alpine

I renewed my Lexus roadside assistance in October. Today I had a letter from Lexus saying I need to renew by end December! It's sad to see a once competent organisation  in decline... What on earth is going wrong with them?

2 hours ago, Herbie said:

Oh the irony - you do know, don't you, that Apple's 'Siri' does exactly the same thing as Google Assistant?

Take off your tinfoil hat, ignore the conspiracy theories and come out of the cave and into the 21st Century.

As has already been said, this is the price we have to pay for 'free' software such as Google Maps or Waze etc., etc. Similarly, the true cost of Internet access would be hundreds of pounds per month if it wasn't for advertising and data mining. It's sad, but a fact nonetheless, that it is us people who are the commodity and the buying and selling of our data is what makes all this possible. 

You're in the system now mate and it's too late to do anything about it so sit back and enjoy the ride. The only way out of the system is to never be in it in the first place. As soon as your birth was registered you were in the system.

Still, if you want to cut your nose off to spite your face, go right ahead. Me - I'm sticking with Google Assistant and all the great things it can do.

It, like Siri, is rubbish. I shall just continue to take my profits from Google, apple and the rest so they can make more cash for me from the mugs who form the majority!

Incidentally, the 6S received its last update only a couple of weeks ago. It runs all the things I want and now it's out of maintenance, there will be no further upgrades to mess things up.

I've had Android auto working well via the little AA Wireless box for a couple of months now. This morning on starting my car, I get a large message on the car screen, Android Auto needs updates. Please stop the car and follow the instructions on your phone. I see no way of getting rid of the message. So I ignore and get on with my shopping ignoring the lack of navigation and music (even the Lexus map is totally obscured by the message). Back home I investigate further. It wants me to update 'maps' but also, the Google app. I know what it's up to. I have a newer version of Google on another phone and it's forced the appallingly obtrusive Google Assistant onto the phone, which is extremely annoying and very difficult to totally switch off. So, sadly, its time to uninstall all this stuff. I run my life, not Google. I shall try getting  out my old Iphone 6S and swapping to Carplay, but they're already up to the same games...

Got my membership pack this morning. They claim there's no  blue Lexus card 'to help the environment'.  Total garbage of course, I shan't renew next year. Probably cheaper too from somewhere else with no Lexus branding...

It has, amongst other advantages, the useful feature that you can't accidentally go out with no credit cards!

Just signed up using the link helpfully provided helpfully by Mr Wharfhouse above since my car is now 3 years old and the nice little Lexus card has expired.

It's a Lexus branded AA site ,£135 for the year the cash going to the AA . Having signed up, it was recorded as a renewal and a membership pack is winging  its way to me at the moment.

I shall be very disappointed if there is no proper Lexus card with the phone numbers etc on it....

I got one with my 2019 car. I never use anything else, the two jumbo fobs are switched off and one comes out temporarily for the dealer to use during service. 

What? No nice plastic Lexus card any more? Huh... Wondered why I hadn't heard from them asking me to renew.

On 4/6/2020 at 12:32 PM, bluenose1940 said:

10.55am 06/04/20  I have just checked my battery and it is showing as 11.51, this appears to be about 15%or so according to Herbies chart.  Time to get a charger methinks.  I do have what I would call a normal charger but I think that I prefer to go to one of the 'smart' jobbies.

With the CTEK MXS 5.0, is it possible to permanently connect this to the battery and leave the actual charger hanging somewhere safely in the boot so that when charging becomes necessary you can simply plug the mains lead into it?

A further thought, is it possible to check the state of the 12v battery by putting a mulitmeter across the special jump lead connectors under the bonnet?  Also, would it be possible to connect the smart charger to these terminals and leave it permanently connected under the bonnet.  This would make life even easier to connect the mains cable as my car is always parked nose first in front of the garage (nay workshop) door and would avoid the need to mess around in the boot area, or are these connectors equally fiddly to get at.

Yes, I have my MX5 connectors permanently connected in the boot, with an additional home made low voltage extension cable  on the charger output so I can run the charger module in the house. I use twin core orange mains cable with a miniconnector pair laid along the back of the boot floor. That's because the CTek extension cables you can buy aren't long enough for my needs. The connector pair is waterproof and the cable exits happily through the bottom of the boot opening. It's actually the same MX5 that I used to use on the IS300H, with the same connector arrangement.

Ignore the stuff about removing the earth lead which is aimed at countries with dubious supplies. Just disconnect before you power the car on!

And don't , like I did once, drive off with the cable attached... This does not do the cable any good...

I have always had this problem, my GS however I remember did have more than one sensitivity setting which sorted it. The IS300H had lost this, so I assume the NX has as well, being replaced by the variable frequency bleep. But when there are continuous bleeps going off on one side or the other, which seems to happen when the car is about 2 feet from an obstruction, one does learn to put up with them.

