Herbie

Stupid thought for the day - why can't we just GLOBALLY suspend the use of all money? We go to work so that we have money to spend on various things including our bills. That money goes to someone else so that they can repeat the process and pay their bills etc., etc., and on and on, ad infinitum, all the way up a huge chain. If I don't get any money I can't pay my bills, but that should work all the way up the chain too, so that the next in line can't pay his bills and so on, ad infinitum. If no one uses money, no one needs money and so no one owes anyone anything for a temporary period of time. We all have whatever we have and the world financially 'holds its breath' so to speak, for, say, 12 months, and then begins to breathe again and we all still have what we had before. After all, it's not like these businesses were failing due to a bad business model or bad management. Why should a virus put a good viable business to the wall? The vast majority of the global population will come out of this at the other side and will still want to travel; still want to go to the pub; still want to buy furniture and so on and so on. If there's a need for a business now there will still be a need for it after the crisis - only the banks and stock markets will make these businesses fail, not the virus. We're talking of governments borrowing hundreds of billions of Pounds/Dollars - surely it would be better to use no money rather than going into a century of debt? And just who is it that has all these eye-wateringly vast sums of money to lend to us anyway?

Just sent you a PM that should help you John.

Never use a hybrid to start another car unless it's another hybrid. In a normal car the battery is only used to crank the engine. Once it fires and the alternator is spinning then its the alternator that supplies all the car's electrical demands and if there's enough 'spare' capacity it will also keep the battery charged. A starter motor in a conventional car will draw upwards of 300A when cranking the engine, which is why when jump starting a car you always get the engine of the donor car running first before attempting to start the recipient car; firstly to stop the donor battery from going flat and secondly, if the donor battery isn't quite up to the job, the recipient car will draw power from the donor alternator, not the battery. Hybrids don't have alternators; they charge the 12V battery from the 288V traction battery via a DC/DC converter that steps the high voltage down to around 14V. The DC/DC converters cannot supply anywhere near as much current as an alternator and if the recipient car tried to pull such current from it, there would probably be a big bang and all the magic smoke inside the converter that makes it work would escape and it would be a very expensive job to have some more magic smoke installed

As long as your car successfully passes a 'hybrid health check' (available as a 'stand alone- item for about £60 or free with a service at Lexus dealerships) every year, Lexus warranty the 288V traction battery for up to 15 years with (as far as I know) no mileage limit. The 12V battery is just a standard car battery and subject to normal manufacturers warranty.

Haha, cheers John. Been decorating the whole house and the computer has been shuffled from room to room but it's now back in its proper place

There seems to be some misconception about dash cams here. The first thing I must say to the OP, @rhaldankar is, why go to a Lexus dealer for this? They are way overpriced in both the cameras and the fitting. Very easy to fit yourself - took me less than 20 minutes from getting my tools to taking the car for a test drive to make sure it was working (front only). Even if you don't want to DIY it, any good auto-electrician will do it for about £30 (again, front only, obviously more for rear cam as well). As long as the images are good then the problem most likely lay with your PC or the burning software on it (I use Ashampoo Burning Studio Free). I have my camera set to record in 3min segments which creates MP4 files of about 450MB so there's nothing "hefty" about them at all. Whilst I can appreciate the sentiment in wanting to send your footage in it would have made no difference whatsoever as your dashcam is not calibrated to the accuracy of their equipment and has no legal standing. Getting the correct card is important but there should never be any need to manually reformat a card and I've never had to do that with any cam or card I've used. When the card is full the camera automatically starts to overwrite the earlier recordings and just repeats the process ad infinitum. Sorry, but that analogy just doesn't work. Early cams may have been limited to 32GB but my current cam (a Viofo 119S) uses a 128GB card without problems.

I suppose it's possible but you're dealing with a very complex car and you really can't just be 'stabbing in the dark' and hoping to find and fix the problem. You need to either have any codes read or read them yourself and then use that information to methodically and logically do diagnostic testing. Two people have already pointed you in the direction of what the steering wheel symbol means but the pertinent bit of text (to me anyway) is highlighted below: Given that the electric power steering is driven by the traction battery and not the 12V battery, the problem could lie with the traction battery itself, the charging system, or the DC/DC converter supplying the power steering pump. You need the codes to steer you in the right direction.

