Rx 400 H Traction Battery Failure?

[TommyC]

Hello! I've used this forum for a while but this is my first post (anywhere) so please be kind! I have searched for similar posts but have not been able to find the detail required.

I've just had a call from Lexus Tunbridge Wells telling me that my traction Battery needed replacing, I had it taken in as the petrol engine just stopped mid drive, (traction Battery still worked and got me nearly all the way home, less than 700 yards).

Codes from the OBD were P3190, P3191 and P3193 indicating no power from petrol engine and that the car had run out of fuel, (fuel was low but by no means empty)

My hope was that it was a blocked fuel line/filter/pump etc. so I was somewhat shocked to be told the Battery had failed (it was obviously very low having been driven exclusively on electric without the engine to recharge it). The AA had also attempted to restart several times further draining the Battery.

My questions to the forum are:

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

Are dealers able to charge the traction Battery independently thereby verifying whether it works or not rather than assuming because it's dead, it's broken?

Is there an alternative to a new Battery, (re-conditioning etc. no second hand on eBay currently)

I haven't had the projected costs yet but feel these could be crippling to say the least.

Could they have got it wrong or is the (costly) lesson here to never drive without the petrol engine functioning?

Car is a 2005 with 145k on the clock, it is also having the inverter replaced under the recall.

Apologies for the long winded post and many thanks in advance for any help you may be able to provide.

Tom

[ColinBarber]

Hi Tom

There should be second hand batteries available from breakers, I'm sure plenty of 400h vehicles have been written off by front end damage with a perfectly good traction Battery. You certainly don't want to pay for a new Battery from Lexus, it wouldn't be worth it.

From what you describe though I'm failing to see how there could be a traction Battery fault. I'd want a second opinion. There is an external charger available for Toyota dealers, most don't have it.

[TommyC]

Thanks Colin,

I've asked Lexus Tunbridge Wells to get the Battery charger so that we can at least determine what the cause of the original fault was prior to making a decision on the Battery. I'll keep you posted if anything relevant to the group comes up.

Tom

[Bluesman]

Have moved thread across to dedicated forum where you should get a better chance of getting the answers you are after. Mike.

[ChrisKaye]

Hi Tommy,

There are several hybrid Battery repair companies that will test and replace faulty cells in you RX's Battery pack, here's som links to give you an alternative to the main dealer, if you require:

Northampton - http://www.hybridbatterysolutions.co.uk/?page_id=42

Reading - http://cityautos-reading.co.uk/price.html

Personally, I can't see why the Battery pack would stop you totally dead whilst moving, unless the system detected a safety issue with charging (like a short circuit) that could cause big damage to you or the car....

Looking up your error codes, they state:

P3190 Poor Engine Power

P3191 Engine does not Start

P3193 Fuel Run Out

So what gives?

[mikesands]

hmmmm .... when I bought my 400H the dealer told me there is no way the car can be driven on Battery power alone - which I would have thought would have been very useful in the situation you describe (running out of fuel).

Mike

[billgatesisaconman]

Hi Tommy,

There are several hybrid battery repair companies that will test and replace faulty cells in you RX's battery pack, here's som links to give you an alternative to the main dealer, if you require:

Northampton - http://www.hybridbatterysolutions.co.uk/?page_id=42

Reading - http://cityautos-reading.co.uk/price.html

Personally, I can't see why the battery pack would stop you totally dead whilst moving, unless the system detected a safety issue with charging (like a short circuit) that could cause big damage to you or the car....

Looking up your error codes, they state:

P3190 Poor Engine Power

P3191 Engine does not Start

P3193 Fuel Run Out

So what gives?

Exactly what I thought Chris .... this all sounds pretty odd, ... the engine ran out of fuel/stopped running but ran on Battery & the now the only problem mentioned is the Battery ? ...maybe the overdue inverter recall could be a key factor here ?

did it run out of fuel or was it possibly an inverter failure in the first place . If the inverter fails the RX 400h will automatically go into its fail-safe driving mode reducing power and speed .... so electric only ? ... sounds like the same symptoms ....

did the AA add any fuel to the vehicle ? (was it the correct fuel ?)

did they try to jump start it ? did they blow anything ? ...

there are a lot of questions ...this may just be a comedy of errors ... but 145k on the clock, it should have gone in for the recall years ago....

[ChrisKaye]

I noticed on eBay a breaker is now selling individual Battery pack "cells" for £35 a pop - if anyone of the more electrically minded members could explain how to test a "cell" with a multimeter (for example) it would no doubt save somebody's pocket in a huge way!

[ChrisKaye]

I saw somewhere that the car won't run purely on Battery power (even if they are full) if it has a major engine issue.

The original poster's problem surely is a fuelling issue of some kind (blocked filter, blown fuse, dead pump, etc).

Until an update is posted, I cannot see how this problem is related to the HV/Inverter/Batteries/Charging side of the engine...!

[TommyC]

Many thanks to you all for the responses.

In response to your questions I'm 99% sure the car was running on the Battery alone before that ran out, and my initial gut feel of a fuel supply issue is still valid.

