Herbie

To be honest, I would never use Halfords for anything either. They aren't time-served mechanics with 'proper' qualifications, but merely attended a few in-house training courses. I've heard many horror stories of jobs they've (incorrectly) done, the worst one being in these very forums when they were asked to regas a member's A/C system on his RX. All they did was to take a canister of refrigerant gas off the retail shop shelf and squirt it in, thereby contaminating the system with the wrong kind of oil and causing hundreds of pounds-worth of damage!

I agree Colin but it just gives Barry more ideas to play with.

I don't think I've ever seen a random guy looking for 12V sockets at the back of cars in a supermarket car park (or any other car park) so first of all, someone would have to know that a socket is there. Secondly, you could use something like SpeakON connectors that are keyed - this is the type that I used in my last RX to create a convenient jump start point in the cabin: Plug Socket These are rated at 30 or 40A so way more than capable of doing the job. EDIT - just be careful Barry, I've realised that I linked to the wrong socket as that one is for PCB mounting but you'll need one for panel mounting. I'm almost sure that you can buy the sockets with front a front flap to protect it from the weather too but I'm just about to go out and haven't got time to find it.

As I pointed out to someone else who was thinking of doing this, you're better off mounting a weatherproof box on the wall (assuming you park on the driveway) and putting the charger in there so that you're only passing around 12-14V into the car rather than mains voltage. If it was mains voltage and you forgot to unplug it one day before driving off it may get quite interesting

No, the buttons to either side of it do the same job. If you look, you'll see the word "Enter" imprinted on the buttons and they do exactly the same thing as pressing the touchpad. EDIT - just realised that yours doesn't have buttons at either side. OK, so how about something like Araldite epoxy resin or Jenolite Steel Stick ? That'll stand up to any amount of pressing. This is what mine looks like, hence the confusion 😄

A dab of hot-melt glue will sort that. It's not like it needs lots of pressure to operate it. I only have to breathe on mine and it moves the cursor, so hot-melt will be more than adequate.

As Colin asks, why do you do this? Many millions of Pounds have been spent in the development of an amazingly intelligent and complex hybrid system so just let it do it's job - it will decide when to run the petrol engine and when not to run it. Could you not connect a trickle charger to the battery so that when the car isn't in use at least it will keep the 12V battery up? Alternatively, could you not just 'invent' reasons to use the car more? Just go out for a nice pleasure drive without any particular purpose in mind? All car batteries will deplete if left long enough but given that Lexus only fit small ones in their hybrids it's a problem that seems to affect us more than others. Sadly, it's just something that we have to live with but at least being aware of it means that we can take the steps above (trickle charge or use the car more) to mitigate the problem.

I don't think that applies to fog lights but purely to headlights. The legislation was brought in because too many drivers were being dazzled by poorly fitted LED headlight bulbs.

I don't know the answer but remember that fog causes light to bounce back so you don't wnt anything too bright or you'll just succeed in dazzling yourself.

No, the car in question in this thread was an RX450h. The RX400h diagram is here:

Again, I'd say yes and go for it.

Probably down to the variant you have now - there have to be some differences between the Luxury, Advance, F-Sport and Premier or whatever the variants are called these days.

That's the cost of a new unit from a Lexus dealer, but you could try eBay breakers for a used one if needed. As I said earlier though, I think if one went then I'd be worrying about when the others might give up the ghost and I'd take the opportunity to convert instead. Got to be honest, not a clue. All you can do is go through Autotrader and/or Parkers and see what others are going for but it'll be difficult because of the low mileage.

My first Lexus was a 2005 RX300, followed by a 2013 RX450h Advance and now our current car is a 2018 RX450h Luxury. As you can probably tell, I'm a big fan of the RX The air suspension can be a bit ropey and it's expensive to fix with new air struts being around £600 each. However, don't let that put you off, for two very good reasons: If one went faulty you could take the opportunity to convert the car to normal coil suspension and get rid of the air altogether (complete coil kit is about £700-£800) Although there are people on these forums who have had air strut problems (a) there hasn't been that many, and (b) remember that people come to forums like this when they have problems and are looking for help and advice. No one joins a forum and only posts good things about their cars. There must be many, many hundreds or thousands of people out there who have never had problems with their air suspension. Unfortunately, being 11 years old means it won't be eligible for a warranty apart from the hybrid battery. The Hybrid Health Check can be done at any Lexus dealership for £59 and it tests and checks all the parameters of the high voltage battery. As long as it passes the test, Lexus warranty the battery (only the HV one, not the 12V one) for 12 months and then you go for another one and so on until the car is 15 years old. If it was me, I would definitely go for it.

I'm not convinced it is a 'tow pack' as you call it, or at least not an official one. If it was, surely the wiring should be colour-coded rather than all white/black (which I think is usually the colour code used for Earth)?

It helps to regulate the charging current. If a battery is charged too quickly it can heat up too much, maybe buckling the plates and also causing too much gassing.

No, but I'll make a point of doing that tomorrow John, cheers.

I do know who Tom Finney is but to be honest I'm one of those strange males who cannot abide football. The roles are reversed in our household. When my wife is watching footie on the telly, I'm in the other half of the room with my headphones on going down the YouTube rabbit hole, usually (though not exclusively) watching music videos. I also act as chauffer when she and her mates are going to the club to watch the bigger matches, so I know what I'll be doing tomorrow

Thanks Paul. The fuse box is indeed in the passenger footwell and I found the DOME fuse (7.5A) which had blown. Unfortunately, the replacement also blew so I think I'm going to be making my first claim on this warranty to get the problem sorted.

5mph increments means that Radar Cruise Control is active. If you turn that off and go back to 'normal' Cruise Control then you get the 1mph increments back again.

Have you been living on Mars for the last two months Paul? These forums have been awash with talk of Lexus Relax and just how inferior it is to the normal extended warranty that we've all been used to. And that information they gave you is incorrect. I have a 'traditional' extended warranty in place that covers me until March 2024 and I have it in writing that it can indeed stand, which I am indeed going to allow it to do. The Relax scheme doesn't cover such things as multimedia head units, lights, or shock absorbers, all of which were or are covered under the traditional extended warranty. Members of these forums have had head units replaced (£3,000 plus), headlamp sealed units (£1,000 +/-) and shocks replaced previously but Relax doesn't cover these now. EDIT TO INCLUDE SCREENSHOT: This is from the Lexus official Facebook page:

Very overpriced, as are their fitting charges. A single front-facing camera is a very easy DIY job taking no more than half an hour, if that. If you don't want to DIY then any auto electrician will fit it for between about £30-£50. Viofo or Aukey cameras are very good, reasonably priced and work well, as well as being very small and discreet.

Very sad news indeed. I never had the pleasure of meeting him but like most of us, I've been very grateful for his help in the past and his knowledge was amazing. He will be sadly missed by all of us. R.I.P. Britprius, may your God go with you.

If you become a Gold Member of this club then some dealers will give various discounts. For instance, Lexus Teeside, where I bought my car, will give 20% off servicing parts, 10% off accessories, 25% off labour. Lexus Preston, where I live, give 15% discount on parts and labour. However, now that Lexus Relax has been thrust upon us and gives us a 12-month warranty with every service, I'm not sure if these discounts will still apply.

Putting that part number into Google returns this: