Britprius

Not quite what I was saying. The car failed the MOT on a faulty tyre. If you have a full size spare or a skinny spare and fit it after the MOT the car is roadworthy "even without an MOT", and may be driven away for the faulty tyre to be changed.

There is a flaw in this situation. If you have the car MOT'd at your local council MOT testing station they do not carry out any work, they just do MOT's, and must by law be open to the public. You are allowed to drive to, and return from an MOT station providing the MOT is pre arranged. Even council vehicles could not be removed from the MOT station, and taken to there own workshop for repairs. Under the new legislation only if the car is deemed to be dangerous is it forbidden to drive it away "it then must be moved on a trailer. In the above situation changing the tyre for the spare would make the car roadworthy, and the car could be driven back home or to a workshop to have the tyre repaired or replaced even though in theory it has no MOT. John.

I had an IS300H as a loan car while my GS450H was having recall work done. On one hand I really wanted to like the car, but the cabin noise level was so bad over 40mph it completely spoiled an otherwise great car. Perhaps this is a downside of owning a GS going to something else will seem noisy. John.

The GS450H definitely has slide pins on the rear calipers but not on the front. The lower pin on the rear is very inclined to seize. It is possible you may need parking brake shoes if the lining material is down below 1mm. There is only around 4mm of material on new shoes. John

Have you checked the actual tyre sizes fitted on each wheel of the car? They should all be the same. It has been known for a different width or aspect ratio to be inadvertently be fitted. This gives a different TPM (turns per mile) for the wrongly fitted tyre fooling the anti skid system into thinking there is a problem. John.

Hi Paul. Welcome to LOC. I know this may sound very basic, but we have to start somewhere. Are all the tyres the same size, and across each axle are the tread depths similar with even tyre pressures? If everything is ok on the tyre front it does sound like you have an ABS sensor or reluctor ring problem. Closely inspect the reluctor rings for missing teeth, excessive rust, or a split in one of the rings. The rings are mounted on the outer ends of the drive shafts, and take the form of a ring with external teeth. A sensor counts each tooth as it passes with wheel rotation. John.

The engine revs are control by wire system. So if your in neutral or park the throttle does not respond in a normal manor. In park if you push the throttle far enough the engine will start if it was not running, and the revs will rise with force charging of the HV battery takes place. The engine cannot start in neutral, but it can continue to run if it was running when put into neutral. John

Why not solder in new LED's. Single high output LED's are available on Ebay, and you can always adjust the resistor value to give the correct LED current. I had to replace the rear light on my Prius a few years ago for the same reason, but with the Prius you needed to destroy the light unit to get at the LED's. The light unit for that was £286. John.

The tyre pressure monitoring rubber seals are available on Ebay. Be careful when removing "use some WD40" as the aluminium holding nuts can shear off. Also do not over tighten. New monitors are expensive at £40 upwards each. John

It's possible that coil overs might improve the handling by lowering, and stiffening, but possibly at the detriment to ride comfort. John.

Changing the suspension to coil overs would possibly be detrimental as the GS450H has adaptive variable shock absorbers a switch to select normal or sport mode. The sport mode adapts the shocks to your driving style with 17 steps of adjustment. This along with variable steering ratio, and on some versions variable anti roll bars noted by the extra 12 volt battery in the boot to drive the ARB system. John

Yes my car was recalled for the valve springs. The annoying start up rattle that some of us GS450H owners get according to Lexus does not present a problem, but cars with the same engine that are not hybrids were recalled. New timing gears were fitted on vehicles with normal starter motors, because the rattle was capable of loosening the holding bolts that eventually fall into the timing chain causing havoc. I know of two GS450H's that have had bolts fall into the timing chain. Hard luck is the basic response from Lexus. John.

I can see you have used modules from the 1.8 ltr Prius. These module are an improvement on the 1.5 ltr Prius, and GS 450H in that they have two internal connections per cell between cells. This reduced the internal resistance allowing for higher current flow. It also reduced the amount of heat produced at high charge, and discharge current rates. John.

