Las Palmas

On 6/4/2023 at 3:16 PM, eightk said:

Sport plus coupes do have rear wheel steer. 
One thing that attracted me to the LC is it doesn’t need to be thrashed to have fun. Only using a small percentage of the power is still enjoyable… and (stop laughing at the back) environmentally friendly too.

Laughing at myself as well. Have filled MB300SEL 6.3 - Nissan ZX models and some other gas guggling cars (that have been driven stupidly hard) with fuel so I am not laughing at you but at many or maybe most of us.

On 1/14/2023 at 2:32 PM, Bluemarlin said:

That's interesting Peter, how do you find the cost of their premiums? Last time I checked they seemed quite expensive, at least for me anyway.

Would  be nice if they offered a free catalytic converter shield 🙂

There is no reason whatsoever to have the cat so easily accessible. But moving the cat's on cars already sold will not happen.

Then if you think about how many years cat's have been stolen and why on newer cars they are still just under the car where needed is to cut it out, it may be something that has little interest being solved.

Much better to sell shields and profit on installing them.

Some think Lexus already have made their laurels and are now more interested in selling Toyota cars. Easy to understand. As far as I have read in the forum here the first LS was the best ever made; the following 5 - 10 years after 2000 same perfection has never been acchieved / made - and maybe on purpose.

I do not speak like a Lexus owner? The CT is a fine little car with many things going for it and if it last till a hydrogen car in tiny enough size to fit us it has served it's purpose. Seems though that cars are steadily increasing size while parking places become further between, but if that is what can be sold, not much for us to do about that.

2 hours ago, Kaptkremmin said:

Hi LenT it's not an argument, all cars need the oil changing every year regardless of mileage I have not a problem with that, and don't take any notice of the long life oil claims,  I always get the oil dropped in any cars I have after a year, some times twice, I was only mentioning that covering the mileage I do it should not need a full service every two years and all my cars live under cover, as regards to the cars value, I probably paid top dollar for the Lexus I bought due to the fact it was from Lexus and comes with the 12mth warranty, but I very much doubt a Lexus dealer will have many 10yr old cars on the forecourt, they tend to trade all those on to the smaller garages.

How else do you think the Lexus shops shall make money? Selling a car is only a one-time thing, service is continuing as long as they can keep the customer interested.

1 hour ago, dutchie01 said:

 we can glue ourselves to tarmac or throw soup at paintings. Better to do that in China i think.

You think ! ? ? ?

Committing suicide will help a lot?

Better tell the idiots that bought EV's because they were given a lot from stupid governments, that the claim they came with first : That they bought electric cars to save the planet was nothing but stupid people talking and that they might have been not knowing what damage Li-Ion excavating and manufacturing does to the planet, but that today there is no such excuse as it has been told often enough that our corrupt governments are just not wanting to admit that they were bribed into their politics and ideas that we have electricity and batteries and nothing is the problem. Those politicians are now having no excuse for not knowing what they have done, but so far only one government in the world is against excavating rare minerals if doing that cause danger for the planet:

BRAVO GREENLAND

11 hours ago, Mr Vlad said:

Can't see someone with a BEV and an ICE car being carbon neutral. For one the, as you oh so correctly put, abhorrent mining of precious minerals metals etc to manufacture the batteries costs what around 70% more than producing an ICE car. What did Volvo say? It'll take about 10 years of running the BEV before it starts to become carbon neutral. 

Now because I'm a working class fella my view is those with a BEV and an ICE car are rich snobs or lottery winners which in that case good on them.

I wonder from where Volvo will get the electricity in order to call a car carbon neutral if it has been running 10 years. If they sell the car in Germany more than 30% of electricity in that country is made from burning coal (lignite).

Meaning that all charging their EV's in Germany are doing what they can to pollute.

10 hours ago, Mr Vlad said:

Can't see someone with a BEV and an ICE car being carbon neutral. For one the, as you oh so correctly put, abhorrent mining of precious minerals metals etc to manufacture the batteries costs what around 70% more than producing an ICE car. What did Volvo say? It'll take about 10 years of running the BEV before it starts to become carbon neutral. 

Now because I'm a working class fella my view is those with a BEV and an ICE car are rich snobs or lottery winners which in that case good on them.

No sure I will call them snobs. Rather people that care nothing about environment and what they will leave to coming generations or somebody plain stupid that believe everything they are told by politicians, which mean they are not just stupid but also naive.

