Linas.P

Well... using your phone is not so much solution for outdated maps, it is kind of workaround. Also replacement unit not only resolves the map related issues, but as well improves phone integration overall. Besides I can see why people wouldn't want to get 6 points and £1000 fine just because based on some police officer discretion they glanced too much into their phone. Replacement unit is more of permanent solution (or longer term solution), that does not involve using your phone when driving.

I doubt it has anything to do with their maturity. That is not how car thieves operate. Simply said they have dedicated roles, some steal the car, they get set amount of money for doing it and they take it from your driveway maybe only 20 miles away and park it in some industrial park. Their job done, they do not care the slightest what was in the car and how much it is worth. Separate group then moves the car after some time, same again - set price for set job, which does not include evaluating designer bags value in the car. Third group perhaps dismantles the car into part, same again - they are mechanically minded. At no point there is any incentive to anyone to put anything on ebay, because such action would compromise their operation, if you find your personal item on ebay that can lead the police to the thieves, whereas otherwise they are safe as they did their little dirty part in the process took the salary and are "off the hook". Removal of dash cam is obvious one, if car gets recovered then there may be incriminating information on it, also many dashcams have GPS tracking and similar features. Boot carpet- I suspect were looking for tracker. Carpet under the dash - same reason.

It is quite simple really, the sole purpose of oxygen sensor is to check if there is oxygen in exhaust gas. Hole lets in oxygen from outside and therefore makes oxygen sensor to incorrectly read like there is unburn oxygen in the exhaust, so the ECU thinks that it needs to inject more fuel to match the excess oxygen, as such too much fuel gets injected, whereas there are actually no excess oxygen and you end-up with unburnt fuel and thus petrol smell. This most of the time results to incorrect error code P0420/P0430 displayed, because ECU then assumes it is Catalytic Converter fault for not burning excess oxygen and fuel, system simply does not account for the possibility that there could be hole in the exhaust providing this extra oxygen. As suggested, the most common reason for this code is exhaust leak near oxygen sensor. Cats rarely (if ever) fails on these cars and when they do fail that happens at 200k+, but usually the entire exhaust rusts and crumbles arounds the cats before the cats themselves fail. So the common reason for cat replacement is usually rust, not that cat is no longer works.

Your car being 2008, it will have DVD based system. The disc is located behind hazard light switch, you can see video below on how to access it (if you wonder - yes, two pins are included in your toolbox). That said - updating maps makes no sense, Lexus Sat-Nav was not great even when it was new, now it is horribly outdated and I don't believe latest maps are even available. You can probably get 2018 or 2020 DVD for something like £200, so all you achieving would be to replace 14 year old maps with 6 years old, still not something you can rely on when driving. Solution is to get aftermarket android system, which will have google maps, or even better android auto/crapple carplay and would run circles around outdated sat-nav in the car. The systems starts from around £200. £300-£400 should get you decent one, but even cheapest ones are still many times better than what came out in 2008.

You are best to ask the sellers, they usually insist to see how your unit looks, some even ask you to remove the unit to take pictures of the back connectors to make sure you get the compatible unit. For example I knew exactly what unit I need, but seller basically refused to sell me the unit without taking picture of connector. I have cheated a little bit, found matching unit picture online and sent that. Basically, sellers on aliexpress and similar places, even ebay have incentive to make sure you get the right unit, because if it doesn't work it is expense on them to take it back. So it is not like you can go and order wrong unit and the simply going to ship it to you. As far as units are concerned there are many variations, at least 8, maybe more - it is combination of screen or no screen, ML or non-ML, later HDD versions of several sizes, but in principle they can be put in 3 main categories - with Optical audio-out for ML, with additional connectors for screen/camera, or one without neither. I have noticed that some trims had slightly different button design, IS250C seems to have little bit more chrome, I think Advance trim has like black surround, but all that doesn't matter, it is still same unit underneath. I don't even think it matters if it is HDD or DVD version, the location of connectors may be slightly different, but it will be same connectors based on those 3 broad categories. So simply ask seller if they have unit that fits your car, answer their questions, send pictures and they will tell you which one you need to order.

