Delphius1

I did get this once when I selected the "screen off " option on the display menu screen. I had to go back (hit the display button) and set it back to normal. If you press the display button the screen off option is at the top right. As an aside brightness is set by pressing display and then the brightness slider is at the bottom right of the screen.

There's still the radiator cooler even on the earlier models which is usually sufficient. I'm sure some time and motion study at Toyota decided it was cheaper to fabricate two pipes and bolt them to the front valance and pay a guy for 20 seconds to join the autobox hoses to the pipes with easy access. Otherwise it's pay him anywhere between 2-5 minutes as he furtles about plugging the pipes into the radiator or auto box directly with very little space to work in. That's a long way down the assembly track getting in the way of all the other assembly workers and delaying other parts being fitted and running up costs... :-)

Yep, the oil cooler is sat in the L/H wing in front of the wheel arch and the transmission oil also goes through the radiator, so there's plenty of cooling without the steel tubes behind the bumper. Hence why I'm convinced the steel tubes aren't really an oil cooler (even though that's what Lexus call it on their diagrams) but a device to make assembly easier. I'll see how things go with it bypassed.

First off, if you set your sights on an RX300, check the road tax levels, you may be shocked, especially when they jump up around 2005. Not sure about the hybrid, I didn't look at the time. The big thing to avoid on the RX300 and the RX400h is the air suspension. £600+ per corner for each suspension leg! Plus you'll probably have to replace the compressor because if you get an air leak it tends to eat itself. Then factor in labour on top. Spring suspension is more reliable. With the air suspension it's a case of when you replace parts, not if. If you got for an RX300 then the best/most practical spec is the SE Navigator so you get the sat nav, dash screen and reversing camera. Not sure on non-air suspension spec levels for the RX400h Both will be a bit old now, so corrosion on underbody bits can be an issue. I've had a couple of corroded parts on my 2004 RX300 fail and needed replacing. Both are big old barges so tend to be hard on brakes and suspension. Anti roll bar bushes and drop links as well as brakes and general suspension bushes. Check for knocks and thumps as you go over undulating roads and uneven tyre wear. Not hard to fix unless it's the front ARB "D" bushes - they're a bit buried, or the front bushes - you have to prop the engine up to remove/replace the front arms. It's worth checking the service history for recent work in that area, although not necessarily a deal-breaker as fixing isn't the end of the world. Lots of electric toys on both to go wrong, so make sure everything works. Mirrors, sunroof, reversing camera, wipers, lights, heater, aircon, etc. should all work as Lexus designed. Water ingress at the rear is a problem on both. Supposedly a split seam allows water in just in front of the rear hatch and requires re-welding to fix. Musty smells are to be avoided. When looking for mine I saw one with mouldy rear seat belts wet rear seats and a mouldy smell in the cabin. So leaky ones are out there. I walked away from that one. The power rear hatches can fail, not a cheap fix (nothing is with a Lexus!), but then again lifting the hatch manually is not a pain. But you do lose pose points.. Both have cam belts on the engine, so a service history that tells you when the cam belt was last done is an advantage. It's preferrable to have even wear on the tyres as the gear train can get stressed by uneven wear. 4 identical evenly worn tyres with plenty of tread is the most desirable option and saves you having to change tyres after purchase. Sorry to sound like a broken record but...they are not cheap to replace. But then again you don't buy a Lexus to enjoy bargain motoring.

Here's an update. The oil cooler leak got worse, so I've used microbore copper pipe to join the two rubber hoses together temporarily. So far everything ok. Had to cut the hoses off the oil cooler because the "ears" on the spring clips disintegrated when i tried to release the clips. I suspect the rusty tube isn't actually an oil cooler, but is really there to allow the transmission cooling hoses to be easily joined to the rad when the car is being assembled and the power train mated to the body. As the car already has the arch-mounted "proper" atf oil cooler in the transmission cooling line the steel tube thing seems superfluous. At 70-odd quid, I've decided to bypass it and just buy a metre of oil cooler hose. I'll run new hoses between the rad, proper oil cooler and auto box. Space is tight, so it may be a bit difficult and knuckles will be skinned. But I'm saving oodles of money that is going into the suspension bush issue. I've ordered polyurethane SuperPro bushes from these chaps: https://www.japanese4x4spares.co.uk/ They don't keep bushes for the RX in stock but Rob, the nice chap on the phone said as they are a SuperPro distributor they could get them in and sent out to me. Hopefully within 10 days. SuperPro are the only company I can see that does the front and the rear bushes for the front arms in Polyurethane for the RX300. The bushes came to over £100 with postage, but far better than £300 for replacement arms with rubber bushes. Fitting isn't going to be easy with the aformentioned difficulties, but I may have a cheap way round that. Then there's getting the wheel alignment done. I'm looking forward to seeing how much improvement there is in the steering and handling front. Hopefully it will steer round corners when I want it to and not half a second later. :-) More updates to follow as I get the jobs done.

