OldTrout

You can hear the engine? John

Adam, I will be interested to hear how you get on with the headrest on the Mk4 GS. I too am long in the back and when I had a GS as a courtesy car I had to remove the headrest it was so obtrusive. Felt unsafe driving without a headrest. This feature alone would stop me buying one. I am hoping to find a 450 to see if that is just the same as the 300. It may be that the more configurable seat in the 450 can allow me to get comfortable. John

I would like to add to this thread with my experience of three years with a GS450h. Mine is red with light grey leather, and piano black wood. It had done about 104,000 miles when purchased from Lexus Woodford. It’s now on about 125k. It is an 07 SE-L so it has all the bells and whistles some of which later became options e.g. sun (moon) roof, PCS and ACC. I had the PCS kick in one day but fortunately that was the only time. I use the ACC all the time on motorways and dual carriageways. I could live without the sunroof but it is useful to leave it open if the dog is left in the car. It does not have the active rear wheel steering option which I have never seen. Driving experience As Odysseus as the start of this thread! I would only add that it might well stick to the road like glue round corners but I don't stick in the seat so I don't know how much it could be pushed. As Odysseus so eloquently put it "the car would rather you stopped being silly and drove properly". Mrs Trout says this too. I do many fewer miles than Odysseus and don't find the tank too small. The boot is small but I am good at packing. It encourages not packing stuff you don't need except when going to the tip. I am not moved by the shape which strikes me as bland. It does not attract attention even in red which is fine by me. I am very impressed by its 0.27 drag coefficient. My best mpg is 45 (Old Sodbury to Oxford): my worst 21 - all short journeys in town which usually gets about 30. On 150 mile runs I get 36 if cruising at the limits or 40 if I slow down a little and the traffic is light. Maintenance The car came with 1 year Lexus warranty which I extended a further two years when it ran out. The only issue I had was dampers - all four needed replacing. Three were original, one had only done about 50k. After a long exchange with Lexus and the warranty company we settled with me paying for two at £695 (with no LOC discount). When this work was done the wheel nuts were overtightened to the extent that the security nuts were destroyed getting them off. I bought some used Toyota ones off eBay for ~£12. These look stronger to me and have not given any bother. (Or been overtightened.) I raised the over tightening with the Lexus main dealer responsible. They did not hold their hands up to this saying "Our technicians are fully trained etc. etc." I went elsewhere for the last service I had whilst under warranty. LOC discount was given for both main dealer services. Now that my warranty has expired my service plan is the minor-plus-MOT every year (see below) with extra items like plugs specified by me. My garage/MOT place for the last 50+ years is now fully able to service hybrids so I have gone back to them for service after brief spell away for warranty compliance. They are excellent and I commend them to anyone who wants an indie and can get to Kidlington just north of Oxford. See http://www.summertowngarage.co.uk. No connection other than a happy customer for 50+ years. I had nothing else under warranty but have done some things myself. The passenger wing mirror stopped tipping down when reverse was engaged - a very useful feature. I took it apart following the guide on this forum. (The guide doesn't say best attempted on a very hot day or when you have heated behind the mirror with a hair dryer. I tried when cold but was afraid if I pulled harder the mirror would break. In hot weather it was easy.) Nothing seemed gunged up and the mechanism was more enclosed than the one on the guide which was possibly why. I cleaned, lubricated and reassembled. It worked. Sadly pride comes before a fall and it stopped again a couple of days later. I assume it must have been a bad connection somewhere as it started working without further intervention and still is. Cost - just my time. I replaced the reversing lights which were only slightly more effective than a Morris Minor starting handle with LEDs. A great improvement for £7 on eBay. Now <£5! I have not have sticking/seized callipers. Forewarned by this forum, I cleaned up the calliper pins and applied the Lexus approved grease (http://proslip.com. Again no connection other than a happy customer). One horn failed. I replaced it with one from a local car parts shop for ~£10. (There were much cheaper ones!). I have now replaced all four tyres but like bulbs this is an expected running cost. So are new discs and pads and I have done the fronts £94. The rears might need doing in a couple of years. Also expected are bulbs. I replaced both dipped beam HID bulbs. One was failing exactly as described in the Wikipedia entry on HID bulbs but I replaced both. Their envelopes were very darkened and the light output must have been well down. The replacement bulbs were £16 and have been fine for last two years. Other consumables have been a cabin pollen filter ~£6 at Halfords with discount, wiper blades ECP for £22, 2 x navigation maps (genuine not pirate copies) £24 and ~£30 from eBay. The TPMS batteries are still holding up which is good after 11.5 years. At present I have a very slight weep of oil and also of coolant. I'm carrying a litre of each to top up if required and may have to tackle the cause at some stage. We do all check our oil and coolant levels regularly don't we? I do now. Acknowledgements Whist I used to do most car repairs myself, six years of a Camry and then 10 of a Mk2 GS300 ownership doing nothing meant I got out of the habit. Cars got much more complicated too - perhaps only garages with sophisticated equipment can fix them now. However I was encouraged to have a go by this forum which is amazingly helpful. In particular I must especially thank Britprius. He is a mine of information and has offered great tips and advice. The cunning minor-service-plus-MOT service plan is his idea and is a fantastic money saver. Thanks John. John

