Lost it

I just bought a few sheets of wet and dry at 800, 1200 and 1600 grit and a tin of clear laquer. Pennies really. About an hours work. These kits are ok but you are buying a box with the same stuff in it bar the laquer. If you are really patient you can use toothpaste. But you might get fed up of the smell after an hour or so...

Only bad thing I've found with them is that the output volume level is a bit lacking. Which doesn't matter as long as you remember to lower the volume before going back to normal radio or disc.

I've kind of never took much notice of these "Track test" comparisons. I don't drive on a race track, or a test track, I drive on A and B roads that can have broken, worn, new, oil and derv, pea shingle, lots of rubber and repairs, concrete sections etc. And none of us really drives in such a way that we simply must have that last couple of feet in a crash stop in the rain else there would be multiple car pile ups every time it rains. Or we would none of us have a licence... No. I drive off Hayling Island, on an A road with any number of road surface changes and ages, I join the A27, turn onto the A3M, turn onto the M25, turn off at the A41 Watford junction and drive on the roads from that point to work, and those roads are shot. Even my Nexen's have never given me pause where grip is concerned, I have no real urge to discover the last nth of G force on these tyres,and I very much suspect not many Lexus users are like that either. So, When I get my "winter rubber" on, I will stick with what I know, and install Goodyear Vectors.

Well, when I bought my RX 300 it had a mixture of tyres on it, one of which was over 8 years old and was probably the spare at some time in it's life judging by the state of the rim so as I was a bit tight budget wise, I spoke to my "tyre guy". He mostly does motorcycle tyres but he knows others in the trade. I wanted reasonable quality, good wet weather, a make I have heard of (not a chinese "Hooflungdung" special) and didn't really care about wear as I would be going onto 4 season Goodyear Vector's for the winter months anyway. The Goodyear Vector 4 season Mk1's worked very well on my AWD centre locking diff Jaguar X type, so the next gen version should be even better on something with a bit more ground clearance as I kept rubbing the undertray in the X type, never got stuck, but left some interesting furrows behind me. He suggested these things: https://tirereviewsandmore.com/nexen-cp521-reviews/ Have to say, they aren't the quietest tyres in the world, but the recent monsoon conditions on the M25 didn't phase them at all. And they were cheap, under £300 for all four fitted. I know they are basically light truck tyres, but I kind of like tyres to have stiff side walls anyway. They don't squeal anywhere as much as I expected them to, they are quite soft on the tread though. I won't be taking it off road unless I fall asleep at the wheel and dive into a field. I've done over 5,000 miles on them, mostly motorway driving and the noise on the concrete bit of the M25 between the A3 junction and the M3 has to be heard to be believed..they have lost just over 1mm of tread depth. So they should last me until October when the winter rubber gets installed. Might get someone out of a jam if they really are skint. But I completely don't understand the thinking behind someone buying an expensive car and putting chinese ditch finders on it. Madness. My usual choice is Dunlop or Goodyear.

Well, a quick search brought me this...

I watched them physically pull a Merc headlight off the front of the car once to change a side lamp. They hadn't noticed it was an LED type unit. The customer was hopping, but he took it there...

Ouch.... I'm building a new Aldi, and there's a Halfords close by. I keep seeing Mercedes, BMW's, Jaguar's, Lexus vehicles pulled up outside with someone from Halfords pulling the dashboard apart fitting dash cams, and I always think, you know, you have a car there worth almost the price of a half decent motorhome and you are taking it to Halfords to have work done? I would hate to be the insurance underwriter, these staff are not technicians, they are shop keepers and shelf stackers.

Remember it's not a hybrid, and it's in as good a state of tune as any other one could be (because I've done it all myself) so as I usually average 30 ish with my 3.0 Jaguar's, I didn't think 27mpg was bad for a car that has the aerodynamic qualities of a cinder block. Rarely goes over the speed limit if at all because it's not the kind of vehicle that encourages that style of driving, it's on tyres that have exceptional wet weather performance so they won't be particularly good road friction wise and all in all I'm happy with what it's giving me per petrol station visit.

