Mihanicos

On Youtube, " The car care nut " a former master technician has a video that you should watch. Like all other learned members have already outlined, these are top of the range in everything, you drive them once and you will never want to hear about any other car. The hybrid battery can be reconditioned, the air suspension can be inspected, their Achilles heel is the cooling system, coolant leaks in the valley between the V banks and is tedious to repair but most important if you do not check the coolant level, the engine will pack up. Every time you need a service or a repair, you may have to visit your bank. Test drive it and put everything in the balance. I would buy it if I lived in England, there you can find alternative spare parts, you have options. Chris.

Check the selector switch and measure the resistance in each position. I cannot recall the values, but they are about 100 to 400 Ohms. You can open the switch and put the contact inside at the right position. Then you can verify its operation. Next check the connector to the airbag control unit, under the armrest. Do not forget to disconnect the battery and wait at least 1.5 minutes. The connectors of the airbag module short circuit the wires to each airbag circuit when disconnected from the connector to the airbags. When the connectors are mated, the short circuit is removed Check their function and check that the connectors make good contact when mated. Reference: Original Lexus GS 450h repair manual. Chris.

You need a n oscilloscope and the location of the connectors to find where and what the problem is. Picoscope are really very good, Hantek is not bad.

A full scan will give a very good idea what to look for. Clean the throttle body butterfly to restore the engine rpm. Check and clean the mass air flow sensor. Check for parasitic draw from the battery, measure the milivot drop across the fuses. To pinpoint the cause of the fault you need the circuit diagrams of the car, preferably Alldata, precise, accurate very easy to use. Autodata is also very good. Chris

Use silicon grease on the slide pin.

Check all the suspension bushings, linkages and bearings and eliminate any play before an alignment. Use a small crow bar to lever the various suspension members to check for worn bushings and links .

The maximum permissible range is obtained when you adjust the low beam at 2 mm dip per metre away from the horizontal line joining the centres of the headlights. Look for the small spherical prodrution on the low beam lens cover. This is the reference level. The tank must be full and the car on a level surface. Draw a diagram of the headlights height, distance between the headlight centres and the desired dip according to the distance from the car. Align the low beams one at a time, covering the other by putting an object in front of it. Do not cover with a cloth. Reference : Toyota original repair. manual Chris.

Apologies for the two " replies " above, I was trying to change the keyboard language into english and eventually I managed to do it. On my car, the high voltage cables from the battery to the inverter, part of their route is under the car. They run in orange conduit. I assume yours follow a similar pattern. I take it that is where the damage is. To repair the insulation, there are electrical insulating tapes available to various ratings. Some of them are rated to 11kv, easily available. There are also shrouds to even much higher ratings, 66 Kv and 132kv. Due to the lethal danger involved, I strongly recommend to get a professional to do the job for you. Do not even think about attempting it yourself. I have already outlined the repair procedure earlier but on second thoughts, I deleted it. Always remember and never ever forget that any cable operating at any high voltage dc circuit, behaves like a capacitor that holds its charge even after it has been isolated from its circuit. It is imperative to earth it by connecting it directly to the ground and keeping it so until all repairs have been carried out. High voltage dc circuits are lethal. Chris.

Watch the " 600 000 miles lexus ls restoration " by the " car care nut ". He used to be the master technisian of Toyota Lexus and now he has his own shop. He is one of the very very few and scarce perfectionist mechanics left in the world. I have to admit that I never imagined bleeding the power steering of any car would involve such a procedure ! Chris.

Using a wiring diagram, connect the negative terminal of a multimeter to the battery negative terminal and disconnect it from the battery. With the positive probe of the multimeter check the wiring of the car towards the suspected circuits causing the faults. Check each connector as well by disconnecting them one by one and measure the circuit resistance to that point. Ground body points connected to wiring grounds should be checked as well. You should never get a reading of more than 1 ohm. Alldata are the best wiring diagrams, accurately redrawn so they are crystal clear and staight forward to read and follow. They give you the precise location of each connector with photos. The Lexus/Toyota wiring diagrams are good but not so easy to read and follow, they are the next best. If you find nothing wrong you need to check the communication circuits. You may have a module that has an intermittent fault to ground or shorting the communication signal. Check first the resistance between the communication channels from the 16 pin obd2. Measure accross the right pins, I need to look up which is which. If my memory serves me right you should get a reading of 120 Ohms. Other members with better memory, please correct me. If you get a reading below, you need to disconnect the modules one by one until you get the desired reading. A better way to check the communication channels is an oscilloscope or a picoscope. There you can see the waveform of the communication signal. Intermittent faults take time to find and a lot of patience. With time, one day the intermittent fault will become permanent and then it is easy to locate. Chris.

1 to 1.5% is the normal dip. But I came accross a toyota avensis headlight adjustment and I did a drop of 0.2% and it is excellent. Chris.

I had to alighn my headlights. Assuming the levelling control works, you can adjust them using the horizontal and vertical screws. The height adjustment screw is accessible by removing part of the wheel arch liner. Look for the joint in the liner. That is where the adjusting screw is found. First you have to fill the tank with petrol to the full. Place the car on a level flat surface. Draw the centres of the lights on a flat plane, same height and distance between them. Draw a horizontal line between the centres of the lights. Mark the centres. Put this plane vertical at a convenient distance from the lights with the horizontal line at the same height as that of the lights. The centre of the horizontal line should be at the same axes as that of the centre of the lights on the car. Now you adjust the lights at 0.2% ( 2 mm per metre from the car) drop from the horizontal line and aim them precisely. This adjustment gives maximum visibility without blinding oncoming traffic. Hope this can help. Chris.

