Rabbers

I’m wondering if the good rabbi was not denying the value, indeed the very concept, of human ambition. Extended, his thinking would mean that happiness lies in ignorance of the availability of better things.

Frankly I’m surprised that people are surprised that governments are moving to replace the revenues being lost from diminishing sales of non-electric vehicles. That the same governments encouraged EV sales merely confirms the fact that governments and the bureaucracies that serve them have no memory, let alone a conscience.

Unless you’re the sort of bad workman that blames them anyway.

I didn’t say it stopped me!

Despite being the sort of person who gets nervous about the mere thought of using tools like a screwdriver or a hammer or sometimes even a corkscrew, I’ve never had the slightest trouble changing Lexus key batteries. But now, after following this thread, I’m seriously worried my next attempt will end in disaster 😳 !!!

Agreed, and if it’s still a toss-up between two dealers in terms of their reputed quality of service, choose the one with better access to places where you might pleasantly while away a couple of hours - though I’m not sure if I would include shopping centres considering the bill awaiting you back at the dealer.

Poor as the proofreading might be, I would think that English-language Lexus literature is, together with Japanese, the most reliable insofar as it is presumably in one of these languages that most of the texts originate before translation into others with a heightened risk of further errors being made and perpetuated. This is a not uncommon problem in many multinational corporations that prefer to rely on single-source texts rather than let their subsidiaries or ad agencies write and adapt copy for local consumption, and it seems Lexus is no exception.

That’s correct. The settings are fixed in km, the high beam in automatic mode turning on at 40kmh and off below 30kmh. This applies to my 2019 RC and it also did to the 2016 model it replaced. The settings cannot be changed, and personally I have no problem with them. My only complaint about the system is that the high beam does not come on simultaneously with the detection of oncoming lights, which can be problematic on tight winding roads. But then again, I wonder if the time-lag of approx. 1 sec. declared by Lexus might not in any case be better than my own reaction time were I to leave the system off.

Earlier this year I visited a friend in hospital after he was operated for a growth in his bladder, I think akin to that described by Herbie. I have to admit that I don't enjoy visits to hospitals, and although I like to think I might be bringing someone a bit of good cheer, I usually find myself taking a few deep breaths when entering the hospital precincts and again when I leave. When on this occasion I went through into the Urology ward I was not unexpectedly met by the sight of catheterised patients walking around wearing urine drainage bags. Almost immediately, to my surprise and growing delight (for lack of a better word), I saw that the latter devices were in several cases concealed inside shopping bags bearing designer logos, some in paper, some in plastic, and all of them rather chic. By the time I reached my friend's room/cubicle, I had spotted bags with Chanel and Gucci logos plus another evidencing the wearer's fondness for Paul&Shark sportswear. My friend was not yet able to walk after his operation, but his wife was planning to bring him a Versace bag in readiness for when he could. When I told my own wife about this later that day, she immediately expressed her willingness to contribute a D&G specimen from the collection she has accumulated over many years of shamelessly extravagant shopping. To be perfectly frank, I still to this day don't quite know what to make of any of this, but I won't dispute the ward sister's opinion that what had now developed into something of a herd movement that repeated itself from one intake of patients to the next probably started with a single patient who objected to putting his urine on public display and, as fate would have it, simply happened to have a designer shopping bag with him on admission to the ward.

That might in itself be considered a good enough reason to have ACC, but I would add hard and unexpected braking by the vehicle ahead as another not unusual scenario where I have been thankful for it.

Why is that?

No question about it. Privately I’ve always dreamed of employing a chauffeur (or perhaps a chauffeuse) to relieve me of the strain of carrying a fat key for my fat car around with me.

Sorry for any confusion that might arise from my mention of the battery size for the RC (and other models) in the mistaken belief that all Lexus keys take the same.

Strangest thing, but the only time I have had the KEY BATTERY LOW message was, rather alarmingly, upon starting an IS300h immediately after I had just changed the battery. I then restarted the car and, to my relief, saw the message disappear after a few seconds never to be seen again. I habitually buy the CR2032 battery (which also suits my house gate controller) in a x4 or x6 economy pack and tend to replace it, I admit probably unnecessarily, every 20K km or so “just in case”.

Nowadays when I need to replace wipers I use Bosch. This is because I find it convenient to pop into one of their garages and not because of any objective belief that their wipers are any better than the many others I have used over the years, e.g. Denso, Valeo, Michelin etc., etc. In fact, based on the simple observation that the useful life of any of these brands, including Bosch, can vary enormously from one purchase to the next, I have long since come to believe that durability and performance is far less dependent on intrinsic product quality than such largely unpredictable and ungovernable factors of damage and wear as frequency of use, weather-related or otherwise, exposure to heat or cold, cleanliness of windscreen, nature and amount of environmental dirt etc. As a consequence it could very well happen that one set of wipers is subjected to different amounts of stress than your previous or successive purchases, making comparisons meaningless.

