Daft Dave

Having recently acquired a 2018 ct200 I have the impression there is very little out there to compare with it for the level of comfort it gives me, it is 20yrs since I last had a Car as comfortable as this and that was a Volvo, quite amazing to me for such a small Hatchback, being an old coffin dodger in my early 70's this is likely to be the last Car I will ever buy, them Meerkats found me a good price for my insurance, however I am fortunate to live in Scotland where there is less thieving Bar Stewards around. The majority of the Cars I have owned (not that many) in 50yrs of motoring I would buy them at 3 to 4yrs of age and keep them 10yrs or more, this being far cheaper for Car ownership than changing every few years, every time you change Cars this costs a lot of money. So I would say to you if you have had trouble free motoring for the 3yrs you have owned your CT, also if it has everything you need in a Car? KEEP IT, there is just so much unreliable rubbish out there, I had the chance of a Corolla one year younger at the same price same mileage, strange the insurance group 19e against the CT at 17e another strange thing a 2016 CT with the same spec was also 19e. There is not a lot of Ct's up here in them there hills and quite a few of my friends and neighbours have remarked on how smart it looks, in my own opinion both the front and rear of the car is smarter than any of the rest and the side view is not bad either, mind you it is not likely to appeal to someone that drives a C-HR but they must have a mental health issue?

Hi Paul, I am in a bit of a quandary about this issue myself, I also have a 2018 CT 200, which I just purchased a little over one month ago. like you my annual mileage is only around 3K, for us to get an annual service from Lexus this hikes up the cost per mile to us to a lot more than someone that does an average of 7.5K in the year, same goes for the Road Tax we pay, fortunately for us the insurance company's take this into consideration but I would guess this is just a small reduction in the whole scheme of things? Throughout my life, now an old Coffin Dodger in my 70's, I've never paid out for any extended warranties on any of my material possessions, most of my Cars were bought at over 3yrs of age and out of warranty and many I had for 10yrs, when I did buy one at a year old with two years warranty left on it, this cost me a fortune in servicing costs and a few hidden charges from the main dealer. Likely the reason for most of us to buy Toyota/Lexus is for their reputation to be the most reliable Cars on the road today, so I'm wondering if I should just carry on as I did before and use my local guy to do my servicing and take the hit if anything does go wrong with it? up till now I have been very lucky and had little of any problems with Cars throughout my 50 plus years of motoring, as for having a dealer service history I'm not overly concerned with this, the cost to maintain this (especially for a low mileage user) will far outweigh the added value at the end of the day, anyway in my advanced years this is likely this will be the last Car I will ever own. For Lexus to give you the relax warranty they are backing and odds on favourite that very little will go wrong with their Cars, but this reals in their customers to pay their high cost of servicing. Cheers Dave

I agree with you 100% and not the OP, 5 weeks ago I traded in my 2015 39Kmls 1.3ltr Yaris Icon for a 2018 Lexus CT. in my opinion these two cars at at opposite ends of the spectrum, the Yaris was a good clean little Car in fantastic condition but it was like driving around with a pail of loose nuts and bolts lying on the floor it was full of rattles and the music system had to be on low as it caused a lot of vibration to the dash when the low bass notes were played. Doing 70mph in this in 6th gear it would feel like is was in 4th with the revs being well above 3K, often I would inadvertently try and shift this into 5th when it was already in 6th. I'm sure I suffer from PTSD after owning this car, even my friends are telling me I am looking a lot better since getting rid of it? Now the Lexus is a very luxurious car in comparison, very comfortable and quiet, to me it feels like a much larger car than the small hatch that it is, turning up the music to an uncomfortable listening level and there is no adverse vibration with the car. doing 70mph once up to speed the revs drop from 3K to just above 2K unless you hit an incline which then raises it a little. If I was to say anything bad about this that would be that it is a little stiff (good on the corners) and not absorbing going over speed bumps and potholes but not really uncomfortable and not what I would term as being harsh? overall I would suggest this has a very well built interior and not as described by the OP? Having owned a few sturdy well built cars, Volvo 240, 740 and 940 plus an EX Honda Accord I would say this Lexus compares to any of them as far as build quality is concerned and I am very pleased to have it.

Not all but most of the Cars I have bought I have saved for and paid cash and had them a long time usually around 10yrs, I do often wonder? say for example only, take the case of a 10yr old Car has this been bought by say 3 owners each having payment terms over 3 to 5yrs and if so what did this finance cost over this 10yrs? I purchased a Lexus CT one month ago from Evans Halshaw, getting a small top up loan from my son I paid for it outright, the dealer tried his best to get me to take out finance, extended warranty, anti stain treatment for the interior and another for the paintwork, perhaps all this put together may be close to £4K. they tried to insist that I should not consider to buy any car and not buy a warranty on two potential deals I was making, both salesmen were to tell me they would not let their Mother buy a car without an extended warranty, to which I replied I only do around a third of the mileage of the average driver and I will take the warranty if you give it to me at a third of the price. I doubt very much if I will ever get a call from them wanting to buy my Car back, they hardly got a cup of tea out of the deal I had with them?

