Linas.P

Why iPhone is so successful despite being absolute shaite made by slave child labour for ~$150 and sold for $1000? Do you know why crapple had to raise the price of iPhone X? That was because they finally got mid range Samsung made screen after decade of using obsolete LCD... and for the screen alone they had to pay Samsung like $250, whereas their whole assembled iphone was $150... as such first iPhone X had to sell at $1700 and fans just sucked it-up! Why Prada, Versace, Gucci or Armani can sell simple while t-shirt made for $0.50 in sweatshop in Indonesia for $299? That is because it is FASHION, fashion is stupid, it is irrational... Tesla is fashion, they have "charismatic" leader (that is if IQ of the person judging is ~<50), who supposedly virtue signalling about how he is making world "better"... how he in 2015 promised full self-driving and yet to this day it is in "BETA" and dozen of people die every year because it is absolute shaite, how he said in ~2012 battery swapping will be available in 2 years and to this day there is still nothing like that. Cybertruck "coming" in 2020. Let just be real - he is liar, his cars are just fashion products and they are shaite, Tesla literally lost 50% of value this year and it is only going to go down. One trick up-his sleeves is supercharger network, which will generate a lot of profit going forward... the other and slightly unrelated is Starlink, because it is pretty much in the league of it's own and decades ahead of competition, but Tesla is just fashion fart... unpleasant and it whittle away one day. Remember how California was full of Prius? Then Lexus RX hybrids... then Tesla... and I would say it is already past that... now Porsche Tycan "Turbo" or Audi eTron GT is probably more "fashionable". Fashion comes and goes, Tesla is a trend of last 5-10 years, it is really now at it's sunset and in 10 years it will be just bad memories. You are right about people treating cars as disposable... so basically it is just fast fashion now... I would not say that Tesla is really tat successful outside of US and few very specific markets. It actually isn't. Worldwide BEV remains just under 10% of sales and 1% of cars on the roads, sure if you look to Knightsbridge in particular, or in California, or Norway, or Netherlands then it seems Tesla takes 100% of sales... but if you look at bigger picture BEVs are still niche and Tesla is actively losing the leader position in that niche I am pretty sure something as mundane as Kia Niro is outselling Tesla (all model combined). There was a time when Tesla was the only one in this game, that time has passed, now competition is stiff and despite BEV sales going up year-on-year, Teslas is smaller and smaller part of that market. They had this all lie of changing perspectives, how "being electric = being luxurious an premium", but now that REAL car companies start selling BEVs Tesla has nothing to offer. Something like i4 M50 just blows Model 3 out of this universe... sure it is probably 20% more expensive... but it just shows that Tesla is just not competitor for BMW... it is toys brand which decided to make cars and had some limited success by being first to the market... but it remains toy brand... poor quality toys even at that. So no... I don't think we are dying breed. Brainless fanboys/girls and fashion slaves will suck-up anything, but fashion doesn't last forever. There was period where Tesla was the only choice, but now there are others and as soon as people see alternative they won't get Tesla. My bet - Teslas days are numbered. it will be merged in with something like GM, Elun the liar Mushk will get absolute $50 billion pay day and we will see it taking it's well deserved place along the lines of other legacy brands. Technology will live-on Tesla tech is honestly not bad and they may even exist as badge engineered brand for some time. In that sense I can't say Tesla was "unsuccessful" as idea... it shifted the market forced, it created new niche, it forced industry leaders to rethink, it created a fashion and it made it's creator rich (to be honest Mushk hasn't even created the company, he just invested/bought the idea). So Mushk will live happily ever after, he made his money, there was a little bit of stir and controversy, he made his bet, he won it... happy ending! Just not expect Tesla to last forever.

Lexus is literally the last company I would expect to produce affordable EV. Like why would they? Lexus is Luxury car brand... The "luxury" brands charge premium over normal cars... and Lexus is based on Toyota, which is already "premium-mainstream" and more expensive than most of competition. The way I see it - there are economy car brands e.g. Dacia, MG (-20% of what would be expected, but materials and reliability is not the same)... then there is mainstream like Kia, WV, Honda... and Toyota is technically part of that mainstream, but to be fair Toyota was long charging premium even over other mainstream brands. Toyota is kind of comparable maybe to Volvo and Alfa Romeo, not luxury brand, but certainly more expensive that Skoda, WV, Honda, Mazda etc. so I would not even expect "affordable" BEV from Toyota, the reliable and dependable yes, but not affordable (Toyota is like +10% in terms of price). And then there are "luxury/premium" brands - Lexus, MB, BMW, Audi etc. that are charging +20-50% over what the car should cost just because of brand image and maybe little bit more premium materials. But realistically premium cars costs maybe 2% more to make, but are 20%+ more expensive to buy. Well and obviously then there are chinese toys company a.k.a Tesla, which has so horrible build quality that even Dacia or MG looks like very well build cars in comparison and it dares to charge 50% premium just because of liar Elun Mushk promises non-sense which he can't ever deliver... sort of "fake it until you make it mentality" (...or rather exactly that), whilst actual build quality is shockingly bad and Tesla often tops the charts of most unreliable cars as well, despite being electric and would be expected to be more reliable. Son in that sense - sure Lexus maybe able to offer competitor to Model S/3, which would cost similar, but would be actually made to the quality expected from the car and not from toy... but I would not expect them to offer true "affordable" BEV.

