Britprius

What compound did you use on the screen. My GS450H screen also suffers from what appears to be sand blast making it difficult to see through on low sun situations. John.

I do not know if this would work, but if you have a no fault accident. Ask your insurance how much your premium will increase over the next 5 years because of this. "This is the period you have to declare the claim for." Then ask them to claim back this sum from the guilty third party. This should be possible particularly if you have legal cover as part of your insurance. John.

Peter I think it still looks very OEM with the beautiful cut engine covers. John.

Toyota have access to Lexus on line, but that is not used anyway for the health check. It is a stand alone piece of equipment. The hybrid systems were developed by Toyota, and the Lexus CT is a Prius as far as the engine and transmission is concerned. All the HV batteries are clearly marked Toyota I live 55 miles away from the nearest Lexus dealer, and was told by them they were perfectly happy for me to have all service, and recall work done at the Toyota dealer half the distance away, but the same franchise. Often Toyota and Lexus share the same forecourt as in the Wolverhampton branch. John

Sorry for multiple replies, but another thing to consider. If the RX does not have an EV switch you do not have any say in when the engine will drive the car. It will always drive the car from cold. Hybrids do this to get the engine hot as soon as possible to reduce emissions. Only when the engine, and catalytic converters in the exhaust have reached optimum temperature will the car run on electric only, and that is unlikely in three miles. With cars fitted with an EV switch you have to operate the switch in the time between the hybrid system going to ready, and the engine starting. If the engine starts it will not let you go into EV mode untill the engine is warmed up. John

For commuting purposes the car for you would be a plug in Prius as this has a range of around 13 miles on electric only, and over 100 mpg in blended (normal hybrid mode) to remove range anxiety on longer runs. You would also save on road tax as the Prius road fund is zero. John.

The conditioning charger is designed to fully charge the battery to balance charge all the 240 cells that it comprises of. This is perfectly ok for that purpose. The down side is that if you do this on a daily basis you are fully cycling the battery every day twice. The battery has an expected full cycle life of 800 to 1000 cycles so you would be likely to get battery failure at around 1 years use. This is the reason the battery is only charged to 80% of capacity, and discharged to 40% maximum either way. Mostly it spends it's life in very shallow cycles at around 60 to 70%. This increases it's life span to 10's of thousands of cycles. John.

As Lee above said Hybrid Battery solutions do make a conditioning charger, but charging the battery to save fuel is not what it is for. The battery holds at normal full charge "80% actual charge maximum" around 800 watt hours of usable electricity" The car dependent on driving conditions takes around 500 watt hours to travel one mile so you may be able to drive along a flat road for 1.5 miles. At that point the engine would have to start to keep the car moving, and also make electricity to bring the battery up to a reasonable level of charge. This would negate any saving made from the charging of the battery off the mains. The cars computer controls how and when the battery is charged, and discharged it does this very well. I do not know if the RX400H has an EV (electric vehicle) switch on the dash. If it does the only reasonable time to use it is if you wish to swap cars round on a driveway when the engine is cold. This saves a cold start on the engine a time when a lot of fuel is used and lots of pollution occurs John.

I get my car MOTd by a Ford Mazda dealer because they only charge £30 for MOT's, and are only 9 miles away. I used to get my Prius MOTd at the Toyota dealers "although 28 miles away" along with an intermediate service because they price matched the MOT to the Ford Mazda dealer. The difference between an intermediate service, and a full service was basically a full safety inspection the same, but less though than an MOT. I now get the Lexus MOTd at the Ford Mazda dealer because of price, and the nearest Lexus dealer is 55 miles away. A 110 mile round trip for an MOT seems pointless. I have noted over the last 10 years Toyota/Lexus service prices go up yearly at a rate that cannot be justified with the rate of inflation. John.

The Nexen N8000 tyres are considered good tyres in the reviews. They score reasonably well for wet grip with C or B ratings depending on size. The Bridgestone's are generally rated at the same levels. Check the tyre ratings on Black circles or similar for wet grip levels ect. There are quite a few "A" rated tyres. John.

As long as you can return them if they do not work I see no problems. John

The lock smiths at Stourbridge if you need them is Global Security Group, High St Amblecote. tel 01384 440228. I have no association with them but have used them on a number of occasions, and found them very help full. I once supplied them with a lock barrel from a car I bought with no keys (insurance salvage BMW), and they made keys within 2 hours. John.