I see many of those stuck on motorway every day and I always surprised how many cars are broken down... and as far as I know AA doesn't come quick unless you say you are woman with a child and stuck in the live lane. I have heard stories of people waiting even 8h before they come pick the car-up.

The Brigestone Potenza simply isn't great tyre, especially the ones that came originally with the car. I can't really compare like for like as the only had 2 sets I had one mine were Dunlop Sportmaxx SP001 (or something like that) and then Brigestone RE050A which came on facelift and were better than original S001. In short - I never really had modern and good tyres, both Dunlop and Brigestone that came from factory were basically obsolete tyres on the day car was sold. RE050A is actually good high performance tyre suitable for track use, but it is way too grippy for daily and has horrible fuel economy (I think it is rated F). S001 - is just obsolete entry level tyre for OEM to cut costs. So everything was compromise... and generally speaking Brigestone Potenzas and Turanzas that came on Lexus cars IS250, IS300h always had rather poor reputation, so I am not really surprised to hear your experience. Why are Goodyears adding 10% of mileage - did you buy smaller sizes? Because to be honest I if I had All-Season on 300h I would keep them all year round, as it isn't really performance car that requires UUHP tyres to handle in summer and more modern All Seasons are probably better than old Brigestones. Also it could be the case that sitting unused over the winter they got little bit stiff, same applies to new tyres, so you basically shouldn't judge their ride and noise for first say 500 miles, then sometimes they do become more compliant... that said I kind of doubt it. The only Brigestone that is worth considering would be new Potenza Sport, which basically replaced RE050A, but it is also UUHP and compromises you have to make just doesn't make sense on 300h which doesn't really benefit from 9Gs or whatever in the corners.

Indeed, my point was that it isn't explained how they come up with the price before you get the actual offer from dealer. Also probably higher deposit on top of higher residual, so the actual credit amount is not significantly larger. And I am right to assume that all initiatives for BEV/PHEV are now over? Except of maybe charging point grant? And perhaps dealer own initiatives?

I have no experience with current FWD vs. AWD, but have driven new RAV-4 hybrid AWD, which has similar drivetrain to NX350h. Also I have driven last gen NX. First thing - hybrids are not "true" AWD i.e. there is no drive shaft going to the rear, instead they have electric motor in the rear. So for most part there should be no difference in fuel consumption and how the car drives in straight line i.e. there is no drive train loses etc. Sure AWD model will be slightly heavier (maybe 40-50kg), but that would be really trivial impact. Now as far as handling, AWD is surprisingly good, I hate how FWD cars drive with passion, but in NX AWD it really doesn't bother me, despite it basically being FWD car with extra motor tagged in the rear. This is because traction control is quite clever and rear motor acts almost like torque vectoring differential (actually probably exactly like it), so in corner exit and under acceleration car rotates nicely and doesn't understeer like FWD. So even thought it is obviously not sports car it doesn't have that FWD car feeling that I hate, sort of overloaded front axle, fidgeting steering under acceleration, it does actually feel for all intended purposes like well adjusted AWD system. Obviously, rear will never "step out" and it will never power slide, but it works well for reducing understeer and overall gives nice neutral balance. As for drivability, obviously AWD will have an edge in mild offroad, slush, snow, mud etc. Not sure how much of that is relevant in Hampshire, but I was driving one in real winter conditions and in one occasion it literally made the difference between crashing and not crashing (long story, but I am quite convinced I would have crashed if I were in FWD), also it climbed steep slippery hill (be it in 3rd attempt and with some run-up), FWD would have stayed at the bottom of that hill. So that rear motor is not just for fun, it does it's job. If you planning just to drive it in the city or only on motorway, then perhaps it doesn't add much value, but in adverse weather conditions it does help. Tyres shouldn't be a problem, also I believe it is square set-up so they can be rotated anyway. Finally, as mentioned most cars that are in UK and available to buy are AWD, so to get FWD you would need to make it to order, which kind negates any savings on purchase and would mean at least 3 months wait time. Lexus is known to be a company that does not negotiates the price, especially not on NX which are selling quite well anyway, but I guess if you make that proposition that you looking to buy FWD and would only consider AWD if the price is somewhat adjusted, then maybe it would work. For example I just looked at carwow and they reckon you can get AWD for better price than FWD. Meaning Lexus can discount some of the AWDs because they have them in UK, but they are not willing to discount FWDs because they would need to make them to order. I have no idea how carwow comes up with monthly payments (as it seems 450h+ would work out cheaper, maybe some government grand?), but it just shows that price difference between AWD and FWD does not exist in practice, which should also reflect to any pricing in dealership in person.

