PDM

Looks like the person who alerted Watchdog has set up a website to record theft cases:

https://reportcanbus.com/

1 hour ago, FredL said:

I have a 2020 RX 450h. I have the wifi on and a subscription with AT&T. Often, when I turn on the car, the wifi does not start and I have to go through the process of connecting to the provider. Is there a fix for this problem? So far, the dealer doesn't have any answers.

Let me guess... You are using an Iphone as the hotspot?

Paul

30 minutes ago, DaveyBoy said:

I think you might find that the enhanced plates are not at all enhanced. People without all the facts say some total bs. 

 

What probably happened is the original plates were prototype and the final plate design differed a bit. Lexus were experimenting at the beginning.

We all knew the plates were a stop gap. I think I might look into adding some additional protection for the wiring loom.

 

A firmware update will never happen. It's far too difficult and expensive to roll out because for every 100 successful flashes, one car will fail and the boxes will be dead. That will cost £££ to put right.

 

A preliminary firmware fix as previously discussed by a security researcher would only be a stop gap also, because the thieves will eventually obtain a work around. Only fully encrypted units will work and our cars hardware do not have the processing chips to handle encryption. Therefore a permanent solution cannot exist ever.

 

Get a scorpion or similar chip. Have a steering wheel lock. And hope for the best. The 4RX is a dead car. Trade in for a 5RX or another brand not affected by this exploit. 

 

No point demanding the impossible.

I agree about the plates - The original plates were a copy of those used to prevent car jacking in South Africa.  If there is some enhancement perhaps it's thicker gauge steel in another manufacturing run?

I'm not totally convinced that encryption can't be added in software for at least few critical commands (such as "correct key present"). To me the idea of trading in a 4RX for a 5RX sounds like a triumph of hope over experience!

4 minutes ago, larryadler said:

Hello Ed, I think the value of all luxury vehicle's has taken a kicking recently. The only survivors that show price increase, are the small 1.0 litre fart boxes, with low insurance and tax.

I reckon if you own an RX Mk 4,  or any previous models, it has become a keep it or take a kicking. Personally I will probably keep mine, as the final balloon payment I will have to make in 2026, is such that if I hand the car back, I certainly couldn’t buy an upmarket luxury car. 
Yes, I could buy a brand spanner’s MG, Peugeot, Renault, Citroen etc, and I have nothing against any of those vehicles……but they ain’t a Lexus!
So I’ll stick for the moment with my RX and it’s 10 year warranty, that way, values don’t apply 🤔

Pete - I agree with you, but it will depend on what the insurance does.  If insurance rises even more to say 3k per year, you can take quite a kicking on the trade in and still come out on top....

8 hours ago, SH20 said:

  You know you will need insurance cover immediately so to get the vehicle home why don't you ask them to initiate the 3 day drive home cover Lexus and Toyota dealers offer.   That way you can try and secure cover in the short term while the car is garaged or on your drive. 

I have heard from dealers that Lexus Insurance are now often turning down the "complimentary" 3 day cover, so the owners has to arrange cover themselves before driving away.  Not sure if this applies to LBX, but I heard it is happening even on new NX450h+ for instance.

17 hours ago, PeterI said:

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.

If they are now at the stage of cutting the wiring loom to gain access they would not even need to smash the plate. The plate only covers the connector area, not the entire loom.  This was only a matter of time.

The plate should have bought enough time to engineer a software fix.... But here we are still discussing the lack of solution...

5 hours ago, LexusDisappoints said:

Thank you to those who replied to my question about the 'protection' plate(s).

The plates have been installed by the Lexus dealer.   I also have a Stop Lock Pro Elite taking up space in my top of the range RX450h, no doubt offering opportunities for damage to the interior over time.  In essence, I have two sticking plasters that offer nothing, other than delay and minor inconvenience to would-be car thieves.

