Thackeray

I have found that the automatic headlights can come on even when it's midday with a cloudless blue sky. It seems to do this when the sun is fairly low in the sky (mid-winter midday, or summer evening) and is behind the car. This is exactly what you might want. The cars coming towards you are driving towards the sun and it may be hard for their drivers to spot cars coming towards them. If you were controlling the lights yourself you might turn on the headlights to help make your car visible against the sunlight.

Is this just a coincidence or is the car able to identify this situation and turn on the headlights in the interests of safety? If so, how does it do this? Is there more than one light sensor?

1 hour ago, Kijan said:

To clarify when it happened - I got about 50km into motorway, stopped on parking for a smoke, came back to car after like 5 min and upon driving these are errors that popped. Then I turned car off for a minute and all worked fine.

If the car had been running ok for 50km and you just stopped for five minutes I would guess that it's very unlikely that the 12v Battery caused the problem. It would have been fairly well charged while driving. My only other thought is that the power lead clamps might not be securely fixed to the Battery terminals. But otherwise my guess would be that it's something else causing the error messages. It will be interesting to hear if you have the messages pop up again.

I would have thought 12.1v was fine. I think it's about 50% charged but that should be plenty to get the car into Ready state. If you still get error messages at this voltage it looks as if the problem is elsewhere. But if you hadn't been using the car much when you saw the error messages, the voltage might have been a bit lower and caused the problem.

On 11/9/2021 at 12:05 PM, GSmk3 said:

on the side battery shown 14.4v at the time of the issue, so I excluded that option

If the Battery was showing 14.4v, that suggests the reading was taken with the car in Ready mode. This is around the voltage that the hybrid Battery feeds to the 12v system to recharge the 12v Battery and doesn't indicate the health of the 12v Battery.

If you leave the car overnight and then check the 12v Battery without starting the car, it will probably show around 12v. If it shows below that, say, 11.5v, that might be the cause of all the warning lights.

On a lot of Lexus cars the brakes are pressurised when you open the driver's door. (You can hear the pump running.) I don't know if that's the case in the GS450h but it's probably worth taking a Battery reading after this, too, but still before pressing the start button. This might explain why initially you get error messages if the 12v Battery is depleted by the brake pressurisation but they are gone if you try again after leaving the car for a few minutes, which would give the Battery time to recover assuming the brakes didn't need to be pressurised again.

If the Battery is the original it would almost certainly be on its last legs. But even if it's been replaced it might not be holding the voltage if the car hasn't been used a lot during covid lockdowns.

1 hour ago, Las Palmas said:

Disagree!

 

None of these are crap.

The DS (third one down) was certainly revolutionary. So was Citroën's Traction Avant of the 1930s.

And one of the most stylish cars of the 1960s was the Paris based Facel Vega.

But as this thread is not meant to be a catalogue of compliments, I'll just add that's it's a pity that the company went downhill after it decided to build an engine with only two camshaft bearings instead of four. Apparently the engines didn't last very long.

It looks as if I'm the fifth in this thread to have this rear window seal problem.

About eighteen months ago I noticed a few drips of water landing in the same place as CypressPhil described above as "the plastic thing that sits on top of the Battery (that holds the puncture repair kit)". There's nothing above this except metal bodywork so I initially wondered if it was a weld seam failing. But I eventually became more convinced that it could only be coming from the seal around the rear window. A drip would fall into the car from the window seal, presumably it would then roll down an internal concealed strut by the side of the boot and eventually fall off the strut into the plastic box, some distance to the rear of the window. The box itself is conveniently big enough to hold a fair amount of water without it overflowing onto the 12v Battery.

Like Colin (colabora962) above I tried Granville Silicone Sealant along the window seal. I went for the clear version rather than the black. It seemed to help and reduced the amount of water that dripped over the course of a few days. But it was still dripping from time to time.