Only one country has so far had  politicians that actually did (at least they are still trying but being fought by powerful enemies) what they promised before being elected. Greenland that has one of the largest sources for minerals to many things, but the new government promised to make it illegal to dig out if that at the same time would hurt the environment. Unlucky for the mining company there are lots of radioactive materials next to the minerals so the promise the government now have made law is making enemies with lots of funds and such is dangerous. All other countries should be ashamed of what they are doing, but they have no such feelings as all that count is money!

On 6/4/2023 at 8:02 AM, Las Palmas said:

Congratulation

Greenland

You have the first (to my knowledge) government doing what was promised before election.

Previous governments have corrupted your country with allowing polluting it.

The previous Danish governments have permitted the US to make air base in Thule and the radioactive pollution made there has never really been done anything to clean up. Costly and so far, far, away.

Previous governments have permitted a company to search for minerals in the ground and they have found abundance of the precious minerals that are needed in batteries, laptops, magnets, military equipment (fighter jets), rocket science, smartphones and windmills. Enough to make the country (and of course the company) extremely rich.

Unfortunately, such riches in minerals are sometimes / often found together with other stuff, such as Thorium, and Uranium, not that uranium ore is not something that can be sold. But it is making it maybe not possible or at least economically viable to get out of the ground without damaging / destroying the land.

So, the brave government made a law prohibiting digging where it will be likely that the surrounding area will be damaged by radioactivity. Strange as it will only be damaged in 10 – 20 thousand years, what is that compared to immense riches?

The company (Energy Transition Minerals) that has searched for minerals and spend money on doing that are of course not happy and will take the case to court. The area called Kuannersuit has one of the maybe biggest amount and concentration of precious minerals, Iit thus looks like the death knell for a project that has caused great debate in Greenland in recent years.

Because although Kuannersuit (in Danish = Kvanefjeld) contains valuable minerals, which Greenland could make a fortune from, and which could contribute to the country's economic independence, the mountain also contains radioactive substances, which in the worst case can / will cause catastrophic damage to the environment.

I wish the government of Greenland luck. They will need it. They will be fought by politicians from more than one country and remember that being corrupt and greedy are virtues for politicians.

Here are a few pictures of what the US left on Greenland and have no interest whatsoever to clean, It may not be possible to clean the radioactive materials that are now down in the ground and below-lying water.

16 minutes ago, Cs150 said:

The super cool Prius Gen 5 would have been a better choice to adopt to Lexus standards 

Yes. Except for finding parking space.

Size is OK for us if rear seat is not too cramped. The UX rear seat is less good than the one in CT with same driver seat positioning.

Still hoping that there will come a small hydrogen car before the CT must retire.

4 hours ago, Linas.P said:

One of the differences between premium, mainstream and economy cars are the amount of sound deadening. This is why when driving premium car it is difficult to feel speed and sometimes I am speeding without realising it, just because car is so well insulated... yet in economy car it lacks all that and even doing 60 on motorway feels like you are about to fly off the road because of all noises. Remember LBX is based on most basic economy shaite-box and it seems Lexus kept it as it was... So in short - don't expect any luxury or premium feeling when driving it. But Lexus tries to turn this into some sort of positive. 

Then there was a claim about supposed "Eco friendliness of it" - apparently it is under 120g/co2... which is TRASH! IS300h from 2013 was rated at 99-108g/co2... so how comes this trash box with 1.5L engines isn't beating it. Anything over 50g would be unacceptable and they boasting about 120g! Well sure they said "under" so it may as well be 50g, but just weird they pick 120g as starting point then. I guess what I am trying to say - engine in LBX is not sophisticated, but rather cheap engine designed for the cheapest of economy cars.

All in all - the car that does no need to exist and that Lexus does not need in their line-up... instead of giving us something interesting they are feeding some fashion trash to people who are even more ignorant then they are themselves. I guess I am just disappointed that once great brand is now turning into complete failure.

Basically if we take that picture with ape evolution where apes turned into humans and then at some point evolution reversed, then I think same could be done with cars. Cars have been improving for over 100 years and Lexus LS400 was probably the pinnacle of car evolution, build quality, engineering etc. and since then Lexus made great cars for maybe decade or two... and now we clearly going backwards with each coming year.

Much of what you mention is correct, only different people have different wishes.

The CT is not a premium car and still very much OK. Sound proofing is hardly existing in it which was easy to see when changing from Pirelli P7 to Continental UltraContact, now road noise is about half and if the car had been sound proofed the difference between the tyres would have been less.

ECO friendliness is some bull**** all are talking about and do not really do anything to get.

Last point you have here is very correct. Since LS Lexus quality has been going down. Maybe for the reason that people tend to change cars pretty often and few of the first-time buyers will keep their cars longer than they will still be covered by warranty.

