Cotswold Pete

Is it me or does it look like the Chrysler 300 on steriods with a bit of a downtown LA look about them?

Found this online The common algorithms are: Dijkstra’s Shortest Path First Bellman-Ford Rekhter-Lougheed path selection Not much clued up on what they mean, but I found it on a posting a few years back about whether Tom Tom or Garmin were the best. As to what Lexus or Google or Waze use, suspect they maybe have taken one of the above models and tweaked. Generally while out and about and worried about not getting stuck I will be using Google at the same as the Mercs inbuilt or the Mazda inbuilt. My LS was a real laugh when I tried it, so when bored used it for entertainment value; though it was better than I was at getting me to Cadbury World the quickest way.

Wow - they gave me a migraine, but the LS IMHO about the best looking of all the cars. Wonder what the ride is like?

I am retiring next year, was thinking of getting out and about on the wifes e-bike while she slaves over a works computer for a couple more years. All these stats suggest maybe I should stick to becoming a couch potatoe.

Had a mate who was in the Forces in 70's and he said he once went into a HiFi shop in Germany and some USA forces guys were lifting up reel-to-reel tape recorders and eventually they bought some. After they left my mate asked the shop owner what was going on, and the owner replied they just wanted to buy the heaviest, and not interested in which one had the best sound.

I like driving, I like walking, I like cycling, I like drivers to respect me whichever I am doing as I try to do when I am doing any of the 3 activities I liked it in Holland where they remove all road markings in a lot of urban areas, that means pedestrians/cyclist and drivers need to keep their wits about them and as a result all are a little more cautious and a 'natural for the environment' speed is attained. I live in a 20mph zone, and I agree it is hard to do, as it feels like your going backwards, but once when driving at 10mph I had a little kid run out and nearly go under my front wheel, and it shocked me how I was caught off guard; at 30 they would have been meat. In the 20mph zone I live about 90% of cars are still doing 30 (or more). I also know that at 20 I am doing less mpg, which with and EV is not an issue. I would add when I was young I was as much a 'tear-away' as any numpty who tries to pass me at 60 in their souped up 206 in a 30mph zone. So I get that young bloods have not learnt to control their need for speed. I am amazed I am alive given some of the things I did when driving back 40 years ago.

One way of increasing local employment with all those flag carriers now required.

Have a look at these, seen SeaSuckers used on 150K chelsea trackers coming down to the cotswolds and coast with their boards and bikes Monkey Bars

Wow, this is bonkers that the Mark Levinson system gets miffed when a bit of welding is done, thats like my home CD stopped becuase I decided to use my toaster on full 'burn the toast mode'. I recall when ML kit came onto market in mid 70's and it was priced to really scare the horses. Maybe Lexus should have talked to Musical Fidelity or Audiolab or even Arcam, possibly Marantz who from my experience make ML products at sensible prices. When I spent time in US went to quite a few high end audio shops, nothing impressed me that much apart from the wads of cash needed to acquire equipment that needed a gorilla to pick it up or a room the size of Manchester to fit the darned stuff into

I have found bat sh*t is worse, had one do his business on my bonnet and within 6 hours had eaten down to the undercoat on the LS (which has heaven knows how many layers). Thanks heavens not too many bats where I live (well ones that fly and poo at the same time).

I can remember watching this when it was originally on TV, and given at the the time I had just given up 14 years of company car ownership it was like an echo of my past. The badge envy was amazing and even I was under the spell once I had got to have an 'i' on the end of that badge. Then one of my mates rocks up in an LS 400 Mk1 as his company car, now that was a differnet league, I can still remember that drive through the Peak District.

I feel like I should drive to Buckingham just to admire the finished article. Amazing amount of love going into this car

Never had a prob with the 400, never saw that much water lurking even after heavy rain, so always assume the sunroof seal was working well. Recently just tried Gummi Pflege on a boot seal, to make sure auto-release actually had the boot lift, and seems like also cured a boot leak, which I was not expecting. So makes me wonder if treating the sun roof seal would help with water ingress, and put less pressure on the drainage.

Well I think it might be more down the Lutheran ethic of giving Germans hard seats to sit on, so that they sit up straight and listen to the word of the preacher. I say this as my Merc seat is about as comfortable as a seat in a Scottish Presbyterian pew (I have sat in quite of few at various Scottish weddings), and so humour is the last thing on your mind, more like where the heck can I find a nice cushion. If you go onto the Merc forums seem to be a lot of stiff backsides and aching shoulders, shame I could not have taken the seats out of the LS and fitted to the Merc. (That is my theory at least)

This is the kind of post that makes me still look at the Lexus Forums even though I now own a Merc. Full of passion and humour and dealing with the deep love of Lexus. Not found any of this on previous forums, and for sure not on the Merc forums. I am still wondering whether to keep my Merc long term or go for ES300, not sure my missus is ready for me to make that change just now. Though she did like the ES300 when we tried one out at the start of the year.