Guys, thanks for the suggestions and the sympathy. Luckily the oil cooler is stand-alone so no real issues with replacing it other than I'll probably swap the sorry-looking springy hose clips for jubilee clips. I did think of copper pipe, but I'm not sure if there would be a bad reaction to the copper. I'm probably going to find some steel pipe of the same bore and then use it as a link to a rubber hose and just make a loop of rubber hose for now. It's not like the weather is going to be hot and the car does have the oil cooler in the nearside wheel arch, so that can do the cooling until I get a replacement steel pipe. Which will be coated to make it last longer! Looking on ebay you can get a couple of "proper" motorcycle oil coolers for less than the Lexus bent steel pipe! As for the MPG, my gut instinct is front wheel alignment as the offside front tyre has that shiny appearance on the inside you get when it wears a bit too much. Also when you take your foot off the throttle there is a perceptible drag and the car slows down more than it used to. Only happened after my run over the Snake pass and back, I've jacked it up and the brakes don't bind and no fault codes on the OBD so the logical thing is alignment. Being a big old barge they are hard on bushes, so polyurethane may be the way to go. The rear bushes on the front arm are available in the uk, but the front bushes may be difficult to source. I know powerflex do them but I've not seen the RX on any supplier lists. Looking on t'internet the front bush for the front lower arm might be a pain to replace. I have heard mention of dropping the subframe in order to undo the bolts. I hope that's not the case, I would really like it to be easy and be able to do it myself rather than pay someone. :-) Of course after it's done it will need wheel alignment as well. <gets ready to apply fire extinguisher to wallet...> UPDATE: Found this video on youtube, the engine mounts need removing to get at the front bushes, so the subframe doesn't need dropping, but the engine does need propping up while you do it:

This car seems to be throwing up a problem a month at the moment. Here's the latest: Noticed a wet patch on the nearside valance under the bumper this week. Released it to have a look and there's an oil leak from the oil cooler loop just behind the bumper. Lexus want £71 for one, so that'll have to wait until pay day! I might have a word with my local Toyota garage like I did with the LED brake lamp and see if the price is any different. Here's what mine looks like currently: At least if it soaks the mounting bolts in ATF they should be easier to remove when I actually get around to getting one. While I'm under there I might drill and tap the bolt holes for the valance mounting bolts that have sheared. In other news fuel consumption has suddenly dropped by 10mpg since a trip up North and back. No error messages on the OBD2 so I suspect one or more suspension bushes have gone while I was hooning (as much as one can hoon in an RX300) around the twisty roads. I'm currently looking for Polyurethane replacements for the front arms. The rear bushes look very tired. This car just wants to keep me busy!

Hybrid errors can be generated by voltage issues on the 12v system instigated by invertor errors. The invertor is used to downconvert from the high hybrid battery voltage go the low 12v system voltage. Multiple errors seems to suggest a voltage error but with a cause affecting multiple systems. I'd suspect an earth fault. The fizzing noise could be arcing across a poor earth for instance. Poor earths are good at causing multiple issues.

The metal parts of the shocks also holds the air and they rust. So it's not necessarily the rubber bag that fails, it could be a rust hole anywhere leaking air. Fixing is very difficult due to the design of the shock. It's not like you can just replace the airbag like you can on some systems. The bag and pressurised chamber are integral to the shock.

I went for the SE Nav. Leather electric seats, dipping mirrors, electric boot hatch, reversing camera, navigation system, HID headlamps, auto lights and wipers, but with spring suspension. I think the only thing the SE-L has that the SE-Nav doesn't is the air suspension and the entertainment system i.e. the screens in the headrests. The parts prices for the SE-L air suspension is 600 quid a corner and then there's labour on top for replacement. The metal parts of the shocks rust through and leak. Once the shocks start leaking the compressor runs all the time and burns or wears out. So you might have to replace the compressor as well as an air shock. Personally I didn't want to take the risk.

