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Seeing as there isn't many facelifts - Since 2019 I've averaged 47MPG with 80% motorway miles on '17 F-Sport. It's not the car, it's the driver. Being light footed and sticking to the right (left) lane is very rewarding in these so I cruise comfortably at 66mph and can easily stay at over 50MPG 9/12 months in the year.

Although there's no way I could bring the hybrid, I believe the family will be coming in the RCF. Save us a spot!

Congratulations on your purchase and welcome to the forum! It depends on your location more than anything. We have had 5 hybrid cars in the family for a couple of years and none had their cat pinched. If you have the money, why not, but work it out from the likelihood of theft due to parking location during the day and night! Don't forget to brag about the hollowed out noise reduction alloys! Are you new to hybrids?

Massive bane of mine for a few months. Sometimes AVRCP profile change works and then it doesn't again. There's a long running metadata issue post on Spotify community. Make sure you post your details there, they tend to bring some fixes now and again, I thankfully haven't had a problem for quite some time now. Well... Would be nice to get the artwork working one day instead of the generic gracenote pics!

Paul I agree with your opinion of Max's driving style. I want to see the same hunger but let's keep it within the track boundary, his desperate pushes were at times over the top but like I said it's the stewards that fail the sport by not recognising that enough is enough. He, just like many other drivers will push until they are told no more. What I do disagree with is claiming that FIA has manipulated the championship to crown a different driver. Especially if you want to speculate on "breaking" the rules. They have shown lack of bias and competency during the entire season when penalising one way or another. What is your take on the track limits infringements I mentioned earlier that were committed by Lewis? Did the FIA not show bias towards Lewis in that retrospect by simply ignoring the advantage he gained and only issuing him with a warning whilst punishing Max? Let's not focus on one race alone because nobody has ever won a championship over one weekend. Fans want racing, sponsors want racing, drivers want racing. It's what we had and for once we've seen explosion in interest over F1, because it's been exciting for once. I will tune in to watch Max, Ricciardo or Fernando perform risky moves day in day out and will always prefer that over the snoozefest that Mercedes' domination has given us. It's not the drivers job to keep it civil, the reward is too high for them not to take risks. The onus is on the stewards who are employed to keep it safe and fair. More safe than fair may I add. "Culminating in a preposterous single lap shootout heavily geared in Max’s favour." I doubt that stewards gave it more than two seconds of thought that only one of those drivers have pitted for fresh tyres and which one it was. They had their hands full trying to organise a mess without working out everyone's strategies.

There is a solid white line at the outside and inside edge of every part of every FIA circuit. Every time a driver is found in control of his vehicle and with all four wheels across that line is a penalty. They have the technology, use it to make racing fair. Give them two strikes. But leave no grey area. Note every single place and infringement. Then punish those who force you completely off track. Why is this so hard?

MotoGP called, they want their limbs back. Punish off track excursions and track limit infringements, track limits are usually an issue where we didn't have situations such as the aforementioned. What happened during the inaugural race of the season? Max had to give his position back due to going off track whilst overtaking Lewis, even though Lewis has been found off track at that exact point 29 times in the race. 29 times! And now we're getting upset because Lewis lost the last race because his team chose not to pit him for fresh tyres! 29 Times! Where were the stewards?

I agree with you there, he's known for his all or nothing style. Obviously everyone rages and raves about this last race but if we look back at the season the same thing happened at many tracks - Monza (not just the crash but same move at Turn 4), Imola, Sao Paulo, Jeddah. He will definitely put his car in places other drivers wouldn't dare to go. But that is what gave him his F1 seat in his first place. From karting days he's been leagues above his peers and it shows still. He is willing to "go for a gap that exists" to quote a famous late racing driver. Still, being one of very few drivers on the grid that doesn't have to worry about keeping a seat is definitely big help. But in my opinion the lack of penalty for Lewis was very unfair compared to Max's penalties given for the same in Jeddah. I'm not blaming the drivers, it's the stewards that struggle to reign it in with dangerous driving. Their inconsistency and reluctance to punish such race moves has created this situation. Both Lewis and Max will push the envelope of what's acceptable if it wins races. You can't blame Max for divebombing on Lewis if he knows that it will gain him track positions with no consequences, he kept his car on track and made no contact - regardless of what Lewis had to do to avoid him that position was his. Hate the sin, love the sinner.

Goodwood FOS or Revival are absolutely great events; Revival puts you in such great atmosphere, it deserves public TV coverage just as much as F1 or music festivals. I've been to Silverstone Classic as well and it's another great day. Even if you just sit trackside at Copse or Wellington, breath in the fumes and listen to the engines. Goodwood does turn very expensive if you want to experience it to the full with everything being barricaded for premium paying customers. General admission is great though and more than enough for one weekend. Oh, and bring your car keys with you whatever brand you own, some have VIP areas accessible to owners, they tend to keep some concept cars hidden away from general admission and let you have a sneak peak.

