DBIZO

Thanks - they are out of my way, but you never know....

Unsure what's the source of it, but most service in the UK is characterised by either indifference or outright inhospitality under the motto "it is what it is, tough". Get this: Lexus Hedge End (Snows) basically told me it was my fault I didn't bring the car in for a repair under warranty (heating servo or something like that) in time after diagnosis, so they sent the part back and my right to repair under warranty is now void. I was travelling a lot and naively assumed it's okay to delay the repair. They didn't tell me about any rule as such, and they probably tried to call me once in all the time. In good faith I timed the repair together with a service and MOT. It was my final service at 100k. They basically just shrugged it off. They didn't ask about future service plans (I would have probably signed), didn't try to resolve the warranty issue (I would have paid for an unrelated AC repair if they did took care of the heater), just informed me as a matter of fact and clearly couldn't care less when I just quietly walked. I realised a long while ago you cannot actually negotiate with parties who don't care for their own self interests. I'm now either going to file a complaint if I find the stomach and the time, or just look for another garage. The US is different because they are very driven by money, and they want you to part with it. In some other countries it's an interpersonal cultural factor, they like to help and solve your problem, or just be friendly and flexible. Mind you, seeking recommendations in Hampshire and surroundings.

Very handsome ride, you should be proud.

Thinking about winter prep already puts you ahead of 99% of UK drivers I suspect. Actually doing it you're probably part of one of the tiniest clubs in the UK. Must be noted, this is normal procedure on the continent... My biggest ailment is that getting a simple tyre swap done can be painful and costly in the UK. When I was done with my previous set and wanted to put on a set I already had, I got rejected by multiple shops on account I had not bought the tyres from them. Then when I found a shop who took the job, they left marks on the rims and charged me nearly a 100 for it... For this reason, my recommendation is to have a premium all-season set, the benchmark for which is Michelin's Cross Climate 2. These tyres are rated for winterly alpine conditions and carry the mountain symbol like full winters, but of course work well in the summer too. You're covered for all weather conditions. I had a full run on a set of Pirelli Cinturatos, in both summer and winter, overall more than 20k, can't fault the performance, they got done by multiple punctures. They expose the rims though, so cannot recommend. But the performance was there, including snow traction, wet, and high-speeds on European motorways in cold conditions near freezing point. Only got stuck once, in the Italian Alps, on icy compressed snow surface with in incline where I made the mistake to come to a full stop - then the rear left dug a little hole and created polished ice (snow mode was on) and the car needed a little rocking push to get out. Unsure if winters would have made a difference, maybe, all wheel drive definitely. Tyre Reviews test them thoroughly, if you want to look at data, here is the latest set: 2023 24 Tyre Reviews All Season Tyre Test - Tyre Reviews and Tests

Not sure it means a great deal given the power limitation of those NiMh batteries. In Sport it's great helping the engine out with instant torque at low speeds, but at higher speeds it fades quickly because the power limit is low even if the battery is nearly full. It's real shame Lexus decided not to upgrade the battery at one point in the IS300h lifecycle to lift the power delivery and recuperation limits. Rather than noticing the battery boost, I noticed that the engine will stay primed, not switching off, in Sport mode, echoing Phil's experience above.

That's all fine, but we were talking UK originally. Summers clearly fit your climate. Last winter in the UK, as you must have seen it in the news, hundreds of cars ended up in the ditch and stuck on roads because of accidents. Summer tyres were clearly a major factor, the other one of course is incompetence, as always.