Lexus Customer Relations advise it has taken seven years for thieves to discover the opportunity to steal Generation 4 cars in seconds.  Apparently senior management are aware of the '... shocking impact on customers, insurance companies and Lexus'.  Clearly, customers will pay the price for the theft of their Lexus cars and the increase in insurance costs.  What impact the issue will have on sales of new Lexus vehicles and second-hand values will remain to be seen?  I anticipate this is the sole issue that will provoke any further action from Lexus/Toyota.

However, the Generation 5 RX is manufactured to a different global architecture so they will not be targeted in the same way.  So that's all right then ... .

As a fellow 4RX owner I feel your pain. You may have seen on another thread that one of the sticking plasters is unfortunately starting to peel off: there was a report of a vehicle with the plate fitted being stolen... I have already sent that info to customer relations.

If they want to be specific about the gen 4 RX, it has not taken 7 years. The vehicle was being delivered to the the UK in early 2016 I believe.  The first CAN theft I can find on the web is February 2021 in Japan. That's 5 years.

Second hand values have dropped significantly on 4 RX in the last 12 months unfortunately.

Paul 

53 minutes ago, Spock66 said:

I think it must be the sat nav.

Older models like the Gen 4 only use the camera I believe, hence you get 120 etc as that's often a sticker on the back of a truck.

The facelift MK4 certainly uses a combination of sat nav data and speed limit signs.  When I pull off the drive onto the street it has not seen a speed limit sign but it does know the limit is 30mph. Not sure about the pre facelift MK4.

However, I believe there is a TSB for a software update to prevent the camera recognising signs on trucks as speed limit signs.  (I saw that on Lexus Tech at some point... Perhaps check with the dealer).

Paul

20 minutes ago, Navnan2 said:

Sorry can I confirm the "left side" is the passenger side head light?

Correct

4 hours ago, peniole said:

Colin would be the expert here. I'm just relaying what my dealer told me.

I'm going to try again to get more clarity on this issue.

Paul

14 hours ago, peniole said:

No it doesn't have to be through the left. The right can work too, it's just tighter to get to the wiring on that side due to fixed solid tubing in the way. Which is why Lexus are fitting protection plates to RX vehicles on both sides. Every other Lexus owner can go suck a lemon as far as they are concerned.

It's very odd and it seems impossible to get a straight answer here.  I have been told by Lexus UK and by my dealer that you only need plates on the left headlight ECU loom and not the right one.  I asked why some were reporting having them on both and was simply told the right was unnecessary.

3 minutes ago, beyond the blue said:

It was explained to me by the Ghost immobiliser installer (who unfortunately can't fit the Ghost to my ES) that the only reason they use the left side is because of the loom routing.

Interesting....

2 minutes ago, AndreG said:

Hi I found this forum / topic after the attempted theft of my 2019 ES last week . Luckily i happened to leave my house just as they were about to steal my car.  

Not being aware of this problem my first thought was they were stealing the bumper to order , then when visiting a garage to get my bumper refitted they said they would have been after the headlights because they are so expensive.

It was only later when someone on a local neighbour site mentioned this method of theft that i realised.

A quick question , does it have to be the left headlamp ? If so I'm thinking of parking very close to a wall to hinder access as one measure to put them off.

 

My understanding is that yes, the only way the hijacking of the CANbus can be used to open the doors and start the engine is through the left headlight CANbus wiring loom (this is for an RX but it does seem all theft attempts are through the left headlight)

Paul

1 hour ago, DaveyBoy said:

So far, these attempts indicate that the plates are working. With enough failed attempts, they might just jog on and stick to range rovers.

Fingers crossed... But how long for insurance company statistics to allow more sensible premiums?

2 minutes ago, Andy B said:

 

Yep, same for me guys. No matter how often I enable the Connected Services they get disabled again when I next start the car. 

So at the moment, a software upgrade which delivered little or no tangible improvement or enhanced functionality (from my point of view anyway) has currently removed one function that I found at least half useful (i.e. the trip recording). 