Congratulations on finding the fob. Be aware used key fobs cannot always be programmed into the car. The reason is that the fobs have a rolling code so that a scanner cannot reuse the entry code once it has been used so avoiding car theft from such systems. Once a fob has passed a given number of operations the car cannot be programmed to that fob. This mean the only fobs that will definitely be accepted by the car are new. John.

The Lexus or Toyota dealer can do this, but they have to do this online to Toyota while also connected to the car. A new seed code has to be entered into the ECU, and then the car is programmed to keys and fobs. Some registered locksmiths can also carry out this service. I see you are in Staffordshire, and the nearest lock smith I know of that can possibly do this in Stourbridge. There may well be one closer to you, but they are likely to be cheaper than Lexus. As unfortunately you have found if you have a working key/fob it is relatively easy to program the car to a new key/fob with Techstreem, but without such it is much more expensive, and difficult. John.

Calculations as folows:- Engine revs 6500 divided by gear ratio with mg1 stationary 3.266 to give wheel rev per minute = 1990 rpm x tyre rolling circumference (81.7/36 = 2.27 yds) = 4517.3 yds per min 4517.3/ 1760 yds per mile = 2.567 miles per minute x 60 for mph = 154 mph some of the figures are rounded for calculation. It should be noted that 6500 rpm is not the maximum engine speed of the GS450H John.

I have done some calculations for theoretical speed against engine revs. With MG1 being held stationary and the engine doing 6500 rpm the top speed would be 152 mph. If MG1 is driven in reverse the theoretical top speed for 6500 rpm is well in excess of 200 mph without over revving of any component. This of course makes the assumption that the engine has sufficient power which it does not. John.

I am reasonably confidant the GS450H is capable of a higher top speed if the limiter were to be removed. This limiter does exist according to Lexus. The car does not struggle to the indicated 155 mph, and I would guestimate the actual top speed to be about 20 mph indicated over the 155 figure if the limiter could be removed. John.

As long as your replacing the bulbs with LED's heat will not be a problem. You do not need canbus compatible bulbs as the bulbs on the GS are not monitored. The canbus bulbs have a resistor across the bulb supply to fool the system into seeing a load equivalent to a normal bulb. This resistor gives off heat, and wastes energy defeating the object of using LED's to save energy. It does seem as though these bulbs are not meant to be changed. See the link below. John.

Again this button for the TPMS is hidden above the pedals almost within the pedal mechanisms. Why they put it there I do not know when it could have been in the drop down box with the other buttons for the mirrors, and such. Look at the tyre valves on the wheels. If they are black rubber then you do not have TPMS. If the are grey aluminium finish then you do have TPMS. John.

Are you sure about the TPMS as my understanding is that this was a standard feature across the range. I am wondering if someone has defeated the warning system to save the expense of replacing the valves. John.

The OBD port is above the brake pedal, and close to the reset button for the TPMS. It is not mounted on the trim panels but further under. Being able to stand on your head is almost a requirement. John.

I suppose this now brings up the question of "is the car limited to 155 mph?" or "Is the car limited to an indicated 155 mph?" and if so how does does the limiter system know the speed of the car? John.

Robert it is quite easy to make suitable plug, and sockets. The socket on the rear of the head unit "once the blue plug is removed" consists of a single centre pin, and a surround ground connection. This is the digital signal out. A thin plastic tube "think biro ink refill" with a piece of wire pushed through should push tightly onto this pin. The ground wire (outer screen) can be connected on to any handy screw on the back of the unit. The blue plug removed with cable going to the amp in the boot has a single centre small hole that a piece of stiff wire or paper clip will push firmly into. This is digital signal wire. If you ground the outer screen of your connecting wire where it comes out of the back of the jack socket there is no need to connect the screen at the blue plug as it is grounded at the amp end. I have found a small bluetooth device that will plug straight in to the jack socket to enable the system to be converted to bluetooth on Ebay for the grand sum of £2-98 including delivery. Item number 172841358360 John.

Below is a link to a video of the GS450H against a BMW 350i. The interesting thing is if you keep your eye on the battery condition, and use gauge at the bottom of the speedo the battery gives assist all the way up to top speed, but is virtually fully depleted in the 30 seconds taken to achieve 260 kmh (161.6 MPH) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mEJAGw_nNU John