I'd agree with everyone else that the radiator should be covered by warranty as it's not a wear and tear item. That is, unless it's been holed by a stone or something. That said, aftermarket radiators are just fine. Aftermarket air filters are fine too. I fitted one to my rx, a 10 minute job. Shocks can produce an oil mist around the piston rod and not be worn out. If it's light misting then save your money and don't bother. If it's a heavy leak then replace. The bushes do need replacing as with worn bushes in the front arms will affect the steering and your car will wander all over the place. The rear anti roll bar bushes are a tenner off eBay and are replaced by undoing four bolts. An easy DIY repair, easily accessible at the rear o the car. I did them myself. Not sure which dust covers are split. Warranties on a car that old are really only insurance against something electronic and expensive going wrong. Anything mechanical can be classed as worn out. I'd second what everyone else says and advise you talk to an independent specialist garage. As you've found out, the pretty expensive warranty isn't worth much on an older car.

Ouch, £286 for a light unit, at that price it's worth having a go. Luckily on the RX300 only the brake lamp is LED and the module is replacable. Looking through eBay I did notice the RX400h light units are all LED and sealed. One quirk of the RX300 LED module is it has a 300 ohm resistor across the 12v feed. I wonder if the car was originally designed to have a filament brake light and the resistor is in there to stop the bulb failure module going nuts.

I did think about fitting LEDs as a cheap option, but decent quality replacement LumiLEDs are a couple of quid each at least, so I'm already half way to the cost of a genuine replacement and I reckon the other half is worth the lack of hassle. What I might do later is have a play with the defunct unit to see if it's possible to ressurect it, even if I buy a couple of LEDs and replace one of the pairs to see if it's feasible. Just in case the right hand light unit gives up the ghost. I've just had a look at the RS and Farnell links. I did look at the Farnell site yesterday and saw you can't get the same LED package as fitted to the original light unit. Everything is surface mount these days and trying to mount them on the metal plates instead of the original LumiLEDs is an issue. I did look at a few options, but the genuine replacement thankfully isn't a rediculous price. The Depo aftermarket light unit is virtually the same price.

Got told by the boss the other day that my nearside brake lamp wasn't working. On the RX300 the brake lamp unit is actually a series of LEDs and not filament bulbs. So it's unusual for something like that to fail. After a bit of a faff I got the light unit off and the LED module out of the lamp unit: Only 2 of the LEDS are working, the rest are glowing dimly. Keen-eyed readers may see I've tried to solder the legs to get a better connection, but to no avail. It looks like the LEDs are worn out and have gone higher resistance in their old age. The bad thing is that 12v is fed via a resistor to a pair of LEDs in series, so if one goes high resistance, the pair stop working. I'm down to the last pair of working LEDs, the outer ones at 12 o'clock and 2 o'clock. I'm looking at options to replace it. I can see there are non-Lexus light units available made by Depo, but I'm not sure how accurate a match that is for the original. I might have to call my local dealer and find out how big a loan I have to take out to get an original replacement. Pity we're not in the USA, they're freely available on the internet over there. Takes me back to my Supra days when I ordered parts from the US because they were (a) easily available on the net and (b) half the UK price even with tax and duty. For reference the Toyota/Lexus part number is 81563-48060 for the L/H unit. They are handed. Edited to add: Luckily the local Toyota dealer can get hold of it, which is great because they are closer than the nearest Lexus one. Current price is £53.86 ex VAT.

As has already been mentioned hybrids are more efficient in mixed driving where the car is accelerating and decelerating often. During deceleration the regenerative braking stores the kinetic energy in the battery and then that energy gets recycled to give a boost under acceleration. On a steady cruise the electrickery doesn't really get involved, so you're using the internal combustion engine all the time and mpg falls to the same as a non-hybrid. 32 mpg is the same as my '04 RX (actually I can eke out a bit more), I did think the later engines were a bit more efficient. Maybe check tyre pressures as that has a significant effect on mpg with the RXs.

