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I jumped my car from another car a couple of times before I learned how dangerous it is to do it directly on the battery terminals. A charging battery can emit flammable gas, and when you attach the negative lead with the positive connected you can get sparks. It's not uncommon for the gas to ignite and start a fire - not a pretty sight. Avoid this by always using a ground point as far away from the battery as possible. The advantage of the portable jump-starters is that they know when they're connected and so don't supply cranking current until they are so are much safer.

You're right it's terrible for the brand. I'd wager though that it's one or two bad actors running franchises and that if their head office knew about it they wouldn't be happy.

After coming back to a dead car at airports a couple of times I now have a halfords jumpstarter in the glovebox. Saved me a couple of times now.

Heh, more research and I've now realised one of the mounts is right there at the top and easy to see. Definitely shot to bits.

Pretty sure the word "approved" in the context of any car sale just means they approve of you handing over your money. Means very little else. Selling used vehicles is unfortunately a business where it probably pays quite well to not be entirely honest all the time.

Hmm I dunno, maybe this is normal? Some people say it shouldn't move at all, some say a small bit of movement is ok. No idea really.

Very gentle load-braking. Pretty sure the mounts have failed. IMG_9534.mov

Solved! That’ll do until it goes into the garage. Hopefully it won’t catch fire before then.

Well everything else was done, coolant, brake fluid, oil/oil filter, pollen filter, even the battery in the transmitter was replaced. I guess the filter must have just looked too clean to bother replacing.

The plot has thickened. I first noticed a faint rattle while queuing to get into McDonalds. This morning I reversed out of the driveway to go to the park without any noises. Then I replaced the air filter and since then in reverse gear there's a loud knocking sound from the engine bay. On investigation it's this big plastic "air resonator" which is adjacent to the air intake. What's really confusing is it's so close to the chassis that I can't see how it ever didn't knock. In reverse the airbox is shaking all over the place so I'm guessing mounts are still the root cause, but this thing seems way too close to the chassis. Hard plastic right next to metal, any vibration in the airbox and that's going to rattle like hell. IMG_9532.mov

My touch-up pen didn't arrive, toyota/lexus nearby didn't have any in stock. Halfords only have spray paint. Is there anywhere else in london/surrey I can get one of these touch-up pens from?

We just bought a lovely 2008 Rav4 for my wife. Great example, lovely condition, full service history. One of the main selling points was that it had a full service at the main stealer back in October. Being the kind of person who tends to over-service cars I ordered replacement air and cabin filters for it from Toyota via ebay. Today it turned up, I popped the airbox open and discovered.. a Mann filter covered in dirt and leaves. Very curious! I went back to check the invoice from Toyota and it seems they changed everything except the engine air filter. The cabin filter, oil, diff oil, alignment check etc etc were all done, but there's no mention of the engine air filter. The invoice says at the top "100,000 mile / 10 year full service". How can a full service not include a new air filter? Maybe they looked at it and decided it was good at the time and didn't need changing? I find it hard to imagine a stealership not taking the opportunity to sell someone a new filter though. Very odd.

This, and also it depends a lot on whether the tester happens to work at a garage who are likely to pick up the repair work if it doesn't pass (or advisories if it does). If possible it's a good idea to go to a testing station that doesn't do repairs as they have nothing to gain by putting down stuff that isn't really necessary.

Thanks, my mechanic friend reckons its most likely the mounts so I'll probably take it in next week.

I've probably asked this before but the non-legit techstream cables make me nervous when a lexus ECU costs about £2 grand. Are any of these bluetooth / iOS OBD2 adapter things capable of reading stuff like fuel trim on a toyota?

How much will it adjust fuel trim without setting a CEL? I'm wondering if it's worth checking the trim, could be leaning out due to a vacuum leak. It's never stalled though and the idle speed seems stable even though there's vibration.

I always have the AC on, unfortunately the vibration was pretty significant even with it on. TBH I'm tempted to just ignore it and shift to N when idling for long periods.

I guess I should try the cheap stuff first, spray clean the throttle body and maf sensor?

About 600rpm. In neutral it's about 750.

While queuing to get into the McDonalds drivethrough recently I've noticed that my car vibrates quite a bit while idling in D. If I pop it out into neutral or park it goes away. I found some old threads on the US version of this website where lots of people had this issue and never found a solution, even after changing the engine and transmission mounts. Anyone else run into this? The car is well serviced (probably over-serviced, I change the oil every 3000 miles or so) and had new plugs recently and transmission fluid about 20,000 miles ago.

Not just any RX300, actually a toyota harrier (jap import). Same chassis but the door cards are different for some reason so the ebay ones won't fit.

I've agreed to pay a local upholsterer £480 to repair both of my rear door cards which are ripped in a few places. I have no idea what they will actually do for this price but they assured me that the door cards will look like they did originally. I suspect you'll do better than me financially but I'm far too lazy and incompetent to attempt this kind of thing myself.

Interesting, why? To someone who doesn't know much about these it looks like a lot of car for not a lot of money. Loads of toys, lexus reliability, engine that is known to easily do several hundred thousand miles.. what am I missing? Are these old V8s actually secret moneypits?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fabulous-LS430/254608012772?hash=item3b47d1f5e4:g:kowAAOSwxDBey8is If I had somewhere to park it I would be seriously tempted to snap that up. Seems way too good to be true though, what do we think is wrong with it? Bodged the air suspension repairs maybe?

Just to add on the subject of re-gassing - if the side that works is sufficiently cold then there's no point in re-gassing because the system is working and has enough refrigerant.