Linas.P

Not necessarily, it is only extra cost if hotel legitimately has shortage of parking and has to prioritise or rent additional parking spaces. However, that is very unlikely to be the case in British country side. Also it is matter of prioritisation... you could argue that having toilet in your hotel room is also not free, but it is generally accepted that having toilet is not optional. For me having free guest parking is also not optional. So I expect that anyone who decided to run the hotel looked at all the things they had and included sufficient parking spaces before opening it. Also, sometimes it is just hidden within costs of hotel as per your contract comparison, but sometimes there are two hotels for the same price, offering same service, just one has free parking and other doesn't. Same comparison can be used for any other service that hotel has, for example I may not use hotel pool, but that pool is included in my hotel price regardless... or sometimes hotels charge separately for the pool. Now as I don't care about hotel pool and for me that is optional, I may ignore the charge for the pool and still say in that hotel, but parking when I am driving is not optional for me, so I will choose hotel that has free parking. The other problem I see - many hotels used to have free parking, and they generally have plenty of parking spaces, but because of politics and being woke, they now started charging for parking in their car parks "because they are on the mission to fix injustice in the world and punish people that they consider should be punished"... no thank you - I don't want politics to be included with my hotel room at an extra cost. To be fair some hotels and many public institutions are nowadays literally FORCED to charge for parking, for this political reason, else they would not get planning permissions for extension or renovation. But because there is no way for me to know that I just pass on using them, even if sometimes the charge is not their fault.

Cracking exhaust manifold seems like a QC issue on exhaust supplier. I know IS-F had, does this still exist on RC-F? I would have thought Lexus should have resolved that by the time LC launched... that said in grand scheme of things it isn't complicated issue to fix, I know it can get expensive and involved as many things have to get removed to access the cracks, but it is not like engine bearing issues, or something more fundamental with engine design. Exhaust manifold is either leaking or it is not leaking, it is pretty binary and fix is obvious. As for 1UZ tuning, yes I agree that in form of LS400 it wasn't highly tuned from factory, but it is tuneable. If I am not mistaken - when Lexus raced SC back in 2000s, they used 1UZ as the basis and not 3UZ, although that would be semantics anyway. By that I mean - the design of these engines is fundamentally good and capable of making power and revving out, they just didn't came in that state of tune in limousine (which makes sense). Still in case of LS400 I am sure that most of perceived laziness comes from gearbox, but attach same engine to manual gearbox and it is quite happy to rev and responsive. Not that it is comparable to 2UR, or needs to be.

I think it is less to do with engine and more to do with gearbox... 1UZ is quite happy to rev as well, just perhaps now when mated oldschool 4-speed automatic. As for LC500, I have no doubt it could do 200k... especially when this mileage accumulated so quickly it must be mostly highway driving... which tend to be very easy on cars anyway. As long as it get's regular service, there should be nothing unexpected. I think the only irony is that guy put protective wrap after all the paint was chipped, not before... That said - what an amazing choice if one can afford it, I can't think of better car if you doing such astronomical mileages, could not be anything worse than drive so much in some shaitebox, but in LC500 is really as good as it gets.

Donkey... would have been more appropriate name.

It is not the point... even if it is 1p, it is not about the cost or percentage of overall holidays cost. It is principle.

It is just principle... if I ideologically hate something I am not going to pay my money for it. And parking is one thing I never pay for... unless as I said it actually provides value for me, or it is paid by work.

That is the point - I see car parking as a right, not a service. Unless it is secure car park which is liable for any damage to my car, then yes that is service. So I would not use hotel without free parking on principle. Besides I understand that parking can be restricted, even prohibited for outsiders, but if you staying in hotel then you are "guest" by definition and I assume that decent hotel must have guest parking, it is like part of the deal... no parking means not good enough service. Definitely not £1.10, it was long time since I did actual calculation, but everything included (insurance, mot, service etc) my IS250 costed me like 18p/mile. So perhaps it would be closer to 30p now. And parking is not £1 either. I think in Sainsburys it is £5 (or maybe £4.80, something like that for 1 hour, then maybe ~£8 for 4 hours and ~£12 for a day). Asda car park is basically free if you shop for £10 or more, but it is all messed-up, so you get parking charge deducted from your shopping, but then you have to go an pay, card often does not work, no contactless payments and there were many (like literally 2 times LOL) times where I had to go withdraw £10, then go and beg for cashier to convert into coins so that I can pay £2.20 for parking... and after that I said "never again". Tesco is indeed annoying if you don't have their club car... I would go as far as saying they are scam, prices are literally rip-off without club card like cheese is like £6, but £2.40 with club card, the normal price is probably £2.40 but if you don't have club card then they going to rape you. That said Sainsburys is just across the road, so if I need something small I just walk there (maybe 8 min walk), but for larger shopping I go for TESCO... and it works out about the same as everywhere with club card.

