Linas.P

We should not confuse the two things - if you already driving on the road and pedestrian walk into it, then you can't be at fault for hitting pedestrian. However, if pedestrian started to cross the road before you turned into that road, then they have right to complete crossing it. This has always been the case. I have issue with some language which now makes it more confusing (despite vegetables at Guardian stating it clarifies something) - for example what exactly means "waiting to cross the road"? As well I have issue with statement - "More widely, the updated Highway Code sets out the “hierarchy of road users”, making the uncontroversial point that quicker and/or heavier modes of travel should be especially careful for those who are more vulnerable". The word "hierarchy" implies that not everyone are held to same standard and inevitable there could be no respect nor trust between different users if some are more equal than others. More vulnerable are the one who should be ultimately more careful and don't make themselves even more vulnerable. If we say pedestrians are vulnerable, then good advise would be for them to cross the road where it is safest - that is over/underground crossings, or at least places which are well lit and only after making sure it is safe to do so. Just making drivers more afraid that somebody jumps out of the bush in the dark helps nobody. Same for cyclists - if they are so vulnerable then maybe advise should be - "use dedicated cycling lanes where possible", "use high visibility clothes", "don't undertake/overtake turning cars" etc. Instead of saying - when you feel unsafe, take the middle of the lane or cycle two abreast. This is just counter intuitive - makes yourself more of inconvenience, to make yourself more visible. How about - don't be inconvenience in the first place?

I hope so as well, I just think that current trends when it comes to various rules works in a way to erode the culture of responsibility, at least for certain road users. And as well it is predicated on very weak justification - "vulnerability". Not only it is incompetent, but as well counter intuitive - if I put myself in the shoes of somebody vulnerable I would like to be as responsible and careful myself first, because that is in my own interest. Giving false expectations for "vulnerable" users, so that they put themselves in more risk sounds like few members already said - "recipe for disaster".

That may be true, but is it actually good thing? In the country I grew-up there is actual law that before crossing the road pedestrian MUST look both ways and make sure it is safe to cross. Sadly it is almost never enforced and from driver perspective it is very hard to prove either way. It is as well in highway code (only SHOULD - meaning it is mere guidance and not the law), but it is even less enforced here, and definitely almost never followed. I wish it would be fully enforced as it would make it better for everyone, but it is what it is. What I find wrong with current proposals is that personal responsibility is transferred to others i.e. it implies pedestrians don't need to care, drivers needs to care for them and I feel it lacks justification, that you drive the car doesn't make you babysitter of every fool who can't bother to care themselves. I always treated traffic on the road with respect, both from driver and pedestrian perspective. I even specifically wait few metres away from pedestrian crossing if I can see there is only one car on the road or there is gap behind the column of the cars - specifically so that drivers don't stop for me. I consider that mutual benefit for the society, because dozen cars stopping every time single pedestrian crosses the street is just not efficient. In short for one pedestrian to wait 10s is less inconvenience than for dozen cars to stop for 5s. Same goes when I am driving - if I have to stop behind red line, then I will leave the gap for the side road to join, but if it is green then I won't let the car to join. This is simple matter of mathematical efficiency. Whilst I have stopped anyway car joining the traffic delays me by length of single car, but at the same time there is one less car waiting to join the traffic - so there is no detriment. If at the same time another 3 cars crosses the gap either way, then there is actual benefit. However, other drivers are being overly friendly and inefficient - they stop to let other cars to join during green light, interrupts "green wave" and by the time other car joins and get's up to speed, 8 less cars actually passes thought the light - so that is overall detriment and makes traffic worse. In short - I look at it for perspective of who loses the least amount effort, time, resources, energy and causes least pollution to complete certain action and then prioritise the actions on this basis. It is almost always the case that single pedestrian waiting extra 10s by the side of the road is better for society overall, than 10 cars stopping for 5s. On individual level the impact is tiny, but when we look to the society overall, all the cars, pedestrians, cyclists across the world, then it creates huge difference. Efficiently and safety is more important than convenience, and inconveniencing one pedestrian is better than inconveniencing dozen cars. Finally, personal responsibility is key - starting from being responsible and caring yourself, before demanding the same from others (just to be clear I mean it in generally, not implying you are not caring/responsible).

