Britprius

I used to have my Prius serviced at Totota, but only ever had the intermediate service. The full service was as you say a load of extra check items all of which were covered again by the MOT. I could get the MOT done locally for £30, and Toyota matched this price. So an intermediate service, and MOT together saved over £100. John

The sealant used seams to be the same as that used in bathroom ie silicon sealant. A battery compartment made in plastic with a circular snap in lid and "O" ring would be more than adequate for sealing purposes. All that is required is to keep any water out put in by an air supply without a water trap. John

I had the message "System fault" with flashing tyre, and red exclamation mark appear today. Checking with Techstream produced D3 tyre sensor faulty with it's code number. The other three tyre pressures, and temperatures were shown, but this does not tell you which wheel the problem is on. With Techstream still connected I lowered the tyre pressures in each tyre noting which pressure altered (D1, D2, --, D4) marking the wheels accordingly. The tyre with the suspect transmitter was the rear NS. I had the transmitter removed by my local friendly tyre dealer, and a rubber valve put in it's place. I then went home with the offending item. Picture (1) I gently prised off the cover of the unit. This took about 30 seconds. Picture (2) Gently scraping off the soft sealant over the battery. This took about 2 minutes. Picture (3) I peeled off the tag connector. About 1 minute. Picture (4) Gently prised out the battery removing the underside tag. Again about 1 minute. Picture (5) The battery was a Panasonic BR2450 "Same as CR2450" reading 2.8 volts. Not having one of these to hand I replaced it temporarily with a CR2032 held in place with my fingers. I took it out to the car, and turned the car on. The system fault had disappeared, and was now showing a flat tyre obviously because I was holding the sensor without any air pressure. I have ordered 5 tagged BR2450 batteries at a cost of £3-22 pence. As soon as they arrive one will be soldered back to the OEM tags, and the valve refitted. The other batteries will be kept ready for failures of the other valves. The total cost per wheel with the charges from my tyre dealer for refitting, and balancing (£10) will be £10-65 pence. Plus 5 minutes work at my desk. These pressure units could easily be made with a compartment so that the batteries could be change readily, but I suppose the manufacturers are making to much profit for this to happen. John.

To add to the versatility of the the above aux input I have now made up a small bluetooth adapter to add to it. It is based on a circuit board from a cheap bluetooth headphones set from Aldi. The sound quality is excellent with deep rich base that rumbles through your body at even medium volumes. Although not difficult it does require good soldering skills on a printed circuit board about the size of a five pence piece. A larger unit could be made from again an Aldi bluetooth speak making the circuit board easier to handle being somewhat larger. If there is interest I will put up instructions. John

The instructions and circuit are now in the post entitled "Aux audio instructions". John.

Simple answer yes, but do not expect it to be a straight plug in conversion. You will need the head unit, the amp, more speakers, and the wiring loom. The amp fits in the right hand side of the boot in the space taken by the battery on the left hand side. John

Having now conversed with a couple of highly recommended installers I can confirm that both agree engines with direct injection are problematic for LPG conversion. The consensus seems to be that even when running on LPG a small amount of petrol is injected through the DI injectors to help cool them. This means some of the gains from LPG are lost, but it still may be viable. John.

Not having an IS220D I cannot say for certain, but I assume the 12 volt battery is under the bonnet. If it is it is most unlikely there is a suitable feed in the boot. Again I assume your going to tow a caravan with a fridge. This will require a minimum of a fused 10amp supply, and more ideally 15 amps. Running a wire through the car fused from the battery, and switched with a relay from an ignition feed is the only solution. This is so the car battery does not get discharged when the engine is not running. John.

The fuel tank would go in the spare wheel well "a tank here would hold circa 60Ltrs" I do not mind loosing this as when I am touring with my caravan the spare wheel could go in the locker on the caravan. I also carry a mini compressor, and a can of sealant that would get me out of trouble in most situations. Since I have no intention of using the shuttle this does not really come into the equation, but I know this is a problem to some. It does seem a bit strange when they allow bottles of gas to be carried in motor homes, and caravans. John.

The D4S is a HID bulb for the dip beam. The main beam is a halogen bulb. John.

Well I'm a complete novice with LPG apart from one vehicle back in the 1970's. I had an Austin 1800 converted with the old purely mechanical diaphragm system. This worked well on the BMC B series engine. The problem as I understand it with DI Lexus engines is that LPG burns hotter than petrol. Plus you loose the cooling effect on combustion of the petrol vaporising in the combustion chambers of the 13 to 1 compression ratio engine. With no fuel flow through the injectors they are also not cooled by the fuel. The inlet tract injectors are not affected. I would like to be proved wrong, but do not want to go to an installer that just wants to sell me a system that is going to prove troublesome in the future. John

Next project is android display on OEM screen. However an LPG conversion is possibly on the cards. John.