I think we both agree about the reason why motorists are being used as cash cow... However, I always like to look at the problem, not it's symptoms... Lack of funds and high taxes are symptoms, the actual problem is corruption and diverting motoring revenue is only required because of corruption. And therefore I think eradicating corruption should be considered as primary goal. You can consider me naive and I understand why... this country lived with corruption for centuries, why would this suddenly change? At the same time - this is exactly what government wants us to think - "resistance is futile just pay the tax and shut-up" a.k.a "playing the hand we're dealt". Now if we truly believe this, then we not living in democracy - if people can't do anything about it, then it is dictatorship (and arguments can be made that UK is indeed "parliamentary dictatorship"). Now on second point I kind of disagree... it is illusion of choice actually. If they set one speed limit and one pollution limit and it would stay forever, then yes you can argue that we just need to "respect the limits" and we will be "alright", but this is slippery slope because they keep tightening the limits. Again if we assume they just set the fair limits, then it would be okey, but they are not fair and government literally has conflict of interest here - set the fair limit and nobody will break it, or set it way too low and generate revenue. Again fix the street and make it safe and suitable for 30MPH, or fix main road and make it suitable for 50MPH and get no revenue... or leave them broken as they are, set the limit to 10MPH and as bonus get more revenue. In short - they are incentivised to make roads as bad as possible with limits that are unreasonable as possible, because it makes money. I am not saying all the roads are like this, but there are several examples of "traps" and number of these traps are increasing exponentially. Same for BEVs and low tax cars... it is slippery slope... look at what happened with diesel - people chose what government told them to chose, then they are banned out of cities and penalised. Same will be with BEVs... this concept of taxing "pollution" is deliberately designed to be vague and unfair, because as soon as people figure out the way to pay less tax by choosing cars with low tax, government can pivot, make change in the rules and start charging them. Again - lets think of why we have this issue? Why do we need these stupid taxes and traps on the road? Because we have corruption and we haemorrhaging public funds on every corner... that is why. I guess in summary - I agree with what you are saying, your perspective here is "realist" and I am more "idealist". I just want this to be spelled out and clear - the taxes on the cars and fines are required to cover for corruption, not for healthcare or education needs. If we don't take taxes from motorists, we don't need to make other services worse (I am not sure they can even be worse than they are already), we just need to eradicate corruption. Ohh and by the way - this is again typic "divide and rule move". Majority of motorists would vote in favour of changes which would reduce fines, increase limits, reduces taxes etc. But government know is very well, that if you create narrative that "roads are paying for schools, hospitals and housing", then now suddenly parents don't support reduction because of their kids education needs, older people or the ones with health needs do not support it because they worried about hospitals and the taxes are never reduced, but only increased. But again this is false narrative, we actually can reduce taxes on everything and not lose anything if we get corrupt government out of power. So the more divided we are about the scraps we getting, the less time we have to realise what actual issue is and unite against corruption.

Depends what exactly need to be achieved and what specific problems there are. Just a a glance - seem like Ferryhill is quite well connected, but Darlington Rd to the south seems to be used almost as a slip road/main city access from A167. So it is pretty much as expected and as I have already assumed - you have unsuitable road (basically a narrow residential street) acting as main city access for all the traffic coming from the south. I do not agree with point that banning the parking would mean "no car ownership". Clearly residents even have access from the back alleys, there is space up and down the street for parking (50-100m away), but I agree this is more dealing with symptoms not the problem and better solutions are available. I think in this particular case many solutions are possible here. If we purely want to reduce traffic on Darlington Rd to the south and Durham Rd in the north, then we need to create access from A167 directly to B6287/Merrington Road... honestly there is plenty of space for junction as elaborate as you want. Could even be multi-level crossing, multi-level roundabout or whatever. And then blocking the access to A167 from Darlington Rd/Durham Rd in the north (or making them exit only). Now Merrington Road seems like it is natural bottleneck because of how they decided to undercut A167 instead of tunnelling/covering it (purely as cost saving), so to avoid that I would ideally develop Saddler St and Owen St as alternative crossing points to disperse local traffic and leave B6287/Merrington Road more for east/west main connection. But again knocking down row of terraced houses and making Darlington Rd a suitable for the purpose is as well an option. So whereas I agree it is nearly impossible to "tidy-up" Darlington Rd to become appropriate for the purpose without knocking down dozen of old houses, it does not mean it can't be improved. In fact I was struggling to even come-up with any ideas just because I was spoiled for choice - it is plenty of space in Ferryhill for improvements if one is looking for solutions, not problems.

