wivenhoe

I had 2 Merc, a BMW & a Range Rover PHEV’s - I wished I stuck with them. My last car was a Range Rover Velar (0 - 60 6s) averaged 90mpg with me plugging in it regularly and mostly local driving. I would have swapped my RZ for a RX 450h except they offered me £ 48k for a 6 month old car that cost £ 73k. Oh well.

I rec’d a response to my ‘complaint’. It has been escalated so we’ll see if they do use the date of purchase last year, not when the scene came in - last month. They confirmed that in my case I have 2 years 1 month I still have 42 days. There doesn’t seem to be a maximum booking time but they could easily regularise that by saying the car isn’t available after say 2 weeks. They confirmed the RX is on the list - they said that all Hybrid models were available except the LS, LM & LC models. Whilst I agree with John’s point that it’s not a good look, it would have looked better if they had done the upgrade before releasing the car (= better reviews) and included Reserve as an option to drive a different car in the range - disguising the real reason.

John & Tickedon - I just received confirmation from Reserve that the 3 years cover does start from the purchase date. I sent this response Jack Thanks for your prompt and helpful response. I think it is very unfair for Lexus to limit this to only 2 years in my case as I was one of the initial owners in May last year - and had a significant number of defects. If Lexus insists that the package is only 2 years then presumably I still get 42 days of alternate cars. Please let me know who I can complain to about this and by the way - I paid significantly more for my car than is available now complete with 3 years reserve. Regards

When my dealer told me about this he didn’t know when the 3 years would run from on my car which was bought in May 2023.

Spoke to my dealer today and he confirmed that the Lexus Reserve package is available to existing RZ owners. You can have a hybrid car for up to 42 days in 3 years free - they have had this in the US since launch to ease range anxiety ! https://www.lexus.co.uk/lexus-reserve

I should have said, I think the trip reset then resets the display of the M/kw

I reset mine after the update - you’ll see from the above photo mine is 3.2 average with mostly fast duel carriageway driving. Reset trip -

There you go ! IMG_1726.heic

The laws in the US are entirely different to here in the UK. As you are in the US your car probably hasn’t had the update our cars in the UK have - makes a big difference in the predicted range when you have the heating or ac on.

As you’re leasing then the residual won’t be of any concern - if your primarily doing only 150 miles a week then range isn’t a concern. Will you have a home charger - if so, then the RZ will be a great car providing the lease payments are competitive. The recent software update (which a new car will have) have improved the range drop in using the ac / heating so a lot of the early reviews and particularly the What Car review are not as relevant. As a buyer rather than a leaser’ I very much regret getting an EV when I did - I wouldn’t if getting one now ! If you keep to about 60 - 65 on a motorway you may squeeze 200 miles without a charging stop. Charging is fairly rapid, actual world on a 150kw charger really is less than 30 minutes from 20% to 80%. You’ll read a lot about cars having say 250kw charge capacity but the overall average over a charge is always far below that so the actual time saved is say maybe 10 mins. For your mileage I would say if you want to go full EV (no doubt tax will be a major consideration on a company car) then the RZ would be a good car.

To bring far more woe to Lexus - The Sunday Telegraph now has the What car analysis with Lexus having the bottom 2 places for range loss in cold weather -

John. Hadn’t appreciated that chargers are inbuilt POI’s. I turned on the restaurant ones and now I cannot turn them off. I have followed the manual and they will not turn off !

In terms of Lexus staying in the the UK market I think the biggest threat is the EV fine. They need to sell over 22% of the total sales as pure EV’s. As The RZ is a dismal failure and the sales of the UX haven’t taken off then Lexus will be heavily fined or have to buy credits from the Chinese manufacturers or Tesla as they will have a massive surplus as they import only EV’s or only a small number of ICE’s. The Lexus announcement of 2023 trumpeted the proportion of electrified sales but didn’t carve out the pure EV’s - I reckon they represented less than 10% of total sales. So if they achieve the same figures as last year they will have to pay 12% x 16,000 x £15k = £ 28.8m.

Thanks John. I’ll try that next time in the car. As it’s intermittent I expect Lexus requires the lane to be empty for 5 miles in front and behind you. I would lose the will to live if I had to manually enter chargers as POI’s. I think they have lazily assumed you would go into the Link App and use that but it doesn’t contain all chargers so hopeless.

I posted in the What Car thread a link to a comprehensive review of the RZ. In it the reviewer used 2 functions that I didn’t know existed. I can’t drive my car at the moment (minor op) so I would appreciate if someone can confirm they are available in UK spec cars. Lane change - whilst in auto drive, he held the indicator stalk down and the car automatically changed lanes - it worked on both sides. I thought the lane change only increased the speed to filter into the lane better, not do it by itself. Chargers - he went into the address screen in the Sat Nav and entered chargers as a destination and the Sat Nav listed them so he then selected one as a destination. Unfortunately it didn’t have any details of availability so you’ll still have to check that in say ZapMat in CarPlay.

There is an American reviewer who is extremely knowledgable on all the aspects of EV’s. I came across him whilst looking for a review of the new Porsche Mecan EV. I noticed he reviewed the RZ pre update. Other than comfort and the autonomous driving he destroys it but unlike other reviewers he explains the criticisms. Whilst he destroyed the RZ he was absolutely glowing about the new Mecan so it’s the normal Tesla fans versus everyone else. If you have an hour to spend watch his review -

It’s also in The Times. So that’s both newspapers probably most read by Lexus clients or potential clients.

