Herbie

If you press the start button without also pressing the brakes, that gets you into Accessory mode. It's like having the ignition on in a conventional car, before turning the key further to crank the engine. To get from Accessory mode into READY mode, simply press the brake pedal and push the START button again. I'm very surprised by the attitude of Lexus Romania, that's terrible.

They aren't set low, that's just how the LEDs are. They're also a flat beam and don't kick up on the left, which is why we don't need to use beam deflectors if driving on the continent. I would doubt it very much to be honest, but even if it's possible it'd be very costly. The light unit is sealed so you can't get to individual LEDs, and I believe a like-for-like replacement is over £1,000. Then you'd have a cost on top for the upgrade - if it could be done at all.

Wow Marci, that sounds very frightening and I hope everyone in the car is alright. I'm afraid I haven't got an answer for you because I've never heard of this happening either. I presume you had to report all this to your insurance company so what have they said about this strange event? Only a guess but that would suggest to me that the hybrid system had some sort of catastrophic failure, because "Ignition on" is the message that appears when the car is in Accessory mode, rather than the "READY" light you see when the car is in hybrid mode. Given that it's a 2022 car it should still be within the manufacturer's warranty period, so surely they can't just wash their hands of it all? If you don't get any further with the dealer, contact Lexus Romania. I hope you get a speedy conclusion that is to your satisfaction my friend.

If you look at the chart below you'll see that 11.4V is quite a big problem:

It doesn't matter. 12V is 12V whether at the front, back, top or bottom and they're directly connected to each other anyway.

You're very welcome Paul and the Gooloo lookslike a good choice. No need to worry about your battery, these jumper units work on all batteries. I've got a Tacklife T8 and I've used it on lead-acid and AGM without any problems. EDIT: One thing I would say is to get one with a digital readout of how much charge is in it. Mine is reading 90% even though it's been sitting in the car (unused) for a good 9 or 10 months. Of course, the idea is that you don't get caught out so I do try to remember to charge it every 6 months or so, and now that I've realised that I'm late, I'll do it this very afternoon.

Safe, yes; useful, no. The cigarette lighter sockets are only energised when the car is on, which means that when the car is off (as in the case of a flat battery) there is no pathway for the jump starter to get power into the 12V battery.

When I look at National Tyres and search for Michelin in 235/55/20 nothing comes up. All they're offering in that size are 2x Bridgestones, 2 x Pirelli, 2 x Continental and 1 x Hankook.

Completely different technology. The way Lexus decided to do things was to use a pair of 12V relays as a safety interlock. If the 12V battery has enough juice to operate the interlock it energises the hybrid system, but if not, the interlock doesn't operate and so no access to the hybrid system and/or battery for the 12V to 'pinch' a bit of power.

You probably need to get on your back and stick your head under, then look straight up towards the top of the dash.

Is that with the 20" wheels Phil, or smaller ones?

I've heard a couple of horror stories about the TPMS sensors being broken and/or calibration problems when an independent tyre place has been used, so I was thinking of getting the dealer to do them but what's the procedure? Do dealers have a limited range and you can only choose from those, or can you say that you want x,y, or z even though the dealer doesn't stock them? Do dealers source them for you and have them delivered to the workshop, or do you have to source them yourself and take them to the workshop yourself? My first choice would be Goodyear Vector 4Seasons, closely followed by Michelin Cross Climates, but the 20" wheels seem to limit choice somewhat.

You should never attempt to start a conventional car from a hybrid, but you can jump start another hybrid from a hybrid. This comes about because a conventional car's starter motor can draw upwards of 300A when cranking the engine and that power usually comes from the donor alternator, hence why the donor car needs to have its engine running. Our hybrids don't have an alternator. We get our power from a DC/DC converter, which is fed directly from the traction battery (somewhere in the region of 280V-300V depending on model and variant) and reduces the voltage as necessary, ie, about 14.5V to charge the 12V battery; 48V [IIRC] for the power steering and so on. Our hybrids only need about 20A to get the car into READY mode and the max output of the DC/DC converter is somewhere around 100A. If it was called upon to supply 300A to a conventional starter motor, I can imagine a big bang and all the magic smoke that makes it work would escape into the atmosphere In reality I'd hope that there's some current-limiting circuitry to prevent that from happening, but us electrical types do like to see a good arc flash and a decent bang never goes amiss

Disconnect the battery. You may have to reset one or two things but at least the battery won't be damaged, which might happen if it goes flat and is left flattened for any length of time.

