Herbie

We've had the car a number of weeks now and I've opened and closed this little 'cubby hole' many times, but for some strange reason, this time it won't go back down. Any ideas folks?

Forget the battery. It's a nice sunny Friday afternoon so go to the pub.

Why on earth not? It's a brilliant invention and smooth as silk. OK, when you jam your foot down on the loud pedal to overtake something the engine revs for fun, but in context how often do you do that? On a recent 90 mile drive on 'A' roads (purposely avoided motorway for the scenic route) I heard the engine noise twice. The rest of the time was just effortless, smooth, wafting and a very enjoyable drive.

As someone mentioned in the other thread, you need to get the codes read. One thing I can say for sure is that if the brakes have needed bleeding, you need to use the Techstream software to do that, so if the garage who repaired the brakes didn't use it, that may be the problem.

Have a look at the topic below:

Yes, it does display full, usually after a long downhill stretch.

I've never had a 400h but I seem to remember this coming up in the past and I don't think it can be done. Even if it can be done, it would probably be cut off while the car is in motion as it's illegal for the driver to see any screen other than the map of a satnav. Even dashcams with integrated screens have to blank them out after a maximum of about 3 minutes due to it being a distraction to the driver and opening up the chance of being done for 'driving without due care and attention' or some such thing.

No offence meant Barry because you're obviously the exception to the rule, but I honestly believe they sell most of these to people who don't know what they're doing and who are attracted by the fancy packaging and the jargon on it, and I think the term "Battery Saver" or "Battery Memory Saver" plays a big part in that. The advertising blurb for these devices appears to be worded such that it encourages some people to think that there's something magical or mystical going on in order to 'save' settings, whereas in reality, the only thing that matters is a supply of electricity. Once the supply is interrupted the settings are lost, so just piggyback any other 12V source in parallel and that avoids the interruption of supply and keeps the settings.

That doesn't look a bad total price to be honest. You could buy the electrical sensor and the threaded bar with ball joints separately from eBay here but would probably cost more in total.

Given that you talk of "dollars," "shop" instead of workshop, and a "red seal" (whatever that is), I would hazard a guess that you're in the USA/Canada maybe? If so, I doubt any info you get in here would be applicable over there. Plus, working at a small place is always going to be very different to a big place.

Just to add my two'penneth about where to buy plugs: eBay - should be alright as long as great trader feedback but still a risk of fake plugs and I'd stay away from the cheapest and/or anyone below a 99% positive feedback score Lexus dealership - genuine plugs but rip-off prices Ideally, somewhere in the middle of these two extremes should be both good value and safe to buy from. Places like Euro Car Parts or other motor factors. Here in Preston we have a place called Dodgsons who sell to the public but who also supply to the trade. They've been in business for decades and are still going strong, so I'm more than happy to buy stuff from them.

I've never seen one of these units Barry but as far as I'm aware there is no information to store. A battery 'saver' doesn't actually save or store anything, or if it does, then again it's a case of 'overcomplicating' things - but I really don't know how it could. Taking the radio presets as an example, it's a chip in the radio itself that saves this information and it needs a 12V supply to do it. If that supply is interrupted then the chip is erased and the information is lost and the chip gets reprogrammed later on when you put the info back in. Like I said above, all that's needed is just a 12V power source connected to the car while the battery is out/disconnected.

No need to be worried, just be aware. And yes, they do know because it's not a 'problem', it's designed like this. A conventional car has a beefy battery because a starter motor will pull upwards of 300A when cranking the engine. Hybrids don't have a starter motor and it takes around just 20A or less to get the car into READY mode, so no need for a huge, beefy battery. This helps Toyota/Lexus in a couple of ways. Smaller capacity battery is cheaper, so an economic benefit there. Smaller battery also weighs less, which helps towards keeping the whole weight of the car down, which helps to reduce emissions levels. Probably doesn't affect you or me as individual owners but extrapolated over hundreds of thousands of cars worlwide and you can see it makes sense - to them, at least. When you're fast asleep in bed at night the 12V battery is still providing power to such things as the clock, the radio presets, the alarm and so on. This is called the quiescent current drain and, although I've never seen a specific figure mentioned for Toy/Lex, around about 50mA or 0.005A is considered to be 'normal'. In a perfect world, if we assume that you've got a brand new battery that is fully charged, if you left it stood unused (say, at an airport car park) you can work out how long it would last. The 12V battery in my RX is 51Ah, which means it (in theory at least) could supply 51A for 1 hour, or 25.5A for 2 hours and so on. At a draw of 50mA, a brand new, fully charged battery would last for 1,020 hours (42.5 days or just over 6 weeks) before becoming completely flat. As batteries get older, changes happen and they lose capacity. Plus, given that we need about 20A to start the car, it would become useless for this purpose well before it went completely flat. This means that, for 'real world' purposes, you may get 3 weeks out of it.