Worth trying Thanks I had never thought on that. Having had many large Gas Guzzling cars in my time I am used to going light on acceleration and run in as high a gear as possible, slowly coasting up to a red light hoping for it to change just before I get there, getting into 5th gear as soon as I was close to 30mph trying to keep the Rev counter at less or close to 1500rpm. I would have thought this style of driving to be well suited to a Hybrid? I had narrowed my choice of Cars down to two, one a 2019 Corolla slightly more expensive and this 2018 Lexus, both had the same mileage, it was a no brainer to me the Corolla is just Fecking ugly, even if it is more fuel efficient I'm still happy to have chosen the Lexus, Btw the insurance group for the Lexus is 17e and for the Corolla 19e costing me £50 more to insure, strange though it may seem a 2016 Lexus is group 20e? costing me around £60 more.

I had a Volvo 740GLT this was a great Car and I changed the Oil in this at every 3000mls this was around 12yrs of age and had 150K on the clock when the engine failed. The reason for this was; the Car had done 150,000 short journeys this was what killed the engine, driven mostly by my first Wife she would not even walk to the local shop around 500mtrs away. For this reason I would never buy a Car with high mileage as you will never know the amount of short journeys it has been driven, this is what kills an engine not the amount of miles but the amount of starts from cold it has had, Cold starting causes the most wear to an engine. Buying a young Car with high miles for its year is a better choice as it is more likely to have done much of it on motorways. Replacing a Hybrid Batt is not all that complicated and an easy DIY fit, well it does look that way on some YT videos I have seen? I'm sure I have seen a replacement Batt priced at around £600.

I've now had my new to me 2018 Lexus ct200 for a month, overall I'm very pleased with the Car this suits me well, so glad I did not take any heed of the motoring experts that like to condemn this Car, having just driven my first 260mls in it, the Car says I'm getting 43MPH, on a brim to brim it works out closer to 40MPG after a 100ml round trip on rural and part dual carriageway roads the mph got up to 48MPG, the rest has been town driving mostly short trips, my friend has the Corolla with the same drivetrain and he gets 54MPG, I looked at it on his dash. I am an Old Bar Steward in my 72nd year and tend to drive with a light right foot, so I expected my MPH to be closer to 50 than 40? I did think a Hybrid would give better mileage to me on my mostly town driving? however it does give me slightly better mileage than my previous Car a 1.3ltr Yaris which was gutless and terrible over speed bumps, I really hated this Car, these two Cars are at the opposite ends of the scale. I've read so many positive owners reviews on the Lexus ct200 with most saying the experts are all wrong about this model and I now have every reason the believe this, however most owners tend to say their MPH is close to low to mid 50's, I have every reason to believe my Car is running well, I'm just thinking as I write this maybe I should check the air filter. Has anyone any other thoughts on this? Thanks Dave

Keeping a car in a garage overnight incurs an excess over one that is on a driveway, perhaps hard to believe but true, actually putting a wet car into a garage does it no favours and accelerates rusting especially if it is a wooden garage, it's good to have a second named driver on a policy this also reduces the premium.

Well I have taken the plunge and now own a Lexus CT200h Luxury in Metallic Red, this is a 2018 facelift model with the honeycomb spindle grille, this is being delivered to me in a few days, will I need a course on how to operate all the switches and toys it comes with?

For many years I have driven Volvo cars 240's and 740's and they had an owners club way back then some 35yr ago, run with a magazine subscription, later I then had a Honda Accord and I found the owners club for that on line. All of these cars were kept for around 10years most had been 3 to 4yrs of age when I bought them, I did all my own maintenance and I had very few MOT failures with all of these cars, they were all ultra reliable. I moved abroad for a time selling my Honda to a neighbour at 15yrs of age and he still has this car today in daily use it is a 2005, 2.2 Diesel Accord EX model with Tan Leather interior, even today this still looks good inside. 18 months ago I returned back to UK and had to buy a car that was cheap to insure as I had to start from scratch as a new insurer, so I bought a 1.3ltr Yaris I hate driving this car and I need to change it ASAP my choice of car will be a Hybrid and the Lexus ct200 is my car of choice, I'm looking to spend up to 15K on the right car and trying to find one with a blonde leather interior but these are not very common? If I have to compromise and accept an all Black Leather interior it will have to be a very special one owner low mileage version, also I'm looking for one pre 2017 that qualifies for free RT, however there is little difference on the price of a 2016 to a 2018, obviously ones with Zero tax are fetching premium prices?