solarpower

@Hamish2015, Thank you for a nice review. 

• What sort of mpg are you getting in town and on motorways? 
• Which trim you went for, and how quiet is the cabin?

Sol

1 hour ago, General Mess said:

The tax is based on the manufacture’s list price at the time of first registration & ignores any dealer discount. I have recently been down this route & discovered that it is not possible to buy a new NX loaded up with any additional packs without incurring the luxury car tax ☹️

@General Mess: Thanks, well, then I am right in interpreting that NX350h 2WD plus premium pack is the way to go to avoid luxury tax?

On 12/24/2021 at 4:27 PM, Ken R said:

As far as I was aware all UK spec MY22 NX models are AWD.? 

Lexus UK website shows FWD model as the entry level model. Add £1000 for the premium pack, then is 39250 and under 40k. Adding any other pack would incur luxury car tax, IMO.

I was wondering if you added packs and the price goes over 40k but the dealer discounts to bring under 40k, then would this incur any luxury tax?

On 1/25/2022 at 12:02 PM, Pm4 said:

According to this article the estimated price in USA will be from 45k dollars, which usually equates to 50 to 60 UK pounds, According to various specs.

If correct, it's waiting for. I am going for a 450h+ to keep for around 3 years and then switch to full electric, by then range and changing infrastructure should be much better. 

https://www.motortrend.com/news/2025-lexus-lf-z-electrified-concept-future-cars/

I have been thinking like you but won't the price of your 450h+ will be dramatically different (possibly low) in few years as there will be less demand for such vehicles when most people will be looking for EVs?

On 4/27/2020 at 6:09 PM, holiday said:

In terms of warranty what you get is 2 free MOTs AA full breakdown coverage on a personal cover for you and and another person . It’s a really sweet deal as if you bought these separately then it would cost a lot more. We had to use extended warranty on our car and without it it would have costed £4,000. It’s the piece of mind really. 

I take that all of you bought your car from the authorised dealer. It seems I might be able to negotiate a deal with a FCA/Jeep dealer who happened to have an IS300H- may be because someone part exchanged- the Lexus is 15 reg with 45K miles and due for the  5th service with 1 owner. 1) As it seems a Lexus extended warranty costs like £800, so that needs to knocked off. 2) I am asking the guy to get the latest service done by Lexus- which is like £400. Is there anything else I should be worried or check ? 

Thanks,

Solar

4 hours ago, matt8 said:

Local independent (not dealership).

My annual service costs around £120 and I have a cheap local MOT place doing no pass no fee, charging £15.

Matt, such local garages- do they do hybrid Battery checks? I thought that is required for a valid warranty on the Battery.

5 hours ago, ganzoom said:

We've have owned our IS300H since 2015 and it's done 27k in that time.

The only thing we have replaced in that time is one set of tyres, and the key fob battery.

The car is serviced every year, originally on a service pack with main dealer now at the local independent.

The IS300H is the most reliable car we have ever owned, it's never even needed any oil between services.

Personally I wouldn't bother with any warranty, that's why you are buying a Lexus, if you want to see unreliable go and buy a BMW or a Tesla!  

We were thinking of replacing it, but £10/year VED, a true 45-50mpg all year round, and barely £200/year for service+MOT makes for very good longterm ownership, now planning to keep it pretty much forever.

Someone mentioned snow, we seem to be warming up in the UK, what snow our IS has seen it had dealt with fine. The IS300H has the most aggressive TC system Ive driven in any car, despite been RWD the chances of you spinning out due to over steer in any condition is exactly 0. You can literally mash the throttle mid turn on fresh snow and the you will still not loss control. It drives more like a FWD car in snow than RWD. Plug in hybrids actually make little sense in any situation. If you are doing small miles your fuel bill will be tiny, and the reliability of the Lexus drivetrain will save you so much more stress/money compared to any plugin hybrid from BMW/Audi etc.

From the hassle free ownership experience point of view the IS300H really has been top of the class for us, and we owned plenty of Honda/Nissan's, you cannot really go wrong with these cars.

Ganzoom, thank you. Out of curiosity where do you get service and MOT for £200 per year. I thought the Lexus minor serivce costs £395 and major costs £595.

5 minutes ago, ColinBarber said:

Service is every 12 month or 10k miles, whichever comes first.

For the plugs it is 60k miles, not a duration so you can defer that part of the 60k service to whenever 60k miles comes up.

@Thackeray the 100k miles service is expensive because the engine and hybrid inverter coolant is first changed at 100k miles, and then every 50k miles thereafter.

