G and C Johnstone

If I warm up my car a little long time can help me save the gas? Normally I will warm up it for 3 to 5 minutes. How long do you guys warm up you lexus every morning in the cold winter? Another question I want to ask is since I run such little Km so often, is it also harmful for the battery? I am afraid this will short the life of the battery so I seldom use CD and seat heater to save the eletricity. Can anybody tell me if it is silly to do it like this? ← I think that you could save yourself some worry and a mountain of money if you would fill the tank up yourself and take a trip of a couple of hundred kilometers then fill her up again yourself so that you can work out how much fuel is being used without the many cold starts. Even with your relatively modern engine running cold will use a half as much again as when warmed up. Trying to warm the engine up by idling could be more wasteful than setting it straight to work. If you are unable to get over 8 k per litre on the trip I guess you are needing to find out why. If the car is able to go better than 8 k per litre it does not need fixing. Your poor ecconomy is all to do with your short runs. I doubt that the battery will be damaged by your short trips. If the car is a willing starter it would only take a minute to recover from starting: 300 Amps for 5 seconds starting replaced in 60 seconds by 25 amps from the alternator leaving plenty spare for the CD player and electric chair. Your battery probaly finds it harder to sit doing nothing for a couple of weeks than getting to do something every day.

There you have it. On my old Lexus there is a key hole at either end of the slot in the shoulder anchor point. So easy to feed a rag moistend with a multi cleaner to clear away whatever was dragging on the belt slowing its retracting. I wonder how many good belts might have been discarded or swapted out by the money hungry service agents often talked about in L O C. Thank you Mr Rollingstone.

ES 300 1996 ex Singapore My first and last Lexus . 53225 kilometers $NZ 16,000 Reg Jan 17 2005 No tow bar, cell phone or roof devices. Too old for TV Navigation. Comprhensive insurance cost less than NZ$ 400 for a year because I am old, 56, and 65% no claim bonus. One year registration and the cost of inclussion on the motor vehicle register = $370 First trip, from car yard to home was three and a half hours two mountain passes 280 kilometers returning just over 10 kilometers per litre 96 octane. This is probably the hardest work the car has ever done in its life. It was a cheap one. Probably about 60% of normal local retail. You have to be reminded that second hand cars in New Zealand have only a commodity value. It does not matter how up market they pretend to be. Our market is flooded with Japanese Imported Second Hand vehicles. The mileage is low but supported by the Logbook. Proof that maintenance to preserve warrantee is very expensive where ever you are; there are 5K and 10K services separated by twelve months and very few kilometers. When it was new in Singapore it was pre delivery checked in January 1997. That salesman assisted the export to NZ to his brother from whom I bought last week, so it is second owner officially. Before I collected the car the car sales had the rocker box gaskets replaced because that was the only thing that they thought might go wrong in the immediate future. There was no sign of leaking. How unlike normal car sales behaviour. We even were given two remotes with the keys. Also out of character for car sales. I will collect cost of ownership detail to share for comparison with other L O C locations if you want. I did 216 kilometer of into and out from town driving to work and test driving by family and it has taken 21.6 litres to top off. This was not ecconomical driving. I would guess that when the car is used for our transport needs we will average better than this. 12 kilometers per litre might be tops though. Graeme