Another rental rant

[Botus]

Not so much to rant at - they gave me a Lexus GS300 this time - but some mega get used to it foibles to stress / make you crash / wobble for 20 miles

needs fixing

1) it starts silent as its a hybrid - which is weird / wrong / disturbing

2) trying to enable cruise was a 5 mile wobble and rant and then only went in 5kph gaps

3) some nut job had HALF the entertainment knobs in Japanese yokogaki

4) pulled to the right (is this the same inadequate suspension geometry madness for the wrong side of the road that Merc give us in the UK)

5) door mirrors the wrong shape with a silly useless shape at the important end - and another bug that also impacts the door trims

6) entertainment usage designed by a nutter

7) rear head rests in the way when you look behind

good stuff

a) brake modulation of the foot pedal was very good - and better on radar cruise than any I used from BM, Merc, or VW

b) stereo is banging nutter night club stuff - BUT all 3 mirrors vibrate badly at big vol levels - if you rest your leg on door trim, you find them doing the same !!!

c) radar cruise was better than any other system I've used

d) ride and handling almost right

e) refinement and noise levels quite acceptable - just bit naff when I guess 4 pot engine comes in - but got used to it

f) nice steering feel, weighting and behavior (unlike that Nissan)

g) normal sensible gear selector - that just makes sense (unlike that Nissan)

madness

those Japanese menus - next day took me 20 mins trying to swap all to English - starts to become possible after noticing after driving for 200 miles and a second day in the drivers seat it has a hopeless mouse pad with tacky buttons - however it wouldn't remember English - about to give up after the 5th occasion back in what it turns out, was the correct setting, in the correct menu - a long press got it to store

nav and usage of the system was such a joke never tried - my tomtom on bird's eye showed much more - in 2D you got about 3 inches of unusable view of the road top to bottom, yet at least 2 pointless miles of utter irrelevance either side no one ever asked for - 3d got you a 1/4 mile of road ahead, when 5 miles is what you need - the joke, like 9/10 idiot manufacturers, is a screen three times wider than you want, and 1/3 as high as we all need

20 year old electronic, manual, internal, fuel flap release

trying to turn it off - usually involved 4 steps one of which was starting it again - let me put the key in like a real car

heart attack moment

got where I wanted to go, parked, stopped the engine, got out took the key with me - couldn't lock the car - began to suspect took the wrong car and I had the key to a different vehicle - turns out the madness about turning it off was incomplete

 

[ajlsl600]

Happy days. The ma

Not so much to rant at - they gave me a Lexus GS300 this time - but some mega get used to it foibles to stress / make you crash / wobble for 20 miles

needs fixing

1) it starts silent as its a hybrid - which is weird / wrong / disturbing

2) trying to enable cruise was a 5 mile wobble and rant and then only went in 5kph gaps

3) some nut job had HALF the entertainment knobs in Japanese yokogaki

4) pulled to the right (is this the same inadequate suspension geometry madness for the wrong side of the road that Merc give us in the UK)

5) door mirrors the wrong shape with a silly useless shape at the important end - and another bug that also impacts the door trims

6) entertainment usage designed by a nutter

7) rear head rests in the way when you look behind

good stuff

a) brake modulation of the foot pedal was very good - and better on radar cruise than any I used from BM, Merc, or VW

b) stereo is banging nutter night club stuff - BUT all 3 mirrors vibrate badly at big vol levels - if you rest your leg on door trim, you find them doing the same !!!

c) radar cruise was better than any other system I've used

d) ride and handling almost right

e) refinement and noise levels quite acceptable - just bit naff when I guess 4 pot engine comes in - but got used to it

f) nice steering feel, weighting and behavior (unlike that Nissan)

g) normal sensible gear selector - that just makes sense (unlike that Nissan)

madness

those Japanese menus - next day took me 20 mins trying to swap all to English - starts to become possible after noticing after driving for 200 miles and a second day in the drivers seat it has a hopeless mouse pad with tacky buttons - however it wouldn't remember English - about to give up after the 5th occasion back in what it turns out, was the correct setting, in the correct menu - a long press got it to store

nav and usage of the system was such a joke never tried - my tomtom on bird's eye showed much more - in 2D you got about 3 inches of unusable view of the road top to bottom, yet at least 2 pointless miles of utter irrelevance either side no one ever asked for - 3d got you a 1/4 mile of road ahead, when 5 miles is what you need - the joke, like 9/10 idiot manufacturers, is a screen three times wider than you want, and 1/3 as high as we all need

