12 volt battery

[GMB]

You need one of these.

 

[Heuer]

14 hours ago, Don C said:

I know some of you will argue that you shouldn’t have to do it but I fitted an upgraded battery on my mate’s LBX today.  You don’t have to do it, it’s up to you but you can see the capacity is well up.  It’s under the back seat, took me about 20 minutes and it cost just over £71 with a 5 year warranty.  

Hi Don

I am thinking of doing this swap as it is more cost effective than buying a quality jumper pack. Any chance you can list the steps in accessing the Battery along with hints on how to do it without breaking any of the trim? 

Thanks

David

[Herbie]

1 hour ago, iainmangle said:

"Once and for all" 🙂 . Sorry, I hadn't realised you were the resident expert and arbiter of what is and isn't OK.

Yep, that's me and I forgive you. But, now that you know....

1 hour ago, iainmangle said:

With respect, your argument defeats itself; you cannot say it isn't a Lexus problem and in the next breath that Lexus made a decision - one led to the other so it is exactly a Lexus problem.

OK, yes, I agree, but what I meant was that it isn't a 'fixable' fault. It's a design flaw that never should have got off the drawing board 10 or more years ago and you only need to look at the debacle over the CANbus thefts to know that they won't do anything retrospectively to the cars out there that already have this flaw. Even if they were willing, I'm not sure they could; some of the Battery boxes and Battery locations are just so small with no room for a bigger Battery anyway.

The only things you can do are to (a) keep the car on a trickle charger, or (b) use it more often, or (c) just sit in it for an hour per week with it in READY mode, as per Lexus' own instructions during Covid lockdown.

 

[Herbie]

4 hours ago, Don C said:

Sorry, I understood you to say that there’s no point discussing it further and I was up early so can come across curt.

No worries Don

[Don C]

4 hours ago, Heuer said:

Hi Don

I am thinking of doing this swap as it is more cost effective than buying a quality jumper pack. Any chance you can list the steps in accessing the battery along with hints on how to do it without breaking any of the trim? 

Thanks

David

Yes, no problem.  Bear with me 👍

[Tel]

Lian,

Clearly you have a dodgy Battery that is causing you massive heart ache.

Some of the Peeps on here have adopted the Lexus hybrid protocol & many on Facebook.

Don & Herbie have explained the Hybrid Battery shortcomings but your experience is extreme & rare.

Trust you will sort it soon,

Tel

[Shufman]

On 10/31/2024 at 10:56 AM, Geotechnic said:

Having read the posts for the LBX and the Toyota equivalent I purchased a jump pack before I got the car, sits quite happily under the passenger seat (can't imagine that's going to get hotter than 75 degrees C) As yet have had no starting issues, using the car two to three times a week, less than 100 miles of travel. Given the problems others have reported I've been checking the 12v battery voltage with a multimeter at the battery, with the car open but off, the battery has been reading 12.4v to 12.6v. I'm assuming the very act of unlocking the car will cause some systems to switch on so not expecting it to show fully charged, 12.7v-12.8v. The lower 12.4v was after three days sitting on the drive unused. I am waiting on the arrival of a bluetooth battery monitor to fit directly to the battery(ebay £20) so I can monitor the battery when the car is locked. Wonder if anybody has checked the battery voltage on a non-starting car before jumping it to see how low it was?

I got caught out a couple of months ago when it died on the driveway, I’d had doors open and been loading the car with stuff for a while. I’ve had several hybrids (Yaris and 2019 Corolla) and never had any issues with doors, lights etc. the AA guy took the voltage and it was 3.3 V so really low … it started when he jumped it and Lexus changed the Battery a few days later. A mastertech friend said that they’ve modified the batteries now to hold more charge, the only thing I do now is when I clean the car I leave it in READY with everything off and it’s fine. It’s used most days though. 

[Don C]

10 hours ago, iainmangle said:

Are you suggesting the "hybrid protocol" justifies a battery that needs 2 AA visits, five jump starts and two 24 hour charges in a month? According to the numbers floating around I should be able to leave my LBX undisturbed for a month and still expect it to start, but maybe mine didn't read the "hybrid protocol". My previous hybrids have not presented an issue so maybe they read the protocol. Very lazy to attribute responsibility for poor engineering and cost cutting by a supposedly innovative manufacturer to the people who fork out £40k for what is meant to be a high end vehicle.. 