I responded but it doesn't show up...anyway. We will continue to disagree. I reject your accusation of fallacies yourself have acted out (goalpost shifting specifically). The data is quite clear, and your interpretation lack internal logic. Your assertions that summers are better 360 days and that people just need to learn how to drive for those 5 days a year does not pass cursory standards of reasoning, let alone safety considerations. There no value to the performance of summer tyres on UK roads. Zero. You're normally driving very far away from the limits of their grip window. All seasons cover you comfortably. This notion that you're giving up something of value with all seasons vs summers has no substance. If you can drive all seasons hard at high tempo (90-120 mph) in frosty, subzero conditions across Germany and Austria (I have), surely driving in the UK is not even a challenging task for them, don't you think? Or almost anywhere, really. I'd put money you couldn't tell summers and all seasons apart for their performance in a blind test. Unless you drive like a lunatic, or going on a track day. Your other assertion that people will just need to learn how to drive on summers in cold conditions for those few days and you use a corner case (black ice) to justify it is just the empty inanity I expected to surface on this topic. Not from you personally just in general when received wisdoms and 'common sense' are challenged. Surely you cannot be serious suggesting that we should put the onus on millions of drivers' skills, the majority of whom should have never got their license in the first place? And slippery conditions where it is actually important how much grip you have left are much more common than you imply. All seasons give you that additional safety floor, literally under your car, that you won't be sliding off the road as easily just because it's 1C and wet. Again, lack of logical coherency in your reasoning: you need all your summer tyre grip in good conditions (when you don't actually need it) but it doesn't matter how much grip you have left in poor conditions? I too learned to drive in a continental climate and driven in all sorts of conditions, including blizzards at night, ones that don't really exist in the UK. And I regularly drive from and to the UK across Europe, on all seasons, in all seasons. They perform excellently. I've said everything I wanted, so I'll not respond any more. Evidence supports the conclusion that safer all-year-round driving in the UK means all-season tyres as a standard choice. High-performance cars, track days, sure, go for UHP, and then don't drive when there is a chance of precipitation or condensation in cold conditions, please.

Tyres are always compromises, including summers and winters, what else they could be? The question is what they're optimized for. All seasons are optimized for a range of conditions that are happen to fit UK climates. More so than summer tyres, because it's wet and cold a lot, sometimes near freezing point; and more so than winter tyres, clearly. That makes all season less of a compromise than summers, still the mindless standard, doesn't it? Frankly, it's perplexing how this is even a debate. Look at the data. 2021 Tyre Reviews All Season Tyre Test - Tyre Reviews and Tests

No language barrier, concept barriers, no questions, only corrections. I specifically responded to that quote. Later you shifted that position, but it does not make your previous comment correct. You can safely drive in winter with all-seasons, in fact recent all seasons compounds are the most reasonable option for the UK, and arguably much of the continent for many drivers. Purely logically, snow is below zero, and with all season compounds you can expect reasonable traction, handling in -10C. And because of road salting, you can have below zero temps and still liquid wet (freezing point depresses down to -7 even) on the road. All season are the best for driving on dry or lightly damp road in winter - better than summers, better than winters. They also offer reasonable traction/breaking on snow. If the going gets tough, it should be chains anyway. Look up tests for all seasons, don't take my word for it. There is limited testing done for ice driving, and it's really only Nordic grade winter tyres that have some useful grip on ice, because generally the advice is don't drive on ice. For black ice, it's a tough one in any case. All seasons still should give you some better grip, the question is of course is it enough for anything. Hitting it at speed, likely not. But probably not even standard winters could handle that, landing on it at speed. But of course they would be better. That is a corner case, where advice is generally: if black ice formation is likely, don't drive. Conclusion: in the UK, all seasons bring the best balance for most drivers, including for those driving to Europe in winter. I do.

Sorry, but no. Current all season tyres from premium brands perform well in snow, and perfectly fine driving them below freezing point - that's the entire point. They tend to have the 3PMSF symbol to comply with regulation in countries where winter tyres are mandatory during winter season (e.g. Austria) or conditions (eg. Germany). This makes them legally equivalent to winter tyres. No, they're not as good on snow as a good winter tyre, of course, but capable, and outperform winters in dry and wet. All season also tend to perform on par or even better on very wet road surfaces (torrential rains, standing water) and aquaplaning happens at higher speeds, because of the tread pattern. For these reasons, premium all seasons are the choice for the UK for safe all-year-round driving, and particularly so when driving across continental Europe in colder months. Summers simply won't cut it, particularly up north. Just because millions ignore this does not make it right. The only other responsible alternative (save not driving when it's cold) is to have two sets so you can either have UHP summers and/or Nordic winters for icy conditions. But increasingly in the UK it seems like a pain to have season swaps, expensive and many garages/tyre shops refusing to fit a used set. I've had a set of Pirelli Cinturato SF2 for over 30k miles, done the Alps stint, too, can't fault their performance, the only issue was that at the side wall they were a few mm narrower than the wheel, leaving the rims exposed to curbing. It's the opposite of protecting the rim, and also looks a bit odd. For this reason I cannot recommend them. Cross Climates 2s are considered the gold standard for now, most balanced, particularly if snow performance is important. Verdict: go for premium all seasons. My next set this winter will be a new set of all seasons. Hoping Pirelli remedies the rim protection problem. The cost is a non-issue, it's a tiny fraction compared to fuel costs. Cost me £400, my set of Pirellis, and I'm only done with them because I suffered multiple punctures. I probably spent £5k on fuel over the same period (blimey). Look at tyrereviews.com.

