Wass

Apparently there is an internet con which features cars selling at cheap prices. The seller claims that the car isn't with them but is expected to return from holidays/valeting/ servicing/ loan to a relative etc. Insists on payment, arranges delivery etc. All this can easily be solved by looking at the car, verifying all of the data in the advert, HPi checking and viewing the registration docs. It is fashionable for some dealers to "misprint" things, accidentally swap the descriptions of vehicles with other (coincidentally better) descriptions of other vehicles they are allegedly selling, Notice how may of then are at pains to tell you that a car has a leather covered steering wheel and or gearknob when they know that joe public word searches for" leather" when looking for leather seats. Look at the car for real and ask to see all of the documentation is what I would do.Dont meet on motorway services, meet at their home or business address( depending whether it is trade or private sale.

Nice write up. Very accurate comments. People either like or don't like the styling: there isn't a right or wrong. My view on the harsh ride is that Lexus sacrificed the ride quality for the looks of low profile tyres on the first versions. Newer cars on softer suspension and on higher profile tyres if necessary should solve most concerns about harsh ride.

Spot on Colin. The only other thing I would add to that, is that should you have a Lexus dealer carry out routine servicing, you will most likely find that your expensive K&N filter is changed during the vehicles routine service. They may even cite warranty issues associated with fitting non genuine Lexus components. So, depending on the age and mileage of your car, it could work out to be more expensive in the long run. If you service the vehicle yourself and it is already out of warranty ties, then this shouldn't be a problem.

The one fly in the ointment with using the hybrid cars speedo in order to regulate one's speed on motorways is that the speedos on the toyota based hybrids seem to be universally very optimistic. Most lorries appear to the prius and CT200 drivers to be travelling at 60 mph on motorways. They are in fact travelling at 56mph and the car speedos are inaccurate. In order to travel at 56mph, one just needs to travel at lorry speed and ignore the on board instrumentation because it is quite simply, wrong Interestingly, it would appear that the vehicle designers are more than aware of this anomaly since the milometer of the Toyota based hybrids shows accurate mileage. From an instrumentation engineers point of view, there seems to be little sense in having two individual sensors for cumulative mileage and instantaneous mileage, it is therefore most likely that the speedo ( and the fuel computer) are deliberately programmed to read optimistically despite some models actually having a speedo recalibration subroutine built into the on board computer specifically for when the tyre circumferences are changed slightly.( when replacing tyres with new ones)

Correct there is no difference in actual energy however the detonation performance is the key to the difference. With a higher RON fuel the ECU can use a more advanced timing, extracting more energy from the fuel. The mpg attained from a standard petrol engined vehicle is 100% to do with the burning of fuel whilst the engine is running. On a hybrid a percentage of that mpg comes from shutting off the engine during deceleration or when stationary and an even smaller percentage from energy recovery. Therefore if you improve engine efficiency the overall percentage improvement on a hybrid will be less than with a standard petrol engine. The hybrid engines are also typically running an Atkinson cycle which don't respond to higher octane fuel with the same benefit as an Otto engine. Well said Colin

Put some in the tank by mistake. Drew the conclusion as follows: Gain subtract Extra cost= Deficit conclusion:Not worth the bother. Additives provided (allegedly) by the more expensive fuel; benefits only likely to be revealed towards the end of the vehicles life span. Car is likely to be in somebody else's possession by then.

"I regularly got over 70mpg in my Prius on long motorway runs in good weather with cruise on at 55." Lorry speed.... or thereabouts. Which is preferable because one tends to be adding little to the inconvenience to those who like to travel at quicker speeds on motorways.The issues arise when one tries to travel slower than lorry speed because this leads to those heart stopping moments when lorries change lanes to overtake whether there is room to do so or not.

There might be some issues with premature wearing of the leather seat trim possibly due to reactions with cleaning chemicals. Again, I don't know details since mine is a base model which has some odd looking but effective synthetic suede fabric on its seats. I believe that some people find the standard sat nav to be an issue in that it wont shut up easily like an accessory sat nav does. In fact, the luxury model sat navs get quite a lot of critisism one way or another for various maladies the like of which you can see on this forum. The earlier models (pre 2014) had harder suspension which doesn't suit some people, however, fitting 16" wheels with higher profile tyres goes a long way towards sorting this out. The sport model has even harder suspension but exactly the same engine power as all of the other CT models..... make you own mind up about that one! All in all, CTs are good.

