Britprius

One on the front nearside, and one on the rear nearside. You only need to adjust one. The front is by far the easier as the wheels will still be on the ground enabling a true height setting without trial, and error. As the rear rod can only be got at with the wheel removed. John.

Check that the control links on the front and rear suspension are not broken. The ball joints seize then bend and brake the rods made of a zink material. The system still thinks it is OK in this situation, and does the headlamp dance. These rods cannot be bought separately and are considered part of the complete adjuster assembly at a bit shy of £300, but can be repaired with a little thought. If the rods are OK a cheating way to adjust the height of the lights is to alter the position of one of these rods in the slot adjustment on them where they fasten to the electrical variable resistor. The front one on the near side is the easiest to get at as it can be reached with the steering on a full left hand lock. The ball joint fastens to the resistor with a 10 mm nut facing outwards. Slacken the nut turn the resistor till the headlamps are at the required setting, and tighten the nut. John.

Mine is exactly the same for around a second or so. I think it is the VVT units being empty of oil after standing some time, but could even be the hydraulic tappets? I think the garage that I bought it from have used 20w50 oil or some such in the service before I collected the car. It does not look like the usually clear thin 0 or 5w30 oil. I have just bought 10 ltrs of 5w30 fully synthetic oil from Asda for £28 so I will do an oil, and filter change to see if there is any improvement. This oil will possibly be used as an engine flush. I will also check the VVT oil filters when I can get time. There must be some way of curing this problem as in the long run it must be damaging to the components that are making the noise. At one time there was an add on oil pre-lube system available. This stored oil under spring pressure in a container the oil being released at ignition on, but before the engine was started, and then being recharged when the oil pressure reached a given level. Thus the engine always had lubrication before running. The engine otherwise runs smoothly even when cold. John.

The CT uses the same system as the Prius. The braking above 7 mph under normal circumstances is all regen. In an emergency situation or if an of the wheels slip on the road surface the brakes immediately return to the friction brakes. The small downside to this is that the rear brakes often go rusty due to lack of use. To overcome this once or twice a month going down a hill select neutral and gently brake. Doing this forces the use of the friction brakes and keeps the rust at bay. On the Prius it is not unusual for the brake pads to last 200,000 miles with good driving practice. John.

The shocks are easy to change. The rears the most difficult because you have to remove all the boot trim before you start, and reach in some distance to get at the top mounting point. Although everything I have read about removal says a spring compressor is required. On the spares that I have with springs I can easily remove and fit the rear springs without such equipment. I have not as yet tried this out on the fronts as I have no parts to try. I will however keep you posted as to my findings. A trolley jack or two, and a few sockets are all that is required in the way of equipment. John As per my previous post on the GS450H a spring compressor is not required to change the front or rear shocks. This makes it a simple DIY job. 1 (Front and rear) Undo the centre top shock mounting nut with the car still on it's wheels. Do not undo the three top mounting nuts. At the front the cover over the mounting must be removed "three nuts". 2 (Rear) Jack up the car and remove stabilizer link bolt, headlamp link, shock absorber bottom bolt, and lower arm to hub bolt. (Front) As above, but undo top suspension ball joint instead of lower arm bolt, and unplug the ABS cable from the hub. 3 Prize down bottom arm with suitable lever "does not require much effort". Withdraw shock with loose spring. To refit:- Fit spring over shock, fit spring with shock in place and fit shock lower mounting bolt. Jack under the suspension aligning the spring on it's seats fitting top mounting nut as the thread appears through the top mount. This save the hassle, and dangers of using spring clamps. I do not know if this applies to other GS models, but I do not see why not. John

When I first had the GS450H I thought how silent the car was, and this was coming from a Prius not exactly a noisy car. Now driving it for a few months I do hear the engine where as before I only heard it when accelerating hard. People that ride in the car for the first time invariably comment on how quiet it is and say when will the engine start. I think the noises you hear are normal, but you are attuned to them so hear them more noticeably. John

The parking brake suffers from problems with the cable seizing where it enters the rear back plates. Obviously the condition of the rear brake shoes, and adjustment of them plays it's part particularly for those that forget to release the brake before moving off, and are reminded by the beep warning tone from the car. John.

