Linas.P

Try IS220d... On a serious note, why would RC windscreen would be any different?

Even then it is unacceptably slow, BMW518d is not comparable car as it is half class above yet cheaper (cheapest of the type), but any car in similar price and range - say BMW 4-Series Grand coupe 420i will be faster. Finally, the point is not about 0-60, the point is about Lexus "not even trying"...

Did you actually red into those threads - both times the issue was faulty solenoid, not actual A960E having mechanical problem. Anyhow, the price quoted ($5100) is just american dealer quote - has no bearing to real life. Anything substantial will always cost thousands from dealer, take for example IS220d engine - £8000 to replace! Ar you actually telling me that there is a sane person on Earth who would be paying that money when entire car costs less then £2200 and engines are plentiful in scrappies for £250-400. Secondly, you undermine your own argument saying, that clutch in 100k miles is no issue for you because you will replace the car before that - can we not make same argument for AT then? Even if we assume it will explode after 140-160k? That is irrelevant right - because you would have changed the car well before 100k anyway....

After reviewing the details with TP insurance they have changed their mind now. Car is no longer Cat-N, the repair cost was reduced to £2025, so they will be repairing car starting from Monday. I am kind of lost what is going on... I guess £2855 and keeping the N-Cat car was much better proposition, but cannot complain either way.

If Merc is not customisable... What about Lexus then? I ran google search - "A960E transmission problems/ +faults/ +replacement/ +failure", scrolled trough first 5 pages didn't found any actual issue. There are topics like "what to look after", "how likely it is to fail", "how much would be replacement if it would fail" etc. Not as single person reporting the fault. Now I don't say that faulty transmissions don't exist - but I cannot find any case of that. Again if you have the link to those "several threads" I would be more then happy to read it. I can find you several threads in this forum (never mind google) about manual gearbox with DMF issue or needing clutch replacement (it is not even fault, it is more like when not if). No response for the cost? £5000.. no? Or do we agree the actual costs are like 10x smaller? smaller then even average clutch replacement? In which case it doesn't even matter if the gearbox "craps out" at 140k miles - still cheaper then clutch replacement...

1 - my IS250 has same gearbox and same engine as your GS250, I never ever heard of one failing ever. If you have the source please share it with us - everyone will benefit from it. My claims of manual gearboxes needing replacement clutch, DMF are well known and prices are well known, and by the way - if either of those things fails the bast way is to replace whole set, so it might even need doing more often then 100k miles. Secondly, you claim of £5000 replacement is sorry for language but total bull****! The entire IS250 doesn't cost that - maybe dealership going to quote that cost internally (as that is tax efficient), but that is not the cost of replacement. If we looking at values "like for like" for which is "used to used" - then the engine gearbox combo is £800, the gearbox alone ~£300-500, entire write-off IS250 is £500-1000 depending on the damage, so your £5000 gearbox charge is simple non-sense. What would be the cost of manual gearbox replacement quoting same dealer prices, I guess something like £3800? Apples and oranges comparison. 2. yes you are right, many people like many different things. I doubt it has anything to do with "premium brand" or "luxury car"... sounds more like negative thing for me in luxury car. IN performance/sports car different thing, but that is different topic. Finally, do you actual mean manual or dual-clutch auto counts, does sequential box counts, does "manual-ised" auto counts, does fast-auto counts (like AA80E)? - or you saing everyone in IS-F, RC-F, GS-F doesn't have proper control of the car, because of non-manual box? I mean I understand and agree, that being in control of the gears gives extra control, but you can have auto and be in control nowadays, it is not necessary to have clutch to do that anymore.

The whole MT vs. AT discussion is pretty pointless nowadays. In the past MTs had advantage for faster shift times, more reliable and cheaper to repair etc. Nowadays it is pretty much the difference between having clutch or not having one, ATs are fast enough (never mind PDK, DSG etc. which are much faster the any human can blink, never-mind change the gear). When it comes to maintenance AT boxes actually needs less maintenance and if they go wrong nobody fixes one, it is almost always cheaper to find used box and replace it. Historically ATs would have been much more expensive to replace, partially because they were much rarer - nowadays when it is almost standard I reckon it could be cheaper to get used AT, then MT for some cars. Now as @st4 mentioned "clutch" is £200, but AT box is "thousands" to repair - again nobody repairs gearboxes anymore, secondly say replacing clutch on IS250 is not that small of the job - you will needs springs, cylinders and whilst you under the car anyway DMF and pressure plate replacement are just no-brainer... all in all clutch replacement on IS250 will be say £700 all inclusive with labour. That is not far off the cost of entire IS250 write-off car and certainly about the same as entire AT gearbox costs. So now imagine your IS250 AT box explodes at 300k, you would have already saved 3 times the price of the whole car just merely in costs of replacement "clutches". MT are certainly more expensive to run and will cost more in lifetime, ATs are sealed units which needs no maintenance and by the time either box fails any work would exceed the value of the car anyway. There is no economical reasoning for MTs, mostly on modern cars there are no "control/speed" resoning and when it comes to premium car - it is no reasoning to have one with MT... Vintage,Historic cars, low-end race cars, weekend cars - yes MT makes sense there.