Or... just treat customers like customers and give everyone who wants to park free parking. It is no so much different from say grocery store - I have ASDA and Sainsburys close to me, but they have paid parking, so I drive 2 miles further to TESCO, because it has free parking. If hotel does not give me free parking, then I consider the hotel to be "anti-motorist" and because I am motorist and I am a customer, then also anti-customer and anti-me... so I don't want their service. Obviously, if I am not driving then I don't care, just take the hotel that best works for me that day. Loyalty programme exist only to collect customer data and advertise to them, which is fine concept and I am not against it, but it should not be linked to parking charge... I think there is better and more positive way to get those details.

I am not going to guess/speculate what you meant.

Sorry, you will need to elaborate on this - can't figure out are what you asking/implying...

I kind of agree that parking charges at hotels are unacceptable, but I would not call them "rip-off". The way I see it, it is a choice - if you feel that parking charge is unfair then you don't book that hotel, they lose business and they will make parking free. As a guest I ALWAYS expect free parking, if hotel does not provide it then I simply choose another hotel. We vote with our valet. Well I guess to be completely honest it kind of depends, if hotel is excellent value and it would cost me £50/night more to stay elsewhere in worse hotel, or paying £5 parking charge... then common sense beats principle. But if price is similar I may even pay £10 more on principle to have free parking. I think what makes £5 "a rip off" in this case is that by signing as a member you get free parking, knowing that - it doesn't make it better, it makes it worse. This means parking is actually free, they just basically scam £5 from guests unless they sign for membership. This is disgusting, just don't stay in such hotel where they don't respect their guests. Surprisingly, it seems country side hotels in UK have parking charges more often than ones in the cities, which is just inexcusable. That said I rarely stay in hotels in UK nowadays, unless it is paid by the company, for personal use I use airbnb and I have never had issue with them, country side hotels are out of their mind in UK, for horrible pub-like service and premium view to the swamp they try to charge more than 5* all-inclusive hotel in Spain or Egypt or some other decent holiday destination. For example this summer I happened to end-up in lovely town of Shrewsbury and stayed in Lion + Pheasant, I understand it is sort of "trendy" hotel for hipsters, but £180 per night in bloody village with the view to the busy street?! If anything I would not give even 2* for the rooms, they were let's just say "nice", but no air conditioning, no mini bar, no TV, no hair dryer, old rotten "classic" windows so you get all the noise from the street. Now... okey I don't need hair dryer and I can't remember ever using TV in hotel, but air-conditioning is big one, the room was actually very hot (probably 26C at night, middle of summer mind you), as well no mini-bar and not even bottled water... so staying in this "s****y hipster" hotel the guests can help themselves with the water from the tap I guess?! To be fair to them, they only consider themselves 3*, but then how do they explain the price?! Birmingham Grand, which is proper nice middle of the city centre 5* hotel only charges £150. How is that makes sense?! People in Shrewsbury must think they are some sort of Milan or Barcelona... even then I bet you I can find better deals there. There is no way that hotel in Shrewsbury can cost more than £40/nigh.

That RR or Bentley sells their cars for £200k that is not a surprise to anybody, they always been for people with more money than brain... you know "ball kicking types". But G-Wagen and Range Rover mean to be utilitarian cars, rugged and able to go to muddy country side, G-Wage was literally military truck... how comes people pay £100k+ for them nowadays and drive them for 5 miles to school run with 5L+ engines is beyond any reasonable explanation.