More woe for Lexus - the What Car article was reported in today’s Telegraph. Lexus do say the upgrade improved things but the article is very damaging for them. The UX300e range is reported to be 100 miles less and the RZ 92 miles short in very low temps (for us in the UK). VW’s ID7 is reported to be 130 miles short. If Lexus had sorted the update before releasing the cars they would have fared much better. As The Telegraph is probably the paper most read by potential and actual Lexus owners I suspect that the MD of Lexus this morning has a severe dose of indigestion and long meetings with their PR advisers. Not at all good for RZ residuals.

Thanks for the sympathy ! I found it ridiculous that a ‘prestige’ manufacturer would say the resolution to a defect is to faff about with a heath robinson solar charger, which in any case won’t work in the majority of long term car parks. Oh and buy the way we £ 50 for you resolving our defect. We will have to pay in 2 years time when free AA cover ends as the battery is not covered by the extended warranty. I also learned today that if you leave the car connected for a few days that will flatten the battery even quicker. There isn’t anything in the manual about having to run the car every couple of days ! Toyota have known about this for years before the RZ was marketed but did nothing about it. During lockdown they issued a guidance saying to start the hybrids and run the car in Ready Mode for 60 mins at least once a week - https://mag.toyota.co.uk/coronavirus-toyota-hybrid-car-maintenance/?utm_source=ToyotaOwnersClub&utm_medium=ForumLinks

Agreed !

The 12v battery in my car went flat and the doors wouldn’t open even with the mechanical key. AA gained access and jump started the car. I have not driven the car for almost 3 weeks so my wife started and ran the car every couple of days for 20 mins. My tracker monitors the 12v battery in case it is disconnect it by thieves. It warned me that even having run the car for 20 mins 3 days earlier the 12v warning was amber as the voltage had dropped to 11.8v. I therefore asked the dealer what the resolution was and could they do it in the first service. Their response was (as Toyota also say) Your battery will start to drain when the vehicle is not driven for a period of time. A new battery will not stop it from happening again in the future. We would advise having a solar charger supplied. We can supply one for £50.00 inc. It plugs into your diagnostic port under your dashboard and will help maintain your battery when the vehicle is not driven. I pointed out that most airport car parks are multi storey so what Lexus were saying is that I will have to call the AA after 2 weeks holiday (probably waiting outside of car) for them to jump start. I cannot believe that they well know of the issue and suggest the only resolution is to use a solar charger for £ 50 ! Thought with Easter coming owners should know before flying off.

When I collected my Velar the infotainment screen was black. Salesman said it was about the 10th car in a row where the car was faulty despite the PDI. I asked him why nothing was done about it and he said it was because Land Rover saved money by having a central prep centre and doing it all themselves. The dealers lost revenue as all they were doing was literally handing the car over as received off the transporter. As he said, the muppet accountants had missed the fact that the central prep staff didn’t have to deal with the embarrassment on handover so were sending out cars unchecked. The guy was an old fashioned salesman so got a technician to sort it. He said the Land Rover procedure was for the salesman to provide a phone number to the new car owner and to report the fault so LR could arrange a rectification. Mine was a £75k car but the other car being handed over was a £ 110k SVR Range Rover and nobody could unlock the petrol cap !

The only thing John & I have differed on is tyre noise. He found the fitted summer tyres to be very quiet. In my case I didn’t - not helped as the car itself is exceptionally quiet. I would be interested how others have found the noise of the summer fitments. Mine may have had an issue, they were massively over inflated at handover - although John said that is normal for new Lexus’s (probably for the long voyage). Anyway, I have the Dunlop summer tyres in storage and had Michelin Cross Climate 2’s put on. Totally different - they didn’t make any difference to the range and had the added benefit of dealing with the expected conditions, which never happened. For summer & winter in the UK I think Cross Climates are the way to go as the temperatures are not extreme enough to warrant summer & winter tyres.

Please please think of us poor souls that bought - the market is floored and more incentives on new ones will only kill it even more ! Seriously, where will this all end - the big manufacturers will just stop competing in markets with fines and disincentives and the Chinese will then just dump substandard cheap cars (even after paying levies) as they control the cost of batteries and other EV components. Once they have the market, they will turn the screw and as they are really the Chinese government it will set the agenda. The Chinese importers have no fear of the fines as they easily beat the 20% threshold as they are mostly bringing in only EV’s. You couldn’t have designed a more Chinese favourable regime if you had tried. The US has a far more sensible approach, they incentivise US manufacturers with subsidies for US sourced parts and gives credits on EV’s off personal tax, not the cost of the car. Lexus US will reduce the lease cost as they offset the tax saving, not by reducing the cost of the car - you have to be a tax payer to receive the subsidy. We just lump on fines and remove incentives - there are London Boroughs ramping up parking according to weight and as EV’s inevitably weigh more, they will pay more ! Governmental rant over - apologies for disturbing the peace on a Sunday

I am really glad we don’t get real low / well below freezing temperatures - this article reports the real effect on a Tesla Long Range - https://www.hotcars.com/how-winter-weather-shortens-range-tesla-model-3/