Herbie

I've never had a towing hitch and I have no idea how they're wired up, but I'd hazard a guess that the wiring for the tail lights on the hitch are teed into the wiring for the car tail lights, so I'd have a look at the connectors where the hitch wiring meets the car wiring.

Erm, the most likely scenario is that the fuse would be called "TAIL" and you've checked the wrong one. Have you checked for continuity across the TAIL fuse? I've seen cases where the fuse looked physically alright but no continuity. Of course, it could be that you did check the correct fuse and it is alright, in which case the fault lies elsewhere.

I know it's an advert from Banggood but the video answers your question - yes, they work well and there's plenty of other videos of them in real-world use on YouTube. Sorry, can't answer the other question.

He's done that John, he says there's now about half a tank in but still no joy.

Good idea Norman - I did something similar that can be used for charging or jump starting:

Sadly not Piers - he's posted in our 'sister' group on Facebook and had a few suggestions but no joy so far. He says that the engine will run lumpy for a few seconds and then still cuts out. The hybrid system seems to be alright because he's getting READY on the dash but no joy with engine running.

Before you spend any money on a battery I suggest you first check the voltage with the car in READY mode, which should be around 14.5V. It would be unusual for the DC/DC converter (the hybrid equivalent of an alternator) to be faulty and I agree that the battery is the most likely culprit, but it's definitely worth a check first.

I don't know for sure Jeff but I would think so, or at least all Toyota/Lexus, because of how the motor/generator are linked to the wheels and HV battery.

Goodyear Vector 4Seasons Gen 2 are absolutely brilliant tyres. I have them all round on mine and can thoroughly recommend them.

First of all I think you need to put more than 10 litres in - I think you need about 3 gallons, which is about 13 or 14 litres. Secondly, how many attempts to start it have you made? I'm almost certain that I remember reading somewhere that if you are unsuccessful more than 3 times, the hybrid system locks out and the dealer has to reset it. I'll try to find the info I'm thinking of but you could try a general googling in the meantime. EDIT: If I'm correct about it having to go to a dealer to be reset, make sure it goes on a flat-bed and not towed. If it is towed it can cause all sorts of grief with the hybrid battery and the motor/generators.

Front sensors were never a factory fit but rather a dealer option, so some will have them, some won't, depends what the original owner specified. You could always fit your own. And no offence meant, I promise, but knowing the length of your vehicle is a skill that everyone should already have. How do you think all the truckers, van drivers and others manage? Or how did anyone manage before the advent of the parking sensor and/or camera? Watch any American TV programme from the 60s, 70s and 80s and look at the size of their cars - no parking sensors around then.

Try to get one from a breakers yard or eBay breakers instead of going brand new - at least until you know that the 03 one works.

To answer your question, no, I've never tried it, but looking at it logically there has to be some difference or why make two separate parts? The difference may not be the sensor itself but could be the length of the wire or something like that.

No, no, nothing to apologise for Kevin. It doesn't matter how you refer to them at all. You're very welcome to refer to them by name and to link to them as far as I'm aware (I'm only a member here, not admin or moderator). Speaking for myself, the only reason I refer to them by town is that I haven't got a clue who's actually running them, apart from Teeside where we bought our car, and Preston, where we live. By the way, Lexus Teeside have a beautiful silver LC500 in the showroom, looks absolutely stunning

In that case, maybe a mod or admin bod could give you some proof that you are now a member because it's obviously impossible to get your card by tomorrow.

The battery packs are protected from a backfeed but, as you'll see below, that protection is a bundle of diodes in the little red box on the positive lead. I had to make up my own lead so that protection wasn't there on mine.

Unfortunately, the dealers who are listed as participating in the discount scheme are locked away in the 'Gold Member's Area' so that you can't see them until you become a Gold Member, so I can't show you or prove it to you, but I promise that Cardiff is in there. It would appear that you're somewhat stymied because a condition of getting the extended warranty is that you must have servicing carried out at Lexus main dealers. It was a hell of a shock to me because I have a very good friend who is a great mechanic and he usually serviced my cars at 'mates rates' of £30 plus parts! However, I wanted the warranty so I've had to pay for the servicing. Buying a service plan rather than paying for individual services doesn't give you any discount (but Gold Membership should). I think they just add the cost of three individual services together and charge that for the plan. As I said above, the great thing about a plan is that you get to lock in at today's prices and so avoid any price increases, and you get to spread the costs. EDIT: I've always thought it a silly idea that you don't know if the GM discount will be any use to you until you've actually bought and paid for it. However, as we already know that Cardiff is in the scheme, I don't think I'll be giving away too much 'secret' info if I told you that it'll be worth your while as Cardiff give 10% off.

As MNMJ says, if someone refers to a Lexus dealer, it's usually by location such as Lexus Teeside, Lexus Preston etc., etc., instead of Lexus RMB Group (Teeside) or the Vantage Group (Preston). Equally so, if you see any parts or accessories that you want to comment on, it's perfectly OK to refer to Amazon or eBay, instead of, say, 'that rainforest place' or 'that well known auction site' - and preferably include a link to the item as well.