Then I read this thread and Wharfhouse's recommendation of Captain Tolley’s Creeping Crack Cure.  This is a liquid the colour and consistency of milk. It just flows like water and penetrates cracks before setting. So I tried trickling some down the seal and it quickly became obvious that it had penetrated below the Granville silicone sealant. You could see the white Tolley's liquid creeping below the transparent silicone, like a vein visible below the skin. A few white drops fell into the plastic box but then stopped. The liquid becomes transparent rather than white when it sets. As the liquid is difficult to control precisely I used a craft glue syringe (£2.99 from Amazon) to apply it drop by drop.

And now, so far, the plastic box is completely dry. There hasn't been a lot of rain in the last week or so which means I can't be certain it's completely fixed. But a big thank you to Wharfhouse for the recommendation. It may have solved a longstanding irritation for a few pounds instead of a few hundred. If it hasn't, I'll give it another application and hope that it will be gone for good.

Incidentally, I first discovered the drip because the puncture repair kit in the plastic box was wet. For other owners, if this window seal problem is widespread, it might be worth taking out the repair kit to make sure it's dry and there's nothing dripping from above it.

Macron bans UK over-65s from French restaurants

I didn't notice it last week but I've just read that Macron has restricted the validity of covid vaccination certificates to six months and five weeks from the second vaccination. This can be extended by having a booster. (Most countries allow a year's validity from the date of the second vaccination.)

No problem then, you might think, just get a booster. Except that in the UK the booster is not recorded on the NHS app so there's no way to prove you've had one.

So from 15 December, if you can't prove you've had a booster (you won't be able to prove it if you're British) you're not allowed in restaurants, bars, clubs, long distance trains etc in France.

Here's a video showing the effect of aquaplaning with new tyres first on the rear and then on the front.

5 hours ago, DBIZO said:

What, of course, I don't really understand, is why the big boy batteries don't help the little one. Not in a hybrid, not in an EV. You have power in the car, just can't get it to the right place. There is a probably a clear engineering reason for it, but probably it's just it doesn't make it past the cost-benefit test.

Many thanks for the detailed explanation. Much appreciated.

As for the high voltage Battery, my guess (based on no information at all) is that the top priority is to make sure the high voltage is completely safe and connected to absolutely nothing unless the car is operating correctly. I think I've read that there is an isolating switch on the high voltage Battery which is only turned on when the car reaches the Ready state.

If that's the case, it might be a challenge to design how to allow power from the high-voltage Battery to the 12v Battery in the event of some sort of fault (ie low voltage in the 12v battery). If the fault can't be safely identified it might not be a good idea to connect the high voltage. Perhaps there's a solution but the designers probably just assume that the 12v Battery should always be in good condition.

18 hours ago, DBIZO said:

(I had tried for a few hours using my portable jump starter battery before they finally arrived

Are you saying that you couldn't start the car with a portable jump starter? I have one in the glove box but I'm wondering if it might be pointless to bother with it.

15 hours ago, DanD said:

forgot people who go and do their weekly shop in service stations while their car is blocking access to the pump they have just used.

This is inconsiderate, obviously. But ultimately I blame the service station companies who designed the layout. Why can't we have service stations like many in France? You fill up at the pump. You then drive up to a payment kiosk at the exit. It isn't possible to leave without paying but at the same time you move your car away from the pump as soon as you've finished filling.

On 10/29/2021 at 11:11 AM, John Nooij said:

The bug was just flying around in your empty car, and that triggered the alarm, or what?

That is often the cause. This is a recent discussion of possible causes of false alarms. It's often an insect in the car.

You may also be able to reset it in the Settings menu. In the DIY Maintenance section of the user manual it says:

Quote

After changing the engine oil (if equipped)
The engine oil maintenance data should be reset. Perform the following procedures:
While the hybrid system is operating, switch the multi-information display to the “Settings”
screen. (→P. 117)
Select “Maintenance System” on the “Settings” screen.
Select “Yes” on the “Maintenance System” screen.
A message will be displayed when the reset
procedure has been completed.

On 10/22/2021 at 12:30 PM, Gossy1988 said:

is it safe for a non-lexus/toyota to replace the breaks/discs? I am just worried about the regenerative breaking and whether a garage can "muck up" the breaking system when changing. 

