Superduner

Ok, so a friend of a friend runs a small workshop out in the countryside and checked my dipped beams on a proper alignment gizmo. It seems I wasn't too far out except one dip beam was a bit high. The good news is that once the dips were ok (and the dips are the only ones checked for alignment in France), the new HID main beams were pretty much spot on. If only the curfew in France would let me go out and check them. (I'm not keen enough to get up a 6am to do it!)

Unfortunately not. I've adjusted the low beams to just below horizontal as they should be, and really just put up with what the high beams end up at - which in my case with the new HIDs is not too bad. Laterally, as the low beam top is so flat you can tweak the high beams side to side as much as you like without really affecting the dipped beams.

See my post on high beam adjustment. I tried leds on my RX400H main beams and did not get a good long range beam. I've gone to HIDS, which seem much better as they emit light over 360 degrees.

An update after using the leds for several long night journeys. Basically, any led emitter which only shines to the left and right (i.e. not up and down - most of them as far as I can see) will not give a good pattern on an RX400H. If you look at the reflector on the car, there is a wide flat "band" running centrally vertically from top to bottom. This gives you the long distance beam straight down the road. Leds as described above do not shine much, if any, light on this part of the reflector, so you won't get much of a long range beam. I've abandoned my leds and have fitted an HID kit from ABD. This shines light 360 degrees, just like a normal bulb so gives a much better and more controlled beam. The downside is that as in all HIDs it takes a few seconds to get to full brightness, but it's bright enough even on startup to get by.

I recently bought an as new defrosting/dimming one on Ebay for about 100€. It works a treat.

The white light from the Osrams is no worse than the originals, and doesn't appear to scatter any more either. The HID dipped beams do just as good a job in fog, and always did.

I did - with Osrams. They look better from the front, but you don't get any better forward light.

I'd put good money on it (but I don't have much)

After a lot of b*ggering about I finally got the new OBDLink LX to work with my Vline and Hybrid Assistant. An hour outside on a miserable damp afternoon in rural France. I'm usually pretty good on IT stuff, but this installation/linking/BT was a royal pain in the butt - as it apparently proves to be for most people. Now all I have to do is try to understand what it is telling me! Now my only outstanding job on the to do list is to get the driver's seat re padded.

We have Coyote on our Renault Captur. On that it's a subscription service for traffic and speed traps. Maybe something to do with Tom Tom?

Actually I may have solved the problem. I have a cheapo dongle plugged into the OBD port which seems to have stopped communicating properly with both my 'phone and the Vline. I'm thinking it might also be draining the battery. I've ordered a new OBDlink LX so I can use Hybrid Assistant. The spec says that it shuts down when not in use, so we'll see if that makes a difference. Thanks for all the very helpful comments.

I put new led bulbs in my front sidelights to see if they are bright enough to use as drls. I think they probably are. Also rebooted the Vline as it wasn't responding to the touchscreen. Tried to connect Hybrid Assistant to my obd dongle and failed. Strange, as Torque Pro talks to it ok from the Vline. Adjusted the headlights in the fog last night. By far the easiest way to see where everything is pointing. Checked tyre pressures on the new CrossClimates (which I love). Great grip on French country roads/tracks (and probably ok on roads and tracks everywhere else as well!)

In my case, my 2007 RX400H does about 2 mpg more on 98 octane than on 95 octane. Right now in rural France on country roads I'm getting about 28 mpg (on 95 octane). My next fill will be on 98 octane, and I'll expect to get 31 ish. Not much urban crawling, so hardly any electric only running, but it does kick in on hills sometimes.

Tw@t (is that allowed?) 🙂

For some reason i can't edit the above post again, so I'll just say that the handbook "confirms" that they are HID.

If it's anything like my 2007 RX400H, which has AFS on the dipped beams, the 2 adjustment screws adjust both main and dipped beams together, but in my case, the dipped much more than the mains. It doesn't make sense to me, but I've just done the pointing at a wall exercise and that's what happened. Lateral adjustment on the dips is a bit of a waste, as the beams are very flat so as long as they point vaguely forwards, it doesn't make much difference. But, as they say, YMMV I was under the impression that my dips were HID, for some reason, but having looked them up on the ABD site, it seems they are standard H11. Could somebody confirm one way or the other?

Thanks for the detailed technical info. I'll bear it all in mind over the next few days of monitoring.

Have a look at the Grom Vline. It has its gremlins, but when it works, it's way better than the Lexus infotainment system.

Well, mine were double that price..... I've just been out for a drive in the dark and the beams are definitely better than before, but main beam is very "patchy". It seems to be more of a reflector thing than a bulb thing. Still, probably good enough for the country roads of Aveyron.

They were Twenty20s, bought from ABD UK, but they don't give a good beam pattern. Mind you, nor did the original bulbs, to be honest. The bulbs are HB3, and there isn't a big choice from the better known makers. Lots of Chinese ones on Amazon/Ebay though. Decide how much you want to pay (risk).........

Thanks for the detailed info! I have an OBD dongle fitted, linked up to a Vline Android unit. The diagnostic app on the Vline is Torque Pro. This afternoon it was showing 10.5v on the acc. position. This after a 50km drive yesterday. The previous owner (my neighbour and friend) fitted the new Toyota battery about 20 months ago. When he had the car it was used very sparingly here - mainly to get from here back to London where he spends the winter. Not the best use for it. He is in London now so can't find me the receipt, which he thinks he has in his house here. He'll contact Lexus here and see if they can trace the purchase and honour the guarantee.

We were both wrong. The screws adjust the low beams far more than the high, which hardly move at all. The lights are aimed a bit better now, but the HIDs, being original, are nowhere near as white or bright as the leds. Maybe I'll get them replaced at the next service in March.

The one in the front - the little one.

Let me start off by saying that I live in rural France, so don't have access to Halfords, et al. I'm not even in a reasonable size town, so my options are online only. I think that my battery (2007 RX400H) is getting ready to die, based on the fact the the tell tale leds on the Ctek comfort lead are blinking red, even after a 50km drive yesterday. As the short charge life of the hybrid small battery seems to be a "thing", could a kind soul recommend an upgraded make and model, preferable available by mail order in France (so Ebay or Amazon or maybe Auto Doc) Thanks in advance.

It certainly looks like it. I'm just waiting for the rain to stop in the evening so I can point the car at a wall. To me, from the position of the screws, it looks as if the screws only adjust the high beam - which is exactly what I need.