I can't just guess where it is, but fair enough - let's say the road can't be widened where you live... This is not the case for entire country. As well many of old terraced houses are really nasty (some are very nice, but many are horrible), so it is really not unreasonable to say maybe some of them actually need to be knocked down to make way for more decent houses, maybe with driveways or cellars with underground parking and for roads to be widened. Other option is simple road hierarchy. There are international level, national level, regional level, local level and access roads. If the major national level road (like M6 or A1M) are build to the standard, then the smaller highways will be used less (say A167 in your case), then if A167 is optimised with proper bypasses, sufficient speed limits and capacity... then nobody will be "rat running" on even smaller local roads, let's take Darlington Rd in Ferry Hill as an example... and then again if we tidy-up that road, then nobody will be driving into the weeds and try to get where they going via access roads. So I think the issue here is at much higher level - national roads are clogged so people choose smaller roads instead of getting stuck in the traffic on motorway, then those get's clogged and drivers find even smaller roads to cut trough traffic... until they literally end-up driving trough somebodies garden. But the issue is no drivers, the issue are the roads - I am pretty sure that any driver would not choose driving on overgrown B-Road if they had an option cruising on motorway instead. In summary I don't know the specificity of the road you living on, you not willing to share more specific example (and that is fine), but what I am trying to say - if somebody really wanted to solve the issues on your road they could. There are always solution when people are looking for them.

I do live in UK... despite what my location is saying... I think as well you moving the goal post now, because we were talking about main road going trough the village (maybe I am mistaken, but if there is 50MPH anywhere on that road, then it is likely main road), but now talking about overall suburban sprawl of rows of terraced houses. Presumably there is main road going across and on the sides of that main road there are side roads? So these are two different things... I have no issue for side roads to be 30MPH and have cars parked there, even 20MPH... if it is access road leading to nowhere, then such speed limit is fine... but if it is main road connecting multiple towns, then it is another matter. So I think it is first important to clarify what kind of road we talking about here. That said - please show me the street in Durham where there is literally no space for road improvements... How about that - why don't they dig the road-up and build underground parking under entire length of the road? Or for as many cars as reasonably needs parking. This is not some sort of crazy novel idea, underground parking is fairly normal... so why it is normal to have it under the house with 30 flats, but it somehow not appropriate for cul-de-sac with 30 terraced houses? And finally to be fair - if the houses have to be knocked down to make reasonable road connections possible... then they have to be knocked down... it is not like houses cannot be touched. Again I am staying with my assumption that solution can always be found if one is looking for it.

No, the money won't get "diverted"... that is what the money was collected for in the first place. That currently it being diverted that is another matter altogether. If we need to take the money from road fund to pay for healthcare, of if we need to create artificial fines to pay for education then something went horribly wrong somewhere long before we arrived to this topic. Where the money from speed cameras is spent does not matter - that is completely different subject as you said yourself. Speed cameras and policing should be used STRICTLY only for improving road safety, the money generated is just by-product, it should NEVER matter how much money is generated and how much is spent, if it is then this is exactly the problem we need to discuss. Policing and cameras either increases the safety on the roads or it doesn't, if it doesn't then it should be removed. Healthcare is shaite as it is, education is shaite as it is, housing is shaite as it is... and not due to lack of money. I would say the same - general taxation is different topic, but it is you who bringing it in... So you can't use it for both argument against improving the roads and one which is out of scope of this discussion. In principle I agree with you that life isn't perfect, but at the same time I am saying that motorists just seems to be punching bag and cash cow for everyone at the same time... and it shouldn't be that way. But somebody somewhere decided for us that it will be the drivers who will have to cover for all failings everywhere. As well... sorry to blow the bubble, but when you say "that revenue isn't "profit" which goes to shareholders, it's public revenue which is spent on public services"... that isn't true either. You see the main form of government corruption is lining their own pockets or pockets of their family members... how that is done? Commonly by giving government contract to particular company of party donor or family member, then the said company generates excess profits and lines the pockets of shareholders (this is by far the main reason NHS is on it's knees, services are bad not because there is lack of money, but because the money is wasted at every corner). So when we speaking about "wider picture" that is exactly how it is - we need X amount of money to maintain public services, healthcare, education and hosing are examples, but as well roads and policing are examples as well. We collect X amount of money, but because our government is corrupt, the Y amount of money is misappropriated, wasted, stolen etc. and now we are short of said Y amount of money. There is option of finding all those who were responsible for governing the budget, who abused their power, charge them for treason and have the hung drawn and quartered and recovering the money, the other option is just inventing another tax and finding another group of suckers who can cover the short fall... in this case the drivers have been trough this cycle many times... we pay tax when buying the car, then we pay the tax when buying the fuel, that was not enough, so later as well the tax for driving the car on the road was added, then the additional duty on the fuel was added... and when that is not enough now we need revenue from strategically places speed cameras to get extra money as well! Call it winging - but I am just no happy with the way things are and if this arrangement, I am just have no plans of being everyone's scapegoat because we have corrupt and inefficient goverment.