As @dutchie01 rightly pointed out, letting big spenders into the sport is what kills the competition. Look at WRC, since their budget cap they have seen a great levelling out in the field and allowed more drivers to get their share of the winning pie. Introduce spending caps to allow drivers and tactics to be the deciding factor of race classifications, that's what brings fans to the tracks and money into the sport. When it comes to drama around the sport, I stay off social media mon-fri on race week and have my own sources of information that completely skip the bias and sensationalising done by most official accounts. Also, as unsafe as it was, I'd like to see refuelling back to bring another element of strategy.

Let's not get carried away here. Max fought fair and square for his title, a few questionable moves won't be enough to overshadow what season he has pulled off in his battle against Mercedes. Let's rewind back ten years and see where Sir Lewis was. He has matured into the driver he is over the years but pulled many dirty moves along the way, often jeopardising races of his teammates or other opponents. With the experience he has he is able to stay within the grey area but nonetheless he was just as much of a ruthless driver even after clenching his first title. Silverstone '11 comes to mind. Club corner of the last lap.

That's why we have the VSC. Bringing a Safety Car is all about bunching cars up together to neutralise the track and allow the proper works to go ahead. Jeddah showed us the importance of bringing it out as we had VSC with the entire field stretched across the whole track and the marshals were unable to get on track to clear it of debris. What I'd propose here is bring a rule where if SC is deployed at 90% of race length or more then red flag should be used instead with a rolling restart to ensure a fair condition for all cars. No unfair advantages for pitting for tyres or staying out and gambling on race ending under SC like we saw yesterday.

Last two races have confirmed my opinion of Michael Masi. After Charlie's passing he was way too inexperienced to be put in the position of making these kinds of decisions on the spot. Not conveying the proper message (Verstappen and Lewis crash) in the correct order in Jeddah; the inability to manage the TPs and crumbling under pressure in both races, not mentioning many other situations this year. Anyone recall the fact that he couldn't even remember the driver line-up when he was arranging deals with Merc and RB for race restart at Jeddah? We have seen a great deal of change in the recent years with the handover of ownership. Lots of attention brought to the sport through DTS and their great online presence (anyone remember what Bernie Ecclestone's F1 Youtube channel looked like?), however you can see that the "let them race", "driver of the day interviews" and so on is all a reality-tv, scripted, directed part of liberty media agenda they are trying to put on the sport. Of course they will seek any drama at any given chance. And they couldn't ask for more with the last race. Do I agree with how the race went yesterday? No. Have all teams reacted appropriately to on track events thus giving their drivers the greatest winning chance? No. Are any of the drivers to blame for the outcome of Abu Dabi GP? No. Let's put all of the whataboutism aside, thankfully, 2021 WDC has been one hell of a rollercoaster. We have seen it all. It has been the most thrilling season in a very long time and that is a breath of fresh air as well as hope for more for the years to come. In my opinion, Max Verstappen is the most deserving driver of that title. Yes, luck has swung his way in the last race, but he has also been found very unlucky in some others. The four times where he did not finish on the podium this year were either due to the tyre failure in Baku or being taken out by a mercedes. That is something extraordinary. The kid has not had an off-day. The car he drove was clearly the inferior of the front runners after the summer break yet he drove it to 110% to ensure he kept those points coming.

Funny we should mention our downstairs neighbours... I'm currently accommodating a few French engineers at work, my gosh don't they complain about the quality of our food! Granted they are normally presented with whatever nonsense the local M&S stacks their sandwich aisle with, but you'd think they're being rationed canned meat and potatoes!! They were given a choice between that and best local Staffordshire pies and they couldn't run away quick enough! I don't think they were too pleased with their hotel and the dinner menu, lack of cheese selection I heard... Apparently cheddar is no camembert...

MK4 GS is a thing of beauty. Great fuel efficiency, outstanding build quality and passenger comfort. The later, facelifted models came very well equipped and the only thing you could miss would be Android Auto/CarPlay available only in the latest Lexus models. One thing I can definitely confirm is that you don't chose the GS if you're reliant on the versatility and ability to fit many strange items into your car. Small boot for its class and non-folding rear seats could be a deal breaker. But if you can get past that, a GS is a class above the IS with regards to pretty much everything. It's also worth noting that they are one of the quietest interiors tested at time of production, long journey comfort is second to none! With regards to Mark Levinson - to me it was a must. Standard radios fitted are very pedestrian and although you won't complain about the lack of bass if you turn it up enough, don't be expecting any decent performance. If it is already something you're contemplating on, I would not go for a vehicle that doesn't have one (good luck finding an IS with ML by the way). One thing to also note, ML system installed in the GS is very much inferior to those installed in the later Lexus vehicles. If you have a chance, make your way down to the dealership and compare '16-'19 GS with same year RX and you will see what I mean. Whilst you're at it, some dealerships might have a few GS to look at, especially down south.