It simply astonishes me that they don't test absolutely anything at all in their infotainment and connectivity software before release.  Does nobody working at UK head office drive a Lexus and see these issues?  It's been the same story since MM19.  It took them about 3 months to restore the internet connection to my car after we all were migrated onto Lexus Link "plus". They have fudged it to work at present by moving me back to the older app and associated backed.

Good luck with getting these things resolved quickly.

12 minutes ago, Spark plug said:

Does our IS250 have Canbus? If so can anyone explain what it is and how it makes them easy to steal...

It will have CANbus but it's probably not easily accessible enough for a thief to connect to.  The models that have CAN headlights (IS250 does not) have vulnerable CAN wiring just above the wheel arch that can be reached with very little damage to the vehicle bodywork.

I have not seen any IS250 reported stolen via CAN injection.

10 minutes ago, JeffL said:

Interesting that pre-facelift NXs might be more difficult to access the wiring. Why do you think that might be the case Colin? 

 

 

There was one post on here where a dealer has suggested as such but I'm not sure if since then Colin has any more info. 

Paul

5 hours ago, John Walker said:

What makes you say that? 

John,

Sorry -  I was joking - there have been so many thefts (RX now being the UK's most stolen car as a fraction of registered vehicles).

Cheers,

Paul

39 minutes ago, BillSt said:

Interesting that the NX is not even in that top 10.

The RAV4 is.

Lexus is also the most stolen brand in 2023.

If the RX is 1 in 46 across the whole of Britain, what will it be in just Greater London and SE?

It would be particularly interesting to see this breakdown by Model Year to see if the new keys and software have had an effect. An analysis the Lexus UK could easily do if they really cared about their customers.

And given it is mainly gen 4 that are being stolen, what is it as a fraction of those?

1 hour ago, ertanp said:

Also I can't get any updates for audio here in Turkey.

They don't have a portal yet, and the dealers say they don't have any info about updates.

Anyone can download updates from 

https://www.lexus-tech.eu/

Interesting for your audio version as I thought the latest was 1171.

But you will need an older version to avoid the usb music bugs.  

Paul

57 minutes ago, ertanp said:

Also I can't get any updates for audio here in Turkey.

They don't have a portal yet, and the dealers say they don't have any info about updates.

Sorry forgot to check. I'll try to remember in the morning.

24 minutes ago, ertanp said:

Hello,

I am using 256GB USB formatted FAT32.

I have 88 folders named as artist name. Inside each directory all flac files. Some in high-res.

All filenames start with 001, 002 otherwise it doesnt play them in proper order.

Also all song name tags start with 001, 002 etc.

All files tagged properly.

My problem is when I add a new directory, it shows them at the end of the directory list.

To overcome this problem, I deleted everything in usb and copied them again in correct order.

This didn't help. Then I started over and edited creation time and last modification time of all folders/files and copied them again.

Still some folders are not shown in correct order.

I even changed the name of the usb stick in case it records the name somewhere else.

Does anybody know if it saves the usb info somewhere else?

The car is 2021 RX 2.0L Petrol.

The unit is MM19

Any help is most welcome.

 

 

 

Many versions of MM19 are broken for playing music from a usb stick.  There is some odd indexing (as you have seen) and it totally breaks voice commands too.  The only version I could get to work properly (with indexing and voice commands) is a pre release version.  This would need installing by your dealer.  Next time I'm in the car I'll look up the version number and let you know. Of course the pre release version will have other bugs, so it's a matter of choosing the least worst version.

Paul

6 minutes ago, Paul Mingay said:

Thought the series 5 was wireless 🤔

only for car play - not AA.

1 hour ago, eightk said:

Funny you should say that. I’ll start a thread on my mystery shopper experience soon. Suffice to say, when asked about canbus theft risk, dealers blatantly lie.

This is going to be interesting.....

1 hour ago, Al D-Much said:

Hi Paul,
Sorry, I meant the on / off button on a MM19?
Can't say I've seen one

Hi Al,

So on a gen 1 NX you have a tuning knob on the left and a volume knob in the right of the head unit.  If you press the one on the right it turns the toggles audio on and off.

Paul