Linas.P

Were those actually exhaust fumes... or rather like our mainstream media really likes to show - cold morning and cars just pumping loads of condensate in form of simple steam?! More often than not news items are deliberately designed to make you feel EXACTLY as you felt when you seen it, but more often than not they are made-up, misinterpreted, misconstrued and presented in misleading way, from certain perspective, certain angle which only tells the story which they want to tell. I don't want to make any conspiracy claims, but I always look at this charged language and news very carefully and ask myself - is what I am seeing is really what they telling me it is? You will be surprised how often it turns out it isn't... Because what we always see on TV are pictures like these: What is that? a snow on the side of the road and good old water vapour! That is not POLLUTION! Whereas pictures like one below shows actually harmful pollution, but the problem is that you need to find a really old diesel junk to be able to take such picture... [insert picture here!... Problem is I actually spend 20 minutes trying to find genuine not photoshoped, not enhanced picture of the car actually emitting visible smoke on the road and I could not find it] I guess closest to what I was able to find are these: clearly a single old car with probably blown head gasket ... yet it is clear it is the only one and all the other cars creates no smoke. Somebody deliberately "rolling coal". Or something like this: "horrible"! But what exactly is this? Maybe a cold foggy winter morning? Or maybe is it actual pollution, or is it blurred image with some fog effect? where that is coming from? was it HGV or bus driving by? Is it even coming from the street, or from side of the street? Honestly I can't find pictures where cars emitting pollution on mass.... My point is - it is extremely rare to actually see car clearly emitting visible pollution, most of the pollution (even genuine pollution like NOx, soot, particle matter) is not visible and really rarely you can see one pictured. Yet most of what we told is pollution coming from the road is not pollution at all, most of the time the thickest and most visible "smoke" is steam! And sure when I am driving I can see cars polluting every day, but that is because on my way to work I pass literally 10,000s of of cars and see maybe 2 or 3 cars emitting visible smoke, 99.9% of the time they are some trashy old diesel which clearly shouldn't be on the road and probably has fake MOT. But in general it is rare.. well literally 2 cars out of every 10000! And they do that not only to the cars... they really like pictures like these: Can anyone tell me what is the problem above? Ohhh... yes indeed - that is Nuclear power plant which does not emit ANY pollution at all and what we see is actually steam from the cooling towers... Yet every single time ecomentalists says "look how polluting is such and such", they use these particular pictures without even understanding what they are looking at. Finally, I am not saying pollution isn't real... No pollution is REAL... the problem is that most of the time it is invisible and when somebody shows you "picture of the pollution"... it isn't what they say it is, because it can't be, because you can't see NOx or CO2!

Lexus service is good, but it isn't magic - so I would not count on them to pick-up everything. I have broken down 11 miles from Lexus dealer after the service, well not exactly broken down, just my A/C pump seized, but that is example of Lexus not checking everything. They work from checklist and they check what is in checklist, if something obviously very wrong then they may pick-up on that, but otherwise it could be easily missed.

No... but it isn't very smart to disclose that you have car running on the road which would (or rather should) attract £1000 fine... and by extension of not being road legal, it could be as well considered uninsured and that is another £3000. That is before we even think about morality of the whole thing and how you deliberately polluting around you and emitting cancer causing particles just to skimp £100 on proper maintenance. You are right to say this isn't very friendly, nor welcoming, but I only have compassion for some people who got into IS220d by accident, mislead by solid brand image and who made genuine mistake, but it seems you are not only in the game, but actually part of the problem yourself. Cutting out DPF is not normal, not acceptable and it should not be normalised as "just a thing you do". Same as we don't take used oil and tyres and just throw them by the side of the road. The advise I can give you, and that is the only suitable advice for this situation - scrap it...

Yes E10 gives ~ 1% worse fuel economy compared to E5 and ~2% compared to 100% petrol. In theory is like 1.5-3%, it is kind of combination of slightly lower power and slightly lower MPG.

