Thackeray

I've come to the conclusion that some of my past confusion about how this works is because I've tended to look at Lexus hybrid cars as petrol-engined cars assisted by electric motors. I've now realised that it makes more sense to look at them as electric cars, which are sometimes (but not always) assisted by a petrol engine. What this means is that for the car to move (unless you're coasting) at least one of the motors must be powered and generally the motor generator attached to the road wheels (MG2) must be powered to get moving. As has been pointed out, to reverse the car, the computers simply run MG2 backwards. Toyota does make some conventional belt driven cvt gearboxes. The link mentioned describes this kind of gearbox, not the hybrid planetary gear Power Split Device or e-CVT. So I don't think it hurts to link, once again, to the following very useful simulation of the planetary gearset. Many thanks to the person who created this on the eahart.com website. Unfortunately, this is going to stop working soon as Adobe Flash is withdrawn. Hopefully, someone might convert it into something more modern - I believe HTML5 may be an option for anyone who understands these things. http://eahart.com/flash/PSDAnim.swf http://eahart.com/prius/psd/

Pretty certainly. Mr Lucifer has joined in the last hour and already posted three or four messages, all with links to an outside website. The link labelled 192.168.1.1 is actually linked to a website named 192-168-11.me . I don't intend to click on it and I'd advise others not to, either. I'd suggest admins block this user as quickly as possible. Update: Admins have deleted the offending messages within minutes. They may like to delete this message too, as it no longer makes any sense after the scammer's messages were deleted.

On conventional cars I've always rigorously avoided riding the brakes to avoid wear and changed down a gear to use engine braking. But on the Lexus hybrid drive I've adopted the habit of using the brakes instead of engine braking on a long downhill to make use of the energy regeneration. I try to keep the needle away from the limit on the energy regeneration gauge as I assume that the mechanical brakes begin to come on when the needle reaches its lower limit. The Hybrid Assistant app suggests that it's possible to brake without using the mechanical brakes at all. This page from their website also includes some interesting graphs generated from the app which show the contribution to braking force at varying car speeds both from regeneration and from the mechanical braking. As I understand it, the first graph represents braking force in Nm as the brake pedal is applied four times while the car slows (blue line). The orange line shows the regenerative braking force; the grey line shows the total braking force. The second graph shows a closeup of the first section of the first graph. The note says that braking is entirely mechanical below 7 km/h. Also interesting from the other graphs is that when the hybrid battery temperature goes above 46C, braking is entirely mechanical with no regeneration.

Here's a helpful page from Which? on your rights on faulty goods. It looks as though you can request a full refund within the first 30 days. After that, as royoftherovers said above, you still have six months to request that any problems are put right. The Which? webpage is useful because it includes template letters that you can send.

The webpage you attached is for a company called The Warranty Group. Is what you have definitely a two-year Extended Warranty from Lexus? If so, perhaps The Warranty Group handles claims for Lexus. Or is it a two-year warranty from this independent company called The Warranty Group? Perhaps Avalon Autos took out the warranty on your behalf and perhaps you got the impression that it was a Lexus warranty. I have no experience of claiming on a Lexus extended warranty so I have no idea which is the most likely.

He talks a lot but it's a bit misleading that he's standing next to a hybrid Toyota. I don't think he's actually talking about the e-CVT or power split device on hybrid Toyotas and Lexuses. Instead he seems to be talking about a conventional belt-drive CVT that Toyota announced in the last couple of years with something called a launch gear. As far as I can see, lacking many clear details,Toyota were trying to deal with the problem that a lot of people like their gearboxes to jolt as they switch ratios (because people have been used to this for 100 years and can't get used to the idea that it's not necessary). So this belt-drive CVT has a launch gear to get you started quickly (by contrast, the hybrid e-CVT has electric motors to get you started quickly) and it has fixed ratios so that the driver can feel the jolt as it changes ratios. Here's a video that explains what this new belt drive CVT gear box does. So presumably it also has a torque converter like a conventional automatic. Maybe I've misunderstood this - if anyone has more details it would be interesting to hear them. It also seems to have a lot more moving parts than the mechanically simple and elegant e-CVT. I'm sure it works well but for reliability I'd choose the hybrid transmission with few moving parts.

