Steven Lockey

I have multiple quotes at about that number on compare the market. Its not just one company. Insurance cost does tend to drop quite a bit when you hit 30.

Really? Cos I'm 40 and I pay around £300/year for my insurance on a GS450h

Its not as simple as either of those. Most of the degradation in batteries is caused by a crystal formation around the anode, which makes the fluid less easily able to transmit current. There are a lot of factors which can affect this such as battery temperature, how often it is used (leaving it to sit for a long time can be bad), how harshly it is used (aka at max all the time vs slower charging/discharging) e.t.c. As well as the quality of the battery fluid as impurities can cause the crystals to for.

Yeah but if its had Lexus Hybrid checks every year, then Lexus will replace/repair the faulty battery free if it goes before 15 years. So thats 2 more years approx.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202011206324549?advertising-location=at_cars&make=LEXUS&postcode=bt11aa&radius=1500&price-from=500&onesearchad=New&onesearchad=Nearly New&onesearchad=Used&sort=price-asc&model=GS 450H&include-delivery-option=on&page=1 Seems good, of course you never know till you check it.

30+ easily in any conditions, not driving gently. I'll say nothing about speed limit 🤣 Ride is so smooth, don't even notice when I'm been "naughty"! If the hybrid system is having troubles, it may be using more to try and restore the battery. Thing is, you can get one without all those issues for 4-5k... Aren't the shocks MOT fails? If so by the time you've fix those alone it would be cheaper to buy one without all those issues. Sounds like you are looking at more like £10k with all those repairs.

No offense mate, but that is NOT a good price for a car with that much wrong with it. I got my 2007 SE for £1.7k, admittedly high mileage and they knocked it off £700 when the hybrid battery turned out to be dodgy. And that was with a clean check on all the other systems other than the exhaust pipes.

Yeah I always drive in sports mode. The lack of instant response may be due to the battery issues. In sports mode mine is fairly instant. There is certainly no 'dead-zone' anywhere in the throttle. With all that wrong... I'd return it or say he has to fix ALL of it AND certify its fixed. He should also refund your warranty if he refunds the sale cost. That could be upwards of 5k in repairs..... If he refuses to do either, tell him you are going to the ombudsman and do it if he refuses. I'd actually leave the car with him and get the DVLA to assign the car back to him on the V5C if he tries to be at all funny about it and tell him its his problem. The service money will be lost however. Why you bothered servicing it before having it checked over is honestly beyond me! 😉

He's trying to say that you may end up forking out 2k for a new battery. Mine had the same light and drove absolutely fine for the first month, then it started randomly cutting out. It could even be worse than that if its the invertor. However a simple check with a OBD reader would give you a lot of information on what is wrong.

As it was purchased from a dealer, if its in the first 30 days, you have a right to a refund at worst. Normally also within the first 6 months unless they can show it only became faulty after the first month. https://www.car.co.uk/car-warranties/faqs/used-car-warranties/what-is-statutory-warranty-on-a-used-car Is a good guide on the subject.

You may need to resync your Fob with the car. I can't remember exactly how but it should be in the manual.

Hey I resemble that comment! lol Only got 4000 miles/year on the insurance when I first got the car. Found myself taking little drives out in the country just to go for a drive before too long and had to bump the number of miles on my insurance 😉

@b4u2Had the same on mine, 2007 SE with 160k miles for £1.7k They didn't disclose the hybrid was dodgy (claimed the light was just the 12v battery been flat) were they had left it not running. When it turned out to by the hybrid battery I negotiated £700 back for a battery recondition. I'd not recommend it unless you know the codes that are causing the light to pop up. If its a hybrid battery fault, don't purchase it unless you are prepared to spend at least £700 on reconditioning the hybrid battery on top of the purchase price and at that age of car, probably replacing the battery entirely for about £2k. (I'd recommend the later at that age, but talk to Martin at hybrid battery solutions) If its the invertor or similar, run a mile lol. I'd be surprised if they let it pass a MOT with that light on, because it does mean the car can randomly cut out while that light is on. It'll still glide but you can't restart the engine till you stop if that happens. I'd strongly recommend finding out what the error codes are before even considering a purchase.

You realise he wasn't entirely serious right 🤣

My last car was like that, 10 years old with 20k on the clock. OK it was a Rover 25 so not exactly great car, a little old lady just used it to pop a mile down the road to the shops every so often, till she started scraping it on things and her kids persuaded her to stop driving 🤣

John is dead right. 100% recommend Richard if you need a replacement battery. He replaced mine no issue and was very understanding when I had a massive migraine while he was doing it! (Literally had to go away and was physically sick due to the pain). He has two full replacement options at £1.8 and £2.2k with a 2/3 year warranty or 20,000/30,000k miles respectively when I had mine done but prices may have changed. He can also help with cell replacement and I'd take his advice if he thinks thats the right approach. You can also sell the old battery cells to re-coup some of that cost as even if not perfect they are still very useful for several other applications.

