Linas.P

Probably not, where are they located on the car?

As it happens I own nearly 20 years old Lexus (2005)... does it have rust? Ohhh yeah! But more important question is what kind of rust it has... So first of all it is clear that it wasn't always cared for, there is little spot of rust where rear fender was scratched (so accident damage), the suspension bolts and nuts in particular have rust on them (I was told by mechanic this is typical for all Japanese cars, compared to say German), there is rust around lifting points (so again damage from improperly lifting the car) and exhaust is rather rusted (so that is wear an tear)... but there is no rust whatsoever on typical spots for older cars, floors, sills, inner fenders etc, because all that is covered by plastic. What is most important - all the areas that would be protected by "rubber undercoat" are not rusted. That is not to say rust protection is not needed, but as I said the focus should be primarily suspension components, not the underside of the car. Also they will rust anyway, if not themselves then they will be covered by brake dust which will rust on top of them. But using something like Bilt Hamber Atom-Mac is basically what is needed, something that could easily be sprayed on intricate links and suspension components. You can even do it yourself, it requires application maybe every 2-3 years, but as a matter of routine could be done once a year. The process itself would be rather simple - lift the car (ideally without damaging the floor 😄), remove 1 wheel (if you have nice even parking and jack stands could be done on all 4 wheels), spray it with APC, let it sit for 5 minutes, pressure wash all the lose dirt, let it sit for maybe 15 minutes for most of the water to run down (compressed air would be ideal here), then spray Atom-Mac focusing on suspension components and all of key things can be reached easily from wheel well. Also wand sprayer (like the ones used to kill weeds in garden) are ideal for this. Repeat on all 4 corners and your car should be protected from rusting for good 3 years.

yeah, but in other hand I have seen businesses that are like that, who are kind of pervasive when it comes to personal life. I would say... if it is really IT security company, then I assume they would have restrictions on their devices... and by policy I mean - you would not be able to even access prohibited sites, nevermind downloading something or installing something yourself. So if they need to ask employees not to do it on company devices then this is big issue, if they ask employees not to do it on their personal devices... it is also an issue, just different one. I myself also have taken offense to some of the training material (I work in highly regulated sector), because it implied that "I am representing company outside of my work" and I always been very clear, as soon as I finish work I live my private life and I will do whatever I pleased. Also employment tribunal agrees with this view, so any disciplinary action or dismissal outside of work would count as unfair. I have bought several things on facebook and have no issues with it, but I have noticed and I agree that facebook is full of scams, everything that is too goo to be true is not just bargain or good deal, but almost always a scam. Also it seems facebook doesn't take it seriously like other sites (ebay, gumtree), so I am always extra careful when shopping there. But I have seen actually good deals on wheels, some car parts, furniture etc. PC parts seems to be 50% scams, car adverts seems to be like 70% scam, but there are certainly some genuine ones, just don't expect to buy a car that is worth £9,000 for £3,000.

NOOOOO - please don't! The coating which is essentially like rubber is meant for old cars, I would say even vintage/classic cars. Have you seen how underbody of RX350h looks (or any Lexus from last 20 years for that matter?)... it is plastic clad everywhere! So applying rubberised coating like on 1970s Ford Cortina is not the way to go. What you need is to go to detailer and ask to apply something like Bilt Hamber Atom-Mac or Hydrate 80. https://www.in2detailing.co.uk/collections/corrosion-rust-treaments/products/bilt-hamber-atom-mac?variant=32326776291407 https://www.in2detailing.co.uk/collections/corrosion-rust-treaments/products/bilt-hamber-hydrate-80?variant=39561981001807 And it looks something like this: After that if you really want to go above and beyond - you can ask all the plastic panels to be removed and underside of the car to get ceramically coated, so it is basically becomes hydrophobic. But that is really unnecessary. What usually happens to newer Lexus is that exposed suspension components, bolts in particular get's rusty, everything under plastic covers are usually fine.

On thing that I found most disturbing, this is talking about IS300h in particular... I was looking around and also found hundreds of them for £5,000 (not 3,000 or 4,000, but still clearly too good to be true) and I started reporting all of them. Because I thought - well everyone complains, but nobody does anything about it and then it is "facebook fault"? So every time as I look for the cars, I would go and report dozen of them as scams. After few weeks I started getting notifications from facebook about reports I made and every single one was along the lines "we checked you report and we did not find anything suspicious about it, but thanks for reporting". NO... indeed nothing suspicious when same car is listed 3 times, in London, in Birmingham and somewhere else and the prices is probably half of what it normally costs... nahh that is alright. In short - if car is more than £1000 below market price on facebook it is 99% scam. I don't know why in particular IS300h are so popular, but there are literally hundreds of them listed for absurd prices. I would quite such company next day - it is none of their business what you do during your free time. I would assume it was tiktok that they were worried about, because it is literally Chinese spyware, but still - you are employed by them, but not their property, so it is not for them to decide. I guess context may be missing - not to install it on company provided devices, or any devices that has access to company network - fine... but not to register and not to use it on your own device during your own time? Who are they to tell it? Also this would 100% go as unfair dismissal if they tried to fire you for this.