The regenerative braking doesn't happen in the brakes. When you brake lightly the brake pads may not operate at all. This is why they wear out much more slowly on the drive wheels (rear wheels on an IS300h) than on a conventional car.

Instead, the electricity regeneration happens in the transmission where the motor/generators are. These operate as motors when accelerating and as generators when slowing down. It's a bit like engine braking when you use the engine to slow down the car. In the hybrid transmission the motor/generators slow down the car by generating electricity which is then stored in the Battery.

Not in an NX, but I once filled up my IS300h in France while the display was switched to kilometres and the range immediately after filling up was a little over the psychologically gratifying mark of 1,000 kilometres.

That's just about enough to get from Calais to the Mediterranean coast.

Others have already given the answer but I'll just add some other details.

The car runs the engine when it's needed for whatever reason. In the winter if you have the climate control set to Auto, the car will know you want heat. The heat for the cabin comes from the engine so if the engine is cold the car knows it must start the engine to provide heat for the cabin.

You can test this by turning off the Climate Control when the engine is running with the car parked; often the engine will stop if it's not needed for any other reason. Bear in mind that the engine also runs for other reasons. For example, it will run to charge the hybrid Battery if it is at or below 40% charge (two bars on the dashboard meter). It will keep running if it has already started and has not yet reached 50 degrees. But otherwise the engine will stop if you turn off the Climate Control.

So, of course, in the summer when heat is not needed the engine may not start.

However, in winter when the engine is cold when it starts, it will take a few minutes before it's warm enough to provide heat for the cabin. So until the coolant water is warm enough the climate control fan runs very slowly, rather than blast the passengers with cold air. When the engine coolant is warm enough to provide heat the fan will speed up until the cabin is warm enough. Just leave it on Auto and the car will do what's needed.

As for the windscreen demisting, I think from memory that it will provide a blast of air whatever the engine temperature. The air comes via the air conditioner so even if the engine is still cold, it begins to demist the windscreen. It presumably works more quickly if the engine is already warm.

29 minutes ago, eleveneleven said:

Another thing I seem to be a little paranoid about is parking on steep incline, My driveway for example. every time I engage D from P when its on the drive there's quite a loud "clunk" sound. Doesn't sound like it's doin the gearbox any good at all.

Have a look at this thread. If you scroll down a bit you'll see a picture of the parking pawl along with an explanation of why you get a clunk. There's also a video which I think is supposed to suggest a way to avoid this happening.

6 hours ago, dutchie01 said:

Champagne already in short supply as there is not enough glass to produce bottles so be the first in the queue

I know what you mean. Panic buying of champagne? There's nothing worse!

7 hours ago, Mossypossy said:

Switzerland is a microcosm of that. Fabulously wealthy few, loads of people on breadline, and a huge workforce who schlepp over the border everyday from poorer countries.

Poorer countries? You mean Germany and France? Or perhaps Austria!

Oh, I know, you must be talking about Italy!

On 9/22/2021 at 4:09 PM, Michael Walsh said:

i believe there might be  a conflict between the two systems  caused by Bluetooth which i use to connect my iphone

I had the same problem. The phone would connect to the car but the phone's navigation voice did not come over the car's loudspeakers and also no longer came through the phone's loudspeaker. I turned off the phone's Bluetooth before starting the car and then I could hear the directions from the phone. Turning off Bluetooth after starting the car didn't work.

I've never managed to get the phone directions to play over the loudspeakers. And I didn't want to always have my phone disconnected from the car on long journeys. So I managed to find a setting in Waze to play the sound through the phone rather than whatever the default setting was. That allowed me to turn the Bluetooth back on so I could receive phone calls. And the navigation voice came over the phone's loudspeaker, which being just next to the steering wheel was fine for me to hear even while the car's audio was playing.

I don't know if there's a similar setting in Google maps. But as a first step you could try turning off Bluetooth and see if you get voice directions from the phone. If Google maps doesn't have the necessary setting you could try Waze instead.

Whatever decision you make, unfortunately you're never going to be able to tell whether it made any difference to the longevity of the car or the fuel consumption.

