parkman

I suppose it could happen, particularly in China, to create a large, controllable army. Dolly the sheep was scary enough when it was announced. I have never seen sheep in the same light since. Parkman.

Sean, I hate to ask this, but seeing that I am in Dublin too, where did you get the car serviced ? Just so I may be able to avoid a similar thing happening to my 300h. I am thinking of taking it to Lexus Charlestown, off the M50, for new brake shoes, but then I might just do them myself when the weather gets warmer. Parkman.

Now there is another report released. It was in the Telegraph [I think], and basically says that BMW, VW, Bosch and someone else commissioned a test about diesel emissions, using monkeys. It seems that [perhaps 2015] they took a new VW Beetle and got a monkey to breathe the air for 8 hours, and then did tests to see what effect the emissions had on the monkey. To show what a good job that the new engines, with the dodgy software, did they then used a twenty year old Ford diesel pickup, which would probably poison the poor monkey but it would prove how good and clean new engines are. And the result -- the poor monkey suffered more from the new, dodgy software controlled engine than from a 20 year old diesel. Then the companies involved have tried to hide the tests !!!!! It just goes to show that nothing we are told is really true. The truth is only what the sellers want us to believe. Me ?? - I'm a cynic, and I rarely believe anything someone tells me when I know they are trying to sell me something. Parkman.

Ah, thanks for the explanation. I was just interested in how the chap got on. Thanks, Parkman.

Thanks for the reply. The thread was titled " Want to p/exchange or sell my is300h what's a good price ?". Perhaps it has been removed since this morning. Parkman.

I would image that you are probably right. I quite like the F-Sport grill, but would I be interested in actually changing my own Premier style grill ? I don't think so, at this time of my life. It looks like a very expensive piece of bodywork. At least, if you had a standard Jaguar XJ you can buy the mesh grill from an XJR for about £250, I think. I'm not sure as I already had an XJR, in fact I had two of them !! What a ponsy show-off, I know, but I had a desire for them at the time !! Parkman.

I had a Mercedes E220 for a good few years, before selling it last year, and buying an IS300h. I had no problem with two baby seats in the back of the Merc, one facing backwards and one facing forwards, and my daughter, whose rugrats they are, still had a decent amount of room to sit between the two seats. But she has found it very difficult in the IS, unfortunately, and she is quite small, 5ft 6in, and slim. I have since measured the IS across the back seats, and it is about 4 inches narrower than the E-class. Not a lot, but it makes a big difference. The other thing that I hadn't expected with the IS was with the rear facing baby seat. With the seat strapped in, it isn't ISO-fix, when i closed the drivers door the seat automatically reversed itself, and pushed the baby seat back a small bit. I hadn't realised that the rear facing baby seat was so far forward, or the the driver's seat was curved and went back so far !!! Fortunately, I don't have the baby seats in the car very often, maybe twice a year, so I can live with it, but on a daily basis I would find it unsatisfactory. Based on this, I bought the daughter a Suzuki Grand Vitara so that she doesn't have to bend down to put the rugrats into their seats. Parkman.

I absolutely agree with you, Odysseus. I just wondered whether the Sport grill does actually fit. Having said that, there are instances when a change from standard to a piece of, perhaps bodywork, does a lot for a standard car. If you look at the 2005 to 2009 series of XJ jaguars the grill is quite dull, but without making any changes you can fit the mesh grill from the XJR. The car just looks better, but nobody is going to confuse it with an XJR as the wheels and some other bits are different on the XJR. Mercedes are the same. For instance, the grill on the 2006 E-class is a bit boring looking, but you can just unscrew it and fit the 3 bar grill that AMG use. Again, it looks much better but you are not going to confuse an E220 for for an AMG E630 !! Lastly, I have really nice 5 spoke alloys on my 300h Premier, and I think that they are much nicer than the alloys fitted on the rest of the IS 200 range, but if I was to swap my alloys with those from an IS Sport I can't imagine anyone mistaking my car for a Sport, or mistaking a Sport for my Premier. All that being said, I see absolutely no point in fitting all the bodywork features from a Sport onto an Executive as it would soon be plainly obvious that the car isn't a Sport. I prefer the opposite approach, and have always used it, of not having too much at all to show that the car is modified. I had a 340 bhp Lotus Sunbeam years ago that was stripped of everything, chrome, badges etc, so that it looked a lot like a standard Sunbeam 1600. But it was fitted with a full works, group B rally engine and running gear and would eat just about anything except supercars. But it looked like a boring tin can !!! Parkman.

