Thackeray

Many thanks for all the suggestions. I've ordered the one Bruno suggested. Only £20 on Amazon and looks as though it should have enough power to get the hybrid system running. Let's hope it's never needed but at least it's something to fall back on if the car ever fails to start as the winter arrives. If that doesn't happen the device can be used to charge phones while travelling.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a portable jump start unit? There seem to be quite a number available now for around £30 or so. Are they any good? My main requirements would be a small genuinely portable unit, and enough power to get a Lexus hybrid car into the "Ready" state..

I've finally got around to buying one of these. It seems sturdy and fits perfectly. When I went to order it, I couldn't immediately find this thread with the link posted above so I searched on Google and came up with a different source: this is the link on ebay. In fact, this one included free delivery from Germany, which took just two or three days to arrive. It looks identical to the pictures posted above. So I wonder if maybe this is the manufacturer and the British based seller is a distributor. Although the whole mat seems to be made of some sort of rubberised plastic, the central portion feels different to the outer sections. When you put your hand on the outer bits they feel cold but when you rest your hand on the central section it feels warmer. Don't know if this is just because of the different surface pattern or whether it has some different material in the central section. Either way, it works well and the German company also lists boot mats for other models.

I've spent some time looking for such a thing on the internet but with no success. it would be good if some small manufacturer could come up with something that neatly matches the existing upholstery and provides a proper arm rest.

It's taken me quite a while to get to grips with what to expect from the battery meter but this is what I've learnt so far. First of all, the meter doesn't represent the actual capacity of the battery. In fact, the battery is never charged less than 40% (presumably one bar) or more than 80% (eight bars). The computer takes care of this and the capacity range is set to provide long life for the battery. I've read on forums of Priuses that achieve 300,000 miles on the original battery pack. Second, my initial instinct was that I'd like to see the battery looking close to full. After a while I realised that this is because I was looking at the battery gauge like the petrol gauge, where fuller is better and close to empty is worrying. In fact, with the battery meter, you need it generally to be around half full or less because if it's full you can't store any regenerated electricity. So the energy will effectively be thrown away as heat. Third, the battery level when you park the car will depend on the area you've been driving in and the effect of that driving on the amount of electricity regeneration. Where I live, I almost always park with only two or three bars on the battery meter. (I've never seen one bar). Initially, I found this a bit concerning. But while on holiday this summer I was driving mostly in the country and when I parked the car there were usually around five or six bars on the meter. Same car, different environment and weather. In fact, this summer was the first and only time I've seen eight bars and that was at the end of a 2-3 km long downhill stretch. Fourth, the hybrid battery doesn't have a huge capacity. It's much smaller than for example one of the recent hybrid Volvos - can't remember which model. I don't think the engineers really intended the car to do much electric-only driving; the battery is just there to store regenerated electricity. Probably the EV mode was put in at the insistence of the marketing department - its use is generally quite limited.

The website describing the new MOT rules seems at last to have clarified this issue about driving a car that has failed its MOT. There was a long discussion thread about this earlier in the year with people giving different opinions about whether or not you could drive a car that had failed. It certainly seemed to be the case previously that you could only drive a failed car home or to a pre-booked appointment at a garage. Now, this government website says: "Driving a vehicle that’s failed You can take your vehicle away if: your current MOT certificate is still valid no ‘dangerous’ problems were listed in the MOT Otherwise, you’ll need to get it repaired before you can drive. If you can take your vehicle away, it must still meet the minimum standards of roadworthiness at all times." This seems clearer and doesn't specifically restrict driving to going home or to a repair appointment. So it implies you can drive it anywhere so long as it's roadworthy and has a valid MOT certificate from a year earlier.

Which menu option do you choose? I had a look too but couldn't see anything that looked as though it would show battery voltage.

No, I'm not doing that. All I do is note what the mileage is and how much fuel I put in to fill the tank.. I can then calculate how many miles I've travelled since the last fill-up and how much fuel has been used; the amount of fuel is the number of litres the tank went down since the last fill-up, which is known because it's the same as the amount it takes to fill it up again. I'd never thought of calculating it in any other way! It doesn't matter a great deal whether the tank is completely full to the very last drop, (or at least it balances out over time) or whether the reserve amount is used or not.

That looks good. I think I'll get one of those. Thanks for putting up the pictures. Does it cause any problems if you fold the back seats or is the ridge effectively just the same as if you didn't have the liner?

Have you tried recalibration? On my car it's in the menu Setup/ Navigation / Calibration / Position. Sounds as though you might have a different problem, though.

If you decide to get the one from the "Bootsliners" website, maybe you could report back on how well it fits. I'd be interested in one of these, too.