Yes they are, but they are not in good shape. Ballasts etc. should work, but one side lense has rust inside it, other side has cracked edges.

Yes that is wrong - decent battery should last 3-4 weeks at least. You driving frequently enough. Obviously, once the battery fails it has to be replaced, but you said it was replaced already, so something isn't right. Also if like you say, you need to jump start the car every time you stop, then I just can't see how Lexus can say "everything is fine with the car/battery".

I think he means there is extended warranty up-to 15 years of age for extra price. But then basically you paying for warranty twice? So you pay for extended warranty + you pay higher service cost which includes the cost of warranty that your car is no longer eligible for. I mean I guess I get it - if you really want to keep car warranted until it is 15 years old, then this is probably the only way, but I just cannot see how is this "good value for money".

Depends on the car, but my understanding it is purpose designed metal cover that fits under the bumper where the CANBUS is exposed and most vulnerable. Seems like "sticking the plaster" solution, it would slow down thieves, but does not fully resolve the issue. It is much like putting yellow steering lock for the car with keyless vulnerability - yes it will delay thieves and that may prove enough for them to abandon the attempt, but I can't see it being sufficient to completely resolve it. Toyota seems to charge £70 to fit it, so they reckon 30 min job (assuming 1 hour is £140, which is about right for for Toyota, Lexus would be £195). So if it takes 30 min to fit nicely, I can't see it taking longer than 5 min for thieves to remove it. Now to be fair - I personally have not seen how it looks like and how it is fitted, so take this as educated guess at best. We could also call it "cat an mouse game" - thieves found 1 vulnerability, Toyota patched that part, thieves will find another vulnerability eventually... and because "plate" does not fundamentally resolve the issue, I am sure there will be other ways to attack the cars.

I think that it is much easier to know "what it is" than proving it in the court i.e. "strong legal argument" is not the same as "legal victory in court". Also in UK there are no such thing as "class action" so it is much harder to take manufacturers to the court on behalf of consumers. That is why in US Lexus and Toyota quite often have TSIBs and fixes cars for free, but refuse to carry out identical work in UK - they are just not afraid of liability in UK. Another thing - keyless vulnerability is not the same as CANBUS attack. And it could be argued it is both worse and better at the same time. It is better, because CANBUS can actually be resolved in many ways securing the cars without losing any functionality e.g. by encrypting CANBUS network, or by simply running the cables in difficult to access places (like within frame rails), but it is worse because it will require physical changes to the cars affected. Keyless vulnerability on other hand cannot be fixed at all, because it is fundamental vulnerability of the technology, the only way to fix it is to disable keyless (which is often done), but then you lose the functionality itself - in short it is impossible to have keyless entry and not to have vulnerability. My personal solution would be to mitigate the keyless with aftermarket immobiliser (there are caveats to it thought), as for CANBUS - the only way I can see is to avoid affected cars until they are at least 5-8 years old. I think the easiest way to approach this for legal resolution would be from consumer protection stand point, the argument should start from establishing the date of when vulnerability of CANBUS was first recognised by Lexus/Toyota internally. Then using that date we can look into Lexus/Toyota marketing and advertising specifically looking for any references to "anti-theft features, safety, security, piece of mind" etc. and then make a case that they were misselling (or a false advertisement) the vehicles knowing they were vulnerable, but marketing them as secure. That still leaves all the owners of cars before Lexus internally identified the issue in the dark and the ones who bought the cars after that still responsible for making their own individual cases. So in theory how that would look like - there should be a single case which takes advantage of facts and set precedent, probably goes all the way to Supreme Court. Then using this binding precedent others have to individually sue Lexus/Toyota and they likely to get easy settlement. Overtime, as individual cases would be much more expensive to administrate, Lexus/Toyota may decide that it would be cheaper to simply recall and fix all the affected cars and therefore close the legal exposure, but this is very long winded process and it will require someone to "take it for the team" i.e. sue Lexus/Toyota, pay all legal fees etc. But again - there has to be proven link between Lexus knowing vulnerability exists, but stating in writing on some material that car is "safe", this would be "long shot" legally speaking.

You mean to maintain hybrid warranty? Yes that is is correct, but now imagine if you had non-hybrid without any warranty. Would it still be worth it?