It never works like that - when converting US prices you can bet it will be same amount in £ +10,000. So if GX would come to UK, it would start from something like £72,000 and even that is a little bit optimistic. Remember - Lexus RX starts at £62,000 and it is smaller model in the range. That said... again... I am a little bit baffled with Lexus decision making. Surely they can sell more GXs than LMs, as UK is quite hot for large luxury SUVs at the moment and as you mentioned even at £72,000 GX550 would be very competitive considering G-Class and Range Rover easily goes past £100,000.

German 3L diesels are indeed very good. If I would ever had to own diesel (quite unlikely) then that would be my pick.

Yes - double of negligible amount. Having some water in fuel as well does not affect your MPG, besides all fuel has some water in it. Pure petrol has trace amount of water, pure ethanol can handle about 5% before starting to separate, so E10 will have at most 0.5%. The discussion here is purely academical - there will be no impact to MPG either way. Besides water in fuel in general does not reduce MPG, it could reduce power and slightly IMPROVE MPG, the problem with water in fuel is not that it hurts engine efficiency, but that fuel and water does not mix, causing separation and then when this water get's sucked into fuel system it could cause misfire and rough running. Again - will not be a problem for months!

Would not be relevant to anything in terms of MPG etc. E5 can have up-to 5% ethanol, E10 up-to 10%, in grand scheme of things - negligible difference. Water in fuel only becomes relevant if you planning to park the car for 6 months, maybe 12 months... then yes E10 will be worse. But if you finish that tank within a month then either will do and again difference will be negligible, whatever tiny amount of water would get absorbed would not make ad difference for MPG. As well I doubt winter would make a different either. I guess one could argue that humidity is higher in winter, but in UK humidity is horrible all year round, besides lower temperature would slow down alcohol and water reaction, so in winter/lower temperatures ethanol would absorb water slower, not faster.

Yes - I would agree, IS250 in itself is borderline alright, never felt uncomfortable with it's power, but never felt like it has "plenty" either, not the car which has "power to spare" in my opinion. So double the weight of the car and suddenly I think it would be rather underpowered, especially on low-end torque. Here is where diesel, or even better hybrid would be ideal. Yeah - I had unbraked figure ~600kg in my head. For braked as far as I understand you would need to somehow rig the connection for the trailer and car, I mean you would need to do it anyway for stop lights etc. but adding braking juts further complicates it. RX400h has about the same power from petrol engine alone (208hp), but electric motor adds another 64hp for total of 272hp, more importantly it add like extra 200Nm or torque from stand still, double that of IS250. In conclusion, I believe towing with IS250 is possible, but not recommended. Stressing that engine out probably would as well result in worse fuel consumption that larger car would get.

Yeah... I think for IS250 it is like 600kg limit (from memory), so indeed it is not they best choice of the car to use. Not that it can't be used, but just not great. @Zuke - Landrovers in principle capable, but they are just horribly unreliable, not a joke neighbour bought Discovery, was very happy for 3 months and then engine seized. So I would not recommend, all sort of issues, electrical, mechanical, computer issues, besides you most likely going to get diesel, at which point it will not be ULEZ compliant and why have limitations like that. Plus you don't want "Luton to happen" to your car, so perhaps just stay away from that brand altogether. What about Lexus RX 400h, they would cost about the same as IS250, so you likely would be able to change the car without paying anything to upgrade. Or if you want to upgrade then RX450h from little bit later years. For MPG they are not amazing, despite being hybrids they are still large cars, so I would say ~32-38MPG would be tops, when towing caravan probably add 20% more consumption. But in grand scheme of thing they would be comparable to other SUVs. Probably will not match diesel Discovery that could do 40-50MPG, but not having to replace seized engine is quite positive!

Definitely wrong nuts for these wheels (these wheels are standard for Lexus IS mk2). they should look like this: https://lexuspartsdirect.co.uk/product/lexus-wheel-nut/

To the question "if there is bigger difference between E5 and E10 on cold days", the answer is no. So if E10 is 5% less efficient in summer, it will be 5% less efficient in winter. The difference is chemical, E10 simply has "less fuel" in it and it will have less fuel all year round.