Well, of course, I had no idea! So I've looked it up and according to an internet page it was 24. The song producer Ed Freeman is quoted as saying: ""He is an excellent, very, very talented singer, but someone had apparently made fun of him because he sang things with the exact same vocal inflections every time. So he decided to be more improvisational, and my estimation was that his improvisations just didn't work and were muddling up the song. In my head, I knew what it was supposed to sound like — I don't now remember how I arrived at that, but when I kept asking him to sing it in a certain way, he wouldn't do it. He wanted to play with it every time, inserting slides, melismas and other things that, to my mind, didn't fit. So we ended up recording him 24 times on 16-track tape and took different parts from different takes until I got every word the way I wanted it, without all the play, and I don't think Don appreciated that very much..." " Now, when I listen to 'American Pie', I know where all of the vocal edits are, but there's only one where I actually smell a rat. One word is made up of three syllables and they come from three different takes."

This peformance was at the end of a musical era in 1964, which I suppose had lasted 60-odd years, just before the Beach Boys were responsible for bringing in a new era of music in 1966 with Good Vibrations. For the first half-century of recorded music, performers went into the studio, played or sang and went home. For example, in 1961 The Marcels recorded Blue Moon in just three minutes. Just one take. And that gave them nearly 50 seconds to get their coats on - the song is only 2 minutes 11 seconds. But then in 1966 the Beach Boys produced Good Vibrations, using the new-fangled multi-track recorders and taking 90 hours to record the song over a period of seven months. Wikipedia says it was the most expensive single ever produced at the time. Now we take it for granted that what we hear on a record is generally not something that a performer could reproduce faithfully on stage. But in 1966 this was a revolution; it was probably comparable to 1928 when Talkies swept away silent films in little more than a year.

I've been putting my car into Ready mode weekly over the last few weeks and I've learnt the following points from watching what it does. First, you can rev the engine while in Park - at first I thought you couldn't do this but you can. But I think charging stops when you do this. At least the energy monitor shows charging when the engine is "idling" (ie around 1,100 rpm) but the charging stops when you rev the engine above idle speed. I don't know why it does this - maybe to protect motor-generator 1 (MG1) from excess speed while generating. (As royoftherovers says, it never charges when you're in Neutral.) Second, I've now grasped that the 12v battery is being charged.whenever the car is in the Ready state, whether the engine is running or not. The charging power (around 14.4V) comes from the hybrid battery via the inverter, whether the engine is running or not. What I've seen in recent days is that it takes around 20 minutes or more without the engine running for the hybrid battery to drop from three bars to two bars while doing little more than charging the 12v battery and playing the radio (climate control off, everything else off). It will sit quite happily at two bars for quite a while before the engine starts up again to begin charging the hybrid battery. Its natural level in this situation seems to range from two to three bars, with the engine stopping at three bars and restarting at two bars. As has been said elsewhere, this represents around 50-55% real charge level, which is probably the target range set by the computer. If for some reason, you do want to put a higher charge in the high voltage battery than around three bars (perhaps if it's going to be stored for six months, for example) then paradoxically, it will probably charge more efficiently (though not necessarily more quickly) by leaving the car standing rather than going for a drive. With the car stationary and the engine idling, MG1 spins at around 4,000 rpm. But if you drive the car at town speeds MG1 (which charges the high voltage battery) will spin more slowly,until it stops altogether and then starts to spin in the reverse direction, then speeding up again. Unless you actually want to go for a drive, it's probably easier and will use less petrol if you choose a cold day (or night), put the car in ready and turn on the climate control to a warm temperature. The engine will then run to warm up the cabin and spare energy from the engine will be stored in the battery. I've got the hybrid battery up to six bars by keeping the heat on when the weather is cold but without touching the accelerator, which seems to stop the charging. But from what I've read, there's no real need to get the high voltage battery up to a higher level of charge if the car will be unused for only a month or so. The 12volt battery is another matter, of course.