Yes that would be my expectation and in experience that what I was getting in the past. So 22-23... dropping to 20 in cold conditions as worst case scenario... but not 20 dropping to 15. I still think 15.5 is a bit low.

That would be my assumption - putting petrol in diesel car is possible, diesel in petrol car is unlikely although people sometimes manages even that. That said I would raise it with petrol station just on principle if they overcharged you... may be just honest mistake, like cashier s selected diesel over petrol, not exactly sure how their system works (I assume it should be automatic, but who knows).

The code is - illegal to drive on the road... so perhaps best to leave it at that 🙂

Yeah that likely means they mark it as "present with value of £0"... a.k.a "chinese paying taxes" 😄 It would be interesting to know how touchscreen works ergonomically... as the screen is quite far away. I guess on one hand it should be more convenient that Lexus joystick/touchpad, in other hand I am not sure screen is placed where the driver can reach, but perhaps good for passenger. The only issue with all that are fingerprints...

ML is optical, whereas standard amp is normal analog signal. So that makes it difficult to connect anything else between HU and AMP. After AMP in theory it is analog again, so you can probably piggyback after AMP, it is just not ideal to take signal after it was already amplified. So I guess that is what makes ML more complex.

6 mile craw for 45 min is probably as bad as it gets in terms of traffic, I used to drive ~18 miles in 45-60 min and I considered that to be already very bad. I know GS250 is little bit worse on fuel than IS250 as it is larger and heavier car, but 15.5 is still very bad - I would expect the car should bottom out ~20. In my experience IS250 was doing average ~26MPG and very very worst tank I ever had was ~18MPG, but it was 200k miles car with I think maybe one of oxygen sensors being a bit lazy and running maybe a bit rich. I only ever do full tanks and check MPG brim-to-brim as instant mileage could be anywhere between 1 and 99, so that is the other thing... I may have seen lower MPG at points, but then a blast on motorway once in a while and it would end-up somewhere 20+. My RC200t was probably close to what you getting and thus I considered it being very bad on fuel, the same drive where in IS250 I was getting 22-24, in RC200t I was getting 16-18... and whereas my long term average on IS250 was 26-28, the RC was 18-20... but that was obviously because it had that trashy engine and large and wide wheels and was heavier car. What is takeaway from that? Nothing really... cars consumes a lot of fuel in traffic and the worse it gets, the worse is the mileage... that is why I am saying more should be done to improve roads as that may have more benefit than BEVs... traffic jams themselves are very wasteful and produces a lot of pollution which could be avoided on free flowing street with same amount of cars. I would still check things like tyre pressures etc. because 15MPG is very low.

Imagine is we would say - petrol is too expensive, maybe remove fuel duty altogether, that is before we even touch VAT! What do you expect - BEV owners feels like they they some sort of heroes saving the planet...

Indeed - simple understanding about what truly impact the pollution would go the long way. I take for example myself... yes I drive petrol car and I may even get 5L V8 at some point, yet I am confident that my carbon emissions as person are comparably low for "westerner". I don't buy fast fashion, when I buy clothes it is usually small number and rarely, but good quality and they last long time. I don't buy cheap electronics - if I buy electronics I buy high-end and it lasts me 10 years or more. I generally don't buy anything that is cheap, poor quality and disposable. I don't waste food - drives my GF mad, but I take a lot of care planning ahead with what we eating and we often have argument where I say "I don't care that you don't want X to eat tonight, it is expiring in 2 days and it means that is what we will eat - if you didn't want to eat it , then you shouldn't have bought it in the first place". Most of stuff I have I always try to fix, or I even buy based on how repairable it is and only rarely I throw stuff away... and all these things matters because the food production and manufacturing of goods is what causes most of pollution - not driving the cars! And I do not have kids, but I am sure they would hate me LOL... no cheap toys that they buy here and brake around the corner and throw away... but at least in UK that is extremely popular and very bad habit - parents buy kids cheap toys "because kids brake them anyway"... NOPE - you broke the toy, means you won't get another one for months - next time be more careful... end of story. And I am not saying kids toys is what is causing climate change, but it is causing consumer "throw away culture", they don't learn to take care of things as kids and they don't take care of their belongings as adults. The whole EV non-sense is just misdirection of the problem, I would argue it even makes it worse, because now people can justify being bad at consuming things just because "they offset their pollution with BEV"... NO they didn't! It is like a "guilt sink", the only problem that it is false!

