Linas.P

It may well turnout to be interesting car brand, especially the part that they make RWD cars by default, so no FWD luxury wanabe trash. When they finally release coupe it may be something I will consider, especially considering Hyundai has build a reputation by now and at very least ar not worse than german cars in terms of reliability. Sure they are nowhere near Lexus, but they at least don't fudge their car with sluggish hybrids drives of FWD.

Happened to me, luckily it was just 5 minutes of freak rain and I was back in the car within 15... and just just so happens that we were in Tesco to buy some towels, so they came handy right away 🙂 To be fair it happened not because of this function in particular, but because I didn't initiate all windows after replacing the battery. Apparently, that has side effect where car randomly decides to open all windows on it's own.

There is quite standard answer to that - get Osram Night breakers: https://www.osram.com/ecat/NIGHT BREAKER LASER-Halogen headlight lamps-Car lighting-Automotive/com/en/GPS01_3043435/ZMP_4057700/ They will be stronger bulbs, yet still fully compatible with the standard halogen housings. And yes you right - aftermarket LED lights may actually be worse.

I think we are certainly getting there 🙂 When I say that I would not insure if I would have a choice - I mean it! The insurance prices in UK are unbelievable, unreasonable, unfair and in my opinion outright criminal. So I am very very serious about it. I only insure because I am forced by the law to do it. Again you say "the companies which I choose to deal with"... No... I don't choose any of them on my own will, I am just forced to have their service which I don't even want (for such price)! This is very clear distinction from household, life or any other optional insurance - you may choose their service, but you not forced to have it. Somehow all these different insurances are significantly cheaper as well. This is because the providers knows that they have to create competitive offer, as the customers won't buy their product otherwise (that is how free market works). With car insurance the story is different - insurance is total rip-off yet everyone are forced to have one, so insurance companies can take advantage of it and charge literally whatever they like. The only choice we have - is either pay crazy price which does not make any sense or don't drive at all. This is not fair or free market - this is money which is taken from me by force and thus I see no difference between insurance company and robber. So when you say it is assumed that you enter into agreement in "good faith"... No I am forced into it, so there are no good faith on my part and I am willing to stretch it as far as I could legally get away with. Would I outright lie to insurance company to get my premium reduced... Absolutely, as long as this does not legally invalidate my cover. Strangely enough, I actually say my car is parked on the street away from home, despite it actually being garaged and I say that I do business miles, despite technically not doing any - and that is just because it reduces my cover (why that reduces the cover I don't know, it does not make sense, but so does the insurance in UK overall). There are other things you can lie and get away with. For example - your profession, how many kids you have, whenever you own property, whenever you attended SAC, or whenever you are married and few other things which Insurance companies have no legal power to check. Yes they issue contract on assumption of "good faith", but because they have no legal power to check "how faithful you were", this means legally they cannot prove either way. Good practice would be for insurance companies not to ask such questions, but they do just because many people fall for it and end-up paying more then strictly necessary. In short, I provide information which is legally required and can be checked, and I would never lie on that, because Insurance company could find out whenever I was honest or not and punish me. On all the rest of optional information I will only provide it if there is benefit to me in the form of reducing premium, no matter if that is true or false. Finally, again you say "If you accept a Benefit by agreeing to operate one then you accept the strictures that imposes" - No! Unless that is written in your contract, if it is not written in your contract then it becomes "implied" contract, which we already agree does not apply here. So again - No! You can absolutely agree to take benefit for nothing in return!

