Britprius

Ideally it would be better to put the car on stands with the weight off both the tyres and suspension. Leave the parking brake off to avoid the possibility of the shoes sticking to the drums. As for the battery is it possible to use a solar panel perhaps on the roof of the garage to keep the battery charged? If so use a solar panel with an output of an absolute minimum of 6 watts, but preferably 12 or 24 watts "the higher the better within reason". Ideally removing the battery, and keeping it trickle charged indoors would be best, but I do realise this would mean refitting it every month. Make sure you can get to the battery compartment with no 12 volt supply if the battery is removed or becomes discharged. Starting the car monthly sounds reasonable, but If the battery is allowed to become discharged while standing it will become sulphated, and loose capacity. Jump starting while allowing you to start the car does not help the battery fitted in the car. John.

The OEM bulbs are rated at 4300 kelvin. I personally prefer using 5 K or 6 k bulbs for a whiter light, but anything higher than this gets to blue in color. The headlamp covers can become a fogy yellow color when left in sunlight for many years, but if you can clearly see the internals of your headlamps this is not the problem. John.

Many years ago 5% ethanol was added to petrol without the consumer being made aware at the great majority of petrol stations "not all". The law did not require the petrol companies to inform us at the pump that we were not buying anything other than 100% petrol. Now that the amount of ethanol is being increased to 10% the law states that exactly what we are buying is shown at the pumps. This addition should bring down the price of fuel, but we all know it will just be a way for the petrol companies to make more profit without any gains "in fact there will be a loss in economy" for the customer. Many vehicles will be scraped or have to be modified if "or perhaps I should say when" E10 becomes compulsory along the lines of the change over from leaded to unleaded fuel. I guarantee millions of pounds will be spent promoting the non existent benefits to the customer of using the fuel, and even more millions fitting tanks, pumps, and notices to forecourts across the country. All of this of course will be paid for by us. Many people already buy the supper unleaded grades of fuel at a premium to try to avoid ethanol, but doing this is now area dependent some counties having no ethanol added while other counties do have it added with no requirement for the consumer to be told. Ethanol is a solvent to many materials used as gaskets or diaphragms, but it is also hygroscopic attracting water vapor that turns into liquid water in the bottom of fuel tanks. If the tanks are not lined the bottom of the tank rusts passing debris into the fuel system, and eventually making a hole in the tank. Ethanol is also a solvent to your paintwork so do not leave any spillages to stay on areas beneath the filler neck. Roll on electric vehicles, and solar panels at home to charge them. John.

Peter I totally agree, but I was rely responding as to why William's satnav was possibly sending him off the route he was expecting. John.

William. Have you got the satnav set to avoid motorway? In settings there are choices of routs to avoid such as ferries toll roads, and motorways. The navigation also usually gives three routes, fastest shortest ect. I know the system is not very intuitive, but I have found it reliable for getting where I wish to go. John.

Worn timing chain causing this problem is a known issue, but not usually at that millage. There is an inspection cover on the front driers side of the engine for the chain tensioner. Or the drivers side cam cover can be removed. If the tensioner is at it's tensioning limit it is the chain that has worn. There is a cheat way of changing the chain without dismantling the front of the engine. I have not done this on a Lexus, but I have done it on a Mercedes 350SLC with complete success in 2 hours. The Lexus if anything looks easier to do than the Merc. John.

Some Lexus models with engines listed below up till September 2007 cannot use E10 :- 4GR-FSE 3GR-FSE 1UR-FSE So be careful. John.

It's because E10 is being bought to forecourts soon, and although %5 (E5) ethanol does not have to be shown at the pump 10% (E10) does, and this helps differentiate between the two when E10 is provided. John.

I had to do an identical repair on my GS450H although there was no fault code. I think it is caused by a reaction between the exhaust tube, and the heat shield being made of different metals. I used two pieces of stainless tube about 4" long each. I cut them both into two pieces along there length, and slightly off centre to the tube bore. After cleaning the cracked area of loose debris I coated it with exhaust sealer, and using the two slightly larger "C" shaped pieces of cut tube clipped them over the exhaust pipe the edges of the "C" pieces overlapping each other. A couple of Bannely type exhaust clamps completed the job. I do not envisage having to return to this repair as it is so substantial. Undoubtedly I will probably have to do the same to the passengers side at some time in the future. If the centre section of exhaust gives any real problems I will build a stainless replacement as I did with the rear section. John

I think a compression check would help sort this problem. It maybe that through valve seat regression the valve clearances are tight holding the valves open slightly. If this is the problem it does mean the cylinder heads will need refurbishing. This is not unusual with some LPG conversions. John.

