Rabbers
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Winter driving, share your tips please
Rabbers replied to Newbie777's topic in Lexus Owners Club Lounge
If you want a nice smell from your windscreen fluid (as well as effectiveness) pop into your nearest BMW dealer and get a bottle of their winter or summer strengths as necessary. I drove BMWs before converting to Lexus nearly two decades ago but I still use their windscreen wash. The stuff has occasionally been reformulated but the smell has remained basically unchanged - mildly antiseptic with a hint of violets, my nose tells me. Not that I’ve tried, but It would probably work as an after-shave. -
Winter driving, share your tips please
Rabbers replied to Newbie777's topic in Lexus Owners Club Lounge
And so it is just about everywhere in Europe, which doesn’t mean everybody knows it. -
Winter driving, share your tips please
Rabbers replied to Newbie777's topic in Lexus Owners Club Lounge
When you remove snow from the car don’t be lazy and leave any significant amount on the roof. If you brake suddenly it may slide down onto your windscreen and block your view. Or if it blows off onto the road behind it could turn out to be even more of a danger than a discourtesy to other cars. -
Is this why Lexus is increasingly attractive to thieves?
Rabbers replied to LenT's topic in Lexus General Discussions
Times change, not always for the better. There was a time when it was not unknown for Lexus salesmen to include a statistically demonstrable mention of the low likelihood of theft in their spiel to prospective customers. Nowadays, sad to say, it would perhaps be more reasonable for them to admit that theft, even more than imitation, is the sincerest form of flattery. -
You can on the RC300h by turning the mechanical key clockwise in the door if the battery is flat or if the smart-entry system is de-activated. I don’t know about the CT.
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I decided not to directly respond to the question because it does not allow for a nuanced opinion. If I drove slower - which I probably generally did - when I first had a hybrid, which was a Lexus, and still do now that I have a fourth hybrid, which is also a Lexus, it was and is not because of the type of powertrain but because I have always found the experience of driving a Lexus so pleasant that I more or less consciously feel encouraged, within the bounds of practicality, to prolong it.
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Dog Crate Friendly??
Rabbers replied to Parker87's topic in Lexus RC Owners Club / RC 200t / RC 300h Club
Sorry about that, truly I am. Wish him a Happy New Year from me, and give him an extra biscuit. All the Best, R. -
Dog Crate Friendly??
Rabbers replied to Parker87's topic in Lexus RC Owners Club / RC 200t / RC 300h Club
As an RC owner of many years’ standing my advice to prospective pet transporters would be for them to get a hamster. -
TBH I’m not too well versed in the niceties of generational changes to the LS430 but, based on a certain “boxiness” of appearance, I would bet on the “Danish” example being an early model. What I remember about the ghastly “Rumania/Milan” example since it was parked with its tail to me, is that it had twin exhausts, which, unless I’m mistaken, would make it a facelift model. I would think your best chance, even though it’s a very slim one, of clapping eyes on an early LS in Italy would be in the Rome area. It is said that the original Rome Lexus dealership in its early days sold more cars to the local diplomatic community alone than were sold by all other dealers in Italy put together.
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On several occasions over more than a decade on visits to Denmark I have seen what I assume to be the same silver LS430. My sightings of it have all been along Strandvejen, namely the coast road north of Copenhagen which includes some of the country's wealthiest suburbs. If, as seems likely, it was imported new, the list price would have been upwards of DKK1.5 mio., which, if memory serves, was the equivalent of £125K in the early 2000s. At that price it would have been a top manager's company car and certainly not privately owned. At any rate, there would have been very few. The only LS430 I have ever seen in Italy was a couple of years ago in a car-park in Milan and it had Rumanian plates. It was white, refurbished inside in red velvet with tassels and fringes, and I suspect it belonged to a gypsy. Hopefully it was only passing through on its way to somewhere else. I don't recall ever seeing one in Germany, which I find strange given that long autobahn drives often result in the sighting of a quite comprehensive cross-section of the past and present European car population including a few rarities.
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I’ve never owned one but know quite a few people who have. Leaving aside whether you can afford to buy, tax and insure one in the first place, you could, if you lived in Italy and preferably within a 100km radius of the Maranello factory near Modena, quite easily find independent garages or individual mechanics capable of properly servicing and generally maintaining your Ferrari with reasonable charges for labour. The sting is in the mechanical and body spare parts, which are almost all model-specific and so mind-bogglingly costly as make Lexus appear cheap. The same goes for Lamborghini.
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Non-IS friendly sloped drive - any good ideas?
