Linas.P

I would not be so hopeful - just look at what happened with "diesel gate", decades of wrong policy, they recognised it was wrong policy and nobody is accountable. The only people who were punished is the diesel owners who bought diesels because government said so and incentivised them to do so and now they are totally shafted as they can't enter the cities, I have even seen parkings that charge differently based on what fuel you running on and official emissions band e.g. you pay £1.80/h for lower band (say up-to 75g/co2) and £3.20/h for "band H" (like IS250 with under 225g/Co2), or £5.60h for diesel! So I am really pessimistic about them doing right thing - sure they will change the policy, but I doubt it will be for the better. I know there is pushback for EVs, because they reached their market cap (which I have predicted years ago) and I am sure there will be further pushback on the dates and bans of ICE, but I am sure the environments, taxations and restrictions only going to increase in meantime.

Or simple RC300, but proper 3L V6 and not the stupid 2.0t like in US RC200t which is only called RC300. Polar bears or stupid policy - basically rigged emissions tests, because here is the fact - if car burns more fuel it is more polluting... I know it is oversimplifying, but assuming the car engine works as it suppose to, all the emissions equipment (like catalytic converters) are in place the car that burns 10L/100km will pollute more than one that burns 8L/100km. So no matter what fake emission tests says - 18 years old GS300 has LESS tailpipe emissions than few years old RC200t. Yes RC may be more "efficiently inefficient" i.e. maybe by burning 20% more fuel it causes only 15% more emissions, it still pollutes more than older car. The whole downsizing and turbocharging backfired horribly... it works well to fool the foolish tests, but on the road they pollute more. As you said, honestly even RC250 would be better car, even if horribly underpowered it would still be much smoother and fuel efficient and would sound at least decent.

The ones you talking about for £10k+ more are ones in good condition, I am talking about starting price i.e. as low as you can get one for. Besides I don't like heavily modified ones anyway with "fortunate spent on them", because usually that fortune is spent in poor taste in my opinion. So I rather take little bit tired stock car and do it for my self. Yep - the same, I nearly bought one, but insurance was £36,000 so that was non-starter. Yeah don't know why - they seems to like to rust more. As well they feel rather dated compared to IS250. Had started my never ending non-runner IS250 last week and even in 5 minutes I was driving it from one parking spot to the other it felt like much more modern car, the reverse camera quality (which is trash) looked so crisp compared to GS... perspective does wonders! GS mk3 really has more in common with mk3 LS, kind of "old ways of building cars" and mk2 IS is for better or worse is the direction Lexus took after 2006, just altogether more modern car. Again it has cons - the build quality is not the same, but it has pros - handling is much better, rust protection just seems to be better etc. I really didn't think GS mk3 was pretty car, but to be fair it has grown on me since I got one, you can certainly live with one... ohh and don't let me start about the engine and what travesty is Lexus 8FARTS (like the one in RC200t)... why oh why they thought that is good idea. My 18 years old GS300 is a faster car as ridiculous as it sounds (7.2s vs 7.5s), it is more responsive because engine is NA, it sounds better, it is heavier, it has old 6-speed slushomatic yet is it much more responsive, lineal and predictable (does not hunt for gears even if a bit lazy in normal mode, but PWR totally solves that) and consider this - IT IS MORE ECONOMICAL! What?! my average now for over 6000 miles is 26MPG, get's easy 38MPG on motorway on E10, 33MPG on E85... whereas in RC200t I would struggle to get to 32MPG on E5 (back then pure petrol) and my average was barely 20MPG often seeing as low as 17-18MPG... worst tank so far on GS300 was 22MPG and that was basically during MOT and servicing period as it did a lot of idling and revving for emissions etc. Again just can't understand how Lexus regressed in 18 years from cars like GS300 and sweet, economical, powerful, good sounding V6 into failure like RC200t?!

Yes - I got that, but in UK it is usually £10-20 per tyre regardless of the size. Sorry - I misread your statement, for some reason I thought you paid 130 and 170 respectively, as if you had staggered set-up. 111euro is firmly in mid-range for 18", I have recently paid £363 for set of Yokohama tyres (+fitting), but it is staggered set of 225s and 245s, 225s were ~£78 per tyre, but 245s were more like £102. As well I would trust Yokohama more than Nexen in general, but again that is based really on having very poor experience with Nexen like 10 years ago, so not exactly rational.