If it's a 2016 car then it's out of that warranty period anyway so just take it to any trusted garage or even do the service yourself. It may be a Lexus but it's still just a car that uses oil, brakes, plugs etc., etc., just like any other car, and there are many hundreds, even thousands of excellent mechanics who could do the job. I believe that Lexus labour charges are about £138 + VAT per hour if I remember correctly for ad hoc work but servicing is fixed price.

@HBZ3 Chris, just out of interest, why did you go for the 200t instead of the 450h?

Just checked in the 'Gold Member's Area' and yes, Cardiff, Canterbury and Tunbridge Wells dealerships are listed as participants in the scheme, so may well be worth your while.

Yeah, looking on the website, that's correct. Why not take out a service plan so that you can spread the cost? A service plan has many advantages: You lock in at today's prices - my two-year plan for my RX450h cost approximately £1,100 and covers three services. You can pay monthly so that it's not such a shock to the wallet. If you change your car mid-term for another Lexus, you can transfer the unused portion of the plan to your new car (I think - can someone confirm that?). If you sell your car and just want a refund for the unused portion of the plan then that's fine, there's just a £20 admin charge for doing it. Pay for a Gold Membership to this Owner's Club (£39.99/year) and you may get a significant discount on the plan but check first as not all dealers honour the Gold Member discount scheme.

Given that our 'boot' is always full and the engine covers are held in place with tiny plastic clips that are easily broken or lost, I decided to put a more convenient socket in the cabin. If I ever do need to use my jump start battery pack, at least I can do it from the comfort of the driver's seat. Most of this is covered in an earlier post (Parts 1 & 2) but this final piece covers the protection of the battery pack. I may as well include the photos that have got us this far and then explain this part when we get down there. The first photo shows the chosen location for the socket. The RX450h has a two-tier centre console and a panel on the lower tier lends itself to this perfectly. Next photo shows the choice of socket. It's a Neutrik Speakon 2-pole socket. I chose this for a number of reasons (a) I already had one, along with its corresponding plug in my junk box (b) it's keyed and so can only be connected one way, with the correct polarity, and (c) it's rated at 30A, which is higher than we need. This next photo shows it in situ and connected, indicating that we're getting 12.29V from the car. How the pack connects: I decided to run the cables to the jump start connector post in the engine bay fuse box as it was an easier route than trying to get them to the battery itself under the floor of the boot. I did this by running the cable from the centre console and up behind the glove box, where there's already a big rubber grommet in the bulkhead firewall that takes the existing wiring loom through. It was then easy enough to cut another little hole in the grommet and get my flexible conduit up through there. From there it was an easy job to find a neat route up into the fuse box. The circuit needed to be fused so I installed an in-line fuse holder with a 25A fuse in it and connected the positive wire to one of the post terminals in the fuse box. It should really have been connected to the one under the red cover but due to the size of the ring terminal it was easier to 'break out' of the other one. It makes no difference as both terminal posts are permanently connected to the battery anyway. The negative (black) wire didn't need to go into the fuse box so I dropped it out to a nearby bolt and made the connection there. And that was as far as I got but one very important thing still needed to be done, hence the reason for this third and final part of the project. Obviously, the jump start battery pack will only be used when the 12V battery is flat, in order to get the car running. However, once the car is running, ie, in READY mode, it will then immediately start to squirt power back up the wires to charge the battery - great for the car battery but not necessarily a good thing for the jump start battery pack! The way to protect the battery pack is by way of a diode. This allows current to flow in one direction, ie, from the pack to the car, but will prevent current from flowing in the opposite direction. Now, I'll be the first to admit that it doesn't exactly look pretty. Yes, it could have been smaller; Yes, it could have been prettier, but I had these things in my 'junk box' so thought I may as well make use of them instead of buying new stuff, especially as the diode pack will not be out on show. The plastic box is from a Sky wifi connector, made redundant when I changed to a more modern Sky box with built-in wifi. The aluminium heatsink came from the guts of a duff ATX computer power supply, and the diode itself was surplus from some other project. The diode had two 'legs' and a heatsink tab. One leg of the diode is internally connected to the heatsink tab so I just cut that leg off and thought I'd utilise the heatsink itself as a conductor, which is one reason why the whole thing is inside a plastic box - to avoid the 'live' heatsink shorting to earth on any exposed metal. I also used a dab of thermal paste under the diode to ensure good thermal conductivity. And here we have the last photo, showing that the diode is indeed doing its job and stopping power from the car backfeeding into the battery pack.

Haha, William beat me to it by two minutes

What Ricky says above is correct. The advice given on Toyota's own website during the proper national lockdown was to run the car in READY mode for 60 minutes per week if you couldn't take it out anywhere. Just put the car in 'Park' and into READY mode and sit there for an hour reading the paper or a book or whatever and the petrol engine will fire up as and when needed in order to give the 12V battery a decent charge. Obviously not ideal but it would save you driving around at night if you didn't want to.