Haylands

The RX has an Atkinson 4 stroke engine, "normal" engines are Otto cycle engines, the Atkinson is far more efficient but produces less torque than an Otto engine, this is where the motor generators come in, they fill in the discrepancy in torque as they produce maximum torque from standstill. It is the clever electronics that ensures everything runs together well and gives the RX it's better MPG...

I've had the RX for around three months now and it has always had a knock coming from the front, it sounds just like loose pads or worn calliper carrier pins, every time you touch the brakes it goes "clonk" the only problem was that it went "clonk" every time you pulled away as well so sort of rules out pad or calliper movement... So... get it on an MOT ramp and start the investigation... The air suspension has been changed to coils, struts look fine, upper bearings fine, no broken springs... get a 3ft pry bar and test every bush and joint, newish ARB links, all new bottom arms and bushes, nothing shows any sign of wear, callipers fine, pads secure.... Both sides tried by me and my mate who is the MOT man... no play or movement in anything.... So, move onto the rear as some noises just travel... all the rear replaceable suspension components have been replaced, all new and shiny, bolted up to a clean and shiny repainted rear subframe... It seems like the previous owner has been chasing the issue and replaced everything they could... So, start to eliminate items, slacken all suspension links and drop the car on it's wheels to retighten in the correct orientation... Still "clonks" Remove the ARB links, still "clonks" Clamp off individual front calliper flexes... still "clonks" (test done inside, not on the road..) Mate went to have his lunch while I carried on looking around to see if I could spot something... I noticed this... Not a brilliant picture but what you can see is rust dust around the bottom of the strut to hub mount, you can wipe it away with your finger and more importantly it was only on the nearside which is where the noise seemed to come from... This is a tell tale to movement within the joint. These are supposed to be at 210nm which is very tight... they turned about 4 flats to get them tight enough, funnily enough the other side was worse and took 6 flats to get them tight... We had put pressure on the joint before with the pry bar and it "looked" tight... Test drive revealed no noise at all so this was the issue... Just thought I would leave this on here as more folks will be doing the conversion away from air and more Rx's may have this issue, If you DIY it then you need the proper tool to make sure these bolts are tight enough... I then had a very pleasant drive home...

It's a Lexus, it's barely run in at that mileage....

Good luck with the MOT...

I used to use genuine or Bosch but I have noticed over the last 40odd years that the quality is just not there any more in the "premium" brands, they all seem to last about a year, sometimes less.... They work fine when new so now I just save time and buy whatever is convenient, usually the cheapest I can find on eBay and chuck them away when they start to wear... Just my 2p....

IMHO You really aren't doing the car any favours by trying to eek out more time with this battery, all of your ECU's, and you have a lot, will not like getting less than their usual 12v+ some may spit their dummy out and you may start to get spurious faults popping up. It's just not worth the bother, you could end up with all sorts of problems as a result. Trickle chargers are to help you out if you don't use the car much, they are not designed to keep a dying battery at a voltage it just doesn't want to be at. The battery has tried it's best to warn you of it's impending doom... listen to it and give your car the help it needs.....

What Steve said... +, it looks to me like that plastic sill cover has worn through the paint and rust has started, I bet it has a moulding flash line under that edge, remove the trim, carefully remove a few mm from that area so it doesn't dig in, scrape all the rust off very carefully and then treat it and touch it in with a touchup stick and it should be barely noticeable...

Don't know if it has anything to do with anything but just some more info to the pile... I have two keys, one works fine and as it should, the other, with a new battery, will not unlock the car with the buttons, the key works in the door, the alarm goes off, you can get in it, start it, and drive away with the alarm still going...!!! Makes me think that it's the remotes and not the car..... (or maybe not)

This is an issue I have had with just about every Lexus we have owned, my brother had the same on his LS and his SC... It's down to the genuine Lexus brakepads, we always change them now for Powerstop ceramic low dust pads and all is quiet and refined again... Not sure what it is with the originals and I don't like using anything but genuine when I can, but genuine brake pads now go in the bin...!!!

Can someone explain what symptoms you get with a worn/seized top mount please... Cheers..

