DTR

What a surprise; call from dealer yesterday cancelling appointment to fit protection plate. Reason- they don’t exist unless you have an RX or NX. Add in the fact that the Lexus + app has not worked properly since about October 23 and my conclusion is that Lexus just do not care.

Booked the ES in at Nottingham Lexus for the work to be done. Fingers crossed that it does the job.

Called in at dealers yesterday ( Nottingham). Seems that Navigation has been “switched off” due to problems. Apparently dealers have been informed that there will be an automatic update in 2024 Q2. Difficult to believe that a company the size of Toyota/ Lexus cannot sort it quicker than this. Obviously of low priority. Hopefully they are all working on a solution to the Can Bus problem! Has to be said dealer was very helpful.

A particularly meaningless article (even for the Daily Snail); did nobody who is responsible for this comic not notice that there is a connection between the No. of particular models stolen and the frequency with which they are purchased? I doubt that the colour is especially significant given that many of the vehicles will be broken up for parts. Simply repeating the fact ad nauseam won’t change this. PS I am not a fan of the Daily Snail or the Daily Excess! Unfortunately many people believe the dubious content.

I have not checked for a while. Just had a look; recent trips and Hybrid Coaching seems to have updated, but no predicted range. I optimistically tried the navigation thingy; only seems to allow me to navigate to home. I am already here! Someone is having a laugh.

Mine did work but now it finds a destination but not the route. The “Send to car” has disappeared anyway. I’m using an iPad. Is this the problem? Seems it isn’t; no better on iPhone. Absolute shambles. I have deleted app and reinstalled no change.

I have no complaint with the Lexus Service other than they fitted the 380 model. Looks neat but absolutely infuriating in use. An absolute pain connecting to an iPhone and loses connection at random. I resorted to removing the sd card and trying to connect that to a newish Mac; Adapters joined to adapters etc are required and I never found how to reformat the card using the supplied software. Searching the on-line destruction manual only comes up with “Press the protect button for 6s. The yellow light will flash”. Mine doesn’t. Eventually gave up.

Unless you do shedloads of miles, the extra cost is negligible compared to the depreciation. If you dump the car after 3 years, go for the cheapest. If it’s a keeper, give it a treat now and again. Dave

Agreed, it takes a while to do, but worth the effort. When my indoor CD player gave up the ghost, I invested in a streamer (Linn DS). Amazingly, the files (FLAC) sounded better on this than the CD player (The highly praised Linn Karik). I ripped all my CDs to a hard drive. All you basically do is pop the CD into a CD drive, sit back and wait until the drive spits out the disc. Job done! You will need some software to do the job. The dreaded iTunes (if it still is available) will do the job. If you use this, make sure that you do not leave setting to default as this will convert to mp3. I don't know if any form of FLAC file is available on this, but WAV is OK. I only use Audible for mp3 so can't comment much. Again it is OK. I would recommend dBpoweramp converter. A small charge initially, but it is very good for Tabs (you get a choice of providers). Classical Music is always difficult to get the correct info. Have to admit that I haven't used it for a while though. I stream all my music from Qobuz indoors and they allow you to download tracks to phone etc. I suspect that the music will disappear if the subscription stops. Pay the subscription annually and it is probably equivalent to 1 CD per month. I doubt that any car system will do justice to the HiRes files which can be accessed. VERY IMPORTANT- when you have ripped all your CDs, keep a copy in a very safe place! As far as I am aware, there is little difference between FLAC and WAV files sound wise. FLAC is more convenient (Less disc space and Tabs).

Merrily plodding along yesterday with “Intelligent” CC on. A bing (or was it a bong?) disturbed my reverie and a yellow ? light appeared on the screen plus “Temporary problem with ICC”. I switched ICC off and immediately back on. All seemed to be well. 1st time in 2 years that this has happened. Is it cause for concern or a common occurrence please? Thanks in advance, Dave

It has always annoyed me that manufacturers give an official price knowing full well that this is rarely the price which customers actually pay. However taxes are based on this artificial price. Have the manufacturers done some sort of deal with HMRC? With the present gang in Westminster who are blatantly lining their own pockets, this wouldn’t be a surprise.

Were you looking for the dreaded “Graphic Equaliser” from the 80s? Most of the better hi fi manufacturers avoid tone controls like the plague. The cheaper flashier ones love them; lots of knobs/sliders and meters to hide some cheap resistors which reduce sound quality by affecting phase etc. Best advice is to turn them off and rely on the balance, tonal qualities etc which the original sound engineer chose. Think I had better duck.

Seems common now to regard indicating as something to do mid way through a manoeuvre.

Relatively rare foggy day recently so I decided to put on the fog lamps. Twiddled the thing on the light stalk. I could see that one twiddle lit up 2 lights on the dash. Two twiddles extinguished them both. Couldn’t find a way of just getting the rears. I stopped and looked at the exterior lights. Didn’t seem to look any different whether lights were on or off from inside the car. Later I got a friend to look from outside with engine off or on and switch in on or off position. Rear light get brighter in the on position, but no sign of any change at the front. I have 2021 F Sport ES with 3 LED lamps. I’ve looked in the electronic destruction manual. As usual no help. How can there be so much text, but so little information? Am I missing something? Is there something wrong?