Not really sure what part of "Because implied contract cannot co-exist when there is written contract already in place" was not clear. All insurance policies have contracts and T&C, this means there cannot be any further implied contracts on top of it. The moral argument you raised is valid and it is down to you do decide. I see insurance companies as criminals trying to steal my money - as such should I don't see any reason to be honest with them. It is like robber coming to you and saying "look I am going to cut off your fingers if you not going to tell me where you keep the money", to keep your fingers you may point them in direction on where you keep your change and say "this is all I have" despite having bigger stash of saving somewhere else. Now are you suggesting this would be "immoral" to lie to robber like that? I doubt it? So this is my perspective on the thing... Now again, you said if you agreed, then "a Contract (or probably more precisely, a Clause or Codicil within the Contract) is established" - no it isn't, unless it is written into your contract. Going back to previous point "that implied contract cannot co-exist", the only way in which such agreement can be enforced would be insurance company adding addendum to existing contract or issuing new contract with clause governing "dash-cam discount". It is very clear that you still don't understand that implied contract cannot be formed when there is already a contract in place. And secondly you are trying to imply the contract onto yourself, which even the insurance company isn't implying. I appreciate your carefulness, but at least from legal perspective this seems beyond what would be necessary. "It’s important to remember that if you make a claim and you don’t have dashcam footage to support it, you may have to repay any discounts that you may have had. It could also invalidate your policy." - clearly "industry expert" does not understand how law and contracts work. Perhaps it is just acknowledgement that insurance companies are fraudsters and they may try to illegally invalidate your policy, or it assumes there is actually a clause to cover this. In short this statement is generic - in contracts "may or could" does not exist, instead "will or must" should be used. Because if insurance may be invalidated, it may as well not going to be invalidated, maybe you could provide footage, or maybe you could not provide footage... you see the issue? If contract says you must provide the footage and your cover will be invalidated otherwise, only then you must provide it, because indeed it will be invalidated otherwise. Could there be a case where insurance company attempts to reject the claim on this basis anyway without having it in contract - I would not not be surprised, after all they are what they are - ******* ****. Little bit from my personal experience - I always had dash-cam and I always had discount, I had 3 non-fault accidents and not a single time insurance company aske me for footage. Now this does not mean anything, because maybe your insurance will ask for it, but what is important is again to read the contract and understand if that is your duty under the contract to provide anything to them. In short - unless you contract specifically says, that by accepting this discount you commit to providing the footage and you insurance will be invalidated if you fail to do so for any reason, including reasons outside of your control.

As well, just to note - most Lexus cars since... like early 2004 have "smart ECU" (like GS mk3) which means the ECU would automatically detect fuel time and adjust timing and fuel maps accordingly. So the question of "adjusting car for RON95 UK" becomes irrelevant on cars with such ECU... Yet it actually complicates tuning... so if ECU is already programmed to self-adjust, then it means it is inherently not capable of running predefined maps... and that would be exactly what is required to if we assume there are more economy/performance to be unlocked by tuning. Besides most of Lexus ECUs are locked and cannot be tuned. As result this means anyone who want's to tune Lexus car would require aftermarket ECU, which would be additional cost (£500-3000). Now if one has high power TD or TP car, investing in aftermarket ECU and tuning totally makes sense, but on NA car £1000+ would only get you marginal improvement at best.. if any at all.

You do realise that every single so called "insurance company" is a broker? Sure there are some brokers called same as insurance companies e.g. Admiral Group has and Admiral broker + Bell, Diamond, Elephant brands who are brokers. Esure has it's own broker and Sheilas' Wheels. Point is - you never get insurance directly form insurance company, you get it through the broker which only charges commission on policies they sell, but when it comes to claims you go directly to insurance company to claim. Now you may say... "what is the difference" those are the people who sells insurance and has same name as underlying insurance company, so they are insurers... Whereas brokers are the ones who compare different insurance companies and almost does like tailored cover. Well... this becomes important in understanding how insurance companies are screwing us over and hiding their profits in offshore tax havens.

Just found a fitting video to show what I think about RC200t and why exactly is is such a bad engine (to be fair I kind of knew it, but In UK we simply just don't have another choice!):

Where I could I find such cover in UK?

It would be interesting to know what the "quality cover" means. Direct line is certainly one of the cheapest, but not exactly known for good user experience. I mean sure if you never need to claim, then experience is always, good...

I have long stopped caring about claiming from my own insurance or even speaking with them - I give vultures to the vultures, and fraudsters to the fraudsters... that is - I just use claims management companies, they will instantly give you comparable courtesy car (later they will claim £400 a day from TP insurance ), their hand picked assessors will give you best possible pre-accident valuation and if the case is fairly clear-cut non-fault they very quickly pay you full claim without asking questions (called pre-approved claims). If you are at fault, then again there is no difference - you will be **** either way, do not matter what insurance you have. So in the end of the day, insurance for me is merely compliance measure, like road tax or valid MOT... If it would be up to me I would not have one at all.

