First_Lexus

At least Richard (D i c k) Turpin wore a mask! (God bless the swear filter on here!)

Funnily enough, a friend with a VW id3 electric car (I know, I know!) was only telling me this weekend that her insurance had risen from £350 per year to over £600 with no obvious changes or explanation. She’s currently using comparison sites to see if she can reduce that cost. As I’ve posted previously, my RX insurance renewal in May from the incumbent company doubled, but through comparison sites I managed to get it back to ‘only’ a £200 increase. No increase at all for my MINI, make of that what you will…

As this gets rolled out more widely, there’s a benefit for all RX owners even if their car hasn’t had the modification. Anything that introduces uncertainty or jeopardy for the bad guys - will this car be an easy and quick theft or not - helps everybody, as hopefully they’ll start to look elsewhere and for other targets. My assumption is this modification isn’t about ultimate prevention, it’s more about delay and causing difficulty. If one car takes thirty seconds to steal but another 3 minutes then the hope is the villains will take the easiest option.

Today I’d like to moan about Royal Mail. In the last week I’ve received a letter from HMRC (only a coding notice) dated February, and a reminder letter for a membership dated May. I never received my road tax reminder - due 1st August - at all, but sure it’ll turn up in a few months. Last year I posted my Christmas cards all at the same time. One of my Sisters never received hers, but received her birthday card posted at the same time. The Christmas card eventually turned up, looking perfect, the following June… It’s a shambles. Speaking to others I’m certainly not alone with these issues. Bah!

If it’s the same as my RX you hold the wiper stalk in the ‘up’ (single sweep) position while turning off the power button. The wipers then park vertically so you can lift them for cleaning the screen.

I can only think of this sketch…😆

I’m just going to leave this here…😇 Ignoring Giles Coren’s issues with the charging network, he notes the car had lots of reliability problems. Knowing somebody who owned an I-Pace I don’t think he was alone… https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/motoring/motoring-news/tv-star-ditches-jaguar-electric-26017739

^^ That’s a great point. I certainly WON’T be moaning about having experienced some good times. I feel sorry for youngsters today - they’ll never have that joy! 🙂

^^ If you haven’t already done so, Brenda Dean’s autobiography ‘Hot Mettle’ is a good read on the printing industry. Clearly she has a particular view, but in general terms it’s hard not to agree with your points above. Many industries are the same - this is the first time in human history that technological advances have / will lead to fewer jobs rather than more jobs. Only the other day I listened to a radio article about sign writing. It’s a dying art, as things can now be screen printed (or similar) by machine and applied as transfers. Quicker, cheaper, but a skilled trade will be lost. Who cares? People just seem to want things more quickly, more cheaply…but what is the overall impact of the loss of all these skills? Is being a Deliveroo or Amazon driver a skill? Maybe it is, but not as I see it. As you say, “…we’ll never know how much we’ve lost to gain so little.”

After graduating, my first real job for a big company in Central London (actually on a rota with the other most junior staff) was to go into the print room on the second floor and sort all of the batch printing that had run overnight on a printer that was the size of a small country! Each invoice would have to be detached from the next (by hand) and folded so that the address fitted the envelope window. They all then went to the post room which was managed by a fierce older lady who terrified pretty much everybody! The task took most of the morning and was boring as nobody else had any reason to go into that room until the following morning. You just prayed that the printer hadn’t run out of paper, or ink, or got jammed overnight. If it had, you had to fix it, restart it, then wait for it to finish. If that meant you were there until 20.00 or later at night then so be it… I stayed with that company for fifteen years. It taught me almost everything I know today for my career. I saw the third floor typing pool disappear, internal mail vanish along with the fax machine, the introduction of desk top computers, and a general decline in standards that seemed to come with all that ‘progress.’ When I started everybody was addressed by surname, never Christian name. Male staff had to wear suits and ties (always) and more senior male staff wore waistcoats to donate rank. The staff restaurant was silver service, and senior managers had their own seats. Even if they were away, nobody could sit in a seat not their own! Smoking at desks was commonplace. Alcohol in the office at the end of the day (or for any occasion really at pretty much any time after 14.00) was also common, provided by the company on trollies with cakes and snacks. Different times. Gradually the dress code relaxed, alcohol and smoking in the office disappeared, and the workforce shrank. Those left had to do more and more. The building that held about 3000 staff when I started had only 1000 when I finally left. It’s now being turned into luxury flats. My moan is that I don’t like getting old. I know well that I’m seeing the past through rose-tinted spectacles, but the tinting isn’t that strong. Things really did seem better then, to me anyway.

