Rx400h sunroof issues

[welland]

I'm looking for an rx400h and yesterday I went to view two, which both had issues with the sunroof.  I decided not to buy either car,  but am left wondering if the symptoms are common and easy to fix?

1)  on both cars, when the sunroof was opened (tilt or slide) at the moment when the glass came out of the aperture in the roof, there was a loud thud / pop sound - as if the sunroof was a tight fit in the aperture.  When closing,  there seemed to be no associated issue.  

2) both cars showed the same problem when closing a fully tilted sunroof.   I pressed and held the close button.  The sunroof moved down a tiny bit, then reopened to the fully tilted position.  The problem did not happen when closing the sunroof when it was not fully tilted. So, to close the sunroof it was necessary to first briefly tap the close button to bring it down a tiny bit. Then, when the close button was pressed and held, the sunroof would close properly and park in the fully closed position.  

3) on one of the cars, closing a slid-open roof was problematic.   Whilst holding the close button,  the sunroof would slide towards the closed position until it was open about 2", then it would reverse and start opening again.  This happened around 50% of the time. 

Has anybody else seen such symptoms, or fixed them? 

[sorcerer]

No answer for you I'm afraid Peter, just an observation really - I've never understood why cars with aircon and/or climate control have a sunroof.

Ok, I admit that when you're buying a car you want everything to work as it should and that includes the sunroof but, as long as it doesn't leak, I'd be happy. All three cars I've owned in the last 12 or 13 years have had a sunroof but I've never had any of them open at any time at all, preferring to rely on the aircon/climate control instead.

Hope someone can answer your queries my friend, good luck in your quest.

[welland]

Horses for courses.  Sometimes A.C. is best.  Sometimes Windows and sunroof is best.  

[katabrontes]

I would be very cautious about any problem in operating the sunroof.

When I bought my RX350 the sunroof did not work and it was diagnosed as a motor fault, the motor was replaced by the dealer but then failed again.  Further investigation revealed that the sunroof had stuck and it had to be removed completely to discover that the problem was a small plastic rocker on one side which had broken and jammed in the rack, as a result the tape which moved the roof on that side had broken and the motor had burned out.  The broken part and the motor were replaced and since then all has been fine.

HOWEVER - to remove the sunroof the whole head lining and side linings had to be removed starting at the bottom.  The labour time for all this was about 20 hours (about £3,000 at Lexus rates) plus the parts (about £4-500 including 3 motors) (see horrendous photos attached)

An easier sunroof problem is leaks into the space under the rear boot shelf.  I also had this which I traced to a kink in the plastic tube draining the rear corner of the sunroof.  I fixed this quite easily by cutting off the last few inches of the tube and replacing it with a short length of 15mm copper pipe.  Its a good idea toe clear these drainage tubes form time to time either by pouring hot water into the channels around the sun roof or running a length of the spiral spring used to hold up net curtains through the tubes (some members have used a thin brush on a long length of wire to do this).  The rubber drain from the cills can also get clogged with mud quite easily and its worth checking those every few weeks or months

[carl001]

I have owned my RX400 for nine years now and I have always had problems with the sunroof operation. You press the buttons a little bit more or less than 'required' and something completely different to the desired effect happens. I rarely open it. With a lot of trial and error you get it closed shut again but for me it's not worth the effort.

[Jaystar77]

There's a reset you can do - back when I bought mine my sunroof opened and closed with both slide & tilt buttons doing exactly the same thing (which made no sense to me but I accepted it anyway).

Read a post on this forum that described it and the auto-close started working and it now operates the way it should.  Might be worth a try if the sunroof doesn't know what position it's in.   

[welland]

11 hours ago, Jaystar77 said:

There's a reset you can do - back when I bought mine my sunroof opened and closed with both slide & tilt buttons doing exactly the same thing (which made no sense to me but I accepted it anyway).

Read a post on this forum that described it and the auto-close started working and it now operates the way it should.  Might be worth a try if the sunroof doesn't know what position it's in.   

How does auto close work?  Is it a button in the car, or is it connected with pressing the "lock" button on the keyfob?

Thinking about it, is there an auto open feature from a button in the car, or the keyfob?

[Jaystar77]

Oh apologies, got my terminology wrong - meant one touch closing function.

I found the reset sequence here:  http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/topic/58458-one-touch-open-or-close-for-moonroof/

Haven't tried looking for the convenience closing feature from the remote.  Doesn't seem to do it from the house atm (just tried) but I'll have a look through the manual.  Volkswagens have this feature (caused all sorts of problems lol) but don't know if it's used by Lexus or not.

[G English]

I have a Lexus 450H F Sport 2016 with tilt and sliding panoramic roof. The seal around the tilt section seemed, at first glance, to be disintegrating. Took it to the dealership who said it was birds or vermin nibbling at the rubber. Never heard or experienced anything like this before. Has anyone had a similar problem?

Also was told they could not just replace the seal around the tilt/sliding section but had to replace the whole panoramic roof cassette at a cost of just over £5,000. This seems ridiculous to me and totally unnecessary. Does anyone know if you can just replace the seal around the glass of the tilt/sliding section. It certainly looks as if you should be able to?

All thoughts/suggestions welcome