Check the grounds and the 12v lines to the various affected circuits. You need a detailed wiring diagram showing clearly all circuits and the relevant connectors as well as their location. Alldata is excellent, very clear, accurate and very easy to read and follow. The 12v battery is charged from the hybrid battery through the inverter. A good hybrid battery fully charged should be able to pull the car about 1 km on a flat level road. Any battery that charges quickly and discharges quickly is a sign that has deteriorated or not charged fully due electrical resistance developed accross the connections of the modules or anywhere else in the circuit. Chris.

Whenever the automatic transmission oil is drained, you fill in with half a litre more than the amount drained. Normally about 3.5 litres drains out, about half the capacity. Then you circulate the oil with the engine on maintenance mode, through the gears twice, remaning 5 seconds at each one. Drain the excess oil through the overflow plug between 30C and 40C oil temperature. Make sure you have no " line pressure " code. If you do have, the oil level is wrong and you must repeat the process again. Chris.

During hard acceleration MG2 draws current from the traction battery to assist acceleartion. Given that the traction battery is limited 6.5 ah, when the traction battery capacity is used up, there is a drop in acceleration. The MG2 power is about 148 Kw, if my memory serves right, about half the engine power. When going down mountain roads and you engage 5th, 4th or 3rd gear, for as long as the traction battery is being charged, you have significant breaking to maintain the car in the desired speed. When the traction battery is fully charged, you will notice the car suddenly goes down the hill as if you shifted out the lower gear to neutral. Chris

There is no filler plug, you have to disconnect the top rubber hose to the oil cooler on the driver's side. ( There are two, flow and return.) Plug the rubber tube to the oil cooler and add about half a litre more oil than the amount you drained. You drain about 3.5 litres. Make sure the car is levelled on stands. After you add oil, reinstall the rubber hose and go through each gear twice, remaining for 5 seconds in each one. It is important to circulate the fluid so you do not line pressure TDC. Keep the engine running and observe the transmission fluid temperature. You can read it from a scanner or using an infrared laser thermometer. You drain the excess oil between 30C and 40C. For uk i would drain at 35C. Go for a test drive and make sure you have no line pressure DTC. If you have, add half a litre of fluid and repeat the process. Use Toyota WS transmission fluid. Do not even think about a fully synthetic much better etc oil. The Lexus fluid has electrical insulation properties to protect the high voltage electric motors within the transmission. It is not worth the risk of a flash over in the windings of the motors in which case you will need another transmission. Chris.

Check the canister operation and that all hoses pertaining thereto are sound. Check the fuel filler cap seals the tank. Chris.

If you cannot identify it, remove it and find out what does not work. Autodata circuit diagrams are very accurate and very thorough. Chris

Normally the adjustment screws accessible from the top of the headlights is only the horizintal adjustment. For the height adjustment you need to remove the plastic wheel well liner. If you have separate low and high beams, there are sepatate adjustments for each beam for horizontal and vertical. For maximum visibility without blinding oncoming traffic, dip the low beam to 0.2 % from the horizontal reference mark on the low beam. Chris.

The air conditioning compressor has an idle pulley that turns continuously about its bearing when the engine is running. When the air conditioning is turned on, the compressor clutch pulls the pully towards the compressor shaft coupled to its own separate pulley and the compressor runs. Notice the pulley splines bending to allow the pulley to engage pn the compressor pull There is a gap of about 0.4 mm between the two pulleys, depending on the manufacturer. Check that the idle pulley bearing rotates freely, there is no play and makes no noise. Make sure the belt is properly tentioned and does not slip. If the idle pulley checks out check that the compressor rotates freely. You may have a seized compressor. Chris.

Change the transmission filter and oil with original parts. If the filter is made of fine steel mesh ( Japanese market models ) no need to change the filter. Make sure you check the oil level when its temperature is between 30C and 40C. Chris.

The signs you have just descriped spell out air in the coolant circuit. Remove the radiator cap and bleed the system, make sure the heater is fully on and when the coolant thermostat opens, you will feel the radiator hose at the top getting warm and then hot, keep sqeezing and releasing the bottom heater hose and observe the coolant level rise and fall in the radiator when you release it. Having expelled all the air, fill the radiator with coolant and put the cap on. Then you should find the bleeder screw somewhere on the top left or right side of the radiator. Also by this screw there should be a nipple to attach a tube to direct the bled coolant to the expansion tank, having removed its lid. There a few videos on You tube on how to bleed the coolant, one about a Toyota demonstrated by the " car care nut " somebody who has been working for a long time with Toyota. Chris.

Some reusable air filters that need oil after maintenance, run the risk of this oil cantaminating the mass air flow sensor, resulting in false information to the engine computer. Should this occur, you may have codes relating to the air fuel ratio.

There are some videos on Youtube how to program a replacement key from amazon and ebay. On the videos the programming was succesful. I tried to obtain a copy of the mechanical key from a specialist who had a professional digital cnc machine solely for copying car keys and the machine could not make a copy. Chris.

Turn the stering wheel fully clockwise and then fully anticlockwise to initialise the steering. Some models have a few other items to initialise. Check also for all the supplies and grounds to the inverter. You need a full circuit diagram, if do not have one, Autodata are extremely good, very clear, straight connections with all colours and very clearly legible and very easy to read and follow. Chris.