I don't know the answer to this but I wonder what the definition is of "refuse to insure" or "decline insurance" or whatever it is they say in the application questions. At first glance, it doesn't look as though they refused to insure you - they offered you a price to switch to your new car, which you didn't like the look of. You then cancelled your policy and sought a new quote from them. At this point they declined to offer you a quote. I wonder if declining to offer a quote and refusing to insure are the same things - they might amount to different actions. It might be that it would be withdrawing the insurance that you currently have in force is what amounts to refusing to insure. Can someone who understands these things provide a clarification of these points?

To get the lower rates the car has to have been registered before 1 April 2017. This is when the government introduced the new car tax rates. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-vehicle-tax-rates-from-1-april-2017 These are the rates from 2001 until March 2017.

That's a bit of a mystery. Is this an IS300h? As the first suspect is the incompatible music files, have you tried removing them from the USB stick and tested without them? Other mystery problems I've noticed on this forum have been caused by (a)wearing a smart watch and (b) placement of a wireless phone charger. Have you got either of these; or anything else that you're carrying or putting in the car that might be emitting radio waves/magnetic fields to cause problems? The other thing that occurs to me is that using the Accessory mode is running down the battery. So maybe it was lower than usual when you put it into Ready state. How many bars is it showing, assuming you can get it into the Ready state? And, of course, what's the state of the 12v battery? This seems to be causing a lot of problems at the moment on little used cars.

One day this extremely useful animation may disappear from its website. I think it's dated 2006 so it probably won't be there for ever. I wonder if there are any software developers on this forum who could create something similar. Perhaps even an updated version depicting the variations on more recent transmissions. It's so useful for making sense of what the Power Split Device is doing and it would be a pity to lose access to it altogether. Can any forum administrators advise whether Flash files can be inserted into forum messages, if the creator of this one would give permission for this original one? Just to repeat Herbie's link in an earlier message, it comes from this page http://eahart.com/prius/psd/

I was wondering about this too. In the 2008 financial crisis, car dealers and manufacturers were desperate to sell cars because there were too many new cars as well as too many second-hand cars. But in the coming financial crisis there won't be too many new cars because factories around the world have been closed for a month or so. The SMMT says: "Record -97.3% fall for UK new car market in April as coronavirus shuts showrooms." That means when buyers begin to return they may not be able to find the new car they want and may decide to make do with a nearly new second hand car instead. This could push up second hand prices until the factories begin to make up the shortfall. On the other hand, if potential buyers now have no job and no spare money they won't be buying anything, creating downward pressure on the prices of new and second-hand cars. It will be interesting to see which way it goes.

No, absolutely not. That's what it's for. Here's what Motoreasy says about GAP insurance on finance-purchased cars. "If you bought on finance: Due to depreciation your insurer payout will be less than you owe the finance company - leaving you to pay the difference. GAP insurance covers most early on, clearing any finance you owe in full." So if someone is buying on finance, it's more likely that it will cause them a financial problem if an accident means they owe the finance company more than they can afford to pay. GAP insurance gives the reassurance that this won't happen. By contrast, cash buyers are paying up front - they won't have to find this extra money if the worst happens. And if you're a cash buyer you're effectively signing up for the depreciation that everyone knows will start to whittle away at the resale value of their purchase the moment they drive away from the dealer. Now, the GAP insurance supplier says, "Pay us a lump sum up front and if you have an accident, we'll pay you for the depreciation you've already suffered." Only the individual can judge whether this is good value. How much is the lump sum? How often do you have accidents? Alternatively, you can say, "I know I'm signing up for depreciation. In the real world you can't expect to avoid this." The GAP insurance looks tempting but I must have an accident for it to pay out. If I don't have an accident, I'll have paid the lump sum, plus the depreciation and got nothing back in return. Whereas if I don't take out the insurance, I'll just have paid the depreciation, which was already covered anyway on day one by the cash purchase. So it's up to the individual. It seems to me that GAP insurance could be useful for buying on finance. But if you're paying cash, is it worth gambling on the perhaps remote possibility that you might have depreciation paid back?

