dipstick

Bit less whoosh, lot more shoosh?

I can't make head or tail of all this. Is there something to hide or is this just diversionary tictacs?

Last time I put Mrs Dipstick on the street to cover costs she came home with one hundred pounds and twenty five pence. "Crikey", says me, "who gave you the twenty five pence?" And she said "They all did".

I managed 13 point something before losing interest, but I don't believe the high scores are possible. 2 point something seconds? Takes longer than that to get moving at all.

Yes indeed, the mpg on the calculator is well down on what I actually get. Even with their slightly skewed figures, it will still be over two years before any payback at all. Other than reduced carbon emissions or some such other greeny leftwing nonsense that nobody in their right mind cares about of course. Shall I smiley that?...hmmm...

Hold onto your hats. I saw Terry Scott open a supermarket once.

Well done Colin. Useful info that pushes me that little further towards updating mine. Thanks mate.

I'm going to have to try another GS I think - mine is definitely NOT light to steer. You have to positively haul the wheel when going around corners at any speed. New tyres, correct pressures, just had it aligned.

Mantra: Ring around ring around ring around. You may save literally hundreds by ringing around, if you're prepared to drive to another dealer. Make a day of it, explore a new town, save lots of money. Mantra mode=off.

Isn't it green means I have a satellite and red means I don't have a satellite, I'm working on dead reckoning?

Blinking flip! I assume, like Colin, you had a new car thrown in for that money? My dealer fitted two new blades for £7.00 INC VAT and labour all up last time I was in!

Not done it on my GS, but did look at the figures a few months ago. Didn't take long to realise that for my particular case the payback period would be longer than I plan on keeping the car, unfortunately, although I can't recall the details at present.

No, another couple of days without a pull. As it were. I must be weird. When I was a student the whole class sat in a circle and the guy said "right, who in their time has shoplifted anything at all, even a pack of sweets?" and I was not only the ONLY one out of about 25 who hadn't ever, but I was totally amazed - it had genuinely NEVER even occurred to me to do it! Everyone else was AMAZED I hadn't, and got quite abusive about it. Nobody needed to know that, did they. Sorry.

New mother in law: You're quite tall aren't you! Me: Yes, all my family's male members are quite big..oh lawks... Blushing now writing it.

You need some kind of "how long you been driving for?" component to that. So mine is Driving for 25 years this June. Speeding fines/points - none. Parking fines - none. Any other law brushes - none. Pulled over by the police - none. Now I'll get nicked tonight.

I know I'm missing something, as always. But why would you want to disconnect the rear window brake light?

Interesting, what Claire is going to do. My GS is one of the last with 9k service intervals, (98 mark 2 model) which changed I think to 10k shortly after mine was made. I still service mine at 9k, and changed the cambelt at 63k as per spec. I wonder if the actual cars are different in some way or whether I'm just wasting money by not assuming the less rigid intervals?

Yeah, about £55 for an Optimax fill. Put about the same in of BP Super Duper Really Whizzy once and it was useless with a capital Use. Might as well have stuck with Tescos. The most I ever put in my car was £110 of LRP *ouch bigtime* but that wasn't the Lex.

Yes, hearty congrats Colin. Now you too can have a spoiler on the back.

Just a tiny thing to check; probably not, but I fell foul of this one. My GS developed a knocking noise, front offside, when going over bumps. Delaer pronounced all well with bushes, balljoints etc. Couldn't find problem. Finally noticed one day a tiny noise when the passenger door was slammed shut. Got Mrs Dipstick to repeatedly slam door whilst I checked under the car. Close investigation revealed that the inner wing liner is held on with plastic type pop rivet things, and one had split. So the wing liner just touches the bodywork on a bump and it echoes; makes a knocking noise. It almost certainly isn't that in your case, but just be sure!

Isn't that slightly disingenuous? The implication is that it's the nitrogen that offers these benefits, whereas surely in reality it's the maintenence of the tyre at the correct pressure that does so, irrespective of whether that is done with nitrogen or just air. Perhaps nitrogen may help those who don't check their tyre pressure very often. Indeed, these aren't actually benefits at all - they are to be expected from any correctly inflated tyre. ie you don't GAIN a 25% increase in tread life; you simply don't suffer a 25% LOSS in tread life should you have the wrong pressure. Also be interesting to know how the 25% was derived anyway.

Banging the same old drum, I can't recommend Lexus Norwich highly enough, if you really want to travel.

Colin, you once again put me to shame with my stupidity. Obviously I stared vacantly into space watching a dog with a puffy tail during the whole fill up, and as it was a shove your credit card in the pump then drive off afterwards job I didn't even notice how much it was. What a Dipstick. Still, it sounds from your description I'd have had enough for a round the world trip left in there, although not with any change from sixpence these days. I'll have to repeat the experiment I think! Needle was ON the empty line. I'd rather hoped Mrs Satnav might have chastised me, but then that's just my own unenviable fantasy I suppose. I wonder who she is.

Ran my GS kind of accidentally today virtualyl out of fuel. Left home and the "miles remaining" was 11. Got to the fuel station just as the counter moved from 1 to "low fuel". Any idea how much further I might have got? Light came on at about 30 miles left.

Interesting. We too have a cat problem and have tried most things. We've had two ultrasonic things; it might be my garden or just the make, but both were useless. Even caught a cat asleep next to it once. Perhaps it was deaf, although it seemed to respond to "you little **** get your **** out of **** or it will be *** on your **** paws" well enough. The one thing that DOES work (for us) is Silent Roar, which is indeed dried lion dung. Really does keep the cats off, but it's a tenner a box, which doesn't go far, and you have to renew it every so often. Hadn't thought of putting it on the car; I should as we do get pussy pawprints on the bonnet in the mornings sometimes. The ABSOLUTE guaranteed device, if anyone cares, is called a Water Scarecow. It has a PIR, and you attach your hose to it. When it detects movemetn s is squirts water and makes a loud rattle. I can promise that will keep the cats off, but you have to have £60 to buy one, leave your hose connected to it permanently and of course aim it at the right place so it doesn't soak you everytime you go into thegarden (been there done that).