Welcome Reid. Yes it is a wonderful car and the forum likes pictures🙂 I will try to answer your questions. My car is a 2007 and i just recently discovered that some of the feature that were standard on my car e.g. PCS and ACC, became optional in later years. If they also changed how the lights woks my answer may be wrong. 1) There is a blue main beam warning lamp in the cluster. This goes out when you are on dipped just leaving the green shining downwards light. I can't understand why you need to look at the stalk which as you say may well be obscured by the wheel. If you leave the stalk set to auto lights will come on when needed. You only need to push it away to get main beam and all back from main to get dipped. Puling stalk nearer against a spring is used for flashing the main beam lights. 2) I leave the parking sensors on all the time. Yes there is a little indicator to show they are on. Don't stare at it you soon get used to it. 3) Mine is about 10% high. It is factory set high. This is a legal thing and there are discussion elsewhere on the forum about this. No, you can't recalibrate. On motorway you can set cruise to 75 and be confident you are obeying the limit. As I type Herbs has replied much the same. The manual is huge and finding some things can be difficult. Have you mastered the satnav yet? John

Thanks for clarifying the reason Chris and Rayaan. So take feature off and make them an option effectively raising the price. Not the original Lexus way methinks. John

My point was that having ACC and PCS on the previous top of the range 450h why omit it on the new model?

Great car. The one on Auto trader like your looks superb too. I feel quite envious although I do wonder why ACC and PCS do not feature on this top of the range model. I understand the latest technology not being on an old car but my series 3 has these aids and I find the ACC very useful addition to CC. My PCS fortunately has only kicked in once when I had to brake very sharply. It works. I'm curious to know where Shahpor is driving (in the UK) that he can "accelerate hard for longish periods"🤨 Does longish mean less than 5 seconds? Now if there was a nice red one with black wood with ACC and PCS that looked in as good condition I would find it very hard to resist the temptation. John

Of course. Pressure varies with temperature. Cold, light comes on, warm up and it goes off. It needs to be set properly. On a mild day, say 15 C, and the car having been stationary for at least a couple of hours, inflate the tyres to the pressures you want then press the little button. John

When I bought my Gen 3 the salesman did not know how to adjust the drivers headrest or how to lock the car with the little black door button. There was probably a lot else he didn't know too. There is a ride height system but it is used to adjust the headlight aim. John

Steve, It does use a TPMS device in each wheel. With all tyres at 35psi have you pressed the TPMS set switch under the steering column? The batteries in each sensor are no more than 6 years old so they should be fine for a few more years. John

No mention in the ad of ignition keys. They are expensive so two is a must. John

Steady on Rabbers. I used the word apropos and it evoked comment. John

Krzysztof That moulded arrow head really doesn't help does it? I think I agree with your last sentence. Try blowing with a mouthful of water into the ports to work out which port is which. I guess you will be able easily to blow into the input but blowing into the output ports should be checked. John