Is exactly my feeling. Lexus is a very niche brand as it is. Their CVT offering for most vehicles has scared off too many potential buyers already, thus making some of their models become very scarce - facelift MK4 GS450h F-Sport being a prime example. Because of the small numbers sold, there is little in the second hand market to be choosing from. Speaking from a perspective of a second-hand market buyer, this leaves me with much less options when looking for my next vehicle. Beggars can't be choosers, but it is nice to know that when looking for a certain vehicle you are presented with many offering to suit your liking. In many cases with previous models you only had to look for a certain grade + ML pack. For instance, suddenly whilst looking for a new ES, one is found looking for F-Sport Takumi Pack because the F-Sport has already been stripped of some of the features the GS F-Sport would already have had as standard. Now if Lexus decides to start offering their customers the ability to save some dollar to have the F-Sport styling on an otherwise bog standard vehicle, I'm sure many would be happy to make the compromise. Their NX couldn't possibly handle well anyway regardless of the suspension set-up, why not save and go for the spoilers kit only package? But along the way there will be a selection of features suddenly missing from 50% of the F-branded vehicles. This already has been the case in the USA, we're lucky in the UK to have our options previously restricted by the franchise that runs the market, their ordering system bundles features and sells them as a specific grade, so hopefully this will remain the case for us to some extent. Although this is already proving quite challenging when looking at the available spec for the '22 NX. With regards to the "proper" F cars... It's 2021, we're currently busy pretending to be trying to save the planet... The harsh reality is we only have 9 years left, ICE's are on their way out.

Interesting. Are they slowly becoming like JLR? Will there suddenly be a thousand optional extras to each vehicle? I wonder how much of this ethos will trickle down to the small UK market.

Potenza? Bridgestone have been a long time Lexus supplier, so it is no surprise there! I may have learned that very thing from autopsy - GT86, cold primacy's, roundabout, kerb.

Thanks for the update Marcus, sounds like you managed to save a significant amount by going the non-OEM route!

I'm surprised there's no OEM refurb option especially for parts such as these. I wouldn't class shocks as consumables on road cars though. This is the first car that I come across where they are known to fail at low mileages. I mean shocks have been replaced before brake discs on my car which doesn't seem quite right.

I am yet to come across anyone who isn't at least twice my age driving one of these though, must mean only the wisest choose to own these. The second hand market is therefore full of low mileage, well maintained examples, I see no negatives!

I've been very fortunate to still be within my extended warranty period. Strangely enough though, it popped up early at 40k during service and MOT; it was noted that the car had "misting" on the rear shocks. Then nothing during it's 50k service 6 months later. Year on after the 40k - next MOT and 60k service it was an MOT fail but had the components replaced within a two weeks under the warranty although Relax wouldn't have covered it as you pointed out correctly. I was quite... shocked... seeing that it wasn't the first part repaired under warranty on a less than 5 year old car at the time.

@ALAW there are many things to improve on and get a better foam. Without listing the obvious "upgrade your kit" advice, try simply warming up the 1L mix by either keeping it in the bucket of warm water (if you use warm for washing your car) before spraying or boiling a kettle and using that to mix up with the foam in a ratio of choice. Your dilution ratio may need playing with as well. Generally, I'd maybe try a different chemical? I found the ValetPRO Ph-N Foam to be very good in the bubbles division.

+1 to this, we'll bring our RCF. This year's Japfest was probably the worst I've been to although this might be due to inability to bring my 86. My favourite part of the day was watching th F1 on a tablet whilst attempting to listen out for the very few nice sounding cars on track at inside of Copse. Grandstands at Brooklands were closed, UK Drift Championship decided to show up during Trax in October instead so no fun from those guys either. Although there was a red RCF in the facebook 's Lex Nation!

Very good question, although I can only really recall drivers from 21st century. What I know of pre-2000's comes from literature or third person opinions, so I'll only include a handful. Alonso, Schumacher, Ricciardo, Verstappen, Trulli, Sato, Pre-2009 Massa, Leclerc, Lauda and of course Senna. Then the "reserved" ones: Hakkinen, Hamilton, Raikkonen, Lauda (notice he's on both lists), N Rosberg, Sainz Jr, Norris, Barrichello, Button, Vettel, Post-2009 Massa.