PDM

Ronnie, I think my central London location is a big problem. Paul

Les, yes - you are right. AA runs on the phone (it just pipes the display to the car screen) and hence just uses your mobile data connection on the phone itself. This will not give the car an internet connection by itself - in this mode the car is simply being used as a display of what the phone is outputting over AA. The car can connect to the internet via any wireless hotspot. This can be the car built in one that sits under the floor in the boot (right side in 4th gen RX), or your phone hotspot, or even your house WiFi if you only wanted to get download destinations before a journey when the car is on your driveway. I hope you are learning to like the car. There are quirks but you can mostly make the system do what you want it to do (once you know the right approach). It is more logical than you may initially think. How are you getting on with the seats? Cheers, Paul

Hi Les, As you will see there is a lot of support in general from people (Herbie included!) for using Android Auto. I think it's ok (if it would let me join conference calls (voice only) from the car seamlessly from Microsoft Teams or Zoom, I would use it a lot more, but it doesn't... perhaps it will at some point). It does have a lot of features and allows you to use various different mapping software (e.g. Google maps etc). Some people swear by it. As for the in car internet connection and what it can do for you: 1. Lexus built in maps in MM19 (as you have in the 22RX) is pretty good I think (others may disagree - routing is ok, and if connected to the internet the internet traffic information is very good - it highlights the busy roads with colour coding. I use this a lot in central London and accuracy is pretty good. (Of course, Google maps on android auto also does this) 2. Speed camera notifications are downloaded and updated using the internet. Whilst the actual map data itself is loaded either as over the air, or on usb, but this is a process you do every 6 months or so to keep current, if you have internet connection enabled, the speed camera data is constantly downloaded. So I notice, for example, if a new temporary speed camera goes in because of road works, the system warns me of it if connected to the internet. 3. Weather info 4. Petrol price info 5. Ability to control vehicle settings from the internet (and not just in the car) 6. Pre-plan a route at home on your computer (or the phone app) and send it to the car. 1 and 2 are the main ones from my perspective. So it seems you have managed to get an internet connection for the car working via your phone hotspot, but need to create an account and login to the Lexus portal. This is the system that the car uses to download things like weather, petrol price, speed camera alerts etc. you may see this referred to in the menus as "Lexus Online". I am not as down on the Lexus infotainment as some others (what drives me mad are the bugs that they do not fix, but the basic system and capabilities do what I want.) Paul

I asked if it was because of CANbus thefts and the reply was "probably". Yes - I told Lexus it was crazy that their branded insurance would not cover their own vehicles and got no reply.... Paul

Mine too. I phoned Lexus motor insurance to get a quote for a comparison and they would not even quote on the car! I told this to Lexus CR and they did not even comment. Paul

With the RR it seems the thieves have to actually cut a hole in the body work to perform the attack. Not sure where the access point is on the X5 or Audis and mercs. I just read that Alpha's can be stolen by accessing the CAN through the front radar sensor. Perhaps it is prudent now to wait for the automakers to add a security layer to CAN, or move to another comms architecture, before purchasing a new vehicle. Paul

I have written to Lexus Customer Relations today and told them that another member of LoC had their RX stolen and that it's a race against time for them to get the plates fitted. Dealer responded quickly but Lexus have stopped communicating directly it seems. As much as I like the cars, the ownership experience with the RX has been poor (not because of the dealer - infect if my dealer had not been so good, it would have been a very bad thing indeed). Unfinished infotainment software (MM19) that will not be fixed with plenty of outstanding bugs... I had lots of rattles which the dealer had to fix... and now this security issue. We have not had any other brand of vehicle since 2013.... and I would not want to change to some other brand and later regret it, but replacing Lexus with Lexus is no where near the obvious choice anymore. Genesis? I believe the stolen cars are either stripped for parts, or taken abroad and sold: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/stolen-london-and-smuggled-africa-tracking-car-thieves Paul

I heard today from my dealer that this plate is now in production. No ETA on fitment time though. Paul

There are two mechanisms that would allow this to work. The most common is something called Gracenote (a database of CDs which includes album art and track names), and CD-text (where the album and track names are stored on the CD. There are very few commercial CDs that have CD-text. I am not sure if a 2011 RX has gracenote... if it does, this would be the most likely way for it to work. Paul

Ronnie. My 2021 RX shows it within the few metres accuracy of GPS. It is only significantly off it for some reason the latest position has not been updated in the app, but this is rare (at the moment). Paul

Check the option of "auto change to screen" is turned on. This should say "auto change to map screen". So try turning it off and see if it helps. It's in general settings. Otherwise you need to use the smaller of the two split screen frames to show audio and keep map ls on the larger one. Paul

I think the workaround on the iphone is to use internet through Bluetooth, rather than using a hotspot. I don't use one so I can;t tell you how to enable it, but I think others have made that work. Paul

>Tethering to the phone, adds some more faffing as the car never remembers the password. I guess you use an iphone then... Paul