Didn’t waste any time finding the article. It was on Sky News this morning. The date of the article is at the start, as it is on most mainstream news sites. This thread isn’t about EVs, it’s about hydrogen. I thought it was relevant and might be interesting. Apologies if that it in some way offensive, it wasn’t intended to be. I certainly won’t be posting here again for some time.

https://news.sky.com/story/could-a-truck-thats-powered-by-hydrogen-and-only-emits-water-help-in-the-climate-change-fight-12916780 As the piece on Sky News TV notes, the issue with hydrogen as things stand is the amount of electricity needed to produce it.

There have been a few similar threads recently. My RX was £350 fully comp last year, renewal was over £700. With a bit of shopping around reduced to £600. Interestingly no such increase in annual premium for my MINI, which stays at £130 fully comp (as it has been for years).

There are a few around. The MINI range has had brown in various shades since the launch in 2001, albeit it hasn’t ever seemed to be very popular. Honda also offered a light metallic brown (Urban Titanium) which my sister had for a time on a 2014 CR-V. The BL colour was called Russet Brown from memory, but I think the P6 Rover picture may have been Mexico Brown (although my memory isn’t what it was for such things!) BRING BACK BROWN! And while we’re at it, bright yellows and bright greens…and Slade. Just not platform shoes or flares please! Without taking this too far down a rabbit hole, ‘taste’ and ‘fashion’ are funny things. People in the 1970s decorated their houses, dressed in the clothes, and bought cars in the colours they did (and bathroom suites!) not because they were daft, or didn’t have taste, but because that was what the consensus said was ‘right.’ In the 1980s it changed again, as it has since the 1990s. Can you imagine Artex ceilings and the like in a modern built house? Or an avocado 🥑 coloured bath (ah, Mitchell and Webb, genius)…but at the time it was considered to be fashionable and every house had them. If you’re interested in such things, the internet has a wealth of fascinating television programmes from all eras. The BBC and Thames archives are particular favourites of mine. Recently I watched a Thames documentary from 1974 about inflation…not that much has changed! The members of the public interviewed wore different clothes but largely complained that the economic decline was the fault of joining the Common Market and going metric. Now almost everything is blamed on leaving that same ‘Common Market.’ 🤪

The link opens fine for me, in MSN news from a Daily Telegraph original article.

A new thread about hydrogen power…hmmm, what could possibly go wrong? 😇

Back in the 1970s my Father had a Granada Ghia ‘fastback’ in a lovely emerald metallic green with a tan leather interior, brown carpets and (from memory) a tan vinyl roof. Mmmmm…

Ah, the law of unintended consequences… As I understand it, the rules were changed so that insurance companies had to offer the same prices to existing customers as to new customers. The objective was to reward loyalty, as we all knew that moving insurance generally offered better prices due to incentives to switch. Move forward to now, and insurance companies realised that being unable to offer incentives meant that - as long as they all did the same - they would all win with the inevitable result that consumers would lose…not what was intended by legislators but there you go! Unintended consequence strikes again. Slightly different, but mobile telephone ‘roaming’ charges were outlawed by the European Union. When the UK left the EU most companies reintroduced them. “It’s the fault of Brexit” they cried in unison…well, sort of. Brexit allowed them to reintroduce the charges, but didn’t force them to do so. It was simply that the legal imperative had been removed. In essence, legalised robbery just to increase profits. Shameful.

Understand that Tata have decided to build their European battery factory in Bridgewater, Somerset - likely because of JLR production in the UK. Site was chosen instead of Spain. As far as I’m aware, the formal announcement is still awaited even though all media sources seem to know… https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/uk-set-win-battle-host-tata-electric-car-battery-plant-bbc-2023-05-24/

I spoke with Lexus Reading about the issue last week and the proposed fix. They claimed to know nothing about the problem or the fix (!) but promised to speak with Lexus UK and call me back. I’m still waiting… …so I wrote to Lexus UK as well. I received the same bland “…we’re aware, all cars are vulnerable to theft blah blah blah…” response that others have had. Not very impressive.