Sounds similar issue to what I have, mine was damaged around lifting points and surface rust. My solution was simply go over the trouble areas with wire-wheel and sprayed it with black Rust-Oleum paint which is both rust converting and good for protection. Is that complete solution? Obviously not, but for time being it solved the issue cosmetically and at least slows down the car demise... it being 18 years old car, it is quite good going considering there is no rust apart of some surface level. And if that buys me 5 years before more robust solution will need to be used... this is plenty.

eCVT on RC/IS is less dealbreaker to be fair, yes it still drones at 4000RPM or so when you on middle of accelerator, but it revs up if you push it to the floor, or if you go in FSport+ mode fake "upshifts and downshifts" are both instantaneous and satisfying in the bends. I guess if I would improve anything on it, that would be that in Fsport+ manual mode I would make it to keep the "ratio" that you have chosen for longer, or even forever. Currently, it keeps the ratio I don't know... maybe for 30s or for 60s, so sometimes what happens is that by the time you go from one turn to another it goes back to D and drops the ratio. So for example you playing around with paddles on eCVT before the bend you change to "3rd", then "4th" in the bend and you already see another bend, so in such case if you would be in real manual car you stay in 4th, rev it to the limit and before next bend maybe change back to 3rd again... what happens on eCVT is that when you rev out the 4th and let's before the bend with intention with braking a little bit and changing to 3rd the gearbox simply goes to D and sets probably ratio equivalent to 6th, so now you start braking and instead of expected 1 click to go to third, you have to change ratio 3 times. I mean it works like poorly optimised automatic gearbox in this sense, but all that is software and when it works it actually mimics DTC quite well, the only problem is that short memory where after 30s it goes "WTF is going here - I am economy car and 4th gear at 60MPH is not economical, let me fix this". So really the fix would be simple software update where FSport+ and Manual would mean no auto upshifts and it would be in manual mode as long as you keep it there, not just for some arbitrary time. Well the second problem is what engine that eCTV is matched to. GS450h for example is still great car to drive despite eCVT, because drone from nice V6 is not so horrible, drone from pesky 4 cylinder in 300h is much more annoying. But apart of that eCVT in Lexus is one of the best systems where I would go as far as saying I almost like it. In summary - mate it to V6 and make manual mode real manual and the rest is good already.

Don't know - FWD is dealbreaker for me. Even for cars that are not sports cars and maybe don't have that much more power RWD drives much better.

To be fair these awards are a little bit of a joke... Best Private Bank, Best Car Dealer... they are not strictly speaking "bought", but there are publications and awards that are set-up in such a way that it makes the brand to look good either way. Sort of "you are most beautiful woman named Karen I met in last 30 seconds" compliment. As you can see from nominations - dozen centres got awards in some category and there are no second places and no losers, everyone is a winner! Also it is quite clear that these are just Lexus centres, so it really says nothing about how they compare overall (even if I believe Lexus would still be better than most other brands). In short what I am saying - there are not very objective awards.

That was good decision, GS450h is amazing car and late mk4 facelift cars are extremely rare, but £30k for 2017 car... c'mon! That is ridiculous, even the cleanest example ever! LC500 definitely much more special car and I reckon will keep value much more, even if you go for hybrid LC500h (which is basically a improvement on 450h) it is just next generation car. Sure - money being no object GS450h with low miles is great car, but rest assured when you try to trade it in 2 years later Lexus will value it probably at £15,000, it only makes sense to buy it if it would have depreciated in line with it's age, but it has not and you likely would have been the one to pick-up whole depreciation few years later. There is no way it could be worth that money... £20k perhaps would be more realistic and can see it working out, but not £30k.

Cannot find reference of that in repair manual. My assumption would be that this would be controlled by ECU (as everything fuel related is controlled by ECU) and the main sensor that feeds ECU the is this "yaw rate and acceleration sensor": I do not believe that potholes can be that bad to trigger this sensor, perhaps it was the case in older cars, but this would be quite sophisticated sensor which looks at multiple parameters and for it to be triggered by pothole the impact would need to be such that you probably would lose parts of your suspension before you get some sort of trigger to cut-off fuel. Certainly I have never heard of that happening to anyone.