That is my biggest bug bear - they look at stickers and painted brake callipers, yet people happily drive on outright dangerous chinesium tyres that are self-certified and unlikely to meet any standards. But the only thing they care is that tyre has to be 1.6mm+ Depends on insurance, but when you declare mods they ask you how much they are worth, so it kind of implies they will cover them. That said - you correct, unless you have agreed final value, you will never know what they will pay you, but mods and option when declared would make settlement figure higher. For example when my IS250 was written off, initially assessor put it at something like £1860 (because they literally could not tell the difference between IS220d and IS250). Then I said "look at the prices of SE-L automatic, with sunroof, ML and sat-nav, there is not a single car below £5000" and they raised the value to something like £3920. If I had declared set of wheels for the £1000 (that is how much F-Sport wheels costs), then I am sure I could have argued even higher price, perhaps not £1000 higher, but still higher than market average. However, I thought that simply ticking the box that car have mods would have made my insurance double and in long term was cheaper not to declare those wheels... and besides in case car was written of, I would simply take the wheels off.

On injury claims they take 20-30% commission, in fact in my recent experience you can't even handle injury claim yourself. My girlfriend had accident when learning to drive (good driving experience! 😄), non-fault, guy just crashed into the side of her car, no real injuries just shoulder and back pain, she took probably 1 month of work, few packs of ibuprofen and few sessions with physio. There is statutory compensation in cases like this (I believe insurance companies sets away like £5000 by default). But when she checked how can she proceed with compensation, just fair amount, say £2000-3000 for lost income and inconvenience, the TP insurance didn't even want to deal with her and advised she has to get medical assessment and make a claim via claims management company (in theory you can do it yourself, but it is way too much work). Now on positive side it was under her instructor insurance so, so he was getting claims management company anyway, but right away they said - "for injury claims under we take £5000 30%, over £5000 20% commission + claim management fees". Just to better explain how this works - insurance company by law has to set away the claim management cost in case you use claims management company. I think that is £1170... and when I have used claims management companies for car damage they do not charge anything, they just get their £1170 and that is it, but when you do injury claim they still take £1170 from insurance company +20-30% of the compensation off you... which is kind of ridiculous. I would assume on larger sum like £50,000 maybe they would agree with 10% commission, but still why should you sacrifice any money that should cover damage to your health. Beside just the time it takes is ridiculous. The doctor assessed after maybe 1 month that recovery in this case should be considered 10 months + travel expenses + cost for basic medicine + cost of lost income for a month, there is calculator for that and I think it adds-up to £3280 and she would have settled that right away. But no - insurance company much rather pays £1170 to claims management company and she will get £2624 (because -20%, not 30% as instructor is getting the same and thus amount is over £5000) and it was already over a year and they still have not settled. There is just no excuse for this - they know what claim is, why they are still not paid on it?

front number plate holder taken

That is what they are doing, I have long said insurance is scam. As well I believe insurance must always pay out right away, regardless what it is... then they can investigate and prove that somebody scammed them and claw back the money. And that would be just fair - when we pay for insurance we pay right away, we don't wait for a year to see if we like the cover or if we trust the company, nope we pay upfront, so they have to pay upfront as well. Obviously, scams happen, people exaggerate, overclaim invent stories and insurance should be able to recover the money in such cases, but they must never keep genuine claimants waiting, so settle first, then look for issues, unless it is obviously fraud on the face value. But it will never be like that - law protects multi billion companies, not the consumer! As well insurance companies should not care for what they should not care, they should not care what your gender is, they should not care how many kids you have, whenever you own your home, where you work etc. As long as they going to ask these questions I am going to answer them in the way that benefits me. The only question on insurance quote should be vehicle registration number and car registration number... and when you want the cover to start and what cover you want. That is ALL! And it is not some sort of miracle, in most of Europe that is exactly how it works. They don't ask if you have mods or where you work, license and registration has all the information insurance would ever need - it tells them what car it is, what year, the power and they can figure out how much it is worth, they tell tell them information about the driver, how long they have license and how many points they have. Nothing else is needed. All extra information asked is there just to scam people - some are honest and get punished for that and some find the way to work with this scam and saves 30%+ (legally I must say, without lying obviously). And for all the reason above - I will always tell insurance only absolute minimum I can get away with, or only declare that works in my favour.

Hope it won't happen, but experience says they will do exactly as you said!