The 450+ is the plug-in variant isn't it? If so, I know nothing about them so I may or may not, be talking rubbish. To me, EV mode suggests that the car is drawing from the batteries but nothing is going back in to keep them topped up. Try again but just not in EV mode this time.

Because it's an electrical problem and having been in the electrical / electronics field all my working life, I do have a certain knowledge and understanding that I hope may be useful to people with those types of problems. This is true but Lexus will not do anything retrospectively to the cars already out 'in the wild' so your continual complaining will never be of any benefit to you yourself. Great, so your problem is solved and you have no further need to complain anymore. Sorted

If there's a clicking noise then I'll almost guarantee that your battery is flat. As you press the start button, power is passed to the starter solenoid, which is basically an electromagnetic plunger-type switch. The battery has enough power to energise the solenoid and pull in the contacts, but when those contacts meet and power flows to the starter motor, there isn't enough power to turn it and the voltage drops like a stone. As the solenoid releases the contacts the voltage rises high enough to energise the solenoid and the whole process just keeps repeating. It's commonly known as 'solenoid chatter' because of the ticking noise it makes as it pulls in and then immediately releases again.

And so we come full circle - again. Which proves that a bit of research on your part would have revealed that a hybrid, perhaps even especially a Lexus hybrid, just does not meet your needs and is not compatible with your driving style or driving habits. There's a problem and people have told you how to handle said problem, ergo it is a problem no longer. You have two options (a) change the car, or (b) use a workaround. Continuing to be Mr. Angry on here will get you precisely nowhere except for stress-induced hair loss or worse.

If someone can tell us the Ah rating on the label of the battery we can do an approximate calculation. I'll guess at 40Ah, which means that it can supply 40A for one hour, or 20A for two hours and so on. If we assume a brand new and fully charged battery and also assume a quiescent current draw of, say, 70mA (0.07A) that gives us the following: 40Ah divided by 0.07A = 571.42 hours, which is 23.80 days or 3.4 weeks to go from fully charged to fully discharged. The battery will not be able to start the car long before it becomes fully discharged, so that will reduce the useable time available. There will be variations such as temperature, condition of battery, ie, has it been fully depleted before and if so, how long did it stay that way etc., etc., but this gives you a ballpark figure based on science rather than anecdotal evidence. Please feel free to amend the figures based on whatever the real Ah rating is.

As far as I know, none of the 400h cars ever had air suspension. I seem to remember reading that, due to the size and location of the traction battery, there was nowhere to fit the air components in.

Yes, that's it. You can either connect directly to the battery (wherever it may be) or you can connect via the 'jump start point' in the fuse box in the engine bay. The black (negative) lead can be connected to any unpainted bare metal nut, bolt, screw or bracket, anywhere in or on the car, whether that be at the front, back, top or bottom.

I don't know who told you that but they're completely wrong. You leave a trickle charger on 24/7 until you use the car again and put it back on trickle once you get back. That's the whole reason for a trickle charger to exist and is its sole job in life.

What is the Ah rating of the 12V battery? There's a rough calculation you can do that will give you the maximum length of time it can stand unused but there's just too many variables for it to be very accurate. At least it's scientific and governed by the laws of physics rather than just anecdotal evidence where someone will inevitably claim that they left it for 6 months and it fired up first time on their return

Cheers Colin, I love that every day's a school day

Is the existing battery Lithium? If not, I wouldn't use a Lithium battery as a substitute. It's not an area that I have much knowledge of but I can forsee problems with the battery management and charging system if, for example, it's expecting to see a NiMH battery in there but it gets Lithium instead.