Linas.P

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.

Sadly it is too late, I test drove it around Jan 2020 🙂 It doesn't really matter, many taxi companies have large fleet on lease, once car reaches say 60k, they simply replace the car with another lease. In short car will get replaced long before reliability becomes relevant. Perhaps this more important for individual taxi drivers who own their own cars, but those does not dictate what market does, nor what common cars are in the fleets.

That is what I thought myself, but I was looking to buy RC for nearly 3 years and it is not the car which is easy to miss or mistake with something else. Perhaps just coincidence and I haven seen another one since (although I barely did like 3000 miles in a year).

Lexus SUVs are selling fairly well to be honest. But try to find something like RC or ES on the road. It was kind of funny, because when I got RC I happen to come across another 2 RCs in my area on the same day and one more next day driving to work... despite not seeing one ever before outside of dealership. Yet to see ES... LC is obviously quite rare as well, but surprisingly have have seen maybe 5-6 driving on the road including one during my LC test drive (what are odds of that)?!

Photo card license never had anything to do with EU, hence leaving EU never had any bearing on this. This is typical BS in UK where every time they ask you to do something unpleasant it is "because of EU rules".... I wonder what is their new scape-goat going to be? However in other hand as John mentioned above - in most countries you would be expected to renew every 5-10 years... so I was surprised when I noticed expiry date on my UK license was 2058...

Dealer customisation is free with first run-in service/check. After they should charge in theory, but it may differ from country to country. Perhaps if it is not the first car you buying from them then they will do it for free to keep you as a customer.

They may want to charge you (like a nominal £100) or they may pretend not to understand what you talking about, so just be prepared to haggle a little bit.

For IS250 I used to pay £680 as well, £1400 was RC200t. Probably not living in London helps, then age... and I had 3 non-fault accidents + windscreen replacement (one of which I didn't even claim at all and none of which I claimed from my insurance directly, except of windscreen) which I feel is unfair to count against me, but insurance companies can do what they want and what can I do about it? Either I am missing the point or it seems you actually disagree with me? What I said is opposite - outcome of your claims does not depend on you providing video evidence, even if you got discount for having dash-cam, unless it is in the contract. This is fairly simple contract law matter without any ambiguity, if discount would depend on you providing the evidence then sales person would be obliged to let you know it and in T&C it would have to say precisely that - something along the lines "The discount is provided on condition that in event of accident you will provide video from dash-cam, failure to do so may invalidate your insurance/affect your claim". For comparison when you have black box insurance that is exactly what it says - the black box has to be present in the car for insurance to be valid. Now... because insurance companies can literally put anything they want in the contract I would not be surprised if some companies would have such clauses, but what I am certain about is that I had this discount from 4 different companies and neither of them had this clause (Esure, Bell, Admiral and Elephant - this technically makes only two because last 3 are all part of the same company). So instead of speculating, I would advise to find your insurance T&Cs and check whenever it does or doesn't require the video.

That is amazing, I am pretty sure callipers comes under wear and tear items and generally would not be covered. Certainly, nobody else does that on the market. I seen so many times that even where owner claims that for example shock absorbers should be replaced in pairs as recommended by workshop manual and even service centre agrees warranty... company would still reject it and only replace the broken one. Lexus Warranty is kind of interesting one, because Warranty is based on dealership estimation, but dealership in this case is interested to support your case and find some more thing to fix while doing so, because that is profitable for them. Yes, adjusted for inflation it is almost exactly 10%. More importantly that would be ~25% of the price car is actually worth. I am still not sure whenever it would have been easier to replace entire seat. And as for having cover or not... it kind of depends. If car is fairly new then (and being as rare as Lexus) then I would say yes indeed - Lexus warranty is great value. When car is over ~5 years old not so much. For example such used seat from US would be £800, so not as astronomical as £4200 it costed to fix it. I would still want to have warranty as long as possible on "F" cars - they are even rarer and if something goes wrong it may be very expensive.

Not sure what you are surprised about - Insurers are ****. It is not like one day I would say "I hate them" and next day I have suddenly forgotten about it. I think you digging far too deep, there are no hidden marxist agenda - the simple matter is that insurance in UK sucks. It is by far the worst value proposition product I use and that I ever had in my life. I will be very clear about this - if I had an option not to insure in UK I would 100% chose not to insure at all, the value of it is just so terrible that I would rather risk not having it. There are reasonable and logical ways of how to measure value and fairness of the service and even beyond my personal opinion it is still terrible. Secondly, this is based on my simple belief that anything that is mandated by law must be provided on the fair terms, indiscriminately and ideally by non-profit (to be fair that is the only way in which it could be done). So if by law I must have insurance, I expect the government to provide it at fair cost. Yes that sounds kind of socialist I agree... but I guess in this case unrestricted and bloodthirsty capitalism (greatly represented by insurance in UK) is not great either. Even in capitalist own terms when it comes to "free market" the way insurance is procured breaches all possible safeguards and red lines. Nowhere near as bad as communism (ask 200 million dead), but still fairly terrible. Finally, instead of attacking strawman I would suggest to read the actual points I made about the topic. Have I said something incorrectly?