20 year old electronic, manual, internal, fuel flap release

trying to turn it off - usually involved 4 steps one of which was starting it again - let me put the key in like a real car

heart attack moment

got where I wanted to go, parked, stopped the engine, got out took the key with me - couldn't lock the car - began to suspect took the wrong car and I had the key to a different vehicle - turns out the madness about turning it off was incomplete

The manuals on my SL were like having a brick in the glove box. Now even worse have to use the built in system and load owners manual, at least with old system one cud take books into house and try to find out what's going on in peace, now one must be sat in car for ages scrolling thru the damn screen to work out what's happening, frankly I just drive the damn car and don't bother with any non essential function that requires lengthy investigation. Makers will say don't print to save planet, bxxxocks. I have to buy plastic tank I don't Need to get the f sensor, right? And complete housing assly to get statt.

 

[SL63 Mark]

Sounds like a nightmare.

Took me ages to work out all the stuff on my SL, I am still learning stuff. I had to cave in and read the manual on the screen the other day. At long last I can now turn off the parking sensors racket. Happy days. Also, I discovered the Race Start function.

I reckon there will be a move back to basic cars without all these unnecessary complexity. Our 1996 Defender has zero electrical gizmos, and just works.

 

[Craiglxviii]

Sounds like a nightmare.

Took me ages to work out all the stuff on my SL, I am still learning stuff. I had to cave in and read the manual on the screen the other day. At long last I can now turn off the parking sensors racket. Happy days. Also, I discovered the Race Start function.

I reckon there will be a move back to basic cars without all these unnecessary complexity. Our 1996 Defender has zero electrical gizmos, and just works.

I doubt it. The constant trend, for decades, is for cars with less and less user intervention required not only in use but across its lifetime.

 

[Frontstep]

I look under the bonnet and sigh then I get inside and look at an unintelligible menu with things I will never ever use, options are priced in another currency and then you have to wait.................

I think I should just have one allocated after being measured and tested.

 

[Botus]

that radar cruise was quite like my BM and a lot like the Nissan

it didn't care if you wanted to pull out 5 foot behind another car at 60mph (so long as your speed was less then them) - my Merc stands on the brakes trying to regain the two second rule and both this and the Nissan also allowed another guy to cut in front trying to take the front bumper off with NO reaction at all... so long as they were going 0.00001kph faster than you were - quite refreshing after 8 years of the Merc wasting petrol, brake pads and being really frustrating - But its not right an element of getting a gap should be in legislation - just less quickly than Merc try to get. I guess Lexus and Nissan are saying we aren't going to hit so who cares - this is assitance not the law.... but they seem to forget if this other vehicle needs to react then the gap is important - just not as frustratingly cumbersome as Merc does it please

I had actually begun to wonder if the Lexus understood how to brake - its throttle off / brakes on modulation was so subtle you wondered if it cared what was in front - had to relearn it was actually in control of itself and managing things so subtly I wasn't sure it was doing anything - then as I got used to it I began to remember how in my BMW you could do a 150 mile drive and you'd never even think about the car braking or accelerating inappropriately as it was always right - whereas my Mercs is usually a dithering idiot, always slightly stupid and confused

However then the Lexus would upset the calm - every now and then it seemed to suddenly care about a car 120m to 150m in front where it hesitated / braked - only a few times - I began to question if it was signalling to you this was a new situation - it didn't seem to do it often but I realised it did when the vehicle in front was different (and it wasn't really distance related or indeed relevant at the silly speed limits in NL)