I am not an expert of how connected services work, but probably over the air updates? I guess if it has good access to internet then it could download it quickly and shut down, but if slow maybe it take hours/days. That is indeed possibility, because system being up can draw say 100w, this would equate to about ~7.8Ah - so 10 hours draw can easily kill the battery.

Yes 2018 should have connected services together with improved widescreen sat-nav for F-Sport/Takumi trims. I think only "luxury" version doesn't get it.

Yeah... they put mileage in the price. Must have been some sort of celebrity that have driven it - car appreciate with every mile they were in 😄

Is there particular combination of settings or something, like maybe you driving in sport+ with stability control off? I haven't driven long enough RC-F to ever notice it, but that never happened to me on RC200t. Now sure RC-F is quite different beast, but I tend to believe something as simple as cruise control (and I assume you have standard cruise control in mind not DCC) would be exact same system in both cars. I would assume that if car senses that it looses grip, it may disengage cruise control, but not just because it started raining. As well I don't buy Lexus answer that this is safety feature - maybe they just don't want to get involved in diagnosing what could be very intermittent and difficult problem to find and potentially very expensive to repair. These are condition under which cruise control would get cancelled (p277), rain is not one of them:

These would be hottest UHP tyres available - although I don't believe they make them in 17", so you would have to upgrade to 18" at very least. I would recommend them on IS-F, or something with 400-500HP, or if you doing track days on your everyday tyres. On IS250 it is total waste to have such tyres. I didn't have PS4s, but I had PS4 which is one step down and even that was overkill - I would say PS4 are ideal on the car with probably 300HP+... say IS350 would be right car. Where there anything particularly wrong with PS4? - no, they were ok, but at no point I could justify the price of them on the car. As it happens I got them for free as insurance was paying for all 4 wheel refurbishment and set of tyres, so when the shop asked me what I want in terms of tyres I specified PS4. Now if I would have to pay my own money, they are just not good value - compared to Dunlop Sportmaxx RT2 which they replaced, they were louder, fuel consumption was 10% up, little bit harder ride, but still reasonably comfortable. The biggest issues was the grip - it felt to me that I could not get them warm-up. On Dunlops on colder morning I would have to drive maybe for 5 min before they really felt good, on Michelins they just didn't feel right for almost entire journey to work (~45min) and maybe 10 min away from work or from how they would start to feel about right, even in summer. Now on high performance track tyre that is good as you don't want your tyres overheating after 2 laps, but on road tyres I always felt they were overkill for the car or any reasonable road speeds. Sure if you drive for 200 miles to some scenic B-Road and hool the car there, then they would be perfect tyre for that - precise steering, very predictable and grippy when they are at their temp. Now I am talking about it as if it is some sort of semi-slick race tyre which needs warming-up, but that is the best way I can describe the feeling - they literally felt like mechanical grip is there, but compound is simply too cold to work at it's best. Likewise grip drop-off in winter was way more noticeable compared to RT2, which would grip consistently well all the way to +0C. PS4 would feel noticeably less grippy from ~+7C. Both RT2 and PS4 lasted me well, but RT2 were slightly better I have replaced them at 36k miles, whereas PS4 needed replacing at 30k miles.

Yeah so that is what is called "top-up". They do it usually with service and it is not as hard to convince them to do ~0.5-1L at the time - I have seen in service history they done that regularly on my old car starting as low as 40k miles. 2L is kind of more that usual, but same principle. The "refill", is little bit more involved and requires removing pan, replacing gasket, filter and ~4L of ATF. This is harder to get Lexus to agree to, but considering there are already error codes it is the least what the car needs. This as well gives an opportunity to look at how filter looks, is there any stuff on the bottom on the pan (there are magnets on the bottom) and better inspect if there is any damage. At this point if they find a lot of metal shaving in the pan - you can be sure there is no point continuing with ATF change as gearbox would be totalled by then. But it is just necessary to do it, because there is no other way to physically inspect for damage.