But that doesn't mean it's of no interest to think about the theory! So here are my thoughts on your dilemma.

15 hours ago, Pielight said:

there is bound to be additional wear when re-engaging drive (I tend to do this with brake pedal released in mitigation)

On a conventional automatic, every time you move the gear selector there are clutches in the transmission which are engaged and disengaged. Although they should last for many years, they will nonetheless wear slightly every time you do this. For this reason, on automatics I've owned I've always adopted the policy of leaving it in Drive for short stops.

As for releasing the brake pedal, I would have thought the impact this had would be extremely small. The clutches are still engaged and disengaged producing the same amount of wear. And the power from the engine has a torque converter between it and the wheels, so I would have thought the impact of the drag from the engine on the transmission will be little different whether you have the brakes on or not.

As for the hybrid transmission, when you shift from Drive to Neutral or any other selection, nothing mechanical actually happens to the gears in the transmission. (Except in Park the parking pawl is engaged). So there may be a little extra wear on the gear selector from moving from Drive to Neutral. But nothing happens in the transmission itself.

24 minutes ago, Slicendice said:

it will only be disabled until you press a button on the fob

This is exactly right. I used to think that the key was brought back to life by unlocking the doors. But, of course, it's also brought back to life by opening the boot. Any button will reactivate the key.

I used to think it was very convenient to be able to open the boot with the key because the boot would automatically lock when you closed it. No need to press the key again to lock it and a steady red light in the middle of the dashboard confirmed that the car was locked. But what I didn't initially think of was that although the car was all locked up when you closed the boot, the key had been reactivated. So you would have to turn it off again if you wanted to avoid thieves being able to pick up the signal and take the car away.

22 hours ago, JBPRX400h said:

from 1st November 2021 about half of France will require vehicles to be fitted with winter tyres (M+S or 3 Peak rating) or carry chains or snow socks in the winter months.

Many thanks for mentioning this. I'd never heard of M+S or the 3 Peak Snowflake symbol. (See below).

For anyone else who hasn't heard of this, M+S means Mud and Snow. And the 3 Peak Snowflake symbol means the tyre meets the requirements for driving in snow (but not for driving on ice, which Nordic countries need.)

Cross Climate tyres have both the symbol and the letters M+S on the sidewall, which is useful to know if I need to drive in France in the winter.

21 hours ago, Mossypossy said:

Parked in an underground car park today.

Tyres squeaking on the shiny clean painted floors.

And in Geneva airport car park they have an indicator light in the ceiling over each bay. If the light is on it means the bay is free; if the light is off the bay is already occupied. Makes it much easier to find an empty bay when looking down a long line of parked cars.

33 minutes ago, Herbie said:

These cars are amazing feats of engineering and incredibly complex, but one thing they are not, is electric cars.

As usual a very helpful explanation from Herbie on the voltages. And he's absolutely right in pointing out that they are not intended to be electric cars.

All the power the car uses, at all times, has been generated by the petrol engine. While the car is cruising or accelerating, most of the engine's power is used to move the car. The problem is that when a conventional car brakes, the energy that the engine has generated is thrown away as heat.

This is the problem that the hybrid tries to deal with. Instead of throwing away the energy, a generator turns it into electricity. Next problem - what to do with this electricity if it isn't needed at that moment. Answer - store it in a Battery. (Incidentally, this is why the system keeps the Battery about half full in general; it needs to have enough space to store the captured energy.) But you don't need a very big Battery to store the energy you get from braking.

So then after storing this regenerated electricity, the system has to use it or the Battery would fill to capacity. So the Battery is used to help acceleration. Or to cruise at lowish speeds for short distances. But the system's goal is not to be an electric car. Instead it aims to avoid having the Battery too full or it wouldn't have space for saving energy which would otherwise be wasted.

If the UX doesn't seem to allow electric-only cruising as much as earlier hybrid versions, then that must be because the regenerated power is being used to a greater extent to support the engine. But it makes no difference to the overall goal, which is to avoid throwing away energy by braking when it could be saved in the Battery.