13cm less long than the CT, not higher, could be interesting. The CT is fine; will not last forever though still drives like new. Does not look like the UX, which is good in my eyes. Might be too cramped on rear seat, the little one normally will get bigger but will have to see it, UX less spacious on rear seat than CT, wife did not fit comfortable on seat behind driver and she is not big. Car for us is 95% used for shorter tours, school, supermarkets, swimming. Once monthly to a vegetable market a bit up on the island.

Funny that most written on the new car is about power and that is outright stupid. It is a city car and who want to lose driver's licence? Much less about inside space. Same type Battery as in CT (no Li-Ion). Much good is to say about it.

Do not like touch screens, they tend to get dirty,

I do appreciate finding a parking space for a small car, close to not that difficult, whereas finding parking space here for the big SUV's is like winning in lottery.

2005 - 2006 Toyota service here was much more than fine. It was perfect. Next door there was a Lexus service, much bigger and impressive, but did not have a Lexus then. Management were Japanese, service possible also in week-ends if you did not mind paying extra.

Think they sold the franchise to local people and Lexus service is now together with Toyota, and we can be lucky to have fine service and also unfortunately the opposite. Believe the personnel is paid minimum wage or at least some of the personnel.

On the other hand, such is of minor importance when the car never has any problems and all it need is oil etc.

Tried to buy tyres from them, but they are close to being not smart. They would sell the tyres they had in stock close to 100€ more expensive than tyre professionals and when asking for the Continental I wanted they were almost 200€ more expensive. Told them that and shrugging shoulders was what I got. Guess who did not sell tyres!

Oil and filter (ordinary service) are what they can handle and hybrid Battery control.

On 7/18/2014 at 7:16 PM, ColinBarber said:

did you just lock the door with the key to disable the alarm? Personally I would have just disabled the interior sensor rather than disabling the whole alarm - it is normally the motion sensor that causes false alarms, or some wildlife shut in the vehicle.

Either that or somebody setting it off hoping that you will disable it.

If no doors are opened when alarm is turned off the car will automatically lock doors again. At least the one we have does so.

11 minutes ago, VSR said:

The main reason however, as to why i went for the NX except for reliability, is that other brands such as Audi charge extra for rear curtain airbags(at least when i last checked on the Q5) , whereas i felt lexus whilst not generous with tech were not being crooked with safety, and at the time for 2k i could get the prem sport and all the tech i wanted bar the 360 cameras was there. I also get a feeling that the UK arms of  car brands are not being good with car security, the amount of keyless go thefts are far too high and all it would take for them to eradicate the issue is by introducing a pin to drive system, just like unlocking your phone. What's your thoughts on pin to drive, teslas already have that.  I know i've gone a bit off topic from the inital tyre suggestions apologies!

Cobra had an alarm with a few more buttons on the remote and if not pressed correct car would be locked a while. Do not remember the name or number of it. Did not sell that well. But did function in 2000.

1 hour ago, DavidCM said:

Hydrogen cars don't have to look like a Toyota Mirai...the latest from Alpine(being a Renault you'd better go for extended warranty).

Sweet design.

Not many roads are well enough for such a low-lying speedster.

23 minutes ago, Mr Vlad said:

Yes that article mentioned All methods of fuelling travel. It also mentioned being duped into buying BEV. You've chosen the tesla for your own personal reasons which is fine. But where I feel disheartened by BEV owners is they don't give a rats ***** about how the batteries got made. If they did then no BEV's would be sold. That's how I personally see it and why I'd Never go BEV even if it did make economic sense which actually it doesn't now.

Which is why everybody should applaud the government in Greenland for risking a hefty fine for not allowing exploitation and destruction of their country. Any government in the world is supposed to take care of their country and their people and so far, no other government in the world have cared the least about doing just that.

The government in Greenland is also risking a lot of other consequences and will definitely be blamed by many influential people.

Hope they are able to keep those exploiting out of the country and throw away the influence from Denmark that has never done anything good to the country. All Denmark has done is to try to bullish and alcoholise them, take the fish and their children in order to make them good Danes and tell the people there that it is OK to let US have bases there and destroy the country. Stupid Trumpet wanted to buy the island.

17 minutes ago, Al D-Much said:

Not sure if you're being serious or making a joke.
Their website is all in French too, so not helpful whatsoever.

Do you say that French people speak only French?

That would explain why I when a young hippie was on a train tour through France toward Spain and went into Gare du Nord asking for way to the other train station that had trains going south. On top of where the sweet little girl was sitting there were flags from several countries and in my naivety, I thought that she was speaking these. I asked - asked again in another of the abovementioned languages and when I had tried 5 of them, she spoke to me very fast in French.

