kirkd1

There is no oooler because it is not a track car. Go buy a track car and you will get your cooler!

jbuffett

Overheated in about 11 minutes of Matt Farah driving it on mountain roads in Sport S+. It doesn't matter that it's not a track car. What matters is that a car that costs this much should not be limited by a lack of transmission cooling when solving the problem is trivially expensive.

kirkd1

Cost has absolutely nothing to do with this. This car at this price point was not built to do what he was doing with it. If you want to do this, or track the car you will need to spend some additional money to do so. If this, or any car, at any price point does not perform as you think it should you may need a different car. Or spend the additional money and modify and engineer your own solution.

jbuffett

Then why do the new Inspiration Edition LC's have a dedicated trans cooler? It's a color / wheel package, not a performance package. Is the Inspiration Edition meant to be a higher performing variant of the LC, that somehow doesn't include a single additional performance upgrade?

Of course it's not. Of course Lexus realized that the car needs more trans cooling. Lexus are the ones who put the LCs on the main tracks at the Lexus Performance Driving School, and then tell you to run it in Sport rather than Sport S+ so the transmission doesn't overheat. If the car has enough trans cooling for track driving ALL DAY in Sport mode, but not in Sport S+ mode, then how can this be a question of "the car wasn't built for that" when Lexus themselves hand you the keys at their own driving school to track drive it?

It's a heavy car that is traction limited when you really push it, I've done it at COTA and Road Atlanta. The fact that it's also transmission cooling limited and they've solved that problem on the newer cars tells me that it was an oversight on the earlier cars, and not an intentional design decision to make the LC "not a track car".

kirkd1

You are correct. Continually improving their product. Enjoy your drive in sport not sport +!

crashxx

So the 24's don't overheat? I don't drive mine hard, we have other cars for that, but I'm curious what they did if anything.

jbuffett

Lexus created a dedicated transmission cooler for the LC500 in 2024, but has only installed it on a subset of 2024 LC500's. So far the cars that got the new coolers are a handful of special edition LCs in Japan and possibly the Inspiration Edition LC's for the US. For non-Inspiration LC500's, to the extent that overheating has been an issue, Lexus hasn't publicly addressed the issue on those cars.

The overheating issue is quickly apparent -- in about 10-12 minutes -- when driving the car hard or on a track in Sport S+ mode. Matt Farah / Smoking Tire's review of the 2021 convertible had the issue during his review, and I've personally seen the issue at track days for the Lexus Performance Driving School. However, at LPDS the cars run fine all day without overheating in Sport (not Sport S+) mode.

crashxx

Good to know. Thanks for the info.

NiceCars

Maybe the 25's (S/E's or otherwise) will receive the TC...that would be a nice little bene.

crashxx

Speaking on 25's. Will that be the last year or does anyone know?

jbuffett

Nobody knows, even Lexus themselves probably haven't decided yet. Lexus rarely does a change / refresh to a model just before cancelling it, so with the 2024 interior refresh we should see at least 3-4 more years of LC500's.

I would also expect an ultimate / final special edition for the last year.

NiceCars

Since the 24's were announced on 5/17/23 do you expect the same for the 25's, or was the 24's an early release?

WHAT’S NEW: 2024 LC 500 / 500h - Lexus USA Newsroom

NiceCars

^^^^ bump ^^^^

jbuffett

None of us work for Lexus, and if we did and we released internal deliberations here, we'd be fired if they ever found out.

2025 LC500 information will come out when it comes out. Lexus will most likely announce the final year of the LC500 when they've decided that a specific year is the final year. They will also most likely do a final or special edition (like Acura did with the NSX Type-S), which they'll announce and will be all over the car websites. If you want one for MSRP, I hope you have a good relationship with your local dealer.

When that will be, none of us knows, and if we did know we couldn't tell you. Best guess: they wouldn't have spent the money to redesign the interior if they were only going to sell the car for another year or two. So expect the LC to go on until at least 2026 or 2027.

Beyond that, nobody knows and it's pointless to ask.

NiceCars

If the 25 is not going to be the final year (I agree with this and the reasoning behind it, plus Toyota’s ceo is an LC fan) then the announcement for the new MY shouldn’t be a well guarded secret. Furthermore when one is deciding on a 24 that’s in transit for late April delivery vs waiting a ~ few months more for a 25 getting thoughts/intel is important, at least to me. My dealer’s GM reached out to their rep for info and was told the 25’s should be arriving at dealers as early as late summer…they obviously didn’t get into any specifics for changes etc. or they’d be gagged and flogged lol…