Steven Lockey

All 3 cars I've had (Citroen, Rover and Lexus) behaved exactly the same as my 450h does in this regard.

Codes are generic enough that it could be anything. Fact it started means there is some voltage in the traction battery and they don't look like dead battery codes. But that leaves a lot of things it could be. The 2nd code makes me suspicious that it might be something to do with the electric engine or gearset, since that implies reduced electric motor output. The ECU itself is apparently sometimes the culprit: https://www.lexunx.com/hv_control_system_regenerative_malfunction_c1259_c1310_-766.html

Was going to say, thats exactly what happens with bad cells 😉 It flags the error and keeps flagging it till you clear the code. At which point it waits for the cell to play up again before it flags it again. Often the cells only fail under larger loads so after clearing the codes, it a while before the cell actually does something funny. Had exactly the same issue. As the cell gets worse, the computer will react more harshly. When the cell is failing completely or overheating, the computer will fully shut off the engine as well (aka ready light goes off) if it thinks it might be dangerous. Normally this only happens if you've been ignoring the warning message for a long while 🙂

I believe they prefer you to keep the engine running more because of the exhaust. Don't really want water pooling inside the exhaust. Never seen one that told you to disengage the handbrake through. Most I've seen say set the handbrake....

Oh yeah, sounds like a botched conversion job. Makes a lot of sense you get messages over a certain speed given the way the hybrid works, it uses the speed of the car to some degree to work out what it needs to do. Really should use shaft-speed but god knows how the programs are configured inside. A common issue in programming is devs not using the same source of truth. It may be something like the computer is detecting the shocks should have stiffened but haven't because the shock controller thinks its getting km/h but its getting mph. Plugging tech-stream in might give you a bit of a clue, maybe as simple as a setting that needs flipping that got forgotten. But at worst you can check the performance numbers (not while driving) and see if it looks like there is a mismatch in the system somewhere.

I had to replace the original last year. It "worked", but leave the car 'on' but without the hybrid system active for more than a few mins and it gave up 😉 The hybrid system just means the load on the 12v is so low, pretty sure we could load half the boot up with lemons with nails stuck in them and it would start 😉

You may be right. I do know a guy who put diesel in his petrol car and it basically wouldn't run till everything had a flush that cost him over £2k (+ towing) Basically the injectors and filters all clogged up. He only got just outside the garage before it died. It may be a case of simply if you catch the petrol in the diesel car quick enough you can flush it with basically no damage, but if you leave it in longer than it can cause more serious damage, since it'd take time for any damage to occur via lack of lubrication.

Normally petrol into a diesel doesn't cause long-term issues once its flushed out. The other way round is however an engine killer. This is cos diesel is a lot thicker than petrol. It gets clogged in the tiny holes. Sometimes cheaper made cars just start falling apart when they reach a certain age. Sensors and injectors are often the first bits to go.

4% would be more like 2 mpg not 4mpg. It'd only be 4 mpg if the starting mpg was 100 🙂

Thats what she said!!!! 🤣 Sorry I couldn't resist.

Just how tall are you lol? My mate is 6' 8" and he wasn't touching the ceiling with the seat all the way down. Not sure how reclined the seat was. Perhaps check around the mechanism and make sure something isn't stopping the seat from going all the way down?

I'd completely agree that's the more likely scenario, but to properly do that it'd need a temperature sensor for every cell, which I am pretty sure it doesn't have. So if the cooling is working well, it can shed that heat around multiple sensors. Since multiple sensors are now showing more heat than expected, it assumes the cooling system is dodgy rather than the cells. Just done a little reading and apparently this can also happen if the fan resistance is above expected levels, IE cos the fan is clogged. This would make a lot of sense since he said it happens soon as he turns the car on, before any heat would have a chance to build up. This link may help.

What can have happened is damage to one of the battery cells which is producing a load of heat. Computer can't tell if its not getting cooled or is producing heat. Or of course one of the fans might have blown as another option. Hopefully it is just blocked air-vents as that is the simplest fix. Worst case, you can talk to Richard at www.hybridbatterysolutions.co.uk who can help. He replaced my 450h battery for just over 2k (I went for the more expensive option). He can also recondition the battery, think that was £700 ish. Hes well known on these forums and is really helpful.

£600 for 1 shock? That can't be right. I paid £2k for all 4 including fitting, direct from Lexus, and mine is a GS540h which uses the more expensive shocks I believe. Unless Lexus have bumped the price of the shocks up 50% in the last year.

PS. Get better music 🤣

Yeah, I was hitting 39 and I wasn't been gentle on the throttle 🙂 Kinda plummets a bit when the air-con kicks in through.

I think its more likely caused by the original lowering and the alignment just made it show up more easily.

I found it by sheer accident. Turn car into ready mode. Press power button then put car into park. Ready light went off, fairly sure the wheel retracted as well, but it was happy to run the engine to keep the battery charged and the air-con running. I was really confused when I came back to my car and the engine was running but the dash was saying nothing 🙂

Sadly, I've done this more than once 😉 Car basically have 4 modes: Ready Off 12V only - This is what you left it in. Air-con/Dog mode - Ready light off, won't shift out of park, but is using hybrid battery to power air-con etc and will run engine to recharge it as needed.

Probably wrong but seems like a coincidence... Worn inner tyres... Alert while cornering Lowered suspension Maybe the alert is cos when you are cornering the wheel is hitting something and triggering a sensor somewhere. Would explain why the inner types are worn while the outers are fine, cos if you tyre inflation is right, you shouldn't get that unless they screwed your wheel angle when they lowered the suspension so the wheels aren't flat on the road. In fact the wheel angle been wrong might explain it if the computer now can't detect if the wheel is slipping or not on corners, so it flags an error. Probably not one that happens so the computer hasn't got an error for it to display.

Filled up with E10 fuel and went for a little drive. Tank was basically empty when I went in, said 10 miles left so maybe 15 actually left. So this was approx seventy minutes after fueling, ave speed 42 mph and around a third of that time was stop/start round local area (not too busy through, just lots of traffic lights/roundabouts). I'll not say what speed I was driving on the motorway/dual carriageway parts for legal reasons 🤣 but I wasn't slacking or trying to get high MPG. Air-con was on but I don't think it ran for most of the journey once it cooled the car down from sitting in the sun. I even dropped my foot down right the way a few times, so really wasn't trying for a high mpg or anything. Didn't even think about MPG till I was nearly home and flicked through the display options and saw this. So much for the whole "E10 fuel gives you terrible MPG" I guess.... Hell, a shade below 40mpg is great for a sub-6 second 2 ton car driven by rocket fuel! 🤩

I can recommend one in Bournemouth. Had exactly the same issue on mine. Had most of the exhaust replaced with stainless steel. https://www.moordowntyres.co.uk/ Not the cheapest ever but they good work and have a lifetime warranty.

Yep, the garages generally depend on good managers. With **** managers the good employees leave.

All the chains have the same issue, the quality is incredibly variable. Try going up the chain to corporate, even if the garage doesn't give a ****, corporate normally does cos the cost of redoing it (or actually doing it) is far less than the cost of the reputation damage. I've been to halfords that are extremely good and ones that are extremely bad. The local one to me didn't even know how to reset the tracking on the GS450h after doing a wheel alignment.

Probably a bug in their DB. If they have the same model twice with different insurance groups, that'll happen. Either way, its valid whichever option you select. So long as you provide correct details, they can't refuse anything.