Yes, probably should be registered and "multicolour".

I would recommend comparing them all on the price and getting cheapest. No matter which one you choose... in case of accident they will try to rip you-off... and many years after that even if it wasn't your fault.

sorry... I probably should have said "problem with Greek attitude was the same". The actual problem was indeed very different. What is the same is that both Greek and British politicians thought they could take advantage of EU - divide and rule, play on the basis of internal populism and win the argument. The reality is that EU is super-state and such attempts will never work. Some things are true in his book, but perspective and context is wrong. EU is machine created to extract value, increase leverage etc. that it does well. EU is rule maker, not rule taker. The question is on which side of that machine you are... and Greeks and Brits found themselves on the wrong side and they thought they could make or negotiate their own rules... No I am sorry - that is not how it works. In terms of NET contribution, this fluctuates from year to year and depending on how UK economy is doing, so it may go up or down the ladder. Indeed in 2017 specifically UK was 2nd largest contributor, not the case for every year. So let's not take an exception and say "it is fact that UK is second largest contributor" and even if that is the case, in context of decision making UK still has far bigger advantage than it's contribution would entitle it otherwise. The rate of contribution is not static either, but UK was consistently contributing LEAST as percentage of GDP compared to any other country: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/nov/22/eu-budget-spending-contributions-european-union These I think are 2010 figures, but UK was consistently last or second to last. Yes British Empire was informal, but that doesn't mean it wasn't de-facto empire, nor that it didn't commit terrible crimes against humanity, which was direct result of British rule. I would be careful using world "gifted" in context of extermination, slavery and borderline genocide. I appreciate that exploration resulted in some... let's say "collateral damage" which was inevitable, but that does not make the real crimes, less of the crimes.

Yanis Varoufakis... you say? The populist who is partial in this case because his populism led Greece into even deeper crisis and he was defamed and thrown out from the government (well he technically resigned). Thus having personal vendetta with EU, because EU held Greece accountable and that led into his political downfall... What next - should I read book from Boris Johnson or Nigel Fartage called "Evil EU"?... C'mon - just a drop of common sense would be great in choosing sources. How about using some independent opinion? Don't you see clear partiality on Mr. Yanis side? Like: https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-greece-debt-crisis-3305525 (american news group) Now the part of saving German banks is true... but what is your issue? So Greece borrowed money from Banks via sale of bonds and direct government loans, most of them were German, then Greece failed to pay back, German banks were at risk to become insolvent and German Central Bank would have to bail them out. Why would Germans waste their tax payer money bailing their own banks instead of just doing right thing and telling the bad guy (Greece) to fix their 💩, pay up the loans and interest on the bonds which they have issued? Does it mean Greek tax payer had to pay-up.... yes absolutely. And what is wrong with that? Why it is fine for German tax payers to pay for Greek loans, but it is not ok for Greek tax payers to pay for their own loans? Sure it wasn't the actual hard working Greeks who were at fault, it was their corrupt politicians like Yanis who were at fault. It seems that Greek problems were quite similar to British ones... they just wanted "to have their cake and eat it", but got slapped to their rightful place by EU and ended-up picking up their trash and getting back into the line like everyone else. By the way I have met Yanis in person and he is smart and charming guy, but honest is not the way I would describe him. On positive side I have Adults in the Room singed by him personally to me, never bothered to read it past first few pages, because again it is clear he is biased and could not form impartial and comprehensive position on this topic.