Maybe put a Mazda 2 on your list, not always that many around but good mpg and should be able to handle your load requirements

I would for sure replace if you think they are the originals. From my experience it makes a subtle difference, the idle seemed smoother, the repsonsive a tad better, the fuel economy did not seem that impacted. When I had plugs changed when they must have done at least 80K, the mechanic said that one of the plugs was looking like it was not going to last much longer as as they had been in the engine for a good few years (probably at least 7 years) they were a little less easy to oik out. I can recall with my first car back in the early 80's taking out the plugs every 5K for a jolly good clean and checking the gap to get the most out of my Renault, it was one of those therapuetic things to do a couple of times year to make sure my low pay was eaked out a little more.

Back to the topic, I would add that wars drive innovation (about the only benefit of wars), so the rapid - or more rapid move away from Ruzzia oil, or in the future Saudi (not reknowned for real adherence to Human Rights) oil means the likely hood of tech that brings us greener benefits is accelerated for the general public in the long run. The LED was developed in the Malverns to allow MoD to not have to pay USA for their TV tech to be able to monitor tanks on the battle field, so after many decades we now benefit by having low energy TVs and lights compared to the old Cathode ray tubes and incandescent bulbs. Using less energy is always a good thing, as even if one were not concenred about climate change, you would be saving a few ££ on the bills, meaning you could afford to shop at Waitrose rather than Poundland

Quite possibly written with a the feather quill by a Buddhist Monk sat in the back seat enjoying the silence during the developement stages of the LS Mk1, so probably not in Latin 😂

Run flats of any kind have stiffer sidewalls, and that will ensure reaction to road surfaces that passes more readily up into the running gear. I would think harder inflation will make it worse (possibly) and running at lower pressure will change the noise as more tread in contact with road. I have noticed around my way some roads (and one or two car parks) just make a wierd noise not really sure why, andsince moving from LS400 to Merc E350 that this different surfaces excite each car differently. However on a 'smooth as a baby's backside' sort of road always felt like any tyre I had on whatever car (including the wifes Honda/Jag/Mazda) the noises were not there. But it always bugged me to have odd noises coz the cabin of a LS or E350 is quite in the first place so subtle road noises seem to reach even my deaf old ears

On that note when I was with my sales team the other day, I told them I wanted them to sell lots of Business Starlink (as we now can) only so that we can make sure Elon has enough cash to naff off to Mars ASAP.

Interesting to read this thread, and my two-pence worth is Humans have been degrading the environment since we jump down from the trees, learnt we could burn them for heat, turn them into arrows and kill mega-fuana, so the burning of carbon based fuels is just the current extension of our mission to eventually ruin the places we live in. As to governments limiting the ability of you and me to drive where ever when ever, I am kind of in support of, becuase we are all (in relative terms) selfish, and some level of control is required, a bit like speed limits, be a interesting world if no one regulated our speed in urban areas coz that was seen a a restriction of our liberties. If we all adopted a quasi-buddhist come Quaker philosophy than maybe we would feel less need to consume and tarmac the planet, but in the meanwhile I am not in position to give up my car and go everywhere by e-bike or shanks-pony, so I am part of the problem my kids will have to solve. It does seem though the pace of global warming has increased in line with human population, so at a guess we are the problem as much as the earth wobbling a little bit nearer to further from the sun from time to time. (Unless of course there are some aliens just around the dark side of the moon having a larf while playing some game of SIM EARTH - and they forgot to switch off the WARM option)🤓

100% agree, and even the fuel consumption is darned good (unless you are a townie - with all that stop start driving).

A jolly prescient rant. I have worked in IT for 45 years (about to retire) and though the new tech does not completely bamboozle me, it is not as 'smooth' as dealing with a human, and eventually all the youngsters will realise that Tech will frustrate even them as it evolves beyond their skills. On the ticket offices, I am flabbergasted that the government have not looked the data from the 1960's that shows whenever you take the humans away from the function, the vandalism begins (I love railways and have lots of books, and in one recent one this kept coming up) and so what happens when someone decides to take out the ticket machine 'for a laugh'. One can only hope that one day your local MP will be forced to abandon their Jag and have to suffer the consequences of being fined for not being able to get a ticket coz they wanted to save a few bob (to spend on some other unworthy project). That's my rant of the morning, actually already had a rant at work about the problems of convincing people about the 2025 PSTN BT switch phone switch off having read a somewhat inaccurate article on the SkyNews web site. Time to have a cuppa I say and keep it to two rants for this friday.🤐

That is impressive, never got to that figure myself, but never tried cruising at 60 on the way to Scotland, as things are generally flat from where I live to Shap (apart from slight blip up Lickey) and then once over Beattock and down into Glasgow no major climbs all the way up to Pitlochry, then the final weave along the road to Rannoch is where the mpg drops to the floor in an LS. But you arrive nice and relaxed, which is what really counts. Most of the time I never bothered about the mpg as LS was the cheapest car I ran for 15 years, what you saved on mechanics you spent on fuel.