No picture from me, the black one was turning different way than I was going and to me it looked as if the rear wheels were doing the same as on the old Honda Accord Coupé (turning). It could have been a hot day and I am imagining things. Lexus would never start to do such things! It is a conservative old premium brand.

9 minutes ago, steve2006 said:

Just where is this once league topping global company going?

Do you need to ask Steve?

19 minutes ago, First_Lexus said:

I do understand your point, but brands have always done this sort of thing. Putting tyres to one side for a moment, ‘less desirable’ brands have always loaded their models with more equipment at a lower price in order to try and tempt people away from ‘prestige’ or ‘more desirable’ brands. When I was young in the 1970s the family firm made a conscious decision to move away from Mercedes company cars and go to Vauxhall/Opel for exactly this  reason. The absolute quality wasn’t there, but the owner/drivers loved that their new cars were stuffed full of electric windows, cassette decks, tinted glass and the like - all of which were optional extras on the previous and much dearer Mercedes. The point about Nissan above - to me - fits that same premise all these years later.

Returning to tyres, I don’t think we can say Lexus is fitting ‘shoddy’ tyres. Yokohama, Dunlop, Bridgestone all are good brands. The reality is that most people don’t really notice or care. On a car forum the representative sample of views is likely to be quite different to the public at large imho.

That aside, I do think Lexus is penny pinching in some areas considering the cost of the product. The bonnet strut on a UX is a small but good example. They must reason that the extra ‘perception of quality’ a gas strut would provide isn’t a deal breaker for almost anybody - and they’re probably correct - but in terms of long term satisfaction it’s that sort of thing that gets into the subconscious. I think they used to be called ‘surprise and delight’ features. I’d say the plastic door trims on the UX are far more important, and personally I think the quality there really does let the side down in an important area.

 

You are right that Lexus is cutting corners with the newer models. That only make it correct that they have made their reputation and now don't need to do much as the brand is already named : Premium.

9 hours ago, PGL said:

Car passed MOT with rear window wiper blade ripped, advised when recently in for service it was replaced as part of service, so no charge. 

Lucky you.

9 hours ago, VSR said:

i get that for sure, but shoddy tyres could also make the difference between some1 buying one on a test drive and not, it hinders the NX reaching its ultimate ability, i get for example a brand like citoren/renault/nissan juke/dacia etc. it makes sense to fit the cheapest, as you dont have choice in the price point, but Lexus has the GLB,GLC X3, X4, Model Y, Q5, Macan, CRV, Sportage, RAV4, TIGUAN, e-pace, f-pace, evoque ... to contend with leaves a bit of a cheap taste, seeing as everything in the NX is perfect. I personally think that if they offered 360 camera (mid spec and above NISSANS, yes Nissans have had this since 2012 yet Lexus in 2023 makes you spend 14k extra to go to Takumi to get this) , better tyres, blind spot monitoring as standard on the lexus range their sales may be 2-3x higher in the UK. The penny pinching on the UX is a bit obvious the bonnet has a manual mount instead of a strut, offering no sat nav as standard, 10k mile service/1 y service intervals probably puts a lot of fleet managers off from buying these as rivals have 2yr/20k and cheaper service. Would you agree?

Lexus made their reputation and now they are resting on the laurels. Profit FIRST!

Congratulation

Greenland

You have the first (to my knowledge) government doing what was promised before election.

Previous governments have corrupted your country with allowing polluting it.

The previous Danish governments have permitted the US to make air base in Thule and the radioactive pollution made there has never really been done anything to clean up. Costly and so far, far, away.

Previous governments have permitted a company to search for minerals in the ground and they have found abundance of the precious minerals that are needed in batteries, laptops, magnets, military equipment (fighter jets), rocket science, smartphones and windmills. Enough to make the country (and of course the company) extremely rich.

Unfortunately, such riches in minerals are sometimes / often found together with other stuff, such as Thorium, and Uranium, not that uranium ore is not something that can be sold. But it is making it maybe not possible or at least economically viable to get out of the ground without damaging / destroying the land.

So, the brave government made a law prohibiting digging where it will be likely that the surrounding area will be damaged by radioactivity. Strange as it will only be damaged in 10 – 20 thousand years, what is that compared to immense riches?

The company (Energy Transition Minerals) that has searched for minerals and spend money on doing that are of course not happy and will take the case to court. The area called Kuannersuit has one of the maybe biggest amount and concentration of precious minerals, Iit thus looks like the death knell for a project that has caused great debate in Greenland in recent years.