2C is just basic condition on which the policy and restrictions are based. It is like having fines over any speed above 0 miles per hour - simply cannot be complied with and as long as you not standing still. You said - "nobody says humans should stop living", what I am saying - to achieve 2C goal we have to stop living and even that is not enough. We can still agree that trying to slow down the climate change is desirable, but this 2C goal has to be removed altogether as it is no compatible with continued human life on earth - that is all. The next point - I understand you are just messenger, so I am not attacking you, but lets look at what is being stated... you just take it at face value without analysing and questioning data at all. Let's start with this statement- "Past climate changes led to extinction of many species, population migrations, and pronounced changes in the land surface and ocean circulation." So everyone agrees that natural climate processes are causing all this and have caused all this many times in the past, as such none of that could be classed as "catastrophe", it is just natural occurrence related to climate change. That rate of climate change is as claimed - "This speed of warming is more than ten times that at the end of an ice age, the fastest known natural sustained change on a global scale" is simply false! Look at the speed of warming between ~150,000 -120,000 years, or ~350,000-340,000, we can even look in recent years and it is OBVIOUS, that the statement is plainly false - the temperature raise between ~20,000-10,000 years ago (i.e. since last ice age, which is incorrect terminology as we are still technically in the ice age) was significantly faster and just ~10,000 plateaued. When looking at it from correct perspective it again is obvious that change since industrial evolution and since 1970s is so tiny that it doesn't even appear on the graph. Again - I am not picking on you, but the claims made in the links and quotes you have provided is provably wrong. The problem with Co2 data from UK is that we import a lot of Co2 i.e. we net importers, cars, electronics etc. majority is made abroad and we do not count that as our Co2, so this gives wrong impression on how clean we are and what causes the most pollution in UK. I classify catastrophes the same - I can see you provided list of catastrophes, which is very good, but link between catastrophes and climate change is speculation at best. Look at the graph above again - we are now at the point where we were at ~135,000; ~250,000; ~340,000; ~425,000 years ago... So to say that natural disasters and catastrophes are MORE FREQUENT now we need to prove the number is higher than it was 100s of thousands of years ago. There is no such proof, we don't even have proof that they are more common now than they were 1000, 2000, 5000, 20000 years ago. That they are becoming more common in last 50 years, is first of all irrelevant, because it is too short period to correlated with climate change which again takes 10s to 100s of thousands of years, not 50 years and secondly here is no proven correlation this is climate related at all. It could be simply statistical or data error. For example maybe there was drought in Ethiopia 400 years ago, but because humans didn't live in that area of the country back then... nobody died. Now they live in the environment susceptible for draughts and complain that climate change is causing deaths?! No - their choice of habitat is what is causing deaths, not climate. So all the "catastrophes" are at best cherry picked data and hypothesis that correlation between frequency of these events and temperature raise is related. It could be related, I would argue it is likely related, but this is not proven and other thing is not proven is that these "extreme weather events" are not just natural for the temperatures we living in. And we won't be able to prove it unless we can travel in time 100,000 of years and document frequency of extreme weather events for 100s of thousands of years. Do you even realise how flawed are these statements from scientific perspective? They basically saying - we only started recording the "extreme weather event" for last few 100 years, and properly for last few decades and based on this extremely inadequate and extremely too short data set we making conclusions. This is just bad science - if you tried to submit such claim in basic university research project it will be marked as 0, because it is nothing more than hypothesis.

In my experience it worked well, expect of very light rain/mist, where I had to use singe wipe option from time to time as the sensor was simply not triggering quickly enough on mist. I had coating on widescreen, so realistically only light mist was the problem anyway as heavier rain would clear itself at sort of 30MPH+. As well make sure you turn the sensitivity right way, from memory it was not intuitive +/- was upside down from what you would expect them.

