Mike_B

Well I've finally got my hands on it... a 2001 GS430 SE in Chiltern Green (a very rare colour it seems). And so far I'm ecstatic. Smooth as butter, extremely powerful and very quiet and comfortable. So just what I wanted... If someone can remind me how to post a pic I shall take one whilst it's still shiny looking and post it up... Me happy :D

Depends which Tesco. There's an oil terminal near where my parents live. You can watch tankers pull up to the bunkers to refill, from the *exact same bunker* you'll get an Esso tanker, then a Sainsburys, then an Asda then a Jet. etc etc. So I guess the local supermarkets in Plymouth probably have the same fuel as the Esso and Jet garages do. But 50 miles up the road, where the tankers fill up at a different depot, that may not be the case. You can't really tell! I don't really care much to be honest, for the reason above. I think it's mostly psychological if you notice a difference, though I'd happily concede that an isolated tankful may be bad, or fuel from a specific filling station may be bad. But that's probably because they've got crap in their storage tanks, or a numpty tanker driver filled it up with the wrong fuel so it's a mixture!

There are lights, clearly. You can see them and one of the cars hits a traffic light pole. As for why no-one was obeying them, *** knows. Probably all far too macho to obey a traffic signal...

Not whilst I'm driving, no... ;)

You could do it much more cheaply by employing sensors in the bumper which detect impact, like those used for airbags. The sensors could set off a charge/solenoid to move the headrest forward (say) 15mm to reduce the distance between the rest and the back of your head when the sensors fire. Through the use of crumple zones, the initial contact required to set the sensors off means the headrests would have achieved full motion before the full force of the impact reaches the rigid passenger cell and you get a whiplash injury. Incidentally, NCAP make absolutely NO consideration for rear-end crashes, so you can get a great score without any special features to reduce injury in such accidents. I don't believe it was ever really intended for use by the public as a tool to help them gauge relative safety of vehicles. But someone (coughRenaultcough) started using it to market their vehicles (someone more cynical than I might suggest they specifically design their vehicles to have good scores in the specific tests they use) and since 'safety' catches the public imagination so well at the moment, all manufacturers started to advertise their good scores. Overall I don't think it's a bad thing to look at safety, but NCAP isn't perfect by a very long way. For one thing, it fails to measure rear-impacts, and focuses on impact protection whilst ignoring things like effective ABS and VSC systems which can prevent accidents in the first place. Also 4x4s score well as they have very strong chassis that are higher than standard cars, yet they are much more prone to roll-over type accidents which are not tested for and could have very serious consequences from a secondary impact with another vehicle.

Does anyone have a list of the differences between the various specs of Mk II GS cars? The knowledgebase article for the IS200 has lists of additional equipment fitted to the S/SE/Sport models, but the GS430 one just has a single list. Is it perhaps the same as the one for the 300 models? The Lexus used car section ignores the 430 Mk II altogether in the specifications section... Mike

Sign the petition anyway then. Sadly not everyone's parents are as financially astute as yours evidently are, but they still worked hard, paid their taxes and left bereaved offspring behind. Why not help keep the thieving hands of the government off it? Whether you've earnt your own in the meantime isn't really the point here... (though it's certainly true!!)

Sorry to hear that mate - know the feeling! Have to say I'm not at all surprised to hear that the cost to his is £430 - a front wing (painted) would be something like £300, plus of course the light. Why are you not going through insurance? Sure your premium will go up, but probably not by as much as you think. Run a couple of quotes through something like confused.com - one with an accident and a year's less no claims bonus, and one without an accident, and see - the increase may be much less than your total bill and will leave you off the hook in case of future trouble. Mike

The only trouble with Linux is that if you have an issue with networking, you will find it very hard to get support as all the help is on the web. Unless you have a Linux fiend amongst your friends you could run into trouble if, for example, you have a funny wireless network card and can't get online. At least with Windows everyone knows it so these things can be handled by your neighbours kid if neccessary...

I'm an IT consultant. Design, implement, and rollout Citrix server projects, with a bit of Altiris desktop management stuff as well, and some other more random stuff depending on what's going on. Those who also do IT work understand what that means! Depends on the project I'm on, really...

You may be averaging 40 - 50 but is that your typical speed? Or are you slowing right down in traffic, and then accelerating, before braking again? If you're not doing a constant speed then you'll drink fuel... Otherwise check all your tyre pressures, binding brakes, old air filter etc. Plus as mentioned the O2 sensors. Mike

'N' is just the latest industry agreed standard. You'll see B and G mentioned as well, B devices run at up to 11Mpbs, G at 54Mbps, and N at 125. To be quite honest it makes no difference whatsoever unless you're transferring large files from one machine to another on your home network (eg a folder full of photos from a laptop to a desktop computer. The connection to the internet is always (well, until they start rolling out 24Mb adsl) going to be the slowest link in the chain so it doesn't really matter about the wireless speed. Mike

Are you sure about that? I heard that unlike other MS upgrade disks (both OS and applications), where you don't need the previous version to actually be installed, this time you do. So popping in the cd of the old version when it complains about not being able to find a qualifying product to upgrade, isn't going to work in this case. Now I guess you could get round it (not legally though) by installing the OEM copy that came with your last PC, but you'll have to actually run through the setup process rather than just supply media. Mike

