Car wont start, battery ?

[SeanR]

Had to jump in the misses car this morn for work, the is250 wont start.

I pressed the button and it turned over (somewhat weak), spluttered a bit and continued this process until i thought best just hit the button again.

Give it three attempts.

Im assuming Battery ?, 

If so, what's the average price for one?

 

Ps, always thought modern cars would not let you try start the car if they sensed low Battery, my Ford wouldn't anyways.

 

Cheers

Sean

[madasahatter]

You will be looking at circa £100.00 for a Battery.

[scudney]

Would most likely be the Battery, do you know when it was last changed or how old it is??

[SeanR]

Hello

Ive had it a year and have no record of it ever being changed.

With that in mind, i guess that's where il start.

Cheers

 

Sean

[J Henderson]

Bosch S4 - £87.99 @ ECP with current voucher code.

Link

[SeanR]

Ordered it, pick up on way home

Appreciated thanks

[Mr Vlad]

Out of curiosity. Did you have any lights on your dash? 

May be wise to test the alternator and check for a parasitic drain.

[SeanR]

I did not notice anything out of the ordinary with lights, but was early and i was still half a sleep.

Is there anything i should be aware of in advance with regards swapping the Battery?, im assuming its pretty straight forward for these motors

[Mr Vlad]

Regarding swapping the Battery. You'll have to reprogram the windows. Operate each window individually using its own button. Keep the button continuously for both down and up operation. Once all 4 have been done then all 4 can be operated by the master switch and one touch operation will be restored. The sunroof may need doing to but I've never used mine. The clock will need resetting and possibly the radio. Make sure you have the code for the radio. If not then have a 'donkey' 12v Battery and connect it in parallel on the connectors not on the Battery. Hope that makes sense. 

[SeanR]

Cheers, never seen this before

 

Some kind of plastic Battery surround with a connector

Little plug thing, 

bit of a pain

 

 

 

[SeanR]

Can someone confirm whether the plug on the side of the Battery cover actually disconnects

Actually coming close to just cutting the Battery cover in half lol

[SeanR]

image

[SeanR]

Ok, sorted the connectors and now Battery fitted.

STILL NO START

The brake pedal seems really STIFF as you put your foot on it to start.

Tries to start

[SeanR]

Nearly started but now red light on push button start

 

Wont even let me use the fob to lock car, lights on dashboard still on

[Linas.P]

Fob Battery? Try putting the key fob to the start button.

Do you have a spare key fob? 

[SeanR]

I only changed Battery 4 months ago but will try other fob.

 

It turns over, strong but just no start

[SeanR]

its like its flooded, but cant be

 

Would i be right in saying that if it was the fob Battery, it would not try to start at all ?

[Beamish]

 

It may be flooded from your earlier attempts to start.

Have a quick read of this:

This morning my IS250 wouldn't start. The engine turned over but it wouldn't catch. This is the first time the car didn't start on the first attempt. I was fairly sure it wasn't a failing Battery because the engine turned over quite strongly and the lights were working well and didn't dim.

After trying this a few times over the space of about 15 mins, I gave up, emailed my apologies for the 9am meeting I knew I wouldn't make and called the AA. The big yellow van arrived within about 40 mins.

No sooner was Mr AA out of the van and he asked me if I had moved the car. I said "No", thinking he was asking if I had tried to roll it. He clarified, looking at my narrow-ish driveway and asked "Did you start it up to move it out of the way of someone else". I remembered then that I had moved it briefly the previous afternoon and not used it since. The engine was probably running for all of 15 seconds. He proudly proclaimed "That's it! It's flooded!"

Now, I didn't think cars flooded since the good old days of my mother, an old Fiat and a choke. (The three of them just didn't seem to work well together!)

Apparently, I'm now well-informed, that an engine can flood if it is left running for less than a few minutes. It was a morning of revelations for me.

Anyway, as Mr AA is explaining to me how to remedy the problem, I'm breathing a sigh of relief and hoping he's right, because I had visions of the car sitting on the back of a flatbed truck, on its way to Mr Lexus, with my credit card taped to the bonnet!

The trick to starting the flooded engine, I readily observed, is to depress the accelerator. This tells the car to stop pumping fuel to the cylinders. Smart, but too-smart for me. I'd never have guessed at that bit of counter-intuitive logic. But, it worked. After three cycles of cranking the engine with the accelerator depressed, presumably burning off the excess petrol in the engine, the car started with the accelerator released.

Has anybody else encountered this problem?

I've read elsewhere that this starting procedure this can damage the cat in some cars - is that possible? Should Mr AA (to whom I was very grateful at the time) have done this? If it's okay, why don't Lexus describe the procedure in the manual?

 

[SeanR]

I moved it off the drive saturday as i was sweeping the drive, only ran it for a few seconds.

Maybe thats it.

Mines an auto though, i dont touch the accelerator when starting it.

Actually, maybe i did give it some gas, 

Not sure what do now, just leave it a while and try again maybe

 

[Linas.P]

I was told it is impossible to "flood" DI cars. If it had some petrol in the pistons preventing it from firing straight away, then simply continuing to crank would clear it out. So basically you just need to continue cranking until it starts. Pressing accelerator trick would work, because that presumably opens Throttle to let more air in and it shouldn't "flood" the engine any further because accelerator pedal does not actually controls how much fuel get's injected, just advises ECU that you want it to increase RPM.

Stupid suggestions comes into mind - does it actually have fuel? Could it be misfiled (very unlikely for petrol).

[IS300FSPORT]

With your foot fully on the Gas pedal continue to crank it may just fire up as soon as it does let go of the pedal. Had this with a Yaris many moons ago took a while but it did start.

Is it low on fuel?

Also after start do all warning lights turn off if red Battery symbol remains on its a dying or dead alternator if the serpentine belt is still on. 

[Linas.P]

Would still start even without the belt, especially considering the Battery is new. But definitely good thing to check before it needs another Battery.

Other suggestion just came to mind - do you hear fuel pump priming. Try pressing the start button without pressing the brake, so press one - steering wheel comes out (acc on), press two dash lights-up and you should hear the buzzing sound from rear seat area (ig on). Fuel pumps do fail on these cars so that could be plausible explanation (well... on all cars with age really, but in Lexus is just cost more money to fix). 

[SeanR]

Tried another fob and new Battery in it, no start.

It has half a tank of petrol, I've not added diesel by mistake.

I will try again on the accelerator and see what the warning lights do.

Thanks all 

[SeanR]

18 minutes ago, IS300FSPORT said:

With your foot fully on the Gas pedal continue to crank it may just fire up as soon as it does let go of the pedal. Had this with a Yaris many moons ago took a while but it did start.

Is it low on fuel?

Also after start do all warning lights turn off if red battery symbol remains on its a dying or dead alternator if the serpentine belt is still on. 

 

Great tactic, its started lol

 

Scared of turning it off now

[SeanR]

Well, that was a very odd motoring experience.

Took it for a drive, turned off, then started fine.

At least i know where i stand with the Battery now, having a new one.

There might be something in that running them for a few seconds lark, as it was fine before that, il add

PS THANKS ALL, appreciate you taking the time.