I did think so at one point, but not sure now. I’ve never been in a Camry, so can’t make a comparison. However it is very common for manufacturers to have a limited number of floor pans and running gear etc.(see VW/Audi/ Seat/ Skoda) with considerable success. Nobody seems to bother about this do they? Camry is no longer available new in UK. All I can say is the finished product I.e Lexus ES is an excellent vehicle.. Just enjoy it for what it is; well constructed, hopefully reliable, relatively economical and a very pleasant way of getting from A to B. (At least ignoring the other traffic on the road). Oh yes, in my questionable opinion, it’s a stunning looking piece of kit. Seems to attract a fair bit of attention. I hope this is admiration, but I suppose some people will be wondering why I should buy a low and elegant vehicle when I could have purchased an ugly blobby Tonka toy. Better get ready to duck after that.

Agreed the system works really well. A question; is the AC driven mechanically (as in a “normal” car) or electrically? Seems to me it must be the latter as it doesn’t stop when the ICE does.

Now I thought that this was one of the things which I understood. Perhaps I was wrong. I can’t make a lot of sense re AC on the screen (not that I have really tried). However, I have noticed that the temp reading near the toggle does not light up on the LHS unless someone is sitting in the passenger seat. This is the same as the heated seats; the passenger seat does not get warm unless there is a bum on it. I just leave everything on “auto” settings. The car knows best! Agreed on the S+, S, Normal and Eco settings. All are thermostated, but the power is reduced in Eco. This saves fuel but is slower to reduce Temperature. Pretty much how a fridge works. I have given up explaining to the other half that turning up the power on the fridge does not make it colder unless the motor is struggling to overcome the external temperature. I am now ready to duck when somebody shoots me down. DAVE

Difficult to judge how good your policy is with respect to value for money until you make a claim. Sometimes worth paying a little above the lowest quote.

Have to admit that I went along with an engine oil flush at the 1st service. Didn’t cost a lot in the grand scheme of things and in the days when I used to get my hands dirty, I always did it. Probably a waste of time and as a chemist who is dubious of claimed longevity of modern oil, it would probably be better to change oil at 5-6 thousand mile intervals. Well known fact that long oil change intervals are there to tempt the fleet boys who will be dumping the vehicles after 3 years.

Hi Thanks for that. I didn’t think it was that clever. I have fiddled around today and managed to find “ Custom Setting”. I put car in Custom mode ( probably not necessary), then MENU-Settings. On the LHS of the screen there is a list of things. The bottom one gives you 3 options to fiddle with. One does the job. Trouble is I suspect that I may not have remembered it correctly. Easier to just change to Sport or Sport +. When in these modes, it is amazing to see how frequently the engine revs fall to zero. Also surprising how keen it is to “change up”. Very different to some of the Hondas I have owned.

Hi again I have been trying to find how this is used in an ES F Sport. Using the electronic instruction manual is a pain. I have found AVS in the car manual. It just tells you what it does and refers you to the manual for the “screen” thingy. I can’t find anything about it in there. I did search for AVS. Is the only way of adjusting by changing the mode to Sport or Sport +? In which case it doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference. I am looking to soften the ride anyway-not make it firmer. After a lot of faffing about, I did once find it in adjustment of “Custom” settings. Only seems to be 2 options (I.e. up or down). I had imagined it would be continuously variable. OK, I’m an optimist. Anyway, I can’t remember how I did it. This is more an academic question as I only poodle around. If I had wanted to zap about I would have purchased one of the usual German suspects. I am not keen on overtaking at blind bends or wizzing straight from slip roads to the overtaking lane so this seemed inappropriate. On the matter of electronic manuals, is there a way to jump straight to a highlighted page number, rather than manually scrolling through over 500 pages? Never had this trouble with a Moggy Minor. Mind you, the front wheel nearly fell off one day when turning a corner. Thanks again in advance, Dave

Surprised yesterday to see a second in 10 days at Snowshill in Worcestershire. This is a National Property and highly recommended for a visit if you happen to be nearby.

Hi Just seen the the first ES 300H other than mine or on a forecourt in 14 months of ownership. Now worried; are they getting common? PS It looked superb- sort of darkish grey metallic with chrome grill, cream leather seats. Really classy. May have been a Takumi.

Sorry for the confusion. For the benefit of younger readers, “ wireless” means communication transmitted via radio waves (long, medium, or FM) to a box some people refer to as a Radio or even a Tuner. Give it a go (preferably BBC Radio 4).

I’ve no problem with 20mph limit on the whole. However, I did hear someone on the wireless proposing that limits should be designated for short distances. I.e Limit goes up and down frequently. Sounds wonderful, but in practice it is easy to miss a change in busy traffic and it is not unknown for signage to disappear behind trees or large vehicles cunningly dumped on the side of the road. If we ever get autonomous vehicles, something will need to done about the white school 20mph limits. Neither of my last 2 cars can interpret the “end of limit”. I can foresee queues of traffic trundling down dual carriageways at less than 20mph because they didn’t “see” the restriction end sign