First of all - I appreciate you answering these three parts, but as clearly stated we already agree on most of the facts in two out of three of them - I agree that climate change is happening and that human activity is accelerating it. To what degree? I said 90%... so even I am saying humans contribute greatly. So the only point of contention - does it or does it not cause "catastrophes". I have looked to both of your links and have found no evidence of so called "catastrophe". I can only speculate, but I need your confirmation here - do you use "catastrophe" as synonym for "temperature rise", "sea level rise"? If so - then no, they are not "catastrophes", if no - then I still can't see any consensus or any evidence of any climate change caused "catastrophes". Although I found this image which encapsulates the issue quite well: If one needs any evidence that information in this discussion is inadequate, then this just shows how utterly horrible unbelievably inadequate it is! They taking COMMON BASELINE for temperature for years 1951-1980! This is so ridiculous that I can hardly believe it - for the climate processes that takes literally tens to hundreds of thousands of year they use the 39 year period as baseline! What you expect then? Now on top of that - the video which started this discussion specifically points in temporary Methane event which may be temporarily contributing to climate change, so in such a short timescales it may as well be relevant for "temperature anomaly" as shown in the picture above. The 2C target is important, because the climate policy we are subjected to are based on premise of achieving this target i.e. your "ship of doing nothing sailing away", that is based on this 2C target. So the reason I am taxed to drive my car £300 a year is directly linked to this target, the 2030 (or 2035) ICE ban is directly linked to this, the 55% of tax I pay on flights is directly linked to that, the ULEZ and many many things that impact me directly are ALL linked to this target. So - yes it is important indeed. I never said we make no difference, this is just incompatible statement to what I have said - I said we contribute 90%, so obviously we make a difference. The mathematical point is strictly relevant to 2C target and as you hopefully now can appreciate why it is important it makes more sense? I really don't care about temperature rising, because temperature is not rising because of us, we only make it rise faster, same for sea levels - ice will eventually melt with our without our activity, and the new ice age eventually will start with or without our activity. If you looking for science to support that - I suggest looking to my very first post (and maybe few following posts), it is all there with the temperature and co2 levels for last 300,000 years, which conclusively proves that this fluctuation we are experiencing and currently accelerating is just periodical process. So basically it is two different and completely independent processes and they are both true - humans are increasing Co2 levels in atmosphere, as result temperature raises faster and ice melts faster, that is true. What is also true is that at this stage of glaciation the temperatures are also raising naturally, co2 level increases naturally and ice melts naturally. The end result is the same, we just going to get there faster with human activity.

That is good argument and probably the one you should have led with... although to be fair I could have done more research myself and I am still taking it at face value, if it is really under 10% of education (I had an impression it is more, but simple google search probably would have revealed such basic and crucial information) then I think it would be fair to say this is more of just a "virtue signalling" than it is a real sustainable policy. Yet that somewhat pivots back closer to original topic - private cars are only 2.4% of pollution yet most of the climate policy focuses on them!

I hope you not suggesting that I am pedalling this stereotype? As well I think you identified one more issue which is important - that academia in general, not only schools but at all levels... are left leaning and in right leaning government there is fundamental misalignment of values, friction and that further complicates improving education. By the way it is not necessary fault of right leaning government either, but left and right wing politics are damaging to education which fundamentally has to be apolitical and seeking the truth no matter the party. So it is the problem that academia is left leaning as much as it is a problem that goverment is right leaning. I would point out that education was still failure even under Labour, values may have been more aligned, but overall polarisation of the educations does not help. I am not even going to start to mention the issues with certain topics our friends from the lefts tries to teach kids nowadays, as this would surely get this thread locked. You see - it is alright to teach 7 years old that, but it would get one banned on adults forum - go figure. You as well pointed out another problem - no allowing idiots fail and trying to make everyone a winner, so instead of getting good education kids get participation trophies. This is just unhealthy and further damages the education. Sure there is a little bit nuance in that - if the education fails to interest the kids and motivate their strengths there is risk of turning "different" kids into idiots. Left has it's hand in this pie as well where certain character traits are turned into failed grades despite the child being rather smart. Above I think I have already covered few of your point - in short I agree that just education alone can't fix wider societal problems. There is loads to unpack, but I still believe private education does not help anything and exists as simple workaround instead of fixing the problem. Sometimes eliminating unfairness, even just giving impression of more level playing field can a positive effect. Even if we say is just an excuse, it is undeniable that it could be highly demotivating for kids to go to public school if they know that in private school they would be treated better. They may still fail even in private school, but why have this excuse if we can remove it. I guess it is similar to immigration and job market (sorry for dropping another bomb on this thread) - most the people that complain about "migrants thanking their jobs" would not work those jobs themselves, but because there is perceived unfairness and lack of transparency in the system they feel left out. So even perceived issues could be quite serious... it may be wrong to say that "rich kids have grades for free", but it still has negative effect on the education, it may be wrong to say that "immigrants takes jobs away (...and yet somehow as well are lazy, do not work and just live on benefits somehow)", but it still creates distrust in societal problems.