Check all the hoses for the inlet are fitted correctly and not leaking... If you can't find anything obvious then I think you better take it back and ask them to check the timing, If they put the new belt on one tooth out then that could cause your issue....

In my experience an intermittent failure is, more often than not, down to dirty switch contacts inside, pull the knob off and jet wash inside as best you can with electrical contact cleaner aerosol.... also move the switch numerous times to help clean the contacts... usually does the trick....

LTFT want to be in the range -10% to +10% and preferably as close to 0 as possible.....

I don't have time to watch that video but every electric seat I have had has had one motor for each plane of movement, the polarity is reversed to go the other way. You should have one motor for forward and back, one for up and down and one for the recline... There will be an ECU to control the movement which will be handled by canbus, these tend to work or fail so I would put my money on the electric motor that does back and forward. Disconnect the battery after putting the seat in it's highest position, then unbolt the four bolts, one in each corner, it can be tricky getting to the forward or back ones if the seat is in just the wrong position, when unbolted tip the whole seat back to get to the plugs underneath, protect the door threshold when lifting the seat out..... Swap the motor and hopefully refitting it will be easier, put it back in, plug it in, connect the battery and move the seat all the way back to do the front bolts and vice versa.. A pretty easy DIY job if you can get a spanner on the bolts, and you always find some money under the seat to offset the cost....

As a car head unit you won't use much of the rams and roms, I have fitted many of these to all types of car and always go for the lowest spec one that has BUILT IN CarPlay. Unless you are going to do lots of gaming or run multiple apps the basic will be fine... I appreciate what Herb says and I agree with him to a certain extent, it's always nice to have more than you need but I can't see what else you would want in a dedicated car unit that would use the extra capacity... This unit starts very quickly when you turn the car on, it is up and running in a matter of seconds so any more ram or rom wouldn't be much benefit there either... You have access to the boot loader so you can get it to automatically start CarPlay and up to four other apps on start up, it has enough speed and capacity for this as well... So my advice is get the cheapest one that has built in CarPlay, in my experience the USB plug in CarPlay dongles do not work well....

Apparently it "might" work with the original, mine doesn't. They do send a free camera so you can change the original and use that, personally I don't find them very useful... USB socket here... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/304096200240?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649 (when the link expires search for "Car Dash Panel Flush Mount Dual USB 2.0 1m Male to Female Extension Cable" On Ebay)

Those dongles fit an Android head unit that doesn't have Android Auto built in, IMHO they do not work that well, especially if you want a wireless connection. They do not fit a phone... If you want Android Auto I'm afraid there is no cheap way.... This is one option, there are others... https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/1005002966949900.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.7ba65ee23bfte8&algo_pvid=b721d2e7-ac3d-4af4-902e-6b99d924218b&algo_exp_id=b721d2e7-ac3d-4af4-902e-6b99d924218b-2&pdp_ext_f={"sku_id"%3A"12000025597531704"}&pdp_npi=1%40dis|GBP||187.32|||||%400b0a050116511571509318478e5d4c|12000025597531704|sea

As Herbs says, you can tell it's not on air but the ride is very acceptable, it's certainly not hard, but is still well controlled...

As Steve says, convert to the lower spec shocks and springs, remove your three good air struts and sell them on eBay for more than the 4 standard ones will cost, you get reliable suspension and make some money....

Search "Motor Factors near me" on Google and ring a few, I'm sure they will be able to order one. If not and stocks are low then get a second hand one from a breaker, the pumps themselves are usually quite reliable so you should get some time out of it...

You could easily install it in an hour, setting it up takes longer..!!

