Mincey

Morning Chums, yesterday my current wife subjected me to what can only be described as a tirade against my driving skills, or the apparent lack of (in her opinion). She was of course completely wrong but I was wondering about investigating the Advanced Driving course (https://www.iamroadsmart.com/), so if she did complain in future I could reply "I've done the Advanced Driving Course, so nuuuur". Has anyone else here done the course, and if so, what are your thoughts? I should add that I was awarded "this week's Star Baker" status on a driving day at Thruxton in 2018....

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lexus-IS200-Sport-Yellow-Edition-/224243850041?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49292

Fantastic.

That, is an excellent point John, and you made it very well!

<Thread drift alert> Talking of jolly school day japes, I recall walking across the car park on my first day at senior school, and seeing "Reserved H/mster" in large letters on the Headmaster's parking space. This sight sowed a seed in my mind which would stay there for a long time. Seven years in fact. On the night of the last A Level exam, I was celebrating with a group of friends at the local hostelry. I mentioned that for years I had wanted to turn the "/" into an "A" and my friends all thought it was a wizard idea. When one of my chums offered to pick up a paintbrush and some white gloss paint on the way, the plan was swiftly formed. We arrived at school just after last orders, and armed with the necessary equipment, I duly applied the two strokes of paint which I had been itching to add for all that time. As I stood back to admire my handiwork, another chum said "let's borrow the brush" and proceeded to add a "P" in front of the "R" of "Reserved". This was, we all agreed, a stroke, or two strokes to be precise, of genius. Off we scuttled to our various homes and nothing more was heard until the following Christmas when we met up with a few of our old teachers at the aforementioned hostelry. After several medicinal ales, the tale was recounted as the fear of any retribution was long since gone. One of the teachers was grateful for the explanation as he had wondered why the caretaker was busily scrubbing away at the head's parking space when he arrived the morning after our nocturnal mission. I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to Mr Pitney, or to his memory should he be no longer with us, for the high-jinks of myself and my chums. It was a very long time ago (1986) and I hope all is forgiven now.

I'd leave it as it is. It's easy to set the function off with the key in your pocket. Been there, done it, glad it wasn't raining.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/cars/article-8978035/Locations-12-point-drivers-REVEALED.html How the bloody hell can someone get away with having 68 points?! More worrying is the woman who has 49 points in Peterborough. I'll be watching other drivers around here very carefully from now on...

They'll take anything these days.

Finally Tesla see sense and create a petrol powered version:

I would imagine you've all been on tenterhooks waiting for an update - well, wait no more. After removing the Carista OBD and doing around ten miles every other night since, the IS has started first time and shown no signs of any wobbles. Someone on Amazon said that it was ok to leave the OBD plugged in, but you'll not be surprised to hear that I beg to differ! I shall be making such a statement in the product reviews shortly. This thingy which I bought back in 2017 to keep Satan The iQ going has definitely paid for itself now. Satan no longer needs it because it is in daily use in case anyone is wondering and after the flat battery/entry denied fiasco of earlier this year is (touch wood) in fine fettle. Life has returned to its normal reliable self. Hurrah!

Make sure you take the IS250 for a damn good thrashing if you do buy the IS300 as you will miss that V6 howl....

Seems like a little fine tuning is required: https://insideevs.com/news/454383/massive-crash-teslacam-safety-questions/

Did someone mention self-driving cars?

I've only been to the US once so far, and there were hundreds of them out there. I was glad to get back to Dear Old Blighty.

Put a BMW logo on anything and it'll sell by the bucketload. There are so many images I have had to refrain from posting here :-)

Stevie Wonder in this case?

It's a Pontiac Aztek. One of the most hideous looking cars known to man!

The BMW reminds me of this:

Her ioniq is a petrol hybrid, not a plug in one.

Just went to check the car's ok - it unlocked so that's good.The OBD had a red LED shining away so I've taken that out. I can always put it back in when I want to use it. Better that than a flat battery :-)

I wasn't surprised Linas - I hadn't driven it for a while. My wife's Ioniq has a button to press when the 12v battery goes flat and it sucks some juice from the hybrid battery to start the car, so she was quite smug about this event. There's a dashcam and I've got a Carista OBD plugged in. The dashcam is a Lexus dealer fitted one and I could take the ODB out, but I think the moral of the story here is: I should drive more!

My IS let me down last night. Flat 12V battery. Lexus - I expect more of you. I know I've only done 2,300 miles since December 9th 2019 but come on - this is totally unacceptable. Luckily I have one of those fast charger USB jump starter things which got me started. Double lucky was the battery being in the boot, so my neighbours weren't aware that I had a problem. It's shocking, absolutely shocking. I'm even tempted to go German. Two takeaways from this: 1 - a flat IS is significantly easier to break into than a flat iQ 2 - my tongue is firmly in my cheek.

And here's one I prepared earlier: It's from the Gardx kit I got with the car - expires 23/08/24 apparently. I would have checked on the Lexus one but that's packed away quite tightly in the boot above the battery (and now I know where that lives!)

I was driven round Milan in a Passat W8. Very nice too from what I can remember. The traffic though, especially from the centre to the airport in rush hour on a Friday afternoon was another matter however. I was so impressed that I had arrived in one piece that I gave the company driver 20 euros to buy himself a drink. From his expression and gestures, I don't think this happened too often!

I believe you are right there John! I wonder if we'll ever see a Basil Fawlty-esque character, beating his Tesla with half a tree after it refuses to boot up....