Mike_B

Could someone with a 450h post a picture of the boot? Everyone talks about how small it is, but 'small' is a relative term!

Yeah, but if the fronts are too dark then you can't see outside properly, especially at dusk. It's illegal and you can be stopped for it, ordered to rectify them, and prove it at an MOT station. Worst case is that the car can be stopped from moving under it's own power, ie you'll need to get a truck to pick it up and take it somewhere to have the tints removed. I *think* the darkest legal tint on the fronts are 30%, ie 70% light transmission, on anything forward of the B-pillar. That doesn't look very dark though, most cars leave the forecourt with about that level of tint anyway.

You won't even notice mate. A compressor obviously is always going to use a certain amount of power, but when you have so much on tap anyway it's not going to be noticeable. If we assume it takes 5hp, well 5 from just under 300 is a lot less of a drop than 5 from a tiny tin box that's only got 60 to start with!

I think the nature of refrigerating systems is that at atmospheric pressure, the refrigerant is a gas. This means that if it is leaking, there won't be any tell-tale colours to look for except if the leak is so extreme that the physical damage is obvious. Signs of low gas are simply that the air doesn't get any/much colder when you switch the aircon on, compared to having it switched off. Using a thermometer poked into a face vent is the best way to tell, set the temperature to 'as low as possible' and run it full-blast for a few minutes then switch the aircon off and on every couple of minutes. The temperature of the air should then rise and fall as you switch the A/C button on and off. It should be something like 4C though this varies from car to car. It should be a lot lower than the ambient temperature outside, anyway. If you take it to Kwik-Fit for an aircon check, I believe they guarantee the result or they don't charge you. All systems will leak a little, over a period of a few years the system will gradually get worse and a recharge of gas should fix it. To prevent problems, make sure you regularly use it, the seals are kept tight by the gas containing a lubricant. An hour or two a month should be enough.

Another way of saying the exact same thing is that the Japanese cars are over-engineered, which is why they tend towards greater reliability and can take more subsequent tuning. The Germans are stressing the components more from new, leaving less room for improvement later on.

The new stuff is called SMA - it's quieter but it's not as grippy as standard tar macadam roads, especially when freshly laid. Take care on it when it's really shiny and new, especially those of us on motorbikes. See here: Linky The A30 was surfaced in concrete - noisy as hell but lasts forever and is very cheap (well, it used to be before concrete prices went through the roof!) The M5 used to be like that almost all the way between Bristol and Exeter - lasted about 25 years before it needed replacing, when it was done with SMA. As for the A30, I'm sorry for the people who live near it but I'm glad it was built, I used to drive the Exeter-Honiton road two or three times a week, it was a bloody nightmare taking 45 minutes to an hour some days. Now it takes less than 20 minutes - a big improvement even if it is noisy!!

Wiltshire definitely used to have a GS430 as well, for the M4 patrol. I remember reading an article about it at the time, the plod drivers were waxing lyrical about the stability, comfort and grunt from the V8. Pretty much the same things I love about it!! :) Linky

Fine for me too. Occasionally it runs slow, but i think that's more likely congestion on my connection that anything else. Do other sites run slow, or just LOC?

Of course the world isn't going to end. People just love that sort of story so The Sun feeds their tiny brains with that sort of bilge - right after their 18yo bint with her tits out and full details of the latest drunken antics of Lily Allen and the latest bikini styles as seen on Sienna Miller. The comments sum it up really, look at these pearls of wisdom: "yo bro i have degrees in streetsmart, if it goes belly up just pull out the plug. problem solved. dooh". "Why do scientists have to interfere? Do we really need to know what happened with the big bang? I don't think they should be allowed to do this hadron collider experiment, because if they are sucesefull this time, where will it stop? Also how do they have the rights to risk everyones lives? These people need to learn to let some mysteries be and that 4bn could have been used to improve lives, not destroy them!" Are these complete imbeciles really the product of the education system of a 4th richest nation in the world? I despair of this country sometimes, I really do... People have no imagination or sense of wonder any more, no thirst for knowledge of the unknown, no desire to learn and to take things forward. As though somehow spending every single penny on the health service will make everything better and everyone will live happily every after? People's perception of risk is *utterly* divorced from reality these days. How did we ever get down from the trees with an attitude that if there is even a millions-to-one chance of anything bad happening that 'it ought to be stopped'? Rant over...

It's quite possible there aren't any silver GS430s with tinted windows. There aren't many GS430s at all round here, in fact! Perhaps we could have a count? I'm #1... On a similar note, anyone have any idea how many MkII GS430s were actually sold in this country?

Rolling along in neutral uses more fuel than just lifting your foot off the throttle and keeping the engine in gear. Fuel is not required by the engine if it is being turned by the wheels, so fuel is cut altogether by modern ECUs. However if you are in neutral the engine requires fuel to keep running so overall consumption rises.

Ooh - do you have a CLS? I love the look of those things, especially in black... What do you think of it?

Not driving around a town you won't :winky: Ermmm... sometimes. Usually get about 280 if it's just town mileage. Worked it out last time I filled up, had averaged 18mpg over the 3/4 of a tank on the gauge - filled up early as I had a 5p/litre voucher from Tesco that needed using. But since it took a month to use that 3/4 of a tank, I don't actually care really. If i was a cabbie or something it would be horrendous, but I don't drive as much as I used to in my last job!