That's dandy but the problem is, EVs are favoured by all sorts of policy, and heavily subsidized through tax relief and no duty paid on 'fuel', on account of green credentials.

I'm merely quoting a multi-year study that's based on measurements. I should have linked but forgot. The most recent release on their data: How tyre emissions hide in plain sight — Emissions Analytics Three points: - Wear is not the same as tyre particle emissions (colloquially rubber dust); emissions is part of the wearing process, but still. - I can only suspect you're not really comparing similar tyres, a suspect those were performance tyres? - The choice is not between BEVs and pure combustion; a decent hybrid doesn't 'chew through' brakes pads and discs either, if you drive sensibly, quite the opposite, but I suspect you already know that.

Carbon neutral, as in how? In absolute emissions terms, there is no such thing as carbon neutral transport, and that includes legging the distance. Unless your diet is tree bark. It's quite a perversion when EVs theoretical carbon benefit gets bigger the more miles you drive them, the equivalent when retailers say the more you spend the more you save. It's a false choice fallacy in two ways: 1) these comparisons ignore that a lot of the miles are optional, people could chose to drive less, and keep their cars longer, which would actually reduce emissions by many tonnes per year per household 2) EVs likely encourage higher-mileage driving behaviour for often beneficial mileage cost, further encouraged by the sustainability myth. Besides, careful with the EVs, no fumes = clean air implication. A modern petrol, and even diesel cars are so heavily filtered that very little amounts of particles escape. Research has found that rubber dust is orders of magnitude bigger a problem. And the tyre emission problem gets worse with EVs. An ongoing research based out of the UK suggests particles from EV rubber can be much higher, about 20% on average, that of engine cars due to higher loads but also because of higher torque will wear the tyre faster. EVs make air quality worse, maybe except in central London where the traffic is very slow stop and go.

Yokohama BluEarth E51A 225/45 R17 See data page: https://eprel.ec.europa.eu/screen/product/tyres/647826 An estimated 7k miles in them, spent about 6 months on the road. In very good condition, should still have 80%++ of their expected life left. I paid £384 in 2021, purchased at Lexus Hedge End. I'm thinking £190 is a good deal for them. Location is Portsmouth, PO1, tyres have been sitting in storage since December 2021. No damage. Reason for sale is that I'm now a believer of advanced all-season compounds, Pirelli Cinturato SF2 rubber proved itself in every condition but on ice. Let me know if anyone is interested. Tried to sell it on Facebook Marketplace, two buyers tried to take me for a fool or outright scam with a scheme. If there are no takers, I'll put them back on for the summer, as I'm about to buy a new set of Pirellis as I now have 2 repaired punctures and have run them for 30k miles. Also, please let me know if this is against the Forum rules. Thank you!

Yes, I think that's the common thing. But the onus is on them to get it right. If I do it myself, and run into trouble, I need to resolve it myself. If you're a car guy and don't mind spending time on researching and fiddling, that's fine, but I'm not, I simply don't have the time and mental reserves for this, and happy to part with money just to make it someone else's responsibility.

That's very impressive, well done. Does your son do this professionally, commercially too? I'd be interested to have a look at his website, services and pricings, if he's got one.