Cannot agree... over lifetime you probably will spend more money maintaining manual, then you do automatic. Maybe there are unreliable boxes, but taking for comparison IS250 MT vs AT, in 300k miles you most likely have no issues with AT, whereas you would be dealing with DMF and few clutches on MT... so I guess depends what specific box you are talking about. Certainly not the rule which you can apply broadly, at least for cars from last 20 years that isn't the case. I agree that you will understand what is premium car when you see it, equally you will know very well what isn't premium.

****!!! I don't qualify... what about IS220d drivers?

Very limited. I would have upgraded 2 years ago if I would have any choice... I was thinking BMW 640 2012+, BMW i8, RC-F, RC300h, M4, 430d/i... I want coupe in general, but don't want performance car, but it has to be RWD and faster then 7s 0-60, it would be great if it could be hybrid, but the only 2 I can think of are i8/RC300h... Work can offer me BMW 530e/330e, MB C350e/E350e, Volvo S90 T8 - but no Coupe and the pricing are not great. Hence I will continue complaining that Lexus has no RC350 or RC450h, or RC300h Plug-in which does 0-60 in 5.8s ... I guess

I was thinking to get IS220d or IS200t - two worst cars Lexus made and then moan here about them every day. It is Cat-N, which means I can simply continue driving it as it is....

Sorry, genuinely don't understand the question - too many possible interpretations 😄 Am I looking for new "wheels", you mean car? No, not at the moment - I guess I would take the money and get 4 wheels alignment for £60. Am I looking for new wheels - no, the current ones can be refurbished, they are not bent, nor cracked + I already have 2 more sets of 17inch wheels. You looking for new wheels? - was that questions if I am "parting-out" the car and wheels are for sale? That could be possibility.

So they would give category is Cat-N "non-structural damage", the repair costs of £3847 does not include ongoing courtesy car hire of ~500/week. That is crazy how quickly that gets expensive - I trending towards agreeing valuation, my only argument is that they put it as "average" condition on Glass valuation tool, whereas car is "very good/excellent" condition. Yes it is high miles, but FLSH, still has Lexus service plan with 1 prepaid service remaining, complete brakes overhaul in March, new battery less then a year ago, paint is perfect condition, no stone chips, no scratches etc. I know that all sounds sentimental, but call it "average" for year or mileage is inaccurate at best, I would not find the car in similar condition even for £5000 including ones with 100k miles less, they are generally worse condition then mine despite low miles. However, disputing the valuation at this stage adds no value for me, if they increase the value of the car from £3360, they will increase the residual value from £505, meaning that compensation I will get won't change much if at all... I reckon £3750 would be more realistic, but that means nothing - it would still remain Cat-N, I would still get same compensation... ok maybe £50 or £100 more, but it will prolong the process by few weeks, so it is not worth risking.

Yes you right it is 8 speed auto, not 7. But then it is incomparable with manual gearbox anyway - my point was that automatic gearbox have a choice of 8 gears to use and it tires to predict what you want, but never gets it right (that is the problem). On manual gearbox - you know exactly what you want and therefore you will shift to the gear you want, you are not predicting anything + I guess it was 5/6 gears manual so obviously you had much longer gears and wider power band in each gear to play with. Petrol turbo engine have wider power band then diesel ones, but still nowhere near as wide power band as NA engines. Furthermore, when you see power curve of the engine that is usually done on the engine without drive train (i.e. no gearbox connected) and only from say ~2500-3500rpm to rpm limiter e.g. on diesel engine you would get hp/Torque curve for 2500-5500rpm which disregards gearing etc. and it would look rather smooth (on top they will apply smoothing as well). The realistic power delivery will be much more spiky in entire rev range even within the single gear, never-mind throughout all gears.

I had IS200t for whole Saturday, drove around East, South-East England - Motorways, fast A/B roads and some city traffic in London ~600miles, same for RC300h... as for BMW - I have it now for 4 days, drive daily to work, been to East cost during weekend, did 750miles so far and will keep it for another 2-3 weeks, because my 12years old IS250 is sadly a write-off for now. V6 or V8 has nothing to do with being blokish or antiquated - first of all what is important is whenever engine is NA or forced induction. I prefer wide and late power band of NA engine and I prefer sound and smoothness of the engine and lineal power delivery. This smoothness is what you want in Premium car - not jerky small volume turbo engine which is rarely on power, but kicks you in the head and brakes your neck when it gets there.

Third Party Insurance

My car was deemed uneconomical repair... The cost of repairs is £3847, whereas estimated value of the vehicle is £3360 - they reckon "at its current condition" vehicle is worth £505 😄 I am trying to understand what this suppose to mean in real terms, but probably that means - they pay me the difference between remaining value and and what it is worth (£2855) and I would keep the car with salvage title, presumably Cat-C. I am trying to get my head around this now and calculate what is the best solution, still need to approve the valuation and claim....

