Linas.P

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

That is why I will always get away with what I can get away with and not going to shoot myself in the foot declaring the basic maintenance to insurance companies. I have written off few cars, both accidents were very minor, one car literally scratch on the bumper, but I used claims management company and they never looked any deeper into anything, not under the car, not under the hood, not behind the wheels etc. Now sure - some stuff just is just asking for trouble. If you have carbon bits dangling around everywhere, or bright coloured lime green brake lines... they will notice it and you may have to explain them. What usually happens, they just not going to pay any claims for any mods that were not declared, for them to invalidate the insurance would be radical step that they would have to justify. I guess limitation on my knowledge, I was never at fault for the accident and the insurance that was paying the damages never got to see the car, so they paid out on the claim made by my assessor. Their assessor may indeed have tried to find some brain in the place where shaite lives. So maybe little advise - if at all possible try not to let assessor of insurance which will be paying the claim anywhere near the car.

Agreed... As for trend to continue - in this case I can claim quite confidently that it won't... You see inflation drop is mostly based on Housing and Household Services inflation drop, all other categories remained the same, some even increased a little. What is household services and why it has dropped... well turns out that it has dropped because it is calculated differently, usually inflation is calculated after you spent the money, household services are based on energy price cap, so as soon as cap drops, the inflation is calculated as dropping, even if you never paid as much as previous cap anyway. Now I am not saying that is not useful and it won't help, but there is another reason why I am saying we soon see increase in inflation again and that is OOH inflation, which will be impacted by mortgage payments, majority of people will come off fixed rate mortgages in next year and their payments will double, this already started this year and will accelerate next year. In short - you are correct that monthly inflation figures usually shows trend and that is why it is useful, but in this case I have feeling this trend will not stick and soon will be reversed.

This is question which has been asked million times and I am sure will be asked million more times. It has been also answered million times, but there is no adequate answer to it. My view - anything that makes your car faster, more powerful, more dangerous is modification, anything that significantly increases value of your car and for which you want to be compensates is also a modification. Examples - you put supercharger, now your car makes 700hp, that is modification. You have tinted your headlights and tail-lights making them harder to see and for you harder to drive in the dark - that is modification (arguably illegal and invalidates insurance anyway). You have fitted £6,000 worth of custom wheels, and £4,000 worth of air suspension and in case your car is stolen you expect to claim £10,000 more for these parts on top of what IS-F normally costs - that is also modification. You have to declare these, as in the best case scenario you will not get compensated for them if car is written of or stolen, and in worst case scenario your cover may be invalidated altogether. Now if you have fitted different wheels which are still within reason and road legal, or if you have painted the callipers, or fitted braided brakelines, or fitted compatible replacement shocks, but you are happy to be paid normal market value in case your car is destroyed or stolen, then these are not modifications and don't need to be declared. If asked I would play ignorance and say I didn't know this is mod, or I acquired the car this way, before doing so I would make sure to read the T&Cs of my specific insurance to make sure there is enough wiggle room to make this claim. So far I have never seen any insurance in T&C requiring to use only OEM parts, this would be ridiculous! They just say something along the lines that car has to be "road legal" and within manufacturers specification. That is why one can replace rather excellent Michelin PSS tyres on IS-F to rather unbelievably dangerous Shaite Road TurboSpeed Crash ZPZF60000 form ones favourite chinesium supplier. In comparison fitting coil-over or aftermarket shocks has way less impact on car than tyre choice. So my view - I will never be reporting anything, but most obvious mods to insurance and I am not going to be paying extra money for insurance scam. You may choose differently, whatever you do read your contract to make sure you understand what you can get away with and the risk associated. Or you can as well call your insurance and ask this hypothetical question, I have done so in the past. I have fitted IS300h F-Sport 18" wheels on IS250 which came with 17" wheels, I called the insurance and without answering any questions or giving my name made this "hypothetical" question: "what if I fit 18" wheels from another Lexus, is that mod or not" and their answer was - "no that is completely fine"... "thanks bye!" So answer to your question - it depends which game you want to play, secondly what your insurance actually written in their T&C.