Congratulations! Looks like a great buy. Hope no problems arise when you inspect it. Bear in mind that when you collect it they will almost certainly try to sell you add-ons. The first of these is likely to be GAP insurance. This is useful if you're buying the car with a financing deal. But if you're buying with cash I'm not so sure it's worthwhile. It's worth examining it before you collect the car to decide whether you think it has any value for your particular circumstances. Another is Supagard body protection. This could be useful on a new car. It may already have been applied when the car was new. Again, I'm not so sure whether this is worthwhile on a used car. Others who are more expert on bodywork protection may be able to advise.

Not sure this is the best place to discuss prices! They probably read this forum themselves. Having said that it might be worth getting a feel for how much the other car might be discounted. Maybe make them an offer on the website and see how they react? Then you have a better feel for prices when you make an offer for the newer one. Or just email and ask them what their best price would be. You could always then offer lower if you were at all interested. (I'm assuming you're not making any commitment when you send them a price enquiry but you could always read the small print.) It might be worth keeping in mind that some businesses are close to going bankrupt (eg British Airways, Virgin Atlantic) and may be even more desperate in coming months when many of their potential customers may be out of a job. In the 2008 financial crisis I was looking at buying a new Toyota Avensis and the local dealer had some newly delivered cars, still in their protective coatings they were desperate to turn into cash. I can't remember the exact figures but they offered me a new car for around £8,000 cash, plus my car in part exchange (valued at around £3,000) for an Avensis whose list price was around £15,000 or just under. Actually, I decided against. But I think they must have been offering to sell virtually at cost price.

The older one should have had its first MOT at the end of October 2019 but it hasn't been done yet. Maybe it was stored for a couple of months. First reference I can find to it being up for sale is in January 2020. All of which suggests they might like to sell it soon and be open to lower offers. The newer one hasn't had its first MOT yet either but that's understandable given that it was due in March.

The adaptive cruise control on the face-lift car is something I'd like to have. On the other hand, I quite like the leather seats on the pre-facelift one. Front fog lights are nice to have but I've only ever used mine about twice. And electric seat adjustment is useful if you have several drivers using the car. But if it's just one driver, it's not a vital feature.

It's possible that you're not too bothered about the exact price. But it occurs to me that choosing between two cars from the same dealer doesn't put you in a very good negotiating position. If you could find a competing car at another dealer (not in the same group of dealers), preferably nearer to where you are, this allows you to say that you've found something better value elsewhere and can they match it? And if you can show them it's closer to home, you can say it would have to be a better deal to travel so much further to buy it. (They might say they'll bring it to you, if they're keen to sell - in which case, they can probably afford a discount too.) Equally, from their point of view, if you're choosing between two of their cars, they can cut the price on the one they'd prefer to get sold to push you towards that one. But they won't be under any pressure to cut the price on both.

See if you can identify whether either of your options has had any bodywork repairs. You could ask the dealers but they probably won't know unless it's a car they've handled since new. Instead, you can check for VIN stickers on the bodywork. Every body panel should have a VIN sticker. These are sticky labels, not the main identification panel. There should be one inside the boot lid, inside the bonnet, inside rim of each of the doors, on each of the side panels (from memory these are on the pillar between the doors and on the wheel arch when the rear doors are open, though my memory could be wrong on these locations!.) If any are missing it means that paintwork/bodywork has been repaired. A Lexus approved bodyshop will take the trouble to replace the VIN sticker but as they cost around £100 just for a sticky label, non-authorised bodyshops probably won't bother. If you find that either car has missing VIN stickers, I'd be inclined to give it a miss unless there are other factors that persuade you to go ahead (a big discount?!) Mechanically, these cars are very reliable and as they're computer controlled it's hard for even the worst driver to damage the mechanics. But bodywork is another thing entirely, If you can identify that the body is probably pretty much as it left the factory, or at least that any repairs are Lexus approved, that for me would be a big selling point.

