Wass

Since our car has been serviced by Lexus its entire life, I have wondered whether the oil being used is always 0-20 or the much cheaper 5-30 grade. We had an old prius which I used to use 0-20 grade oil from an original toyota container. The CT goes to be tended professionally and I noticed that having both oil changes in the same week, keeping both the cars in the same garage at the same temperature, the oil dripped off the Prius dipstick much faster than the CT dipstick. The reason I decided to check the two together was because I originally bought the car 2nd hand, newly serviced from Lexus Tunbridge Wells and drove the car for the next 10000 miles averaging 65 mpg. We then had the car serviced locally but i started to drive the Prius because my wife and I decided to swap since the prius was higher mileage and i was just ramping up the CT mileage. Since getting the car serviced locally, neither of us have ever got close to the average i initially managed in the first 10000 miles. I once queried the dealer about this problem and they "analysed" the oil an pronounced it "within Lexus specification". Now I am going to change the oil and filter myself and will use the 0-20 toyota oil and see whether our lost 10% fuel economy returns. I have done the maths and I have calculated that over 10000 miles, using the thicker oil costs £45 more even allowing for the fact that the thinner oil costs more than the thicker oil. I will report my findings.

The thing is that so called zero emission cars.... aren't. How many emissions do they cost to manufacture and how many emissions do they cost to charge? Most so called zero emission cars have such all weather range issues that it is difficult to find somewhere to use them which doesn't have good public transport. Persons who actually need long range all weather "zero" emission vehicles can not find appropriate vehicles because there aren't any. This seems like another everywhere is like London scheme. Ill thought out. ..Again. Looks like its back to the good old gas guzzling days then! Who needs new cars?

It is most likely that the professional forgot to top up the system after the initial start up. This is one reason why I have never attached much importance to the phrase "full service history" When I carry out maintenance tasks I have the time to check, check and check again since getting things right is my priority whereas the professional needs to make money in order to live. I came across this very instance when I sold a classic Triumph TR6 motorcycle to a collector who had just taken delivery of his professionally restored Bonneville. The TR6 started more easily and accelerated and stopped better than the Bonneville simply because it took me four years to get it to that state...about 46months longer than the professional could afford. Professionals are in the most part rushed and are likely to make mistakes because they are human. An amateur will take the time to read instructions several times and collect all the necessary tools, parts and materials prior to starting and will double check the work as it progresses.The amateur will make more mistakes but will correct them all, unless the amateur makes the mistake of trying to appear to be a professional. Right... thats pulled the pin...lets see if any professional grenades go off:):):)

Ha ha... I hadn't realised it was a type of driver, I just thought the person I know that does this should have their licence revoked because they couldn't drive properly. A learner would fail their test for this.

Perhaps a previous owner or the infamous Lexus Cambridge spilt something or used an inappropriate treatment on your seat prior to the car coming into your posession Adam. Just a thought. I drove a number of jaguars in the late seventies and eighties I drove a number of Volvos in the nineties and noughies and all of them had perfect leather throughout at 50,000 miles. Although our lexus has the cheaper fabric upholstery and am not able to comment first hand about Lexus leather, I am surprised that you have had trouble this early in the cars life.

Interesting. On another forum which is for motorcycles , I am a moderator and members "sales" are easy to access... However, the sales are very few and far between simply because the members have very little for sale which is relevant to the forum and those few items which show up for sale are all relevant. There has been no removal of any advertisment. I think that this is because the purpose of the forum is to focus on one particular issue; in the case of this forum it would be the Lexus CT, why would anyone think that their e bay goods might be interesting if they arent relevant? and why would they think that the moderators would allow irrelevant adverts? Perhaps it is because there is some resentment from the spam advertisers who so obviously polute the forum with unrelated carp (oops spelt wrong) There's one showing now which shows stuff from an outfit chosing to call itself "muddlebox "( opps spelt wrong again) Is this the sort of Tom ***** or Harry that you were talking about?

Why?

Misaligned bonnet and steering too? There's a conclusion I would draw. I agree with Adam, I live near to Lexus Cambridge and yet I drive all the way to Hatfield to have our CT serviced.When the salesman at Cambridge tried to sell me a CT we decided that we would be better off going elsewhere. As it happened, Hatfield hadn't got the CT we wanted and so we went to Tonbridge Wells instead.

