Sagitar

Fascinating - did you go round several times . . . . :D Lexus claim about 40 mpg for extra urban and 31 mpg combined. There are half a dozen IS250s showing on Spiritmonitor - the best shows an overall average of 33.4 mpg - the worst 24 mpg - mine comes about the middle of the group. 59 mpg average for a tank would be some kind of miracle, but I can understand instantaneous indications at that level. The best I have ever had for a single tank was just over 40 mpg (used mainly on a single motorway journey to the Lakes and back).

I don't recall any problems with the 'phone book, but I suspect the numbers that I use got loaded as and when. I don't have a large circle of mobile contacts, just close family and friends. I make very few calls from the car, they are usually incoming. The display shows Blue Tooth; battery; signal strength and the symbols "Ho" . I keep meaning to check what "Ho" means, but I never find the time . . . . Edit: Ho just means it is receiving signals in the "Home" area - It changes to Ro when "roaming".

The IS that I test drove had had its covers stolen, so as soon as I got mine I removed and stored the Lexus caps and fitted the free rotating ones that need a key to remove. I have yet to lose one. I got mine from Halfords but cannot remember what they cost, more than £8 for the set I would think. Sad isn't it, but what can you do? The caps are not just pretty, they are an integral part of maintenance of the pressure in your tyres.

I have an htc TyTNII that works very well in my IS250 - no Blue Tooth problems. It connects without taking it out of my pocket. I had a Palm Treo 680 before that and found it much easier to use in many ways, but unfortunately the providers of mapping software for walking do not support the Palm OS so I was forced to change to Windows Mobile 6, or carry a second device when walking. Windows Mobile 6 really isn't very good compared with the Palm OS, bloated and slow would be my description, but "when the devil drives" etc.

The law says exactly the opposite - have a look at section 218 of the Highway Code - the important bit says "DO NOT park partially or wholly on the pavement unless signs permit it".

Jean's

Maybe a spider had got into it . . . . . .

Interesting - thank you - I wasn't aware of that. The last vehicle on which I had a speedo problem was a Camry (with traction control and cruise control). The problem was cured by changing the vehicle speed sensor on the transmission. Hence my comments. However that vehicle was, from memory, registered in 2001 so it is some time ago. I had assumed that vehicles with sophisticated traction control systems would still retain the speed sensor on the transmission to provide a basis for comparison with individual wheel speeds etc. and as a relatively simple basis for cruise control. Do Lexus not now fit a transmission mounted vehicle speed sensor?

Then I can see no way that the executor of your Great-Uncle's estate can avoid paying death duty on any sum that exceeds the death duty allowance. Incidentally, I do not believe that you can put an unlimited capital sum into an ISA. The ISA limit is £7,200 per annum currently, of which not more than £3,600 can be deposited to a cash ISA.

The sensor is almost certain to be on the output side of the gearbox. In the "good-old-days" there was a flexible drive shaft driven by a gear on the output side of the gearbox, that drove a slipping clutch mechanism inside the speedo head. Nowadays the connection is electronic, but it still makes sense to take the reading from the gearbox output shaft.

Death duty will be paid on your great uncle's estate by whoever is appointed to execute his estate and is unaffected by who receives the money (unless he donates it to a charity) so whether you (as a beneficiary) are married or not will make no difference. Who will receive the residue of the estate will depend upon what his will says - if he hasn't written a will then the laws of intestacy will apply - in that case, what you receive will depend upon what other living relatives there are - e.g. if he has a wife who is still alive, then she is likely to get the lot - if not then the estate will be shared equally among all the living relatives - your special relationship with your great uncle will not give you any priority. So make sure there is a will. It could make a difference if your great uncle was married, since a trust could then be set up so that the total untaxed allowance would in effect be doubled, but that could mean that none of the estate would pass to you until both your great uncle and his wife had died. A limited amount can be given away by your great uncle each year, in the form of a gift, without attracting death duty retrospectively, but the last time I looked it was only about K£3 per annum. Advice (including mine!) given on a site like this one, without detailed knowledge of the circumstances, is pretty much worthless. There are various leaflets published by bodies like Age Concern and the Law Society that explain the situation, but they are quite complicated and the most sensible thing you can do, is consult a solicitor who specialises in will writing and who will advise on the best way to minimise death duty. At the very least, have a talk with someone at the Citizens Advice Bureau.

The Ford Edsel

Not really. I've got a son who's nearly as old as you . . . . . Oh dear good job I didn't include you in the stats then :) Look at the poll here http://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/forum/ind...mp;#entry521929

Not really. I've got a son who's nearly as old as you . . . . .