I've now found the chart for battery charge on a Prius. This is presumably from a few years ago but I don't suppose the general principles have changed much. Scroll down about a third of the way down the page to the post by "m.wynn". You can then click on the chart to open up the image. You'll see that I didn't quite remember the details right. Bars two to six on this chart represent 45% to 66%. Whether that's the same on the Lexus I don't know but I expect it's broadly similar.

As several others have said above you can't run it down to 0% or up to 100%. I've never seen anything definitive about the Lexus setup but I've seen a graphic for Prius batteries that says one bar is 40% and eight bars is 80%. I expect it's similar in the Lexus batteries. Having said that, the aim of the computer is not to fill the battery. The point of the battery is to store spare or regenerated electricity. If the car keeps it full, there won't be anywhere to store surplus energy when it's available. This suggests the optimum target for the battery is around 50% full - that would be plenty of space to store surplus energy but also plenty of extra power to use for a sudden spurt of acceleration. A graphic I once found but can't find now showed that from around two to six bars represents around 50-60% of battery capacity. So why did my car run the battery up to six bars yesterday? I would guess that because the car was stationary the software decided that while the engine was running to keep the cabin warm, a lot of energy was just being thrown away - so instead some was saved in the battery. Later when the heater was off, the car didn't bother to start when the battery went down to a better level of five bars; it isn't aiming to keep the battery topped up, it's aiming to keep plenty of capacity for regenerated electricity. I've only ever seen eight bars on the gauge once and that was after going down a two mile long hill. At the start of the descent, the engine was off. But as the battery gauge got to seven and eight bars the engine started to run. I think this somehow uses up spare electricity. At the end of the descent, I had to stop at some red lights and oddly, the engine started when the car stopped with the battery on eight bars. Usually the engine would stop at traffic lights. I think this must have been to somehow lower battery levels from what was then presumably about 80%. But it seemed a paradox for the engine to start when the battery was "full" (ie around 80%).

I've been puzzled by the advice from Lexus that it's a good idea to put the car in the Ready state for an hour, once a week, but with the climate control (and the radio) turned off. I couldn't see what difference it would make whether these were on or not, as long as the 12v circuit was showing around 14.5v all the time.(Except of course, fuel would be used to keep you warm or cold or entertain you through the radio.) So I decided to put this to the test and try to find out why they give the advice. I've come to the conclusion that it won't make any difference to the charging of the 12v battery but it might use a bit of fuel keeping you warm or cool. But then maybe you're happy to use the fuel if it keeps you comfortable and makes no difference to the 12v charging. This is what I found. 1. Power generation didn't start for two or three minutes while the engine is going through its initial warm up phases.(You can feel the generator load come in and see the generation start on the energy graphic.) 2. When power generation does start, it took around 4-5 minutes to increase the hybrid battery charge from two to six bars. 3. If the cabin heat is on, the engine cycles through a pattern of one minute running followed by two-three minutes off. 4. Over the course of the next 40 minutes or so, only six out of nine one minute runs of the engine involved power generation; presumably the engine is running at other times solely for cabin heat. 5. For the last 10 minutes of the hour, the cabin heat was turned off and the engine did not run at all, even though the hybrid battery charge fell from five to four bars. 6. In the course of the hour, the hybrid battery started at two bars, rose rapidly to six bars and then slowly declined to four bars. The 12v circuit started at 11.5v and ended at 12.3v. So I estimated that if I hadn't had the climate control on (outside temperature was 9C) the engine would only have run for an initial four-five minutes, plus around six one-minute bursts during the hour. That's to say, the engine would have run for about 10 out of 60 minutes. It ran more than this when I had the climate control on but I can't see how this could have affected the charge rate as the 12v circuit showed a constant 14.2v. Last week when the outside temperature was 20C it showed a constant 14.4v. I also listened to the radio but I don't think that could have affected the charge rate.

What happened? Were you starting a conventional car with a conventional starter motor? Did the device claim to be big enough to start whatever size of engine you were starting? Of course, in a hybrid car, you're only booting up the computers so the current really shouldn't be enough to overload the jump starter, particularly if it claims to be big enough to start, say, a 2.5 or 4 litre engine.