Screen black after battery change

[matt8]

7 hours ago, agent_dess said:

I think you if you connect another battery in parallel so that power is not lost during the battery swap out.  Otherwise safest bet is go or Lexus and let them handle it.

I wonder if a 12v source connected to the terminal in the bonnet (for jump starting) would suffice then?

[IS300FSPORT]

I have removed the Battery at least 2-3x.

Initially when I bought the car I was removing the 12v Battery as a pre-caution to charge it outside the car every other month, I wasnt using it frequently due to the (lock down).

Stating the obvious with thr *Ignition off, remove negative cable first, with the radio off.

Never lost the screen or experienced any issues. (Thankfully)

I have since replaced the 12v Battery & only charge it every other month whilst the terminals are still connected using Noco Genius5 it has built in spark protection. 

For info Mine is a 2015 model.

Im sure the majority who have attempted a DIY replacement will know what they are doing switching out the Battery its just 2 terminals but could there be a user error in all this connecting wrong terminals? Highly doubt it... 

To add a code is not required after a change for the radio so you dont need a constant 12v supply maybe that creates a higher risk of a power surge blowing the radio. 

 

[toffee_pie]

Obviously a flawed design, people need to be more assertive here and stand up for themselves 

[200h]

2 hours ago, matt8 said:

I wonder if a 12v source connected to the terminal in the bonnet (for jump starting) would suffice then?

yes it would suffice using the jump start tag , you do have to remember once you've disconnected the Battery

the positive cable will still be live due to powering from the under bonnet tag, so you'd have to insulate this

connector so you wouldn't have a short in the boot area when you let go of the cable on removing the Battery.

[morg75]

2 hours ago, 200h said:

yes it would suffice using the jump start tag , you do have to remember once you've disconnected the battery

the positive cable will still be live due to powering from the under bonnet tag, so you'd have to insulate this

connector so you wouldn't have a short in the boot area when you let go of the cable on removing the battery.

Very good point about protecting the terminal from shorting if you are using a Battery saver or second 12V source. Since this incident I have fitted all of my cars with Noco genius devices, they are permanently wired to the terminals and maintain the Battery when not driving them. My failure occurred during the pandemic when I was no longer driving it regularly and it was allowed to discharge and wouldn't start or more specifically, allow the hybrid system to operate.

I believe the Battery is disconnected as part of service activities so I am surprised the dealers aren't experiencing failures. 

[Notamech]

21 hours ago, morg75 said:

Very good point about protecting the terminal from shorting if you are using a battery saver or second 12V source. Since this incident I have fitted all of my cars with Noco genius devices, they are permanently wired to the terminals and maintain the battery when not driving them. My failure occurred during the pandemic when I was no longer driving it regularly and it was allowed to discharge and wouldn't start or more specifically, allow the hybrid system to operate.

I believe the battery is disconnected as part of service activities so I am surprised the dealers aren't experiencing failures. 

Maybe switching the radio off before swapping the batteries could be another potential solution. Like you say dealerships disconnect the Battery when undertaking certain jobs but ive always noticed that my radio was switched off whenever i collected my car after a visit to the service center. 

[matt8]

22 hours ago, morg75 said:

I believe the battery is disconnected as part of service activities so I am surprised the dealers aren't experiencing failures. 

I question how often a Battery needs disconnecting in the workshop.

For some repairs, yes, but a general service, I don’t think it’d be part of the procedures.

There are supposedly ~25,000 Is300h in the UK. How many that are vulnerable to this problem, and undergo a repair that requires a Battery disconnect at a dealer, is probably a small number.

[Paul Brooksbank]

I've taken my dead radio out and it's a Pioneer unit. I've also consulted my cousin, the electronics design engineer and there's an interesting story that will lead him in his fault finding.

Some years ago Fujitsu indulged in industrial espionage where they stole the formula for the water based dilectric capacitor from Panasonic, but they didn't get the whole formula. They started making these capacitors and sold them worldwide as they were cheaper than the standard capacitors of the time. After a while they all started to dry out and fail, leading to massive claims from everybody they'd sold them to. I had personal experience of this in around 2011 when my three year old Samsung TV failed out of warranty. I called Samsung and they mentioned Fujitsu capacitors and then fixed the TV for nothing. The cost of the repair going to..... Fujitsu.