No - I disagree. You thinking inside of the box, instead of trying to find solutions for the problem. They can reroute the road, if needed they can build tunnel under the town, sure it would be excessive for small town, but say in London that could indeed be way to solve the issue. Likewise I just don't believe there is really nowhere else to park except on the main road and there is no other land in the entire town where the secure off-road parking could be built. Again In central London... maybe, but in Durham?! Really? no spare land? It is really depends on perspective - if they wanted to find the solution they would find it, if they specifically want to avoid looking for solution and instead making everyone else's problem then we end-up with 10MPH speed limit everywhere... because there always going to be an excuse - "road was built before cars were invented, there are no off-street parkings, so let's just allow cars to be parked on the road, kids playing on the same road of course, because surely there is no space for playground anywhere else, cyclist cycling on the same road, because again surely there is not space for cycling lanes on the sides... road most likely were built even before bicycle was invented, ohh and pedestrians obviously crossing it anywhere they want, because it is not enough to have pedestrian crossings every 50, as clearly walking 25m either way is too much to ask... well why bother with 10MPH limit, let's just make it into LTN and everyone will be happy, let's put bollards and potted plants on both sides of the village and all the problems are solved... what did you say... ambulance? they can use helicopters... firefighters, insurance will cover fire damage... let's live like in stone age and let's not drive anywhere, because all the problems are because of cars." I am obviously exaggerating, but this is exactly sort of thinking I have issue with. If we not going to look for solutions, we not going to find them.

I know exactly what you mean, but playing devils advocate... maybe it is fault of council for not making off-street parking and making main road as "no parking or stopping". Or perhaps there should be another road altogether avoiding going through centre of village? That against goes to my point - we together as motorists pay close to £40 Billion in road taxes and fuel duty every year... government spends only ~£2-4 Billion per year. So if they would make appropriate funding available for the roads, then perhaps drivers shouldn't contend with parked cars on main road, or main road being restricted to ridiculous 10MPH, because government allowed it to become basically a parking lot and any speed higher than that isn't safe anymore. Basically what I am saying these two things are directly corelated - the better is the road design the faster we can go on it and I don't think it is unreasonable to say that the faster is always the better, roads are not built just for fun, they have utility and that utility is for the cars to get to their destination as quickly as reasonably possible. On the other hand if road is neglected, poorly designed, compromised with unnecessary obstruction, outright neglected and crumbling etc. then sure - the safe speed will be lower on it. But that is one of key points I always would like to ask - is the road fit for purpose? Is the 30 speed limit is there because your local authorities can't be arsed to maintain it in line with demand, or it is actually desirable to have this road with the cars parked on each side? If the answer is "yes, it is quiet side road on the corner of the village", then sure perhaps limit is fair and drivers are being just unreasonable, but if answer is "well... that is main road connecting multiple villages and towns and it is very busy", then perhaps it shouldn't be 30MPH, there shouldn't cars parked on it, there shouldn't be street level pedestrian crossing (perhaps that should be replaced with underground or overground crossing) and maybe that road should altogether be dual-carriage way? I mean money is there, money was paid, that government decided not to use 90% of it for the purpose it should have been collected for that is a different matter altogether. It is partially true - driving standards in UK are shockingly bad... and I don't mean just new drivers or current generation. I mean in general - rules are not being followed, they are not being enforced, people do not care how they drive and to be fair nobody cares... beyond just collecting the money. The enforcement as it exists today is done purely for collecting money without and positive or reasonable impact on the driving culture. Speed is not what kills, unsafe speed for the give situation is what kills, sometimes it is fault of driver, sometimes it is fault of the road, but the key point is - speed camera does not know and could not decide what was "safe speed" for give situation. That is why we need human police officers on the roads being both reasonable and flexible to enforce the rules. Perhaps they can look past cars doing 90 or even 100MPH on quiet motorway on a nice day, because let's face it - there is nothing wrong about it... but perhaps they can pull over a pensioner who is doing 60MPH in outside lane and is clearly not overtaking anyone and just hogging the lane and refusing to move over, because that is actually much bigger problem than speeding drivers. It is only the police officer who can observe the situation and intervene appropriately, cameras are not able to do it. Now we all know why it is done - because of money... having two police officers driving in the car or even stopped and observing the road costs money and if what they end-up doing is just stopping the aforementioned pensioner and giving him verbal warning, then there is no profit to be made. However, once camera is fitted it cost almost nothing and it just continuously generates profit. And this blanket speed reduction is in line with that - reduce speed unreasonably low and result will be poor adherence to the limit, then fit the cameras and you are guaranteed to reek the profits. It is clearly conflict of interests - it is policing not for road safety, but policing for profit. But it shouldn't be this way - if there would be more police officers and even if they would be overall more lenient, there would still be better appreciation of the rules. People would still speed, but they would speed within reason... again sometimes best punishment is no punishment, going back to analogy of pensioner, he may say "yeah but I was doing the limit, why should I move over" and he can simply be told that rules says that "it does not matter what speed you doing, you always move over after overtaking, this time you get warning, next time you get 3 points". Again - severity of punishment does not improve compliance, only the likelihood of being caught does... so there is more benefit of being stopped and getting verbal warning, than getting flashed for doing few miles over already unreasonably low limit and paying £100 with 3 points. I guess if I summarise in one sentence my response to both is - we should always look for the way we can improve the road and increase the limit, what these retards are doing is opposite, they don't want to deal with shortcoming of roads design and condition and instead want to just blanket reduce the speed i.e. they trying to hide the issue instead of trying to solve it.