I've just noticed another thread about firmware updates and one of the messages says you should hold down the Menu button while turning the lights on and off three times. Is that the way to display the hidden menu?

It's not impossible that it's the latest version that has the error. Unlikely but not impossible. Could you find a version number for Bruno to compare?

If I had to guess whether this was a clever marketing strategy or a programming error, I'd go for the latter. Maybe it's fixed in a firmware update. What firmware versions apply to cars when you can or can't switch the odometer to kilometres?

Just out of interest, what does the display look like when you change it to kph? Does the range change to kilometres, while the odometer (1572 miles in the picture) stays as it is, labelled with miles?

How strange that it doesn't change. When I choose Setup, General, Units of Measurement, and then change Miles to Km, the total mileage on the odometer, as well as trip A and trip B all recalculate the distance covered from miles to kilometres. (I've just tried it.) The absolute figure must of course be stored somewhere (the eeprom) but the non F-Sport display calculates the equivalent kilometres from the stored miles (or vice versa) and displays whichever you've chosen in Units of Measurement. It seems very odd that F Sport models don't have this facility when lesser models do.

I switched the odometer from miles to kilometres while in France recently. It helps when the signs and distances are in kilometres. I would imagine you can do the same. The manual says the choice is Km (with litres/100km), Km (with km/litre) or miles (with mpg). This doesn't affect the speedometer, of course. Mine is in mph in big numbers and kph in small numbers. I can't remember the exact location in the settings to change this, but it isn't difficult to find - possibly under Vehicle, according to the manual.

It seems that the Hybrid Assistant phone app also shows the 12v battery voltage. I haven't used it myself but it was recommended by someone in another thread. Here's a video showing the battery voltage display.

Could you report back on whether it works ok? I've seen similar ones on the internet but I thought they might be too wide to fit in the central box where the socket is.

I was wondering that too. And a second question: if the car knows the voltage of the 12v battery, does it put up a warning if the voltage is getting too low? I've seen comments that say it warns if the keyfob battery needs replacing; it would also make sense to put up a warning saying the 12v battery needs replacing.

I haven't seen this story reported in the UK: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-jury-finds-evidence-of-gross-negligence-by-toyota-seatback-collision/ Edit: I found that the video didn't play from that link but I think it's the ad blocker on my browser that was blocking the video. When I turn off the ad blocker the video plays correctly.

That helps explain why a warning came up on the screen, saying "PopUp hood failure". I was wondering why that happened. Presumably the sensors were put out of action by the water at that level. But is the air intake for the engine only two feet above ground? I would have expected it to be a bit higher than that. Or is it enough that the exhaust pipe would have been under water?

Thanks for all the responses. I was mostly wondering about the effect on the battery but maybe it can survive a certain amount of water without damage. I don't suppose being completely under water would do it much good. It also sounds as though there must be safety systems to prevent any harm of electrocution from a flooded battery - I hope so! I found a video showing both the effect of getting water in the engine and water around the battery area. The battery layout in the IS300h is probably different from the RX400h shown here but interesting to see that the battery seemed to be unaffected by this probably small amount of water. It seems the conclusion must be to avoid where possible all but the smallest amount of road flooding.

Kubair's recent experience has raised some questions in my mind. In his case, he drove through a puddle and the hybrid system stopped. This doesn't sound typical, as cars constantly have to deal with wet weather in this country. But it does raise a question. Can you drive through a ford in a low to the ground hybrid like the IS300h? What about the frequent winter road flooding that you see in the south of England and probably in the north too? Can you safely drive through water up to the door sills? There's a 650 volt battery in the back that most of the time I'm unconcerned by. But I'm less confident about the combination of flood-water and 650 volts. Should you avoid fords and road flooding at the expense of a 20 mile detour? Or can you safely follow other conventional cars through the water?

It was taken from the government website, current from 20 May 2018. What struck me on rereading it was the emphasis on primary and secondary grooves. I wasn't aware of this before. Apparently the secondary grooves are expected to wear out and only the primary grooves have to meet the 1.6mm requirement; they're the ones with the tread wear indicators. I didn't realise this and had a look on the internet to try and find how long this has been the case. I was only aware that it had to be 1.6mm across the central three quarters of the tyre. I couldn't find when it changed (if it did). But I'm pretty sure that at one time it used not to be spelled out so clearly that the secondary grooves can be worn as long as the primary grooves are ok. Having said this, I tend to change tyres at 3mm as I've read that wet grip starts to deteriorate significantly below this. But I like to know what the MOT requirements are, as it's irritating to have someone fail the car because the tyre edges are worn, when this isn't an MOT fail and probably never has been.