Lexus Tunbridge Wells were not willing to proceed without changing the main Battery, (£4.5k) but would not commit to this solving the issue. Despite on the surface appearing very helpful, they did not seem too interested (perhaps understandably) as my pockets were obviously shallower than their average customer and the car was old and of low(ish) value. They advised that they had attempted to charge the main Battery and that they had performed the inverter recall (no way of verifying this). The notes stated that "car runs for 12 seconds and then cuts out, I'm fairly sure that this is the starting cycle rather than the car actually running? There are no exhaust fumes from the rear during this process, nor even a particularly strong smell of fuel.

I do believe that there are Battery issues, (the car was filling with water due to the infamous rear joins which I solved but who knows what impact this may have had on either the cells or contacts to the HV cells). I don't think this is the key problem though.

The car is now with Toyotec in Crawley whom seem a little more sympathetic to the cost constraints. I'd be interested if anyone has had experience of using them.

Will try to learn to write more briefly and update as things develop!!

Tom

[TommyC]

Hi Tommy,

There are several hybrid battery repair companies that will test and replace faulty cells in you RX's battery pack, here's som links to give you an alternative to the main dealer, if you require:

Northampton - http://www.hybridbatterysolutions.co.uk/?page_id=42

Reading - http://cityautos-reading.co.uk/price.html

Personally, I can't see why the battery pack would stop you totally dead whilst moving, unless the system detected a safety issue with charging (like a short circuit) that could cause big damage to you or the car....

Looking up your error codes, they state:

P3190 Poor Engine Power

P3191 Engine does not Start

P3193 Fuel Run Out

So what gives?

Exactly what I thought Chris .... this all sounds pretty odd, ... the engine ran out of fuel/stopped running but ran on Battery & the now the only problem mentioned is the Battery ? ...maybe the overdue inverter recall could be a key factor here ?

did it run out of fuel or was it possibly an inverter failure in the first place . If the inverter fails the RX 400h will automatically go into its fail-safe driving mode reducing power and speed .... so electric only ? ... sounds like the same symptoms ....

did the AA add any fuel to the vehicle ? (was it the correct fuel ?)

did they try to jump start it ? did they blow anything ? ...

there are a lot of questions ...this may just be a comedy of errors ... but 145k on the clock, it should have gone in for the recall years ago....

Thanks Dennis:

The car was low on fuel but not empty, it had however been sitting for two weeks, (holidays).

I topped the car up after towing it the last mile home with 20 litres of unleaded. Kept trying to start it (running the main Battery down, which was already low due to car running exclusively on Battery after engine failed trying to get the car home).

AA added no fuel and did not jump start, (12v Battery was fully charged so not an issue). Certainly should have had the recall many years ago, Lexus have advised that this was done while the car was in their care last week, still no start though.

Tom

[Parrot of Doom]

I wouldn't spend any money replacing the Battery. It seems extremely unlikely to me that the whole thing will just "fail". It's far more likely that a single component within that Battery has failed, as in the video above.

And as other posters have pointed out, it would be a very stupid piece of design if the car could not function without the traction Battery.

[Gliderpilot]

Quote "And as other posters have pointed out, it would be a very stupid piece
of design if the car could not function without the traction Battery."

The car will not run without the traction Battery as it is this Battery that starts the petrol engine via its integral motor/generator.

This is in addition to the front and rear traction M/Gs

[TommyC]

Apologies for the long absence, change of job/house etc etc.

For those that are interested the issue was quite straightforward: A blown fuel pump relay, cost £25,00. (Well done ChrisKaye).

Sadly, this wasn't discovered until a completely new Battery had been put in, at which time I thought, well if I'm going to do this then I might as well do that.... etc etc.

The three lessons learnt were:

1) The car will run on Battery alone if the fuel pump relay fails, (or at the least mine did).

2) Lexus Tunbridge Wells told me they had tried to charge the Battery and this had not worked, (the diagnostic report on the Battery that Toytec showed me proved this to be a complete fabrication). I'm can't even be sure they did the inverter as per the recall. I was still charged £150 for the pleasure. To fail to notice a failed relay shows that either they are entirely incompetent or just didn't want to know but I wouldn't have expected to be lied to. The myth of the wonderful Lexus dealership is just that and I will never frequent one again.

3) Toytec in Crawley are excellent however their chief mechanic is a major perfectionist and if you are also this way inclined, (as I am) you may well come out with half your car being replaced and £6k lighter! Still, 20k miles later without so much as a murmur and I'm a very happy owner.

Tom

[tom123]

Glad you got everything sorted! I completely agree re. the myth of the Lexus dealerships - it seems that people are swayed by the ego-boosting staff and the marble floors and 'free' coffee and biscuits.

[sorcerer]

Glad you've finally got to the bottom of the problem and you had enough funds to do so. If it was me, I'd have had to scrap the car for the sake of spending over £4k on a new Battery.

Further up the thread someone mentioned that there is an external Battery charger available but not many dealers have one at their disposal. Seems to me that there's a market for an external power supply that could be plugged into the mains and also plugged into the car, temporarily taking the place of the Battery for testing purposes. Ok, you couldn't take the car on a test drive but in cases like this, it would have shown that the Battery was not at fault and to look elsewhere.

[ChrisKaye]

I think the dealers are interested if you have the current or last gen model of RX, if you have Gen 1, 2 or 400h, they aren't interested in helping you other than scaring you with a large bill to tempt you to upgrade - "you have dust on your break disc, that'll be £120 for the part and £400 to fit... Or I can give you a discount on a shiny used/new RX....)"

Hmmmmm....