Alternative truths ... I call that wrong truths 🙂 But your right, what is the point of trying to show blind person how the rainbow looks? As well just to note - I am not massive fan of EU, nor I think it is "good", not even "fair", I just realise it fulfilling the purpose it was created to fulfil and that was never to be good or fair - it was just about improving collective bargaining power of European Nations, giving smaller nations leverage in negotiations against larger ones as long as they share similar values... that is all. As well it creates very beneficial frameworks and standards making it easier for any European to achieve the most what Europe has to offer, without stupid arbitrary borders and limitations. Going back at least a little bit to the topic... I think it is strange that driving license last so long in UK and that medical fitness test is voluntary (or self reported) rather than mandatory. This leaves loads a lot of drivers who are no longer suitable to drive on the roads. Seems to me that ~5-10years validity should be reasonable. On the other hand considering how much government is ripping of the drivers such formalities should not cost any extra as long as they are done online e.g. if you do renewal by posting picture of yours, then there may be surcharge - both to discourage the waste generated by postage, paper and printing... and secondly because there is some costs associated with handling. But Online renewals should be free of charge and government should cover the cost from already high "road taxes" - I just put that in quotes, because apparently there is opinion suggesting there is no road tax in UK, despite VED clearly being de-facto road tax.

That was probably my case... I just paid £565 for full service and asked setting to be changed so that keyless unlock would unlock all 3 doors instead of just drivers door on my IS250. Apparently, it was possible to do that using combination on key and memory settings, but it didn't work for me so I asked dealer for it. At first they tried to scare me saying it may be £100 charge and later created the excuse that my car is too old and does not have this option... despite this being standard feature for all mk2 IS from 2005 and mine was 2008. I think they just looked at the car and decided there are no business case with me and they don't want me as a customer 🙂

Not sure what else you trying to find in these number - 96% are still 96% and 4% still means 4%... and all together this means that UK has almost always got what it wanted. You can't just always win!.. if 4% means 72 times... then it means (if we extrapolate based on percentage), UK was in support of ~1800 decisions and legislation was passed in favour of UK. Besides, although UK was 4th largest contributor to EU budget (14%), it's contribution per GDP was the lowest of any country in EU (0.64%) - in short UK never paid it "fair share" into EU. Besides, by contributing 14% of the budget (vs. rest of EU states who obviously contributed remaining 86%) and getting 96% of favourable decisions it seems clear to me that UK was very successful in this game. I mean if you feel that 14% of contribution in return of 96% of favourable decision is not "hugely influential and successful in legislative terms", then I don't know what it is. I am sure that average brexshi ter still lives in British Empire and feels that the odds should be 0% contribution in return to 100% decision power (like British Empire did in all the countries it has aggressively occupied and exploited). However, the reality is that we don't live in 19th century and in year 2021 there are no such thing as British Empire - time to wake up! What did EU (and UK was part of it) did to Greece? Greece was the one which didn't pay the rules, it took structural funds for infrastructure improvements and spent it on wealthfare support, then refused to return, threatened bankruptcy and then asked for more loans. If there is any blame which could be attributed to EU then it would be insufficient screening on existing (Greece since 1981) and new eastern entrants to the EU, and supplying loans to the members which had fundamental issues with corruption and unsustainable fiscal policy.

Dave, you just jumped head down into massive can of worms... welcome! I never said increased safety is fact and only used this as example to show how UK government decides on all directives before they are implemented in UK. In my personal opinion and based on my experience having headlights ON makes it easier to drive and that at least in theory should make it safer, but that was never the main point. So this is clearly an opinion - we can agree or disagree and I respect if other people have different views or opinions. Likewise I think that photo card license is good thing, especially when this gives you access to drive in EU without need of international license. But again that is not the question on whenever it is good or bad, it was question whenever this is because of EU or UK own government to mandate it. What is a fact, which is not subject to opinion or interpretation is that implementation of directives are down to individual EU states legislature. Meaning that mandating photo card driving license and not-mandating headlights or national identity card is down to UK government, not down to EU. The specific statement which is in conflict with this fact is that people were forced to update their licenses "because of EU", whereas in reality this was decision of UK government and not EU. This is proven by precedence of UK government: Implementing Directive 91/439/EEC and mandating it in UK for driving license Not-implementing Directive 2008/89/EC and not mandating it in UK

You were cheated, just not by EU 🙂 Sorry, for making big deal out of it... I am just getting tired of everyone blaming EU for everything, plus sometimes it is hard to tell if it is joke or is it meant seriously.

