dipstick

Ooh, with that alien space invadery type game where they came over a shiny coloured horizon? What was that called?

DOS? Pah! In my day we rebuilt the o/s on a PDP-8 after a crash by flipping the dip switches on the front panel to enter each BYTE. After about 200 of those without a mistake you'd entered the instructions to launch the paper tape reader that contained the rest of the o/s. This would be about 1977-1980, when the PC hadn't quite been invented and the Concorde Landing Simulator on the Commodore Pet was the height of excitement.

Your best price may well be costco - see www.costco.co.uk Couple of hurdles to be able to buy there - like having to pay a small membership fee - but once done they undercut prices of loads of things quite significantly, so you do the maths depending on what you want to buy. They were doing Mobil 1 0w-40 in June for £23.37, to give you an idea.

You can get a similar age/mileage one from a Lexus dealer right now for 26k, obviously with a Lexus warranty. Although there's obviously a large premium to be paid buying that way rather than privately, I would think 23.5k is too close to main dealer prices. Look at the completed sales on eBay for the last little while - last one that sold there was a 2001 model with only 30k on it, and that went for a mere £17101. (I had a bid on it!). There are two more 01 models on there now at nearer 18k and no interest - both been relisted over and over - so you might be looking at nearer 20k based on that.

Paid 99.9 for it in Cambridge yesterday.

Well all I can say is that there are a load of experiments with acetone going on that seem to show more oomph and better mpg!

Acetone is the way to go surely?

Whilst of course the dealer experience is important, surely you spend a very few hours with the dealer in comparison to the time spent with the car itself. Maybe it might be cutting off your nose to spite your face to ditch a Lexus for a BMW on the basis of a poor dealer, especially when the consensus seems to be that in general Lexus dealers are better. Use another dealer, but enjoy your car!

Well, it's possible to get better mpg from the TVR than the Lex, although not if you actually drive as intended of course. TVR isn't THAT bad though - 20 to 30 ish unless you are Taking Full Advantage.

Got a tankful in the GS at the moment - difference between that and anything else is, so far, zip. TVR loves it though!

Loud English Xylophone Under Suspension. Yes, I lost an exhaust bracket.

When you go into edit marked points, where you can set the name and icon, there's an option at the bottom of the screen to make it beep at you. I'd tell you the exact name of the button (chime? sound? summat like that) but it would involve 1) moving and 2) going out in the rain which isn't going to happen right now. But mine is set (I don't recall how, poke about in Navi Options I think) so it defaults to making the sound.

The existing GS satnav allows that - even on my CD version you can store up to 99 points. I make them beep and use most of them to mark speed cameras as I come across them. Useful if you drive a road rarely and forget a camera is there, cos you get a beep about a quarter mile from it.

Twere in bargain territory. £15740, 89k, premium pack, 2000 X plate, silver. But that paintwork thing would have driven me mad in a week.

"The valve forces the fuel vapour to be retained under pressure rather than let it contaminate the environment. This is why fuel tanks frequently hiss when the cap is removed." Eh? Does that mean the hiss is the release of the vapours - into the environment...?

Would be pretty wary of spending that much money on an Ebay car, call me old fashioned!

Reckon your payback period is about 18k miles on that repair Brian. That would be a year or so for me, so would be well worth it. Don't know about you!

Thanks for that Brian, and welcome to the club! As best as I can now tell, the sensors were not available at all at launch, became available as an option in March 2001, and became standard fit in April 2002. I know I keep going on about this to the boredom of most, but documenting it here may be useful to future purchasers. Your 20-30 mpg figures sound about what I was hoping for - and I will be buying an LS, just not that one! Have to just keep slumming it in the GS for a bit longer. Sigh.

I happened to be talking about the latest DVD version to my local Lexus dealer (Cambridge) just last week, and they said the next version is due in October. So I'm not buying anything until then at least, assuming that info is accurate.

Well, just as an update, I've established through this process that the LS430 did NOT come with parking sensors for a brief period in 2000 after launch, whatever Lexus themselves say now. They were added soon after launch but not immediately. For other reasons - badly scratched paintwork that was initially going to be sorted but now is not going to be; the dealer feels it's too expensive for him to do and has "other customers" willing to take it as it is - I've now rejected this car and got my deposit back anyway, so am now looking for a slightly later one. I never did get an answer, either here or from Lexus (asked them twice) whether it is POSSIBLE to add the much later reversing camera system to an older 430 and if so, at what price?

For what it's worth, when I test drove the one I'm about to buy, the average mpg on the the dash was showing 25 point something, which seemed good to me. But then I have no way of knowing when that was last reset of course. But it seems to me that if you are mad enough to buy one of these beasts then the fuel is the least of your worries - just enjoy it!

Yep, from your dealer. It's about £150. Consider joining Gold - you can save pounds on things like this!

No, it doesn't I'm afraid. Would be nice but you can just plip the button by the window controls on the driver's door manually of course.

23-24? Hmm - well GS is giving me more but of course that's 3 litres not 4. But even so I reckon to do a bit better. The challenge is on!

Welcome to the club mate - and you've got me brain circuits wibbling again. You know what? I'm gonna wait and see! Fuel can't be MUCH worse than my existing GS....