Yeah I didn't say it is good idea to retrofit ML. As for fitting the sub... it is doable e.g. if it active sub with autosensing amp.

I don't want to take credit or be overly smug about it... but I have raised all these topics for years. The facts were in the open for those looking... the difference now is that now people with larger following started making videos about it, but the points all remain the same. I mean it is very nice to see and people with influence started talking about it and hopefully this will reach the point where government will have to abandon their dangerous and completely unjustified ban on ICEVs by 2030, but still nothing is really new in the video. Sure the number may have moved over the time - last time I checked and with data which was available the transportation was 10% and cars were 24% of that, perhaps that has changed now to 16% and 45% respectively (especially with developing countries continuing to develop e.g. in China car ownership increased 10 fold between 2012 and 2022, so expect that to have impact), but nothing has changed fundamentally - ok previously getting rid of all cars would have left 97% of the problem, now it leaves 93% of the problem (be it we still need to check on sources and years to see what numbers we quoting). Point we getting to - cars are not the issue to begin with and this witch hunt was never justified! Hopefully this view will become mainstream soon! To the same topic:

That does makes sense... the little problem is knowing such guy who can do it! So consider yourself lucky... When I had similar issue and called to like 20 places they all either said "we don't work on Lexus" or told me to take it to dealer, or told me they can't fix it. Finally... one guy came along took my ECU away for "programming" and never came back 😄 In the end I paid ~£280 for full set of matching ECUs, so all in all similar prices as you paid for codding them. IS220d ECUs probably would have been slightly cheaper than IS250.

Whereas I can't see how reducing prices is "not caring for customers" I think there was something particularly nasty in case of Tesla, especially in China. I haven't spent too much time trying to research it as generally speaking Tesla is not something that interest me, but apparently they put pressure on customers to put down deposits and order just before cutting the prices. Not sure about laws in China, but in UK/EU that would likely be illegal under TRF (or EU equivalent) e.g. companies are not allowed to cause "foreseeable harm" and putting pressure to buy product at full price knowing it will drop in few days is clearly foreseeable and clearly harm. Again - I have not put much effort researching this topic so what I am saying is mostly generic, but I am sure owners should be able to cancel the orders in such circumstances without losing deposit. All in all, seems like just massive PR blunder, certainly unusual thing to cut price like that... and where Tesla few years ago could have get away with it, not so much today... it seems they going from favourite brand of everyone to most hated brand. As for their cars reliability... everyone knows they are trash... we even had resident Tesla owner here who would come to defend it everywhere and he did not see issue having had something like 22 faults in 2 years on Model X.

Only if causes danger to other road users (aka results in careless or dangerous driving), as well on particular roads where you not allowed to stop (tunnels, bridges), or if it causes obstruction. At least that is the case for cars, I assume different for HGVs.

But it is not like the claimed ranges is not achievable at all... so we can't only blame WLTP. If they said 276Miles or whatever then I actually believe that this is more or less achievable in certain circumstances (I believe carwow does consistent range tests for most of new BEVs and that data is available). I think it is rather understanding the technology and what impacts the range... and that something as simple as colder winter day could have massive impact. Even on ICEV AC increases the consumption and it could be debated by how much, but for example we are not used to think about heating as a problem... it just comes free as by-product... NOT in BEV! As for audio system - sure that is not going to be the biggest impact, but premium factory systems comes at 1000-1500W and even if not played at maximum volume they could easily get to say 300-500W (I guess I just like my music loud). LED lights... yes that would be minor thing 10-20W maybe... Anyway my point was - if one drives BEV like ICEV without considering all these things, then they can easily drop range by 30%... and by the end of 200miles trip having the music on vs. not having the it on could be the difference between getting home and running out of power 4 miles short. Of course driving in cold or hot car for the same distance could have difference of 40 miles, so I am not trying to equate it... but we just don't think about such things in ICEVs at all.