Mines still doing the same mpg, and it has for over three weeks now so it's doing very well. I will need to consider a hybrid when I wear this one out though.

My MOT guy says the same. If it's not fitted, it's not a fail because a tester cannot check if it's secure if it's not there. There are no components attached to it, it's simply a cover. And he's been doing MOT's since I was in my teens, so if he doesn't know...

How much do you think it being a hybrid has helped with this? I'm still clocking circa 27mpg on my daily run.

I stuck a bottle of ZX1 in mine too. Didn't make any difference to mpg but the engine is very slightly quieter. I'm pretty sure it works better in a car that hasn't had regular oil changes, but one that has been serviced right, you won't see much improvement. Tried it in 4 cars now, always had the same result. Engine slightly smoother, a bit quieter but no mpg improvement. I'm not about to risk one supermarket and one decent fuel in mine, with the moonboot on it's a bind having to get out half way home to top the tank up... And as I've said, it's no cheaper than the "proper" stuff where I live on Hayling.

Well, I was T boned off my bike a couple of weeks ago, I've been "fitted" with a walking "moon boot" thing as my left ankle got thoroughly rogered by the BMW that T boned me. Lateral Malleus cracked and some soft tissue damage, so it's broke. 6 weeks of moon boot. Great fun. Not an unstable break though luckily. I had a lot of "fun" changing the spark plugs last weekend, the old ones don't look like they have been in there for 120,000 miles, but the car definitely runs better now. Might be because two of the plugs in the rear bank were barely finger tight. So my transport to work is the Lexus RX at the moment. 900 miles and a bit a week... I tried the Jaguar, I could get in easily enough, took me about 3 minutes to get back out, I think I know how Douglas Bader felt when he got his leg stuck climbing out of his aircraft all those years ago. Moon boot got stuck on everything... I use Esso or Shell, normal grade. But I went into Sainsbury's and got a "Double points and 5p a litre off" ticket so I thought I'd use it and filled the car from the idiot light. 69 litres. Call this unscientific if you like, but for two weeks I have done more or less the same journey. Starting at 05:30, off Hayling Island, onto the A3, off at the M25, to the A41 then to my work site at Century Park. Then home again at about 17:30 so I miss most of the waiting around on the M25. 190 mile round trip. And I can get two days from a full tank easily. No real worries, I put 68 litres back in and off I go again. Except I only got 356 miles from the Sainbury's fill until the idiot light came on, and had to top up with expensive south bound A3 BP garage fuel. So I didn't actually save anything. The weather wasn't much different, I always run the climate control in Auto, no more or less traffic than normal, just a loss of quite a chunk of miles from one fill of supermarket fuel. So I won't be using it again unless it comes free with a hot and cold running chambermaid option.

I'd agree with your man. Denso or Toyota, nothing else. It's not only that the car will run rough, it's also the risk that your engine will eat a cat because there's unburned fuel being fed to it. I wouldn't be "experimenting" for the same reason, if the OBD code tells you which one is failing, I'd change it for new.

Look again. Those little packs don't contain Copper based grease. If it's supplied by the pad manufacturer it's either a Silicon based grease, or a rubber grease. Certainly won't be copperslip. Any half decent motor factors will happily sell you little sachets of the right lube to use. If they know what they are about. If you buy "supermarket" pads usually they don't come with any lube, or slides, or indeed anything. But people have been watching the likes of You tube etc. and listening to idiots that tell them to use copper grease that it's probably too late now. By "Supermarket" pads I mean the cheap stuff sold by the likes of Euro Car parts. Again there's a minimum standard where brake pads are concerned, as long as this E number is stamped on the pad somewhere they can sell them. There are good pads, there are budget pads. There aren't "Good Budget" pads. And the people selling Copper grease don't actually know what you are going to use it for. There is no legal reason for them to put on the container "shouldn't be used on brake components" so why do something that will potentially lose them sales and money? Have a look on just about any site you like where engineers, proper ones with letters after their names (not Hotpoint) and you won't see them recommending copper based lubricants on brake components. If you ever go to a race track meeting ask the professional mechanics. Take any brand new vehicle apart and guess what you won't find on the brakes? Personally I believe that now, more than at any other time you really do get what you pay for. And sadly "I've always done it that way" is not an excuse for doing it wrong in the first place. You wrote "then surely the public, vehicle manufacturers and various government bodies would object just in case legal vultures got involved". The answer is no, because we aren't quite yet in that level of nanny state where the Government who frankly know nothing about anything except maybe what their pension will be worth are telling us what we can and cannot do. And like I said, there's no regulations that say a grease manufacturer has to put "Warning this stuff might be slippery" on the tin. Yet.