1. Agreed, not sure why but I was under impression that when Sunak has made the pledge he made it against quarterly figure, but I can't find any evidence of that, so I might be wrong. If he is using just CPI then yes CPI went from 10.7% in November 2022, to 4.6% in November 2023 and yes he can claim the pledge despite not really doing anything about it. 2. That is why I want to look at annual inflation at the end of the year, because monthly inflation figures are kind of meaningless. One month it could be 15%, another 5%, but in the end of the year the annual inflation may be 5.8% and that means that £100 you hold in your drawer lost 5.8% of it's value. Whereas measuring monthly inflation really requires to divide it by 12 to get meaningful rate. I mean surely there is no issue to calculate what annualised rate is from monthly CPI figures, but why use monthly figures to begin with if what we actually want to know is annualised rate?! It is almost same as your point about savings account, yes it pay 8% monthly, but it is set-up in such way that your annual rate probably will be closer to 4% actually.

You are right... indeed forgot about that! At least they don't charge VAT on top of ULEZ!

No I have not said I "like" it, but I think it looks better than Volvo styling. Not sure if you are in video games (I would assume your are not), but the ZEEKR style is really sort of futuristic style that you find in video games e.g. some sort of mixture of styles below: When looking at real thing, I would first assume it is car from sort of video game, not a real car... although even name itself sounds like something you would find in video game, not in your local dealership "ZEEEEEKR"!

That I know - that is why I said headline inflation is not in government power to control, so for them to claim they have "defeated the inflation" is kind of silly, because the current drop we seeing is all external factors! That said reduction or increase in fuel tax/duties is purely political issue... fuel cost is one of the underlying factors in inflation, if fuel price increases then all the prices increase, so cutting fuel price would reduce inflation on food and many other items that are required day to day and therefore would reduce the inflation widely. On top of that fuel related taxes are currently at only 2% of government revenue, so cutting it in half and making fuel price say £1.10/L would have negligible effect on tax revenues and I would argue profound effect on kickstarting economy. BUT... they won't do it because they are in perpetual war against motorists, they want to give impression that they are punishing motorists because all sorts of vegetables in lycra are getting satisfaction from it. If government would cut fuel duties it will be all over the place across Guardians an a likes... "how our government is destroying our future", further it would kind of undermine their agenda of "war on cars"... it would send really confusing message... "on one hand we want to ban ICE, on other hand we just removed the fuel duty"... So do you want us to drive or you don't?! I personally would support complete end of fuel duty in principle as I consider it inherently unfair and double taxation, so not only we pay VAT, but we as well pay duty on top and then VAT for duty! That is tax on tax which is then taxed! What?! And that is before considering that we already pay road tax, so tax on double tax which is then itself taxed! How many times same thing can be taxed?

Don't bother with list of reading, I am not reading type... just let me know where you think I am wrong and we can discuss. You know I will never miss opportunity for that!

I will be breaking IS250 SE-L Auto 2006 with ~100,000k miles for parts. All parts available, including engine, gearbox etc. with exception of fuel tank, fuel lines, brake lines. Standard SE-L features, black leather heated/cooled interior, xenon headlights with washers, heated mirrors, rear shade etc. does not have sat-nav, nor ML For your reference VRN: BN06 RMX VIN: JTHBK262702007599 Obviously, symbolic prices for club member for all the small bits. Will note what has been taken/reserved/sold below, so far I am taking wiring harnesses, dash, RCC radar myself and certain person already reserved foot rest.

Ohhh... so it is pure rebadged chinesium... that is good they can keep it for themselves... surprisingly it as well lost 60 miles of range somehow?! As well I would argue ZEEKR looks better... maybe designed played too much Cyberpunk, but the car overall looks mean and has presence, the Volvo revamp makes it look like complete work van!

Only IS350... and IS-F So no, we can't get IS with port injection in UK, DI only. But that said - still not a problem regarding carbon build-up, not unless the car has over 200k miles on it, maybe that is the difference from UK and US, maybe US cars just have so much more miles? That said my last IS250 had 192k when I gave it away and as far as I know still didn't have issues at 208k.