I was reading a thread earlier in the day, but when I tried to log in later in the day i received the following message; Sorry, there is a problem You do not have permission to view this content. Error code: 2F173/H Does anyone know what is causing this error ? I can log in to any other threads that I follow, just one is now locked out. Parkman

I would echo Crowe's question, is it possible to just change the grill on the IS 300h to that of the Sport ? Is it possible without having to change any of the existing painted bodywork ? Parkman.

I also live in Ireland, South Dublin to be precise. I bought a Premier 300h earlier in 2017 and imported it into Ireland. The most obvious difference between the top of the line models is that in Ireland you don't get the five spoke 18 inch alloy rims. Any of the Premier or Premium, or whatever Lexus Ireland call them, have rather boring multi-spoke alloys. My 300h had everything, including the ML sound system, but not a sunroof, as standard. It also doesn't have the re-active cruise control, just the standard Lexus cruise control. Parkman.

I lived and worked in France 30 years ago, and it was local law, depending on where you lived, that you had to fit winter tyres every year. In this case, you had to fit studded tyres, and there was a speed limit of 80 kph, particularly on motorways. I believe that part of the reason for the speed limit was also to prevent damage to the road surface where there was little snow. The rubber compound was also much softer in winter tyres, so that the tread would get warmer much more quickly. If you look at winter competition tyres you will find that they are very soft, almost soft enough to stick your fingernail into. I think that Germany also decrees that you have to have winter tyres fitted but I am not absolutely sure if it is still law. In France I always had a spare set of rims with winter tyres stored in the garage and just changed them around when the first snows were forecast. Parkman.

According to a friend of mine, who runs a body repair business, it is all to do with the insurance companies trying to force down the cost of repairs but giving them a bigger profit on insurance costs. My friend is constantly being hassled by insurance companies over costs. If he quotes using a special paint then the insurance company will try to make him use a cheaper product, even though it might not blend in with the original paint. All the insurance companies want is the cheapest job, and the quality of the job is of no interest to them. If you repair, for instance, Mercedes or BMW, then you have to go to all sorts of training and buy in special equipment, and have the company site inspected by the car company before you can get a franchise. This is a very expensive over-head. However, the insurance companies want my friend to ignore all the quality checks and methods and just do quick repairs. So it is quite possible, depending on who repairs your Mercedes, that the bodywork warranty will be null and void if it repaired by a big insurance company. Basically these insurance companies are just a bunch of cheapskates who are only interested in profit. They will instruct a repair company to throw a cheap, third party, wing onto the car, whatever make the car is, rather than using an original part. Then you wonder why the wing, or door or whatever, starts to rust after 3 or 4 years even though the car has a 30 year body warranty guarantee against corrosion. The answer is [a] don't trust the insurance company, and try to get the car repaired yourself by a reputable, and responsible, body repair company. Parkman.

Yup, I agree with Sean. You have to look at crime figures to see the possible likelyhood of your car being stolen. As far as I am concerned, if you own a high performance, expensive car and you don't park it in a locked garage then it is a sitting target for the scumbags. I made a decision about 18 months ago to buy cars much less likely to be stolen, and I bought a '91 Mercedes E260, an '83 Mercedes 560se, and the IS 300h. I sold two Jaguar XJR's and a Lotus Sunbeam, which I owned, because I began to worry about the paranoia of worrying about any of the cars being stolen !!!!!! Talk about being paranoid !! Both the Mercs have one of the big steering lock arms, which sticks out sideways. A bit ugly, and it requires putting in the boot if you have passengers, but as Sean said, do the average car thieves today expect to come across a fairly dinosaur piece of anti-theft equipment ? I doubt it. Again, as Sean says, you can get it off in about 5 minutes but I suspect that that is 5 minutes that these slugs don't want to hang around for. Parkman.

