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Once bought a 1996 E34 BMW 5 series off ebay when drunk for £1200. Ran it for 18 trouble free months. Sold it for £1500. 😊👍

Well car collected this afternoon. Very pleased with the look of the wheels. They have advised me not to pressure wash them for a couple of days. Whilst the car was there it was MOT'd and they took a look at the reversing camera which I thought was often slow to switch in. The result is that they couldn't find any issue but from previous experience suspect a media hard drive problem. Lexus Warranty have authorised the replacement of the media hard drive unit which I understand costs a wallet busting £1800. For convenience this will be changed at next service as the unit has to be shipped form Japan. Well done Lexus Cheltenham .

That “self charging hybrid” line is brilliant marketing but in the case you describe would be the worst drive train you could buy. The teenyweeny motor is designed to support the engine at lower speeds, typically around town. They are good at that - when I moved from my IS250 to the IS300h I halved my petrol bill. In your case all you’d be doing is lugging around the weight of battery with no gain at all. There are some owners of the Model X who tow (the Model S isn’t type approved for towing) and the Supercharger network is extensive in Europe, but there’s no doubt the range gets hammered. If the aim is to get there as fast as possible then forget an EV for quite a while

Im planning to come along if I can keep up with the changing arrangements. I chanced upon the Touchdown Café a couple of summers ago when I stayed at the camp site across the road. There is a tiny wartime museum on site but not sure when thats open. Up the road the Vulcan bomber is on display and at weekends volunteers are around doing stuff and they are more than pleased to give you a guided tour for a small donation. My lad loved it. Its an awesome machine. We got a full cockpit tour. Result.

Hi Robert, As Nick says, the Premier and F Sport have the AVS suspension (Sport +) that isn't an option on other models. Other easily identifying signs are wood trim, HUD (this is a Premier spec only item), 18 way adjustable seats (with rear armrest heated seats and radio controls) and a fully electric boot lid. Since the pictures in the advert shows most of these, it is safe to assume it is Premier spec. Good luck.

Good call checking part numbers, I tend to use; https://lexus.7zap.com/en/eu/lexus+gs/334510/gws191r-bexqhw/2/

Thanks Farqui - yes report on dampers is from an independent MOT shop, so don't doubt. My experience with Lexus dealers has been poor. Prior to hitting the mileage limit for warranty cover I used our local dealer for servicing, but they were not so honest in reporting how to fix issues (and in requesting to do repairs for non-existing issues) so for a few years now I've had independents work on the car. I am asking around for quotes - but first one I got back (from a Lexus dealer) was £1600 to change all four dampers... which seems absurdly expensive. NipponAutoSpares don't appear to have the dampers for sale any more, but found excellent parts identification database complete with diagrams at japan-parts.eu and pretty good prices from LexusPartsNow (at least compared to UK based sources). But would prefer simply to repair the ones I have got... but perhaps that is not possible.

You may find yourself using more fuel, and in the long term it's not good for the engine. As far as I'm aware, bank 1 sensor 1 can be done from the top so a fairly easy job that only needs a sensor socket, about £10 from eBay. I'm sure it's the same as the GS300 which I did last year from the top, in other words no need to crawl under the car or raise it up.

A couple of folks have asked to see the final result so here's a couple of photos just to finish off the job. First one just shows a little modification in that I've added a 30A in-line fuse to the new jump start circuit. Second photo shows the jump start battery pack with the cable made up and connected. Hopefully I'll never need to use it but at least it's easy to use if I ever do need to.

I need an EV for my wife. She only does like 3-4k miles a year, very short journeys for the weekly shop, school runs etc. Ive got a huge garage to charge it in so that wouldn't be an issue. The problem is, there is not a single premium EV less than £30k that doesn't look like an EV I want an EV that looks like a normal car, not have dodgy eco wheels or skinny tyres or wheels tucked so far into the bodywork you have difficulty kerbing them! I eagerly await the UX300e, hopefully its not £50k lol I bought our then 2 year old IS300h F-Sport with 10k on the clock for £23k. I would happily spend up to £30k nowadays for a 2 year old premium EV but the fact is there just aren't any apart from the BMW I3 and that looks ridiculous IMO

A very good and sensible post for someone who (I assume) doesn't have an EV (I mean by this that you've not fallen for the "but charging is rubbish" crap spouted by many, and have an accurate view of the situation). You're right with what you say. The situation is rapidly improving but sadly an app is regarded by the government as acceptable provision of "ad hoc" use - the ideal is contactless payment of course. Tesla and proprietary however.... not so much. That is true in so much as no other vehicles can use the Supercharger network (despite it being open for them to do so and Tesla making the patents available to all for free), but remember that Tesla vehicles can use other chargers - either through an adapter (for Chademo and a forthcoming CCS adapter for Model S and X) or natively in the case of the Model 3 - it can use CCS. In other words, the model 3 can use not only CCS networks (rapidly growing in mainland europe, particularly the likes of Ionity and Fastned) (and CCS are the ONLY chargers that can be used by various competitor vehicles, like Polestar 2, I-Pace, E-tron, etc) but it can also use the Supercharger network (where superchargers have been upgraded to dual-head). However, the real truth is that the overwhelming majority of people don't drive hundreds of miles in a day with any regularity. The average mileage per year has now dropped to just over 7000 miles (7134 in 2017). If that takes place entirely within the working week (ie the car doesn't get used at weekends - obviously not realistic) then over 260 working days a year the car averages less than 27 miles per day. Many 2 car families would be perfectly well served with an EV as the second car - and that's exactly where we are, with the Leaf and the GS450h.

The whole issue with EV (IMHO) is not the cars - I would gladly drive one - but the infrastructure. The cars must have around 300 miles of range - which many now do - after that for most people it is not an issue as they would have need to have stopped around that range anyway - on long journeys in older cars I used to only stop when refuelling (about every 350 miles) but with my IS 300h which will do nigh on 600 miles on a tankful I now have to stop before I need to refuel. So if I can do 300 miles in an EV before charging I could live with that. I would then need to take on a sensible, say 80%, charge in let's say in under 45 minutes - so the coffee/loo break time. Now - the question is a) would I get a charging point when I arrive or would I have to first wait half an hour or more for one to become free before even starting to charge (Tesla seems the best bet for available charging points at the moment); b) would the charging points be working and/or would I have the right plug and/or account/card - there are a lot of road tests being reported now where the whole sorry state of broken charges and plugs/accounts is a huge issue; c) will any overnight stop have charging available to have the car ready for another 300 miles the next day...? It's not range anxiety per-se it's the worry of no charges available and/or the chargers not working and/or if the car can actually connect to them. I appreciate it's chicken and egg but until the infrastructure can rival petrol - so the possibility of "filling" up reliably and quickly and paying using a debit/credit card with no other hassle - I think the Lexus hybrid approach is currently one of the best compromises. When the industry/government finally actually get their fingers out and actually walk-the-talk and put in the infrastructure (someone has to do this upfront - at least Tesla have made a decent fist of it but now of course it's all proprietary) I will gladly move to full EV.

I have just had the Lexus MOT'd after this years 8,000 miles of use. I am happy to report a pass with no advisories. The car is now at 133,000 miles so I am pleased with the result. John.