The electric power steering is driven by 48V (if I remember correctly) derived from the 288V traction battery via a DC/DC converter, so you need to use a code reader or preferably Techstream (the same diagnostic software used in Lexus workshops - look for a miniVCI cable on eBay) on a laptop to get more information about what's happening.

There is no denying that viruses such as this can, and will, kill some people, the majority of whom will be the elderly and the infirm, but the vast majority of people who contract the virus will recover from it. The panic on the stock market and the closing of schools and factories etc., etc., isn't driven by how many people the virus will kill, but rather the amount of people who are sick at the same time and how long their recovery will take. Imagine if 25% of truck drivers are off sick at the same time, what would that do to the supply chains of anything from supermarkets to car manufacturers? If 25% of train drivers are off sick? If 25% of police are off sick? If it spreads quickly and easily it could be very bad indeed for the economy.

While Colin generally gives good advice, with due respect to him I wouldn't do that as it could reset the very thing that's causing the problem and then you wouldn't have a problem to find. There are plenty Youtube videos on finding parasitic drains and this is just one of them:

My next-door neighbour is 91 and the best he could do was over £1,000 even though he's never had an accident or claimed on a policy. The insurance companies price these things because they can.

The 12V battery has to be working in order to boot the hybrid system and get the car into the READY state. If the 12V battery is down then a jump start is needed and can be done easily from either the under-bonnet terminals or the 12V battery terminals.

Go for the £464. Mine was £540 with business cover for both wifey and myself - policy is with LV through A-Plan brokers.

Yes, good point. I just assumed he would have checked that first, along with having the battery replaced.

Indeed - but will that be the correct part that cures the fault without the benefit of diagnostics? Just get a laptop, a miniVCI cable from eBay that will include a copy of Techstream (the very same diagnostic program used in those glass palace workshops) and at least give yourself a head start in doing your own diagnostics.

Your original post didn't mention that this was happening. It sounds like you have a parasitic drain somewhere so you need to do some logical and methodical fault finding with the correct tools. At the very least you'll need a multimeter and a clamp ammeter would be a big help too. You need to establish (maybe from workshop manual or a spec sheet) what quiescent current draw is normal for your car. A general 'rule of thumb' is that around 36mA is considered to be normal, with some cars drawing up to 50mA still classed as acceptable, but much more than that would usually be indicative of a fault. There are a few videos on Youtube about finding a parasitic drain and this is a fairly good one:

Oh well, 'twas worth a try Phil.

These people are great to deal with and do a quick turnaround.

Pull off the connector to the bulb and clean up the contacts of both bulb and socket. Also clean the earth connection as well.

Here you go:

You'll probably find that the usual suspects (KwikFit, ATS etc., etc) don't do them anyway so it'll have to be either main dealers or custom stainless. Probably going back a couple of years so prices will no doubt have gone up, but someone on here got a custom stainless, lifetime guarantee, cat back system for just under £400 if I remember correctly.

Very good - but I still reckon you're overthinking it. I've passed the same driving test as you and I'm more than happy using just door mirrors, as are many hundreds of thousands of people, every day. EDIT: I know you want the camera/phone combination to take the place of the rear view mirror, which means that you must intend on having the display on all the time but, seriously, I think you need to look at the screengrab below, particularly the yellow highlighted part. This is the reason why dash cams with LCD screens only have the screens 'live' for a couple of minutes when they first power up and then they must blank the screen off.

Just edited my post to include that info Jack.

Lay on your back in the driver's footwell and look up towards the dashboard, it's way up in there. I don't think you need to remove any trim, just have the slim arms of a kid and the dexterity of an artist

The push button is a physical thing so is it still 'pushing' as in clicking when you push it? If the physical action is still there then it may be something electrical, but if there's no click then the switch itself has failed, in which case I'd take it out and look for a replacement at either https://cpc.farnell.com/ or https://uk.rs-online.com