" Good luck with the repair. " Thanks!

The entrance to my drive is narrow and has hedges on each side. As a result I have come to ignore the continuous bleeping from the various sensors which go off, and continue going, while I park the car. This happens even when I perform a straight, centre of the road entrance and exit.

Except that, when I needed to use the car early this morning and, slightly bleary minded, exited normally and straight, or so I thought... Until there was the crunching sound of plastic hitting a low wall at the bottom of the hedge on one side... Now I have to get a quote to have the auxiliary light moulding sorted out and resprayed. Fortunately it's only the ABS mouding which has popped out in some way, the glass of the lamp fitting is unmarked.

Is there a way of reducing the parking warning sensitivity so it goesn't go off when there are at least 2 feet to spare before obstructions?

On 1/13/2020 at 11:17 AM, Summerbj said:

 

I have seen a response from Lexus Customer relations dated September 2013 stating the following:

 

A  lot can have changed in 7 years... I suspect that the more sophisticated AHS now used probably handles both LHD and RHD roads with no problems.

5 minutes ago, Newfie said:

March 2019

Should be OK if it's used regularly. I think the auxiliary Battery is the achilles heel of the Lexus hybrids if they aren't used a lot. I had to call the AA out about a year after I bought my IS300h,  new 12miles on the clock when delivered. Just wouldn't start. AA man jump started it but it happened a couple more times. I just don't use them enough to keep the Battery charged. Now I use a Battery conditioner to keep it going OK.

1 hour ago, Newfie said:

It’s finally arrived, now it’s just a waiting game to see what’s wrong.

Probably duff auxiliary Battery in the cold weather. How old is the car?

Just now, alpine said:

Not clear to me if it's a 'new car' as the topic heading how she could have done 6K miles in a week!

On 11/8/2019 at 5:38 PM, Lyndos said:

I have just taken delivery of UX and can’t believe how bad the map display is compared to my old Volvo.  Even zooming in doesn’t help with being able to read the road names and my eyesight is pretty good. 

Agreed. My IS300H had a much better and clearer sat nav display.

12 minutes ago, pobrown said:

It does that sometimes.  Reboot the system (hold the audio power button in) and have another look. 

No, still the same! But it's working...

I also forgot to download the Audio one, and ran out of my hour! But the audio has all I want anyway.

Done my nav, though the map version is even weirder than the one that came on delivery!

12 minutes ago, Heanorboy said:

Yes I would love to know "why"  it is definitely not due to the remotes being near the NX. The NX was in a brick garage which is detached from the house by min 6 mts and both keys inside blocking key pouches inside separate steel filing cabinets.  

It's keeping all its keyfob sensor stuff active.All just to get the lights to glow as you get to a couple of metres of the car... I think the NX  also keeps its wifi running because I seem to be able to use 'Mylexus' on the PC to download routes to the car even when it's parked out in front of the house but within wifi range.

36 minutes ago, C Mclean said:

The biggest danger with using a trickle charger is remembering to disconnect it before driving off..

Been there, done that...Wondered why my IS was a bit clunky to reverse out, and then drove off with the charger wires dangling.

My IS300H used regularly to run out of charge on the auxiliary Battery when I left it for a week or more. So I started keeping one of those RAC Battery things in the boot to save calling Lexus/AA out. Then I bought a Ctek charger and left its connector wired up permanently in the boot. The connector has little LED indicators indicating the state of the Battery.

I removed the CTek connector before I sold the IS300H, and one of the first things I did to the new NX was add it back. It gets low on auxiliary Battery charge after about 5 days non use. This is with both the standard key fobs switched off and the card key way over on the other side of the house  where it cannot possibly be received by the car. 'Blocking' key pouches aren't necessary with the current cars since the buttoned fobs can be switched off and the card key has a very short range. Try it and see!

Having to regularly charge it is one of the things I've  got used to, given my intermittent use of the car!

Mine, also Oct 1st simply says this, I haven't a clue what it means.

19 minutes ago, NemesisUK said:

Can only say for my 2016 Premium system but there is no option to locally delete SMS.

One can toggle automatic transfer from the phone though, so perhaps toggle this off (if applicable to your system/year), presumably only new SMS, received whilst connected, will be available in the car system?

That is probably the issue, thanks!

So, there I was with my automatic text read out function on, and someone sends me an embarrassing text. So I let it play, I'm o my own in the car. But it's still there and anyone passenger who hits the right buttons can play it too. Looking at the list of texts, they go way back to previous phones!!!

Is there no way to clear text messages which seem to have been locally stored somewhere?! Or is it that they can be read out because I haven't deleted them on my phone?

Yes, I bought one of  the Ctek chargers last year, and this works OK.