If you think about it, the CT ( and the prius for all it matters) transmission is designed to pull 41/2 adult passengers and bags along roads which are a mixture of climbs and descents at a reasonable turn of speed in all manner of ambient temperatures. The engine,suspension and brakes are also designed with these parameters in mind too. If we were to live in a country where there were no laws governing how one used their own vehicle, no type approval, no claims on manufacturers etc then the law of common sense would return to the fore. Common sense would show that the cars are designed to deliver a certain amount of performance in terms of hauling loads long distances; common sense would show that it really didnt matter all that much whether the load was in the form of one fat driver and a luggage load of 400kg equalling a total load of half a tonne or one fat driver, 3 medium build passengers, one child and a load of baggage in the boot and on the roof totaling half a tonne. Does it not follow that if it werent for the various rules it would be ok to run the cars with a medium build driver and passenger towing a trailer with an all up weight of 1/4 tonne? ( provided that the tow hitch attachment points were robust enough?) Clearly, the type approval and also the manufacturers and insurers concern relates to the people who could try to move total loads which were in excess of the capability of the car. In the case of our cars, i would suspect that the electrical motor, the inverter, the traction battery and possibly the transmission would be susceptible to damage through overloading. I notice that the 7 seater Prius doesnt run as economically as the 5 seater prius and I assume that in order to protect the car against overloading the prius plus utilises lower overall gearing.

I wasn't aware there was any difference between the windscreens 2014-2015 or even 2011-2015; perhaps it is just a tint shade? it will be interesting to find out the answer to this.

One thing is for sure: Lexus do not allow cars with mis- aligned bonnets to leave the factory. So whatever the misalignment implies some form of interference since it left the factory. An honest sales person would have/should have told you this

Even if you don't feel able to fit the parts yourself, it is quite often cheaper to ask the dealer to fit the parts than the other option: shop around for a car which already has cruise control and trade in for it.

The jump start terminals are located away from the batteries under the bonnet ( see the instruction book). As Steve 2006 points out, the best battery to use for this is an auxiliary battery which isn't connected to any other vehicle.

You can jump start a hybrid. The manual tells you how to do it. In a nut shell, you only need a 12volt battery to start the hybrid computer - the computer then starts the engine from the traction battery... you must not have the other car running whilst jump starting the hybrid computer. Jump starting from a 12 volt battery is very straight forward and easily achieved. The problem is that you should not jump start another car from a hybrid since the hybrid battery is not designed to turn a starter motor. That is, unless the other car just happens to be a hybrid waiting for its computer to boot up in order for the engine to be started from the traction battery.

Apparently it isn't just a case of crushed fingers if you get it wrong, its a case of loading it onto a breakdown truck for it to be carried to the lexus dealer to be reset. There is an article on u tube by an unfortunate american chap who got it wrong. The automatic device kicked in and triggered a fault which rendered the car inoperable and unable to be moved. I read somewhere that this device has to be built into the car in order to provide a brake servo when the car is running on electricity.

Be careful what you are doing when you change the pads. There is a device which pumps up the brakes as soon as you approach the car with the keys.... this same device still tries to work when you are working on the brakes. I believe that there is a Utube article about this for generation 3 prius brakes. They recommend unlocking the car and opening the drivers door and then taking the keys well away from the car prior to disconnecting the battery and prior to tinkering with the brakes. Also I seem to remember somebody muttering something about fluid sensing. I cant remember whether this was a prius owner or a prius dealer though. Pardon the reference to prius but the braking systems are very similar to the CT.

There are just two of us with occasional needs to carry additional passengers. Our CT ticks all the boxes for us ,however, I imagine that if we had a larger dog or a child, I believe that we would very soon be found wanting for more space.

I fitted goodyear efficient grip 12 months ago. They wear well, they are said to be economical low rolling resistance ( although I think that the difference between the most efficient and least efficient on the Lexus is quite small in terms of mpg- nothing I can prove, just a feeling) they are also quieter than the standard tyres and their performance is predicable and sure footed. Having driven on ice and snow with them, they aren't winter tyres but I didn't lose traction. However, maybe it is as a result of my particular style of driving that I have to say that the OE Bridgestones delivered quite similar traction results except with just slightly worse wet weather traction on greasy roundabout exits. The really nice thing about the goodyears which outperforms a lot of other tyres is the £69 per tyre price tag. We also have a Honda insight to which I have recently ( 4 months ago) fitted Dunlops instead of the OE Bridgestones. The Dunlops are not as good as the Bridgestones for economy. I immediately lost an average 2 mpg. Wet weather grip on the Dunlops is much better. Dry weather grip is about the same. Dunlops are a bit more noisey. Can't comment on the Dunlops snow and ice performance since we just haven't had any snow and ice.