I found the Proslip grease set http://proslip.com very handy. Should be discount to LOC members too. (No connection, just satisfied customer.) John

Not knowingly. Is this to my credit? As a little lad I saw pint glasses being checked at the Weights and Measures office in Stafford before getting the pint stamp. Back on topic there is a button to press on my 450 when I have changed tyres. Something to do with satmap and position but what? John

But if it is sold by the pint that pint has to measured at some stage so sums are important🙂

John, Yes. I should have said so as it particular to hybrids. I didn't get a certificate but I did see the voltage test readings for all 20 modules (which you don't get to see with Lexus) and they were all within a tenth of a volt of each other. I didn't get insurance which Lexus would have given. They also load tested the 12V battery (which looks original to me) at 10.9V. This would be very heavy load simulating a starter motor so way beyond anything it has to do in use. They also got a fault with a/c system which they could not understand as it obviously worked. Bitprius has kindly explained this to me and I have passed it on to them. The fault comes up if test is done inside with no light/heat falling on the screen. It goes away if tested outside! The car senses the heat falling on each side and uses this to adjust the a/c on each side of the car to suit. Very cunning. I was very surprised by the bill as the oil and the bits came to more than £100 and then £50 for MOT so the hourly rate is well below £84 which I am told was the average for the Thames Valley a few years ago. John

Sean, Not just rural areas. The morning and afternoon traffic decreases hugely in Oxford in school holidays! John

Just back from my minor service + MOT and I have to report total satisfaction. £222 for everything including the 10L of oil which came to £84. (They gave me the oil that was left from 10L). I have all sorts of print-outs and other helpful stuff. HV battery in very good shape. Summertown Garage are located on the north side of Kidlington so if you come from north you are spared the congested mess of potholed roads that is Oxford. I unreservedly recommend them. (I have no connection other than as happy customer for last 52 years.) John

Syed, Was your car subject to this recall and was it done? Mine was. John

This thread? John

I haven't got an iPhone 6 but all the earlier ones can't transfer contacts. I think it is because Apple think you will keep your contacts in the cloud and each device will sync to the cloud. Sadly I don't think any Lexus can do this. But there is a workable solution. Select your most used numbers and enter them by hand into the car system. I have about 10. The manual will tell you how many you can have on quick dial. Quick dial numbers are the only ones you can use whilst moving. For all the others you have to stop and when stopped you might just as well dial them from the phone as from the Lexus screen. John

Grant, Did mine this week. Unlike you I've never changed discs before. Straightforward job even whilst sitting on pavement. The discs are handed if they have cooling slots. Poke a screwdriver into the slots of the old ones at the top. It will lean forward i.e. the slots are not radial. The idea is to scoop up cooling air better. Should also be marked on the box. I did not find any caliper pins. On the back yes but the front callipers have two pistons each side of the disc and do not need to float on pins. I can recommend ProSlip Pin, Pad and Clip grease available on Amazon with discount for LOC members. Lee's advice about not starting the engine when pistons could pop out is excellent. I had my key in my pocket but didn't go near the start button. Hope you manage it with no problems. I discovered this evening that my car had a caliper recall in 2009. Does anyone know any details of this recall? John

Peter, Thank you for pointing this incompetent at the correct app. The one I first got was USA although it did not say so very obviously. Then I could not find the one you suggested on the app store. I had "iPad only" selected on my iPad and the app only comes up on "iPhone only" despite saying it is iPad compatible. Moreover this UK app did actually know I had an account and logged me in to it. The service history is there albeit full of typos and abbreviations and very possibly truncated as well. I have been able to find out when some infrequent items were last done and will be able to say what needs to be done by my indie now I am out of warranty and compulsory Lexus servicing. Start of problem to solution less than six hours. Great. John

Thanks Lee and Peter. I am relieved it is not me missing things (or using a browser which misses links) but like you puzzled as to why Lexus would remove the service history from the website. The iPhone app is called Explore MyLexus. Sadly this will not accept my VIN as valid! If I try "Browse Models" instead I can't get anything earlier than 2014. And it does seem very USA-centric. And to make it even more annoying although I am registered on the website I get no option to login. Scuppered. John