I guess this is part of Pennzoil Trailer series, more can be seen here:

So you basically called my view outdated, just to rephrase my post and ultimately say the same thing? I know people who considers Golf as Luxury or Premium... so what? BTW I realised today what is wrong with IS200t gearbox - it is not gearbox problem at all, BMW320d does exactly the same thing (with it's 7 speed auto) - the problem is in tiny turbocharged engine which has narrow power band, meaning that you are never in the right gear to be on power and gearbox keeps trying to put-it in the right gear... but because power band is narrow, by the time gearbox sticks into say 4th, you already off the throttle and then by the time there is gap again in the traffic it already has it in 6th - never gets right.

I think the easiest way to answer is to simply state that "badge is what it makes it premium" aka "public perception" as such BMW would be premium, Mini would not be premium even though they might be similar in value. Otherwise, it is not really possible to agree universal rule. Some will say reliability, I will say it must bet at least V6 and must be RWD, some other people going to have different views...

I guess depends on the situation .. who was at fault? You? They? If it was you why your insurance declined the claim then? Is this not fraudulent and unlawful? They not claiming anything from my insurance or me, there is not even any clause like that as a possibility. If TP insurance going to decline I will simply sue them, sue TP and if CMC going to try to pass costs back I will sue them as well... I am actually quite happy to sue people and do it quite often (real story :D). Furthermore, I have reported TP for police for failing to "stop and report", so that is other avenue which I can pursue if the rest fails.

Actually, once I hired a car Full size luxury saloon which meant to be "C-class or 3-Series equivalent" and when I arrived to Portugal they game me Alfa-Romeo 156 Estate... I am like "what the hell is that" and they looking surprised "yes we consider Alfa as premium"... I am like "for***** sake - so what if I go to Russia - they will give me Lada because they consider it 'Premium' or in India maybe they will give me a 'donkey'..." after a bit of discussion they would not budge and in the middle of the night in the airport I didn't have much leverage - either to take car or walk away. So partially to answer your question - I do not consider Alfa as premium, nor I guess most of Britain, but it could be argued that is "premium Italian" as Citroen is "premium french" . @st4Good point about reputation, maybe reliability affects brand reputation, but not how premium it is? Now think about very public Lexus airbag issue (which wasn't even Lexus fault at all) - imagine how that looks and sounds to average Joe and what brand image it creates - "those Lexus with exploding airbags" - people don't do research, don't do fact check are ignorant and I am certain most would still answer that Mercedes is one of the most reliable cars or that German cars are reliable even though it is factually incorect.. More reliable then French and Italian - yeah perhaps... In short - what you think are facts.. is not necessary common knowledge and what makes car premium is Public perception which will always be ill-informed in reality.

You know, the forum is made for discussion and not all the people have same opinions - opinions doesn't need to agree and there are no reason to be offended. As I said reliability is a factor in general for better or worse car, but not for more premium or less premium. It can certainly make car more or less desirable, but not more or less premium. Some more premium features can make car less reliable and some reliable parts can make car less premium. In fact it is almost opposite with vintage/collectable cars - the less reliable ones are more expensive, because there are less of them left! @st4 - you getting the Merc in the first place just adds to my point, you picked it-up because it looked and felt premium when new, in long run you realised it wasn't the best choice. Does it make the car less premium - no, it makes it less reliable, less desirable (when mid-age, but probably rarer when old)... Overall, premium cars are not most frugal choice and people who care about reliability are probably the ones who don't buy premium brands anyway - and I am generalising on the global sales respective, it might not be right for every individual. It is not even right for my... I would summarise that there are reliable and unreliable Premium cars/makes, nevertheless they are all Premium. As there are reliable and unreliable performance cars - yet they are all performance. It is not like only reliable performance cars can be considered "performance cars".

I will just quote myself: Just to add to it - quality/reliability is certainly "a factor" - but is not the one which defines how Premium/Luxury car is. It can affect used car prices (overall maybe that is more important for used cars), but it does not make them more Premium. Another example - very premium soft leather in Royce-Royce won't last as long as cardboard hard "leather" (probably more appropriate to call it vinyl) in Mercedes or BMW, but Royce-Royce with baby butt smooth leather is still more premium. Back to CL600 (W215 shape) - it was notoriously unreliable car, not only that anything which could go wrong was notoriously expensive to fix, yet it was Mercedes flagship model - "as Premium as it gets".

Claim company is getting paid commissions from car-hire and claim handling fee which is legal fee they can claim from party at fault, that is all - I checked all closes and there are no circumstances where it can backfire - except if I lie about something or if I would be found at fault (both are impossible). The claims company only takes "non-fault" clear-cut cases, which are obvious to win and this way minimises their risk. Basically, I sent them evidence first, they reviewed it and only then approved the claim - if it would have been unclear circumstances, no evidence, potential 50/50 fault (like on roundabouts), they would not take it. Actually, that is my first claim and so far can only see good sides, I will see how it goes - if it works this time, I would never ever use insurance claims process again.