Mattj

Scorpion, happened to me a couple years ago, got a letter from insurance saying that they are happy to arrange repair of my car if I ring them up! I thought what's going on, rang up and they said they thought I had been in an accident as someone had try to claim against me. You are right - all it needs is the reg and someone can claim, it was a pain but the 3rd party admitted they were in error in the end as they had the wrong reg. Insurance would love to take away NCD as they could then charge you more money for your next premium, I don't trust any of them, good luck sorting them out!

Hmm sounds interesting, however that seller also had a pyramid scam going on if you looked at other items they have for sale....

Someone has suggested that perhaps it would be cheaper to have the front wing on my IS replaced than have the dent some idiot put in it beaten out and resprayed. Has anyone got a clue how much a front wing would cost and if this is a sensible idea?

Hmm thought location was there, it wasn't but it is now! Anyhow I live towards the east side of Berkshire and am working in Watford, so details for anywhere convenient from those locations would be great.

Some unknown idiot has managed to dent and scrape the car, didn't think it was too bad, however the quote from my main dealer is almost £800!!! After recovering from reading it, I was wondering if anyone knows of bodyshops that aren't at a main dealer, but are approved by Lexus so if I went there they might be cheaper, but wouldn't knacker my warranty on the car?? Cheers Matt

What are these things to try? My stereo is playing up

Like Zee I have a tungsten and have found it very good. I replaced a psion 5, so have had to live without a keyboard now. But have found it very easy to use. Graffiti on Palm seems to much better than whatever pocket pc uses. I tend to very much dislike pocket pc in general, its just not very nice to use. If you want things like wireless lan and bluetooth, you will pay a premium of course, and not many devices have both built in. I am even thinking of getting a tungsten t3 now instead of my origional t, however they aren't the cheapest, however there are cheaper palm based devices. The sony ones in general do seem quite nice, however I am sure if you pick palm over pocket pc you will be better off!

so its gonna get worse before it gets better anyhow after resetting it, I used the removing fuse method, the clock and trip counters reset, I thought this should only happen if you disconnected the battery instead, could I have removed the wrong fuses??

Hi people, one of my friends is moving to Canada for two years soon, she wants a car over there, however hasn't owned a car before. Although I am clearly trying to influence her into getting a Lexus, neither of us know much about the car market over there. So I was wondering if anyone knows how it compares to over here, for example the costs of buying new vs a second hand, or since she should only be there for a couple of years what is leasing car like over there. Suggestions and comparisons to the UK market would be much appreciated. Cheers Matt

Sanj, it would be interesting to see what your results are, I have been using optimax since I got my car last year, however I have never got much over 30mpg. A while ago I was doing a lot of motorway commuting and even then on average, bearing in mind I would still do a fair amount of driving round town too, I would get around 27mpg most of the time. Recently I have been doing mainly driving round town, getting down to 24mpg some times. However today I reset the ECU, and in the new year will be going back to motorway commuting everyday, so like yourself I am hoping to see some improvements! Cheers Matt

I didn't see the program, but when my car was hit from behind, I made sure I switched the engine off and put the keys in my pocket, so they wouldn't be able to make of with it that easily! Luckily of course it didn't come to that.....

me!

What's the address to go for as I tend to rely on my sat nav?? Looking forward to the M4 near rush hour, bound to be fun.....

I'm free tuesday night and in the area, what time are you guys getting there?

something along those lines I would prefer, animals, children and cancer I am sure are very deserving, but I would prefer to see groups that normally don't get so much attention getting my money.

In my glove box: CDs Copy of insurance LOC flyers Garage remote and most recently: disposable camera - donate money to charity at Octagon Bracknell and you can pick one of those up, useful if some plonker decides to hit my car again as can now take some quick snaps!

I have a Toshiba 32" Strata, pretty similar to Picture Frame but doesn't have built in 5.1. Question is though has anyone got a DVD player that can do PAL progressive scan? My Toshiba DVD player can only do NTSC progressive which is nice with the TV but am interested in getting a player than can to progressive PAL too. Also if anyone wants to buy a TV, John Lewis do a 5 year warranty as standard with these type of TVs. They are quite expensive, but will price match (not to web prices though has to be a shop and in stock), the normal price for my TV with them was about £1300, but they went down to £850!!