I have or do own 3 hybrids: a 75000 mile, a 50000 mile and a 40000 mile and the traction batteries on all of them have been good throughout. I have never encountered any problems with traction batteries; although i did hear that some Honda insights could be problematic occasionally. My CT is a base model and only has one dash but the display alternates between ecometer and rev counter depending on what mode of travel is selected. Eco, sport etc. I assume that the motorised screen you speak of is the sat nav/ reversing camera which may have been fitted on the model you encountered. Regards, Geof

When a Lexus RX 450 driver with 250BHP under the loud pedal drives something with anything like 100BHP or more less power they maybe forgiven for thinking along those lines. However, outright power means sod all when you are hauling 2 1/4 tonnes of metal and sound deadening around with you. Power to weight ratio speaks volumes at all times. 0-60 takes a timely 7 or so seconds in a 450... I rode a 56 bhp motorcycle which was made in the early 1970s which could perform 0-60 in 5 seconds whilst still being able to top 120mph.....more than enough to lose your licence anywhere round these parts. Its all a question of what you want isn't it? Car performance is dreadful if performance is all you want to look at.

That's because american gallons are smaller than imperial gallons. The american claimed MPG figures are also optimistic. I found that under ideal circumstances, it is possible to equal the claimed fuel consumption for real. I am not talking about equalling the figure on the on board computer, I am talking about tank full the tank full average. The weather was still and warm but not so hot that I needed air conditioning, I was travelling on single carriageway rural trunk roads which were used by lorries travelling at 40mph max. There were very few opportunities to overtake and even if one could overtake, one would soon find another lorry to follow. The journey was a 37 1/2 mile commute to work and back ( 75 miles a day) and the time period was 7 working days. I had the tyres pumped up to 39 psi at the front and 37 psi at the back, I had also been running on the 0/20 oil as recommended by Toyota/ Lexus. The mode was set in eco and I knew the road extremely well and knew exactly where to glide in order to hit lower speed limits without using the brakes. I also knew the traffic light changing sequencing and sensing so I could usefully harvest regen braking when approaching the three sets of traffic lights along the route. I did not faff about with the 'B' position on the gear stick since I don't think this has anything to do with economy, I just use it instead of engine baking on steep hills so that i dont risk overheating the brake material. There were no steep hills on the route. There was just one infrequently used zebra crossing ( so no sudden need for braking.) The experience was made interesting only by bloody-minded perseverance not to blast the throttle wide open in sport mode when the opportunity arose. The drive on those days was extremely tedious and boring but it made me realise how it might be if we get driver-less cars foisted upon us. I didn't inconvenience any other road users since the lorries and whoever dreamt up the 40 mph speed limit for them ( on single carriageway roads where the speed limit is 60 mph for everyone else) had already done that. It proved to me that the manufacturers got it right.... However it illustrates that the manufacturers do publish utopian figures. Had Bedfordshire council stumped up for a dual carriageway on the A428, I never would have discovered any of this.

No, I'm not a real fun guy, I'm the sort of person who thinks it's funny that people or the companies they work for spend 10s of thousands of pounds on a piece of equipment and don't bother to find out about it. In this age of bean counting efficiency, it is still fashionable to not know anything about simple and basic engineering; like ignorance is an art form.

I think I read the same article. I have tried holding it on the foot brake, holding it on the parking foot brake in neutral and holding it in park. One way blind the guy behind, another way infuriates him while i fumble around with the pedals like a church organ player whilst trying to engage gear. I generally opt for blinding the following driver these days. Sunvisors are useful for cutting down the glare.

It might help with future incidents if people read up on how to jump start Lexus/ Toyota hybrid on board computers. The cars computer is booted up by the 12 volt battery and once this is done, the on board computer enables the traction battery to start the car. Many non specialist garages and recovery companies dont know this and so it is of great benefit for the owners of said vehicles to know something about their own vehicles. The vehicles instruction book helpfully tells the owner how to start up the car should the 12 volt battery fail. Simply by reading this section to the recovery operative, a lot of inconvenience may be avoided should the owner be of the non technical type need to get home with the minimum of fuss. The manufacturers provide the vehicle with instruction books to enable those non technical type owners to be aware of how their vehicles may be operated in the event of some common faults. Those owners who dont read the instructions due to other things in their lives being more interesting/important have only themselves to blame. I parked our hybrid in the airport long stay for a fortnight knowing that the car would most likely run its own12v battery down. I therefore bought and charged a booster battery for it prior to my departure and left the battery in the car ready for our return... so that when i returned to the car after my holiday, i simply connected up the booster battery to the underbonnet jumper terminals and started up the cars computer which in turn started up the cars engine from the traction battery. The whole process took 2 minutes and was spectacularly undramatic and boringly simple.I just had to remember to unlock the car with the key in the lock rather than by pressing the button on the key fob.