That is fair point and I found myself that parking mode didn't help when somebody set nail under my tyre, it would not help either if somebody deliberately "keys" the car. So from that perspective your are correct. However, assuming that one parks car correctly (and that is always reversing in) then at least in theory the only exposed part of your car is the front, and that 25% covers most of outcomes when somebody either reverses into the car or scrapes past it. I personally try to park somewhat strategically, so that behind the car is the wall and on one side is the pillar or something similar i.e. leaving as little as possible space which isn't covered by dashcam. As well if in any doubt I take pictures of the cars from either side - sure it not cover all eventualities, but reduces the risk somewhat. Further, most of current systems could be configured with 2 cameras, so it will cover both front and back, regardless how your park. The future is that all cars will have 360 cameras with automatic recording in case of accident, ANPR and even cloud storage (like new S-Class). In either case what I am saying - chances of having accident where you are not at fault, but could not prove it without dashcam are very slim. I had 3 non-fault accidents and I did have dash cam in all of them. I would have proven innocent in either case, the only difference is that with dash-cam it was far easier and quicker to prove and I had added bonus of using claims management companies (they rarely take cases unless they are clear cut and dash cam makes them very much clear cut). So dash-cam is certainly a time saver and convenience. However, the biggest issue is damage to the car when it is unattended, because as you may know there is usually no way to know who bumped into it unless you have it on the dash cam, as many times as I had some damage and I asked for CCTV I was always refused any evidence (supermarket security could not care less about the scrape on your car).

Without having any meaningful proof, this may as well be placebo. For example, meaningful proof would be before and after dyno chart showing power increase (that could be fudged as well, but that is at least something). First of all the claim here is specifically about increasing the power, and that is very unlikely (closer to impossible). Fuel consumption claim may be possible, but then engine most likely going to loose power not gain it. Secondly, MB S500 from 2000 is not exactly comparable to Lexus RC hybrid. What could be the case is that MB used similar engines in say S500 and SL500 and S500 had detuned version of the same engine (engine was handicapped), in such case yes there could be exception where NA engine could gain some power due to better optimisation (this is more likely to happen on German cars where they "tier" same engine in different models), but generally that is not the case.

Just to clarify few points here. 1. Some insurance companies (certainly not all), will provide discount which will be a joke... ~£20 is actually accurate, the only difference is that £20 on my £1400 insurance is not 5.4%. Further, I have never seen any insurance company promising it, so I suspect it is simply based on sales person discretion. Basically they just knock down £10-30 based on their mood if you raise this point when negotiating the price. 2. You having said you have dash-cam does not make you liable to provide the footage. This is somebodies assumption or invention . What you have to do is laid out in your insurance contract, providing dash-cam footage even if one is fitted and even if you got discount for it is not in contract (unless it is, so check you contracts first) and therefore you have no legal obligation to provide it, nor insurance can deny claim if you didn't provide footage. Again based on the first point, it not rule unless it is in contract and rather based on discretion... and that discretion is not based on promise you will provide footage, but rather on statistical probability that somebody with dash-cam will be following the rules themselves and that in non-fault accident it will be easier to prove non-fault. If you afraid of leaving dash-cam in car then probably don't get it in the first place. Because, parking mode is actually almost the most useful part - it is far more likely that your car will get bumped in the car park on hit and run, than it is for you to disagree whose fault it was in the accident whilst driving. So if you not planning to keep it in the car, then what is the point? Other advise - theft from the cars being on the rise and dash-cams being a target, it may turn out that soon insurance companies will start charging you extra for having one, rather than discounting. Don't forget that dash-cam would be covered under insurance cover and if having one increases risk of your car being broken into, then insurance may actually increase. So if you want that silly £20 off(I say "silly" because it is drop in the ocean compared to ridiculous insurance prices), instead of saying - "I have dash cam", say "would there be any discount if I fit one". This leave the room for your to backtrack if they say no, or if they say that your price would actually increase. Finally, only ask this after they already say that is the best price they can offer, if you say that before it then they may say "yes it is already the best price including dash-cam discount" and you will never know if you got discount. Don't forget - insurance companies are not your friends, they are aggressive for-profit organisations which exists to rip you off and they have strong lobby and backing of government in doing so.

As well more air + more fuel = more power. Where exactly they getting more air on naturally aspirated engine without any other modifications? These companies are "snake oil" sellers. The business of selling power enhancing 12v dongles have stalled, so now they pretend to do chip tuning. Turbo-diesels can be chip-tuned, some turbo-petrol cars could be chip-tuned, but naturally aspirated cars can't be. @hondansxr As well look to my RC200t thread - RC gearbox can be tuned, because Lexus deliberately added delay in ECU because of stupid amurican "unintended acceleration issue", but this is exception - it removes handicap from gearbox, but does not actually enhance performance. Further being turbo-petrol it could be tuned in theory, but after some research I figured out chip-tuning is pointless on factory turbo. Turbo maximum pressure is 1.2Bar/17PSI and that is what turbo already does from the factory, meaning there are no headroom for chip-tuning (no more capacity to get extra air). So even on RC200t one would at very least would need to replace turbo for something bigger and ideally variable geometry before doing any tuning. RC300h on the other hand - cannot be tuned at all... simply because there is nothing to be tuned. As well it is car designed for emissions compliance and fuel economy, so it is inherently not a car for performance and as such Lexus closed all ways to enhance it. Paul - please keep it in one thread.