Ruffle

FWIW, I'm hearing tales of Hastings Direct declining to renew cover for other people... so maybe it's not you but them.

Depends on how far you can open the door. In the UK, many parking spaces are the width of the smallest car ever made plus a gnats... which can make it tricksy.

Already there on most if not all EV's and IIRC mandatory fitment to all new cars sold in the USA from 2026. I don't know if the UK police forces have general access to such things but they've been lobbying for it for many years. The future is already here.

About as well as my 1930 BSA Sloper or my '73 H1D Kawasaki Triple :-) Greta would explode if she saw the 2-smoke fumes coming out the back :-) :-)

Malc, Police/military and the like will obviously enjoy special dispensations but Hydrogen combustion vehicles using things like Toyota's new engine (as opposed to Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles which are just EV's with a different kind of battery) cannot pass the UK ZEV tests as they emit hydrocarbon residue from their tail pipes (lubricant being burnt) and are not ZERO emissions. Yes stupid but that's the current law. I'm sure the well funded and dedicated enthusiast of the ICE will be able to continue for some time but it will be increasingly expensive and inconvenient making the prospect of the LC being a usable classic in 30/40 years highly dubious IMNSHO. I'm personally hoping that I'll be able to enjoy mine for the remaining 8.5 years of warranty!

Malc, No I don't think the whole world will abandon ICE (can't imagine Africa without the Toyota pickup) but the developed world (excluding the USA) is certainly heading that way and the UK faster than most. The UK ban on new ICE cars and vans will come into play in only six years time. In fact it will probably happen long before that as manufacturers won't want to risk a £15,500 fine (2024 figure and certain to increase) for each vehicle they sell outside their ZEV quota and will cut their ICE offerings to the bone or just drop them altogether. I would wager that in much less than six years, it will be difficult to purchase a new ICE car excluding exotica. Hydrogen and synthetic fuel doesn't work as the UK legislation mandates ZERO tailpipe emissions; only EVs can do this. ULEZ zones are going to get tougher and more widespread as it's easy money for cash strapped councils. Pay per mile will probably have to happen as the tax take on petrol and diesel diminishes and you bet it'll be graded like VED so that the nasty ICE cars pay more. Given the ever decreasing number of ICE vehicles on the road, how long will your local filling station stay in business? I fear it won't be many years before petrol will be a luxury item only available to those with deep pockets. Don't get me wrong here. I'm 100% against the stupidity of the whole thing and don't even start me on the crackpot "make the UK 100% renewable energy" nonsense but is just too juicy a low hanging fruit for politicians not to pluck it.

When they're looking at it in a museum :-( Does anyone really think ICE vehicle will be allowed (by virtue of outright emissions bans or non-availability of petrol) in 30/40 years?

The black 'Inspiration' model (2023 only IIRC) came with the carbon spoiler on the back end as standard. The only options on the Inspiration was the seat colour (black or red). And yes, I prefer the black :) (See Lexus Model over there <-<-<-<-) :-)

FWIW, I sold a couple of cars through Motorway and got significantly more than the original estimate. They imply that once you start the process you are committed to sell through them but that's obviously not true so you can back out if you don't get what you want. The only thing I didn't like is that on the second occasion they demanded un-redacted pictures of my license and V5.

A five hour drive might give you time to get to grips with the touchpad :-) Enjoy.

The tennis ball on a string really is the best value for money but if you want to go high tech there are loads of DIY parking assistant gadgets out there. This is a neat one (if a little more complex than most):

I'm probably being very thick but how to you cancel traffic announcements when you're in Android Auto? There I am, cruising along, navigating with Waze and listening to a Podcast when the local radio disk jockey presses the 'Traffic Announcement' button on his console, tells me about traffic and THEN LEAVES IT ON FOR THE NEXT 10 MINUTES!!! Grrrrrr. Is there a way of cancelling the drivelling idiot without going out of Android Auto?

Jeez. That's awful. How much work would have been required to make a filler panel for the gap? Given the number of LC's being built, they could have just 3D printed something and not even needed the expense of tooling up for an injection moulded part. Glad mine's a '23 and doesn't have this 'nailed to the dashboard' IPad.

Nice. Let's hope Toyota have breathed their magic and improved the reliability (SWMBO had a couple of Z4's which delighted in throwing every warning light imaginable at the drop of a hat).

Replied via email. Check your SPAM folder as GMail just loves dumping stuff in there!

As it happens I have a spare unit. Brand new in the box built in March this year. Bit of a long story but I ordered one and the shipping company kind of lost track of it mid-atlantic for a few weeks. Rob sent me another via Fedex which turned up quickly and then a couple of days later the original arrived! If someone wants it, can I suggest that you contact Rob and agree a price for this unit. Pay Rob directly and get him to email me (russell@lls.lls.com) saying it's good to go. I ended up paying 70 quid import duty on the Fedex one but nothing on the original and in an ideal world it would be nice to split that so whoever wants it would then owe me 35 quid plus postage. I can send via UPS for around a tenner or collect from East Northamptonshire. Fitting was a fiddle for my largeish hands but Rob's video and instruction manual is clear and accurate and it took about half an hour.

