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Marko89

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Everything posted by Marko89

  1. Cheers for the share, makes perfect sense now with regards to speed.
  2. That word sends shivers down the spine. Admiral also use them, certainly for issues involving Scots law anyway. Had a really bad experience with them for what should have been an open and shut case. Taxi driver remodelled the side of our Mini Clubman during the night, plenty of witnesses and police recovered his dashcam footage. It was a hit and run by someone who lived 5 buildings along, so didn't take long to figure out who had done it as my neighbours saw him and his van had blue paint and heavy damage along the passenger side. I ended up in a stand off with Auxillis as they kept demanding that I went to his door to get his details, to which I refused on safety concerns. It took over a month to start the repairs on ours because of this as they couldn't be bothered doing any investigation to figure out who his insurance company is. They had the police incident report where he admitted liability, his reg, taxi number, firm he drives for and address. Glad I didn't go to his door as he was up in court not long after for a serious assault. In saying that, we are still with Admiral as we've not had anyone come anywhere near them for price and level of cover over the past 5 or 6 years. We're paying £530 a year which also includes our building and contents insurance. So it is probably somewhere around £400 for the vehicle aspect without digging out the paperwork. In the past as a new driver I would typically go with a random company and alternate between admiral or one of their subsidiaries as they seemed to be the cheapest.
  3. Have read somewhere there is 1cm of a difference, unless you frequently give lifts to models there will never be an issue with legroom. Due to the swooping roofline (and probably low ride height) however, I know my dad has a little bit of a struggle getting in and out of the back seats due to his restricted mobility and advanced years. For us though the ES is ideal, we've already chatted about just paying the balloon at the end for the first time ever and running it till we hit the 10 year warranty. We've ran it round the coast of Ireland and down to Southern Germany with only my eyes starting to feel tired. Only issue so far has been a blocked washer hose, which lets face it could happen to any car. Economy is spot on and for being a luxo barge the road holding is excellent and can raise a smile through the twisties (disclaimer: Switched from factory bridgestones to Crossclimate 2s).
  4. I'd say about 90% of the time our adaptive system doesn't give the full field, typically the upper quarters on either side seem to be dipped. Not really sure the exact scenario required for the main beam to be fully engaged as ours will occasionally give everything on adaptive, however more often than not you can see the difference by flicking the stock.
  5. We were asked for feedback by Lexus not long after collection (purchased at Glasgow Lexus - EasternWestern group owned) as well as the normal follow up from the sales team, have also been asked for feedback from Lexus following the first service which included a question around what would I change about the ES.
  6. Absolutely love the main cannons on the ES, I reckon they can light up signs to the guts of a mile ahead. Have been flashed a couple of times, the system gets a little tripped up by the long dusks in Scotland mainly by drivers with halogens. Although once darkness properly sets in they are tremendous.
  7. As Colin says they are always on once active, for the ES they aren't active on initial start up. They do come on once you move out of park.
  8. That is quite the garage you have, absolutely jealous.
  9. I must be lucky, could be a phone + OS type issue. I'm running a Pixel 5 just now, so it is "stock" android 13 which triggered an app update. Mine has sorted itself out since last week. I had a far more depressing 28mpg going to work this morning!
  10. I think there was a gremlin last system after the app updated, noticed a couple of people saying they had some ridiculous readings from it. Seems to have settled now.
  11. What Colin said, if you email Lexus they have a standard "no the headlights are flat beam" response, I think they even sent someone on here a letter a while ago. I used mine on adaptive whilst on the autobahn and they seemed to be fine. Although, I am a little concerned they aren't working correctly as I have had a few people flash me in the past week or so whilst driving locally (out of town in the dark). They certainly struggle to pick up oncoming vehicles with the long summer dusks in Scotland with halogen headlights in particular not being picked up as early as they probably should.
