Bluemarlin

I've used Furniture Clinic's leather colourant to restore scrathes and cracks on both ivory and pale grey seats, to good effect. They'll colour match from a sample and, even if there's a slight difference, it only takes a couple of minutes to apply to the whole seat by wiping on with a sponge. I believe the colourant protects as well.

I've had good results with the leather colourants from Furniture Clinic. They'll match the leather colour, either from the code (if they have that colour) or a small leather sample, I cut off a piece of excess from the headrest. With just some cracks the seats came up like new.

Well my renewal quote arrived from Direct Line. Last year was £570, and this year's quote was £870, with no change in circumstances. Lowest quote from Saga was £2200! Got a few quotes on comparison sites around the £560-£700 mark, so phoned DL and they reduced to £660. Not ideal, but could have been worse.

Funnily enough I just got back from France. On the way out I got 33mpg driving ay 65mph, with a few faster stretches, and on the way back got 39mpg with the cruise set at 65mph. Both with E5. Oddlly enough, despite the differing mpg figures, both outward and return journeys used exactly a tank of petrol, with O miles left on the cruising range.

Indeed. They make a book, based on odds, probabilities and past history (form), kind of like bookies. Both have sophisticated algorithms to do this, so they just feed in the numbers, set the desired profit margin, and out pops the cost.

As much as I'm cynical about insurance companies, my feeling is that they just crunch the numbers and set premiums accordingly, based on their payout exposure and required margins. One problem is that often the revenue required to mitigate the risk, and deliver the required profit level, is aggrated over customers, some/many of whom don't always represent the same degree of individual risk. In cases like this I tend to feel that if theft is caused primarily by a design/manufacturing vulnerability, then the manufacturer should be made liable for at least half the replacement cost. This woud result in three things. Firstly, manufacturers would have to insure against those losses rather than face the replacement cost. Secondly, the insurance revenue from the manufacturers would mean that owners premiums could be reduced to a more realistic level, that covers accidents, damage etc, as well as a smaller proportion towards theft loss. And thirdly, the insurance/replacement cost to the manufacturer would motivate them to think more carefully about vulnerabilities when designing systems, and act more quickly when such vulnerabilities occur.

Good point. Mine were done at 12 years and around 100k but, as it was part of a service plan, it didn't really matter to me if it was done a little early as it would have cropped up during the life of the plan anyway, so I didn't query it. I have the 10yr+ extended warranty, so unless there's something wildly amiss I just let them do their thing.

Many years ago, in my school holidays, I used to work in the mailroom of a large office block. It felt like the centre of the universe, as everyone from secretaries to senior directors would pop in for a chat. The manager, an amiable cockney chap, used to sit in his chair like the lord of the manor, holding court and dishing out his numerous pearls of wisdom.

Wow. I think I'd need something to absorb that shock 🙂

Should just be the 110k/11year interim service if you've already had the 100k one. Next year will be a big one, as the 120k/12year service includes a spark plug change.

You could also try a bottle of Cataclean. I remember using that once to get me through an MOT when I had a dodgy catalytic converter.

Very true, and I don't even like Cornflakes. I'd have binned them if I was saving £30 on the deal, but now feel obliged to eat them, so have to factor in the emotional cost of every grudging mouthful as well.

I am convinced that all these various compliance schemes are simply so that we can claim to be an entrepreneurial society, where anyone can set up in business for themselves, whilst making it increasingly difficulct for those with limited resources, in order to protect the interests of large corporations, who can afford the hassle and beaurocracy.

I can't believe that no-one has had anything to moan about since October, so I'll add my moan. I have a friend coming to visit with their child, who would like to go to Chessington World of Adventures. I remembered that Kellogs do a 2 for one offer on tickets, so I said leave it to me to sort them out, and duly bought a packet of cornflakes. Armed with my discount voucher I went to the Chessington website and saw that tickets were £64 if you bought them on the day, or £33 if you bought them online, in advance. Great I thought, that means I'll be able to order one ticket for £33 and get the other one for free with the voucher. No, no no, it seems it doesn't work like that. To benefit from the voucher offer you can't buy the ticket at the online price, and have to pay the full on the day price, even though you're ordering online and in advance. As such, instead of paying £33 for one ticket and getting one free, you have to pay £64 for one ticket to get the free one. So, total saving from the voucher is £2 compared to just buying non discounted tickets online. Factor in the cost of the cornflakes and you're a pound down on the deal.

Very hard to diagnose from a video but, as Steve says, it sounds like something vibrating around the centre console area, and similar to a dash rattle I had in a previous car. I'd start with Steve's suggestion of playing around with the vents, and then pressing against various parts of the centre console and dash, to see if anything is loose and vibrating at that particular engine speed.