That would be mk2, so better moved to that area. Regarding the price - this is the market price, so it is more not whenever it is worth it, but if you willing to pay it. I paid £4000 for 2008 car in 2014 with 120k miles, got it crashed, written-off, insurance paid £3800 in 2019 and I sold the car for £2500 on top of that. And today such car would still cost £4000+ which is ridiculous when you think about it. On other hand there are reasons why it costs what it costs, at £4000 it simply represents great value of money and you get a lot of car for money, just look at the list of equipment (you didn't say what trim it is) if it SE-L then it has pretty much everything even most modern cars have. mk3 from 2013 really does not offer anything more for £12,000+. And what exactly could you get for less than £4000 nowadays that would be as reliable, as comfortable, as "powerful", as good to drive and as well equipped? Now obviously I am working around £4000 mark, but it could be worth £5000 especially if as you said it has full dealership service history (which is the most important thing when buying Lexus), it is as well low mileage car for it's age (which is not necessary positive, but justifies higher cost). So overall it doesn't sound like ridiculous price, it is about right for mileage and car, what you left with is then really the overall condition of the car, how does it look cosmetically, what trim it is, what options it has, how good are the tyres etc. Overall I would say £5000 will be at higher end for 2005 car (early 2006 to be fair even if it is on 55 plate), but again that is the price for the mileage. I would rather get car with double the mileage, but in better condition, better trim etc. as mileage is not the issue for Lexus as long as it was maintained. As well 80k is kind of "stupid" mileage as you O2 sensors are likely original still at the point and about to require replacement, same for spark plugs etc. Overall, 80k miles is the point where potentially most of the parts will still be original and about to fail. Whereas on car with say 120k miles those would have inevitably failed and must have been replaced if it is still on the road. Obviously, this is speculation as it is possible previous owners have replaced it based on age an not mileage, but then you need to look specifically in what was done. Lower mileage cars in my experience will as well have more rust on suspension and exhaust in particular. The body on IS mk2 generally does not rust, but be prepared to replace things like tie rod ends if you want wheel adjustment, because they very likely to be rusted solid. I can't say much more without seeing actual example.

None of that is required. Engine mounts are different, but they bolt on from your "donor car" the holes for bolts are there already, hence I have advised to get whole car and not just engine. If you get just engine, then you will be piecing never ending puzzle for millennia and won't even know how close your are to the end. The rest of what you mentioned is the same between IS250 and IS220d manuals, different story for automatic. I am not going to comment on local laws - that is for OP to figure out if he is planning to swap the engine. If that not allowed, then no point even considering it. The other point - yes, this only makes sense if he is doing all the work himself. If he is paying someone to do it, then I don't even going to speculate how much it will cost, certainly more than 7000EUR.

It is matter of taste and style you going for... If you think it will get caught, then it will... although maybe good sacrificial piece to protect actual bumper 🙂

Not in EU, decent IS250 is like ~7000EUR. But I agree that either way just getting IS250 could be cheaper option - especially if you planning to pay someone to do it. Obviously, unless you like working on the cars yourself, you have garage already and necessary mechanical skills and you have option of taking one worthless IS220d with blown engine and other worthless IS250 which is written off in the crash and build one working IS250 from IS220d shell.