Let's hope he can find the source of the failure and get me up and running again.

[toffee_pie]

1 hour ago, Paul Brooksbank said:

I've taken my dead radio out and it's a Pioneer unit. I've also consulted my cousin, the electronics design engineer and there's an interesting story that will lead him in his fault finding.

Some years ago Fujitsu indulged in industrial espionage where they stole the formula for the water based dilectric capacitor from Panasonic, but they didn't get the whole formula. They started making these capacitors and sold them worldwide as they were cheaper than the standard capacitors of the time. After a while they all started to dry out and fail, leading to massive claims from everybody they'd sold them to. I had personal experience of this in around 2011 when my three year old Samsung TV failed out of warranty. I called Samsung and they mentioned Fujitsu capacitors and then fixed the TV for nothing. The cost of the repair going to..... Fujitsu.

Let's hope he can find the source of the failure and get me up and running again.

Capacitors cost nothing and are unlikely to be the chief suspect here, unless whoever designed that circuit board outsourced it to some back street boys in Shenzhen. 

I'm also an electronic engineer, with over a decades of experience and a few degrees and a master's award.  

As I said over a year ago, changing a Battery should not cause this damage so let's understand that first - the question is why are the unit's going dead.  If you are silly enough to reverse the polarity of the Battery terminals you will do more damage than fry the head unit so it's not that - this issue is solely with the head unit itself, I suspect transients or in layman terms a voltage spike is doing this damage - the control ICs in that unit most likely run off 3.3v - it only takes a millisecond to fry these delicate devices if they are overloaded. 

There's 12v going into this head unit and it's going to be filtered and protected with passive components, then it's going to be fed to a switching buck regulator to change the voltage to 5v or 3.3v - something along this path has gone haywire 

[ColinBarber]

On 6/28/2023 at 12:32 PM, morg75 said:

I believe the battery is disconnected as part of service activities so I am surprised the dealers aren't experiencing failures. 

Not on standard services. Only really when working on the electrical system or fuel system would they disconnect the Battery. In fact they can't do a hybrid health check for 500 miles if they disconnect the Battery because it will clear ECU faults and they need to ensure there isn't a pre-existing fault before issuing a warranty extension.

[ColinBarber]

35 minutes ago, toffee_pie said:

Capacitors cost nothing and are unlikely to be the chief suspect here, unless whoever designed that circuit board outsourced it to some back street boys in Shenzhen. 

I'd not dismiss capacitors as it is not necessarily to do with design. Aluminium electrolytic capacitors fail or degrade all the time, especially if the equipment design means they get hot (even within their operating spec). Just repaired an audio mixer today that had two 2,200uF capacitors on the voltage regulation circuit that had vented are were reading 60uF - unit was powering up and input stage was working fine but no audio out.

Lexus LS dashboards fail because of capacitors.

Lexus LS ECUs fail because of capacitors.

There was also a big spell during the 2000's where many capacitors weren't manufactured correctly which LED to a higher than average failure rate, however this headunit shouldn't be affected by that. 

[toffee_pie]

10 minutes ago, ColinBarber said:

I'd not dismiss capacitors as it is not necessarily to do with design. Aluminium electrolytic capacitors fail or degrade all the time, especially if the equipment design means they get hot (even within their operating spec). Just repaired an audio mixer today that had two 2,200uF capacitors on the voltage regulation circuit that had vented are were reading 60uF - unit was powering up and input stage was working fine but no audio out.

Lexus LS dashboards fail because of capacitors.

Lexus LS ECUs fail because of capacitors.

There was also a big spell during the 2000's where many capacitors weren't manufactured correctly which led to a higher than average failure rate, however this headunit shouldn't be affected by that. 

