matt8

Local independent (not dealership). My annual service costs around £120 and I have a cheap local MOT place doing no pass no fee, charging £15.

From my observations, the car sat in 'park' with the engine running isn't very good at charging the hybrid battery. It's better when being driven, charging via regenerative braking. Feels like the engine would need to be running quite a lot to keep the hybrid battery charged. And that means fuel consumed. Is the best (cheaper, cleaner) means not a trickle charger to keep the 12v battery healthy? Not practical for everyone (like OP William said), but a better solution if it is so, perhaps?

Thanks Herbie. Simply trying to understand; how was this measured? Was it observed for a split second as someone pressed the power on button? I'd have thought that there is no ongoing power draw once it's in Ready.

Thanks Colin. Makes sense. Is 2.1Ah alarm battery sufficient when the aux battery is 45Ah?

I like the idea of this. I have no knowledge of these things and so sorry if it's a silly question. Would it be possible to connect a small 12v battery like a house alarm battery (2.1Ah) to achieve this?

Agreed! But would even a specialist know this? I'm not sure! The way it's been explained, it sounds very specialist knowledge, limited to a small portion of all the cars out there!

My point illustrated perfectly!

This is the stuff I learn that I am glad to learn, but wish I didn't know. It scares me to death that it's so easy to damage things. I don't use main dealers for servicing and wonder how commonplace knowledge like this is. Probably not very.

Are you saying that using the AC even when the car is in "Ready" is draining the 12V battery, John? Or, is the cabin fan only powered by the 12V battery? And, that there are no seals to seize up in the Is300h?

You're welcome! I see no reason it won't last, these are well built cars. A regular service every 10K miles / year and you'll be fine. I may consider changing my oil more frequently if I did so many short journeys. For peace of mind, perhaps Lexus warranty is the way to go for you. You can extend for up to 10 years I believe.

1. It'll be fine! I'd say the car suits this really. 2. Not true. You can force it to start in EV mode (e.g. moving off your driveway quietly in the mornings), but by default it won't. It wants to get the engine running. Experiences will differ in summer vs. winter.

You don't seem to be having the best of luck @sanjb! 😞 Give it a proper resetting by disconnecting the 12v battery for 20 mins. You may well lose some of your settings but as a last resort, it may be worth a shot....

I guess it's cloning in a temporary sense. Cloning the key temporarily onto a device in close proximity to the car. I can see how they'd be confused!

Easily done. I think @200h means it was opened when the owner wasn't looking, rather than when they were with the vehicle. Perhaps when the owner was at their desk, doing their job and not observing their car. It's a bit like the setting that allows you to open all your windows from the fob. Nice to have but a bit of a risk too.

Truly gutted for you, seeing as you've only just had this work done on it. Were the keys stolen? Or was it some keyless entry / keyless start hack?

It'll be VAT that you'll need to pay (20%) plus a fee charged by the courier for administering and charging this to you. Say £10-£20 courier fee. Seeing as you've just spent £900 on detailing your car, I hope 20% of £120, plus a bit for courier admin fees won't put you off! 🙂

Set mine to 5 blinks about three years ago. Never lost that setting.

Posted before, does this answer or offer any solution?

In my CTEK manual it advises to connect black to negative and red to positive. I thought the recommendation to ground the car to any unpainted nut or bolt was for jump starting cars (which I'd never do to my Lexus) rather than trickle charging. There seems to be much conflicting evidence online about whether to jump start with a cable attached to each terminal, or whether to ground it to the chassis as you suggest. I use one of these and they work great. Highly recommended. Don't bother with the one that has flashing LEDs on, they are misrepresentative of the battery state / charge level. I only got that one as it was cheaper than the one without the LEDs. I leave the battery connected to the car when trickle charging. Disconnecting it would cause you to lose settings.

Didn't think I had any outstanding recalls. And then I see the below today. Hmmm...

Has the being "always on" caused premature failure here do you think?

Thanks for sharing. Keep us posted on the progress @Jayw13702 A few photos / a write up wouldn't go amiss either! 😉 These are the things I imagine the dealer don't ever bother with. Cheers!

Follow the step by step instructions here and you'll get to it.

If you follow this tutorial, you'll get visibility of the amp.

Did mine today. Thanks again @Jayw13702 Was very little in there to remove. I highly doubt it's been done by anyone else or a dealer, so it must just be clean! Tip for anyone else doing it. When removing the three clips from the side trim, don't let them shoot / fly out. I lost one underneath the hybrid battery. The better thing to have done would to have removed those before removing the false floor and exposing the battery. Hope I don't get rattles and knocks, I didn't bother retrieving it. What I did find was a few drops of water / few dozen tiny little stones (road / dirt / debris) near the Mark Lenvinson amp (mounted flat underneath the motor). There's a small white vent with a one way flap to the right of that, which I assume is the way it's getting in. Not sure what the inlet is for. But was not what I wanted to see. Dried it and vacuumed it out. Looked like it might be getting to the vent via the wheel arches.