The ACC is a very useful thing to have in motorway driving, no question about it. And insofar as its reaction time might be superior to yours, its value increases in proportion to your speed. The only thing I dislike about it is purely subjective and relates to my personal nature as a worrier, in this case about the reliability of technology and my ever increasing reliance on it. Specifically, at high speed, as the obstacle ahead comes closer and the ACC (which I generally set to the closest distance mark unless the traffic thickens) starts slowing the car, I am often unable to suppress the fleeting thought of what would happen in the event of a system malfunction. And the answer is that however remote the possibility thereof might be, I am nevertheless putting myself at risk of imminently kissing my **s goodbye.

I have a fairly eccentric Swiss friend who mixes E5 and E10 50/50 when he fills up his Morgan. When I enquired why he does this, his not unreasonable reply was that he gets a nice feeling from the thought that he is the only driver in the country using E7.5.

Driving on motorways, almost invariably with the simple utilitarian intent of getting to a destination, can be so boring and intellectually unchallenging as to lead some drivers to seek sources of mild excitement. Regrettably but perhaps not unnaturally, this might include in one form or another and more or less unconsciously, the wish to irritate other drivers.

I'm guessing he means with your arms hanging straight and loose at the sides so as to be quicker on the draw. Stay good, Piers.

I would suppose the product simply contains some kind of mild acid in a quantity and concentration sufficient to substantially reduce the lime content of hard water. In other words, it is in this regard similar to common domestic limescale removers which, when added to rinse water, leave no visible spots on dried-off surfaces as would happen if the same water were to be used neat. Personally, I don't let my car air dry but apply a drying cloth immediately after rinsing one manageable section at a time. That a capful or so of Optimum in my rinse bucket could be substituted by one of any of many brands of domestic descaling product, coffee-machine cleaner etc., is possible, I suppose, but I love my car too much to experiment with them in case they would be too aggressive. I further presume that unlike such products, Optimum, having been developed as a car-specific rinseless shampoo, also contains some kind of gloss agent since the surfaces are left pleasantly but not excessively shiny. I honestly can't say if Optimum's performance as a rinse additive would be as satisfactory on black paintwork since I have only ever used it on my last few cars , all of which have been light or light-ish metallic. However, provided the car is properly dried-off, I don't see why it shouldn't be. Try it and see.

I confess that I've never not even once sat on a horse but have always admired feats of horsemanship as a spectator. During a student year I spent at the University of Seville in the 60s I was befriended by a prominent local family that owned a private box at the local bullring, La Maestranza, and I was often invited to join them to watch the fights (which I would probably enjoy less today than I did then). One of the major events of the season was the rejoneo by the legendary Peralta brothers, Angel and Rafael, who fought and killed the bulls from horseback. The show they put on, with the horses completely unprotected from the bulls' horns, was balletic in its intricacy and all the more amazing since the horses' movements were controlled largely by the pressure of the riders' legs so that the hands could remain free for the fight and kill. Thrilling as this was, the best was yet to come when, a few weeks later the family, with me in tow, was invited by the Peraltas, with whom they were friends, to a wedding at their horse farm and estate not far from Seville. Here, as a gift to the newly-weds, the brothers and their staff and trainees put on a private rejoneo with blunt-horned tame or tame-ish bulls kept for training purposes (and not for killing) together with a riotous exhibition of virtuoso trick riding in which the participants tried to outdo one another. All dangerous good fun with, surprisingly, nobody ending up with a broken neck. The level of horsemanship was simply mind-boggling, and what has stuck in my memory is that the horses seemed to love it too.

It is indeed strange. Or shall we say anomalous for a premium marque like Lexus? It could be that the camera component itself would have needed changing at the same time as the software was modified, and Lexus/Toyota preferred to keep the same system and image size across its entire range for economy’s sake.

One of my favorite capitals. More visitor-friendly than most, architecturally elegant, dense with history, good eating (if hi-cal) marred only by the evil (though avoidable) local white wine. Been to Die Spanische only once and was lucky enough to get centre seats at the end directly opposite to the Imperial gallery and thus admire the perfect geometries of the group events. Enjoy the rest of your stay.

Vienna (Staatsoper)?

I believe, based on my own disappointment when I went from a 2016 to a 2019 RC, that the software update that changed the display functions to a 10.3” configuration on most and maybe all models in the Lexus range during that period did not include the reverse camera image, which remained 7”.