I don’t think a month is unreasonable.  To be fair, I don’t think it’s poor engineering or cost cutting because the last thing they want is disgruntled customers and everything that goes with it.  Something appears miscalculated there’s no doubt.  What do you intend to do about it?

[Heuer]

Quick question on Battery replacement. Will fitting a larger capacity Yusaa HSB 202 45aH Battery invalidate the Lexus warranty as it is out of spec?

[NemesisUK]

6 minutes ago, Heuer said:

Quick question on battery replacement. Will fitting a larger capacity Yusaa HSB 202 45aH battery invalidate the Lexus warranty as it is out of spec?

Only if the fault can be attributed to the Battery in any way.. 

[kevinc23]

Mine not working, but changed the Battery and started ticking away....not my LBX but a Lexus watch my wife had bought me for a present. What is it with Lexus and batteries. Thinking of fitting a Battery monitor to it 

[Heuer]

On 11/3/2024 at 12:30 PM, NemesisUK said:

Only if the fault can be attributed to the battery in any way.. 

Given the dealers seem to attribute the bad Battery problem as "user error" or "no fault found" I think they will look for any excuse to blame the owner for fitting a 'bigger' one regardless of the fault! Not sure I want to take the chance.

Having said that there are now replacement Lithium 12v batteries which are light and small. Should be able to get a 60aH in there.

[Herbie]

1 hour ago, Heuer said:

Having said that there are now replacement Lithium 12v batteries which are light and small. Should be able to get a 60aH in there.

Is the existing Battery Lithium?

If not, I wouldn't use a Lithium Battery as a substitute. It's not an area that I have much knowledge of but I can forsee problems with the Battery management and charging system if, for example, it's expecting to see a NiMH Battery in there but it gets Lithium instead.

[ColinBarber]

2 hours ago, Herbie said:

Is the existing battery Lithium?

If not, I wouldn't use a Lithium battery as a substitute. It's not an area that I have much knowledge of but I can forsee problems with the battery management and charging system if, for example, it's expecting to see a NiMH battery in there but it gets Lithium instead.

You can't just drop in a bare Lithium Ion Battery - but some are available for cars with a built in DC/DC converter and BMS so it appears to the vehicle as a standard 12v Battery whilst internally it takes care of charging the Lithium Battery correctly at 16.8v. All of this comes at a price, so you are looking at £300+.

LiFePO4/LFP Lithium Ion Battery operating voltage is much near lead-acid so that is a more suitable replacement compared to normal Lithium Ion, but they still require careful charging that is different to what the vehicle can directly provide, and they have issues once the temperature drops below 0 degrees.

[Herbie]

Cheers Colin, I love that every day's a school day

[Heuer]

The Lithium drop in lead/acid replacements have onboard Battery management so appear to the car as standard. They are becoming popular replacements and cost about £100.

[NemesisUK]

1 hour ago, Heuer said:

The Lithium drop in lead/acid replacements have onboard battery management so appear to the car as standard. They are becoming popular replacements and cost about £100.

I imagine one would have to declare this change to one's insurer?

[iainmangle]

On 11/1/2024 at 9:39 PM, Don C said:

I don’t think a month is unreasonable.  To be fair, I don’t think it’s poor engineering or cost cutting because the last thing they want is disgruntled customers and everything that goes with it.  Something appears miscalculated there’s no doubt.  What do you intend to do about it?

Have you ever owned a vehicle that is six months old, cost £40k and had to charge it even once, let alone twice, let alone call the AA out twice, let alone jump start three times, let alone all of the above. To have a six month old car that you have to manually unlock warrants a far swifter (immediate) response from a manufacturer. A potential 10 year warranty is worthless if it expires whilst waiting for an appointment. To check the Battery literally takes minutes, and if they then choose to charge it up they won't stand there watching it - or maybe the delay is attributable to the queue for the Battery charger. In 45 years of driving I have never had to wait even for a routine service, let alone a limiting problem such as this. 

As for what I do then I shall need to await this Friday's assessment and take it from there. If there was enough interest I'd be happy to co-ordinate a complaint to Lexus. 

