Rx400h reliability

Bigden28 · May 15, 2016

Hi all

Been reading the posts submitted by the poor souls who have had inverter failures. It would be great to here stories of owners who's csrs have been reliable. It seems that forums mainly carry tales of wo that can put people off ownership. Are there any stats available re percentage failures?

kevmo · May 15, 2016

I've only had mine 10 months but it's 10 yrs old now and no record of a failure, had the inverter recall work done about 3 yrs ago. A colleague also has one and his has also been fine. We both had a look around online before buying and they seem to be quite reliable if the recall work is done.

Bigden28 · May 15, 2016

Thanks very much. I would suspect the failures are far from the norm. Would be great if we could get more tails of good experiences to encourage the faint hearted. Keep them coming folks.

Lydiamight · May 15, 2016

Absolutely no problems in eight years and 70,000 miles other than seized slide pins on the rear brake calipers. Easily and cheaply fixed by a local independent Lexus specialist who removed calipers and slide pins, cleaned up, regreased and new rubber boots fitted..

Don't go to a Lexus main dealer if you have this problem as they will try to sell you complete new caliper assemblies at around £350.00 each

lurch · May 15, 2016

Had ours now 6 years and have only had to replace the small Battery common prob , have looked at changing to newer RX but preferred the older Shape and style, can,t see us parting with ours for a long while yet.

400hWBA · May 15, 2016

I have had mine 7 years and only had problems with small Battery, can't fault main dealer service either. Have looked at changing to newer RX a couple of times, but have not been impressed enough with later models to complete. Have started to look at NX, but think I may try to keep my 400h a while longer.

ColinBarber · May 15, 2016

I had mine for around 5 years and it had 110,000 miles on the clock when I sold it. No issues other than the 12v Battery was getting a bit weak so I swapped it out in the last year, re-lubed the brake sliding pins a couple of times, replaced the rear brake discs due to corrosion, a set of brake pads all around, and had to re-glue the seal on the rear of the rear light clusters as I started to get water entering the boot on one side. Other than that just routine services and the inverter recall.

DanD · May 23, 2016

Had mine for 3 years, covering 18k miles per year without real problem.

Apart from the inverter recall, and regular maintenance, the only issues I had was condensation in the headlights and a mirror that would not dip when going into reverse. All was sorted under warranty.

RXbod · June 13, 2016

Don't want to tempt fate but my 2005 400h has just notched 160,000 miles and shows no signs of being anything else but a reliable daily driver. Just come back from Europe after a 2.5k mile trip - mostly cruising at 80mph and with the MPG indicator showing 32.8 - awesome!

OK, some issues, parking brake cables seized, auxiliary power sockets gone dead and CD player died. Found that the cable ends had fossilised - probably because of non use - and fitted a pair of cables along with some new brake shoes, now ace again. The power sockets and CD player are on my to do list.

My gut feeling is that this car will be capable of breezing past 250,00 miles without major problems and that is based on over 50 years of motoring in every thing from Austin sevens to modern Jags, and even Fords. Sorry no actual stats, just a feeling that tells you when you have a superbly made modern masterpiece of engineering.

Oh by the way, anybody got a spare £60k? cos I'd buy a new RX tomorrow!

fogey · June 15, 2016

Mine is just coming up to 8 years old and I've owned it for the last 5 years. I don't use it much in the winter, so it's still only 50,000 miles on the clock. Nice eh ?

Only things needing money so far are a new set of tyres, a pair of front windscreen wipers, a new 12v Battery (which has lasted 4 years so far) and a new fuse for the 12v power outlets. I found those outlets were not working soon after I bought it and as I had never used them, the fuse had obviously gone when I bought it. I got it changed when I had the inverter recall work done. Lexus had the cheek to charge me 10p for the fuse, although they fitted it for free and that's when they fitted the wipers free for me too, so just paid for the parts. Great service eh ?

Still drives as well as it did 5 years ago, very fast, very quiet and exceptionally comfortable in the driver's seat. Nice eh ?

