Britprius

As long as you do not remove the terminal clamps from the battery all will be fine. If you go the extra nut route do not use the nylock type nuts. If a battery terminals does come off the windows, and sun roof "if fitted" will need resetting. To do this open each window half way then shut holding the switch in the shut position for about 5 seconds. Do this on the actual switches on the door concerned not from the drivers door. John.

Hi John. The HV battery should be good for quite a considerable period. I bought a gen2 Prius in an auction that had not run for 3 years. After sorting out some electrical problems with the AC system causing a ground fault on the high voltage system, and replacing the 12 volt battery the car started up immediately with no further actions. The HV battery still had a charge level of three blue bars. If you know the car is not going to be used, and will not go to "ready mode" for an extended period before parking the car up make sure there is as much charge as possible in the HV battery. This can be safely done by going to ready mode, and "D" and with your left foot firmly on the brake apply the accelerator with your right foot until the desired charge level is reached. This will not harm the transmission. It just uses all the engine energy to force charge the battery. John.

I agree there is a big difference between cheap, and expensive tyres, and that is in the amount of money you pay. Why use the terms expensive, and then the more degrading cheap instead of inexpensive. There are many very good inexpensive tyres on the market, and some terrible expensive tyres. You do not always get better by paying more. Often the higher price is for profit, extra VAT, and advertising, John.

Hi Jeff. You can SORN the car online in two ways. If you give the first 11 numbers of the VIN number on line it will SORN the car with emediate effect. If you give all 18 VIN numbers on line it will SORN the car from the first day of the next month allowing you to drive for the rest of this month. Your laying up procedure sounds fine, but would be helped by moving the car a couple of feet backwards or forwards each month to releave the possibility of flat spotting the tyres. This is not essential, but good practice. John.

If you bring the grass, and trees over i'll do them for you. John.

I have had discs on many occasions on many different cars with a 100% success rate. However I try to find a local machine shop that has a lathe to carry out the work. This is usually done on a cash in hand basis typically costing £20 for a pair of discs. I now have a friend that has a lathe so I can do them myself. Care must be taken that the discs to be machined are not cracked, and are above the minimum stated thickness after machining. Again however discs machined under the minimum thickness is not an MOT failure. John.

The condition of the engine air filter will depend very much on where you live. Living in Herefordshire on the Welsh borders the air quality is very good, and all I get in my filter after 25,000 miles is a few leaves, and dead bugs that can easily be tapped out. This also applies to the AC filter. John.

With regret I have decided to SORN my car even though I have only just got it back on the road at the beginning of March. Because of the Corona Virus I am not likely to need to use it, and it seems pointless keeping it taxed at around £30 a month, and not use it. My wife has an Aygo that only costs £20 a year to tax so for local outings if needed we can use that, It is most unlikely that the restrictions will be lifted in the next 3 months. If I do wish to use the car I can tax it on line at any time. In the mean time as the car is close to 150,000 miles I have ordered parts to give it a head to toe service including changing the coolant pump, drive belt, timing chain, plugs, all fluids, filters and gearbox oil pump bearings. I can take my time doing this, and it will give me something else to do outside on pleasant days other than gardening. I am going to flush the engine oil, and refill with 0w16 Toyota synthetic oil I have over an acre of garden consisting mostly of an old orchard, and grass for witch I use a sit on mower to cut. I use the old oil out of my engine in my Briggs, and Stratton mower engine, and in my 2stroke chain saw for both the engine, and chain lubricant. I will also service the Aygo leaving out the timming chain change as this although 14 years old has only done 75,000 miles. John.

The problem is with the magic smoke it is a dealer only smoke there is no aftermarket equivalent. This makes it extremely expensive. The other item that is likely to expire is the 150 amp fuse built into the battery terminal. This will blow if subjected to starter motor currents. John.

The V6 engine uses dual injection. It is the direct injection part of this that causes problems buy burning off the tips of the injectors when running on LPG since there is no fuel flow through the injectors to cool them. I have the 450H that I would like to convert, but it seems the only way at the moment is to allow some direct petrol injection even when running on LPG. This makes the exercise a bit pointless. John.

