Herbie

It's mainly the older RX400h rather than any 450h that tends to get done.

Sorry then Paul, no idea mate.

If it's climate control and the interior was more than 30C then it's working as it should. 'Hi' basically turns CC off and just turns heater on maximum. If interior was more than 30 and you set it to 30, then the CC is working to quickly bring it down to 30.

Is it just a heater or is it climate control? If it's climate control and, for example, you've set it to 23C but the interior when you get in is, say, 30C, then the climate control will set everything to maximum cold in order to get it down as quickly as possible to the set temperature. Equally so the other way too.

Unless you're intending to keep the car until it achieves 'classic' status, why on earth would you take such an old car to the main dealers for work? It's a 13-year old car that needs a new fuel pump; a job well within the capabilities of any garage or mechanic, let alone even an independent Lexus specialist, at far far better rates than the main dealers. Lexus labour rates are about £125-£130 + VAT per hour! My local trusted garage charges around £45-£50 per hour. At that age, stamps in the book are meaningless and wouldn't improve the trade in/sale value at all.

When the dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree with dire warnings of all sorts of things, it's often a sign that the 12V battery is on its way out. Cars like these are full of electronics and are very sensitive to low battery voltage, causing the car to throw a hissy fit. The chart below should give you some indication but ideally you should have your battery tested using a heavy discharge tester which is designed for the job. The 'home' or DIY equivalent would be to switch on the headlights, heated seats, heated rear screen etc., to apply a heavy load to the battery and it shouldn't drop below 10V. Unfortunatley you can't do this with a hybrid because things like the heated seats and heated rear screen won't operate until the car is in READY mode, which is the equivalent of the engine and alternator running on a conventional car. With a conventional car the ignition could be on but the engine not running, therefore heavily discharging the battery. The chart below shows battery standing voltage but it would also be a good idea to check when the car is in READY mode to prove that the charging system is working (should show about 14.5V).

A comment from the person living in the cottage has popped up on the Facebook group and apparently the owner of the car had only had it four days!

Yep, quite possibly. The traction (hybrid) battery is somewhere around 280V to 300V depending on the model of car and obviously the AA, RAC and so on haven't got the specialist equipment to deal with this situation, so you'll have to get the Lexus dealer or someone else with the specialist knowledge and equipment to handle this. Exactly how long is it since the car was started? The traction batteries should last at least a couple of months, maybe considerably more but I'm really not sure. Easy to say now with hindsight I suppose but did you not think to fire it up every so often? Toy/Lex advice on their websites is to run the car in READY mode for about 60 minutes a week, even if just stood on the driveway and not taking the car out anywhere.

Obviously the best option is the USB flash drive because they're tiny and once plugged in the flaps can go back down and basically forget about it. I've got more than 3000 tracks on mine and let's face it, it's not really that difficult is it? Other option is to either relocate the existing port or add a new one in the storage bin so that the phone and it's wire can just sit in there, all unseen, like this one:

Probably better posting in the IS300h forum here, but in general the hybrid batteries can be warrantied (if they successfully pass an annual 'Hybrid Health Check') for up to 15 years or 140k miles but should last a fair bit longer.

If you have a smart phone could you perhaps take a video and post it up so that we can hear the sound?

Do you mean in the sort of 'bottom level' like in this topic I started a while ago? If so, I really don't know why you haven't got one but it's an easy job to install one if you wanted to.

If you have a laptop and want to do some diagnostics yourself You'll need a miniVCI cable like this one. These cables invariably come with a pirate copy of Techstream but, of course, I can't condone using it; that would be a matter for your own conscience. The correct way would be to legally and freely download Techstream from here https://www.lexus-tech.eu/ and then pay for a block of time to use it, but you'll need that VCI cable anyway, whichever you choose to use. Here's just some of the Diagnostic Trouble Codes associated with power steering:

No, there will (should) be a fault history. Any OBD2 scanner will show some diagnostic trouble codes but Techstream is the diagnostic software used by Lexus techs in the dealer workshops and can provide infinitely more info.

Is that what they told you on the phone or have you actually had it in the workshop for diagnostics? What I'm getting at is, are there any fault codes stored that would give us a clue? I've been in the electrical/electronic maintenance field all my working life and I do know what they mean - you can't find a fault if it isn't there at the time of testing. You really need Techstream to diagnose something like this because so much can be gleaned from it without having to remove any parts as you'll see below:

Probably just a fuse needs replacing.

I hope this isn't one of our members but I have to wonder how it got there?

Is there any VM software that will run on a Chrome OS host?

Every car I've ever had with remote locking has needed a short 'blip' to unlock the doors but a long press to unlock or open the boot - are you saying that the RC doesn't work this way?

Colin wins the prize because that's the answer as you'll see from this screendump:

Depends on the motherboard Geoff. The one I'm using here at the moment has an M.2 slot (that's the NVMe) and the manual states that if you have something in that slot then you can't use SATA 1 as they share the same bus or something along those lines; can't remember the exact wording.

I've got to go out myself so just a very quick reply. Don't worry about that red line, it's just informing you that that partition is full. I may be wrong but try putting your 1TB drive on one of the other SATA channels, maybe SATA 3 or 4 and it'll probably show up. I think the NVMe and the other disk are sharing the same channel at the moment.

I've got no real problem with it either, I just don't understand it. Back in 1975 when I passed my driving test there was a fair bit of snow later and I went on a car park and did something like 'drifting' as a way of teaching myself how the car skids, how it handles in a skid, what to do to get out of it and so on - but that was educational, useful and informative. Why anyone would get excited about making their car go in circles just for the sake of it is just not in my sphere of comprehension. Even worse are people who get excited by just watching someone else make their car go round in circles. But hey, as we've said, whatever floats someone's boat is fine as long as it's not illegal. I'll get me coat

@nelmo Just sent you a PM Neil.

I agree with Michael. The Lexus satnavs are clunky, counterintuitive, slow and basically horrible. I used to use a TomTom but now just mainly use Waze (and What 3 Words) on my phone. Infinitely better and far less hassle and stress than using the Lexus one.