I have never encountered this issue because I check the tyre pressures ( about every other week). I appreciate that some may not have the time or inclination to check tyre pressures and may not have any copper grease to hand. In the past, when needing to lay my hands on a very small quantity of anti corrosive or lubricating oil I use a drop of oil from the engine dip stick. I would use any oil or grease very sparingly on the tyre valve threads to make sure that nothing gets inside the valve itself or reacts with the rubber surface of the valve body.

A less obvious advantage of a space saver is it allows for wheels to be more easily rotated on a routine basis. Whilst routinely rotating wheels it is easy to spot evidence of brake caliper corrosion and binding and thus maintaining a better and safer vehicle. I still prefer to have 5 full sized, full spec wheels. It is much simpler to change a full size with the spare and then take the spare to be repaired/retyred. This is made almost impossible by manufacturers with some of them making the front wheels and rear wheels to a different design on some models ( mercedes). There will always be the argument that weight is "saved". Some weight could be "saved" by simply adopting the BMW weight saving approach of having a 9 litre fuel tank on their i3 range extender after all, there is a fuel station within a few miles of most people in UK. I suggest that weight saving is a salesmen/ manufacturers excuse/attempted hoodwink for penny pinching. I am 6'2" and weigh 100kg, my wife is 5'6" and weighs 35kg less than me and yet when I drive the car I get 10 to 20% better fuel consumption;so obviously weight saving has only a minimal effect on efficiency. Also, as far as I know, the official fuel consumption figures which all of the governments departments rely on do not take vehicle weight into account.

I don't see that you will have an issue anyway since as far as I and the JD power survey can see, CTs just do not have problems with engineering issues.

Our 11 plated CT has not set a foot wrong. It has 45K on the clock and hasn't been to a dealer for anything other than routine or planned visits such as servicing or MOT. Toyota are giving most of the CT running gear 5 year warranty and Lexus are supposed to be better build quality than Toyota and so could be considered to be a safer bet. The only problems we have had with the CT are to do with absent minded nitwits at supermarkets routinely running into it.

Cant help you with the colour shade but don't be too hard on yourself. I only drive our CT at week ends since I use another car to commute these days, however, I did notice that I mildly scuff the CT tyres about once a month whereas I just don't scuff or kerb my commuter at all. I suspect that it is because of the orientation of the wheels / body shape. My CT alloys remain in good condition and the last time I changed the tyres the side walls were also in good condition from the inside as well as the outside. My car has the 16" wheels. I am also an IAM member and scold myself for forgetting the width of CT track is wider in relation to the bodywork than my commuting hack.

The americans have had spare tyres (tires) all along. Some (but not all) of the so called upgrades aren't anything which the american market CTs have been fitted with from day one.

Our pattern of usage is predominantly driving outside Cambridgeshire away from green crusaders on bicycles and built up areas. Journeys are generally in excess of 20 miles on single carriageway country A roads with an average speed similar to the lorries one inevitably has to follow on such roads. Cambridge roads in my opinion were poor the last time I was unfortunate enough to find myself on one. All those road safety anoraks preaching about pushbikes and 20mph when the city council couldn't even be bothered to re-paint the faded and hard to see cycle lane white lines( or any other road markings) in the majority of the city and outlying areas. As far as tyre life is concerned I rotate them and replace them either when damaged or at about 2- 2.5mm or when I feel that they are weathered and aged to a level whereby I am getting too much understeer. I never pay any attention to mileage covered. By the time I replace the tyres, they are all evenly worn to the same degree and so I replace them all at the same time.This process gets a bit disjointed when I get a damaged tyre. Unlike days of old when you could replace the damaged tyre with a new one and simply run around with the new tyre as the spare until such time as the remaining 4 wore out, most cars no longer come with 5 wheels and tyres which can be easily and effectively managed so as to overcome any issues with running full tread tyres alongside part worn tyres.