  12. I'm wondering if anyone has ever applied for an International Certificate for Motor Vehicles. It is a requirement for taking a UK registered car into Liechtenstein which we are planning to do in a couple of weeks as we will be holidaying in Southern Bavaria. Our ICMV arrived this morning, it is meant to be kept in the car alongside the V5. However, the DVLA have put our make down as Toyota rather than Lexus. The V5 shows Lexus, so I'm not entirely sure why they have written Toyota. I have emailed the DVLA back to ask if this will be an issue (or if they could re-issue). Although my worry is that it has taken 3 weeks from application stage to receive it and we travel on Tuesday next week. Has anyone every had experience with this? The ICMV seems to only be required for 3 countries worldwide, the other two being Mexico and Somalia. My assumption for Liechtenstein is that they are simply trying to control the volume of traffic entering.
  13. The shine on that is something else, like looking in a mirror! Absolutely stunning colour, saw one sitting in the car park at Lexus Glasgow when in for a service recently. Preferred it the Black on ours and would have went down that route if we didn't opt for the demo rather than wait for delivery.
  14. I think by default it is what I would call "kinda" on. It will try wrestle with you if you cross a white line, which can be annoying in town when moving around poorly parked cars etc. If you press it again and the light turns green it becomes "fully" active to follow the lines. With cruise control active I think it is the same scenario with the default light being to veer away from white lines and green being follow the road. Happy to be shot down in flames if this interpretation is incorrect. I've only played about with it a bit and tend to just deactivate it as soon as the engine comes on. Mainly due to our local sleeping policemen and the way people have to park makes it a work out to drive into town. It can be somewhat disconcerting when driving along the front of the local hospital where one direction of traffic has to drive down the middle of the road and the car is trying to pull you towards the parked cars.
  15. With diesel they go hand in hand, as the DPF, EGRs etc become caked in carbon the exhaust emissions will also rise whilst the fuel economy will drop. Effectively an EGR as the name suggests is already choking the engine with dirty air, the lower the quality and flow rate the harder the engine will need to work. Which is where the need to keep things hot is important, otherwise you drop into regen which will burn alot more fuel. I agree that downsizing isn't always the answer, you just need to look at the real world MPG of a Mazda 3 v a downsized + turbo offering from the competitors. The problem with the smaller engines is they require boost far more often.
  16. Your only looking at one aspect of it, the monetary side. What you aren't looking at is the human side of it. The application process involves going through what a worse case scenario day would be like for you or the person you are applying on behalf of. In particular for parents trying to get a suitable car for their disabled child it is a horrible experience to have to go through, it is incredibly invasive as well. It isn't as simple as turn up at a dealership with a PIP letter and get car for peanuts like you are trying to make out. They also need to supply some fairly personal information to said sales person who is handling their lease.
  17. Wouldn't go near the Nextbase supply and fit service again. We have the 622GW + rear installed. RS Connect are the fitting agent, they are coming out for a 5th visit on the 1st of September. I was waiting until the issue is finally resolved before posting an update (fitting was in April), but it is still rumbling on. So wanted to fire up a red flag since you are considering them. To date they have: Visit 1: Snapped the trim clips on the A Pillar, leading to new ones being required. (ok this happens even to the best of us at times). However the engineer obviously realised this and tried to glue the trim back on, which came lose and was left hanging after a couple of weeks. Visit 2: Came out agreed that the clips were snapped and ordered a new set. This was on a Monday and they said the part should be in the following Tuesday. I waited till a week on Friday. Made a call and a guy who couldn't get me off the phone fast enough told me we would receive a call back. No call back the following Monday, so phoned again and was told they'd call once the part was in. Visit 3: Engineer came out and fitted the new clips, came to the door and said everything was sorted and the A pillar had been restored to how it was previously. As I was on a work call at the time I took his word in good faith. However, that night when I went to collect my wife I noticed the trim was coming away and on opening the passenger door the roof lining trim was also hanging down. I emailed RS connect the pictures and they tried to argue that I had signed off on the work and wash their hands of it. So I set them right and told them the car was going into Lexus Glasgow that week for a service so any costs to rectify would need to be covered by them, they agreed. Lexus had a look at the issue and explained it appeared