I tend to find the Chinese head units a bit disappointing and tend not to be as sophisticated as the Japanese manufacturers. I fitted a Chinese one into my old Volvo. The FM sensitivity wasn't as good as the original head unit, there was no facility to dim the screen with the lights on, the sound wasn't as crisp either. Just little niggles, but in the end I reverted back to the old non-touch screen head unit because it just worked better. The Chinese one ended up in my boat so I could watch videos from a USB stick. I'm not saying it's the case with this particular head unit, but I've had similar disappointments with other Chinese head units as well. Personally I'd be wary of spending so much money on one, certainly without someone else giving an honest review.

I'm not convinced they make things any safer. The Mrs likes the Audis and as the RX passed us last week on the A27 I pointed out the indicators. A Lexus with posy indicators?.... she's sold! The rest of it could be rubbish (like an Audi) but it has those indicators.... I did think they were an Audi trademarked thing though, or at least VAG, so limited to VW, Porsche, Audi & Seat. I hope Lexus aren't paying them money in royalties, or taking pointers on gearbox manufacture. :-) Actually I suspect the "dynamic" lighting systems will become more an more complicated, just because they can. I have seen rear light designs in the pipeline that use a multi-LED matrix as in the big-screen TVs at events. They can effectively display any colour and any brightness, so you can configure them to display anything. Manufacturer logos on unlocking, displaying STOP! in bright red to get the message across, moving amber chevrons for turn signals, etc. Of course I assume blue and green will not be available without special programming.

The vin sticker should have the interior colour on it. I'm sure someone will have posted the interior colour combinations on the internet.

I saw one last week. Yes, it has the sweeping or "dynamic" indicators a-la Audi. Seems to be a bit of a gimmick to me

All the systems showing the fault use the ABS sensors so the likelyhood is that one of the ABS wheel sensors is intermittently faulty. A decent professional scanner should pick up any saved fault codes on the ABS system at the very least though. Very strange. If the fault is intermittent it goes away so by switching the engine off and then on again the lights go out, but come on when the fault resurfaces.

Looking at it logically, if the 12v battery is showing over 12v, the car knows it is in park when it's in park and not in park when it's in any other gear, if the shift display and shift action were working and both the gearbox shift and display in the dash are now not working properly, then the two are associated. Possibly the gearbox control module is faulty, or if you are lucky it's a blown fuse. But it really needs looking at by someone with a bit more knowledge of the car to be able to diagnose the problem. Maybe it's not showing codes to a basic reader, but something like Techscan will be able to delve a bit deeper and get to the problem.

Is the gearshift movement any easier when pressing the shift lock button?

It all depends on the type of sensor. Some have the aperture open to the ultrasonic sensor, some have a memberane to stop water ingress. The front sensors especially should have a membrane. The open type is more common on the cheaper reversing sensors. The ones with the membrane are usually on more expensive sensors and especially need to be on front-facing ones to wether-proof them. Under normal circumstances the membrane is transparent to untrasonic frequencies, but if it is coated with paint, it changes the properties of the membrane and it may lose that transparency and affect operation of the sensor. A decent paint shop should remove the sensors before respraying or if they can't be removed and don't need spraying, can be covered with a masking disc. If they need the sensor to be painted then you normally use masking rings to fill the gap and stop paint covering the membrane or getting into an open sensor. They can be hard plastic rings or pre-cut tape rings. If you do a Google search for parking sensor masking ring you'll see what I'm on about. A decent paint shop should not waft paint over a bumper with sensors in situ without the sensor being masked in some way to avoid problems like this because you never know how a sensor will react when it comes into contact with paint.

The test that Halfords does only superficially tests the battery. One with very little capacity will come up as good on a basic test just after the car has rolled up on the forecourt and the battery is fully charged. But that charge won't last on an old battery that has little capacity. A deeper/longer battery test would show the true state. The good news is that it sounds like your charging system is working. So it's either a duff battery or something drawing current with the ignition off.

The 12v battery isn't charged in the normal way by an alternator on the hybrids. It's charged from the hybrid battery via the invertor module. It's possible the invertor isn't charging the 12v battery fully or there is a drain in the module itself. Unfortunately the only way to find out is some thorough diagnosis. The first step is to have the battery properly tested. They get such light use in hybrids that it may be the original battery and is past it's best and has a high self-discharge rate or very little capacity left. After that, if it is a current drain, then it's out with the meters to hunt it down.