Rabbers replied to Maxz's topic in Lexus IS 300h / IS 250 / IS 200t Club
You might want to look at a thread on this topic IS300H Ground Clearance & Steep Driveways started on this forum by sc489 on 6 March 2015. Several of us had this problem but, regrettably, no solution was forthcoming. -
RC 300h F-Sport 2018 boot latch issues
Rabbers replied to Albbyel's topic in Lexus RC Owners Club / RC 200t / RC 300h Club
I recall a related but less serious problem with the boot-lid of my 2016 RC300h. Quite often it didn't close at the first attempt, and on one occasion it sprang open when I drove over a bump. I resolved the problem simply by putting a drop of oil on the catch and its housing and working the mechanism a few times. To be precise, I used Singer Sewing Machine Oil, courtesy of my wife - but I'm sure any light mineral oil would also have done the trick. I don't know if this will also work for you, but it will do no harm to try. -
I may be wrong but I thought the correct English nomenclature was Hock, and that you’ll find the best bottles in the cellars of one or two wine merchants in St James who are only too happy to sell them back to Germany.
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Steering weight
Rabbers replied to Masiv44's topic in RX 300 / RX 350 / RX 400h / RX 200t / RX 450h Club
One of the first things I have noticed on driving unfamiliar Lexus models, for example in the case of test drives, loaners and new purchases, is the different weightings of the steering. The differences are slight and one adjusts to them so quickly as to be left wondering if they actually existed. Frankly, I’ve never thought to mention it before now because of the possibility of subjective impression. Be this as it may, I have found the steering to be lighter in larger cars like the RX, NX and ES than in smaller ones like the RC, IS and CT. -
“Mitbestimmung”?
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I love snow, but only on Xmas cards.
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Tyre pressures have dropped
Rabbers replied to AlanDL's topic in Lexus NX300h / NX200t / NX350h / NX450h Club
Without being asked to do so, my tyre guy, when fitting my winter tyres, adds 0.1-0.2 BAR bringing the recommended pressures of 2.5 all-around in the RC's case to 2.6-2.7. This has always proved sufficient for them not to drop below 2.2 at worst even after overnight parking in the open at temperatures perhaps as low as -10°C. -
I don’t doubt that owners need all the luck they can get in terms of reliability but I would think the designers were aiming for an intimidating knitted brow/frown effect. Somewhat ridiculously in my opinion.
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Do they make ES windscreens out of perspex...?
Rabbers replied to Mincey's topic in Lexus ES 300h Club
Windscreen repairing/replacement is certainly a growth business in Italy and no doubt elsewhere. Within a 20km radius of my home I can today choose between four different franchises. Five years ago there was only one. Yes, I will be touching wood immediately after posting this. -
I would guess that if factory pressures are set higher for Lexus it might be because all or almost all units are shipped from Japan whereas most Toyota delivery distances are relatively much shorter and conditions prospectively less onerous.
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User name or password incorrect
Rabbers replied to Malcolm Kemp's topic in Lexus UX200, UX250, UX250h, UX300e Club
Thanks for the prompt reaction. I believe I did nothing incorrectly since the login instructions and procedure are perfectly simple and clear and by no means unfamiliar. The issue seems to have purely concerned password recognition, and now thankfully appears to be resolved. -
User name or password incorrect
Rabbers replied to Malcolm Kemp's topic in Lexus UX200, UX250, UX250h, UX300e Club
I got the message to sign in as an existing member of the LOC every time I tried to post on a Forum this past week using my iPhone but not my Mac even though the two are linked. Whenever I tried to log in on the iPhone after being asked to confirm, successfully, that I am Not A Robot, I was then told that either my User Name or my Password were incorrect when neither of them were. So I proceeded to change my password anyway and twice managed to successfully log in and post in swift succession. But not the next day, when I needed to repeat the whole sequence again after my access was several times locked for, strangely, “14 Minutes” each time before I could Try Again. If the present writing successfully posts I will be happy to think that my latest password has finally been accepted or adopted or registered or digested or whatever by the system. I know, Malcolm, that we are talking about different systems but it could perhaps be that for some reason or another both systems require time for password changes to be recognized. -
There was another LOC post on this subject some years ago, and as I was at my dealership waiting for my car to be serviced, I mentioned it to the workshop manager, who is also responsible for inspecting new cars on their receipt into stock. He confirmed that new Lexus (though not in his experience Toyota) cars arrive with tyres overinflated by 0.2-0.3BAR or more and therefore require correction before sale (which does not mean that all dealers are efficient or conscientious enough to do it). He could offer no explanation beyond the probability that the potentially huge fluctuations in temperatures during maritime transportation from Japan to all parts of the world might involve the risk of a significant reduction of tyre pressures and therefore of prospective damage to the tyres themselves not only when the cars are driven off the boats but also during the further series of reconsignments and reloadings they undergo before reaching their final destinations.
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Driving without the display screen.
Rabbers replied to RKane's topic in Lexus NX300h / NX200t / NX350h / NX450h Club
I once tried turning the display off in order to see if I could do without the map screen, which I habitually keep on - I imagine like most people - even when I know exactly where I am and where I am going and consequently have no need for the nav function. I must admit that my experiment was of very brief duration for the simple reason that I almost immediately understood that an active screen regardless of the content has for better or worse become an essential component of my cabin environment notwithstanding its frequent redundancy.