dipstick

Well, they didn't do anything at all with weights I don't think; haven't looked to be honest! Colin, I got Goodyear Eagle F1s, with a rather interesting tread pattern. Apparently useless in snow, but they are very quiet indeed and were a good price. Done a few hundred miles on them now and they are a distinct improvement on the old Yokohamas - they grip like one of Jules Vernes' giant squids.

Well, have just put four (ouch) new tyres on the GS. Went to a pukka place to have it done who were well recommended. Very happy with the service. Got the feeling they definitely knew what they were about vis a vis wheels and tyres, having phoned then 25 times first to check what I could have. Drove it home and the car was as hard as nails - every pebble made the windows rattle. Checked the pressures at home. Manual says 32 psi. I have in the past run them at 35 psi just to try, and prefer the 32. However, this tyre place had racked them up to 42 psi. Crikey! Put them back to 32 and all is superb now, quiet as anything, grips like a werewolf, smooth again. Why would they put them so high though? (I KNOW I could ask them, I wondered if there were opinions here!). They're a "performance tyre" centre; would you run a performance tyre higher than normal perhaps?

The bad news is that the sat nav DVD is way more than £200 I'm afraid. Even the older CD version is about £160 now.

I liked that a lot. I liked the badgers too actually.

Ok, that's interesting. Thanks. I seem to recall my last 14400 dial up modem ten or fifteen years ago giving about 5-6k, so it looks as though a ten fold increase in speed has come about. (60k a second? Ouch! Have to confess I'll not be bothering! Oh, the money I've saved over the years not buying into technology...enough to pay for my Lex I reckon! :) )

Well, I WOULD, but as my GS - like most of them I would think - is totally unmodded it would make for far too boring an entry!

I don't have any kind of PC at home (I knowe I know) but I'd be interested to know just what kind of speed people actually get on downloads? ie what's the highest number you've ever seen when doing a download in k per second? (Forget issues about that not being a true measure etc, this is just a broad brush thing). I'm incredibly spoiled by the speed at work - way WAY faster than anything mentioned above - but interested to know what the real world is like in case I ever DID want to use the "internet", whatever that is, at home. So, your highest ever speed was....?

Suggest that if at all possible you ride in both a Sport and an SE before deciding, because you may perceive a difference in comfort level. See which you prefer.

Yes, the article does use the word "anonymised", which just points out how incredibly powerful the English language can be in my opinion.

Indeed, not been clear myself. Your satnav doesn't "receive" your position; it works it out for itself.

That's not a very clear article, but what IS clear is that a standard sat-nav system does not have any "tracking" data associated with it. It receives your position but that is not stored or transmitted in any way. So they must be talking about those systems where you sign up for a "tracking" service, in case your vehicle gets nicked, I would think. Totally different thing.

Ok, who's up for a Chevrolet Tantrum? http://www.theonion.org/4005/news1.html

Good Lord. In my day gypsies sold clothes pegs. The only blow job I get these days is the wind noise from my GS.

1) Ooh, never knew that. ANOTHER reason for a car upgrade. 2) AAAAAARGH. Dealbreaker. S Class it is.

Because I'm sad, I got copies of the latest GS and LS brochures from Lexus. (The GS one comes in a nice paper envelope - the LS one is all faux leather cardboard). Anyway. Q1) Reading the specs, it rather implies that the gearbox in a GS is clever enough to know when you are driving downhill, and change down to keep the car at a constant speed. Well mine doesn't. Does anyone's? Is this a new feature since 98, when mine was built? Q2) I'm jolly sure I read about the LS having laser adaptive cruise at some point recently (the system where it will speed up and slow down as the traffic in front of you does). But no mention in the brochure. Has it been withdrawn or did I dream it in the first place?

Just what I needed, and I might have guessed it would be Colin! Thanks again mate.

Now I've discovered that my snow/power switch is the only one that does not light up, and it should, can a guru advise me: How do I get the "wooden" console around the gearstick off, assuming I need to and What kind of bulb do I need to put in the switch when I get at it? Or is there another way of getting at the switch, perhaps via the armrest?

Tend to agree the Mitchell CD that's floating about on Ebay a lot is pretty limited. However, for me it definitively answered one question once (colour of a wire to aid identification) and so it was worth the tenner it cost to me.

There appears to be a direct and very magical connection between the button and the steering. Press the button and hey presto, bye bye steering. Turn it off, hey presto, steering comes back. This makes no sense but frankly I'm not trying it ever again. I'm not bitter, just glad to have learned this at almost standstill, not at 50 on the motorway. (I might actually be a bit more scientific and repeat the experiment at home where I can faff on my own land, not the road. Look out begonias.)

If my GS is anything to go by, you could press the snow button, but you might as well take cyanide as it's only a marginally quicker way to finish yourself off.

I take it back. The sequel is tasteless. And much better. http://www.richsalter.btinternet.co.uk/cks2/index2.html

Dear Lord, how incredibly tasteless. 25. Getting so old!

Put the snow button on my GS last night - big mistake. All over the flipping place. Turned it off and it went back to being a twitchy handful instead of a deathtrap. Shan't be pressing THAT again in a hurry. Incidentally, is it supposed to light up? Mine never has, and the dealer told me that all the others do but that one doesn't... 16 inch Yokohamas.

Ooh, spooky!

Ah, well there's the nub. If you have to 2000 version (ie earlier than 3.7) then the algorithm appears different. So for me whilst my route home hasn't changed between versions, the software has, and now I get crap instructions when I used to get good ones. You're right about the brain though. Sometimes we arrive at places like holiday homes to be greeted with "which way did you come" and they are bamboozled when we say "not the faintest idea". You worry sometimes that in strange territory it's taking you 50 miles instead of two, but I suppose you know that it WILL get you there in the end. Unlike the old BMW system that dropped a friend in a field entrance in Wiltshire that was literally miles from where he was supposed to be, smugly announced he had arrived at his destination and switched off. Frantic re-entry of the intended destination failed because it thought he was already there...