Yes Audi and MB are horrible, Land Rover is firmly sticking to the bottom, but BMW/Mini are rather decent despite what people say about them. Sure - they are not Lexus, and I am really glad Lexus getting recognition it deserves, but still not falling apart when looking as some may suggest.

Nope, Lexus does not have any gearbox service schedule, remember - it is "sealed for life" 😄 Lexus Hainaut/Woodford quoted me £340 for AFT on GS300, so IS250 must be similar, maybe slightly cheaper (less fluid required). But this is drain and refill only, no filter, nor gasket. The part alone ATF, filter, gasket is ~£200, but I would say it is easily 2h labour, so at Lexus prices of £180-195/hour I can see it being ~£600, but that should be "full service" with filter and gasket for that price not just AFT drain/refill.

Not sure about small block V8, I kind of like staying more or less true to nature of the car. So perhaps in Triumph Spitfire I would put 2.5-3L L6 from BMW, to VW Beatle perhaps 4-6 cylinder boxter from Porsche or Subaru and so on, classic BMW works very well with modern BMW straight-6s etc. But you 100% right about environmental impact, presumably one is fitting engine from scrap car, so the engine is technically carbon neutral, the mileage will be very low so tailpipe emissions pretty much irrelevant. On contrary - large battery will be extremely detrimental for environment as the pollution is stored in the battery, so for BEV the higher is the mileage the better and classic cars as you say don't actually do high miles. Obviously, if batter is as well salvaged from some crashed Tesla, then perhaps it is less of an issue, but now many conversions actually use new parts, because there is simply not enough of crashed Teslas to do all the conversions (because of how popular they are, and they are used not only for cars, but as well solar energy storage etc.), as such the environmental impact is HORRIBLE for these classic conversion. Indeed just keeping the cars as they are or doing reasonable ICE conversion would be much more environmentally friendly. Let's just be clear - these conversions are not about environment, it is new stupid fashion, ripping apart classic cars to make them electric, because in some religious cycles that is cool. If they would be about environment then classic cars are the last cars to be made electric... again as you said - just because how little they are used.

By allowing useless and dumb kids to get ahead in life by simply means of their parents paying the price. That is not to say all, nor even most, not even many privately educated people are dumb, that is not what I am saying - but like for like taking identically smart child with the same IQ will allow them to achieve more in life if they go to private school. It introduces unfairness based on parents wealth (or willingness to sacrifice), not on merit. And I think this hurts majority of "average kids" the most... the really smart kids will succeed either way, maybe it will be harder in public school, but geniuses will be geniuses even in public school. The really really dumb ones with fail either way as well, just going to private school not going to guarantee the success, once can still fail it, but it is easier to succeed there. But for "average" person that creates enough difference where it could make a difference between failure and success, between getting that university place, between choosing the subject you like, between getting the graduate position and not getting it, between developing career in the field you want and having to work unqualified job in the field you don't care about... overall between succeeding in life and being happy or living pack check to pay check and being miserable. And if this would be based on merit and academic achievements... sort of slipping average into lower tier average and higher tier average. The lower tier defaulting to losing out to those who were better and smarter than them on their merit and academic achievements, but this should not be the difference of parents paying or not paying for it. But... you are indeed right to point this out - nothing prevents government from providing better public schools. Their argument will be lack of funds, and their argument is that tax on private education could be used to further fund public education and I accept it at the face value. But in principle, if they they prioritised the education and if they wanted to make it work, they could do it with or without tax on private schools - that is true.