The shocks are easy to change. The rears the most difficult because you have to remove all the boot trim before you start, and reach in some distance to get at the top mounting point. Although everything I have read about removal says a spring compressor is required. On the spares that I have with springs I can easily remove and fit the rear springs without such equipment. I have not as yet tried this out on the fronts as I have no parts to try. I will however keep you posted as to my findings. A trolley jack or two, and a few sockets are all that is required in the way of equipment. John

I to find the dipped headlamps on the GS very poor. I have not yet looked into the possibility of dismantling the headlamps to see if cleaning the lens, and reflector would make any improvement. The lens does look milky from the front of the lamp unit. I have had many cars in the past with D2S headlamps with much brighter output. My Prius with ordinary halogens performed better than the GS on dipped beam. John

I should have more detail on repair at the end of this week. The shaft seal is the weak link. Provided that the hard chrome on the shafts is not damaged and the shafts are straight, and there are no dents in the tube refurbishment is looking very doable. These shocks are of the monotube design so the internal bore of the tube is part of the working of the hydraulics. If anyone is having there shocks replaced insist on keeping the old units. If there is enough interest, and a few spare old units to go at it is possible I may be able arrange an exchange repair scheme. Apologies if I am breaking any forum rules in saying that. The alternative is for me to show the intended method, and let people do it themselves. It does however require access to high pressure Nitrogen gas refill equipment putting it a little beyond the home DIY'er John.

I have just carefully dismantled a rear shock off my GS450H "2 new one's fitted before I bought the car", and they left the old shocks in the boot. The OEM KYB shock absorbers are classic mono tube design with a spacer piston in the bottom to separate the gas from the oil. This means it is possible to loose the oil without loosing the gas. The result of this is when the shock is removed from the spring the piston rod fully extends with virtually no control. Only the top rod seal was worn on the dismantled shock. I have found a source for the seals "awaiting price", but even if they are £20 each "witch I doubt" refurbishing should be possible for little money. John

I am considering changing the dip HID D4S bulbs, and the ballasts to D2S. Although an older system they give out more light. These run at around 80 volts the current being roughly halved at the bulb, against 40 volts for the D4S. I consider along with others the dip beam on the GS450H poor against other vehicles I have had. Going from main beam to dip with oncoming traffic out in the countryside causes almost total loss of vision. John

The level of charge shown in Techstream will only ever be in the region of 40-80% depending on the number, and color of the charge bars shown on the MFD display screen. The important numbers to look at are the module pair voltages, and the internal resistances. The voltages should not differ more than about 0.005 volts. The resistances of the module pairs should also be the same as close as possible reading around 0.023 ohms.

The bulbs by the vanity mirrors are the festoon type. I will check on all the rear lights, but having installed a tow bar recently with the electrics I am reasonably confidant they are LED's. The wiring to the rear lights is very thin flat form cable reminiscent of computer hard drive cable, and terminated in much the same way. John

The puddle lamps on my GS450H same year are LED's. The only lights that are not LED are head lamps, front side lamps, fogs, and interior vanity mirrors. John

All the lighting apart from the main beam, fog, and front side lights are already LED's. Dip beam is HID D4S.

Check the coils on top of the spark plugs are clean and dry. Add some injector cleaner to the fuel, and change the plugs this hopefully will stop the misfires. If the car has been standing for some time the fuel in the tank may not be that good. The timing chain theory is very doubtful. With the VCI at the beginning of the process you have to choose a type number from memory 0707/0707-0708/0708. Try a different number as I had a similar problem and choosing a different number enabled access to all the ECUs. I do not wish to jump the gun on the humming noise, but this can be a shorted winding on MG1 if it does it while standing still or a wheel bearing when on the move. Shorted winding's will be picked up by the VCI. John

None of the HID bulbs I have replaced have been blackened in use. One had blistered the glass envelope otherwise they looked fine. This goes back over the previous 3 cars I have had. I have yet to have a ballast failure, but if that happens it will be replaced with a cheap version available in conversion kits. John

Having had a Prius for 8 years, and now the GS450H I can confirm the rear camera system is almost identical. It would not make sense for Toyota to have different systems across it's range of vehicles. As a retired electronics engineer I am looking into the possibility of fitting a hard drive in place of the satnav DVD player running the later mapping, or even running an Android satnav through the OEM touch screen. The Android system makes the most sense because of the free map updates with speed warnings, speed camera positions, and most of all the ability to enter full post codes. John

Camera fault finding instructions. Although for a Prius should give you some useful information. John Parking Assist Monitoring (1).pdf

I have some information on camera fault finding for the Prius that uses much the same system. I will dig it out and post shortly. John.

6 volts is correct for the Toyota/Lexus rear camera supply. John

I bought a pair of cheap bulbs on Ebay "about £13 the pair" and these have given excellent service. My initial reasoning for buying these was if they only lasted a year they would still be cheaper than the Phillips bulbs. John

There are two clips. One at ten oclock "almost hidden in the picture" the other at two oclock. Each has to be pushed inwards then sideways away from the bulb. the clips will then swing freely towards you "they are joined hinged at 6 oclock" freeing the bulb. This just pulls out. John