nick

Oh yeah! Big fan, though it occasionally doesn't know what to do with itself in town or in residential areas, so I have to switch it off. The new UX I've ordered has the fancy 3-eye blade lights, which in theory just "edit out" incoming cars while keeping the high beams on. Very interested to see what that's like! Nick

I understood from my Lexus salesperson (and then later confirmed through research) that the NX, IS, CT etc. were all using 3rd-gen Toyota/Lexus hybrid tech, and the UX was the first with their new 4th-gen tech. Hence higher-efficiency motors and generators, higher speeds in electric mode, all that good stuff. I found a few tricks for getting maximum juice into the battery, at which point I could trundle through 20-30mph town sections in almost exclusively electric mode. Ironically I find the battery never gets very full driving in town, probably because I'm not doing enough regenerative braking to refill the battery. The engine running will top the battery up only to a relatively low level if there are no other reasons for it to run. Fire it up on the driveway with the climate control set quite high and it'll run just to warm the engine up in an attempt to heat the cabin. Because the engine doesn't need to move the car while this happens, it dumps everything into the battery, and you can almost get a full charge. I quite enjoy playing with the hybrid system to get as much distance as possible each trip in EV mode, averaging 25% of my mileage over the last year. On motorway trips, it's low (single digits), but on trips with more town work I can easily beat 50%. The CT I drove as a courtesy car I had to work much harder to get it to drop into and then stay in EV mode, but I daresay it's all about familiarity with that particular system! Honestly, it's all pretty incredible tech. No power steering pump, no engine-driven air conditioning compressor, no starter motor, no belt-driven alternator...in a lot of ways it's a very elegant design. I'm a big fan. Nick

I keep having these discussions with people about so-called autonomous driving. In theory, I love the idea of being able to read a book on my boring commute, but the challenge is taking that leap away from current assistive systems like we have on our cars and towards a more hands-off approach is that they still rely on human beings as the fail-over mechanism. Computer can't figure out how to deal with a situation? Driver needs to be ready to take control at a moment's notice. And yet it's unfortunately been discovered through studies that human beings are really, really bad at this - it takes between 5 and 30 seconds for a human being to take stock of the situation and reassert control. At the speed things can go wrong in a modern car, that's way too long. That means that, until you can design a flawless autonomous system that will never, ever need a human to take control, you can't have any kind of autonomous system at all. And I'm not sure you can actually make that kind of engineering leap in one fell swoop... A knotty problem! Nick

Big fan of this. That being said, if the driver(s) in front are of the more 'reactive' style of urban driving I find that the cruise control's inability to observe the cars further down the line means that it can become a bit more of a jerky affair. If the traffic is smooth enough it works well, but if it's a bit more jerky I usually find I'm better served by taking manual control. I also get better use out of the hybrid system then, as I can brake more smoothly and further in advance, and often avoid requiring the friction brakes at all. It also means I can start moving away sooner than the radar would allow, meaning that I can move away more slowly. The radar system will often wait, then seems to panic and accelerate more quickly than I would. At the end of the day's they are 'driving aids', not some sort of autopilot... 😉 Nick

Do you not worry that such features are allowing you to relax in the exact circumstances when you need to be on high alert? Lower speed limit areas are exactly where most accidents happen, when unpredictable stuff happens, and relaxing because you're just steering the car along and don't need to worry about tripping a speed camera risks missing the point, it seems to me... Just a thought! I'm not much of a believer in arbitrary speed limits, but distracted driving is something that seems to be getting worse, not better, as cars become more sophisticated... Nick

Ah, so in e.g. 30-40mph limits and such? I suppose I can see why some people might want that. It's not something I'd use, but I get it now. But I'm guessing that you'd still use cruise control on motorways etc. rather than hold your foot on the pedal with the limiter set to 70? Nick

I was chatting to someone about speed limiters recently, and we couldn't figure out what they were for. They seem like a cruise control where you still have to keep your foot on the gas - why not just use cruise control? I'm genuinely curious... Nick

You can tell if you have the automatic mirrors if the button on the door arm rest says "auto" in the middle section, I think. Mine doesn't and it's just blank, so I have to manually press the button before switching the ignition off. Nick

Huh; that's actually very encouraging. Maybe I should've stumped up the extra ~£1,200 and ticked the box on my order after all... Nick

