JBPRX400h

You should be quite pleased with 40MPG whether in the dark or during the day! JBP

We have a silver birch where I park my 450h on the drive. It drops millions of tiny seeds which seem to find their way into anything. The worst accumulation seems to be down the side channels of the rear hatch where they get under the black plastic thingies (technical term!) on either side. Is there an easy way to remove these thingies (technical term again!) to have a good clean up as a hoover only gets rid of some of the seeds and then only if they are really dry? JBP

Just looked at your link to Worldometers, Herbie, and it appears that the year on year percentage increase is steadily falling. I seem to remember hearing a couple of years ago that the world population would level off at about 7 billion maximum because of many factors but I cannot remember what they all were. My wife and I haven't got any grandchildren and therefore no great grandchildren so are we helping to ease the population explosion? At our age I don't think we have too much to worry about. JBP

OK here's one to be going on with with a special nod to David's experience up the Grossglockner Pass, although I might have posted this story before. As I have said my van was unusual in that it had a 4 speed gearbox. However it would not stay in first gear and would just drop out under load. One weekend in the early seventies we decided to drive from Ambleside up to the Kirkstone Inn, a narrow little road with several 1 in 4 hills. All went well until we reached the final steep bit and the poor old van just couldn't make it in 2nd gear so we turned round in a gateway and stormed up the last ascent in reverse. Only trouble with that was it was (for the Lake District) a hot sunny day so the engine overheated and we arrived in the carpark opposite the inn in a great cloud of steam and to a round of cheering and applause from the customers sitting outside in the sunshine!!! JBP

I bought NME208 (New Musical Expres/ Radio Luxembourg!) in 1969 when it was 6 years old for £60. After four and a half years of ownership and 100,000 miles later (I used to use it to commute from Milton Keynes to London) I sold it without an MOT for £45. Lots more stories to tell but I might save them for later. JBP

I'll try again. I'm the second grinning idiot from the right!

Here is one of the few photos I have of my old Thames van, NME208. My friend taking the picture owned 606UKX. This was when eight of us likely lads were about to embark on a tour of the continent in the two vans back in 1972. Yes, John (Royoftherovers,) it did have vacuum driven wipers. The speed was infinitely variable (when they were working properly) by a little knob in the middle of the dashboard. More often than not though the diagphram in the vacuum pump would split. The wipers would still work but slowed to a crawl when going uphill and then went berserk going downhill. David, my van had an Ercol two seater settee in the back for the extra passengers - very posh! All very different from a Lexus.

It was a Ford Thames 15cwt van, John. Unusual in that it had a 4 speed gearbox rather than the normal 3 speed. If you weren't careful when changing from 2nd to 3rd gear the column mounted gear lever would move to the new position but the sloppy rod linkages to the gearbox would stay in 2nd gear and the whole lot would jam solid. The solution was to stop the van, crawl underneath and jiggle the rods free before getting back in to carry on with your journey. Oh the memories! JBP

When I first started driving in 1969 petrol was 5 shillings (25p) a gallon and beer was 1 shilling and sixpence (7.5p) a pint. Not that I combined the two of course! JBP

Alan I did have this noise last summer but doesn't seem to have come back this year. Different sort of hot weather this year? Glenn The 450h doesn't have a lid on the cup holder. Obviously a design improvement!!!

Our 2017 Gen4 F Sport has recently developed an annoying little noise when driving. It is a sort of quiet creaky sound coming from the cup holder in the centre console which stops if you press your fingers on it. Has anyone else "suffered" from this? Any ideas on how to silence it or how to remove the cup holder to investigate why it is making this noise would be appreciated. JBP

Would also suggest 12V battery not fully charged. JBP

Did you find it Tim? If not it should be in Menu, Settings, General, Feedback Force Good luck! JBP

There is an option in one of the setup menus to adjust sensitivity. JBP

Aloha?

It's all Greek to me! JBP

Whilst waiting for a shop to open the other day I was playing with the various screens and settings in our Gen4 F Sport and came across something I had not noticed before. In the top right hand corner of the climate control screen there is a menu. I clicked on this and an option to turn "Nanoe" on or off appeared. It was turned off. Not knowing what this was I looked it up in the handbook (please note Roy of the Rovers!) and found that it was the trademark name of some nano technology patented by Panasonic which produces sub microscopic droplets of water to add to the air conditioning. On long journeys in the past my wife has often commented on her eyes getting very dry with the air conditioning on. Hopefully now that I have turned on the Nanoe option she will not suffer any more. Now all we need is to be able to do a long journey again!!! Roll on the end of travelling restrictions to France. JBP

I'm signature 232!!! JBP

We are now on our 12th Lexus! No, we didn't own them all at the same time! 2 x GS300 1 x IS200 1 x IS250h 3 x RX400h 2 x SC430 1 x RX450h Gen 3 1 x UX 250h 1 x RX450h Gen 4 F Sport The only other repeat cars we had were Reliant Scimitar GTE SE5 Reliant Scimitar GTE SE6a Middlebridge Scimitar GTE (Middlebridge bought the rights to the GTE when Reliant went bust) They were sporty, practical and, by today's standards, basic mechanically so it was easy to do our own maintenance. We owned the SE6a for 21 years and including absolutely everything the tax, insurance, MOTs, petrol, tyres, parts and even the original cost of the car came to a total of £22,175. That works out at just over £1,000 per year!!! Really miss those old cars. JBP

Not the double beeps you were referring to, Herbie but still on the subject of beeping. A few weeks ago on our Gen4 RX when I pressed the start button instead of the usual "Beeep" for the ready state I kept getting a "Beeep-bip" before the ready state. Then a week or so later the car failed to start - flat battery. RAC (courtesy of the warranty) attended and started the car and I gave it a good run followed by an overnight charge and all is well again. Back to the original "Beeep" when starting. The car had been used 2 or 3 times a week but only for short runs because of this damned virus. This could be an early warning indicator that the 12V battery is getting low. JBP

On our Gen4 RX450h FSport the cruise control is the same as all our previous RXs in that it can only be set above about 27MPH. On our UX the cruise control can be set as low as 20MPH which is really handy with all the 20MPH speed limits springing up all over the place. Is there any way the RX cruise control can be modified so that it can be set to lower speeds? One would have thought this could be just a software fix. So come on Lexus, how about adapting this to suit the real world? JBP

Did this for our new UX. Manuals arrived in the post. Also downloaded the manuals from Lexus online. Sometimes it is easier to find what you are looking for on the laptop by searching for a key word in the e-manual. JBP

Hi Gary I have a 2017 450h and have just had a service at 17600 miles. Tyre wear as follows NSF 4.1 4.1 4.1 OSF 4.5 4.5 4.5 NSR 5.6 5.6 5.6 OSR 5.6 5.6 5.6 I think they are the original tyres and show even wear across the treads but like yours NSF worn more than OSF. We live in Milton Keynes and I put this down to the abundance of roundabouts we have here effectively giving more "right hand bends". JBP

It doesn't open but downloads as a PDF. JBP

Just tried this on our UX. Works!!! Haven't been out in our Gen4 RX to try it yet so will have to wait to see. Thank you. JBP