No problems with the brakes at all and the pads seem to last forever as the regenerative brakes do nearly all the work. No problems with water ingress either.

Very reliable as long as you look after the 12v Battery, so in the winter I regularly connect it to an intelligent charger ( around £15 from lidl, when they are in stock). The front door opening switch sensor contacts can sometimes fail to close properly if you don't use them frequently, so the car will automatically lock again 1 minute after you have unlocked the front doors ! Take care never to leave the keys inside, unless the key is already in the steering lock ! ( doesn't need to be switched on, as the car knows you are inside via the automatic steering wheel retraction facility). You can clear this problem just by pressing the switch buttons a few times to mechanically clean the contacts.

If you are spending a very long time with the car doors open, perhaps when loading or unloading the car, it is best to leave the ignition switch on, (ready light shows on the dash) as the internal lights may eventually discharge the 12 v Battery. Similarly if you are using the radio/CD/ tape player,. When the ready light is on, the traction Battery will always keep the 12v Battery charged and if the traction Battery gets low, the engine will start and charge the traction Battery.

Still not found anything better from my point of view and plan on keeping it for a few more years. Would easily recommend someone to buy used, especially when they are such good value now. There are usually a few used ones around at under 60,000 miles if you go for the later ones (late 2008, early 2009).

rayaans · June 15, 2016

Very impressive considering the technology they are packed with. My RX450h is going too with no issues - on 40k at the moment and only had to change the tyres and wipers. Still 5 years left in the brakes from the looks of it too!

moretea · June 17, 2016

Hello folks, I am new owner of an RX400h and I was just wondering if you could please tell me what the inverter recall was/is on this car? Is it a free of charge item at Lexus? What does it do? How can you tell its at fault? Is is expensive?

Many thanks

lurch · June 17, 2016

Mine had the inverter recall done at Lexus Ipswich. It was free and they checked some cable connections I believed. If you phone your nearest Lexus dealer and give them your reg number and chassis number they should be able to check on their system to see if it's part of the recall or not and if it had been done. Not all were required to go in . Hope this helps.

fogey · June 17, 2016

I first became aware of this recall in October 2013, when I had my car serviced by Toyota and they flagged it up . This was probably because their dealership ( Motorline ) also sold Lexus at other locations, and this is the dealership where I originally bought my car, around 5 years ago now.

So it seems they share records with Toyota in this instance. Nice eh ?

I got the official Lexus recall letter the following month and had the work done in late December 2013. I had to wait for that as there were quite a lot to do, according to Lexus. Even so it was reasonably quick eh ?

The work is done free of charge, but as it takes 4 to 5 hours, a free courtesy car is offered, so I took advantage of this and just had to pay for the petrol I used. The work involves removing the inverter and replacing some parts within it, as apparently there were a number that had failed due to bad soldered connections. It is quite possible that many that were recalled would never had failed anyway, but as it is a very expensive part to replace, Lexus were very kindly recalling any that they thought might be at risk and identifying these from their build records. Really good PR job then eh ?

I believe this was not a safety issue, so it is not listed on the DVLA recall records. As I understand it, the car is put into a limp mode, so you can still continue to drive it, but I guess you would have a problem restarting it, as the traction Battery and inverter are used for this. So it is certainly not a fault that you can fail to recognise.

It's remotely possible there are a few cars out there where the recall work has been missed, especially if the official letter did not find its way to the latest owner and the car was not serviced by Lexus after October 2013, when they would have automatically flagged it up. So, as stated previously, contact Lexus as they should be able to check if you car has been done and sort this out for you for free, if it has been missed.

I am pretty sure your car would have been done, but to put your mind at rest it is best to check eh ? Hope this makes you feel a lot better now as that inverter is really expensive to replace !

06_400_h_se · August 15, 2016

5 years and 30,000 miles here. Inverter recall, 3-4 flat Battery incidents (I use a solar charger in OBD when away now), new brake callipers, new water pump. That's it. Most reliable car I've ever owned and I've owned many. It hasn't aged a day in all that time.