Britprius

This could be down to a dirty throttle body "throttle butterfly and surrounding area". Your local motorist shop will sell aerosol cans of cleaner for this. After cleaning lubricate the shaft with a little WD40 and check it's movement with your fingers against the return spring. The action should be smooth with no sticking or grittiness. The throttle is moved by a small electric motor. While you are there remove and clean the MAF sensor with MAF cleaner being careful not to break the two fine wires. John

To me this sounds like deteriorating suspension rubber bushes. Loading each bush in turn with a suitable bar should show any that are worn or going soft. John

Try cleaning the throttle body "butterfly and surrounding area" and lubricate the throttle shaft (WD40). You should be able to operate the throttle against the spring with your fingers, and it's operation should be smooth with no sticking or grittiness. Next carefully clean the MAF sensor being careful not to break the two fine wires. Best done by removing the MAF sensor and using aerosol can of MAF cleaner. Check all vacuum hoses for secure fitting and air leaks. Chang e the "o" ring on the dipstick if there is one. John

The Hybrid batteries last a long time, and why typically Toyota/Lexus give them a 100,000 mile 8 year guarantee. This guarantee can further be extended If you have the car serviced by T/L after the original expires. Included in the service price is a hybrid system check after which the guarantee is extended by 10,000 miles or 1 year. This can be done as many times as you wish till the cars 10th birthday. In theory you could have a 10 year old car with 200,000 miles, and still be under guarantee. The batteries are made up of a number of smaller units called modules, and generally when the battery fails it is only one of these that fail. They can be replaced for a lot less money than buying a new battery. There are companies that will do this work for you or if your that way inclined you can DIY. John

Did you get the coffee and biscuits. John

Good that they got it sorted for you. One of the major problems with modern diagnostic systems is the so called "sensor". This word covers a large range of devices that measure position, temperature, pressure, level, voltage, current, noise, speed, flow rate, and many other parameters. Often it is the sensor rather than the item it is monitoring that has the problem. It does not matter if it is the sensor or the item being monitored that goes faulty the result is the same. That particular system if your lucky just issues a warning or next on the scale goes into "limp or get you home mode". If your unlucky the system just shuts down. John

As long as the tyre do not slip on the road surface, and the current limit of the generator or batteries is not exceeded all the braking on the CT200H is done by regeneration. The hydraulic brakes are not activated until these limits are reached or the car travels at less than 7 mph where there is insufficient regen to be of use. There were many complaints from customers "especially on the gen3 Prius on which the CT is based but also on the gen2" of momentary loss of brakes on the transition from regen to friction braking. Toyota altered the software to reduce this effect. The change over to friction brakes is very evident on the CT and Prius as you slow through 7mph while braking. It is a physical fact that some of the weight in any vehicle transfers to the front during braking. With the GS being rear wheel drive the front friction brakes are used when slowing down using the brakes, and regen is used on the rears to recover as much energy as possible. This being the CT part of the forum is the area under discussion, and the GS as stated above uses a slightly different arrangement, but still uses regen to slow the car, and recover some kinetic energy. John.

The snag with emergency braking is the wheels go round once and you have stopped. With putting the car in nuetral you can brake gently over some distance giving the chance for the rust to be worn away. John.

The CT does not have a servo. The reason being the engine does not run all the time to produce a vacuum. It has an electric hydraulic pump that pumps brake fluid into a nitrogen pressure chamber. This pressurised fluid is released under control by the brake pedal. You can often hear this pump start after opening the drivers door. This is so the brakes are ready for use as soon as the driver gets in the car. John

The CT being front wheel drive can regenerate to a much greater degree than rear wheel drive such as the GS450H and the GS300H. This is because when braking wieght transfers to the front of the car meaning the front wheels have more grip and regen can be harder. With the rear wheel drive cars to much regen could result in the rear wheels locking up in a bend causing the car severe over steer (swapping ends). I have not seen a 4 wheel drive GS in the UK although they are available I believe in the US. This would allow much more regen capability. John

Flytvr. It is a beautiful area I agree. Going over the moors the views are staggering. I have been up there in the winter snows, and believe me you would not want to breakdown there. The scenery makes the effort well worth while. John

A friend of mine has a Hyundai. The locking wheel nuts fitted are with a box exactly the same as the Lexus nuts, and the key design is much the same. The big difference is that the locking nuts come with a thin chrome hexagonal cover that pushes over the locknuts making them appear very similar to the non locking nuts. The covers are removed with a simple plastic tool that come in the kit. The nuts may even be the same pattern as the Lexus nuts. They are the same threads and socket size. John

The Elan Valley I know it well. I only live a short distance from there near Knighton. It is a regular run out for me stopping for lunch at the visitors centre cafe. The Cafe is open all year long except for Christmas day. The dams supply the water to Birmingham some 70 miles away without being pumped just using gravity. The dams and two pipelines were built over 100 years ago. Two new pipelines are now being built to increase capacity. At Rayader "the nearest town" there is also a "Red Kite" feeding station where every afternoon you can see literally hundreds of Red Kites diving out of the sky for the fresh meat on offer, and eating it while flying. John

