PeterI

I've just had another attempt at theft on my Gen 4 RX (stopped by the Lexus insurance immobilizer), off to the dealer to get the headlamp working again on Tuesday. So I'm mulling over getting a Gen 5 RX to beat the CANBUS thieves. Does anyone know if the remote control works on the Gen 5 Takumi in the UK? This thread from the NX forum suggests it a bit hit and miss. For me I really fancy the ability to get the car out of a parking bay if someone else has parked up too close. It's the only Takumi feature that really I want so I'd love to know if it works, given the premium plus has the 360 cameras / HUD.

The wifi thing is interesting, I suspect it is something to do with later android versions. If I set "Turn off hotspot automatically" to Off on my Pixel 7 then I once I've typed the wifi password in it will stay on while I stop at a service station. My guess is the hotspot gets a different MAC address on the wifi each time it's restarted. Bluetooth internet tethering doesn't seem to have a problem.

I had the same issue when renewing with them over the immobiliser, took a phone call to sort out. I suspect by now the customer service reps have had a lot of these calls.

I just renewed with Lexus Insurance and I was told that I would need to fit an immobiliser from an approved list. I then asked if the immobiliser that Lexus Insurance fitted was valid and was told provided I hadn't removed it things were fine and it was a mistake that they didn't have the car flagged as having the immobiliser fitted. I'm bit suspicious that they're not offering the free immobiliser anymore.

This is the second time this message has appeared on the dash for me. In both cases this was after reversing the car into a parking space (and doing a fair bit of steering into the space) This last time the car had just been driven for 3 hours and the Hybrid battery was showing a nearly full charge ('d assume the 12V would be charged up) the car was left overnight. In both cases a quick restart made the message go away but I'm starting to wonder if this is going to get worse. Reading around suggests this is can be a low 12V battery or a wiring loom fault. Is this something I can use any random ODB port reader to get some clues or will I need a techstream reader to diagnose more.

I have the same thing with my Android phone (not sure if it's the phone OR the operating system updates) with my older Pixel 5 this used to work seemlessly, however this has always been a problem with the Pixel 7. I suspect that this due to the phone picking a random MAC[1] addresss for the wifi and the cars list of networks uses the MAC address rather than the network name to connect. I have found that sharing an internet hotspot over bluetooth doesn't suffer from the same issue and always connects. I believe iPhones also use random MAC addresses? [1] MAC address stands for Medium Access Control address historically a six byte id for a network card burned in at production time. The first three bytes are the manufacturer code (OUI) issued by the IEEE, the other three bytes are a serial number. I still have the Sage Mainlan one burned into my memory 00 80 2c from when I worked on the network hardware over 30 years ago.

Okay back from Lexus Woodford, car had a disconnected headlamp (unsurprisingly) looks like they just smashed their way through the plate (I forgot to get a photo) and cut the wires to the headlamp. The nice guys managed to fix up the wiring loom and fitted a new protection plate free of charge. There was a slight worry we might need a new wiring loom / headlamp assembly but I got a phone call with the good news that the wiring was fixable before I even got moving on the Tube back to my office, sat around in reception checking emails and chat all in took a couple of hours, total cost 160 GBP. So could have been worse, now I just need to wait see if the thieves come back for another go.

Sigh.... After the recent attempt on my RX the thieves came back. Front wheel arch again and presumably they cut through the plate, the immobiliser stopped them moving it any further than about a foot. Car is now displaying an hybrid system fault, so it's a trip to the dealers to get them to give the car a once over to check and see if I can get a fresh plate installed. Does anyone know if that is going to be a "live" fault or do "historic" faults caused by the thieves display until cleared with TechStream? More once I've had time to take some pictures and examine under the wheel arch a bit as I need to go to work.

I do have a Pixel 5 (it's basically sitting in a drawer gathering dust) that I can get updated to Android 14 so it should be latest versions of the Android software if you fancy a stock(ish) Android phone to try. I would say that USB C is VERY picky about both data and fast charging cables. I've not really used Android Auto because on the gen 4 it doesn't display directions on the HUD and takes over the usb stick I have mp3s on, so I tend to stick with the Lexus Satnav but I've long drive on Friday so I'm happy to have a quick check what the gen 4 / AA does with power.

I found mine had the passenger side front trim pulled back last week just like Rob62 (I'm in South East London) which I noticed when I pulled in for petrol. Thankfully it all clipped back in without any dramas. I'm interested to know if they got as far as finding the plates fitted last year when the car was in for accident damage or if someone walked past and they got nervous. I also have an additional immobilizer fitted by Lexus Insurance but I'm dreading the renewal quote this year after my claim for my car being hit while parked.

Personally I went for a solar battery charger that plugs into the OBD port (it's on the drivers side under the dash) https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B084M5ZL5L So far results have been good (I frequently don't drive the car for a couple of weeks) but I suspect my battery is getting a bit middle aged so the Lexus Link phone app no longer ever displays the battery in the green zone. (To be fair it rarely moves out of the middle) When the battery was regularly showing in the green in the app I left it for a month with the charger plugged in while on holiday and the battery was still showing green when I came back (this was during the summer so best case for the charger). I'm never totally sure how well it works during the winter months but so far no issues.