Never heard anyone in UK charging extra for fitting any standard sized tyres... perhaps some 24" or "stretched" set-ups, but not for 18" 245 tyre... an Irish thing? As for the choice of the tyres, it is always compromise. My first experience with Nexen was as it happened on my first Lexus and I was massively disappointed and never consider Nexen as a brand again. That was very long time ago and if memory serves the tyres model were something like N2000 or N5000, I literally could not accept the tyres and replaced them less than 100 miles later (I think it was exactly 200km). Main issue was unpredictable understeer on wet and noise... obviously that means nothing when talking about N Fera SU4, which is completely different tyre design 10 years later. I know for a fact that Nexen has improved significantly since my experience, but I still consider them budget brand perhaps trending to mid-range now, which is why I just can't accept their pricing... as they price themselves like premium tyres.

Yeah - totally agree, as well they did some Ferrari 308 or 328... which at first seems like sacrilege, but knowing how slow the cars actually were and how unreliable and finicky the original running gear is... actually not as bad idea. Basically... if I had classic with blown engine, perhaps one that was never really sounded that great anyway, or was slow (VW Beatle) or parts are simply unobtanium, so driving it means engine swap anyway... then I can see the point of conversion. But to take cars with legendary engines, with loads of charisma and butcher them for blind goal of "electricity is the future" is sacrilege.

In my opinion "sealed for life" is non-sense. What is reasonable period to replace ATF then? Well simple "gear oil" for manual transmissions on "unsealed" units last 40,000-50,000 miles, so ATF must last at least twice that, because ATF is much more expensive and more "advanced" fluid, so 80,000-100,000 miles would be my bet. Obviously the time and use should also be considered. For 3 years old car with 100,000 miles only easy on motorway, probably unnecessary. For 3 years old car used as taxi in the city with 100,000 miles, the gearbox would have long failed. For 15 years old car with mixed use at 78,000 miles... somewhere in between, I would tend to replace it and the filter if I would be looking to keep the car long term. Note - you can't replace all the ATF at once. So good idea would be to probably do it in few runs, drain replace filter and gasket (good idea to prevent leaks at 15 years old, my gasket on 12 years old car was hard as rock), refill... drive maybe for 6-12 month, drain again and refill and then you should be good for another 100,000 miles / 10 years, or thereabout based on the use. I know we had aerospace engineer here who said 50,000 miles, but he had luxury of doing it himself (which isn't really simple DIY job) and I find it just excessive... again considering that simple manual gearbox oil last 40,000 miles.

No I don't care about your breakfast and nobody should. There is something called "public interest", you argument seems to be that this fire isn't, but I disagree - large fire destroying thousands of cars in popular airport where many have parked in the past is not "just a matter of airport, parking operator, insurance and those people who lost their cars there", it is a matter of public interest, where finding should be scrutinised at national level. That is my opinion. So they they owe the explanation, not for me personally "to scratch my itch" and I don't even know why would you word it like that, but to the public.

Not sure how that justifies why we need to pay insurance premiums? It is not like we driving cars that are known fire risk? When was the lest time Lexus caught fire? As well I am just little bit surprised - I thought that if car is insured and it burns and it damages surroundings then the car insurance will cover EVERYTHING? Am I missing something? Is this because their own home was burnt rather than third party? What I like about this story is that they clearly naming the car officially, not like in the subject of this topic - "some sort of diesel car"... what are they afraid to publicly say exactly what car it was? Is that pressure from Land Rover because they are afraid of bad publicity that their cars are fire hazard? Why can't they say what exact car it was, was it mild hybrid, what started the actual fire (it was not diesel - we know that much). Why don't they get Land Rover engineer to explain what is burning so fiercely under the front of the car? I think logical starting point would be to forensically examine the car that burned and because I assume there is nothing left from it, then identical model. I mean maybe recall is needed, why is government sitting on their hands here. Seems like top priority should be to check if this was something particular with the car that started the fire, or this may be something shared by entire model range... basically why I am saying this - conspiracy theories are borne out of this, they most of the time incorrect, but they are all correct about one thing - something is being hidden here! Why it is being hidden. I was now week since the fire and we don't even know the exact model and year of the car, just from what was shared on the internet it is Range Rover of some description. Wouldn't fire department finished with at least preliminary findings by now... I have strong feeling somebody is trying to bury the cause of this fire... am I paranoid or what? Or this is being treated like "some 1500 car burned in the airport with damage ~ no less than £20 million and explosion that blown through 3 floor - BUT IT IS NOT A BIG DEAL!". Is it really not big deal and I am just imagining that this is potentially important to get to the bottom of it?