@taffie999 Sensible questions. I’m afraid the ‘Canbus’ theft issue is a real concern. Lexus are now trialling a solution in London and the South-East which will hopefully help matters once rolled out (assuming it is) but for now I don’t think I can provide any reassurance other than the fact that ‘most’ of the thefts seem to be in and around Greater London (although bound to spread if they haven’t already). On the service costs, all I’d say is that a 2021/22 RX is an expensive car to purchase and that comes with related expenses, of which servicing is just one. I found Lexus to be relatively expensive (compared with Honda) even on my previous NX. Premium pricing for a premium product I assume! If you haven’t already check insurance as mine DOUBLED year on year, without any obvious reason other than the increased risk of theft noted above. Believe some other members have seen similar rises. Road tax also attracts the £500 ‘luxury levy’ for the first three years (could be five years, can’t remember). Having said all that, I do love my RX. It is an impressively quiet and refined cruiser, and beautifully built too. It is pretty wide though, not one for narrow lanes if you value your paintwork, and there is one 6’3” width restrictor near me which is just a bit too tight for comfort!

China seems likely to be as South Korea was twenty years ago in terms of automotive development and dominance. The political situation may muddy those waters though, especially regarding Taiwan. India could be the one to watch. They have so much potential in terms of domestic growth, and that often translates to international growth as seen in China since the 1990s. I spent time in China in the late 90s/early 2000s and recently came back from India. I can see similarities, but the democratic process in India makes it far more palatable to the West, and Modi knows that. He’s already distanced himself from Putin for reasons beyond not supporting his actions in Ukraine…with more to come at full G20 in India later this year I’ll wager. Tata is going big on EVs, and the UK is likely to be a big player in that through JLR, albeit fairly minor in global terms. Based on what I read neither China nor India are really backing hydrogen, and if that continues I can’t see it taking off anywhere, least of all in a niche market such as the UK. Anyway - and I don’t think I’m alone here - all I want as a motorist is the ability in Winter temperatures to drive for a 300 mile round trip at motorway speeds without having to recharge or refuel. Once an EV can give me that I’ll switch. Having discussed with most of the major EV manufacturers over the last 12 months none can guarantee that at the moment apart from Tesla, and their horrid ‘new money’ image combined with terrible build quality (and if you don’t believe me just look at some used models with mileage on them) means I won’t consider them. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/uk-set-win-battle-host-tata-electric-car-battery-plant-bbc-2023-05-24/

Interesting that the ‘mood music’ (nothing definite or committed) coming out of Labour is that the ‘…failure of the current Government…’ to provide a consistent nationwide EV charging network may cause a future Labour Government to delay the ban on sales of new petrol and hybrid (but not diesel) vehicles. It’s no surprise that Labour know that the current policy is unpopular with many potential middle class Labour voters who may switch to them from the Conservatives. Pushing it back by (say) five years and blaming the current Government does seem feasible - and they’re already starting to lay the tentative story to allow that to happen. The reality is probably that EVs will continue to evolve, hydrogen may or may not become either an alternative or a companion in the long term, and petrol will continue to be available for many years yet. There will need to be a range of options to suit different needs, including the commercial freight sector. However, as a solution to the climate emergency none of these options are really palatable especially to the developing world. We in the West / First World simply need to drive, fly and transport less while striving towards localism rather than globalism (which obviously won’t happen because of the ‘need’ for continued economic growth, but there you go!). We’re all doooooomed!

Apart from having the aftermarket immobiliser/tracker fitted, are BMW less vulnerable to these thefts? I’m equally disappointed by the Lexus response and, although I’m not looking to change right now, I’d be interested in manufacturers who aren’t vulnerable (assuming there are any!). As an aside, a few months ago near where I live, two Mercedes and a BMW were taken on the same night although I’m not sure which method was used to steal them. I did hear through the grapevine that Ring doorbells mysteriously went off-line at least at one of the addresses so there was no footage of the theft.

Ignore the title of this video - he does note that a £2500 LS430 is probably best avoided and that £6-7 is more realistic for a good one on Autotrader - but as a sales / buying aid it does tell you most of what you’ll need to know if you’re considering one of these…enjoy.