Disagree with first bit on it's own, but I agree with second bit quite a lot i.e. just let the drivers choose "safe speed based on conditions". I would start from the point that speed limits should be reasonable and secondly, the road should be built for spec to achieve them. So speed limits may not be target for the driver, but they should indeed by target for authorities developers etc. For me speed limits are at best advisory - "safe speed" is often lower than speed limit, but often it is much higher than posted speed limit e.g. 70MPH on quiet motorway is daft and retarded. There should be no reason why one cannot do 120MPH there. So it kind of goes go both ways - the speed limits should never be too low or too high, or be targets, or be enforced, and it would be easiest if we focus on driver training the most and just let the drivers to drive at the speed which "safe". Then we should focus on building road which should represent the demand and reality... meaning there should be no queues on the roads as they should be build to match the required capacity, likewise if road is 30MPH, then there should be no cars parked on the sides of kids playing in it... and if there are then authorities should build alternative parking and make sure they enforce the rules i.e. issuing fines to the parents of the kids who play on the road. Is it possible to make your residential road safe to drive at 30MPH? I am sure it could be done, parents should take responsibility of their kids, pet owners of their pets, other drivers should take care when they pull out... in fact they should take care when they park, because it is ridiculous how many people are reversing out of their driveways into main road (which is not permitted), if they would park correctly, then they would not need to reverse blind into the road and it will be fine. So have completely different view on "safe speed" is - "can I safely handle my car at that speed and if accident would happen would it be my fault". If the answer is "I can handle my car and if somebody pulls out it will be their fault", then I am driving at "safe speed". If child runs out and I run them over - it is fault of the parents, if I run over dog or cat, that is fault of the owners etc. Now in other hand if I have car on summer tyres lime most people in UK most of the time and it was raining all evening and at night it is -4C, then to be honest I will not be driving at all, because I know there is no speed at which it is safe to drive with summer tyres (or for that matter M+S/Allseason) on ice. Or if I must drive i.e. I am coming home not leaving, then I will be driving as slow as necessary to keep control of the car. In short I consider that drivers should not worry about things on the road which should not be on the roads, like toys, pets, kids or somebody reversing into the road, because road is not playground for kids or some sort of caring facility for retards. I will not slow down for that and if it happens that somebody runs in my way and gets hurt - so be it, I will as well make sure they pay every last penny to fix my car. My only concern as a driver is to make sure I myself can be in control of the vehicle, if there is blind corners and I am expecting queue of the cars ahead I need to make sure to adjust the speed so that I could stop, of if there is standing water on the road I will not be driving at speed which could unsettle the car.

This is probably specifically RC thing... as when I had RC spotting another one on the road is such a rare occasion that I would get waves all the time. Call it exclusive club! I guess it would be similar with LC. Didn't have than in IS or NX...

Yes - that is how it would look in practice: Just to quote what exactly "shared space" means we can look at the past: And you are right - this is just moronic to it's core and I don't even understand why only we (motorists) have to deal with this shaite. Somehow they not proposing "shared space" with trains, where kids would be allowed to play games on the tracks... somehow they are sensible enough to understand that train needs priority, needs to go at speed and are dangerous... but with cars they just can't get it, somehow they still think the streets are playground for everyone... NO! Sorry - streets are for cars, pavements are for people, cars don't drive on pavements or in the parks, people don't loiter on the road, there are dedicated areas where cars cross the pavement to enter the side road and has to give way to pedestrians and as well where there are pedestrian crossings, but in all other places cars have priority and that how it should be... there is nothing to share! And by the way it is impossible to make share use unless we have 2-4MPH limit... which is not coming out of nowhere ~3MPH is walking pace for adult, hence in 19th century they decided these particular limits. The worrying thing is that they are tying to go back to 19th century, because they already implemented 20MPH (which dare I say is controversial), before they have finished with this controversy, they already looking for 10MPH... and make no mistake 5MPH will be next. My other tin foil theory - powers that rule just want to distract us with these pointless and blatantly idiotic proposals, so whilst we going to have fight over speeds we can drive, they can do what they need to do unhindered. So they find some absolute idiot somewhere who then creates "brake" idiots society for idiots and creates distraction with their idiotic ideas. This sort of concept is not new - "divide and rule"! Whilst we fighting speed limits, cyclists vs. motorists, blackwashing, whitewashing, LGBTHWSIUHUWEH+ topics and so on... we are just have less time to look where the country overall is going... and it is going to shaite!

In theory yes... but not easily. It is not a simple swap where you can just put the core 4GR-FSE in place of 2AD-FHV. Basically you will need a lot of parts, all the engine, with all accessories (like alternator, AC compressor) and all related ECUs, ABS pump, all the engine wiring, including fuse boxes, exhaust. Many other less important cosmetic parts like undertrays, rear bumper will be different. You will as well ideally need new fuel tank, pump and all the lines. I guess you could flush the tank, but pump will be different and the lines on engine side will be different. As well I am assuming you swapping manual to manual... in which case you need to get specifically manual donor, there are some other minor differences in other part numbers as well between manual diesel and petrol. I guess conversion to auto is possible as well, but then you will need host of other parts, pedals, dash, interior wiring, other interior parts etc. Gearbox between petrol and diesel are different, but I believe they are compatible, maybe not straight swap, but could be made to work. So the most realistic would be get whole wrecked IS250 and transfer all the parts related to engine and drivetrain. Note - if you get UK wreck (which is most likely what you can get for decent price), then there will be further complications as there are some minor differences in wiring between RHD/LHD, again possible to overcome and requires harness modification. So again - it is possible, but this is major project. I wanted to do this project for a while, because in UK we have a lot of dead IS220ds selling for £500 with blown engines, I will probably do it one day (not 4GR swap, but maybe 3GR from GS, or 3UZ or even 1UR from LS would be interesting), but I need large garage with lift, because theoretically it is not difficult if you have all parts - remove from your car, take from another car and install it. It is just tedious, requires 100s of parts and loads of space.