It could be capacitors but they are widely used everywhere, if they are faulty why is it just the head unit impacted as they will be used elsewhere and if the manufacturer is relying on a single source supplier for a capacitor it doesn't bode well for Lexus - my company has around 3 suppliers for each capacitor or as many as we can get and pick and mix as we choose, if something goes wrong we will find out 

[Dells]

I have been reading through the forum being a new Lexus is300h facelift owner thanks @Warfhouse for informing me it was a facelift , a three day owner to be precise and I came across this post upon reading I am left with a bit of trepidation, is my car affected?, would it not make sense to start to compile a list perhaps in collaboration with clublexus USA of what cars are affected what years , I see initially it was 2013/14 but then I see 2015 although that could be of 2014 manufacturing, what make/model of head unit is it just premium or others, perhaps with pictures of affected units then owners could see if there car was possibly going to be affected and then they could make a decision to perhaps take there car to Lexus dealer or not as they say for warned is for armed .

Dell

[matt8]

8 minutes ago, Dells said:

would it not make sense to start to compile a list perhaps in collaboration with clublexus USA of what cars are affected what years

Go for it @Dells!

You should start and lead the compilation effort. It’d be a great thing to have.

[wharfhouse]

18 minutes ago, Dells said:

I have been reading through the forum being a new Lexus is300h facelift owner thanks @Warfhouse for informing me it was a facelift , a three day owner to be precise and I came across this post upon reading I am left with a bit of trepidation, is my car affected?, would it not make sense to start to compile a list perhaps in collaboration with clublexus USA of what cars are affected what years , I see initially it was 2013/14 but then I see 2015 although that could be of 2014 manufacturing, what make/model of head unit is it just premium or others, perhaps with pictures of affected units then owners could see if there car was possibly going to be affected and then they could make a decision to perhaps take there car to Lexus dealer or not as they say for warned is for armed .

Dell

From what I've read over the years no-one to date seems to have identified a reason why the head units fail on changing the 12V Battery. It does seem to be the premium audio, the 8 speaker setup, which are manufacturered by Pioneer rather than the 6 speaker setup, which is manufactured by Fujitsu Ten - but I don't think even that is absolute. 

The safest option is to have Lexus change the 12V Battery - from what I understand they don't charge much for this over the cost of the Battery (which is quite expensive anyway as it's an AGM one) as if the head unit then fails to start up it should be there responsibility to sort out a replacement. Whether they take any particular precautions who knows... 

 

[Paul Brooksbank]

Well, I sent the head unit to Cartronics in Byfleet as they said they could fix it. After a few days I'd heard nothing so I called them. They had a Pioneer unit there but no details as to the fault or the owners name! I described the unit and told them that I'd included a printed A4 sheet of fault description and my details but someone had thrown it out with the packaging, so I wasn't best pleased. The guy called me back the next day to confirm a power spike and a repair bill of £1810.00. I've declined their kind offer.

There are second hand units on eBay with a slightly different part numbers but, it has exactly the same connection ports on the back. 

My question is, do any of you have knowledge of the part numbers and whether they're basically the same unit with slightly different specs? Mine is 86130-53171. There are a few available, 86130-24635, 86130-53U60, 86130-53183. They will fit, but will they all have SatNav, there's the sd slot on each one. 

[wharfhouse]

23 minutes ago, Paul Brooksbank said:

Well, I sent the head unit to Cartronics in Byfleet as they said they could fix it. After a few days I'd heard nothing so I called them. They had a Pioneer unit there but no details as to the fault or the owners name! I described the unit and told them that I'd included a printed A4 sheet of fault description and my details but someone had thrown it out with the packaging, so I wasn't best pleased. The guy called me back the next day to confirm a power spike and a repair bill of £1810.00. I've declined their kind offer.

There are second hand units on EBay with a slightly different part numbers but, it has exactly the same connection ports on the back. 

My question is, do any of you have knowledge of the part numbers and whether they're basically the same unit with slightly different specs? Mine is 86130-53171. There are a few available, 86130-24635, 86130-53U60, 86130-53183. They will fit, but will they all have SatNav, there's the sd slot on each one. 

Interesting that they found it was a power spike that was the problem - presumably that happened on reconnecting the new Battery. 