I didn't say you lied and I kind of reluctantly believe that indeed you have had ~4.5mm of thread left after 84k kilometres. Amazing results! I am just saying that on average All-season tyres don't last that long and certainly even most optimistic Michelin marketing would not claim that CrossClimates could last 100k miles. So I put it down to unique set of circumstances or exceptional "tyre preserving" driving style you have. However, we need to be very clear - this is exceptional case, not normal scenario. When I said "outside of realms of possibility" I mean "for average driver/use case..." So to say - "just go for CCs and they will last you 100k miles and be just as good as summer tyres in summer, but much better in winter" is not good consumer advise, for most people they wont be...

I would trust both Debica Presto UHP2 and Sava Intensa UHP2 to be very viable alternatives to Dunlop Sportmaxx RT/RT2/Goodyear Asymmetric 3 - as mentioned all 3 are owned by Goodyear. They are basically rebranded version of older but still very good Goodyear products and technology. Both Debica/Sava makes Goodyear/Dunlop tyres in the exact same factories just meters away and they are very similar in construction to other Goodyear UHP tyres. I guess they are targeting more Domestic/Eastern European market which is more price sensitive, but once those tyres finds their way into UK, they certainly look very good value. The cost are saved more on marketing budget and branding, rather than quality and that is what I like to see when looking for good value product. I would not expect them to be ultimate UHP tyre, or last as long as best tyres on the market, or handle on the absolute edge, but they provide safe and good value alternative in my opinion.

If that would be true then Michelin would stop making PS4s, if they were so good then what is the point... CCs are great tyres, especially considering how universal they are - but to say they are "as good" as summer tyres in all categories, just isn't honest. They are close indeed, somewhat above average compared to other summer tyres, but certainly not as good in dry grip, noise and fuel economy as the best of summer tyres. That is not even considering subjective handling test. It is still impressive that in top 20 best UHP summer tyres you have what is basically neither UHP, nor Summer tyre... yet it is still the fact that there are dozen summer tyres which are better for most of the year and they cost less. As for winter test - yes CC was better, but in very specific test conditions which were specifically created to highlight the point at which All season tyres are better, and to identify where that point is. It was good test, but not necessary reflective of real life/everyday driving. The question is - how often you will be in that exact situation? Over 10 years driving in UK I was maybe once in situation where I thought to myself - "it would be nice to be on winter tyres now". That is impressive, but not in line with average trends. CC comes with slightly more thread to begin with, but to say they last 100k miles (if 52k was just 50% worn) I think is outside of realms of reality. On average All-season tyres have slightly softer compound which lasts less.

I guess to defuse the point even further - "all-session" tyres could be considered the ultimate "safety tyre". If we go with assumption that person using them is "sedate" driver who never put's the car through any sort of spirited driving, then UHP tyres handling benefits are no longer relevant and the tiny added safety margin of all-session tyres makes them "safer". I guess that could be an argument to make. But in such case trade-off is tyre cost (CrossClimates are like double the price of Asymmetric 5s) for what is increasingly diminishing returns in terms of safety, higher noise, fuel consumption and tyre won't last as long either.