I can't speak for the others, but I once had to fill up at Sainsbury's and got terrible mileage. I too use Costco, when I'm near one that does fuel, but otherwise find that I get the best mpg from Esso E5.

If the last recorded service was in 2019, then it's possible that the previous owner didn't bother with a service in 2020 due to covid lockdowns, especially if he/she wasn't using the car much, and may well have skipped 2021 as well if there wasn't much mileage. Some people stick to 10,000 miles and ignore the 12 month bit if they don't drive much. What was the recorded mileage at the 2019 service, and the mileage when you bought it? Also, what does the MOT history look like. Are they all passes, or have there been problems. If you're going to get it serviced by Lexus from now on it's worth popping into your local dealer as they'll sometimes do a free health check. If there are no problems with the car, it's in good shape cosmetically, hasn't done ridiculous mileage since it's last service in 2019, and you're otherwise happy with it, then I'd be inclined to take a reasonable compensation payment and move on. In any event, if a fault occurs within 30 days you have a right to reject, and within the first 6 months it's assumed by default that any problem was pre-existing, unless the dealer can prove otherwise, so you have some protection if there are any hidden faults. As for how it will affect resale value, assuming you get it regularly serviced at Lexus, then the longer you keep it the less of an issue it will be.

My experience is similar to Nigel's. Typically I get 30-35mpg in mixed local driving. Cruising at 60-65 mph on longer runs will see 40/41mpg, whilst 70-80 takes it down to 30-35 again. That's all with E5 petrol. If I use E10 I find those figures drop by around 5 mpg.

With the ignition off then battery voltage should be around 12.6+; running should be in the range of 13.5-14.5. Mid 11 is well under 50% capacity, so I'd suggest the battery as the most likely cause of the issue. If it's an old battery then replace it, or if newer and reccently discharged, then try charging it up fully.

No problem. Additionally, I missed the comment about your car being lowered, that Steven picked up on. I believe that if a car is lowered then the VGRS needs to be recalibrated, so it might be worth going back to the garage who did the lowering to see if they were aware of that and did it. As an aside, unless the lowering was equal, front and back, then the headlights will possibly need recalibrating too.

I believe it's considered good practice to do both. Certainly if the right side is of the same age, and hasn't been replaced recently, then I'd get it done, if for no other reason than peace of mind. As for the transmission pan gasket, then yes, given that the oil needs to be drained before removing the pan, then it would need to be replaced. It's no bad thing to put fresh transmission fluid in, especially if it hasn't been changed in a while. Also, if yours has a filter, it would make sense to replace that at the same time.

First off, any warning light could be triggered by something as simple as a low battery, so check that just in case, although it's only a remote possibility given what you've said so far. The VGRS system controls/varies the degree of steering input based on speed, and relies on sensors to do this. As such, it's quite possible that something may have been amiss with the alignment, which has now been made worse since the wheels were realigned. As a matter of interest, is your steering wheel centred when the wheels are straight, or is it offset to any degree? From a quick search on VGRS faults, it seems it might be anything from simply needing the steering to be recalibrated to a faulty steering rack. I even read that it could be be triggered by faulty parking assist software, which just needs to be reset. As you can see, any diagnosis is merely guesswork, based on possibilties, which might solve it, or could be costly and time consuming red herrings. The only definitive way is get it to a dealer to read the codes with Techstream. Be warned though, as sometimes it appears that Techstream will advise a steering rack replacement by default, when the actual issue may be simpler/cheaper. I would suggest searching the issue so that you're armed with a bit of advance knowledge, and then getting it to a Lexus/Toyota dealer to read the codes. Search for VGRS fault message, but these threads should give you a starting point:

No recommendations but will say be careful what you get. I used to have what looked like quite a fancy car cover, made of thick material, with a kind of soft lining. It looked good, but when I used it once I found that it let water in, which was then trapped until the cover was removed. A couple of other suggestions though. Apparently cats hate citrus smells, so a citrus smelling car shampoo might help. Alternatively an ultrasonic cat repeller might cause then to go elsewhere.

Could be. My experience is also similar. E10 will get me an average of around 27/29 in mixed driving, whereas my current average is 36 with E5. On a long run, if I stick to around 60-65mph I can get 40/41 mpg, which is pretty good for a big car.

That's great news Rowley, and an outstanding MOT record for a 16 year old car. Mine's similar, with it's only failures being for tyres, which is a huge improvement over my previous Jag, which usually needed something doing, as well as various extras at each service. I think it was called a grand tourer because each time it went in it would cost a grand 🙂 With a service plan and extended warranty, I now feel less anxious when it comes to service and MOT time each year.