I am guessing that the term "for life" means for the life of the gearbox. So the fluid will stay in the gearbox until the gearbox goes wrong. One could say that about any gearbox or engine but manufacturers prefer not to because the chances of the components consistently outlasting any warranty periods are reduced. Replacing the fluid will most likely prolong the life of the gearbox simply because new fluid does its job better than old fluid. The Lexus gearbox has gears and a chain and an electric motor/generator in it. Gears give oil a hard time in that they physically squash and break up the polymer chains contained within oil (ie the gears wear the oil out) with reduced lubrication properties caused by worn out oil, the gears will wear each other out. Wearing gears mean that tiny particles of metal are being washed around the gearbox which contains an electrical motor / generator as well as some bearings. These tiny metal particles will not be doing the electrics or the bearings any good. All this does happen within the Lexus gearbox, however, Lexus (and Toyota) take the view that since, in the most part this doesn't lead to gearbox component failure within the first 100,000 miles, it is of no great importance to the reputation of the company or the product. Of course, if owners of the CT or prius would like to lessen the chances of gearbox failure in the interests of enhanced longevity, then they should change the fluid. My guess is that once the fluid smells burnt, this is indicative of damage to the fluid itself and therefore changing it would be beneficial to enhance the longevity of the system. However, most people would point towards the fact that very very few of these gearboxes fail in the low ambient conditions of this country and so the effort of changing the fluid would be somewhat wasted. Given the reputation of these gearboxes, maybe the realistic lifetime of the best of them is in the region of half a million miles by which time the wheel bearings, engine, suspension and everything else will also be shot. Who knows? What might be the point of having an immaculately kept gearbox surrounded by a barely serviceable car? Could it be like Triggers broom? "this car has had 4 different engines, 10 different drive shafts, 20 sets of brakes, 34 sets of tyres, 3 sets of suspension and two body shells but it still has the same nut behind the wheel and the same gearbox"

We have now completed one full tank after the oil change which I carried with Toyota oil from a sealed can. The improvement, as initially indicated was just over 10%. 59mpg best before oil change, 66mpg now. This has been calculated top up to top up rather than from the on board computer ( on board computer is inaccurate but never the less, consistently inaccurate). The on board computer agreed with these figures in magnitude of percentage savings if not in actual mpg readings. The on board computer actually said about 62 prior to my oil change and said 69.5 today. Arguing that Toyota need have only changed the oil in order to achieve a 10% saving from the previous generation of engines doesn't quite make sense since putting 0/20 oil into a generation2 prius doesn't gain 10% better figures, it achieves about 2% better figures since I tried it. Toyota have actually redesigned the engine and its control protocols and algorithms from the old1.5 to the 1.8. It feels like they have also redesigned the cam profile too in order to achieve higher savings. One thing is very clear in my mind though, the 1.8 engine in the Lexus is definitely suited and designed with 0/20 oil in mind. I have yet to encounter the newer 1.5 engine which is fitted in the yaris but I suspect that it isn't the same as the old 1.5 fitted to the gen 2 prius. Overall, I have to say that I am quite pleased with the results in that I had thought that something was broken when the car wouldn't perform anywhere near as well from 15,000 miles to 50,000 miles as it did from 5000 miles to 15000 miles. This coincided with my wifes increased usage of the car and I had initially assumed that she was heavier footed than I. ( just to explain the out of phase servicing, the car was bought 2nd hand from Lexus with 5000 miles covered and the initial 10000 mile service completed. It seems there is nothing wrong with our car or my wifes driving and the fault lay elsewhere. A fault which I can easily rectify by specifically requesting that the service is not started unless the correct grade of oil is available and is detailed on the service paperwork as having been supplied once the service is complete.

I didn't appear to help much with that seat of yours, they just called it fair wear and tear didn't they?I would imagine they would call my front strut fair wear and tear too. I really don't like extended warranties on Lexus cars since they are charging for something which is included free with Toyotas. IE 5 years full warranty not just the hybrid kit. I don't much like extended warranties full stop. If goods cant last a reasonable time beyond warranty expiry, I lose interest in them pretty quickly. As a general rule if I don't think something will last until I can afford to replace it, I look for a better deal.

