Herbie

Presumably your owners manual will tell you. If you didn't get a paper manual, you can download a PDF one here https://www.lexus.co.uk/owners/about-my-lexus/manuals

No it's not, it was an excellent opportunity to enjoy driving a marvel of modern engineering.

PM sent Martin.

I'd agree with John - check and clean up all the earths (grounds) for both light clusters. This is classic behaviour for a corroded or broken earth connection. The factory where I served my apprenticeship had its own garage to look after the fleet of trucks and cars and I was in there one day fitting a couple of new mains sockets. While I was in there one of the skip trucks came in with the weirdest electrical fault I've ever seen. Whenever the driver pressed the brake pedal the windscreen wipers came on, even though the wiper switch itself was off. That turned out to be a faulty earth somewhere because the wipers were getting a backfeed from the brake lights.

You really don't want to be chucking money at it by replacing parts and hope that it works. Given that a ballast is so expensive you need to check and diagnose if that is indeed the problem and that a new one will fix it. Have you checked that it's not the bulb itself? Whichever is the faulty one, left or right, swap it over to the other side and see if the fault moves with it. If the bulbs are both working then do the same with the ballasts but be careful. It takes about 20-25,000V to strike the arc and about 80-85V to maintain it, so turn them off and leave for 10 minutes to let any residual voltage drain off before touching anything.

@tedd does that battery monitor just work as a basic voltage meter or does it work as a load tester and stress the battery? I was just idly thinking that if it's the former and it only shows the standing voltage, then it's thirty quid for a single-trick pony that does nothing else. Of course, it may well be brilliant at that one thing that it does and that's fair enough, but if anyone's interested, there may be an alternative to that. For just an extra fiver (admittedly plus £60/year for the SIM) the Rewire DB2 Tracker shows battery voltage along with a whole host of other things, as well as tracking the car and monitoring other parameters. This screendump is from my desktop PC but there are Android and Apple apps for use on phones and tablets.

In theory it should be fine Brent, but the caveat is that I don't know the current state of your battery so I can't guarantee it. To remove all anxiety and give peace of mind I always carry a unit similar to this one. Never had to use it on my own car yet but it's started at least a dozen others and works first time, every time.

First of all, just be aware that "Check Hybrid System" doesn't necessarily point to a problem with the hybrid battery. There are many components to the system and the battery is just one of them. Plus, Dave above is slightly incorrect in the information he gives regarding the Hybrid Health Check - it may check a few things but the warranty only applies to the battery, not other components of the system. You need to get the OBD error codes read or read them yourself. If you have a Windows laptop you can buy one of these cables from eBay. It will come with a pirated copy of Techstream, which is the same diagnostic software used by Lexus techs in the dealership workshops. Of course, we can't condone software piracy so the proper way would be to download a legit copy of Techstream from here https://www.lexus-tech.eu/DiagnosticTools/Setup and pay for a block of time to use it. Either way though, you'll need that cable from eBay. If you don't have a laptop or don't want to bother with Techstream, you can buy other OBD2 readers here. However, Techstream is best because it also shows sub-codes that help narrow things down even further. For instance, a generic code reader may only show P0AA6, but that code covers 5 or 6 different things, so Techstream will show P0AA6-123* for one thing, while P0AA6-124* points to a different area, P0AA6-125* somewhere else and so on. *Not real codes, just an example.

That's fine, no worries, but now that you know the cause you only really have two choices and that's either to use the car more or to run it for an hour when stationary and in Park.* Of course, the main problem with the latter is that you have to stay close by or even in the car (read a newspaper or whatever) or someone could drive away in it. I do the same when I'm defrosting snow/ice but I leave my big old steering wheel lock in place so that I can go back in the house. *I suppose a third choice is just to continue on as you are and keep jump starting it.

With the greatest of respect, that statement is utterly ridiculous and will only make you look foolish.