I am happy that the OP seems to have found a solution to the problem, but there is another item that can cause this problem that unless I have overlooked it has not been mentioned. The item concerned is an electric pump that circulates the engine coolant around the heater circuit when the engine is not running. This allows the heat to be removed from the engine, and passed round to the heater when the engine is not running. All the hybrids have such a pump mounted somewhere. In the GS it is mounted on the drivers side inner wing, and can be herd running if you put a long rod or screw driver against it stethoscope style after the engine has shut down automatically. Do not confuse this pump with electric pump that circulates a separate coolant circuit to the inverter, and transmission. John.

I did intend attending the meeting, but because of my age, and a lung condition going is now sadly not possible. Unfortunately it could be that the meeting will be forced to be cancelled as it is likely all the museums will be closed anyway. Time will tell. John.

Check out this video on Landsail. Definitely not a grubby little workshop. Some of the translation is typical Chinese to English loosing in the translation, but perhaps an eye opener. John.

This comes under "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" the only thing I like is the car. I do not like green on any car to the point where it would put me off buying any car if it were green. I agree the slammed look is also not for me, but this is probably an age thing. I am also not a lover of black cars, but this is not down to the actual look, but more to do with the impossibility of keeping one clean, and the car being so hot in the sun. John.

Yes I am sorry for any confusion I have caused in the above posts. I have made a mental note to check information as I am obviously subject to senior moments. John.

Return them to the supplier as they will not work and are not suitable "or even legal" in the UK. They are for use in the USA.

Are you sure that monitors were fitted in the 20" rims. If they are fitted it may be that they were not registered into the TPMS ECU. The tyres would need to be removed to find the serial numbers of each of the sensors unless you can find a tyre shop with a portable reader. The numbers would then need to be programmed. Another possibility is that the old sensors were used, and the batteries have gone flat. These can be changed see my thread on "TPMS system fault" John.

It's only a teenager so many years of happy motoring left. How many miles? John.

Do not be put off using a solar charger. The versions that are suitable for use in a car have only a very small output usually below one amp, and come with the correct size cable ready fitted. A 100 watt 8.5 amp panel would be as big as the roof of the car, and unless used with a charge controller would over charge the battery. The output of the solar chargers is usually given in watts, but dividing the watts by 12 will give a good approximation of the number of amps the panel is capable of in bright sunshine. The panels are also diode isolated meaning you can leave it connected to the car. It is not difficult to bypass the cigar lighter relay to make it permanently live if you cannot find another suitable permanent live feed "try foot well lights". If you do go down this route buy a panel with a minimum of 10 watts output, but do not go over 30 watts, and try to arrange for it to point south out of shade. The higher the wattage the larger the panel gets. John.

You need a program like Techstream to program the serial numbers into the car, but there are TPMS monitors on the market that use the 433 Mhz frequency, and the UK frequency is 315 Mhz so please check the ones you have are the correct frequency. The wrong ones will not work. John.

It would be a good idea to get a hybrid health check from your nearest Lexus dealer. This is free with any service or cost about £60 as a stand alone item. It gives you a one year or 10,000 miles extension on the hybrid battery guarantee. You can do this as many times a year as is required if you do a lot of miles, and can be carried on till the cars 15 th birthday. You do not have to have the car serviced by Lexus, and you do not need a Lexus service history. John.

A can of black spray paint will soon cure that. The wheels do look great, but I think they will destroy the ride comfort. Wheels to look out for that are virtually the same specification as the OEM are Mazda RX wheels. There are plenty on the market making them cheap to buy because of the rotary engine problems causing cars to be scrapped. They do require spigot rings because the centre bore is different "larger" but they are 81/2 J x 18" with the same stud PCD as the Lexus wheels. John.

The oil pressure switch is on the top of the oil filter housing by the front engine pulley. There is plenty of room in that area between the radiator and the engine, but it could be mounted anywhere as long as it is mounted vertically. If you remove the front wheel arch liner there is lots of unused space behind it. You can use a metal pipe from the container if it is positioned some distance from the oil pressure switch as long as you have a flexible hose from it to the oil pressure "T" to allow for engine movement. There is no reason why you cannot make the system work seamlessly. It will just take a little thought. Using an ignition on feed should work as there is a delay in the engine starting after going to ready mode, but you must use a timer to turn off the feed after a reasonable on time to allow oil to circulate, and then the solenoid to close to facilitate the container filling with oil under pressure, and hold it. Using the oil pressure switch it's self to do this might work well. John.

The early failure is probably due to pothole damage rather than just bearing failure through faulty materials. The bearings take a real beating particularly on the front with the weight of the engine when you hit a pothole. John.

Good to hear I am not the only one that got good service. John.