Ken, There are many bugs in the older MM19 system on my RX that they never bothered to fix (and could be fixed in a few hours work). One of my personal favorites is that the up button on the steering wheel moves you down in the menu and the down moves up when selecting radio channels! That would take seconds to fix in software but they never bothered. I filed many bug reports and spoke to several people at customer relations. They helped a bit (downgraded the software on my car to an older release that did not have the main bug I was complaining about where voice commands for mp3 on a memory stick was completely broken - but it did have others that were fixed in later versions. Choose your poison...). Eventually they told me they were not going to fix it. Having spent a long time dealing with them over it, I thought to myself "I wonder what the new NX is going to be like when released?" (unfortunately I am reading that on this thread). Of course mechanically they are still excellent cars, and very comfortable, but software is becoming a bigger and bigger component, and they seem to be struggling way more than is logical to handle these things. Paul

Les, Glad the phone dialing is working ok. The issue you may have with radio is a bit of a quirk on this specific multimedia system (MM19): voice commands to select a station do not work on DAB stations. It may be that Smooth Radio is only available on DAB? So it could not find it on FM. But when you asked for BBC2, this is available on both DAB an FM, and I bet it picked the FM one. (this is an undocumented "feature"). You can select DAB stations with voice on MM21 (new NX, just released RX model etc) but, for a reason only known to Lexus and its suppliers, not on MM19. I never use voice for satnav unless I get it to go to one of the favourite destination. Like "Go Home" will auto start navigation to your home address (if programmed) and "Favourite work" will auto start to the favourite called "work". These I use quite a bit, but generally other destinations I simply program by the trackpad before I start driving. I always say there is nothing intuitive about any specific user interface: just familiarity. Paul

Les, I seem to be one of the few people that like the trackpad. I don't like touch screens. They get too many finger marks on them and you have no where to rest your arm when trying to use them whilst driving. I think the trackpad can work well. Try changing the haptic feedback setting. (Try turning it off, you may prefer it). Which voice commands are proving difficult? If it's audio related I may be able to help. I find the "call <name> at <home>" type of commands very reliable. Mostly work first time. Paul

John, Unfortunately it seems the software is fast developing the wrong kind of reputation.... Paul

This works about 50 percent of the time on my 2022 RX. Sometimes it only gets the destination to the car after you have already got fed up of waiting and set it yourself in the vehicle.... Paul

My premium in London on my RX has gone up almost 100 percent. Lexus Motor insurance would not even quote me on it (which the person I spoke to said was probably because of the CANbus thefts). Imagine my response when Lexus branded insurance would not even quote to insure a Lexus.... Lets see if these new protective wheel arch plates start to reduce thefts and bring our premiums down in a year or so.... Fingers crossed Lexus rolls them out quickly. Paul

Les, Try this software: https://www.mp3tag.de/en/ Not too difficult to get to grips with it. You may eventually find it better than your previous way of working. Paul

As much as it would be nice for the folder view to behave logically - unfortunately it doesn't and there is no point in fighting it! You aren't missing anything with folder view.... the system is just designed to play using id3 tags of individual files rather than folders. Infact, it matters not what folders the mp3s are in. You could just drop all of them in the root and it would play albums based on album tag name and artists name. It catalogues all the mp3s on the disk at start-up, by scanning all the id3 tags and builds the album list from that. So the first thing to get this to behave sensibly is to make sure all your id3 tags are in order. It may take you some time to get used to but I believe it will do all you need it to do, you just need to get used to how to work with it. Let me know if you have any more questions. Paul

Are you using album or folder view? It's best to use Album view as the system does not present folder hierarchy properly to the user (it flattens everything and will not show a folder that itself does not directly contain mp3 files). The system only really makes sense if you use mp3 id3 tags... you may use folders to organise it for yourself, but the system organises albums and songs based on id3 tags. It will show album names alphabetically in album view. The solution to the protruding usb stick is to get a small form factor device such as this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ultra-Flash-Drive-Read/dp/B07857Y17V Paul

From what i just read it seems they cut the wheel itself and slide off the lock, rather than cutting the lock itself. Or they drill the lock out. One of those disk type locks may be helpful preventing them cutting the steering wheel. I think I read that @Herbie uses one of those for that reason? (I may be misremembering). Paul

Hi Rob, Unfortunately they should have know about this issue since 2021 (there are CAN invader reports from late 21 in Japan), so it's not been done rapidly I'm afraid. https://japantoday.com/category/crime/japanese-police-struggling-with-growing-number-of-'can-invaders'-used-to-steal-luxury-cars The best we can say is that perhaps it has been rapid since the bad press started increasing... With a lot of recent discussions on this forum of course. At least they do seem now to be dealing with it. Not sure what other manufacturers are doing. Cheers, Paul

I saw that Ford offered replacement keys for some models after the introduction of "sleep" function keys for vehicles that were originally sold with keys without this function. They did charge the customer for the upgraded keys, but only a modest fee. I have written to Lexus Customer Relations to ask if they would be willing to do something similar for at least the newer Lexus models, and am awaiting a response. I also asked directly if the new RX has this feature and simply was told "it is on a new security platform", which is, shall we say, an ambiguous answer. I'll update if I get anything concrete back. Paul