Mine is talking a bit longer as once they'd taken the tailgate off there was more damage than they thought and they had to order a new tailgate. I'm hoping to get it back this week, but I'm also getting the anti-canbus theft plate fitted and thats the main bit of the workshop rather than the body shop, so who knows.

Database ran out of disk space during maintenance https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/07/toyota_outage_storage_server/

Just wandered off for a quick read of your thread @Rabbers the 5 month wait must have been very annoying. Lexus insurance already mentioned that I may have to wait for parts to become available, I've not yet checked if the lights are still okay (my guess is yes) but I do wonder if I should get some tape and put it over the lens to stop water ingress while I wait. Oddly I've had two car drivers tell me that it was a ZipCar that did the damage, one was in the queue to turn right at the lights outside my house and shouted out of an open window, the other was a mini-cab driver (who didn't want to give his name) who saw me walking down the street to get to the final scene of the acccident and pulled in for a chat.

Yeah going to be interesting to see what the final bill is. I'm guessing something in the 5-6K range but who knows.

Sadly someone has mounted the pavement and smashed my gate into the rear of my RX450h also taking out a tree further down the pavement. We'll see what the repairers think, sadly the lens on the rear light has been smashed and there is a small crease in the tailgate so while I'm certain it's not a write off it's not going to be cheap. Driver of the "zipcar" rental that did this then managed to drive on for another half mile or so before crashing into a lamp post at a bus stop. Three people have been taken to hospital, police told me the driver had a seizure and no drink / drugs involved. I also have a CAD number from the Met so claiming on the zipcar insurance should be fairly easy. On the plus side Lexus Insurance have booked it in at the Lexus Woodford body shop (just waiting for a call to confirm dates from Woodford) and seem to be quick to answer the phone etc. So my "stress" levels are low on this. They also offered the option of Jemca Croydon, but I know the Woodford body shop as it's where I get my service done. I suspect the gate will be a bigger pain to get sorted out. Just wanted to share some of my pain...

The car is already on the current map (2023 v1) as I had done the update over wifi earlier on this year, what I had been getting was a warning that my subscription was expiring (3 years after the initial purchase) when the car was connected over wifi, I haven't connected the car to wifi while I've been in the vehicle since purchasing the pack so I don't know if that warning will have gone. It does show as "Mapcare RX - (6/23/2023 - 6/23/2026)" so my guess is it was the right thing to purchase. In the expired section INRIXTRAFFIC17MM shows the same text apart from the dates (2020-2023 vs 2023-2026) as the active section, so I'm moderately confident it was the right thing to purchase, worst case is I have to ask for a refund from Lexus.

Somewhat weirdly this seems to be listed as "Toyota Touch 2 with Go" on the Lexus eStore. It does seem to have given me map updates for three years (according to the purchase history page) along with google street view, inrix traffic, parking, fuel etc so for 119 GBP seems to be a reasonable bargain. I tend to use the RX builtin sat nav as google maps / waze won't drive the HUD (although it will do the mini screen behind the wheel) so maybe this is better value for me than others. I'll find out more next time I do a roadtrip and give the car some phone wifi hotspot action.

On my 2020 the audio does mute when the Sat Nav kicks in, the only exception is during a phone call. This works for me when using the car sat nav or android. I do wonder if you're playing audio over bluetooth? It's possible that the phone is sending music over in phone mode rather than the higher quality audio mode, so the satnav assumes you're making a phone call and doesn't mute. I tend to use the car sat nav 90% of the time as google maps doesn't drive the HUD it only does the main screen and one behind the steering wheel.

I would guess so, more something to raise with Lexus UK vehicle folks that the Insurance folks have seen an issue. For me the price wasn't that far off other insurers (10%?) and I like the idea of them using OEM parts after an accident.

Lexus Insurance have been fitting imobilizers on RXs for free for owners (I had mine fitted recently) due to high theft numbers so at least their insurance arm is aware. The fob for the imobilzer even has Lexus branding.

I've been pricing things up on this front and the new interest rate (8.9 vs 1.9 on my 2020) that lexus finance are offering means an effective doubling of monthly payments on a PCP deal, I have a test drive booked at the dealer for the end of Feb but the cost is looking a bit high to replace a car I'm happy with (and the worst of the depreciation is already done) On the other hand the copper does look great....

Difficult to be sure to be honest, my guess is the manual and the hardware has been customised for Lexus vehicles. I suppose I could ask Lexus insurance as I'd assume they are the Data Controller?

Okay just had the immobiliser installed. It's a unit made by AvMap called the PIN4i TIS immoblizer. https://support.avmap.it/tis-immobilizer/UK This page has some Lexus insurance branding (seems it's also being used in Germany too) I'm not quite sure if there is any other telematics from the box going back to Lexus insurance? Time to install was around one and half hours. The key fob can also be powered via the USB socket in the car which is handy if the battery dies (it's a CR2032). There is a QR code on the key which links to the instructions for future. My only annoyance is with the fob the whole thing is too big for my faraday boxes. Installer reckons this is to fix the CAN bus hack via the wheel arch.

I did find them a bit more expensive than some of the other quotes last time, I think of the order of 10-15%, but I seem to recall that some of the cheaper ones required black boxes to analyse driving styles. I do like the use of Lexus for repairs which I feel a bit happier with at this stage in the cars life, my only complaint is the somewhat short EU insurance (three days IIRC)