Has anyone converted a GS450H to LPG. From what I have gathered it seems that it is problematic because the possibility of melting the direct injection injectors. Any help would be appreciated. John.

The shaft movement you are talking about in neutral is normal if the engine is misfiring. In park the shaft is locked, but in neutral it still has a small amount of drive as the engine runs erratically. With a hybrid gearbox the gears are never out of mesh they are always engaged. Your problem is with the engine misfiring or running rough. John.

The mirror glass in the GS450H is a LCD glass that dims the glass at night to reduce headlamp glare from following cars. This feature would be lost if standard mirror glass is fitted. John

Well I'm quite close at Wigmore. I have Techstream, and could run over to you this afternoon if it suits you. I cannot give an exact time, but about 2.30 on. Let me know if this helps, and give me your post code and address via PM if you prefer. John.

Paul where about are you. I may be able to help. John

As a follow up to my post on a high quality audio input for the pre-2008 GS, and possibly others here are the instructions circuit diagram, and pictures so far. The screened cable can be accessed and cut in any one of three places. Each end of the cut is the extended with screened cable to wherever you wish to put the single hole mount switched single channel jack socket. Maplins part number HF82D. A stereo socket "2 channel can be used if you wish. The places to access the cable are:- (1) Behind the radio unit a black cable going into a square blue plug. If you can obtain a suitable plug and socket the cable need not be cut. (2) In the boot on the drivers side under the small floor panel. Again a black wire going into a blue plug. This plug is the rear most plug on the amp. (3) The black cable runs under the capping on the drivers door sill. It could be cut here and the extension wires run under the carpet into the centre arm rest. Possibly easier than removing the radio or running wires to the boot. The unit needs a 5 volt supply. I used a cigarette lighter phone charger adapter in the centre arm rest. This has the advantage that it is turned off when the car is not in use, but works in the accessory modes. All required leads were supplied with the converter except the extension screened wires. Circuit diagram, and pictures of the unit. The unit is approx 2.5 x 2 x 1 inches. The unit MUST be an A to D converter. I will add a picture of the amp blue plug as soon as I can. To operate there must be a CD in the player, and that CD set to play. Plugging the jack plug into the socket will automatically switch off the CD sound and play any audio input. All OEM controls work including the graphic equaliser, and steering volume. John.

Now if I am not mistaken there is no play in that ball joint. The mechanic is levering the ball socket attached to the bottom arm downwards. The road spring indirectly via the bottom of the shockabsorber pushes this downwards anyway taking up any play in that direction. To show play the lever would need to be under the ball joint, and onto the inside of the wheel rim pushing upwards. You cannot see any movement on the ball joint when he uses the bar. I would trust the other garages. The exhaust appears to be in quite reasonable condition. There is nothing that suggest a repair piece could not be put in at reasonable cost compared with a new system. John

Sticking slide pins on the calipers is common across the Toyota/Lexus range. With regular servicing of the slide pins it is totally avoidable, but the dealers insist they are a non service item. I wonder why. Could it be that it is a very lucrative method of making money from sales of calipers, slide pins, and not forgetting the circa £150 an hour labor charges. If you look at some of the items on the service sheets you will see things like prop-shaft lubrication. I have not seen a car in years "1960/70 that had lubrication points. John

About the only methods I know is either a tape adapter or an FM transmitter. Neither are perfect, but the tape adapter is reasonable. Problems I found are at higher volumes from the audio source the tape heads become saturated distorting the base. Turning the source volume down and the player volume up produces noticeable buzzing from the tape player motor in the audio. If I had a radio unit to work on I could probably come up with a solution, but I have the ML system. John.

I think the oil burning and ring problem is down to both the quality of fuel in the US, and the fact that they still insist on using ordinary oil rather than synthetic, and often from dubious sources. John.

Code PO430 Catalyst system below threshold bank 2. John

Actually the converter uses a very good chip to do the converting. I will not go to far into the method of conversion, but the quality depends on something called the sampling rate which is very high in the available units of which there are few. If you search for A to D converters you will get a string of D to A converter ads. I agree it would be better not to have to convert, If all you have is an analog input device you either stick with analog and try to input that. Messy at best with the ML radio and amp. Or you convert to digital using the CD quality part of the amp and it's controls including the graphic equaliser. John.

I had an IS300H as a loan car with only 80 miles on the clock while my GS450H was having recall work done. I liked the IS in almost every respect, but the road noise. At anything above 50 mph I could not hear what my passenger was saying. I was very disappointed, and it was enough to put me off the car completely. John.