Sorry - did I miss something? I didn't realise this was limited to cars! I thought it is about 90s in general, yeah cars were good back then, but it was not only the cars that were good about 90s. Also I have to disagree with this one either. I mean sure - ones perspective matters, but let's say 1940s - 1950s were objectively bad time to be alive. Forget perspective - it was horrible either way you look at it. Although I am not comparing it to WW2, but 2000-2010 was objectively bad time to be alive again, started alright, but ended with everyone being worse off. Same continues since 2010s onwards. It is not about perspective and making it work, it objectively the time when quality of life is getting worse. Now again comparatively - I am sure that anyone in their 20-30s back in 1940s would gladly swap it to 2010s, but it is still undeniable that we reached "quality of life" pinnacle in 90s, plateaued and since early 2000s quality of life is getting increasingly bad again. It is not yet WW3, although considering everything who can say we not going that way, but it is still significantly worse than it was in 90s. Also I do consider that we currently living in war years, there is war in Europe, Europeans die, we are sending (not enough) weapons to defend the peace, we are paying increased prices for that etc. Sometimes you just can't make something "best decade of your life", no mattery how positive is your outlook. 1910s and 30s were objectively bad, 40s were horrible, from 50s to 90s those were good years, 2000s were meh, 2008 financial crisis was objectively bad period for everyone, 2010s overall were stagnant, 2020s onwards not getting better. So be as positive as you want - they are just not good years.

Agree, but I think by the end of 90s all key improvements in healthcare were already achieved. Yes in practice it took another decade for the hospitals to be retrofitted, doctors trained etc. But hypothetically speaking if all medical achievements would have ended at the year 2000 we still would be in very very good place. Even today I think most of procedures would be possible with 90s technology and we really moved very little beyond that. As I said - in practice it may have looked like it only happened in 2010s, but technology was already available in 90s. I don't see social media as inherently negative effect, there are negative effects related to addiction of social media, issues related with parenting that leads into bad influences etc. but social media itself is also a good thing if used correctly e.g. I have used social media in 2000s and 2010s and it only made my life better and furthered my social life and career. Obviously, you can't neatly divide life in decades, but now we can look into the past retrospectively and on balance of pros and cons decide what decade was best and worst. It is like looking at historic stock price - my view is that it was going up from 1950s to ~2002-2005 maybe, then stagnated for maybe 10 years and now are noticeably going down. Hence, based on observations above it would be possible to conclude that 90s "up to now" was the pinnacle of of humanity. That is not to say that we can't, maybe in 20 years, miraculously reverse the course and achieve another pinnacle (perhaps that how it would have looked for people in 1930s), but to be honest I am pessimistic about that.

That certainly not being mother in law 😄 I still think that 90s where objectively the best times, for example I can't imagine myself living without PC, digital music, compact discs at least, some mp3 and similar stuff. I mean sure - internet was still slow, but it was there, digital media was still scarce, but it existed. I would say in terms of cars 80s probably were the best, but 80s are automatically eliminated by lack of modern technology for me... also in my particular case I would have been still occupied by ruzzian orks. On top of that I think having ABS and even basic stability control is criteria for me still being a alive. I would not be alive driving cars from 70s. So not 70s, because too dangerous, not 80s because of lack of technology and not 2000s, because from like 1999 things started going to shaite... with increasing speed no less. 2000s-2010s was step down in quality of life, 2010-2020s on top of falling quality of life extra restrictions to freedoms were added, and since 2020s we can also add increasingly radicalised society, so no only we losing rights, not only we have to pay more for basic things, not only freedoms were reduced, but nowadays we have hysterical agitation all around promoting ideas of further cutting freedoms and rights and making everything even more expensive. Also people are just becoming less logical and less resistant for that, whereas in 2000 somebody would have said "no way" to current plans, nowadays people are fine with it...

I do understand why 😄

I think that is good choice! Good luck with your search!

Nice try, but I doubt it had anything to do with the cars thought... just people driving them. I think this comment would be fair for 911, especially 911 Turbo of old, but 3-Series was disappointingly mediocre and especially in 80s when many cars were RWD they were similar to any other premium car on the road.

Well done! Sounds fair... and I would have expected the outcome you got. Paying Lexus £181 was certainly not realistic, so everything they did sounds right. I am just surprised they haven't done that right away and let you go out with broken sensor at first.