If you thought LM is ugly, wait until you see Volvo EM90... I honestly dislike LM and I think it is pointless and stupid model (at least to be sold in UK/EU/US - they are fine for Southern Asia where such things are popular, but not here), but it does stand out and it could be argued looks premium, but looking at Volvo I would literally expect some sort of electrician or painter to get out of it with tool box: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/first-look/volvo-reveals-fully-electric-em90-mpv-458-miles-range Honestly, can't see the difference from this: So Lexus achievement with LM is that at least they are second from last, better than the ugliest car announced this year! I wonder if that has something to do with Volvo Chinese owners... Asians just love their MPVs aren't they?

I think that is where DI Only design is in particularly the problem, the "Italian tune-up" kind of works for removing carbon deposits, except from intake valves, because no fuel ever touches intake valves. It still cleans pistons and exhaust valves. I will expand little bit on oil changes and catch can, and why it is good idea on IS250 (other DI cars as well), so basically because of PCV valve oil vapour with blow by is directed back into intake and that is what ends-up becoming a carbon on intake valves. Replacing oil more often ensures that oil is clean and free of contaminants (like water and fuel that can boil and create vapour) and catch can should collect majority of vapour which would otherwise be routed to intake and clog it. I did not install it on my last IS250 as it was already 120,000 miles when I got it, but there is certainly a benefit of having catch can on lower mile cars. As for IS-F/RC-F (and 350) - there "Italian tune-up" works because those engines have both port injection and DI, so fuel basically washes carbon and soot deposits from valves. Fuel additives can also help in such case, whereas they are kind of useless on IS250, just because nothing really touches intake valves, that is the only problem area on IS250, but again - somehow in UK it isn't really that bad.

I have never seen IS250 in UK that had carbon build-up issue, not sure why, but it seems to be only the issue in US. Yes DI in general has flaws (or I should say car with DI only). I have sneak peaked into my engine before and there was some carbon on intake valve stems, not pretty, but nothing tragic. I have done hydrogen clean on my car and it made absolutelly no difference, if anything one of the emission metrics was 0.1% higher. No change in response or how car drives. So in short, unless you have issues - forget about it! Much more important would be timely oil changes, 10,000 miles is way too long, I would actually recommend 5,000-6,000 change intervals and never exceed 12 months between changes. I can explain in more detail, but that is kind of different topic... but it does help with carbon build-up slightly as well. Other piece of preventative maintenance you can look at would be "catch-cans"... but cleaning carbon in general is not that you would encounter often on these cars in UK.

Please enlighten me - you know I will always stay for long conversation!

Seems even worst companies sometimes improve for better! Still would not let them fit anything... don't want to repeat for 10th time my experience, but let's just say they have tried to literally scam me on more than one occasion.

Unlikely... I mean it is possible and government that cared to revive economy could easily take such step, I would argue it would be popular decision, 50% of fuel cost right now is tax (historically low as well, because duty is static, so with higher price it has less impact, it was 71% in 2020). So if fuel is currently £1.54 at pump, it is completely in governments power to make it £1.10 overnight there there still would be 35p of tax left. It is impossible to know why they not doing it, obviously we can speculate and make conspiracy theories... but not more than that. Going back to inflation, I think what is more important is that annual Core inflation is only down 0.3% from 5.9% to 5.6% and this is more telling. The headline figure that includes energy and food prices is generally from external factors (like war in Ukraine) that government can't do anything about, so they now boasting to have "resolved" the inflation they never had any control of, but the core inflation which they could do something about they have not reduced at all. Politics!