I lost a good friend (Don Davies) in the Munich crash. Watched my first United game during WWII when they were playing at Maine Road.

If you are a high mileage user then fuel cost is important. I am a low mileage user (about 8,000 miles per year) so petrol cost is a relatively small proportion of the total cost of running the car. My overall cost is about £1.35 a mile of which petrol is currently about 14p. I might save about 4p a mile by going to diesel, but if I was that strapped I would probably not have bought the Lexus. In fact from a pure economy standpoint, I would probably be better off with no car and using my bus pass and taking taxis . . . . . .

We have just been up to the Lake District for a few days. The weather was awful, but nevertheless, all the driving was a pure pleasure . . . . . :D

indian

Yes but built by Ford.... Not any more - they sold it to an Indian company, Tata. That's the same firm that makes the Nano - it sells for £1,300 equivalent in India . . . . .

My Google search comes up with the Royal Court Hotel - is the map showing it in the wrong place? The 910 indicates exactly the same coordinates so it seems clear that they are using the same mapping data. http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=l&hl=e...=15&iwloc=A If it is shown in the wrong place, then the hotel should make a fuss because it is the mapping data that is in error not the GPS. Incidentally, I checked Multi Map also and it shows exactly the same data.

You are right, but you will have a job convincing people. In 1956, at the time of Suez the price of petrol rose to 6 shillings a gallon (30p today) and we were given petrol coupons, though they never got used as far as I am aware. I still have mine somewhere. Everyone screamed blue murder and of course at that time, £20 a week was a very good salary. If petrol prices had kept up with wage inflation, we would be paying at least £9 a gallon now i.e. close to £2 a litre. For a long time, petrol sales were very competitive. I remember talking to a Shell Managing Director about the way in which they needed to invest forward in refinery capacity so that they could reduce production costs to a level that would still give them a profit at a retail price that would keep them competitive in the market place. I haven't looked at any statistics lately, but my eyes tell me that the number of retail outlets has reduced dramatically and that there is therefore nothing like the level of competition that there used to be. Within a few miles of my home there used to be eleven filling stations. Now there are only four and two of them are attached to supermarkets. I think we can safely assume that world shortages and lack of retail competition will continue to drive up prices quite rapidly.

If you are using the Lex system, you must be putting in more than just postcode information, because it will not find an address from the postcode only. Try putting the full postcode into Google maps and see what position it identifies. Sometimes the postcode system has errors that give a discrepancy between the postcode and the indicated position on the ground. No satnav will find the right position from the postcode alone if there is such an error. I have never found the errors to be very large, but it sounds as though you might have one? Would you mind sending me a pm with the full postcode so that I can try it?

I am on record as saying that the Lexus IS250 satnav is good on motorways - but then I don't normally have much trouble navigating on motorways. However, here is a real address that I visited for the first time recently: Lodge Farm, Tetbury, Gloucestershire GL8 8XW - it is an excellent B&B if anyone is interested. It is the complete address. There is no road name, because the farm is on an un-named and un-numbered minor country road as you will see if you enter the postcode into Google Maps. I cannot find any way of entering this address into my Lexus satnav, so I cannot even start to find it. The Tomtom 910 with full postcode entry (it doesn't need anything else) identifies it with ease and and gets me to within a few yards of the entrance gate. For my purposes this is an acid test. I want full postcode entry - you may not.

I haven't read the article and presumably you have? This is what the original poster said: "In this week's Auto Express page 17 there's an article on how factory fitted sat-navs don't have (full UK 7-digit) postcode entry and it states Lexus don't have the facility on their IS250/220d". It is this statement to which I was responding. Whatever Auto Express said, it is still my opinion that the Lexus satnav postcode facility is disappointing for a top-of-the-range marque.

If they are claiming that the Lexus satnav does not have full seven digit postcode entry, they are not wrong - it doesn't. A full postcode entry system is far more useful in my experience than the four digit "district" approach used by Lexus. Many of the remote addresses that I visit (farms etc) are on un-named roads and do not have a number. The Lexus system is pretty useless at finding them whereas my Tomtom 910, with full postcode entry, finds them in a blink. The Tomtom is actually better in a number of other ways too, but that's another story. My understanding is that the full postcode information is significantly more expensive to buy into than the truncated version. It seems to me to be a very fair question to ask why an aftermarket device costing a few hundred quid is better equipped than the much more expensive Lexus device?