Never had that issue with independent garages. Dealers and chains don't take parts from outside, but as far as I am concerned - all independent garages takes parts from outside, but then they say "warranty for work only" and that is fair. I have found plenty of monkeys working in Lexus as well. I can't say I was really impressed with any particular service with Lexus. It was alright, but nothing more. Courtesy car is nice and independent garages I use don't offer this at all, but if the difference is 60% in price, then I can deal with that. The problem with Lexus in particular is that there are very very few independents that know the cars, so normal service - oils and filters... fine, but anything more than that is trouble. I used to take Lexus only to Lexus, and I probably will still do this going forward. I mean I took my £1000 GS300 to Lexus last time and it was £280 for minor service, so not exactly good value... and service was alright. I mean sure I can afford it and I like convenience, but I can see how it is actually TERRIBLE value for money and why people would say "nah... I am good". Because here is the thing - once car is 10 years old, the dealer service adds no value. I have serviced my old IS250 in Lexus all the way to 200k (I think last service was 186,000) and when it got written-off I got it valued ~£4,000, it would have been £4,000 either way, with service history and in perfect condition or with no service history and in crap condition. Obviously, bear in mind - that was done back in the day when "Essential Case" was the thing, so I actually not spent anything extra, I would even doubt it was possible to get it done cheaper than what I paid at Lexus, but those times are long gone.

Do you mean just F-Sport or actual RC-F. Because yes even between say Luxury and F-Sport there is insurance category difference and to be fair there was bigger difference between RC300h F-Sport and Luxury, than it was between RC300h F-Sport and RC-F.

This is massively old thread, so much of the discussion is probably irrelevant anymore. But in terms of insurance it would cost me ~£600 to insure either RC-F or RC300h F-Sport. There may be £50 difference between them. So insurance category thing is really just 1 out of million criteria that impact your insurance premium.

Yes, but that was in 2021 on 2015 car, meaning it gives you Lexus Relax warranty. At that point I agree - it is totally worth it. This is on 2011 in 2024, no Lexus Relax included. In short it was £1,300 service plan on 6 years old car that is worth £12,000+warranty vs. £1,300 on 13 years old car worth £6,000 and no warranty. Honestly, the main problem is that Lexus discontinued Essential Care, because I remember having 2 year service plans for £500 (£180+£320). That makes perfect sense and in fact independent service probably would cost just as much. The service plan only makes sense when warranty is included in it, else it is certainly too expensive for cars over 10 years old. Also Lexus "approved" parts is questionable. Any parts are always at extra cost, except of things like air filters and oil filters, so yes they use Lexus parts, but you have to pay for them so I just can't see how is that benefit. You may as well buy the parts at 30% of the cost from US or UAE and bring them to your independent?

Any decent dashcam kit should have battery "protector"... It doesn't really matter what mileage you are doing, but if you don't drive at least for 15-20 minutes every other week, then battery will die eventually. Nothing really new - 3/4 weeks and they get low on charge and if you do it repeatedly then batteries ten to die. I wouldn't use S-mod or bother changing gears, you will get used to it. I was about to say you can downshift from D in facelift, but that is only on F-Sport if memory serves Advance does not have paddle-shifters (although they could be retrofitted). Also Toyota does not do service any cheaper than Lexus. Sadly nowadays there are no Essential Service and I see why people don't see value servicing 12 years old car in Lexus... as it is really too much when you don't get warranty included. As long as you service it once a year and ideally after no more than 5000-6000miles it should be fine.

Where did I say NHS or any other public services are good? No - what I am saying, people care about them, but not about the roads. Politicians knows this and at least they pretend to make them better. That does not make them better, but at least they have some fffed-up plan, they put it on manifesto, they promise something... at least there is some sort of discussion that maybe that needs to be done, maybe it is not good enough... roads... pfffff nothing, they are not even listed... "what roads... what about them... why are you even driving... are you not ashamed of yourself?!"... because you know it is popular to slag off driver, it is considered almost a "class" thing.... "those disgusting drivers, nothing good comes from them, just polluting and complaining all the time". Roads - be thankful you even allowed to still use them, actually being suitable for the amount of traffic or drivable... forget it! And yes you right - Tories are doing lip service for motorists at best, but Labour is openly hostile to the idea of personal transportation. that is why for roads to get better we need some sort of convoluted political situation... where Labour is in power, where Tories are in opposition and where Tories propose road rebuilding programme or some shaite they will never be able to complete because they are too corrupt... but then that move the polls significantly. To the point where Labour goes "OMG - that road promise may win the election, we must do something about it"... and by the way they would do something about it, they would set-up some publicly owned company, that would have sole purpose of doing nothing else, but surfacing the roads for 10 years and then would be useless and inefficient after that. That is Labour way - create something useful and then let it lose the purpose and become inefficient over the time, so that Tories can come in and sell it off to their mates. But I doubt it would ever happen, British people despite of still being dependant on the car (78% of all journeys in the country) are the most fundamentally anti-car culture people in Europe. I don't know why, bet individual transportation is for some reason are really looked at negatively here.

That we agree on...