There are several options to get CarPlay into and old car, it seems I can't live without it these days (oh err Mrs....) My favourite would have been Naviplus but at over £600 it seems a bit expensive on such an old car, it uses the original screen and keeps the car looking standard though. https://www.naviplus.com.au/online-store/2003-05-LEXUS-RX-XU30-Apple-CarPlay-&-Android-Auto-Integration-p197160617 My original unit was showing signs of it's age, and I like the Tesla style so I plumbed for the Android Head unit replacement those clever Chinese chaps and lasses have come up with... https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002167375411.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.0.0.21ef1802haF39R Delivered, with VAT paid it comes to around £350. It came via Fedex and turned up quick. They give you the WhatsApp number of their engineer to help if you have any problems, it doesn't come with any instructions but it's plug and play, no wires to cut or join. I had an issue with the steering wheel buttons not working but they immediately sent a replacement App that controls the canbus, this loaded and everything now works great. A few pics of the install.... The new unit as sent, very well wrapped.... Before Remove the radio and sat nav, just six screws and a few plugs.. Remove the vents from the original unit, a little bit fiddly, easiest to start at the top and work down with the clips... Rear of new unit with vents fitted... Plug the loom into the car, just three plugs then plug the loom into the new head unit, connect the satnav aerial, radio aerial, 4G aerial, two USB cables and you are done, the unit fits very well with no gaps etc... Turn it on and play.... Home screen, you can see the new touch screen heater controls at the bottom... Apps, you can add any you like obviously... Wireless CarPlay. Google maps via CarPlay It comes with two USB cables, I decided to replace the cigarette lighter with a double USB plug, the outer black circle is the Lexus original, it fitted perfectly and keeps the install neat.... The fitment to the dash is very good, the colour is good and matches the original vents very well, they fitted perfectly and are still smooth to operate. The quality of the dedicated buttons is not up to Lexus originals but very acceptable and positive. It looks nice at night, the buttons are backlit including the knobs, difficult to get a good picture though, the screen is dimmable as well. It has everything an Android tablet has plus extras it even gives you the MPG on the car App A before and after... All in all I'm very pleased with it, it switches on very fast and CarPlay connects fast as well. I've kept the old unit just in case....Lol... If anyone is thinking of one then I can recommend this one, there are others with slightly different set ups of screen and buttons, I liked this one as it has dedicated buttons for the heater fan speed, annoyed me you had to press a button to get to that screen on the original unit. The stainless steel emblem on the bottom of the unit does not come with it...

This is just for info, do what makes you happy... When we had a LS430 and an IS250 they were both left on the drive for 6 months at a time while we were abroad, this was over winter for two years.... Both started and ran fine when we returned, the 430 had flat spots on the tyres which went after a few miles driving, the 250 was fine... Neither had trickle chargers but both batteries were only a couple of years old... My wifes current CT200h sat on the drive for three months and again ran fine when we returned, it even backed off the drive and drove a short way down the road on electric before the engine cut in... So don't worry too much, just get well soon....

My new to me RX300 has been LPG's with a BRC kit, it has a valve lube bottle fitted, the previous owner, who had it converted, admitted that he only used one bottle of oil in it as it made it smoke a bit so he stopped using it... obviously not dialled in correctly when fitted, it is advised at 6-8 drops a minute for the vacuum type system. So mine has run for nearly 70,000 miles with no lube and it has no evidence of VSR... When I was fitting and servicing systems some years ago we found a lot of units fitted by others were not set up correctly, it is easy to get an LPG system to run nice, just set it up to run lean...!!! The car feels fine and does good MPG but the downside is it runs hot and lots of things start to suffer, including the valve seats... I think this is why there are a lot of engines on the "hit list" that shouldn't really be there, I can't see any reason why the 300 should be, as has been said earlier if 1 out of 1000 installs showed VSR for ANY reason then the engine gets put on the list... So what you need is a well set up system with the correct size injectors (we saw lots of cars with the wrong size and even some with different sizes across the cylinders..!!!) that does not run lean. I hooked up mine to diagnostics the other day, which was last serviced 10 years ago, and it is running just about spot on. On the issue of servicing, we did loads, mostly when they were not running well and it was almost always a setup issue rather than failing parts or blocked filters. If your system is running well, and not lean, then IMHO there is no need to service an LPG system, there are a few filters in the system but these last for donkeys years... And as for valve lube... the answer must be do whatever YOU are happy with, if you do use it then makes sure it is dialled in correctly and try to get 5-6 drops a minute which should not make it smoke...