Yes ... and then they say it is our fault "for driving too much"... except they are very happy to collect road tax (which is de facto road tax despite what vegetable variety wants everyone to believe) and only spends ~10% of it, but ten as soon as we want to drive... they say "no no no, you welcome to pay for road, but not to use them".

This just goes to show that UK is progressing rapidly... backwards. I think before long we will need these in front of our cars, as soon we will be driving at below walking pace: If you interested these are the ideas put forward by "brake" (see link below) which right away sounds like a bunch of people who likes to hinder progress and just brake on everything. I personally don't find their proposals logical as I always thought personal responsibility should always be at the top i.e. pedestrians, cyclists, kids running into the road (or rather their parents) should be the ones who are responsible for their actions. The whole speed reduction thing sounds just like lazy deflection of responsibility i.e. "because I can't be arsed to look around when crossing the road, let's make drivers to drive so slowly as to not cause injury even if I jump right on the bonnet of the car". That really seems like backwards and sick point of view... but maybe I am wrong. https://www.brake.org.uk/how-we-help/raising-awareness/our-current-projects/news-and-blogs/no-need-to-speed-the-case-for-10mph-limits-in-certain-residential-areas I even find the statement rather ironic - "We know that most drivers obey speed limits"... well... yes, maybe if they are reasonable speed limits... not 10 or 20 MPH! As well we need to recognise that pollution would actually increase as no car is efficient driving at 20MPH, never-mind 10MPH. The modern cars are most efficient at 60-80MPH, the efficiency is acceptable between 40-50 and 80-100 MPH and then it starts dropping down the further you go down or up. Now sure EVs have less of similar problems, but they are still more energy efficient at ~50MPH than they are at 10MPH... even if we don't directly corelate that with tailpipe emissions. The sad thig is that now labour seems to have got onto the wrong side of logic and common sense as well (be it not mainstream view), I know it is minority, but it just sets bad precedent, seems like attempt to appease certain groups of grass eating minorities in country: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/12/labour-mp-rachael-maskell-10mph-speed-limit-mark-harper/ I know Telegraph is not exactly the most objective source, but still there is not much to add. Perhaps Ms Rachael Maskell should be checked if she is mentally capable of representing her constituents as she seems to be out of touch or have some issues in her head.

The policy wording should not change if you just getting add on for fully comp. However, there should be some sort of T&C's for that add-on. As for general driving in Europe... not much to say, most Lexus cars (with Xenon/LED) don't need stickers so that is sorted, you will need GB sticker on the back as number-plate country no longer works as we outside of EU. If you could get Eurotunnel, then it is much more reliable than ferry, but I guess that is nothing new. When it comes to driving, not much to say - just enjoy! Europeans are much more competent if a little bit less friendly drivers, so driving everywhere is a breeze, lane discipline actually exists, people pay attention to the road and everything is just much nicer and more organised. Yes - that means making mistakes are more embarrassing and harder to get away compared to UK, where it is chaos and nobody knows who is right and who is wrong so just let's you pass regardless. Obviously having RHD vehicle makes it slightly more difficult to overtake, but on the flip side European roads much cleaner, hedges cleaned out and visibility generally better, so I still find driving in Europe much easier even in RHD car. On motorways there is no difference, just look at your mirrors, move over after overtaking and expect cars to overtake you at quite high speed - nobody drives there at slow British 70MPH, which is ~110 in kilometres. I think more common speed in outside lane is 140-160 in most of Europe, whereas posted speed is usually 130 (to be fair even in UK 90MPH is not rare, but in UK it is speeding driver issue, in Europe it is your issue to move out of the way, so you will be flashed and beeped at if you do "speedlimit" in outside lane), obviously Germany is exception where I would say outside lane speed is often 200+, so again just be careful overtaking as the car behind you may be closing the gap much faster than you would expect. In cities... again not much issue, Italy/Spain/Portugal/Greece do have some very narrow streets in the cities, but to be fair so does Britain, rest of the Europe actually has less traffic and wider roads, clearer signs and road markings so no issues there... and parking is plentiful and cheap... and to be fair in British car they can't do much even if you overstayed, so often they don't even bother issuing the ticket. Even pedestrians seems to care and look where they are going and appreciate that 2 ton metal object moving at speed probably should take priority over them just randomly wondering into the road. In short diving in Europe is breeze, every time I do I dread to come back to UK and be stuck in outside lane behind hoggers barely moving at 63MPH and then brake checking you if you flash them to move over, all nonsensical roundabouts where anyone can exit from any lane and it is somehow 50/50 fault as there are no clearly defined rules and all the other standard British issues.