to be coming from the cabling in the A Pillar being bunched up and pushing the the trim apart. They didn't want to touch the installation as it wasn't their work and said they would if needs must. But, recommended RS Connect do it to avoid voiding any warranty on the camera and installation. RS connect agreed to send their area supervisor out. Visit 4: The area supervisor spent the best part of an hour looking at the installation and rerouting the cable so it is no longer bunched up within the A-pillar. However, he notice that the A-pillar housing is now bent, so they have had to order that part now. Another unintended consequence is that the camera is no longer charging via the cable which I only noticed later on whilst driving, and after a couple of days the mount fell off the windscreen leaving the stick pad still attached to the windscreen. Overall it has been a miserable experience and whilst I commend RS Connect's attempts to rebuild the car piece by piece is does become waring after a while. I emailed Nextbase following visit 4 and learning about the camera no longer charging. Their response was very much a teflon tam effort. Essentially "we'll keep an eye on your open case with RS Connect" and they suggested plugging the camera in via a cigarette lighter in the mean time. The response from RS Connect about the mount also falling off when they phoned last night to arrange to come out again and repair the latest thing they've broken was simply "just use the spare sticky pad that is in the box". All in all it has been an incredibly poor experience. We previously used the much slagged Halfords to supply and fit a 522GW + Rear on our old car and it was absolutely fine for 4 years. The only issue was about 3 1/2 years in the sticky pad needed replaced. I wish they had been an option this time, however their website stated they don't touch electric or hybirds when I was looking for suppliers.
  18. The scheme is excellent and life changing for many of the users. They are in effect sacrificing their personal independence payment and, have to jump through a number of hoops just to be able to get onto the scheme in the first place. Some of which can be quite distressing. When I was with Toyota the worst mistake they made was getting rid of the Verso as they sold droves of them via the scheme. Instead they were sign posting the C-HR which just didn't work due to the poor boot size and the claustrophobic nature of the rear seats. The Prius+ would have been a good replacement almost like for like replacement but, it didn't seem to work. The majority of people switching out of non-Toyota motability cars were either in Qashqais, Focus/Astra estates or Fiat 500Ls, as these tended to have nil deposit deals available. I think the most I ever took off anyone was a deposit of £499 for a Rav 4.
  19. Scania spent a fair amount of time trying to convince customers to buy lower powered engines than they were used to. This was based around fuel economy and emissions due to the increased thermal load. Your average supermarket wagon is actually relatively light in the grand scheme of things so it was easy to convince the big fleet buyers. However, your smaller owners operators are very much like us. Led by the heart - Why buy the 1.0L Focus when you can have a 1.5 with some poke. You can show someone as many scenarios as your like as to why they should really go with a straight six 450hp engine over a V8 churning out 730hp, but if their heart is set on it and they get similar or slightly better MPG over their older model they'll always go with the V8. In some cases it is justifiable such as guys in the Highlands who need to make ferries so don't want to be held up by hill climbs, or people with fresh produce such as fish that has a very limited shelf life. But, the majority of the time it is bragging rights and the like the extra go rather than require it.
  20. There seems to be a school of thought with government advisors that there is a direct correlation between going slow and lower emissions. To be fair this is correct, to a point. However, they clearly have never spoken to anyone in the industry, in particular HGV manufacturers. Engines are designed to run hot, especially exhaust systems to clean out as many of the nasties as possible. Diesel engines are particularly vulnerable to build ups at lower speeds, hence the need for regen cycles. Lowering speed limits to 20 will only serve to increase the emissions for HGVs. Which then causes the driver a key question, are they able to stop and let the vehicle regen or do they override and drive on with an engine choking itself. There is a video from a few years ago before Renault changed their software to allow an override. One of the then new T cabs had been pootling along all day in fields doing short runs back and forth between the tractor and farm. As a result it dropped into regen mode whilst sitting idling in a field. Given the exhaust gas temperatures during a regen cycle were around 600C you can guess what happened next to the farms field. Diesel will be here to stay for a good while yet as there is no viable alternative for the logistics industry. This is before the consideration of acceleration being where we use the most fuel, so the constant speeding up and slowing down is really inefficient.