Lots of anecdotes out there. In the UK... All motor vehicle has to be of a quality that it meets the correct British Standard. So that's what is manufactured and that's what goes into the tanks. Lets call this the "Minimum" standard. That's the cheapest refinery fuel buyers can get, so supermarkets buy it to sell on. It goes into the tanker and off to the petrol station pump. Petrol is "stored" on water. I've heard rumours that Tesco buy the stuff that is "closest" to the point where they don't draw any more fuel from the tank because it's a bit cheaper, and Tesco are all about profit, never anything else. So it follows that their fuel might have a little more "damp" in it than anyone elses. TBH I won't touch their fuel with a bargepole, the only times I ever have I've had running problems. And higher use of fuel for a given mileage. Yes, I do enough mileage that I can usually tell the difference, currently doing 1000 miles a week average. If you buy a "Branded" fuel their USP is that they have an additive package that will help your engine stay cleaner, post combustion cleaners, added snake oil stuff etc. to bring it up to 97 or 98 ron fuel in the UK if you go for the premium brand. In most cases the "Branded" fuel will adapt to changing weather conditions better, more quickly, if it does clean the combustion spaces, fair do's but the car will definitely run nicer with it in as against any supermarket brand. Generally smells nicer as well. And TBH where I live there's almost no difference in price between the bare BS supermarket stuff and the "good stuff". Supermarkets sell it as a loss leader, to add to the convenience factor. Your money, your vehicle. But I won't even put supermarket stuff in my hedge trimmer.

Do NOT ever ever EVER let copper slip or it's ilk anywhere near brakes. It's an anti seize compound. And that's all it should ever be used for. It's the sort of "bodge" kwikballsup fitters use. If you use it on brakes you will get either excessive wear on the pins, or the parts they slide in, or the gaiters over the pins will swell and cease to seal. Then either dirt gets in and causes the pads to stick, or dirt gets in and there is even more wear in the sliding assemblies. If it gets anywhere near the piston seals you can expect sticking pistons to be the next problem you get. Copper and Aluminium do not mix at all well. Neither do piston seals, piston gaskets or even the pistons get on well with copper based lubricants. If it's on the pistons eventually it will wear the bores out. Given time. If you manage to get it on the rear of the pads and the rear backing plate has ventilation apertures, you have just introduced a very abrasive material to your discs and calipers. And no, it won't help the car to stop. BTW cooling pad surfaces using this method is common on the likes of Brembo brakes. It works, doing it's specified task, by introducing very small particles of copper to the spaces between threads so preventing a mechanical joint that comprises of the thread in the nut/bolt/stud from either being clamped correctly, or even torqued to the correct value. It uses this "gap" to make sure the thing will come undone. So defintely don't EVER use it for wheel studs, the bolts that hold the caliper frames on, or indeed anything that you would prefer to stay tightened to torque. It is NOT and has never been designed for use around brake systems. That's what Red Rubber grease is for.