Careful, this board and the web at large have plenty of reports of malfunctions after a home replacement of battery. I've not researched root cause, probably you need to either isolate breakers or reinitiate some onboard systems.

I don't argue against dashcams, but keep wondering what the chances are you can gather evidence in a catastrophic accident like that? Are there dashcams that save frames of videos online whenever there is sufficient mobile coverage?

Good details. The big issue some found is charging speeds. Any experience with how fast it is charging on fast chargers (50kW and above) from 20-80%?

I track mine too, with Spritmonitor, and even though I pay attention, my best ever full tank of 6l/100km (IS300h) is still nowhere near the top of the league, and my long-term average is 7.1 litres. Best in class is 5.5 litres long term. All I know is that my car is capable of 5.5 litres in the right conditions, so one can only assume that some people drive a lot in ideal conditions and in the right style. Probably very good tarmac, little wind, mostly flat topology, lots of cruising between 50 and 70. Just did a 310-mile drive yesterday, bendy A-roads, motorways, some passing through stop and go traffic, then picking up dinner in town. Computer says 51.6mpg, which suggests real world is around 49mpg (computer underestimates fuel use by 8% which is quite big but also odo measurement is lower than actual miles traveled, by around 2%, so that's how it works out), so 5.8 litres. There are so many variables it's not worth getting too worked up about it, my refuelling consumptions (very rarely less than a half tank, typically near full tank) are spread out between 6 and 10 litres. How you drive is the major component you can control but your road conditions are setting the boundaries for your fuel economy. You can't do much about it when driving in European cities in the winter, or driving in the mountains, and equally, I don't want to do 70-80 on a European motorway with 1100 miles ahead of me, just to see good mpg. Having said all that, the economy of the fourth-generation hybrid system employed by the ES300h is out of reach, looks like it's at least 10% better, probably 15%.

Thanks! Just placed an order, will report back once tested it. I've always had a problem with glare, wet roads and night lights together really confuse my sight.

Unable to locate these Ray Bans, and surprised over the prive. Have you got a link for us?

Another reason to delay buying newer cars as long as possible. Those things don't work reliably. They cannot understand conditional speed limits and also confuse numeric exit markings in some countries (distance from 0 milestone) with speed limits. I had a recent VW Passat break hard automatically on a motorway because it thought I was speeding grossly. Not dangerous at all...

Which? magazine‘s customer survey ranks Lexus’ reliability at top. You’ll find people on this forum consider the IS300h an example of that. Things can always go wrong, but the IS300h is probably as good as fault rates get. The engine is naturally aspirated, the transmission uses step-less (continuous) gearing, the hybrid system is mature and helps reduce wear of the engine and breaks. It’s a very different car to the German peers, you best go for a test drive if you haven’t driven Toyota’s eCVT transaxle before. As for trim, the higher the better, go for Advance at minimum, and higher if you expect more driving assistance (lane keep, blind spot) and premium car hifi. A weak point of the car is the small 12V starter battery. If you plan on leaving the car for more than a week, particularly at an airport, I’d ask the dealer to fit a brand new one when negotiating the details. You never know how long the car spent on the dealer’s forecourt or in a private garage, unused. Deep discharge reduces the useful lifetime of lead acid batteries. I learned this the hard way. Another thing to understand is this car likes to be warmed up to feel awake. This is because without the full potential of the hybrid battery if mot charged or cold, the Atkinson engine is rather torque poor at low revs, making it sometime feel sluggish. Overall, it’s a very dependable, pleasant machine.

Right, we’ll never know. I doubt an incremental refresh would have changed its fate. I suspect the segment of buyers the IS300h appeals to is a small one in any case. Reliability and build quality are hard to sell on in a consumer market. The cabin is compact by today’s standards, but it’s neither a family nor a performance car, it doesn’t have the status appeal either. The eCVT is still a mystery to most. I do like the car a lot, but I don’t think an incrementally improved version would sell much or would justify an upgrade that’s 20k mire than a nice second hand. A plugin IS350h with fully updated power train with improved virtual gear simulation for sport mode, a bit bigger cabin, and fully loaded Takumi only trims would be a different story.