Its the radio unit itself. Kills itself and the screen goes dead as the connections all go through the radio. Essentially requires a new radio unit to work which isnt cheap unless you get a second hand one This really makes it sound like some sort of extremely complicated job. Disconnect negative terminal, then positive... then connect them back in reverse order, positive, then negative... to be honest it doesn't even matter the order, except there is higher risk of damaging something if negative is connected and you accidentally touch positive to the frame (as frame is ground), so it is safer to connect positive first and then you can dangle negative anywhere you like without any risks. If you want to preserve the settings, then connect 12 volts from somewhere during the exercise, but that is optional and sometimes cleaning memory from ECUs actually helps, even if it is annoying to set memory seats etc. back. In short - messing-up battery replacement requires special skills and extreme negligence, not saying it never happens, but it isn't some sort of extremely risky job, Lexus does not even code their batteries (not sure about latest models, but certainly not in IS/GS and hopefully not SC).

Not sure about specific size for SC430, but my go to for IS250 was always Bosch S4. 4 year warranty, but I usually order them online (for much less than halfrauds prices) and when ordering online they don't have same nonsensical limitations like physical stores (not transferable warranties, receipts etc.). Basically you get your receipt to the e-mail and if battery fails before 4-years you just find the e-mail from years back and send it back. Not that any of Bosch batteries have failed on me yet, although I never really kept them for more (or the cars I fitted them to) for more than 4 years.

This is just monthly inflation figure, it is kind of flawed to compare last month YoY inflation drop against target of quarterly inflation halving. As well it is easy to achieve lower inflation after already record inflation last year. That is why I think it would be more meaningful to wait until full year figure and compare full year 2022 vs. full year 2023. It kind of becomes matter of perception - 4.6% inflation would be bad, but compared to 11.1% at the same period last year it looks almost like a good thing, but this inflation is compounding... I know I am explaining basics here, but they are relevant when it comes to "real wage growth" and affordability. For somebody that was earning £40,000 last year their real wage continues to drop, slower than last year, but it is still dropping. And besides this 4.6% is just headline figure averaged across many factors, food for example is still on 10.1% some areas even higher. So my view is that we are still far away from being out of this mess and I am not expecting deflation at any time soon, like for example fuel prices dropping maybe back down to at least ~£1.20 range which would have drastic effect on all good and everything.

I personally would stay away from both Yuasa and especially halfrauds. You may find not only ghost and vampires, but as well fully grown daemons in the car if you allowed them to touch it. Honestly there is less risk to car if you let toddler do it, at least toddlers don't have bad intentions (usually). Now as for Yuasa itself - mediocre, had two of them fail on me (both had short cells), but to be fair one was unknown age (I suspect 6 years) and another very near to 5 years, so I mean 5-6 years from the battery is not horrible, they should be able to do 8 maybe. However, halfrauds is halfrauds, they will never warranty the battery for you and will find whatever excuse possible to refuse it, so the 5 years warranty point kinds of becomes moot. Halfrauds autocentre told me they can't do it because it was halfrauds retail that fitted the battery , halfrauds retail demanded the receipt (for 5 years old item, but I happened to find it in the folder with documents), then they said warranty is not transferable, then I came few weeks later to speak with another person saying it was me who fitted it (despite me getting it with the car), so his excuse was that he can only refund to the card that was on the receipt?!?!?!?!? When I explained to him that bank cards usually are not valid for that long he offered me to call their complaint department... In short you not getting it replaced if it fails!

That is certainly a possibility! But ask for battery health check first, would be sad to waste it if not the culprit!

It would be strange if it did start... Then perhaps I would be really worried about ghosts!

Just small note here - idling car to charge it is not the most ideal, especially when you have to run 4.3L V8 to do it. Battery would charge faster when driving + it consume negligible fuel compared to running the car (~2000-3000RPM is where alternator makes it's maximum amps, so as you can imagine 700-800rpm isn't optimal). My point - find your new favourite road and drive the beast more! As for radio coming on I really don't know, but I have one idea - there is function for road alerts, so for example if you listening for CD or using Aux, it may turn it to radio when driving and I remember begin really irritated about this when going trough Link-House tunnel. They had maybe faulty transmitter there for emergencies, and every time entering the tunnel it would switch to FM and I could see little warning appearing "emergency reported" (or something along those lines). So perhaps it could turn on the radio even when it is off, if it could switch from CD to FM, then why not turn the radio on? Thinking about it now - I am not sure you can even switch it off...