Although they are good tyres, I don't consider UK as having different seasons to justify this compromise... and at least half of my driving experience was in country with 4 very distinct seasons where 2 tyres sets were not only required, but mandatory by law. Now fair to say that all tyres are compromise of some sort, but looking at UK weather the key for me would be wet grip, secondly dry grip. The low temperature performance is kind of irrelevant and having "All-season" tyres basically gives you mild advantage for 2 weeks per years, but disadvantage for the rest of time. It is just fact that "all-season" are not as good as UHP in drive handling, fuel economy, noise and comfort and mileage, they are similar in wet and slightly better in temperatures below 2C... yet both are equally useless at -1C... Where all-season tyres really shine is sludge and snow, but this particular thing is kind of rare occurrence in UK. Instead what we have more often are rainy day and evening and then sudden frost overnight... and it does not matter if you hit black ice on UHP summer tyre or all season... outcome is the same. So losing an edge on 95% of time for 4.9% of time when performance is about equal and 0.1% when All season tyres are actually better, just doesn't make sense to me. In countries where it is beneficial, I would go with proper two sets of proper winter + summer tyres, but in UK I don't think 2 weeks of mild winter justifies separate set of tyres, and even further it does not justify driving on mediocre tyres all-year-round just for few weeks where they could be slightly better. Again it is just opinion, but in summer and most of the rest of the year All-season tyres doesn't stand a chance against proper UHP. In particular Uniroyal Rainsport, Dunlop Sportmaxx RT2, Goodyear Asymmetric 5, Michelin PS4 - all have aggressive deep grooves for excellent wet handling and aquaplaning prevention and they excellent in the dry as well. Sounds repetitive, but put CrossClimates or Vector4s against any of above and they will look like very mediocre tyre for most of the year.

ATF was Toyota branded ATF-WS, filter and gasket were Toyota or OEM equivalent. I have not replaced solenoids so I don't know - I believe the cheap ones for £140 a set were Blueprint which is known generic brand of OE parts, I can't see the listing anymore and what is currently available are generic set made in China (to be honest they all are made there except of Toyota genuine ones). When it comes to solenoids I think more research is needed and I can't currently recommend any, but I guess it is too early to worry about it. Try ATF change and see if that works first. In terms of persuading Lexus to do it - it is not nothing drastic, simply call them up and say that is what you want to do. At this point I am sure they will try to say that it is "unnecessary" and that "ATF is life-time fill", "sealed unit" and other crap to try to persuade you not to do it. Worst case scenario if they really don't want to do it they will quote some silly price - say £800 to get rid of you. Other thing they may say - the work will not be warranted and that it won't fix your issue, or they can't guarantee it will help. Which is kind of true - nobody can guarantee ATF change will fix solenoid issues, but this is known to fix issues quite often in experience of many members. In short - you probably wouldn't have issue if it would have been done in time, but at this point it can't hurt. Chances of it solving an issue is probably 50/50. Depends on how long the issue existed and how bad it got.

Yes - I agree as well. I would say particular rules which are being introduced are kind of irrelevant and some of them I was following as good practice anyway. But the idea of roads users hierarchy and prioritising the vulnerable is what is dangerous. They said that road rules are based on "mutual" respect as a core principal, but that is clearly not possible when some are more "equal" then others. The whole thing with road users "hierarchy" undermines key principals of trust and respect. It is really worrying that instead of teaching people about "dangers" on the road, we going to teach them instead about their "rights" without asking them to understand basic risks. It won't help knowing "your were right", when you step in front of 2 tons of steel travelling at 30MPH... Besides I think "vulnerability" based hierarchy, rather than "competence" based hierarchy is fundamentally wrong. This means that somebody without any clue how roads works and without knowledge of the rules (cyclists and pedestrians don't need to know them) will get right of way... just because they don't know better and couldn't care to find out. So "it is a recipe for disaster" indeed.

I would say that is true in isolation, but tyres are not just about how you drive - it is margin of safety overall. For example if some idiot cuts you off, or pulls in front of you or I don't know - maybe child runs into street... You can be as sedate driver as you want, but you still have to brake and steer sharply at which point I rather not have saved that £80 on rubber. Now fair enough - I am certainly not sedate driver and I like to drive the car to the limits sometimes, so for me good tyres are more of necessity and not mere safety margin. Yet, I would say, that every time I was in dangerous situation it had nothing to do with the speed or fashion I was driving, it was sudden unpredictable situation and that £80 extra on tyres have saved me in half dozen dangerous situations where I am sure my car would have been write-off ... if not worse. You can save on many things when it comes to car ownership, but tyres are certainly not one of them!