It was weird Lexus attempt to squeeze in more hybrids in line-up. Sort of sub-IS sized car, that really didn't work out and they later just released CT and IS hybrid. I have seen few of them around being sold in US, to be honest I thought they were only sold in US, but apparently Japan as well. As often is the case with Lexus - if car does not sell in US, they just drop it. All in all it was kind of weird attempt of introducing extra model which doesn't slot very well with the rest of the model range, timing was wrong as well. Even back in 2010 writing was on the wall that SUVs are the future for, so adding HS on top of IS, ES, GS and LS is just outright weird and inevitably failed. It probably should have been just an option in face-lift IS mk2, surely that would have been much better than IS220d... actually it would have been quite interesting to see how IS250h would have sold in 2009 when CO2 requirements were not as ridiculous as they are now. Obviously the problem was that Toyota didn't have suitable engine options back then and just used what they already had in Camry for FF transversal configuration, whereas IS would have needed FR longitudinal. I kind of keep complaining about them dropping GS and IS, but to be fair it makes sense for model line-up. It would work totally fine if ES would have been RWD car with some decent engine options. It isn't... but I stop here as we end up discussing RC350 😄

Lexus/Toyota Dealership is for once the cheapest to get cap/cover. They cost ~£20 already painted in correct colour. Usually on backorder so be prepared to wait for few weeks and obviously make sure to coder correct side. As well note that facelift cars had different shape, so make sure to take the other side washer to show them to order the right part. However - Lexus DOES NOT sell the clip, and as ridiculous as it sounds to get the clip you have to buy headlight washer assembly for £300+. Because the clip is not part of the washer jet cover, but part of entire washer assembly. So for the clip you have to go to AliExpress and order bag of them. I think I still have coupe of them laying around somewhere - looks like this (says Subaru, but it is identical part, you can find listings for Toyota/Lexus as well, just costs more) https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002282247848 vs. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001715065264 You can sometimes find them on ebay like here https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/402726270667, but it s identical part just for 10x the price. I seen people in UK selling them for £30 each, just get bag of them from Aliexpress for pennies and resell them. Once you put everything back together I suggest drilling small hole with like 1mm drill and putting in the pin/twist some wire to make sure clip never comes out again, because this is the most annoying part. The other option - go and scout washing place and try to find your lost cap.

Yes and it seems to use it all in 4 washes if you have headlights on... 😄

GT vs. Sports is really minor differences. I would say that faster accelerating, sharply handling car will more likely be classed as "Sports" and usually the lighter it is the better. GT car could really be any luxurious car with big engine which can effortlessly cruise long distances at high-speeds. And for GT car it does not matter if it is heavy or if it does not have the best handling. All in all, RC as a car model is more of GT cars and less of the Sport cars, because most of them are too heavy to really be slung around the corners... it really only by the time they have 5L V8 with 470HP they can hold their own and be Sporty. That said I would already consider RC350 a decent GT car, as it is already comfortable and could easily munch miles at 155MPH. RC-F could probably be considered as both. In BMW range that is much simpler - M4 is Sports car and 6-Series (or so called 8-series now) are GT cars. Obviously, that doesn't mean BMW 420d is sports car... or perhaps it is just shaite sports car. But then again - who is to say one can't "GT the M4". I guess same could be applied to Lexus where LC is GT and RC-F is Sports, but because there is no real lineage and minimal overlap it is kind of hard to say. Further complication that LC has the same engine and is about the same size as RC-F... so defining them in difference niches is hard.

It takes effort to keep car in the best condition... sometimes it is just economical to do it. My old IS when it was around 160k miles was as well little bit beaten-up. When I bought it it had scratch on one corner of the bumper, then somebody bumped into into the rear when parked, then I hit oversized speedhump and damaged front lip, then some idiot changed the lane and and scratched my front bumper, then I myself in the dark and during the lane scratched the pillar in underground parking, then somebody shot bb gun to one of the panels etc. etc. and the car really looked sorry at one point. The car was worth maybe £3000 and it was hard decision and I took it abroad to get repainted for like £2000. But it was either that or sell it for scraps, because cosmetically it looked shaite. Original wheels were as well peeling... so I got set of mk3 F-Sport wheel for another £600... and after that near 200k miles car still looked perfect. But I guess that is what OP means - it was long time, many small cosmetic issues adds-up and car just looks tired. It is possible to avoid it by always fixing everything right away, but when you have daily driven car sometimes you push things for later and overtime it accumulates and then eventually you have high mileage car which requires full respray and it is not economical to do. But at the same time it is not like it can't be fixed... it is just a matter of money.