Probably; I'll admit that my knowledge of such systems is limited to more enthusiast-oriented applications. Most of those are geared to deliver a constant torque split, e.g. 70% rear, 30% front. That way, if the rear slips for whatever reason the fronts can pick up the slack instantly without waiting for a computer to figure things out. Then you get the hardcore 4x4 systems with locking diffs etc. that are actually not recommended to use in that mode on regular roads because they have no slip built in whatsoever. In a perfect world, Lexus would've designed the UX's E-Four system to be turning the rear wheels with electric power any time the vehicle was moving, and use vehicle roll and yaw sensors to pre-emptively load the necessary wheel to increase oversteer/decrease understeer. Maybe that's exactly what they did! But I've not found a single review that drills down into that level of detail because, well, most enthusiasts wouldn't buy a UX to begin with. I'm one of those outliers that enjoys performance driving, but also values built quality, comfort, reliability, and fuel economy. I also value the option of not driving around like my hair's on fire and just relaxing, hence I love the hybrid system. Nick

The key difference, as I understand it, is whether a four-wheel-drive system is proactive or reactive; does it wait for the front to lose traction before reluctantly adding power to the rears, or is it driving all four wheels continuously so that the aforementioned loss of traction doesn't occur in the first place? The system in the UX is the former, whereas Subaru's system and other performance-oriented AWD systems are the latter. But as you say, the fuel economy trade-off in driving four wheels through three differentials is pretty staggering, and the Lexus solution is very clever and would work well in certain circumstances. Nick

You're 100% correct; I almost went with the 4WD option because I hoped it would help improve cornering by counteracting understeer, but in the end I couldn't find any confirmation online that it actually worked as I'd hope. And I wasn't willing to take the disadvantages and extra cost on board to find out. Nick

Hey Sara, curious to know how this turned out? One of the reasons you were having trouble with the trickle charger was that some smart chargers are using the read of the battery voltage to know how much juice to put in. When the charge was enough for the car to wake up and activate the alarm etc. that may have not only caused the charger to panic and stop, but I imagine would have quickly drained what little juice you'd managed to put in. The aftermarket tracker I had installed on one of my motorcycles sends me a text message if the 12v battery gets below a minimum voltage level; with all the sophisticated telematics systems in the UX I'm disappointed that Lexus doesn't have a similar setup to prevent this exact scenario. Nick

Oh wow, that's considerably more usable! As cool as the "smuggling compartment" on my UX250h is, I'd much rather just have a larger overall boot! Nick

Interesting; the only times I've listened to the radio in my entire life were when, for whatever reason, I couldn't play music or an audiobook from either a CD, MP3 player, and more recently my phone. I had assumed that digital radio "just worked" - that the entire country was fairly effectively blanketed. I suspect I'm confusing DAB with satellite radio, which seems to be popular in the US. Does the UX support AM/FM? Do AM/FM still exist? I'm genuinely interested... Nick

The fun part is that while four-wheel-drive might help get you going in slipper conditions, it can't help you turn or stop. Winter tyres help in *all* situations. 😉 Nick

Oh gods; I never even considered this. It's so terrible on mine that I only turn it on when I'm giving friends a lift and we want something to laugh about. A shame, as the sounds they programmed in for the UX300e I drove were awesome - it sounded like a proper spaceship! It's a button on the right hand side near the steering wheel labelled ASC - hit that and see if the problem goes away! Nick

Hey Stompe, I think the take rate on the E4 system here in the UK is pretty small. We just don't get the weather, and according to the official specs it has a noticeable cost in terms of fuel economy. I seriously considered it for my next UX, but in the end was talked out of it by my partner. The fact is, if the road conditions are so bad that snow tyres cannot get you out, then adding driven rear wheels isn't going to help a massive amount. My advice would be to save your money, get the FWD version, and then invest in a set of snow tyres for your winter travels. Nick

Having had a closer listen on a proper pair of speakers it's definitely not a synthetic noise, so please disregard my previous comment. It's definitely something rubbing, possibly rust on one of the disks which others have already suggested should go after a few stops with the brakes. If not, could be a number of things - wheel bearings, constant-velocity joints etc. - none of which I'd expect to go bad on such a new car. As others have said, I'd hand it to my dealer to check at this point! Nick