The reason Lexus state the car battery should be disconnected before charging is that doing it that way there is no risk of a reverse polarity connection to the car electronics. This can spell disaster to ECU's. The battery used is an AGM (absorbed glass mat) battery. This has no free liquid acid. All the acid is held in the glass mats between the plates, and as such the battery is less damaged by deep discharge. The charging voltage is higher than standard lead acid batteries. The battery states a maximum charge rate of 5 amps rather strange when it can and does get charged by the car charging system at 80 amps or more depending on it's state of charge hence the thick cables to the battery. This charge rate is typical of Toyota/Lexus hybrid charging systems on which I have done extensive testing. John

Yes I realise that the plating process is done by electrolysis and for this they need to be conductive. I was answering the question if they were plastic or aluminium, and I believe they are neither. Electroplating is a simple process. John

They are metal but I do not think they are alloy. I'll go and check with a magnet in the morning. John

I had my car damaged while outside my local shop. My car being parked in a purpose built parking bay for the shop. The other driver "delivering to the shop admitted liability in writing" the damage to my car was fixed within 14 days with a loan car "a tin can on wheels even though I paid extra on my insurance for an equivalent car". It then took over three years to get back my insurance excess from Churchill, and then only after to many phone calls to count. It finally was revealed that the claim had all been settled, and closed by Churchill two and a half years earlier, but they did not tell me at that stage or return my excess. John.

I think you can if you wish tell your insurance company that you do not wish to claim for the damage to your car. In this instance you also do not have to pay out any excess. I did this about 8 years ago when my wife scraped a car door on the car next to where she was parking. The insurance paid out for the third party damage, but I told them I did not want my car repaired because the damage was so small. "scratched paint on the corner of the front bumper". I did not have to pay the excess. John

I have just finished looking at the Adrian Flux insurance site, and they do such insurance that you question. Up to £10,000 extra payout on top of the payout from your normal insurers. John.

Excellent job Carl. The wheels on my car had been refurbished when I bought it, but it is so easy to damage the totally unprotected rims. After one years driving I have a couple of small chips in both nearside wheels. My previous car a Prius had the same problem that was cured by going up one size of tyre from 195/55/16 to 205/55/16. The Prius was unusual in that the wheels although alloys still had plastic (expensive) wheel trims. Has anyone tried using 255/40/18's, 265/40/18's to widen the tyres or 245/45/18's to raise the rim slightly tyres to help protect the rims. I know some tyres come with so called rim protectors, but they are designed to protect the rims when driving up a kerb at right angles. Using tyres that are wider than the rims you feel the tyre touch the kerb if you are maneuvering slowly, and damage can then be avoided. John.

Just thought of another possible way of uprating the rear suspension. Check to see if the rear springs of the GS450H will fit the GS430 shocks. The GS450H carries the traction battery in the rear so the springs carry more weight than the conventional GS's. I can measure the unloaded dimensions of a GS450H spring if it will help. John

The thing to remember with historic codes is that there is no knowing when those codes were issued. It could be 6 months ago or it could be 6 hours ago. Lovelexus has said himself that the car ran fine until the problem appeared, and then went through various processes to get it running again. This in it'self could have caused the historic codes. They may have appeared while in possession of the last owner, and he may have had them cleared, but they would then re appear at some later date. If they were cleared or found by a Lexus dealer while in the previous owners hands there will be a record of this on there database. John.

There are two motor generators in the transmission, and it is MG2 the larger of the two units that is responsible for regen braking. This motor/generator cannot reverse when the car is going forwards as it is coupled to the wheels via the differential changing direction can only happen in reverse. If the wheels are going forwards so is MG2. If the wheels are stationary so is MG2. If the wheels are going backwards so is MG2 as it is driving the wheels. The engine is going the wrong way for reverse "there is no reverse gear". MG1 can assist with braking, but only by forcing the engine to spin as in "B" mode. As such MG1 is limited in the amount of regen because of the physical limits of safe engine revs, and it's own current limit. MG1 can and does change direction when the car is accelerating as it is then being used as a generator it's output being supplied either to MG2 or the HV battery. In this mode it controls the engine revs, and hence the "apparent" gear ratio John.

There are three ways of tackling the problem. (1) The cheap but effective way using rubber spacers between the loops of the rear coil springs. Many caravaners use these to overcome the rear end sag when towing. They are surprisingly effective, cheap, easy to fit, and are available from most caravan parts suppliers. (2) have stiffer springs made, and fitted. (3) Replace rear springs, and shock absorbers with adjustable coil overs. These are available from car tuning specialists. John

Romart sell just about everything for car repair refinishing. The paint matching is superb making small area body repairs very do able. There is enough paint in an aerosol to paint easily a complete front or rear bumper. They also do primer undercoat for plastics, bumpers, mirrors ect. John