This is my favourite "can of worms" topic! There is no way to agree on this topic as it is so subjective and every person will have their own opinion - the next best topic is which oil to use, or whenever premium or standard fuel is better (please don't ask) :D So here is my opinion, based on some ~160k miles in 3 different IS250s (and now have 4th). The tyres I have enjoyed the most were Dunlop Sportmaxx RT and RT2, great mileage as well (I believe I got like 36k miles on one set) and it would be my first choice*. I had Michelin PS4 as well, overall good tyre, but overkill for this car - good mileage ~30k miles, but less comfortable for no real benefit on handling - good second best, but can't justify their price. On one of my earlier cars I had Pirelli P-Zero - decent and comfortable tyre, but mileage and fuel economy was lacking. There are few close contenders - Uniroyal Rainsport 3 or 5, great tyres, Michelin made, but the price is now higher than Dunlop RT and they are similar, but certainly not better. If Dunlop costs £76 per tyre (225), then Uniroyal was like £90 last time I have checked. Overall - good tyres, wrong price. * RT2 is now technically obsolete. Not sure what is happening with Dunlop/Goodyear, but at the time RT2 was equivalent tyre to Eagle Asymmetric 3, which I assume is just as good as RT2. So Asymmetric 3 should be equal to RT2 and one should get whichever is cheaper at the time. However, Dunlop has not released equivalent tyre to Asymmetric 5 i.e. RT3. So all things considered I think the most up-to date tyre in Goodyear/Dunlop UHP lineage is Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 5. If you can get this tyre at similar cost as RT2, then it should be the one to choose. Tyres to avoid - Nexen products, thrown set of nearly new N8000 away, horrible ride, no grip, noisy etc. fair to point out it was some time ago and maybe they have improved other tyres over the time, but why risk it when there are known good tyres around. Bridgestone overall just overpriced and mediocre. Avon - great ride and grip, but terrible fuel economy and terrible mileage (some tyres falls apart in 7k miles). To summarise and it seems you know it yourself - premium tyres are actually better value for money, because despite costing maybe £20 more per tyre, they outlast budget tyres 2,3 or even 4 times. The top premium tyres like Michelin, Goodyear, Pirelli and Continental are very close together in terms of performance, so then it becomes just a matter of cost. I am sure there will be somebody to tell me that I am wrong, but I never said I am not!

Not sure about Sussex, but I really struggled to find any place to do it in London. And even the place which I have eventually found - I was not happy with their advise, or at least prices. I took car to local guy that I know, but I would not say fully trust, he was not any sort of specialist of sorts - ok to work on things like suspension, brakes and similar, but not something more complex. The only benefit was that I was able to watch it being done and make sure it is done properly. It is not difficult job, but the key is to get fluid up-to temp before checking the fluid level, if the fluid is underfilled or overfilled it may be even worse. In my case it costed me £160 for parts AFT (I believe 4 or 5L), gasket and filter + £80 labour. The guy said he will charge me more if I keep telling him what to do 😄. So £220 total. If you can't find any independent garages, then Lexus dealer could be persuaded to do it. At first they will say they won't do it, but if you really push for it, then there is official Lexus procedure on doing the job and they should agree. Price at Lexus will be closer ~£450.