While I agree in principle to your comments it is unusual with modern engines to get any measurable bore ware at 160,000 miles. Often the bore honing marks will still be clearly visible. If broken rings have scored the bores that would be a different matter. Toyota have had problems with the oil return holes in the oil ring groove getting clogged. They now fit pistons with larger holes, and a modified oil control ring. John.

If you raise a complaint with Ebay or Paypal they will ensure you do not loose out, as long as the goods supplied were not as ordered or described. I had this problem with some button cells ordered from Germany. The cells were described as having tags on the Ebay page, but when they arrived they were not tagged. The seller told me to return them at my own expense, but Ebay intervened telling the supplier to send prepaid packaging for me to return the goods or arrange collection. John.

Hi Barry. I could not agree more with your observations. I know it was some years ago now, but I remember the glass 7" headlamps that were fitted to most cars. At first these were made with replaceable bulbs, but were later made into sealed beam units that gave out a little more light. These sealed beams could be bought new for £1.50 each were available with a small window at the rear for inclusive side lamps, and took minutes to change with a Phillips screw driver "no removing the front end of the car as is common today" Sealed beams were also available in 5" diameter versions, and were sometimes mixed with 7" units to give a 4 headlamp setup or even as a 4 lamp setup using all 5" units as on the Triumph Vittesse. I see little advantage with modern purpose made headlamps as the circular lamps could be made more aerodynamic by covering them with shields as with the Jaguar E type. The cost of modern headlamp units is crazy often now becoming fashion items rather than functional requirements. A standard pattern headlamp with a light source of choice would reduce costs to both the manufacturers, and the consumers. John.

You can charge the battery without removing it. If this is not possible the only problem you will come across is as Keith says above along with the sun roof if fitted. To reset the windows open them about halfway then close holding the switch in the closed position for about 5 seconds. That's all there is to it. The cars engine ECU will re-learn your driving style, and self adjust accordingly. Nothing for you to do or be concerned about. John.

Phil. I cannot fault your reasoning. If you were to replace the car you would have to spend much more than the cost of the parts you are buying with no guarantee you would not end up paying for repair parts for the replacement vehicle. Better the devil you know comes to mind. Good luck with your en-devours. John.

The CT 1.8 engine "shared with the Prius" is known for this problem. Toyota/Lexus will not always admit to this, but if you go onto the American Prius chat forum you will find many posts about this. Many more Ct's, and Prius have been sold in the US than here. The forum has a CT section as well as numerous Prius sections to deal with various iterations. The thing that is rely apparent is the need to use only 0W20 oil in this engine as any other grade causes problems particularly higher than expected fuel consumption. John.

Phil I am sorry to hear your problem is at the expensive end of the scale. I have done much research into the workings of the GS 450H adjustable shocks made by KYB including dismantling both fronts, and rears to fully understand there workings. I do not know how they compare with the air spring versions or even if the air spring can be removed from the shock. On the GS shocks it is possible to get a knocking when the oil in the shock is low due to leakage. I have found a method of refilling these, and fitting an extra seal to back up the original so to speak. Fitting the extra new seal does not seam to be always required as once the oil is replaced under pressure the original seal seams to work well again on some I have refilled. John.

The ball joints are very stiff to move by hand. The one's that came off my car were easy to articulate, but there seemed no play. However the new parts cured the knock. John.

I would not hesitate to use Blueprint parts. I used there drop links on my GS without problems. John

Hello Jay. Thanks for trying to find the differences between the two engines. I did note only the GS is listed as having dual injection the RX does not. Whilst the compression ratios are listed as 12.5:1 & 13:1 these are the theoretical calculated compression ratios "bore times stroke". This is rather than the actual where compression starts with the valves held open on part of the compression stroke reducing the figure significantly. It is likely however that the RX does have a lower compression ratio. The GS also has maximum power at 6500 RPM against the RX at 6000 RPM. Although only listed as generators in those specifications all of the electrical units are motor generators meaning they perform both operations. This means the GS has 2 motor generators, and the RX has 3. The "generators" in question also act as starter motors. The GS also has a two speed reduction in the transmission to reduce the speed of MG2 not listed in the RX. This enables the use of lower RPM in MG2 from around 70 MPH increasing it's torque output. The torque in electric motors falls off as it's speed increases. Maximum torque is at zero revs. Somewhat opposite to the petrol engine. I also noted the towing capacity of both vehicles is the same at 2000 KG. John.