So... My RX 300 has hit the 120,000 mile mark so I bought another set of plugs for it, the right ones, NGK Double Iridium or whatever, and set to seeing what I needed to do to get to the rear bank. Now I'm one of those who always does the hard bit first so I had a quick look on line, and in the Haynes Manual, looked at the car and decided whatever Lexus RX they used it looks nothing like mine does under the lid... So I decided at least the inlet manifold needs to come off to gain access and started along that track. I have the "fun" of wearing a Moon boot on my left leg since I was T boned off my bike, so not quite as agile as I'd like, but the more I looked, the more I decided to remove just to gain access to the rear of the inlet manifold and throttle body. There's a rail in the V once the top cover is off, two M6 nots one at each end then take all the vacuum pipes off, one goes to the back of the inlet manifold and I presume works an airflow flap? One goes to the air box, another one feeds to the top of the inlet throtttle bodies, then the electrical plugs and then fold kit out of the way. Then the fun begins. After trying for about 10 minutes to get my hand down the rear of the throttle body and the top inlet manifold I decided to do it the slower but easier way. Air filter out the way, air box off for a clean out. Top scuttle panel off, wiper motor and linkage out, scuttle tray out after feeding the cables out (what does the connector that goes to the wind screen do?) strut cross brace off, undo the brake master cylinder, put to one side for cleaning and at last "t'dog could see t'rabbit" and the two M8 nuts that go through metal supports that take vertical forces from the weight of the manifolds. A few more "earth points" on M6 studs, take the Cruise control cable off the linkage and the throttle body comes off it's studs and out the way, then the top part of the inlet manifold, stuff a rag over the inlet tract holes to prevent dropping the odd lump of coal down there and Bob's your aunties husband. Two of the plugs were quite loose, one was tighter than a ducks water seal at the stern. The rest is, as they say a reversal of the procedure. Then change the front bank of plugs. Then clear the fault code because you tried to start it without the Airflow sensor connected... The old ones looked worn, and I assume the rear ones at least have been in since yr 2000. Because everything was positioned "just so" and had a memory as to where it went. And everything was pretty "click" tight as well. And it does run a bot smoother, has to be said. But it wasn't partucularly a rough sounding engine anyway. Kinda glad it's a 120,000 mile cycle though. Bit of a pain to do.

I've been using my Lexus for work (Hayling Island to Watford and back) since I got T boned off my bike by a blind wazzock in a BMW and gained a lateral malleolus break and I'm getting an average of between 29-31 indicated on the in car thing at motorway speeds. As it's an average of hardly any traffic holds ups driving to work but lots of slow rolling past the M4 at going home time, that's actually a lot better than I was expecting... I would have been expecting 25mpg if I'm honest. And yes, the gauge does lie... I can do two "work and home runs", that's 380 miles, another 20 to the Walk in centre at St Mary's and then I put 64 litres in. Standard 95 ron Esso. So: 64 x .22 for Imperial gallons = 14.08 gallons. 400 divided by 14 gallons... 28 mpg. But I don't usually brim it, wait until it clicks off the first time then go to the next nearest litre. Happy enough with that. Wow. That's 1900 miles a week...

Erm.. Every Stand bye Genset I've ever worked on is a Constant Speed Unit. Usually turbo charged and has ALWAYS had a water jacket heater turned on 24/7 as well as battery chargers turned on if they are near to a mains supply. One was a Hospital, one was a computer "farm" and one was somewhere else. Different horses, different courses. They also usually run on Gas oil. What I'm talking about is an engine with a rubber band driving four camshafts, with a variable valve system that runs on oil, that produces circa 200bhp from less than 3 litres, in a V formation so it's a long way to the top of the engine from the pressure relief valve and the flow has to be split between two banks of cylinders to lube those cams, from a pump that is fed by the crankshaft turning (2-300rpm at starting?) which then feeds an oil filter, and is either filtered or bypasses the filter. So there's a rea;l risk that not much oil at all is going to be reaching the parts it needs to reach. To start this engine up from cold, in winter, and drive it off immediately is never ever going to do it any good. That's what I'm saying and no vehicle manufacturer who is gaming fuel consumption figures will ever change my mind. Sorry. There isn't yet any engine, bearing surface either camshaft or crank that can run without some kind of oil film. And as good as modern oils are, they have to be pumped. Unless the cam itself sits in a bucket of oil like the old Vauhall Victor OHC engine used to do, there's just too much risk of scuffing damage to bearing surfaces, rockers, cam geras, even the oil pump itself.. Think on most engine warning lamps are fed by the ECU now, not directly.