I wouldn't say it is Volvo problem... it is BEV problem. Heated seats, headlights, music, AC basically comes for free in ICEV, for BEV they significantly reduce the range... and if it is cold then the battery capacity becomes smaller (physics) - so the 55-60 miles lower range is just reality. What Volvo says is just best case scenario in perfect conditions and they are not wrong, the car can do that range, but it has to be war summer, but not too warm, you should not have lights on, you should not have music on and definitely you should not have heater on... and ideally you don't exceed 50MPH... I mean even in ICEV we know AC cost a little bit and higher speeds uses little bit more fuel... but because range isn't a problem and refuelling is completely not a problem we willing to pay for comfort... in BEV you can pay as much as you like, but you still stuck for hours charging it in middle of nowhere. It is just inherent with BEV.

It seems we didn't even need duty to be added... it is already more expensive than petrol. Now obviously EVangelist argument would be - but how often you do 350miles... and it is kind of fair point, but likewise - I just don't need to care about this BS when driving ICEV. If I need to drive to airport in the morning and I have empty tank I don't need to stress about it at all... I pop into the station for 2 minutes on the way to airport and I have another 300, 400, 500 miles of range! The thing is - life is unpredictable, people may drive 40 miles a day on average, but then you friend calls you and ask for favour to pick them-up from airport.. which isn't much maybe 55miles x2, then you comeback home and charger fails for some reason day before you were planning to go to seaside.. which is 120miles x2... that is IT... you suddenly can't do it, or you have to stop twice to use fast public charging at double the cost! Add winter, heating, summer and air conditioning, driving at night, some music is playing and suddenly all the 300mile range BEVs turns into 150mile range... and 150miles are not very far at all.

No they are completely different... It would be an upgrade if you figure out how to connect it, but connection is completely different both between amp and head-unit and amp to speakers... and it is optical connection as well, so not a simple thing to just figure out the pin-out. Not saying it can't be done, but it is very far from straight forward. I guess in theory if you take ML head-unit and amp... and wiring then it would work... but then you would need to upgrade the speakers as well... at which point we are retrofitting whole ML system.

I noted that after reading about her - if somebody can't be faithful in marriage, then how can they be trusted on anything?! Basically, they cheated on person who is closest to them, why would they care about the rest of the country? Health minister you said... And I thought our politicians became dumber with time... my mistake - they were always dumb 😄 And she is giving advise on BEVs! What can I say...

Engine does not matter, would be the same - the difference is whenever you have standard system with dial, or Premium/ML with whatever you call that thing... like a joystick. And based on that the harness would be different. If you look at my link it says 200t/250/300/300h/350...

Well one can tell she is not hurt by intelligence and her language is exactly as slimy as expected from politician, she lies even where she don't have... I honestly didn't know who she was, but it was clear right away that there is no point to discuss anything with such person. You know there are people who are right and who are wrong, but you can show them facts and they would rethink their positions... she is no one of them - it is clear that her brain is like black-hole... throw anything at it and doesn't change a bit. The other lady said she got quotes for Tesla and they are ~500-800/month... matters not... she is still telling whole nation on telly that she got hers for £200... no adjustment needed, just loads of ignorance. Other people may try going defensive, may try justifying what they said, elaborating the story to explain how they arrived to that conclusion - she doesn't do any of that, just continues to tell the lie... "a real politician material"!

No worries, good luck with it and let us know how it went!