Herbie

It was law for a year or two but then the requirement was dropped, so no need to carry them anymore.

Yes, the bin Windows only I'm afraid. I believe that it is possible to run Windows on a Mac in a virtual machine but I know nothing about it I'm afraid.

I've never used Carista but if you have a laptop (even an old one running Windows XP will do) then you can buy this miniVCI cable from eBay and use Techstream, which is the very same diagnostic program that Lexus techs use in the dealer workshops. The cable will come with a pirated copy of Techstream although for obvious reasons I can't condone using it. The correct way would be to download it freely and legitimately from here https://www.lexus-tech.eu/DiagnosticTools/Setup and buy a block of time to use it (€5/day, €10/week and so on). Whichever way you choose, you'll need that cable anyway and I can say from personal experience that it works very well.

I always knew Pilkingtons made automotive glass; in fact, they're one of the biggest companies in the field. Having said that though, when you look at the list of makes and models they can supply, Lexus isn't on that list.

I've never driven a car with air suspension but I have been a passenger in a few and to be absolutely honest, I don't know what the fuss is all about as I find very little difference between that and normal suspension. I too, have back problems (serious enough to see me retired early on medical grounds) and found the standard suspension on our 2005 RX300 SE NAV very comfortable. Having said that, if your budget could stretch to a series 3 RX450h then that's a whole new level of comfort again. The higher seating position of the RX makes it much easier for me to get in and out and I find I really struggle in a saloon car these days, which would completely rule out the IS for me personally.

Welcome to the club Mike. How about a photo or two of your new steed?

You see this: I see this:

Sadly not. In order to have a functioning car, three things are needed - the 12V battery, the hybrid battery/system, and the petrol engine. If any one of those three aren't up to par then the car doesn't work well. Our hybrids don't have starter motors or alternators and anything that would usually be driven by a belt from the engine - such as the power steering pump or aircon compressor - is electrically driven instead, because the petrol engine isn't running all the time. The 12V battery boots up the computers and gets the hybrid system into READY mode, at which point you could drive off on battery power alone if you wished to do so. Even with all bars illuminated on the traction battery indicator, you would only get a mile or two at most before the battery went flat and/or the system wanted to fire up the petrol engine or ICE (Internal Combustion Engine). When the hybrid system does want to run the ICE it energises MG1 (Motor/Generator 1) and uses that to spin up the engine to 1,000rpm before applying fuel and a spark to fire it. This may be an appropriate point to say don't let the car run out of petrol. If it does, you'll need at least 10, but preferably 15, litres in the tank before attempting to start it again. If you unsuccessfully try to start it more than three times, the hybrid system could lock up and it would need a dealer to reset it. Once the car is up and running the hybrid system basically runs everything. In the RX the traction battery is nominally 288V but a system of converters and inverters manipulate that to provide whatever the car needs. For instance, a DC/DC Converter will drop that to about 14.5V to meet all the 12V demands of the car as well as keeping the 12V battery charged, just like the alternator would do in a conventional car. The aircon compressor uses a 500V 3-phase variable frequency motor; the power steering (if I remember correctly) uses a 48V motor and both MG1 and MG2 are 650V AC motors. So as you can see, it's a 'whole package' thing and that's probably why Toyota named it the Hybrid Synergy Drive.

Why would it? The cameras take very little current and everything is fused anyway, so no problem.

To be honest I haven't watched the modern remakes of anything, including Batman (Adam West and Burt Ward are the only Batman and Robin for me). This was another of my favourites:

I think they're the crush sensors so that if the tailgate comes down on your hand or something, it reverses the direction of travel and lifts the gate back up again.

Yep, I'm 63 and love the original as much as when I was a kid, as well as Fireball XL5, Supercar, Joe90, Captain Scarlet and Stingray

You can probably use Techstream to silence the alarm and while it's connected you could also look to see if any OBD2 codes have been generated.

I believe they're over £100 from Lexus so I'd say look at breakers yards on eBay.

If you mean a whining noise (because I have no idea of what a 'wiring' noise would sound like other than the fizzing, banging and popping of a short circuit) then the only thing I could think of around that area would be an air flap/servo or an internal fan in the nav/infotainment system but that's a complete guess and most likely wrong.

Here you go John

Just be careful of using the Nextbase hardwire kit. A fellow member is having a bit of a nightmare with it as you'll see in the thread below. Personally I'd go for the Viofo kit where the voltage threshold is selectable. It uses a miniUSB so it'll fit a Nextbase cam.

Ooh, that does look nice too. Sorry you missed out Ken.

What you see as empty slots are the top of the fuseholders. The wiring to the fuseholder is behind that so you would have to get the fuse box out to see which wires and where they go, to be of any use. Far better to use a piggyback fuse and just use the cig lighter as Keith says above.

It should be much higher than that:

Leave the radio fuse out? Sorry, couldn't help myself Seriously though, you obviously have a fault somewhere so you need to do some diagnostic fault-finding now. First of all, any OBD2 error codes? Secondly, you'll need to know what else (if anything) is powered by that same fuse so you'll need the wiring diagrams. If there are any other circuits powered by that fuse you need to start isolating them to see which one is causing the drain.

Lovely car except for the 'shopping bag grab handle' things on the passenger side - what's that all about?

It must be faulty then. The whole reason for the voltage sensing circuit to exist is to turn off the camera at a certain threshold so that it doesn't flatten the car battery. If you're sure of your wiring then I'd be returning it for a new one.

That is correct, it's called 'parking mode' but I suspect you've either not got the correct hardwire kit or you haven't set the camera up correctly. To use parking mode the camera needs two supplies - one ignition-switched for normal operation and one permanent for parking, as in the photo below. The camera itself (or the hardwire kit) will have voltage sensing so that it doesn't completely drain the battery - you can see on the photo that the voltage threshold is adjustable on my hardwire kit. If that really is the case then I think you must have a fault somewhere, or is it possible that you're testing the wrong fuse? I think you should be able to use one of the IGN fuses as an alternative anyway.

Dashcams are designed to come on with the ignition and go off (or into parking mode if it has one) when the ignition is turned off, so you definitely need a supply that is only live when the ignition is on. How are you testing for power? I ask because in most Lexus cars the cigarette lighter is only powered when the ignition is on, so that fuse is a perfect choice for a dashcam. It's also the reason why you can't plug a solar charger into the cig lighter because with ignition off, there's no path for the output of the charger to get to the battery.