Rapidone

One more observation to add. The power meter starts to read more than 150kw as the car gets to higher speeds, without having the overdrive button pressed. I've not noticed before since I don't normally look at the dials at high speed, too busy looking way up the road for any potential dangers, but the post re-ignited my interest. Accelarate hard without kickdown from low speed and the dial sits at about 150kw until high speed, then starts to rise slowly as speed increases further.

WOW, £1100? Do you live in the center of Liverpool? I have similar no claims, 43 yrs and £480 for the year, but with £1200 excess, in East Manchester Suburbs. Does age really make that much difference?

I had the same concerns when I first had the car. I couldnt get it over around 150kW. I discoverd later that the pedal needs to be pressed further. I've had the car nearly two years now, and not heard of or seen the button under the accelarator untill having read your post and taken a look at it. So basically it's a 200hp car with an on off switch for the extra 140hp. Now I understand why the rear end can get a little squirly when not accelarating in a straight line. Am I correct to think that pressing the button dumps power from the batteries into the electric motor? What would happen if the button was pressed by something other than the accelarator pedal when at lower power?

Many people will think that the LEAF will be slow, but while its 0-62 mph time of 11.9 seconds puts it firmly in the respectable camp http://www.green-car-guide.com/guide/nissan-leaf.html

The celebrity angle is certainly interesting for this car. How many times does Clarkson ask his celebrity guest, do you have a Prius too? Maybe we'll see the celebs dump there Priuses on mass and get the CT200h instead. The same eco credentials but with some luxury aswell.

Eek, a detergent on leather. Is that a good idea? Sounds like a recipe for cracking to me. I've used water and cotton wool buds, seems to work but takes ages. But wouldn't take the dirt out of the very fine lines on the leather.

A friend of mine has a Road Angel with lazer detector, the one with the voice of Tiff Nedell. Quite a small item and seems to work very well. He told me that it has warned him of lazer speed detectors before they have come into view. Reflections I assume. I've been toying with the idea of getting some kind of detector myself, and would be interested in your comments when you have made your choice. Are lazer detectors on these devices still legal, or is the use of them considered to be "perversion of the course of justice"?

You also have to consider that an equivilent diesel car will have a turbo that may have to be change every 3 or 4 years, which hits the ecconomy quite hard.

Hmm, the depreciation on the new CT200 in the first couple of years, would easily cover the extra cost of fuel and insurance on a used IS-F.

Heh, the bottles arrived a couple of days after my post. Very fancy wrapping paper. The Champagne is the best I've had, but at £30 per bottle, it's too expensive to buy. A bottle £20 flat white is much better value and a simmilar quality. Gave the 2nd bottle to my sister. The best part of the package is the Giant Bubble wrap that's between the bottle boxes and the outer box. Drop it on the floor and stomp on it, very satifying. It pops like a fire cracker going off :) Cheers Lexus Can't wait for the next recall now ;)

"You will soon receive a delivery from us, as a token of our appreciation of you loyalty to the Lexus brand" The letter arived about a month ago. Anyone know how long the delivery takes to arrive after the letter?

Hehe, silly girl. Last winter I did some thing simmilar, found there was no chance I'd get to work as whe weather was too bad, couldn't get the car home. So left it for three days untill the conditions improved. Anyway when I got back in the car it wouldn't move, (at all), so I left it in drive and got out to have a look what was happenning. One rear wheel slowly spinning, the other three frozen solid to the ground. I had to chip the ice from around the wheels with a spade and then lever each tyre off the road surface with the spade. Too much grip?

Before you go ahead and fit those winters...take a look at this one: May I suggest you test your setup either very early in the morning or late at night when there will be minimal 3rd party vehicles around? What we need to see is a comparison of two rear wheel drive cars, one with summer tyres all round and one with winter tyres on the rear only. Obviously 4 winter tyres is going to be better than 2 winter tyres for stopping, but is two winter tyres on the rear worse than 4 summer tyres? I doubt it. So there is no grip on the front with summer tyres on the front, just drive slower, as slow as you would with 4 summer tyres. At least you will stop faster than with 4 summer tyres. I can see that fitting winter tyres on the front only could be a big problem. The extra grip on the front will make the car want to swap ends when brakeing. However, can someone explain why having more grip on the rear only, would be a problem?

After reading the Auto Express 2010 tyre guide I've decided to go with the Continental sport contact 3. It looks easy to get the correct specification unlike some of the other tyres on there. I'm not disputing there is a change in circumference as tyre wears. However, when the designers have to choose optimal gear ratios for a car, they will have to choose a tyre circumference to work with. The most logical choice would be a circumference directly in the center of the two extremes of circumference found during expected tyre life.

I've been trying to source the KUMHO ECSTA SPT KU31, and can only find a runflat version that is the exact match. The next nearest is a 97y instead of the 93y that are currently on the car. I've read that runflats are noisy. Presumably a 97 load rating tyre will have stiffer side walls and transmit more noise from the road than a tyre with a 93 load rating. Do any of you have experience of tyres with different load ratings on the same car, or with runflats? As for the advice of putting the new tyres of the rear. Since more tread gives more grip, presumably the car will be much less likely to swap ends under heavy breaking with the new tyres on the rear. However with the weight transfer to the front wheels during breaking surely the car will stop faster with the new tyres on the front. New tyres on the rear should mean less chance of traction control in damp conditions and better accelaration. I would assume that the car would be designed to run most efficiently with the rear tyres exactly half worn, at least that is the way I would design it.

