gs450h GS 450H my first Lexus

[Farqui]

Thanks all, having front calipers that match appeases my OCD 

The logo's were cheapies from eBay and set the fronts off nicely.

Which reminds me, I noticed that my NSR caliper has some movement and didn't I read that it could be the sliders and/or bushing could have worn?  Any advice chaps?

[Vlady]

On ‎8‎/‎9‎/‎2017 at 12:08 AM, Diesel Do Nicely Brian said:

Will be in the thread somewhere (and there's a thread on here too I think). 

 

Off the the top of my head it was about £260 for the key and around £65 for coding it. Lexus Edinburgh, including my LOC discounts. 

Hi, can do I get LOC discount if I may ask?

I don't need it now but good to know and possibly to have it.

Thanks

Sorry Lee putting this in your thread as LOC discount was mentioned here a few times I thought it is ok to ask a question.

Cheers

Vlady

[J Henderson]

By upgrading to a Gold membership.

https://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/gold-membership/

https://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/goldmembership.html/dealer-discounts/

 

[Vlady]

12 hours ago, J Henderson said:

By upgrading to a Gold membership.

https://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/gold-membership/

https://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/goldmembership.html/dealer-discounts/

 

Hi John, thank you for the link.

How can I find if Lexus Glasgow does recognise (or not) LOC discount? Is there a list of dealers or the best way is to call the dealer and find out?

Thank you John.

Vlady

[Farqui]

@Vlad, if you go to the Gold Members drop down, Gold Member Discounts and then take the Dealer Discounts option - there you'll see all applicable dealers (41) and their discounts 

URL if needed; https://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/goldmembership.html/dealer-discounts/

[Steve]

43 minutes ago, Vlady said:

Hi John, thank you for the link.

How can I find if Lexus Glasgow does recognise (or not) LOC discount? Is there a list of dealers or the best way is to call the dealer and find out?

Thank you John.

Vlady

Hi Vlady

Glasgow are on board, you just need to show your membership card to get the discount.

Sorry you cannot see the list, only visible when you have purchased Gold Membership.

[J Henderson]

1 hour ago, Vlady said:

Hi John, thank you for the link.

How can I find if Lexus Glasgow does recognise (or not) LOC discount? Is there a list of dealers or the best way is to call the dealer and find out?

Thank you John.

Vlady

Sorry, I didn't realise the link was only visible if you have a Gold membership.

Edinburgh - 15% off labour, 10% off parts

Glasgow - 10% off labour, parts and servicing

Plus, you'll also get a discount card for Halfords (15% off). It pretty-much pays for itself over the course of a year. 

[Vlady]

5 minutes ago, J Henderson said:

Sorry, I didn't realise the link was only visible if you have a Gold membership.

Edinburgh - 15% off labour, 10% off parts

Glasgow - 10% off labour, parts and servicing

Plus, you'll also get a discount card for Halfords (15% off). It pretty-much pays for itself over the course of a year. 

John/Steve many thanks! This is great! I will get mine activated once I am back from holidays.

Thanks

[Farqui]

In this unusually sunny weather we've found the leather seats can get a bit toasty.

If we're leaving the car in the open for any length of time then I pop in a windscreen reflector which really helps keep the cabin temps down.

But for short trips I thought I'd try covering the seats and for a bit of fun I went with a JAP theme 

A couple of 5' x 3' flags zip tied across the eyelets work a treat and stop the leather burning ones delicate skin 

The 3' eyelets allow them to be slid on/off the headrest or pushed out of the way around to the backrest, like capes!

Good eh?

[NemesisUK]

I bought a couple of these, from the States, mainly to protect my Clove leather from my black work clothes but works well at keeping the leather cool. The seat ventilation works really well even with them  left on the seats. 

https://www.amazon.com/Seat-Armour-Protector-Towel-SA100LXST/dp/B07BFR77YS/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1530802325&sr=8-5&keywords=lexus+towel+seat+covers

 

[Farqui]

Hey Peter @NemesisUK, those are the ones that inspired me to look into this - securing via the headrest is a neat trick.

I sourced mine on the cheap tho 

[Farqui]

While the boot trim was out recently I added another boot light fitting to the dark, previously light-less side of the wide boot/trunk.

I decided to slot it into the small, removable OEM light access panel  

I know it's a bit early to be thinking of dark winter mornings/evenings but it made sense to do it.

The second light housing was about £10 used and was easily soldered in.

PS: I initially fitted a brighter LED lamp to the OEM boot light fitting but if you had anything in the boot, then the far side was still dark.

[Zotto]

If you need a really bright illumination, you can use a white LED strip like that blue one I used in my GS fixing it under the rubber insulation of trunk. MY LED strip had already a bi-adhesive tape and I put also a blue LED in fitting instead of white bulb.