Because although Kuannersuit (in Danish = Kvanefjeld) contains valuable minerals, which Greenland could make a fortune from, and which could contribute to the country's economic independence, the mountain also contains radioactive substances, which in the worst case can / will cause catastrophic damage to the environment.

I wish the government of Greenland luck. They will need it. They will be fought by politicians from more than one country and remember that being corrupt and greedy are virtues for politicians.

Here are a few pictures of what the US left on Greenland and have no interest whatsoever to clean, It may not be possible to clean the radioactive materials that are now down in the ground and below-lying water.

8 minutes ago, VSR said:

thanks all for that, I personally having done some more research wouldn't replace my tyres with Yokohoma as they got a D grade for fuel efficency and a C grade for wet handling, when there are other tyres for the same money such as continental/ bridgestone /good year with A and B ratings for the £140-£150 price range on asda tyres. Btw do use asda tyres, if you don't i find that its comparison service is always cheaper except against COSTCO, and it gets fitted at a local garage. Shame Lexus doesn't go for the other brands as standard. 

Lexus goes for the tyre brand they make most profit on. Like all other companies.

Saw a black coupé today waiting for green light with L on it so it must have been a Lexus. To me it seemed not much more than 1 M tall so owner must be fit to get in and out. Did not get close to it but beautiful it was. Short after saw a grey Ferrari with the strangest array of little LED lamps on maybe the headlamps.

Some special cars on this little island with no places where all the power in them can be used.

Let me first admit that this has very little to do with errors or faults on electric cars, but since Mr. Bean and The Guardian entered praising other ways to store power here in this thread it just might be OK anyway.

Unleashing the Power: Liquid Hydrogen Fuels Debut Race Car

By FRANKIE WALLACE      https://www.hydrogenfuelnews.com/author/frankiew/

The H2-powered Toyota Corolla has completed a 24-hour race at the Fuji International Speedway

Toyota brought its liquid hydrogen fuelled Corolla to the Fuji International Speedway in Oyama, Shizuoka Prefecture in Japan, representing the first time a race car in any race worldwide has been powered by liquified H2.

Toyota is using the race car to learn more about its operation than is available through research.

The liquid hydrogen Toyota Corolla completed the 24-hour race, providing the automaker with invaluable data.  The extreme conditions provided by racing offer the automaker insight into issues that can occur with the vehicle that aren’t possible in conventional research.  The goal of this use of the race car is to learn enough to accelerate commercial sale development.

Toyota has already entered races using H2-powered Corollas. That said, those cars were powered by the fuel in its gas form. This began in May 2021.  That said, by switching from gas to liquified H2, there is greater energy density within the same fuel tank volume. This one change doubled the vehicle’s range.

Toyota hopes to use what it learns about liquid hydrogen cars to broaden decarbonization options.

“The potential for engine-based decarbonization will expand,” said Toyota President Koji Sato at a recent media conference. “There are still many challenges for mass production, but breakthroughs can be found in the field.”

The race car used a hydrogen internal combustion engine (ICE) not unsimilar to the configuration of vehicles with gasoline-powered engines. This is unlike the fuel cells that power the Mirai and other H2 gas-powered vehicles.

Fuel cell vehicles run on electricity generated using H2. With an ICE design, the car uses many parts and technologies common in gasoline ICE vehicles, only they are fueled by H2 instead.

Liquid hydrogen challenges

Among the primary challenges of working with liquid hydrogen is that the fuel has to be kept colder than -253ºC. This requires additional technology for the fuel pumps as well as other components.

Toyota had intended to make a race in March the first time it used this race car. However, an engine room fire during a test run meant that the vehicle had to be withdrawn close to the last minute. The automaker used that experience to make modifications to the vehicle, which made it possible to participate in this most recent race.

1 hour ago, ColinBarber said:

No, not in the UK if it doesn't have an E or BS marking on it, nor if it is being fitting into a housing that wasn't designed for. No LED lamp can be approved with a H (Halogen) fitting.

The H fittings are a standard that were made when halogen were the only bulbs and these standard fittings were designed, but if same fitting is used with a LED bulb that bulb will be sitting just as secure and firm as a halogen bulb would. H4 was most common for dual bulbs with both low and high in same for many years. Design shift and sometime it is smart to have both in one place and other times it is smart to have them separate places. When CT was designed Lexus thought it was best with different places for high and low beam; that changed later. The difference between H11 A and H11 B will only be of importance if you use a halogen bulb, the bulbs I have do not have a wire supporting the light emitting part of the wire of the bulb.

Next time I pass by Toyota I will buy a spare for the high beam lamp and see if it is perfectly same fitting as the LED I have. Easier than go down and take out a bulb that is functioning. Yes, I am lazy. Until I get stubborn.