Not sure in what context you are asking, but the main one that is used for stability control is below the infotainment and some vents at the central console.

I agree that from 50MPH up it pulls really strongly, but utility of that is rather limited. I can't really say I like the engine, only in isolation it is slightly more exciting than 300h. I think my key issue remains that Toyota/Lexus is probably best resourced automotive company in the world and that is the answer they come-up with? 2L turbo engine that uses more fuel than 3L V6 despite having less power?! Just doesn't make sense... I don't like 300h either, I do find them relaxing/boring to drive, but after owning one I am really not sure what Lexus even tried to achieve with 200t?! Throughout my ownership I felt like driving rental car all the time, that sort of feeling - "it is nice an comfortable car, which sort of does what the car needs to do, but I just don't care about it, the engine is just not exciting, but because it is 'temporary' car I kind of don't mind it"... And this is unusual for me, for many people that is normal, they lease the car for few years, they trade it in, they get another car and never care about what they have. But I am never like that, I do care about the cars and I do appreciate what I have and I like to have that attachment to the car, sort of desire to work on it, detail it, modify it etc. But with RC200t I never had this appreciation for the car mainly because of the engine, I just do not consider it good engine, and especially I do not consider it acceptable coming from the company like Lexus, who can do better, who have better engines. So again going back to rental car driving... for me it was like you rent premium car and let's say it is Mercedes E-Class, so you may get E300 or E220d, you may prefer E300, but at the desk they say "it is that black car on the right, it is diesel, full tank now, return with full tank"... so it is not like you going to start argument and say "ohhh no I don't want E220d, I want E300".... it is rental, it is E-Class, it gives you certain level of comfort and that is end of it, you use it, drop it off week later, you don't care if it had Harman Kardon stereo, sunroof, or what colour combination it was etc. It is feeling of sort of not caring, because it is not your car... and RC200t, specifically the engine in it was such a turn-off for me that I really didn't care about the car, never felt excited about owning it. And I assume same would apply to 300h. I really wish there would be RC200t on the market today with blown engine for cheap (or 300h for that matter, 300h actually would be better because of £20 road tax)... I probably would go ahead and put some more exciting engine in it and that is what would make that car great... sadly these engines are reliable, not very likely to see one blown at any time soon.

I owned RC200t with the "8FARTS" engine as I like to call it, not sure there is point for me repeating all the detailed stuff, but the summary would be - wrong engine for wrong car, horrible fuel economy for what it delivers (drove RC-F with 5L engine and back to back on the same road it was more fuel efficient), the gearbox is not well adjusted for the engine (so it is indeed hunting for gears, very similar gearbox in RC-F/IS-F works flawlessly, so is not gearbox fault, but the poor paring with engine that had very short power range). Overall, think Lexus could not decide what they wanted to do with the car, they wanted to make it more economical and adjusted it for that, but car has worse fuel economy, yet because it was adjusted for economy it has no character either. So it is economy car that is not economical and sports car that is not sporty... In particular when comparing with IS250 it is very disappointing, 4GR-FSE is smooth and happy revving engine which provides almost instant response, despite having more power IS200t would be behind IS250 up-to 40MPH and probably only catch it up by 50MPH, to beat it by 0.5 second to 60MPH. So the issue is response compared to NA engine, on you reach like 50MPH and you in right gear IS200t really pull strong to something like 110MPH, but that is no longer practical nor really needed. Also I have speculated that 3GR-FSE which has roughly comparable power is better engine and now I am very confident about that (after owning GS300), it has more power, it is more responsive and smoother, it sounds better and in the end it is more economical... It is complete mystery what 8FARTS exists as an engine, it really doesn't do anything well, except of maybe beating some theoretical emissions test. Easiest way to find out is to go an try it yourself... although word of warning, it didn't feel as bad to me when I test drove it, compared to living with it day to day, so if at all possible extended test drive is recommended.