Ta for the replies lads. Well after the accident, the spare was trapped in the car, must make sure they didn't just replace the bumber and not fix the rest of it! I will make sure its stilk the right one too!! Just haven't had enough time yet. looking at the picture of the cluster, is it actually the glass that is darker, or the backing behind it? There is a guy near me with a Y reg S or SE granite sky, should he have the lighter or darker clusters? I am not sure which cars get them and which don't. Chris, if the part numbers are same how can you know which one you will be getting if you order one?

Since some plonker drove up my bum causing £1700 worth of damage, the garage replaced the rear light clusers (amongst other things). However I think that the ones previously on my 02 reg granite sky sport were darker than the usual ones. As I haven't been able to inspect properly in the light as I got it back only yesterday, I think they may have been replaced by the lighter ones but I am not sure. Is there a part number on them that I can check if they have fitted the right ones? Cheers Matt

When I bought my IS200, my previous car needed work done on it before I could sell it, the garage I used had it on their forecourt in the meantime and in the end actually sold it for me. The guy said just to cancel my insurance as his covered it while my car was there, but then again he was trustworthy.....

Guys, there have been a number of threads similar to this one, I have a car kit for my Nokia 6310i, it has the mute lead and is connected to the cars speakers, I have no idea how it all fixes up as I didn't do it myself, but the people who fitted it are at security world and quite helpful, I am sure if you contacted them they will be able to assist

Tony, I would say both those phones are very well specced, I have used the Nokia a lot more than the P800, I used to hate the Ericsons as they had horrible small keys and screens. My impression using the latter was that the button cover thingy that was removable wasn't great. If its off, then its a pain trying to dial without the pen, certainly if you were driving it would be very hard with or without a pen and frankly I don't want to use a pen with a phone for things like that! A lot of it comes down to personal taste too, I have a 6310i and think its a pretty good phone, both the ones you are looking at have more PDA functionality, however I am still using my Series 5 as I want a phone thats a phone and not a PDA. Phones like the 3650 and the P800 can be a real pain to use as things that are easily done with phones that are a lot less complex become a chore. I would prefer to have a seperate PDA, if you are a power PDA user, I am not convinced one of those phones can replace your Journada.

Kavey, it doesn't cost much, I think it was something like £50 to join and do a test, if you fail and have to re-test it probably will cost about another £30. There is an annual membership fee which I am sure is probably under £20 a year. To actually get you up to the standard to pass the tests, the "observers" don't cost, they give their time for free, which is jolly nice of them reall! Overall its not a costly excercise at all, for more precise figures I would have thought your local group could sort you out.....

I have the normal "wired" nokia kit in my Lexus, recently upgraded it to go through the stereo speakers, according to the guys fitted it, a wire for that wasn't available for a long time, but it is now, I am sure that it must be possible with bluetooth as well!

Guys, I passed my IAM test last year, there are actually two "advanced" tests, one with the IAM, another I think is with part of Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents. If you take the latter, there are three levels of pass (bronze, silver and gold), you also have to re-test every few years, the better the level you get the less often you have to re-test However I know more about IAM, you join a local group, get allocated an "observer" eventually, who will take you out driving with the aim to get you to the level to pass their test. You can just take the test, but its not reccommended. One problem I had was that the waiting list to get an observer with the Thames Valley group took probably over six months. I only found out about the other test afterwards and by that time almost had an observer. Anyway once I had my observer, we met up about once a month, after probably less that half a dozen sesssions, I took a mock test with the lead observer, then the real test with a serving police driver. I am sure if you look at their website you will see some of their benefits. For me they have sorted out pretty reasonable car insurnace, also have a smug feeling that I am in the right when I swear at other drivers. And for sure you will improve your driving, the main thing you notice going out with them is how much they notice with whats going on around them and think ahead, getting your driving to impove is certainly a benefit! If you want any more info, let me know.....