Barry wait until cars with LED headlamps begin to to fail. With typical prices for a replacement being £850 a headlamp failure could mean the scrapping of a car in a few years time. John.

Hello again Barry. While I agree that engines with high compression ratios can benefit from high octane fuels it is also required that the ignition timing is also advanced somewhat. The ignition basic timing is set in the ECU of Lexus cars, and cannot under normal circumstances be changed. The ECU has no ability to advance the timing if different fuels are use to that recommended by the manufacturer there being no octane sensor in the fuel system. The ECU does have the ability to retard the ignition if it detects knock from low grade fuels "below specification" We do not know what the real compression ratio of the hybrid engines is, and it is almost certain it is variable depending on the intake cam timing. I suspect the ratio is around 9:1, but have no definitive proof or figures for this. I can say in my GS450H I get no measurable or noticeable performance improvement by using high grade fuels, but I can definitely state my MPG goes down if such fuels are used. If high grade fuels improved MPG this would also reduce pollution. The manufacturers would then specify the fuel accordingly to possibly lower road VED making the vehicle more sale-able. There would also be in the case of the GS450H the real kudos in braking the 300 HP figure for the engine my handbook for the 2007 version showing the power output for the engine to be 298 HP. So the improvement would only need to be 0.6% to achieve this. There "may" be some cleaning advantage to using the high grade fuels with cleaning additives, but no more than adding fuel additives to lower grades and this would only require the occasional tank of fuel to be of benefit. This does depend on the engine configuration somewhat. Direct injection engines not benefiting much at all only cleaning the injectors, and exhaust valves. Port injection engine will benefit from having the inlet valves cleaned along with the injectors, and exhaust valves. I will do some research on the RX engine regarding the type of injection used. John.

Hi Barry. It is unlikely that using higher octane fuels will increase engine power unless the engine is specifically tuned for them. The reverse is more likely because higher grade fuels contain less calories not more, and it is the calories that govern the energy content of fuels. Fuel companies however would have us believe the reverse is the case. Ethanol raises the octane rating of petrol, but it also lowers the MPG. As in my previous post I was not sure if the RX/GS engines were the same, but I had seen posts on LOC about cam belt changes on the RX, but that could be on earlier versions. Do you know if the later RX engine has dual injection as does the GS as this could well explain the difference in output power? John.

Unfortunately you cannot just add all the power sources together as the engine needs to drive the split power devise at one end to give an output at the other. In effect the power split device is like a differential. The prop is driven by the petrol engine one output shaft goes to the wheels via another diff "the axle diff". The second output goes to MG1 acting as a generator. Only when MG1 is producing electricity does first output driving the diff have any turning force. So the power from the engine is split between driving the wheels, and driving MG1. The output from MG1 can be fed to MG2 acting as a motor which is also used to power the wheels via the diff. The battery can only supply a limited current as can MG1 it being about 1/3 the size of MG2. Not enough even combined to power MG2, and the rear motor "could be called MG3" this would require a combined output of 165 HP "not BHP" plus 68 HP or 233 HP in electrical terms (746 watts = 1 HP) so power from the battery, and MG1 would need to be 174,000 watts (174 KW). The HV battery is rated if I remember correctly at 1.2 KWH, but even then it's rated maximum current is 100 amps giving it a maximum output of 28 KW. Complicated I know, but this is why the figures literally do not add up to 492 HP. John.

My GS450H has the function to enable the auto change over, and auto time correction. If I set it to auto change when the car is first turned on the time shown is incorrect, and corrects itself after a few minutes. This at first seems not to be a problem, but if I have turned the car off then need to check the time perhaps for a parking restriction pressing the start button to turn on the clock display the clock gives the wrong time. Leaving the clock in manual setting mode the clock always shows the correct time except when the clocks are altered for daylight saving. John.