Yes, the 02 reg with 66000 miles. The other thing is that my handbook shows audio volume buttons just behind steering wheel near the mode button. Mine hasn't got these but has a largish pad with phone pic on and 3 more pads marked 1 2 and 3 which don't appear to do anything. In the upper tray of the centre armrest is an attachment to plug phone into...I think...but it is a Motorola fitting and no phones fit it. Nothing at all in handbook and I'm at a loss as to exactly how to use it. Any info most gratefully received. Another thought...why do dealers say Desert Quartz when V5 says Bronze? That's interesting, mine just has the standard volume buttons on the wheel, so sounds like someone has definitely either changed it, or there was a really rare option available that included a carphone. Telephone options like that used to be quite common in high-end cars, before bluetooth made it possible to connect almost any phone to any car kit. I can remember some cars even had a slot in the radio into which you could push your SIM card when you got in the car! A few years ago Motorola phones were far more popular than they are now, you could always try eBay for an oldie and see if you can get it to work!! I have a brochure at home for the 2002 model year GS (very sad I know - I bought it off eBay when I got my car!!), I don't know if it goes into all available options but I'll have a look through it tonight and see what it says... As others have said, the V5 is an English-language rough description of the colour, Lexus can call it whatever they want to.

I don't have a problem with the speed traps like the cop in the picture - he's wearing very bright clothes, and it appears to be a residential area with wide roads, i.e. a classic place where speeds can easily drift up well over 30 even though there's what looks like family housing in the background. So he's easily visible and in an area that (appears from the picture) to be just where speed enforcement is needed. If you get caught here, tough. It's the ones in unmarked vans, often parked illegally in a layby, bus stop or on hatchings on quiet open roads with a camera through the window that wind me up - or the unmanned ones hidden in wheelie bins or behind bridges on dual carriageways etc.

292 miles? I can get more than that out of mine - with an engine over twice the size!! Though the tank is a little bigger on the GS...

You can fill your car up a lot of times before you waste as much time as a breakdown will take...

Think they've made an error, that's the spec of the new GS Quite possibly. I can't see any sensors on rear in the photo online but thought they were standard..with beep device not camera. I'll call in and have a look. No, not standard I think. Sounds like they've cut and pasted the wrong set of specs into the advert to me - is it the Desert Quartz GS430? For one thing, those are standard 17inch wheels in the pic, but it's described as having the 18 inch ones installed. Looks like the whole ad needs re-doing as the pic and the specs don't match up, and the specs don't match the options that were available that year either.

Well I did it... Got a shiny new 24" iMac with the 2.8GHz chip and a 500GB hard drive. And very nice it is too... I've sullied it with a copy of VMware Fusion as I'm doing some courses on Windows Server 2008 at the moment and the final chapter of the current book requires the concurrent use of 7 machines - so I've splashed out and bought 4GB of RAM for it too! I actually got it about 6 weeks ago, and not missing anything much yet. MSN Messenger for Mac is pretty rubbishy but aMSN seems OK if a touch buggy.

Sky Sports is already an extra monthly charge, and always has been. The only thing that's changed is that another company has bought some matches - but this is not the fault of the government, or the public, or Sky, or the BBC. Blame the Premiership for this, they are the ones being greedy by issuing the the rights in batches rather than as a single auction. Ultimately, everything that happens in sports is down to the people who run that sport. That said, certain sports are protected and MUST be available on free-to-air. Off the top of my head, they are the Olympics/Paralympics, FA Cup Final, the Grand National, Rugby World Cup and no doubt several others I can't remember. So no danger of the 2012 Olympics going pay-per-view in Britain.

It's got like it has because enough people are prepared to pay up. If more people took the attitude 'no, i'm not paying that much to watch TV' then prices would fall - it's simple supply and demand. Sports television isn't some kind of essential public service like drinking water; it's a luxury optional extra and if you want it, you're gonna have to pay for it. Yes, of course the BBC could bid for football rights if it wanted to, but quite large sections of the public don't want to watch football, and they have to strike a balance. Chucking hundreds of millions at the Premiership would be stupid, especially considering that Sky Sports and Setanta have both amply demonstrated that those who want to watch football are, in large numbers, quite prepared to pay extra to do so. With Sky/Setanta armed with that kind of cash, which has been given to them specifically in order to provide sporting entertainment, then of course they are going to be able to outbid the BBC or ITV. FWIW, I consider EastEnders a waste of licence-fee too, but at least it's cheap to make.

They look more like motorcycle types, which have to be bolted on or a chav will steal it and claim the tax back. Sticky pads are available at DIY stores though, B&Q should have a selection.

Ouch - when I was skiing 18 months ago one of the girls in our chalet broke both her wrists. I fell over and broke my left one, get sledged to the medical centre and there she was, with both her wrists in plaster and looking a bit green. We shared a taxi down to the hospital in the main town which was great fun, having both been given a massive shot of morphine (for those who don't know, morphine is an opiate drug very similar to heroin). Luckily, I didn't have to help her in the loo as she had a kindhearted friend who took care of that!

Sounds like cobblers to me as well. Police cars have large numbers on the roofs which are specific to that vehicle (so they can be individually identified from the air by helicopters) so I can't see why you couldn't have numbers on the doors. And as dave1 says, how can you legislate *specifically* against race numbers but permit advertising, phone numbers etc on other vehicles?

How does it cope when it gets really hot? Wouldn't the vinyl soften in really strong sun and be much more susceptible to damage? Sounds like a great idea though, some little tw@ keys your car and it should be much cheaper to repair...