I'm guessing that will apply to you I'm afraid.

I doubt it would destroy the motor. Electric motors when pushed generally just turn into generators. Sure if you push them hard enough they can generate enough current to basically melt themselves but I think other stuff would break before that happened. More likely if the impact is hard enough it would destroy the linkages to the motor... and probably the mirror casing and mirror itself is in little bits on the floor at this point anyway 😉

Not a mechanic but based on the sheer physics of it I'd still expect SOME compression even if the valve was completely shot and jammed open, just cos of the volume of air it is trying to jam through the valve. Does sound like a rather serious issue. I remember my Dad had a Renault 25 that had no compression and it turned out the top of the cylinders basically had come away and basically needed a engine rebuild. It got sold to the mechanic for very little as he basically fixed it as a pet project as the labour cost wasn't worth it otherwise.

Yeah, this is what I mean about you arguing about stuff I haven't said 🙂 I never said it couldn't be powered to lock the sun cog. This is where I think you are misunderstanding me. I said lower speeds so yeah. I didn't claim to know the exact curve. Why would speed affect the voltage of the battery pack? Unless I'm mistaken, you lose torque when you gear them up? Not a mechanic so could be wrong there but I think that's the major limit on how much you can gear the electrics up. Kinda my point about splitting hairs. If MG1 is only putting out 1KW, it's basically been used as a engine assist/optimiser rather than driving the car. I'd assume if you got the car at a speed where the ICE was in it's optimal zone this would happen as then using the electrics at all would de-optimise the efficiency rather than increase it. No idea how big this zone would be... might be as small as 1mph so it may be very rare to see it actually doing this in normal usage. Yeah, but they can't flat out lie in them without leaving themselves VERY open to a lawsuit. It's a fine line but companies generally try to stay well on the good side of it.

Yes agreed You are the ONLY person who has mentioned mechanically locking the sun gear, no-one else has. Like say cruising down the motorway at high speed? Also you do realise that the efficiency of electric motors is reduced considerably at high speed? That kinda the point of the hybrid. The electrics work better at low speed, the ICE at higher speeds. That's why for example the Tesla model 3 performance only has a max speed of 162 mph, despite been considerably lighter than the GS450h and having an extra 110 KW of power. I'm confused, I took that from the link you posted..... If its marketing material that isn't worth looking at, why did you post it? And given its backed up by several other pieces of data... I'm confused about what you think is wrong. The video Thackney posted has a really good explanation of why it does go into "direct-drive" mode, because converting mechanical power to electric and then back to mechanical power has an inefficiency attached to it. I am NOT saying it doesn't utilize the MGs to optimise the engine efficiency when it thinks its appropriate either. I mean this is basically what heretical mode is. The ICE is providing the power, MG2 is acting as a alternator and MG1 is used when/as needed to help the engine stay at peak efficiency levels. The car is still been driven directly by the ICE at this point. You really seem to be arguing against things I haven't said and splitting hairs on other points. If this is due to me not explaining what i was trying to say clearly enough I apologise but I honestly think you are extrapolating from what I've said to mean things that aren't what I was saying.

That is exactly what I was saying..... And you've been arguing with.... I said the exact same thing one post up......

Or there is this thing cars have called batteries? Can easily lock mg1, detach mg2 and bang it runs on the ICE and the electronics run from the battery. Again, I don't think this is what happens, it looks like the MG1 is capable of drawing the amount it needs from the ICE via the power-splitter, there are many mechanical and electrical ways of doing this, which will basically increase the resistance of the sun-cog to turning. Your own charts show the MG1 only generating 1-2 KWs when cruising, not enough to power the MG2 effectively. At those levels that sounds like its just powering the electronics. At lower speeds where the ICE is less efficient and the traction engine is more efficient, sure it'll pull more from MG1 and pump it to MG2 as well as using the ICE. I only said it doesn't do this ALL the time. I'm sure it does do this when you are cruising around 20-60 mph (very approx). Certainly at the motorway speeds I've been going at (cough cough), this doesn't seem to have been the case, nor when you were cruising at 140kph.

How on earth should I know lol, I'm not a mechanic. Either way if the cog is locked, the MG1 isn't generating power cos it isn't spinning which is what I said.

Which one? The GS450h has 3. Prisus have either 1 or 2.