@para999 - maybe a hybrid is not the car for your useage pattern if you can't or don't use it enough. The problem is that it isn't a problem. It's not a fault as such; there's nothing wrong so there's nothing to fix. If anything, it can only be classed as a design problem that probably shouldn't have made it off the drawing board. For whatever reason, Toyota/Lexus decided to fit low capacity 12V batteries and we have to live with the consequences. First thing to say is that every time the battery goes into a deep discharge then it sustains slight damage and a small amount of capacity is lost. In other words, when you first buy it the charger will cut out at 100% full. After a few deep discharges it may cut out at 80% full because the battery can't accept any more charge. Secondly, you can make a very rough calculation as to how long it will hold charge, but a lot of it is guesswork. As an example, we'll say that we have a brand new and fully charged battery of 50Ah capacity. That means that it can supply 50A for one hour, or 25A for two hours and so on. All cars have a quiescent current drain when they aren't being used, which is to keep such things as the alarm, the radio presets, the seat memories and so on, alive. As a general rule of thumb, around 50mA (0.05A) is considered to be normal. So, 50Ah divided by 0.05A = 1,000 hours from fully charged to fully discharged. That's 41.6 days or 5.94 weeks. However, in reality, your battery will not be brand new and fully charged and also, for the purposes of starting the car, it won't be able to do that well before it reaches full discharge. This means that you won't get anywhere near the 1,000 hours/41.6 days/5.94 weeks before it becomes useless.

I think it's an MOT fail if it's fitted but doesn't work, so better to fix it. 99% sure it'll be either the mechanical linkage rod or the electrical sensor, neither of which are expensive and both are easy to swap. Linkage rod here and Electrical sensor here

DB2 Jeff.

Hope it doesn't overheat now

The only reason for an AGM battery is that the acid is absorbed in the glass mat rather than being in free liquid form. Because the battery is in the boot of the RX, if the car ever rolls over in an accident there's a slight chance that free liquid acid could drip/run into the cabin and be a risk to anyone in there, hence the preference for AGM. It makes no difference whatsoever from an electrical point of view.

Goodyear Vector 4Seasons are superb all-season tyres and what I would use in a heartbeat if I could get them in the 20" size. There's no real need whatsoever for winter tyres in this country, although possibly in deepest, darkest Scotland it's a different story. I was 65 last week and I can remember some cracking snowfalls during my childhood and teenage years but I haven't seen anything like that for more than 30 years. Even the cold snap over Christmas hardly produced enough to have a snowball fight, let alone build a snowman.

Was it from a private seller or a motor trader? If a trader then you may have legal recourse because I believe traders must offer a warranty, although I'm not sure if it would cover the PBD or not.

That looks brilliant Nick, great job. Well done mate, I'm sure you'll love it.

No idea what's wrong but instead of going to the dealer I strongly suggest finding a proper auto-electrician to sort it out.

Pull the mechanical key out of the fob and insert it into the lock in the door handle. It'll probably be very stiff from lack of use (some have even needed pliers to turn it) but it'll work. There'll be videos of it on YouTube if you're still not sure.

Might be wrong but I seem to remember it should be FAT32. It's years now since I listened to an album in its entirety, preferring instead to have it on random play. Even when I used to use CDs I would burn 6 CDs with random tracks and then have the system play them randomly. One minute could be Led Zeppelin, next may be the Mediaeval Baebes, followed by Seth Lakeman, followed by Gregorian Chants and so on; everything was a surprise

Yeah, that chip looks alright now that you've cleaned it up. PM sent to you Paul.

A bit of imagination maybe? It does indeed show it connected to the battery but that's just a demo. All it needs is to be located a certain way up (for GPS and Cellular signals) and a 12V supply, so you can locate it in the boot, engine bay, under a seat, wherever. Basically anywhere at all where you have access to a 12V positive supply and either an earth wire or even just any unpainted nut, bolt, or screw.

Can you clean up that chip to read what's on it? If we can find out what it is we may be able to get a replacement and then it's easy enough to swap it out.

Thankfully we've never experienced this and hopefully never will, but don't misunderstand me; if someone is stood in our bedroom threatening me with violence unless I hand over the keys etc., then not only will I hand them over but I'll also gift-wrap them in a nice bow and give them a bottle of champers too