The new filesystem slipped a long time ago - at least a year before Vista actually shipped. There are certainly quite a few changes from XP in the to the day-to-day admin of the system - the two that jumped out at me are that the system keeps asking for admin credentials before you make any changes (a la Linux) and also that connecting to networks is a pain because it takes a while to connect (through both wireless and wired), and then asks whether it's a public, work, or home network so it can decide what permissions to put on shares etc. For most people neither of these will be much of an issue, but for people such as myself who connect to different networks on a daily basis it's a bit of a fiddle. Other than that though, it's running both fast and reliably on my laptop (which has a P4 2GHz chip and 2GB of RAM, admittedly) and I'm very pleased with it... Overall it reminds me of a recent variant of Linux, cos it's pretty, and keeps asking me for admin credentials!! Not seen a blue screen in a month (but then I've not seen one on my lappy for over a year anyway...) But yes, the new Solitaire is very nice to look at, and it asks you if you want to save your game before exiting! The colour scheme is as Disney as you want, by default the Aero theme is actually quite black-and-white which makes a change from MSs normal primary colour scheme!! Mike

Am I right in thinking the IS300 wasn't sold anywhere until 2001 though? Whereas the 350 exists now, they just don't sell it here. As an aside, is the 350 sold in Japan? (ie is there already a RHD variant they could simply bring over, with the buttons in Euro-language etc) Mike

So what it comes down to is this: In the unlikely event of a puncture sufficiently serious enough to rapidly deflate the tyre whilst moving at speed, you can carry on driving... for a bit... Admittedly this type of puncture has happened to me once, but that was 300,000 miles ago and I don't know of anyone else it has happened to. And I check my tyre pressures a bit more often since those days!!! ;) In return you get worse ride, worse handling, significantly greater expense in the event of any puncture, and a bit of extra space in the boot. Not all that appealing to me, to be honest... Mike

Ok, so I don't post here all that much anyway... and I'm only off to the GS one rather than the IS one here!! But I've just put down a refundable deposit on a second-hand GS430 from Lexus Milton Keynes. Subject to a test drive on Sunday (and looking over it in general to make sure there's nothing that makes me panic) I shall be picking it up the following weekend! Rather excited about it... :D

It's not 'stronger', it has an equivalent resistance to pre-ignition as that of petrol composed of 99% pure octane. The calorific content (ie the heat obtained by burning the fuel) per litre is more or less exactly the same from standard 95RON to 99RON. However, higher-octane fuels tend to contain other additives which may (or may not) help with mpg, throttle response etc. If they do, this is largely because these additives contain cleaners which when used long-term may help clean the engine thus allowing it to run more efficiently. Note the use of words like 'may' and 'if' in that statement... For example, Shell V-Power or BP Ultimate do contain such additives, common-or-garden supermarket fuel might or might not depending which bunker their delivery tanker filled up from that morning at the depot. Personally I think it's cobblers unless your engine is more prone to knock, for example having a high-compression engine (possibly turbo- or supercharged) and/or you run your ignition on non-standard timing settings. Also you should use it if your vehicle requires it (ie some Jap imports). UK-spec vehicles almost always only require 95RON fuel. But that said, others here report differently, though the jury is still out on whether it's just psychological or not. Either way, the differences are only minimal for standard vehicles. Mike

Those 90s SLs are lovely cars. The 500 is obviously quicker but the 300 is no slouch and uses about half the fuel. A mate's Dad has got one (a 300 that is), really nice it is too. And these are from the days when Mercs were still built properly, so should still be a very fine car even if it is a few years old! Mike

But you wishing you had that problem doesn't make it fair that I should have to pay tens of thousands of tax when I've just lost my parents does it? Fundamentally, what you're saying there is that because your parents haven't got any money, other people should pay more tax. If it was a small proportion of the population that might be fair enough, but it's an awful lot more than that now. http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/tax-advice/in...p;in_page_id=78 Inheritance tax was designed to catch only the very richest people - but like so many other taxes, the numbers paying it have been grossly expanded by not changing the limits (just as a greater proportion of people now pay 40% income tax) to fund expenditure like Tony's little jaunt in Iraq. Mike

Currently sporting a plaster on my left arm from a skiing hol a couple of weeks ago. Then got a long weekend in April in Bucharest with some mates. Not sure after that - may take the bike abroad again to do some sunny miles, maybe tie it in with something like the MotoGP in Mugello! :)

Only thing that jumps out at me is the random capitalisation of letters where they should not be. The only words that should have capital letters are proper nouns (ie James, Microsoft, Coca Cola etc), the first letter in a sentence, and possibly where trying to demonstrate where an acronym comes from. It makes it Quite Hard to Read where they Seem to be used Randomly. For example, on your Introduction page, you have the phrase 'Our Team of Electrical and Mechanical engineers'. But apart from 'Our', the others are unnecessary and distract the eye, and in any case surely you'd want the 'engineers' to be capitalised too if you were going for that effect deliberately. I guess you've followed up some of the other suggestions here, it looks quite neat otherwise! Anyway just my 2c, but you did ask for comments! Mike

So a brand-new car jumps out of gear sometimes? And 'that's as good as it gets'? After 3 dealer visits for transmission problems? F*ck that - scream blue murder at them, and get trading standards in. Unfit for purpose - what's the point of a 200bhp Sports model if you can't boot it away from the lights sometimes without it popping out of gear? Mike

Anyone know how much this piece might cost? The one on my front passenger-side door is creased at several points along it's length, as though someone has pulled it off and bent/straightened it a few times in the process... Mike

I asked a similar question a while ago - I've got an IS200 auto and was thinking of a GS430 for the extra performance and comfort. Fuel cost isn't an issue for me - so the consensus was to go for it. Once my stupid arm heals up and comes out of plaster, I shall be. It's very frustrating seeing nice looking examples coming up and then disappearing from Autotrader and the Lexus approved used car sites!!