[GMB]

1 hour ago, iainmangle said:

A potential 10 year warranty is worthless if it expires whilst waiting for an appointment

Nissan played that trick on us when we had a fault on the car within warranty that could not be fixed cheaply. They strung us out for two years until the warranty expired in the third year and then said It's out of warranty so F You. No more Nissans for us. Our recent VW Up Gti had a Battery issue so we got rid of it.  Job Done! Finally, both Lexus  ICE  cars have been impeccable and no issues - Hooray!

[Don C]

4 hours ago, iainmangle said:

Have you ever owned a vehicle that is six months old, cost £40k and had to charge it even once, let alone twice, let alone call the AA out twice, let alone jump start three times, let alone all of the above. To have a six month old car that you have to manually unlock warrants a far swifter (immediate) response from a manufacturer. A potential 10 year warranty is worthless if it expires whilst waiting for an appointment. To check the battery literally takes minutes, and if they then choose to charge it up they won't stand there watching it - or maybe the delay is attributable to the queue for the battery charger. In 45 years of driving I have never had to wait even for a routine service, let alone a limiting problem such as this. 

As for what I do then I shall need to await this Friday's assessment and take it from there. If there was enough interest I'd be happy to co-ordinate a complaint to Lexus. 

We get it, you’re p issed off, there’s no point keep wittering about it and your not the only one.  It’s not our fault, we’re trying to help but you’re too busy feeling sorry for yourself.  What are you going to do?  Reject the car or sort it out.  

[Dasalias]

On 10/31/2024 at 8:26 PM, Don C said:

I know some of you will argue that you shouldn’t have to do it but I fitted an upgraded battery on my mate’s LBX today.  You don’t have to do it, it’s up to you but you can see the capacity is well up.  It’s under the back seat, took me about 20 minutes and it cost just over £71 with a 5 year warranty.  

According to the Owners Manual, when you remove the 12v Battery terminals (or if is discharged ) the information stored in the ECU is cleared, some systems may require initialisation and the hybrid system may not start on the first attempt, but will start normally after the second attempt.

Did you experience any of these things after changing the Battery?

[Don C]

32 minutes ago, Dasalias said:

According to the Owners Manual, when you remove the 12v battery terminals (or if is discharged ) the information stored in the ECU is cleared, some systems may require initialisation and the hybrid system may not start on the first attempt, but will start normally after the second attempt.

Did you experience any of these things after changing the battery?

No.  

[Geotechnic]

Having installed a Battery monitor I thought some may find the attached data interesting. The longest we haven't used the car since installing it for is four days, Battery voltage got down to 12.33 volts which is about 50% charge. As you can see the spikes are when driving the car and a 40 minute drive got the Battery up to 98% but this dropped fairly quickly once stopped. Won't be using the car much next week so am going to try turning off smart entry just to see what effect this has on Battery discharge over time. So far I'm pleased to say we've had no issues starting but four days it about the longest it's been parked

50547B852B5E_Nov 2024_Data_Report.xls

[Fredcl]

6 minutes ago, Geotechnic said:

Having installed a battery monitor I thought some may find the attached data interesting. The longest we haven't used the car since installing it for is four days, battery voltage got down to 12.33 volts which is about 50% charge. As you can see the spikes are when driving the car and a 40 minute drive got the battery up to 98% but this dropped fairly quickly once stopped. Won't be using the car much next week so am going to try turning off smart entry just to see what effect this has on battery discharge over time. So far I'm pleased to say we've had no issues starting but four days it about the longest it's been parked

50547B852B5E_Nov 2024_Data_Report.xls 469.5 kB · 0 downloads

thanks for sharing, this helps understanding (and hopefully managing) !

 

[Lbeex]

On 10/27/2024 at 10:00 PM, Herbie said:

The only reason that hybrids don't have alternators is that an alternator is driven by a belt attached to the petrol engine.

As we know, in a hybrid the petrol engine doesn't run all the time so an alternator would be as much use as a chocolate fireguard. Same with other things like the aircon compressor and the power steering pump. Imagine being halfway through a hard turn and the hybrid system decided to turn off the petrol engine, resulting in sudden and unexpected loss of steering assistance.

Returning for a while to your reply - my explanation:-  I think my idea was misunderstood. I thought about small alternator – say 60 Watts which is dedicated only as a 12V Battery additional charging source when piston engine is working. So DC-DC converter stays as it is. Since such alternator could be low power it could be quite small and probably direct driven (no belt)