Like most here, I'd take the 360 camera but you can keep the Ipad-nailed-to-the-dash. Horrible horrible horrible (and how come it's unlawful to interact with a mobile phone while driving, even if it's in a cradle, but just about every new car comes with a huge mobile phone glued to the dashboard and that's lawful to use?) Reading somewhere else, the new 'Ultimate' will be white with blue seats Ugh! - glad I bought my black Inspiration with it's red seats.

I pay for Youtube Music Premium[1] and in the terms shown here: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6312991?hl=en-GB#zippy=%2Cwill-my-fans-pay-to-use-youtube-music it can be download to 'listen to offline' (it might even be legal in the UK to download for personal use without paying for Youtube Music Premium but I'm not a lawyer and won't visit you in prison if this isn't true :) ). The landing page for YouTube Music Premium also says "listen ad-free, offline" which to me reiterates that it's OK to download and store. Of course, you can also stream YouTube Music through Android Auto/Car Play but I like to have them stored. Anyway, being old school I like albums. Find one you want on Youtube Music, copy the URL and stick it on the end of this command: yt-dlp -x --retries 15 --parse-metadata "playlist_index:%(track_number)s" --add-metadata --audio-format mp3 --output "%(playlist_index)02d - %(album)s - %(track)s.%(ext)s" <URL> yt-dlp is a utility that can be downloaded for Windows, Mac & Linux from it's github page: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases For example, to grab the album "Back in Black" do: yt-dlp -x --retries 15 --parse-metadata "playlist_index:%(track_number)s" --add-metadata --audio-format mp3 --output "%(playlist_index)02d - %(album)s - %(track)s.%(ext)s" "https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kw8rDAlIt5yGYp_bQlG1TLeD1NdePx9lo" This will end up with a bunch of mp3s with names in the form "tracknumber - album - trackname".mp3 Of course these are 'only' mp3s at 128kpbs, 48kHz but that's good enough for Government work. HTH [1] - Actually I get it 'for free' with my Mobile phone tarif.

Thanks Las Palmas. FWIW, my LC will read ExFAT partitions on the USB but the silly silly Lexus ICE people limit the total number of folders (999) and tracks (9999). Maybe not an issue for most but my audio collection is some 3,000+ folders and 34,000+ tracks (not just music; a lot of podcasts, documentaries, plays etc) totalling some 245G[1]. Re-encoding this down to mp3 I can get it to fit on my phone but thought I could put my absolute fav albums on DVD in lossless format to give the ML a run. So are you saying that putting m4a files on a data DVD is likely to work (xxx.flac files were not recognised)? or does it have to be DVD-A (which doesn't seem to be a common format in DVD burning software). [1] - This might seem excessive but hey.... so's an LC! :-)

Apart from playing traditional CDs (pretty much one album at a time which is naff) or DVD video disks when you're parked (not really useful), is there any other format that the CD/DVD player will accept? I tried creating a data DVD with a load of .FLAC files on it but that didn't work. In theory there is a DVD-A (audio) format but there's no mention in the manual of that being supported. Anyone tried it?

Just because someone asked... the new kid (needs a wash already!).

My trusty black, 5l, V8, coupe with red seats has left it's home of the last 10+ years. Some regrets at seeing her go as it's a stonking car and in Sport mode with the supercharger wound up she really pulls up her skirts and shifts with a glorious soundtrack to match. However, the eagled eyed amongst you might just spot a new black, 5l, V8 coupe with red seats lurking in the background :) Life, the universe and everything (spelt w-o-r-k) have conspired to severely restrict any time to get to know the new kid on the block but first impressions in the few hundred miles I've managed are suggesting that I'm going to enjoy my LC and I'm looking forward to spending the next decade or so in its company. FWIW, some first impressions/comparisons. The handling is very much better (even if the rear end did get out of shape a couple of times on a cold, wet road the LC sorted it all out before I needed to get involved) and the RWS really really sharpens things up much more than I expected. The engine, as everyone knows, is a screamer but needs the solenoids open or the ItGoesAutomotive exhaust gizmo (mine is on order but stuck in transit) to let the exhaust breath. The ICE and touchpad really is as awful as the reviews imply but an AAWireless device means I can pretty much ignore it except for the climate control which is... errr... curious and cursed with a truly awful UI. The whole ICE/UI thing really does amaze me. It's really not that hard to build a halfway decent interface; it's only software (I say that as a programmer). Maybe it's a cultural thing as I've seen equally awful software on Japanese motorcycles. As a place to be sat, the lC is as nice as everyone says. The Lexus dealership experience didn't live up to expectations but that might just be down to the particular salesman who's since been moved on to a different brand.

I found this: https://caristaapp.com/vehicles/lexus/lc/1st-gen but a lot of the things listed are normal settings that can be changed without dealer intervention. There there's the 'Beta' version that lists more function but a lot seem duplicated with the non-beta version: https://caristaapp.com/p/toyota-uds One would need to do a side by side list to see what's only available through Carista. It isn't expensive (especially if you already have a Bluetooth OBD2 adaptor).

Thanks. However a quick speed read tells me there's only Window control from the key fob and disable the alarm with the mechanical key that I'd want changed (if I've missed something else that's a 'must have' then please shout out). Something for my dealer to do before I collect on Monday :) :) :) :)

Doh! I did look there before posting but they've spelt Customisable with a Z so my search of the PDF failed to find anything. Ta.