I'm using YOKOHAMA Advan A10E, the rears are down to about 4mm after 15k miles. When the rears are due to be replaced, I'm considering swapping the fronts to the rear and putting the new tyres on the front. The theory being that worn tyres on the rear will give better fuel ecconomy due to less rubber moving about under accellaration. I'm considering KUMHO ECSTA SPT KU31 for the replacement assuming there are no issues with mixing brands.

I dropped into the supermarket today and left my elderly mother in the car. I didn't lock the door. When I go back to the car, maybe 6 minutes later, she is in tears and tells me the car alarm has been going off, and people have been laughing at her. So my question is, how do I stop this from happening again? Is there a way to stop the alarm from setting itself? Thanks.

Unfortunately, mine is also due for the recall. This reads like a much more serious problem than it did when the news first broke. The car is over 53k miles already. Doesn't the engine have to come apart for the 60k service anyway? Maybe the dealer could be persuaded to do the 60k service maintainance at the same time for free :) The car does suffer from the engine seeming to run when it shouldn't. At traffic lights when you would expect the engine to stop, sometimes it stops almost immediately and other times it judders, splutters and runs on. It's like its on the edge of a stall, sending quite large vibrations through the car. It will do this for 5 maybe 10 seconds then finaly give up and the engine will stop. This doesn't seem like the same symptoms for the recall issue, but I'll certainly be interested to see if the recall will fix it. I'm not too worried about being without the car for a day or two, aslong as the courtesy car isn't a manual.

Ok, problem solved. The next door neighbour had a malfunctioning radio controled remote for a ceiling fan in his house. OFCOM guy came round and tracked it down, and the car has worked perfectly since.

I've contacted OFCOM about this mater, and they have said that it is an area they can look at. However with the previso that if the signal interference is comming from my property, there will be a charge of £57.50 per hour to me. I had a check today, the problem exists on 80% of my street and more on the street below mine. Im near the end of the cord of the line of interference on my street, so theres no chance the problem is comming from near me. I'm going to guess there is a radio ameateur or cb enthisiast nearby. I'd be very surprised if the problem is with a wireless internet which are designed to work within a single house. Anyway, hopefully this problem will be resolved within a few week, ill report back.

I've had the same problem the last couple of days. At about six in the evening, the key fobs wont work outside my house. There isnt a problem away from the house, and no problem by late evening yesterday or this morning. I'm working under the assumption that someone nearby has started using a new item of electronic equipment. I'm going to try pinpoint the source by driving up and down the nearest streets and trying the key fob, and also by listing times when it occurs. Is there any right to get someone to stop using an item of equipment? Could the council help? I doubt it will be possible to persuade someone to stop using their new toy.

Well, dont do a great number of miles, if I did the ISF wouldnt be an option. More boot space would be very usefull, I've not had the mountain bike in the GS once. I've also been considering waiting for the RX450h to drop in price, since the speed humps on my estate are driving me nuts, and the higher seats would be easier to get into and out of, not to mention the problem of having to sweep the snow off the uphill drive out of my house almost every day this winter. However I'm not sure I could live with the slower accelaration. This is going to seem odd to ask here, but are there any other cars from other manufactures I should be considering?

I've had my 450h for a year, and it's the best I've driven. Suspension is harder than the mercs and maybe a little more road noise aswell. Accelaration is perfectly smooth, cant see how it could be any better. Fuel ecconemy is almost unbelivable for such a heavy car with a petrol engine this large. I made 35mpg on IS250 and 36mpg on GS450h in same conditions. When you consider the best accelaration of the two cars, the GS450 seems almost too good to be true.

The best quote I managed was over £700 with tracker fitted, age 40+ with perfect history, parked offroad and in one of the cheepest insurance areas in the country.

I have a 07 GS450h aswell and for almost a year now. 1. Leave it in standard mode. Accelarate very slowly, you will probably have a Ford Fiesta tailgating you if done correctly. Accelarate using engine, then lift off accelatator breifly and coast on batteries. Try not to use batteries running up hill. Dont use cruise control, as it revs engine too much when going up hill. Try and let momentum carry you uphill, rather than hitting more gas. I can get 36mpg if I drive like a nun, but its not much fun. I've checked the fuel from fill to fill and miles done, and found the mpg display is very acurate. Oh almost forgot, DO NOT use the heater when the car is cold, this keeps the engine running when it would otherwise turn off and kills ecconomy. Did you consider a Prius? 2. Sat nav is a nightmare to use, whoever designed it wants hitting round the head with a large bat :/ The advanced lane guidance works well though and the display is very clear once running. I found myself using a TomTom instead, so much easier to use, and will accept a full postcode. 4. I've only used one voice command since the initial play period, "Suspend guidance"