No it is rather archetypical brexsh iter lie. No it wasn't and not even close. It is very convenient to be ignorant or at least pretend to be ignorant when the truth is uncomfortable or cannot be proven. As well is convenient to drop generic and open ended statements without providing any evidence - this is typical brexsh it mentality ("we had enough of experts and facts"). I am happy to change my mind if you happen to ever come across (non-existent) proof to your statement. Obviously, in mean time I will live very happily and sleep very well knowing you just can't prove it beyond some brain dead brexsh it teories and lies. What I said is very easy to prove and there are plenty of precedent e.g. EU has legislated national identity cards - UK has decided not to incorporate it into the law. EU has legislated common standards of photo card driving licence and UK has incorporated that into the law. This clearly shows UK government has power to decide what they want to legislate and what they don't want to legislate. Likewise, it is clear that EU has no power to force the rules onto UK, didn't have any whilst UK was in EU, before UK was in EU or now when UK is out of EU. If there are any rules which we like it is because of local government and if there are any issues in the country, likewise they are because local government failed us. If you still fail to understand it, then I am afraid there is issue with your rational and logical thinking my friend...

Yes, I understand that - as I said individual owners may be more concerned. However, when it comes to common cars that is usually decided by fleet buyers. For example in London Adison Lee used to run Ford Galaxy diesel, later Prius and nowadays I don't know what they run. Key is - 95% of the market would be maybe dozen large companies and remaining 5% would be individual taxi drivers now driving for Uber or as part of small local taxi companies.

That is quite ironic statement. If you don't like some facts it doesn't make them just an opinion you can disagree with. Fact is that EU did not force and could not force and country to legalise any legislation. As such making photo cars licenses legal requirement is only matter of UK government not EU. There is plenty of precedence where UK government has not implemented EU legislation, some examples I have already mentioned, but maybe even more relevant are "national identity cards"... All EU has it, but UK decided not to introduce them. Again this just proves it is down to the local government to decided and not EU. Now granted - Steve maybe have said that jokingly and in light-hearted way, but in current context ... where businesses are closing, youth have lost their lifetime opportunities to study and work, and UK is going into direction of inevitable middle to long term recession.... it is not very funny. Further this is cliché statement of government spokesperson trying to shift blame somewhere else... "ohh it all was just because of the EU". Sure I could understand jokes sometimes, but sad truth that many people in UK are used with this line that many actually believes it and it becomes rather tragic instead of being funny. It is always important to be clear about the history behind it, because that dictates the context. And context is everything...

I like your "non-combative attitude", but I don't think we are in agreement here 🙂 What I said was just advice how to reap most "advantage" you could from insurance companies during negotiation and how to structure it so that one could backtrack at any time in case it takes a wrong turn. Yes I am aware of implied contract, but it has no relevance here. Why? Because implied contract cannot co-exist when there is written contract already in place. So in that sense - if there would be no other contract in place, such contract could be implied. However, because there is already actually contract it automatically supersedes any implied contracts, it is very simple - if it is not written into your contract, then such rule does not exist - end of story. Finally, enforcing implied contract would be problematic, because any such enforcement could not automatically invalidate your insurance, this would need to be first decided by court that implied contract was reasonable and agreed by both parties. For example - one could argue that you said you have dash-cam fitted... which is true, but that does not automatically means you are always recording, or that you will keep records for specific time.

Great display of ignorance and fundamental miss understanding about how EU works. But I am not surprised, if people would understand that we would not have brex****. EU as well have legislation that every car has to drive with headlights on 24/7, which is amazing idea and for this reason it is so much easier and safer to drive in Continental Europe compared to UK - you can clearly see all the cars from far away, because headlight makes cars many times more visible, especially dark grey ones in the gloomy November afternoon. But UK does not have this... why? Euro is as well European legislation, but we still use Pound... why? That is because any European legislation has to be put into law by LOCAL GOVERNMENT. It has always been and still is only the UK government discretion which legislation they put into law and which they don't, as any other government in EU. Being part of EU or not part of EU makes absolutely no difference - we have photo card licenses not because of EU, but because our government thought it was good idea (which it is) and put into the law. Not only that - UK had representation in EU and voted in favour on over 96% of all legislation, so if our MEPs voted in favour of it then how it is EU fault. Perhaps we should have elected retard like Fartage as a MEP then? I have no issue with that, but I have an issue with the statement that this was somehow EU fault that we have to have one.