  21. I tend to feel from a standing start it can feel as if the ES gets a little bogged down around 40-50, especially when climbing slip roads up onto faster roads. However, the mid range punch (if you can call it that with a CVT) for overtaking is superb and comparable to anything the direct rivals can throw up without looking at higher engine offerings. It certain does feel alot faster than the figures suggest whilst on the move.
  22. American calcs are different for fuel ratings. There are conversion tables available on google. In fairness they still run a little lower than as but, it isn't as wide a gap as the initial number suggests. To add to the confusion they also have 2 ratings systems MON and PON. PON is what they can list at the pump if I recall correctly. So 95 at Tesco would be rated at something like 91 at pump in the States. On the argument of regular v premium, I have always found premium gives me a better economy return and either breaks even or saves a little over the long run. In terms of performance it has always been down to the engine - with a turbo the gains have always been far more noticeable than naturally aspirated. We had a '68 plate Astra 1.6T as one of our previous cars and it would run like a dog on regular. The book recommended 97 but stated 95 was ok where not available. It always felt like we had hit an eco button and certainly far less eager to get up and go. On Esso / BP premium it was a totally different animal. It was certainly an outlier in terms of performance gains as the others were far less pronounced. To truly calculate the difference I reckon you need to fill up 2 or 3 times back to back to ensure you have cleared any of the old fuel from the system.
  23. Our plate is meaningful to us and probably means absolutely sod all to anyone else looking at it. It is our wedding anniversary plus our initials. I see quite a few round our way that are football related - RFC/AYR/KFC even an old Skoda Fabia saloon with PT--PFC covered in Partick Thistle stickers. Personally I'd never go for anything football related as it makes your car a target, I learned that after my rear window was smashed on my first car for having an Ayr scarf on the parcel shelf!
  24. I have had more cars than hot dinners due to working for a couple of manufacturers and working UK wide for construction companies over the years. Between 2015-17 I had over a dozen motors from VAG as I worked for Scania. We would swap the cars out at 7,500 miles / 3 months which ever came first. It is a manufacturer trick for feeding both new reg stats and their dealer stock with nearly new cars. VAG; Passat (SE Business / R Line), A3/4/6 (S-Lines where possible I specced the Sport suspension rather than S Line as it was back breaking), Octavia (VRS) / Superb (SEL/L&K). Toyota wise during my 11 month stint with a dealer group I tended to get either Auris or Rav 4 hybrids, although I did have a diesel Auris at one point which was awful. Was very surprised to find out it was a BMW unit due to the lack of any form of torque. My own personal cars over the past few years have been; Mazda 3 (mk 3), Mini Clubman (Terrible ride and reliability), Astra 1.6T (running on 16" doughnuts). There can be a little bit of a disconnect where you feel like the seat is reacting a little different to the springs but, it tends to only be over very uneven surfaces where I've noticed it. I haven't noticed that in day to day driving.
  25. In terms of ride quality our F-Sport if easily the comfiest car I've ever driven. It was barely registering expansion joints over the Friarton and Tay Bridges at the weekend that previously would have sent thuds through the cabin in my old cars. I'm new to Lexus, but, compared to the many cars I've had that I previously thought were well dampened I'm pleasantly surprised. To be honest I've been surprised to read comments on the ride not being as good as other Lexus model, but my reference points are all either German (VAG/BMW) or Mazda and Toyota. The change in suspension modes is nowhere near as pronounced as you'll find in other marquees either, change an Octavia VRS to its firmest setting and you'd rattle your back teeth out on our potholed roads.
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