Highly recommended for front bumper and headlights at very least. Sadly, on most used cars it is already moon-cratered so it is too late, but on new RC that is probably the best way. Next step would be entire front + mirrors + door edges + rear arches. Second big sad, I remember the times when front of the car protection was £150, entire car PPF was maybe £400... now some companies charge as much as £2000 for PFFing the car... it is ridiculous. Although, that said RC front bumper is very intricate piece so I would expect to pay more for it to be done.

Last time I checked it was more like £600-700.

Basically when you buy the cable it comes with a version of questionable legitimacy Techstream either way, whenever you use that or rent the software is then down to you, but you still have to buy cable from ebay or similar site. As for any difference in functionality - I really doubt there is any, perhaps if you working on latest car that matters, but as far as I know even version supplied with the cable goes as far as 2021.

Yeah - that sounds proper, however Lexus is really not like that, Dealer local to me has agreement with local hand wash, nut sure what they pay per car, but it can't be more than £2... so they literally just take car to scratch wash. And other dealer I used had dedicated washing area, but basically they just hire cleaning agency and literally the same guy finished moping the floor and then goes to wash the cars. When I want to scratch my car I can do it myself, don't need Lexus to include that into the service 😄

I don't remember, I know it was cheapest policy available, likely it was fully comp. But even then, even today fully comp is about the same price as TPO and TPO+F, for many year fully comp. was actually cheapest for me as well... Some non-sense about "people who don't get fully comp. are considered more risky", or maybe other way around "people who chose third party only are more risky"... basically there was some excuse to price TPO higher. I remember making mistake once and providing my actual phone number when comparing the quotes and it was few years later after £36,000 quote, so insurance probably was already like £16,000 or £14,000 by then... and I received the call from the cheapest quote provider asking me to confirm if "I want to proceed with the quote"... and I was like "seriously, have you seen the fffing price?!" and the guy on the other end was actually annoyed and said "OKEY, Jesus... if you don't want don't insure with us then!"... as if the price was somehow realistic for somebody to pay and my answer could have been anything but "ffff-off". To be fair - obviously it was not his fault that the price was the way it was, but also it was almost cheeky to ask if I want to pay £16,000 to insure £800 worth of Ford Focus LX 1.3L - "yeah sure... go ahead then, I am just going to pay 20x the price of the car". Actually, on other occasion I have said that... and lady casually womansplained to me that "it is not about the price of the car, but is about the risk you as a driver may pose and thus is calculated to cover that risk"... thanks lady, I never thought about that... "now it totally makes sense why ~22 years old has to pay over £10,000 for insurance... simple - it is just about inherent risk they are".

Indeed it does, if you keep running same quote over and over again, you will find that price sometimes jumps by £100 out of the blue.

The point I am making - it is definitely recorded on your file, it does not matter which insurance company you are with today, they will all record it in database, it may not affect you right aways, but it may affect you if you chance the insurance company. Exactly as it happened to me, I was with eSure on IS250, paying something similar to you, maybe £560, had windscreen replaced, no jump in price next year, but then an idiot crashed into me, car got written-off and I moved onto RC. Called-up eSure to tell them I have changed the car not expecting anything as I had maybe 2 months left on that policy, I thought if the price goes-up then it maybe £100 at most for remaining 2 months... The answer I got - "sorry sir, but we can't insure this car for you AT ALL, because of 2 claims" (had 1 two years prior as well, also non-fault)... And then when I shopping around I was told there are also 3 claims... and also I was told most ridiculous thing "yes £3000 insurance is justified for such powerful sports car for young driver"... I am sorry - who are you calling young?! I was like 2 month away from 30 back then and RC "power full sports car?" Who are you kidding, bog standard 2L turbo with 241hp... same as entry level BMW 320i... That it has 2 less doors doesn't make it neither powerful, nor sports. So my insurance for RC was like £1,600 in the end, but I found shorter policy, so basically got extra year of NCB in 10 months and also the first claim expired and then insurance went back to normal ~£800 for normal policy for second year. Also it was brutal as long as I can remember - my first quote at 19 was £36,000 (thousand, not hundred) and I could not afford pretty much any car because of insurance until I was nearly 25, first IS250 insurance with black box was £2,600... I mean sure at that time I could get insurance maybe for £1000 for some Focus or Fiesta, but still...