I think that your choice of tyre depends upon what you most want the tyre to do.We all want a tyre which costs little, never wears, gives perfect grip in all conditions negating the need for traction control, doesn't ever puncture, is completely quiet, looks good and lasts forever. We are all disappointed in one way or another, however, we all have preferences. I wanted a comfortable tyre which wouldn't break the bank to buy and would have a usefully low rolling resistance whilst retaining good wet weather grip. I wasnt bothered about tyre appearance, stuck to the road handling,or quietness. I firstly opted for 16" wheels to improve ride quality and a cheaper selection of replacement tyres, I then eventually replaced the original bridgestones with a set of goodyear efficient grip which are slightly more economical than the OE bridgestones, perform better than the OE bridgestones in wet and cold weather but wear out slightly quicker than the OE bridgestones.

I think that leaking struts are pretty much at the discretion of the MOT tester as to how much if any leak is permissible. As you say, most will advise. The complete replacement strut cost me £190 inc carriage and VAT.and cost nothing to fit. Since you are interested in costs what do you think it would have cost to have such a job done by Lexus?

Whilst routinely checking the car over and rotating the wheels/ checking brake wear, I noticed the tell tale damp patch on the passenger side front strut. There was oil leaking out of it. Many years ago, cars would fail their MOT on this after only a very few 10s of thousands of miles. Our 4 year old CT has just covered 50,000 miles. I was surprised at how soon the strut has failed and can only assume that it is just one of those things. Changing the strut for a another one was very quick and simple. I sourced another one from a breaker making sure that the replacement didn't come from the f sport. The replacement was colour coded the same as the original and so was bolted on in quick time.The car drives exactly the same as before with little or no perceptible change. One notable observation was how little corrosion there was on any of the components. I am more accustomed to working with classic vehicles which are prone to corrosion on suspension components after as little as 10,000 miles. I now have a spare top mount and spring just in case of the unlikely event of a spring breakage.

I really don't see what might be achieved by talking with Lexus since as far as I can see, this is all perfectly legitimate.My fuelly figure will be more indicative of the real picture when I have finished this tank of fuel. However, early indications are at least 10%, like it or not. Who is to say that the treacle used was 5/30 anyway?It might have been 10/40, 20/50 etc. Point taken about the different generations of Prius which has spurred me to wonder whether an oil grade cheaper than 5/30 was used routinely. All this has caused me to lose all confidence in "professional" Lexus trained personnel.

I have just finished a round trip to my fathers house of 200 miles.On previous occasions, with the previous oil which had been provided and filled by the professionals at Lexus, the car did 61 mpg with the air conditioner off. Today it did 69 mpg with the air conditioner on. Although the on board computer is wildly optimistic and the figures are 10% optimistic, the comparative figures show a considerable improvement which would support my original theory that the Lexus dealers are not fitting the recommended oil as a matter of routine because it is cheaper to them to fil with alternative grades and we, the suckers wont notice, and even if we do they say that they have checked the oil and found it within Lexus recommended guidelines ( which the treacle they have been filling with, is). It seems to be a loophole/catch22 type thing. Cant do anything about it other than specify that the Lexus appointed servicer fills with 0/20 and details this on the invoice. My initial calculations of the savings to be made were a little inaccurate by today's figures. The savings made by filling with the right 0/20 grade oil over whatever was in our car, are greater than 10%. Can one blame a business for trying to find a legitimate way to save themselves money? I would say no. Can I be blamed for feeling a bit put out and feeling a bit ripped off? Again I would say no. Does this make me feel more confident about autotraders boasting "full service history" or would I feel more confident to see "owner maintained". Hmm makes me wonder... " full service bodgery" seems more relevant.

I have just changed the oil. The oil which came out of the car is about 2 weeks old and has done 100 miles. It smelt burnt and was much thicker than the correct toyota 0-20 which I replaced it with. I also noted that a cover appeared to be missing from the underside of the car but it wasn't the cover which would need to be removed for oil and filter changing. Its too early to tell exactly how this has affected fuel consumption. However, early indications are good.

I thought that most modern cars were actually programmed to run maximum advance for whatever fuel was in the system and a sensor in the exhaust system told the ECU whether to retard the ignition or not for lower and higher octanes. However, i am not really sure how this system works with the Atkinson cycle rather than the Otto cycle.

Surprisingly ( not), it doesn't say what type or grade of oil was used. This sort of thing wouldn't be something dreamt up by the mechanics though would it? The invoicers would be "in on the act". The thing is: I believe that both 0-20 and 5-30 are recommended for the car...its just that it uses less fuel if the engine runs with 0-20 in it.