 

 

[Farqui]

Yesterday I had a rear flat tyre on the M20 west bound near Ashford, just a few miles after leaving the Chunnel  

The TPMS flashed on the dash and the car sounded odd a few minutes later.  It felt fine behind the wheel but I pulled over pretty quickly to check it out.

After unloading the boot onto the hard shoulder I couldn't find the wheel brace!  so had to wait an hour for recovery #doh 

We didn't want to crawl 180miles back home at 50mph so whilst waiting I called around tyre shops and found one 30miles up the road that had stock and could fit us in but the recovery chap recommended one just off the motorway.

I loaded up the bad wheel into the boot only to find that hybrid wheel well wouldn't accommodate the full size wheel  The 18" wheel/tyre would sit upright/tilted tho so the boot floor and massive awkward wheel/tool support were tossed in the back back seat along with cases/etc. 

Tyre shop#1 (you can guess where this going) had a full waiting room and couldn't help before closing in 1hr (it was 1pm).

So we made our way back onto the motorway and chugged slowly towards tyre shop#2 (who I'd called earlier) only to find their fitter had left and they didn't know when he'd be back!

I couldn't make this up, it really happened and it wasn't a dream (unfortunately).

I found tyre shop#3 less than 1 mile away who fitted us right in, hurrah.

The offending tyre had bad inner should wear with carcass showing for good 8-10 inches #eek and the other had a similarly bad profile.  As I was keen to load up the car at the side of the motorway this was the first time I had seen the bad tyre and I can't fathom how the recovery guy didn't spot the issue while I got the spare mounted.

Two new tyres later and they couldn't find any issue with the suspension so the tracking was checked and corrected slightly at the front, they thought the rear was fixed tho  

By this point we'd had enough and we just wanted to get home. 

So what is normally a 5hr journey turned into 10hrs  which was a struggle after getting to bed at 2am the night before/morning of the trip.  At least we left our pals at a sensible 10am.

In summary;

• I'm still mad with myself for taking the 21mm socket/wheel brace out of the car, so check you have yours!
• The boot not taking a full size wheel is potty, especially if your boot is full and you have 3 passengers!!
• In hindsight I should have loaded the busted wheel into the back seat.
• Tyre shops are both popular and incompetent in equal measure on Sundays!!!
• I'm mad at myself for not closely inspecting the tyre's sooner under full rotation AND across their entire width.
• If you have a slow tyre leak for a few months then don't just presume it's a bad TPMS valve and just keep topping it up.

 On the plus side;

• It was sunny whilst we waited for recovery
• There we only 2 of us in the car
• We didn't need to get anywhere in a hurry
• The tyre failed in the UK and not in France, where motorway recovery is pricey
• The vehicle won't fail it's MOT next week on worn rear tyres 
• We slept really well last night 

I wonder if the inner rear tyre wear was at least partially caused by the rear riding lower recently?  If so, then I may have already fixed the issue (hopefully).

I definitely need to check the rear bushes closely and get the rear toe checked/reset properly.

Has anyone else fixed rear inner tyre wear by replacing any of the rear links/bushes?

[Farqui]

MOT passed this morning 

[rob_clio172]

On 11/19/2018 at 5:35 PM, Farqui said:

Yesterday I had a rear flat tyre on the M20 west bound near Ashford, just a few miles after leaving the Chunnel  

The TPMS flashed on the dash and the car sounded odd a few minutes later.  It felt fine behind the wheel but I pulled over pretty quickly to check it out.

After unloading the boot onto the hard shoulder I couldn't find the wheel brace!  so had to wait an hour for recovery #doh 

We didn't want to crawl 180miles back home at 50mph so whilst waiting I called around tyre shops and found one 30miles up the road that had stock and could fit us in but the recovery chap recommended one just off the motorway.

I loaded up the bad wheel into the boot only to find that hybrid wheel well wouldn't accommodate the full size wheel  The 18" wheel/tyre would sit upright/tilted tho so the boot floor and massive awkward wheel/tool support were tossed in the back back seat along with cases/etc. 

Tyre shop#1 (you can guess where this going) had a full waiting room and couldn't help before closing in 1hr (it was 1pm).

So we made our way back onto the motorway and chugged slowly towards tyre shop#2 (who I'd called earlier) only to find their fitter had left and they didn't know when he'd be back!

I couldn't make this up, it really happened and it wasn't a dream (unfortunately).

I found tyre shop#3 less than 1 mile away who fitted us right in, hurrah.

The offending tyre had bad inner should wear with carcass showing for good 8-10 inches #eek and the other had a similarly bad profile.  As I was keen to load up the car at the side of the motorway this was the first time I had seen the bad tyre and I can't fathom how the recovery guy didn't spot the issue while I got the spare mounted.

