Britprius

Strange I thought I thought the front box was a resonator was a resonator. How ever there are many companies now that will repair exhaust usually with stainless parts at realistic prices. John.

You say the valve is leaking, but can you be more specific as to where? If it is coming from under the screw on valve cap the core of the valve may be loose, and just need tightening. If it has failed the core can be unscrewed and replaced without removing the wheel or tyre. If the leak is from between the outer part of the valve, and wheel rim try spraying on some WD40 then slacken off the nut part a little, and then re tighten gently. This may cure the leak. If not the valve will need to be removed, and new valve to rim seals fitted. John.

I also have had items given to me by other members at no cost both Lexus, and non Lexus related. The forum is also a font of information, and help with little or no trolling or abuse that seems to be prevalent on some forums. I also would like to thank all members for there helpful participation here, and long may it continue. John.

I have a GS450H with cream leather, and 150,000 miles on the clock, and 14 years old. The leather is still pristine with no cracking or fading on any surfaces. I imagine that condition would depend on how well previous owners have treated the interior of the car rather than millage, and even age. It is possible that black leather might suffer more than light colors from cracking as it gets hotter in the sun, and may be prone to drying out. John.

Only use the Toyota branded ATF in the CT. The CT has very special requirements from the ATF in that it washes over the electric motor winding's so it must have high voltage insulation characteristics as well as the normal lubrication properties. Using anything else risks the longevity of these motors. John.

The shocks can cause a knocking, but my first port of call would be the drop links, and anti roll bar bushes for the knocking. The fact that the car continues to bounce more on one side does suggest the shock is worn. However it would be wise to replace both sides together. It is very difficult to check the drop links with both ends of the links still attached to the suspension. If one end of the link is undone, and either of the ball joints on each end can be articulated easily with your fingers the joint is worn out even if there is no apparent play. The anti roll bar bushes should have virtually no movement between the bush, and the roll bar. If there is I found a fix is to remove the bush, and where it is split to allow assembly cut about 1/8" out of the split. Then refit With a packing strip of plastic or metal about 1/8" thick under the flat end of the bush. This will remove the play. John.

It may be that concentrated is not available in small quantities "I'm not sure on that" but I bought a 25Ltr drum of concentrated SLLC. It worked out cheaper than ready mixed for the quantity I needed for 4 Toyota/Lexus hybrid vehicles even though I have probably still got 1/2 a drum. John.

The Prius and CT share the same engine, and transmission. The NX uses a very similar system in principle, but has the ability to hold selected apparent gear ratios although in practice only has one gear. John.

From what I understand the face lift had indicator lights in the door mirrors, and the radar cruise distance control fitted with versions of cars with the sun roof on early models was dropped. John.

A lot cheaper than buying one from Lexus. If you use Techstream for programming the car to the new fob you can also delete the OEM missing fob from the system, John.

It is the Toyota brand of antifreeze, and corrosion inhibitor. It is called Toyota SLLC "supper long life coolant", and has an in car life of ten years. It can be bought ready mixed or as a concentrate. John.

You can take the broken rods off the car "only one 10 mm spanner size nut at each end of the rods", and repair them at your leisure without affecting the car in any other way. The rods being broken will affect the height of the headlamp beam, and also give the error. Fixing them should restore normal operation. Keep the length of the repaired rods as close to there original length as possible. John.

If the discs are covered in light rust due to standing it is not unusual to hear this scraping noise for the first few applications of the brakes. Particularly at low speed. It should however disappear after a few applications. John.

Broken links to the AFS is an MOT failure. Find a piece of tubing that fits over the broken link rods, and epoxy resin or hot glue the rods into the tube. You may have to free off the ball joints at the ends of the rods as these being seized is the usual cause of the rods breaking. you can buy ball joints on ebay, and join them with a length of threaded rod. John.

All batteries recover a little of there charge when used discharged. When you first go to get in your car as you approach the brake booster pump comes on to bring up the brake pressure. you then open the door the locks opening, and then put you foot on the brake bringing on the brake lights, and press the start button to boot the computers. All this uses the battery. If the voltage is to low the car refuses to go to ready mode. Leaving the car the battery recovers a little, and returning a short while later the brakes are already pressurised, and the battery has enough voltage to get to ready mode. John.