Again. Light aircraft piston engines don't use Synthetics because they usually run Leaded fuel as well to prevent knock at altitude when the motor's by definition run weaker and synthetic polymers don't work too well with leaded petrol wash down. (Historical foot note, early WW2 pictures of Spitfires and Hurricanes were doctored before being published to hide the white staining of the engine panels caused by the lead content that helped them make the power they did). Post 3... http://www.sonerai.net/smf/index.php?topic=2341.0 Still recommends warming the engine before using it. Usually a single grade as well. Mechanics frankly are not Engineers and will tell you what the manufacturers want you to hear becausre that's the guidance they have. Engineers have letters after their name. And the term usually means they design and build the stuff. And I'm a member of a few "clans", get all kinds of publications and nowhere have I seen a recomendation to drive off a stone cold engine within 30 seconds of start up. It's the manufacturers gaming the fuel consumption figures to get cars into different tax bands, or make their vehicle mpg figures look better. These same manufacturers don't really care what damage you do to your engine as long as it lasts past the warranty period. My 2007 Honda VFR Vtec won't let the Vtec work until the engine reaches 60C. All Vtec is on these vehicles is an actuating plunger that slides across under oil pressure to activate 8 more valves after a certain RPM threshold is reached. So even Honda know that cold oil isn't good for engines. So if there are cars changing rev limits according to engine heat, what does that tell you about whether the engine should be warm or not? Kind of contradicts itself? It's ok to start it and drive it off immediately but you can't actually use all the performance until it warms up? That is an oxymoron if I ever saw one.

Common knowledge or conjecture? Find me the engineering studies done by people with letters after their name that agree. Motor engineers who work for car manufacturers don't count. And explain to me why the aircraft industry in particular demands that engines are warmed thoroughly before any kind of take off is attempted. Because according to you it's possible to start the old Lycoming or some such piston engined helicopter from freezing cold and take off immediately. (And no doubt fall out of the sky soon after). I think the armed forces demand this too. Do they know less than vehicle manufacturers trying to "game" the fuel consumption figures? Am I too cynical? Or do you think it's simply because it doesn't matter if an engine fails on a car?

Because it helps the manufacturers give unrealistic figures for mpg on urban cycles. Not because it "helps the engine warm up quicker". The first few seconds of an engine start cause the most wear to your engine. You are worst case dragging oil at sub zero tempratures from the sump, it's usually thick enough in those conditions that there will be a degree of oil bypass in the oil filter, then you are sending the thick and turgid oil to everything else that is cold and expecting it to lubicate the lot immediately. Then you drive it away... Worst thing you can do. At least give the gearbox a chance to lube everything, and the engine oil a chance to reach the parts that need it's qualities. Lots of stuff on You Tube about what oil is like when it's cold. If you think after watching this that starting you car and driving away immediately from a cold start is ok, well you have more belief than I ever will. Anyway.. I thought the Hybrids started from stationary on battery and only started the motor when the extra grunt was required?

The other issue is that usually the fuel pump sits in the tank. And it uses the fuel to self lube and cool itself. So there's always a "fudge factor" in the fuel gauge to try and stop people running the pump dry, wearing out everything in the process. Starting with the pump. It's not a "variable displacement" device with a controlled bleed to allow some fuel to return to the tank, it's a pump that pushes against a pressure setting system for the fuel injection. Basically you should never run a tank dry. No idea how easy it is (or isn't) to get to this pump if it fails on you through you trying to get the last mile from your fuel tank. And as for tank range, it's not an "active measuring" system is it? Doesn't it rely on the last journey type to estimate a range? So if you do a lot of motorway miles at 65mph average, it will tell you you have more range than if you spent the last tankfull crawling through central London at 13mpg or less. Just guessing here.

Really, you don't want to do this. The fuel pump in most vehicles these days sits in the fuel tank. It uses the fuel in the tank to self lube and cool itself. That's the reason the light comes one with still a few litres in, to allow for the fuel sloshing around. Even my Honda Motorcycle is the same. Says 22 litres, holds 24. If the fuel is run that low regularly, there's a chance the pump might fail. I have no idea how hard it is to get to the fuel pump on a Lexus Hybrid? But is it worth getting those last few miles?