RX 400h battery charging

[vrodman]

 

2008 RX400h

Can anyone please tell me - should I disconnect and remove the under bonnet Battery for charging or should it be left connected ?

Got in the car this morning, the door was unlocked.... unusual for us to forget to lock it but can't specifically remember locking it the previous night, but anyways, everything is completely dead. keyfob wont lock or unlock, nothing works. Tried spare key but just the same.

I tried connecting to my VW van with jump leads - +ve terminal to +ve terminal, engine bolt to engine bolt with the -ve lead and the display lights up, possibly a bit dimmer than normal, door locks and unlocks but it wont go to READY position. Disconnected jump leads and everything is dead again so I guess next step is to charge the Battery. Original Battery was replaced at a Toyota main dealer about 4 years ago.

Thanks

 

 

[Herbie]

It doesn't really matter. Personally I've always removed the Battery and taken it into the garage to charge, but only because running an extension lead out overnight isn't ideal (our garage is storage space rather than a house for the car).

It sounds like there's something more involved going on, rather than just a flat Battery though. The reason I say this is because the 12V Battery of a 'normal' car provides more than 300A to the starter motor for cranking the engine, but hybrids don't require anywhere near as much power. As you'll see from the photo below, my RX450h only draws 15.32A to get the car to the READY state, which should have been very easy for your VW van to provide when you put the jump leads on.

I'd be inclined to try with the jump leads again but clean the Battery terminals and clamps first and then connect directly to the Battery terminals instead of any 'dedicated' or 'special' jump start point.

[vrodman]

 

Thanks for that.

Ok, so, I think we may have found the problem - my wife has  remembered turning the rear cargo area light on on Thursday, whilst unloading some shopping, and can't remember turning it off again afterwards. This means that the light would have been on all the time from about mid-afternoon on Thursday 'til now - the car didn't get used at all yesterday so it remained on all that time.

Would that be enough to fully deplete the Battery ?

When I've put the Battery on charge, the gauge on the charger went crazy for about the first ten minutes and has now settled down to the low charge zone. As the Battery looks like it has been completely flattened do you think it is toast, or will it just recharge and carry on as normal once re-fitted.

I am leaving it charging overnight so wont know if it's fixed 'til tomorrow.

 

Dan

[Herbie]

I would imagine that yes, that would have been enough to flatten the Battery. How come that she had to manually turn the boot light on? It should come on automatically as the tailgate is opened and go off as it closes.

Anyway, hopefully not too much damage will have been done and an overnight charge may get it up and running again, but I'm still surprised that you couldn't jump start it from the van.

Fingers crossed for you.

[vrodman]

Ok, it's all working.

I think the light switch had just got turned to the off position at some point in the past and as the dark nights are now drawing in it has only just been noticed - unfortunately she switched it to 'on' instead of 'door'

I didn't want to connect the jump leads direct to my van Battery as there is a big fat label on the Battery saying do not connect jump leads directly to negative post or even near the Battery terminal..... summat to do with the stop / start function it says.

 

On a separate note - I'm about ready for a change now and I think the RX450h is going to be a bit too big so was considering the NX300h. I had one as a courtesy car when they did the cambelt on my RX and too be honest, it felt a bit gutless..... but I guess that is something I would get used to. It was a bit noisy too. My second consideration, believe it or not is a Tesla model 3. I've been to have a look and they are amazing but I'm not sure what it would be like to live with. One things for sure though, there's no lack of performance there !

Thanks for the help

 

Dan

 

[Barry14UK]

I quite like the NX 300h loaned to me for a day while my car was being serviced and found the performance adequate but preferred the better performance and superior comfort of my RX.  The Tesla 3 is very different from both, not just because it's all done on Battery but because it is not an SUV,  (The much bigger model X is Tesla's SUV).  Eventually, with wider available charging facilities and longer Battery range, electric vehicles will likely be the way to go.  There will soon be new electric models on the market too.

As regards Tesla, I would want to know what insurance is like and how good dealer support is in the UK.  I did read on an American site that Tesla will not sell parts outside their dealer network and a repairer who worked on Tesla cars had to buy wrecked cars as a source of spare parts.