[ColinBarber]

56 minutes ago, Paul Brooksbank said:

My question is, do any of you have knowledge of the part numbers and whether they're basically the same unit with slightly different specs? Mine is 86130-53171. There are a few available, 86130-24635, 86130-53U60, 86130-53183. They will fit, but will they all have SatNav, there's the sd slot on each one. 

If it is made by Pioneer and has an SD-slot then it will have nav and will probably work. Ideally you want one the same as what you have - real part code 86804-53P40 or 86804-53P41. You could try the 86130-53183 (real part code 86804-53P51) Mark Levinson one as it may just be cosmetic differences but I'd make sure I could return it in case it doesn't like being connected to your Pioneer amp and not the ML one.

 

Have they returned your faulty unit? I'd be interested in taking a look at it to see what has failed - although there could be multiple faults on it now if someone has had it apart.

[Paul Brooksbank]

40 minutes ago, wharfhouse said:

Interesting that they found it was a power spike that was the problem - presumably that happened on reconnecting the new battery. 

Must have, yes. I wasn't impressed with Cartronics though. I'd expect a thorough breakdown of the fault and parts needed when I've paid £80.00 for diagnostics. All I got back was that shocking figure and the unit in a box! 

[Paul Brooksbank]

5 minutes ago, ColinBarber said:

If it is made by Pioneer and has an SD-slot then it will have nav and will probably work. Ideally you want one the same as what you have - real part code 86804-53P40 or 86804-53P41. You could try the 86130-53183 (real part code 86804-53P51) Mark Levinson one as it may just be cosmetic differences but I'd make sure I could return it in case it doesn't like being connected to your Pioneer amp and not the ML one.

 

Have they returned your faulty unit? I'd be interested in taking a look at it to see what has failed - although there could be multiple faults on it now if someone has had it apart.

I'll send it to you if you like! However, let me get another unit in place first, that may take me a week or two. The one for sale are all on at least a thirty day guarantee and they accept returns so that's a bonus. 

I'll give it a whirl and get back to you, thanks for the help.

[rayaans]

Just to add to this. 

Please email Lexus UK customer support as this appears to be a running issue with these 2013/14 models. They are quite happy to help and offered a replacement for £500 which in the grand scheme of things is not that much compared to the retail price of these units. 

[toffee_pie]

1 hour ago, wharfhouse said:

Interesting that they found it was a power spike that was the problem - presumably that happened on reconnecting the new battery. 

Like I said last year, if someone sent me a unit I could do a better job and 1800 pounds is joke money, if some components are damaged I could replace them for whatever the parts cost plus my time spent and it won't be around 2 grand. I suspect some dodge design - anything connected to a car Battery needs robust protection at the input, voltage transients occur over microseconds and can do untold damage 

[toffee_pie]

2 minutes ago, rayaans said:

Just to add to this. 

Please email Lexus UK customer support as this appears to be a running issue with these 2013/14 models. They are quite happy to help and offered a replacement for £500 which in the grand scheme of things is not that much compared to the retail price of these units. 

Only for the fact someone with electronic knowledge could do a repair at a fraction of the price, and if it's a design flaw which seems to be the case there should be zero expense on the customer part. I have on going issues with an unnamed computer manufacturer over a laptop, I wasn't happy with the way things were going and went to the small claims court and won, I got a new replacement machine - unfortunately that too had issues and fed up with my tit for tat dealings I just opened this up myself and look to have done the repair myself. 

All Lexus will do is replaced of the main board, which probably has the same underlying issue as previous.

[toffee_pie]

1 hour ago, Paul Brooksbank said:

Must have, yes. I wasn't impressed with Cartronics though. I'd expect a thorough breakdown of the fault and parts needed when I've paid £80.00 for diagnostics. All I got back was that shocking figure and the unit in a box! 

One for Dominic Littlewood to shame 

[Paul Brooksbank]

1 hour ago, rayaans said:

Just to add to this. 

Please email Lexus UK customer support as this appears to be a running issue with these 2013/14 models. They are quite happy to help and offered a replacement for £500 which in the grand scheme of things is not that much compared to the retail price of these units. 

I have done that, they were supposed to get their local service manager to call me back but I was abroad. I'll be trying them on Monday morning.