Two new tyres later and they couldn't find any issue with the suspension so the tracking was checked and corrected slightly at the front, they thought the rear was fixed tho  

By this point we'd had enough and we just wanted to get home. 

So what is normally a 5hr journey turned into 10hrs  which was a struggle after getting to bed at 2am the night before/morning of the trip.  At least we left our pals at a sensible 10am.

In summary;

• I'm still mad with myself for taking the 21mm socket/wheel brace out of the car, so check you have yours!
• The boot not taking a full size wheel is potty, especially if your boot is full and you have 3 passengers!!
• In hindsight I should have loaded the busted wheel into the back seat.
• Tyre shops are both popular and incompetent in equal measure on Sundays!!!
• I'm mad at myself for not closely inspecting the tyre's sooner under full rotation AND across their entire width.
• If you have a slow tyre leak for a few months then don't just presume it's a bad TPMS valve and just keep topping it up.

 On the plus side;

• It was sunny whilst we waited for recovery
• There we only 2 of us in the car
• We didn't need to get anywhere in a hurry
• The tyre failed in the UK and not in France, where motorway recovery is pricey
• The vehicle won't fail it's MOT next week on worn rear tyres 
• We slept really well last night 

I wonder if the inner rear tyre wear was at least partially caused by the rear riding lower recently?  If so, then I may have already fixed the issue (hopefully).

I definitely need to check the rear bushes closely and get the rear toe checked/reset properly.

Has anyone else fixed rear inner tyre wear by replacing any of the rear links/bushes?

Sods law isnt it that once 1 thing goes wrong everything else follows just to make things even more of an inconvenience!

[Farqui]

15 minutes ago, rob_clio172 said:

Sods law isnt it that once 1 thing goes wrong everything else follows just to make things even more of an inconvenience!

 

Haha, true...don't they call it 'character building'!

All sorted now tho [emoji41]

[rob_clio172]

Just now, Farqui said:

Haha, true...don't they call it 'character building'!

All sorted now tho

Yeh glad you got it sorted and like you say atleast it happened over here! 

[Farqui]

Oil/filter change today along with plugs, it's at 113.5k and average mpg is down a bit (even after taking winter into account).

 

I only managed to change the plugs in 1 bank as the rear bolt on the inlet manifold is stuck fast :( The one that's well hidden and takes almost an hour to find #hehe I'll need to source a longer allen key for my ratchet.

 

It was nice and mild and the oil/filter change went well tho!

[Farqui]

Dandy new plugs [emoji108]

[Vlady]

Lee, by how much your average mpg is down? I do for the last couple months 31-32.5mpg, it dropped to from summer time.

Do you feel the difference after you changed oil/filters and plugs? Is the engine smoother and quitter? 🙂

[Farqui]

@Vlady, on a long, steady run I used to get over 40mpg on the car mpg readout (high 30's, low 40's tank to tank) but recently it's been mid/low 30mpg.

I'll reserve judgement on the new plugs until after I've swapped out the other bank.  I'm struggling to find a long (>100mm) 5mm allen key socket locally #sigh but may have found something that'll work amongst my tools.

I checked the MAF a few weeks ago which was dirty and didn't clean up very well at all.  So I'm tempted to replace this and it'll be relatively cheap with a Rockauto discount

Cheers

[royoftherovers]

4 minutes ago, Farqui said:

@Vlady, on a long, steady run I used to get over 40mpg on the car mpg readout (high 30's, low 40's tank to tank) but recently it's been mid/low 30mpg.

I'll reserve judgement on the new plugs until after I've swapped out the other bank.  I'm struggling to find a long (>100mm) 5mm allen key socket locally #sigh but may have found something that'll work amongst my tools.

I checked the MAF a few weeks ago which was dirty and didn't clean up very well at all.  So I'm tempted to replace this and it'll be relatively cheap with a Rockauto discount

Cheers

See my recent fuel consumption figures in  

Buying GS450H Gen3 Looking a bit of advice

current figures are disappointing but are probably due to a combination of local driving and the colder weather.

[Farqui]

Yay, i managed to get the offending bolt free!

My teeny ratchet and some slim drill driver attachments gave me just enough height and leverage to free the blighter.

Look how puny the rachet is! I bought it to work on the heater servos in the tight spaces under the dash.

If my allen socket were an inch longer and narrower then it would have loosened easy.

[Farqui]

Hurrah, I managed to replace the NS bank of plugs today.

The beefy wiring harness running down that side makes that bank much more difficult than the OS.

The leading edge of my MAF is very dirty tho, it doesn't clean up either so I may get a replacement ordered.