Well, with the greatest of respect Barry, you're overthinking it mate. The whole reason to have or to use a battery saver is to keep the car 'alive' so that things like the radio presets, the clock and so on, don't need to be reset after changing the battery over. This is something that usually takes just a few minutes to complete but I am aware that your battery will be out for longer because you're doing some work on the battery tray. Quite simply, all you need is another 12V source. This could be a spare car battery, a mobility scooter or golf cart battery, a burglar alarm battery or whatever, it doesn't matter; it's just an alternative 12V source. All I've ever done is to loosen the cable clamps on the existing battery, croc clip the temporary 12V source onto the clamps (observing correct polarity of course), then lift them off the existing battery and move them out of the way while you do whatever it is you're doing. This ensures that the 12V supply to the car is never interrupted so you don't lose any settings, doors can be opened/closed and so on. Just remember to make sure they never come into contact with each other or the +ve with any bare metal - maybe put the +ve clamp/croc in a plastic sandwich bag?

The problem with USB flash drives is that they were never really meant to be 'permanent' storage, merely just a means of transferring files from one device to another. Their failure mode rarely gives any warning and I have literally seen them be alright at, say, 10am and completely given up the ghost half an hour later.

Did you get it from a Lexus main dealership because if you did, that's not how I read it. Have a look here for the 30 day/1000 mile exchange policy: https://www.lexus.co.uk/pre-owned/lexus-select/#benefits

I just don't understand this at all. Almost all of my cars have been top of the range, although not necessarily 'executive' ones. Cars like Ford Granada (I, II and III, last one I had was the 2.8i Ghia X Sapphire Edition), Rover 800 Series Sterling, Nissan Maxima QX SE+, to name just a few, and they've always been very smooth comfortable rides. The 2005 RX300, the 2013 RX450h Advance and my current 2018 RX450h Luxury have all carried on that tradition in spades, the latter being THE best one of all - and I speak from a position of having a serious back injury that really does let me know if something is harsh and uncomfortable. Maybe I'm just weird eh?

It's an 11-year old car - why would you take it to a Lexus main dealer for work like that? All cars have suspension and all garages/mechanics can work on it. If you don't already have a good, reputable and trusted garage, ask friends and family who they use and go there. If parts prove to be a bit of a problem, a lot of people on these forums use https://www.rockauto.com/ and even though they're based in the USA, it works out cheaper than buying here. Is the Bluetooth faulty or missing, because as far as I'm aware it wasn't an optional extra; even my old 2005 RX300 had it. Maybe try a breakers on eBay?

Only the 3RX Premier had air and none of the 4RX variants have it at all. Don't forget you're comparing a luxury saloon with an SUV that has a different centre of gravity and will be very different in lots of ways. Having said that, neither my 3 nor 4RX has ever felt like a bouncy castle so maybe there's a problem somewhere?

I posted maybe five weeks ago about some stone chips I'd found on the bonnet. For various reasons I won't bother with here, I haven't yet managed to sort them out but that may inadvertently have worked in my favour because I've now found another problem. I know it wasn't there last week but just when and how it appeared, I have no idea. Given that I've now got five stone chips on the bonnet and a scuff on the rear 'wing', would it be worth getting 'Chips Away' to sort it (anyone got any experience of the Preston area franchise?) or would it be better to go to a proper body shop? The bonnet chips: The rear 'wing' scuff:

People always laugh or moan when I say, "Have you turned it off and back on again?" but it's a well-known phrase because it really does work a lot of the time. Any electronics can 'get their knickers in a twist' at times and a good old power cycle to allow said knickers to untwist can be just what the doctor ordered.

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Before you spend money on a 12V battery, lubricate the key and lock. They often go very stiff due to not being used and may even need a pair of pliers to 'assist' the turning force. The batteries in the key fobs are shot at, or at least that would be my guess. 2.9V no load is a low reading - put load on them and they'll drop even further. EDIT: had a bad night, didn't drop asleep until 7am so just got up. Re-read your post and I don't think it'll be what I said but I can't delete, only edit

We can't be seen to condone the use of pirated software, that's a matter for your own conscience. However, whether you go the proper way by clicking this link and paying for a block of time to use it or by using the CD that is usually included with these cables from eBay, you'll need a Windows laptop and the miniVCI cable to allow the car and laptop to communicate with each other.

+ 1 for Techstream