As Paul suggested, when it comes to gearbox solenoid related codes, the first step would be ATF refresh or replacement. Automatic transmission works basically on varying pressure of fluid and using solenoids to control it, meaning that fluid viscosity is key factor - if it is wrong, then you get issues with "solenoid performance" codes. The cost of this varies, but I would say full replacement of fluid will run you ~£300-400. The next step would be stuck or faulty solenoids, which would require replacement of solenoids. I was advised against it by gearbox "specialists" near me when I had similar issues and they stated that in their experience it only solves issues "temporarily for few years or 30-50k miles" (this is direct quote). Now the advise was given on the basis of genuine solenoids from Toyota for £900+VAT, but I would like to note that 50k miles is not something I would call "temporary" and secondly, I have seen suitable set of generic solenoids on ebay for ~£140. If you ask me, then £140 for set of solenoids + what I assume would be £200 labour replacing them is certainly very good value for money if this extends gearbox life for another 50k miles. I assume adding ~£200 for ATF flush, new gasket and filter would be wise at this point, so you looking at ~£550 on top of previous fluid change. The option gearbox shop suggested was to gear rebuild gearbox from them for ~£2000 at which point I sensed they are trying to upsell me. So they were saying these gearboxes can't be fixed, yet they would exchange my presumably "non-fixable" gearbox for the other used one they have "rebuilt" - sounds fishy to me. Isn't that the case that they take my gearbox, flush it with ATF few times, maybe replace few solenoids and resell it to the other sucker for £2000? The final option is getting used gearbox, which could be ~£400-800, but here you running the risk of it being no better than the one it suppose to replace. Used gearboxes are real lottery and the idea is that if you get "low miles" one it should have at least the same amount of life as the old one. But how exactly you know how many miles the gearbox has done? Sau breakers claims it is from low mileages (40k miles for example car), but how would you check if it is 40k, 100k or 200k miles? My car was at 190k miles when gerbox codes started popping-up, the fluid replacement solved the codes for the time and I know the next owner drove it at least 10k miles on it. After that car was parked for extended period during covid and now sorn, so I am not sure if issues cropped back-up.

Another good example why this ford should be permanently and properly closed. For example Mini and Kia drivers were doing everything correctly (except of maybe misjudging how deep it actually was), not driving too fast, creating a wave in front of them etc. But you can see right away that mini was totalled just by the fashion how it all shuttered before stalling. Then there is example of BMW, you can see that when other car was crossing BMW was literally floating in the ford. If it is so deep that car floats, there is no way safe to cross. Sure helpful locals seems to be pulling cars out, but that should not be the case that such road is even open for public. And it can't be that remote if there are dozens of people filing and laughing all the time.

Yes that is fair enough, now I remember you mentioned they were ex-BMW dealer and they are very good, but I think then it is worth mentioning it is "local garage your trust" rather than "halfords", because that implies that Halfords as a brand is trustworthy, which it is not - 9 out of 10 Halfords quality if just horrible and rather than fixing cars they damage them and try then up-sell you for thing you don't need. Indeed. Worth noting that sometimes advisory for leaking shocks doesn't even mean they are leaking. On my old IS250 which had nearly 200k miles, I once got advisory for "oil misting on the shock" in one MOT. When I started investigating I realised I was working on brakes and used some WD on some stuck bolts, sprayed a little bit on shocks and MOT noted that as advisory.

Absolutely agree - if that is not something for goverment to do, then I wonder why government even exists. If it would be 1 car once in a while on some remote road on private land - so be it. But this is well known spot where thousands of cars get's damaged every year. So much so that based on some comments it was the case even 30 years ago. Something has to be done about it and if building a bridge doesn't work out, then it should be at least properly closed for time being.

You serious allowed those **** to touch your car to save ~£40? Seems irrational for me... I would not be surprised if you find they made more damage to the car than they fixed. Any experience I had with halfraus was absolutely shocking and their understanding about cars is literally criminal. Shock absorbers should always be done in pairs, replacing springs are not necessary, but if you get unit with spring already installed, then it is simply more convent to swap entire thing.

That was the claim ~20 years ago i.e. that crude oil will run out by 2100. Yet we have even less lithium which will run out much sooner. Not only that, but fuel suitable for ICEV can be made from any organic material, recycled plastics etc. So it is in itself "renewable". Lithium isn't and there is just finite amount of Lithium on earth. The amount we have is not enough to replace all cars even once, never mind to be sustainable replacement for all vehicles. So if we go Lithium BEV way there are only two options: Car becomes exclusive and rare, fundamentally restricting masses from private ownership and creating two tier society It continues to be used with other types of technologies, ICEV, HCEV etc. But currently that is not the case as ICEV will be banned soon and HCEV infrastructure is nowhere near ready