Doubt it - the beats would run from police until the first corner at best... must have been very straight road then. The car basically does not turn. As for the topic - I agree, I have tried electric cars and despite their admirable technology and efficiency they all lack "soul" for me... I always feel like in glorified milk float or golf buggy... actually funny to say it as I never drove milk float, so I just assume they feel like that, yet they may actually be better. But I have driven golf buggies a lot, I swear not because I play golf!

No - just friction of lycra caused it! I long warned of danger!

Many good points there - just to be clear I never said "ban private education", I just said it is undesirable and unnecessary in principle... IF public education is is provided in decent standard. I agree that societal problems are far deeper than just education and even best education system in the world may not solve all the issues in UK. However, my argument is that having private education and system where to send kids to decent school costs fortune just makes it worse. Because apart of all sort of issues in society you add financial burden on top. I never said private education created these problems, quite specifically I said private education is just a symptom of wider problem, so your statement/conclusion is out of place here and not in line what I have said. Basically, I agree with you here - but hat is because I never said anything to contrary. It is a cure for those with money to spend - yes!

Same for you Bill - do you have any peer reviewed scientific data that climate change causes "catastrophes"? An not think you interpret as "catastrophe" like actual rise of sea level, melting ice, rise of temperature, but actual direct link to "catastrophe" - let's say massive landslide, tsunami, tornado, volcanic eruption etc. My statement does not need scientific study thought - is very simple math. The problem here is that you do not understand what "2C target" is. You wrongly believe that it is enough to just "cut the use of fossil fuels" to achieve it, I really not sure what you want me to prove here. Do you understand what word "excess" means? Humans contribute 90% to the excess, but nature contribute another 10%. Meaning excess will be there regardless and all things you want to prevent will happen regardless. Any excess, even 1%, will result in climate change, be it slower climate change, but it would still change. Do you agree with statement that climate change is natural process? Do you agree with statement that humans are not causing it just accelerating it? As such does it makes sense that even if we eliminate all humans the climate change still going to happen and it will go beyond 2C? I am concentrating on 2C target here as this is clear impasse in our discussion if you can't understand the meaning of it. And it matters because all the restrictions nowadays are specifically made to achieve it. So you can't understand the decisions, if they are good or if they are bad if you don't understand what they are aiming to achieve, nor how inadequate they are to achieve it (and inadequate is huge understatement). Or other statements needs discussion as well, but we can't even start before laying foundation - hydrogen, China's emissions (that is actually not a problem as per capita is low), China's EVs adoption (stats are fake)... I mean you already incorrectly pre-empting my stance there, I think we can discuss all those in more detail, but for now we can seem to agree even on basics.

I am not literal in this case - EVangelists are as well self-sustaining fire, even the plastic bag on the head does not help...

Likely... but that is why I started by saying we probably should invest more in research. After all we relatively smart when we decide to do something, it was not stupid people that created nuclear bombs or landed on the moon, or the ones that work on DNA manipulations, so if properly funded and prioritised I think we could get to the bottom of what causing climate change, how bad it can actually be and what we can do about it. Seem like good start for problem solving to me. You know when my car does not start I first investigate what I can, if I can't figure out myself I call mechanic or take it to the garage... I usually don't start from smashing the windscreen with hammer right away... normally.

You can't on EV fires - they are self oxidising... so that will stay around sadly. By the way I am not denying that fire was started by the car that runs on diesel, I am just correcting incorrect narrative that it was diesel itself that caused it. We can clearly see from video and pictures that what is initially burning is NOT diesel, diesel was not what exploded multiple floors either. This is basically a fact. That diesel and other fuels eventually caught fire that is as well fact, in the end if they would not burn then we could not power engines with them, but diesel was not what started this fire.