I think that the point is, if one wants to use modern technology then it needs to be made as simple and effective as possible. Wrapping your keys in kitchen foil is pretty impractical, unless you only use the car once a week ! I see the point of testing the idea, but in real life a metal can with a lid, kept as far from the front door, is probably as good as it gets, at least from the point of view of being cheap, practical, and useful. I believe it is possible to go too far in trying to secure things, to the point where there is no point in owning the item. I wouldn't buy a BMW, for instance, because I know that every scrote in the nieghbourhood will try to steal it, and I would have to put so much security on it that it would take 20 minutes to get into the car !! I just wouldn't be bothered. Keep it simple and, if possible, buy stuff that scumbags don't want to steal.!! Parkman.

Thanks for all the posts. It is always interesting to get other peoples' views on issues like these. Do I do "X" or do I not. I am inclined to not be to concerned about the keyless entry/start/get the lawnmower out/starting the speedboat , but I might just reline my tea caddy with self adhesive foil air conditioning duct tape, which is about 3 inches wide as is very similar to kitchen foil, only with a sticky back. It's good stuff. Parkman.

That was more or less what thought would happen, but I wasn't sure. I have always dropped my keys, from years of habit, into an old tea caddy which just happens to be metal. It was always a convenient place to keep car keys in the kitchen when myself or my wife came in. Parkman.

Hi Matt, you may be right in that the discussion was incorrectly talking about keyless start, when it should have been keyless entry. It would make more sense if it were about the entry process because posters were on about having their cars taken off the drive because their key fobs were being read by a mobile phone or a laptop. The only way, as far as I am aware, of stealing the car was that the thief could, indeed, read the keyfob code and open the car, but he couldn't start the car. What has happened in some cases is that the car has been towed away once it has been opened, but it can't be started. Sounds like a storm in a teacup to me [mind you, it was on the "Mercedes" owners forum !!!]. Parkman.

was reading another forum where there was a discussion about turning off the keyless start. Can it be turned off on the Gen.III IS300h, and if so then how do you start the car afterwards ? Parkman.

I know that it is good to see change but I like the current range and their designs. I would rather not see a large diversion from the current shapes, and I would much, much rather not have to have front wheel drive. I have never really got to like the new MB E-class range since they became more streamlined. I always felt that it looked like the designers were doing well on the front of the car, and then went for lunch, after which they just said "stuff it, let's just wrap up now and stick any old finish on the back, doesn't matter what it looks like". Parkman.

If you do change the key fob battery yourself do you need to reprogram the key fob ? Just reading Marks post about holding the key fob on the start button. With Merc E-class I seem to remember that you didn't need to do anything with the key fob, but if you bought a new key fob you have to leave the car with Mercedes for a couple of hours while they program the new fob through their Star diagnostics system. Even then, in my case, they got it all wrong and I couldn't do central closing of the windows and sunroof. Parkman.

Thanks for the answers. I was just interested to know as there are a lot of items for sale for the ES model in the US, such as car mats and other extra's. I think that it would be a pity if Lexus drop the GS. My brother-in-law has one and I quite like the size of it when compared to the IS. It can be difficult, sometimes, differentiating between the GS and the IS when you see them coming towards you in traffic. I would prefer a separate Lexus designed and built car, such as the IS and GS, than a re-badged Toyota. Parkman.

Hi, I am interested to know what the US Lexus ES 300h compared to on the UK market. Looking at the pictures it looks like a GS model, but does anyone know ? Parkman.

Ah, OK, I didn't know that. Parkman.

Isn't there a setting under display that tells the display not to change ? I got really fed up with the constant change from audio [radio] to car [ the power generation display] and I changed one of the settings which I think was under "Display". It wasn't the day mode setting but another one in a longer option list. The radio setting seems to be kept all the time now, as far as I can see. Now, having said that, I haven't taken the car out since I changed the setting, but I was out with the car when I did change it and on the drive back home through a large town the display didn't change from the radio display to the power display, which it did all the time before. I might try it tomorrow just to see what happens. Parkman.