Herbie

To put it bluntly Nigel, you are complaining over nothing. Simply plug the phone in as you get in the car, before you move off, and there is no safety issue whatsoever. Wireless charging can be problematic and inefficient so at least plugging in your phone will also make sure it's charging as you drive. No, I'm afraid you have a non-problem here my friend.

I may be wrong but even if they were a physical fit and straight swap, you'll probably find that there is no wiring or relays for DRLs in your car so you'd have to sort that as well.

Hold the key fob in your hand but don't press any buttons on it. As you approach the car the interior lights may come on as well as the puddle lights under the mirror if you have them. Put your hand around the handle but don't pull and the car should unlock if you have keyless entry. That's how it works on my 2013 RX450h Advance anyway.

It was an optional extra. The button and wiring harness are there but the previous owner(s) haven't paid for the DAB module.

But that's comparing apples to oranges. Your 350 is petrol-only whereas the OP is talking about a hybrid.

You mean the 12V battery went flat in three weeks? That's about normal for a Toy/Lex hybrid. The 'two months' is referring to the high voltage traction battery and if that goes flat then you'll have to get the dealer or some other suitably qualified company with all the necessary specialist items to sort it out.

The 60 minutes should be all in one go. This screenshot shows the advice on Toyota's website:

If the mechanical linkage is alright it's probably an electrical fault in the sensor itself or the connectors. Try cleaning the connectors first as it's the easiest job but if that doesn't work, take off the sensor and open it up to see what it's like inside. If it's beyond repair eBay have them for just under £24 here. P.S. When someone says they have a 2005 RX300 I'm always curious if it's my old one, GY05 HVK.

You sure? Try finding Post No. 17,638 in the topic "Word Association Game" without it and tell me how easy it was

Yes, it's a 'feature' of any hybrid, or at least those from the Toyota/Lexus stables. The 12V batteries are quite small but that's how the cars are designed and there's nothing wrong or any problem with anything. A conventional car has a starter motor that will draw more than 300A when it's cranking the engine so the battery has to be fairly big and beefy to cope with that. Our hybrids don't have starter motors as such and it only takes less than 20A to boot the computers, pressurise the brakes and get the hybrid system into READY mode, which is the equivalent of a conventional car having been started and just sitting there idling. This benefits the manufacturers in a couple of ways: The battery can be much smaller in both physical size and capacity so there's a cost saving there Smaller battery weighs less, which helps keep the overall weight of the car down, which helps to keep emissions down to the ever-lowering limits set by various governments To us as the owners of an individual car it doesn't make much difference, but when you scale it up to hundreds of thousands of cars, you begin to see the logic in their decision. The only downside to us is that small batteries will go flat quicker than a larger one would, so we just have to either use the car more or if you don't actually want to move it, Toyota's advice during the lockdown is to have it in READY mode and 'Park' for about 60 minutes per week while you sit in it reading the paper or whatever. As I said above this is the way the cars are designed, so quite a few of us on here carry one of these jump start battery packs or something similar in the car 'just in case' and they're well worth it for the peace of mind alone - they really do work superbly well. I decided to make a 'comfort' jump start point in the cabin so that if the weather was bad when I needed to do it, at least I'd be dry - details below if you want to fit one to your car:

I'm sorry Steve but I have to question that. This is still the ONLY board that I'm a member of that doesn't have post numbering - are we likely to get that with this new update?

And that's not a bad thing. Prior to getting this hybrid I ran LPG for more than 15 years and loved it. No loss of performance or anything but cleaner, better for the environment, better for the engine and definitely better for the wallet

This is indeed true. The whole rationale behind smart meters is not to help the public (if you want a brew you're going to put that kettle on whether it's peak time or not) but to help the generation and transmission industries keep costs down. The EV movement is hampered in three ways at the moment - battery tech, infrastructure and lack of respect, moral fibre and general decency. The first two will be conquered relatively quickly, the second much longer, but I'm afraid the last one will take a generation or more to correct. What do I mean? Well, a large percentage of the population live in flats, terraced houses and/or other locations where they can't get the car into a driveway or garage to charge it and will have to rely on 'on-road' charge points. No doubt whatsoever that some scrote will come along and think it a jolly wheeze to disconnect the cars from the chargers, or some drunk will trip over the wire, sue the council and then all charging points will be removed for Elf & Safety reasons and so on.

I don't see any change in the typefaces John - all the headings and message bodies are the same as always.

During the first lockdown when we couldn't drive anywhere the advice on Toyota's website was to run the car in READY mode with gear selector in 'P' for 60 minutes per week. READY mode is the hybrid equivalent of having the engine running in a conventional car so don't leave it unattended while you're doing this or it may disappear on you.

Only other thing I can think of then is eBay breakers.

Might be worth a look here https://www.toyodiy.com/parts/q.html Or probably better here https://www.rockauto.com/ Just out of curiosity, it's not my old one is it - GY05 HVK?

It sounds like it's just the generator kicking in when needed then rather than anything to worry about.

What's the state of charge of the traction battery at this time? It could be the running of the generator that you're feeling rather than anything to do with the engine.

It makes very little difference to the MPG, such a small difference that it's really and truly not worth worrying about. Like we've said above, climate control is designed to be active all the time so just let it do its job. To answer your question, the aircon compressor is driven from the hybrid system by a 500V 3-phase variable frequency electric motor. Our cars don't have starter motors, alternators, or anything that would normally be belt-driven by the engine because the engine doesn't run continuously - it is stopped and started by the hybrid system as it sees fit.

It depends on your definition of being "ripped off." Lexus dealers here in the UK charge around £135 +VAT per hour for labour, whereas decent independent garages around here where I live are considered to be expensive if they charge £60 per hour. Given that, I wouldn't say that dealerships are 'ripping us off' but I certainly consider them to be extortionate and would never use them unless the job was something that only they could do. In your case I would be looking for a vehicle air conditioning specialist to get a price from them. One very important thing (although a proper aircon specialist should already know this) is to make sure they recharge the system with the correct lubricant, ie, ND11 oil instead of PAG oil. This is because the compressor is driven by an electric motor instead of a belt from the engine and part of the motor windings sit in the oil for cooling purposes. Normal PAG oil is electrically conductive and will damage the windings, whereas the ND11 oil has a high dielectric and will not damage the windings.

That's probably because it is then working hard to get the cabin temperature to whatever it's set at. Why? You should have it set to bring in fresh air from outside, which the system will then condition and mix with hot/cold to achieve the set temperature. That's the whole idea behind climate control instead of just air conditioning - you set whatever cabin temp you want and the system will condition, mix and do whatever it has to to keep that temp constant. Having the system constantly set to recirculate internal air is both unhealthy and will cause condensation problems. If it is set and used properly you'll also notice something else and that is that when starting from cold the system will probably not blow any air out for a couple of minutes. When it does start, it'll be coming from footwell vents because hot air rises and the quickest way to get the cabin up to temp is to blow it from below and let it rise. On a hot summer day you'll notice the reverse happen as cold air is blown from the dash and face vents.

Just PM'd you now Peter.

If the alarm has a backup battery it could be that this is flat too and needs charging or replacing. Just a guess.

Sorry Sarah, I honestly don't know. I never had a 400h, going from a 2005 RX300 to my 2013 RX450h. I'm sure someone else will be able to answer though.