The simple answer I am afraid is no it has to be a virgin fob. It can be done if the non working fob is reset, but this requires a specialist. The dealer cannot or will not do it. Once the fob is reset "check out ebay" the car can then be set to accept the fob via Techstream. There is a provisor that the fobs you have both have the same number printed on the back as I believe there are two different versions that look the same. The battery fitment on the two versions is different so this helps to see if they are the same fobs you have. John.

The thickness of the disc is not an MOT failure even if it is below the minimum thickness due to ware. This is as long as the disc is not cracked, has pieces missing, or has serious pitting due to rust. New thickness is 30 mm. Minimum thickness is 28 mm. John.

The noise is caused by the backing plate "dust shield" touching the disc. How do I know? Because I had exactly the same noise appear on my GS450H. The remedy is to simply bend the plate away from the disc with the wheel off the car. You should still be able to hear the noise with the wheel removed, but to make sure the disc does not move away from the back plate after removing the wheel refit a couple of the wheel nuts as near opposite each other as you can, and just pinch them up with a spanner. John.

It is likely that at some time the hybrid battery will need attention of some sort. Either battery module replacement or fitting new or used battery. There is no reason to expect problems from the transmission "much less likely than a normal auto box or even a manual if you include the clutch" The battery modules "a block of 8 cells" can be replaced at reasonable cost a used battery complete is circa £550, or a new battery is under £3000, but should then give 15 years plus of extra life. John.

This phenomena is caused by the way batteries, and most chemical reactions work. Heat increases chemical reaction rates, and with a battery increases the cell voltage slightly by around 0.1 volts per cell depending on the type of battery, and the temperature rise. After driving the car in the heat the battery temperature will rise more than usual, and since the battery is made up of 240 cells the overall voltage increase is raised by 24 volts or more. This in turn shows as a higher state of charge "more blue bars". As the battery cools this effect disappears lowering the battery voltage, and the number of bars shown. Even lead acid 12 volt batteries suffer from this effect, and is why the charge voltage should be adjusted to account for temperature. John.

I have an after market wireless system fitted on the rear of my caravan. The monitor is a clip on internal mirror in my GS450H. It works reasonably well but it is prone to interference the picture breaking up on occasions. This same system can be wired rather than using the transmitter/receiver, and when used in this mode works very well. Make sure the monitor you buy either gives or can be switched to give a mirror image. The Aygo is such a short car with no fire walls to get the wiring through that a wired system is definitely what I will use. Chosing the monitor size is possibly the most difficult part of the exorcise. I think the best position would be in the small centre storage hole in the top of the dash. The 12 volt feed for the monitor, and the camera can be picked up directly from the reversing lights. Choosing a suitable position for the camera is more difficult than at first it seems. A camera fitted on the outside rear of the car will get it's lens dirty very quickly because of the very flat rear of the car. My suggestion would be to fit it inside the tailgate glass somewhere inside the wiper arc using the type of bonding pads used for fitting rear view mirrors to the windscreen. John.

I have been considering at doing just that on my wife's Aygo. When you say a standard camera do you mean the later Toyota version with sat nav? or an after market version? I do not see any problem with an aftermarket system, and will look into this. John.

I have been driving for 60 years, and in that time I have broken down twice. On both occasions I was able to fix the car, and finish my journey. This makes a saving of about £3000 averaged out. I could buy a half decent car for that. I must admit that at times when I had a company car as well as my own the company car had breakdown cover, but was never used. If I was driving abroad I would take out cover, but not in the UK. I realise to some cover gives piece of mind, and is there choice, but particularly now with modern technology "mobile phones" I see little advantage unless you are incapable of changing a wheel or are perhaps disabled. John.

Did you have the parking brake on? If not you will not get video. John.

Steve although we call it chain stretch it is actually ware on each link pin, and link that gives the phenomena. The longer the chain the greater the effect If you watch the video "Episode 5" at about the 45 minute mark you will see the chain elongation against a new chain is only about 1/3". This on a chain of about 350 link pins equating to less than 1 thou per link pin in ware. The chain is still otherwise perfectly usable. The problem is in the design of the cam position monitoring being so precise that on the longest run of loaded chain driving the cam the system throws an error for the cam timing being 1/2 a tooth out. This is not enough to cause running problems on it's own. It is the error code that causes the problem. I would prefer a chain to a belt every time. It is perfectly possible to change the chain without dismantling the front of the engine as in the video, quicker than changing a belt. It is also less likely to break causing catastrophic engine damage. John.