Herbie

Now that is a lot of money and would take some confidence for me to spend that much. If you go for it, please keep us informed and I sincerely hope it works out well.

I'm sorry but I have to dispute the first part of that, although I'll agree that it sometimes means buying twice A set of four for my RX was £11.00 including postage from AliExpress and they are perfect:

Wheel alignment should have been picked up at PDI, no excuse. It's more than possible that the 12V battery is responsible for the other problems. The time between a battery coming off the production line at the battery factory and actually being put to use by the new owner of the car could well be over 12 months and it could have developed problems. These cars are full of electronics and all sorts of weird and wonderful things can happen if it's out of spec. Get them to change it and if that doesn't cure it, refund.

You may be disappointed by the data connection. I believe it's got a non-removable SIM card and is locked to the Orange network. It's also expensive with (if I remember correctly) just 2GB data being about a tenner. I may be wrong because I'm only going from memory about a past post I saw in here. You're probably better buying your own SIM-unlocked mobile router and using a SIM of your choice in it.

As Peter says, the traction battery may be completely drained by now. Best thing to do is to get a jump start from someone to see what happens. The 12V battery boots the computers and gets the hybrid system online, as shown by the green READY light. So, if you connect a set of jump leads (or use a jump start battery pack) and attempt to start the car as normal, if you get the green READY light then that shows your traction battery to be alright and all you need is a new 12V battery. However, if you don't get the READY light, it's very likely that the traction battery is flat and you'll need a Lexus dealer (or other hybrid specialist with the necessary equipment) to get it charged and running again, if possible. This battery is approximately 288V and people like the AA, RAC, Green Flag et al can't deal with it.

Not all cables are equal and it sounds like you have a 'charging only' cable with just the power pins connected. Try a different cable with all pins connected and I'll (almost) guarantee it'll work.

As far as I know (and because no one else has answered) the only 'electrical' precaution is that you need to use Techstream if the brakes need bleeding. Other than that it's just a normal job with no special requirements.

So which one is it, constant or not? That proves that it's constant then. Unless the camera has a 'Parking Mode' that you intend to use (which would need a constant supply), you need to find a fuse that is only powered when the ignition is on. Usually the 12V power socket/cigar lighter circuit is ignition-switched, so I'd use that one.

Some beautiful places there my friend, glad you enjoyed it all.

You are allowed to say Amazon; you're even allowed to link to the item if you wanted to. Erm, given that the car battery is 12V, what else would you want?

There's no reason at all why it shouldn't be possible.

The main difference between the OBD and the cig/12V power sockets are that the OBD will work and the cig/power socket won't, because it's only energised when the ignition is on. As for the solar panel, Ohm's Law gives us I (current in Amps) = P (power in Watts) divided by Voltage, so 50W / 12V = 4.16A (although in reality I expect the panel to be less efficient than that). So, 4.16A should be fine and the battery itself will regulate that downwards as it charges. Just because the panel is rated to output 4.16A, it doesn't mean that the battery will draw that amount.

I believe that there's built-in wifi but it's locked to a specific SIM and it's very expensive. I think the best way is to buy something like this and get a good deal on the SIM of your choice to use in it.

Even if you could get 2022 maps (which you can't) they would still be running on an operating system that is at least 17 years old, clunky, slow, counter-intuitive and DVD-based (so can't add your own POIs). Do yourself a favour and forget it. Buy a standalone TomTom/Garmin/whatever, or even better, just use Waze or Google Maps on your phone - both of which have free and very frequent updates.

Hope you make a speedy and full recovery Mike.

Hello David, 1. The glove box is an easier install and lots of people do put them in there, but if you're also going to continue to use it for other things, just remember to keep enough space around it for ventilation as they do get a bit warm. As for the GPS antenna, it will work somewhere out of sight as long as there's not any metal above it, although it does work best if it has a clear view of the sky. Are you sure that you really couldn't live with this?: 2. I'm not using any dongle at the moment because my mobile phone is with Sky and if you don't use up your monthly data allowance, they roll it over to the next month and so on. I currently have 70GB data in my 'data piggybank' so I'll use that up first before needing a dongle. I have the system set up so that when I start the car my phone pairs with the Lexus Bluetooth. When the phone detects that connection it triggers the phone to switch on its wifi hotspot, which the Grom then uses as a gateway to the Internet. When I switch off the car, the phone detects loss of the Lexus Bluetooth and so switches off its hotspot. This is known as 'tethering' but you probably knew that already. If you want to go down the dongle route you can either get a USB modem that would plug into one of the Vline's USB ports, or you could go for a mobile hotspot like this one that connects to the Grom by wifi. 3. I haven't yet been on any long trips with the unit so I'm not sure exactly how much data it uses, but you can always download the maps for offline use (I think). Something else to bear in mind is that there is a lot of input required when initially setting up the unit and the various apps, and it quickly becomes very tedious with the joystick so I bought one of these Wechip remotes and it works brilliantly. Hope that helps

My wife and I were on holiday driving around the Czech Republic and passed through a little village called Horni Bolikov.

99% chance that it's the battery. There's enough current to pull in the contacts of the starter solenoid but as soon as the connection is made and power flows through to the starter motor, the voltage drops and there isn't enough power to do that. That causes the solenoid contacts to drop out again and the whole cycle continues for as long as you keep the key in the starter position. The constant making and releasing of the contacts is often referred to as 'solenoid chatter'.

Very impressive, well done Ed

I'm not an electronics engineer so I have no idea why, I just know that things can fail open or short. I must have missed that.

It's more likely to do with proximity to each other. If the aerial cable runs down the right side then the camera cable should run down the left side and everything will be alright. If that's not practical quite a few people have had great success with placing a ferrite bead on the camera lead. One thing for certain - refusing to fit the rear camera is neither a fix for the problem nor good working practice/customer service. All it would do for me is to make me lose confidence in that dealership.

Hmm... I've never been a fan of connecting anything to the OBD connector except on an 'as and when necessary' basis. It's possible that one failure mode of the camera may be that it presents a short circuit to the OBD connector. I don't know if the power lines going into the connector have fuses on them or where they would be located in case they need to be replaced, but IMHO, it's better to stick with a piggyback in the fuse box.

Then just switch it on and leave it on, that's what you're meant to do. It's no good if you forget to switch it on and you bang into something when parking.

The 12V battery is under the boot flooring, so just unbolt the battery clamps and remove the cables from it.

Over the years I've tried a few release agents and my favourite, the one I've had most success with, is this: https://htsupplies.co.uk/products/innotec-deblock-ice-aerosol