Thank you Colin- how does the car drive in snow? Do you need to change to winter tyres as in BMWs?

2 hours ago, Thackeray said:

The first is a difficult question. What you're asking is will the car keep running for 16 years, reaching 120,000 miles by then? The answer, I suppose, is "we can't tell but probably yes", judging by the number of 16 year old Lexuses still around.For example, the HowManyLeft website shows that of around 32,000 IS200 cars registered in 2004, around 16,000 are still on the road or registered SORN. But what you also probably want to know is will it still be reliable or will it cost a lot to maintain. Anecdotally, the answer seems to be that Lexus is usually the most reliable brand in surveys.

I keep cars for a long time, too. So part of what attracted me to the hybrid IS300h was the fact that of things that might go wrong it has no gearbox, no starter motor, no alternator as such, no clutch; instead it has two electric motors. In my experience, electric motors last for ages without attention but whether that means the same for a hybrid car I have yet to find out.

Brakes, too, can get away with very little wear. After 50,000 miles, my brakes are around a quarter to one-third worn. That suggests they might last for 150,000 miles but we'll see, of course.

The cost of servicing at Lexus dealers is not cheap, though five-year-old cars get a discount. Service is due every year, unlike some German cars which might get away with every two years. One thing to bear in mind is that the IS300h 60,000 mile service is an expensive one because the spark plugs are replaced every 60,000 miles. The 100,000 mile service is expensive, too, but I can't remember what is done to increase the cost. But so far, I've had no extras charged when I've had the car serviced - unlike with German cars, where an extra unexpected £500 was fairly common.in my experience. More than once the Lexus dealer has also changed the windscreen wipers without charge. It doesn't cost them much to do this but it's nice that they do something without charge.

Thackeray, thank you- this is very insightful. Just wondering the expensive 60k service is by the miles or the 6th service if the car has not done 60k, assuming 10k service every year? 

4 minutes ago, Thackeray said:

I can't think of a reason why slow town driving would be more detrimental to the hybrid battery than motorway driving. The battery doesn't see any indication of driving conditions - it simply calls for power from the engine whenever it needs charging. Driving conditions won't have any impact on that as far as I can see.

The hybrid battery is guaranteed for 15 years now, as long as you get a hybrid health check done I think every year or 10,000 miles.

But short trips will have an impact on the mpg especially in the winter. I wrote a post about this a couple of years ago, which I'll link to below. This is a consistent pattern that fuel consumption tends to increase (lower mpg) in winter and gets better again in the summer.

 

Matt, Colin and Thackeray, Thank you very much for your reply. I am considering buying a 2014-16 used IS300H with ~50k miles. With my kind of driving, do you think it will last for 8-10 years?  Based on your experience, is there anything that I should be worried about?

Thanks again gentlemen.

On 1/30/2015 at 10:47 PM, Steve_L said:

Valuable observations for anyone whose mpg 'suffers' from the short journey to work. Those figures will apply everywhere - not just London - and will be worse if the car has to climb any hills.

Mine spends the 3 miles to work charging the battery (EV Mode not available) and usually reads 35. Journey back is almost all uphill and I have readings as low as 22.

As Ross noted, it doesn't take long for mpg to rapidly climb if you drive patiently. Worth a try to compare experience.

Based on this- if you do 2-4 miles from cold in stop-start traffic, the car never runs in the EV mode? If you drive the car like this, would not the Battery die out quickly. Is IS300H (or other Toyota hybrids) are not suitable for such driving?

Dear all,

I am considering buying Lexus IS300H and I currently have Golf 1.9 TDI. I am hoping you folks can illuminate me. My questions are:

1. I drive like 2-3 miles in start-stop traffic (max speed 30 mph) a couple of times a day. I am wondering would the IS300H batteries would last with this type of driving or they would die quickly? I I rarely do motorway driving, and my annual mileage will be around 6k to 7k miles. I tend to keep car for long time- historically ~8-10 years.
2. As I understand, IS300H drives initially in the EV mode. Is this true? Would I cover those distance in EV mode? How does this change in winter? What sort of mpg I can expect?
3. MPG is not my most important concern- I do not prefer usual cambelt changes, worn out clutches, brake pads etc. I assume they are negligible with IS300H. Right?
4. While I understand that a plug-in hybrid might be better for me but I hate the idea of charging car every day like mobile phones, and thus like the idea of self-charging hybrids (hence Battery concern in #1 above). I can't afford pure electric vehicles.

Thanks for helping me.

Solar