As Rayaan above has already said, but make sure you leave the car in park do not use neutral. The reason for this is the engine cannot start in neutral, and this could lead to both batteries being discharged. Alternatives are a trickle charger on the 12 volt battery from the mains if this is possible? Or a solar panel charger connected direct to the battery. Many solar chargers come with a cigar lighter plug fitted, but this will not work on a Lexus since the outlet sockets are disconnected with the ignition off. John.

Hi Daniel, welcome to LOC. First of all I must point out individual cells cannot be replaced. Only a block of 6 cells "called a module" can be replaced. The modules in the GS450H of which there are 40 are the same as those used in the Prius, Lexus CT200h, and many other Toyota/Lexus cars, but not all. The number of modules fitted varies depending on the car. Swapping modules is not always the simple cure unless a lot of preperation, and matching of the modules is done. This is time consuming, and you can end up playing "whack a mole" by trying to cut corners. Hiden somewhere on my computor I have a list of all compatible modules, and what vehicles they are fitted in. When I can find it I will add it to this post. Prius modules from post 2010 have two separate connections between cells in the modules reducing there internal resistance, and improving the heat generation,and dissipation. This makes them a more reliable substitute than the earlier pre 2010 modules with only a single interconnection. Outwardly they are of the same size, and design. It is not a good sign if the battery capacity drops while the car is parked, but little else can be gained from this display. If your having problems talk to Richard at Hybrid Battery Solutions, and he will guid you as to the best solution. John.

I have a set of original navigation disks supplied with my Prius when new, and these also have the spelling as "stationary". John.

That little pop up post is there so you know where the front corner of the car is in when maneuvering in a tight spot. The top is illuminated at night. John

Just to clarify the situation are you trying to put the nav cd into the multi changer? John.

It is some time required that the supply to the nav unit is removed by pulling a fuse or disconnecting the 12 volt battery. for a few minutes. Then reconnect and entre the disc. John.

I also had problems with "Oponeo". I ordered a set of four tyres of a specific make, and type. The tyres were delivered to National tyres, and I went along to have them fitted. After a while the fitter ask me to look at something on the car with three tyrs fitted, and working on the fourth. At that point I saw that the wrong tyres were fitted. National tyres contacted Oponeo pointing out the wrong delivery, and that the tyres sent were not acceptable. The outcome was that National tyres had the tyres I wanted in stock, and Oponeo agreed to pay for them. Refiitting my original tyres was not an option as I had a puncture on the way to national tyres repaired with a can of tyre goo. John.

You may not notice any "bounce" when pressing on the rear of the car as the springs are quite stiff, and non compliant with the weight of one person. Keep us informed as to the outcome of any diagnosis. Aldi are selling Bosh wiper blades at £5 each in all sizes, and take 2 minutes to fit. John.

If the shock absorbers have lost there oil you will get this "floating" effect, but this is also followed with a crashing of the suspension on potholes, and bumps. If the oil leaked away some time ago there will be little or no trace of a leak as the oil is very thin. I do not know the cost of shocks on your model, but the gen3 GS450H are expensive at circa £300 each plus fitting. John.

With hybrid cars the engine does not have to be running for the 12 volt battery to be on charge. All that is required is that it is in ready mode. The hybrids do not have an alternator because at any given time the engine may not be running to drive an alternator. The 12 volt battery is charge via a step down DC to DC invertor from the high voltage traction battery. John.

There are a number of GS450H complete engines on Ebay for circa £1400, and I dare say this price would be negotiable. It would make more sense to fit one of these as I imagine fitted would come close to £2000. John.

The sensor should have some wires going into it so it will need replacing. It is used for monitoring the exhaust gas so the the engine ECU can adjust the amount of fuel injected to make the engine run as cleanly as possible. It is very likely that the engine light will come on. I believe the sensor is about £70 plus fitting. John.