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The parcel has arrived! Huuuraaah! Not fully opened it yet but so far the quality looks great! I do not know why it says its resin but it feels metal to me, based on the weight of the model it feels solid!

There is normally a gap by the headlight which will allow a wire to be run into the engine bay without the bonnet seal even touching it. Currently my GS and my wife's Prius are connected to chargers this way. Post-it note over the start button on the latter as a reminder that the charger is connected.

WHAT? Good God, some people shouldn't have an electricity supply!

After years I just got round to adding a profile picture. So while I'm at here are a few more from life before lockdown.

No problem, the mirror glass is clipped in at the bottom and has hooks at the top. Gently push the mirror glass at the top so the bottom sticks out.Slide a cloth (yellow duster is a good selection) behind the bottom of the glass and bring it out the sides. bring the ends of the cloth together and give a sharp tug. This should release the bottom clips. lift the mirror up to disengage the two top hooks, remove the electrical connections and the mirror is out. Put something soft under the housing in case you drop the glass! To refit reconnect the electrics, engage the top hooks and press the bottom clips back in using your thumbs on the glass, you will hear them engage.

Thank you both! I wish I'd asked here first - the breakdown guy didn't have a clue and we had to call out an 'expert' 🙂 One thing about Lexus - they seem to make the vital info very hard to find (or is it just me?) All sorted now, tyres and battery - now I know what to do and where to look it will be much easier next time. You guys are really helpful - thanks again!

Yes, I have my MX5 connectors permanently connected in the boot, with an additional home made low voltage extension cable on the charger output so I can run the charger module in the house. I use twin core orange mains cable with a miniconnector pair laid along the back of the boot floor. That's because the CTek extension cables you can buy aren't long enough for my needs. The connector pair is waterproof and the cable exits happily through the bottom of the boot opening. It's actually the same MX5 that I used to use on the IS300H, with the same connector arrangement. Ignore the stuff about removing the earth lead which is aimed at countries with dubious supplies. Just disconnect before you power the car on! And don't , like I did once, drive off with the cable attached... This does not do the cable any good...

As several others have said above you can't run it down to 0% or up to 100%. I've never seen anything definitive about the Lexus setup but I've seen a graphic for Prius batteries that says one bar is 40% and eight bars is 80%. I expect it's similar in the Lexus batteries. Having said that, the aim of the computer is not to fill the battery. The point of the battery is to store spare or regenerated electricity. If the car keeps it full, there won't be anywhere to store surplus energy when it's available. This suggests the optimum target for the battery is around 50% full - that would be plenty of space to store surplus energy but also plenty of extra power to use for a sudden spurt of acceleration. A graphic I once found but can't find now showed that from around two to six bars represents around 50-60% of battery capacity. So why did my car run the battery up to six bars yesterday? I would guess that because the car was stationary the software decided that while the engine was running to keep the cabin warm, a lot of energy was just being thrown away - so instead some was saved in the battery. Later when the heater was off, the car didn't bother to start when the battery went down to a better level of five bars; it isn't aiming to keep the battery topped up, it's aiming to keep plenty of capacity for regenerated electricity. I've only ever seen eight bars on the gauge once and that was after going down a two mile long hill. At the start of the descent, the engine was off. But as the battery gauge got to seven and eight bars the engine started to run. I think this somehow uses up spare electricity. At the end of the descent, I had to stop at some red lights and oddly, the engine started when the car stopped with the battery on eight bars. Usually the engine would stop at traffic lights. I think this must have been to somehow lower battery levels from what was then presumably about 80%. But it seemed a paradox for the engine to start when the battery was "full" (ie around 80%).

I'm guessing no (as in, don't ask somebody who's gone through this [emoji2959] to take pictures [emoji16]), but I'll ask anyway: Any pictures? A few, I will do a how to a little later Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

PCP - work well if you keep the car for the contracted time, and within the mileage limits agreed. End early, go over mileage - you’ll pay for the privilege, handsomely. My advice if you want to go PCP, would be put as little as you can in the deal as a deposit, and take the burn on the monthly payments. But you must remember that you have to save for the deposit on your next car too. In general, Gone are the days where you’ll have cash in the car at the end of term. Personally, I’d look at buying the car outright, using a personal loan, over a longer term. Interest rates will be more favourable, you can still get out at any time, and you’ll find at times, say 2 or 3 years into the agreement you’ll have more in the car than if you PCP’d it.

Welcome to Europe's Leading Lexus Club! Please Enjoy!

Genuine Toyota here, concentrate too so only need one and mix with water. If you have a dehumidifier use the water from that or buy some distilled.Delivery early next week. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Genuine-Toyota-Long-Life-Red-Coolant-Antifreeze-Concentrate-5-Lts-0888980014/264710198296?epid=654172571&hash=item3da1f51418:g:iigAAOSwOKlcba8l

Last night my IS300h racked up 150,000 miles Im the second owner and have done 91,000 miles in the last 23 months. I have all of the previous service history from new so I though I would share some stats: So far its had 12 services (one every 12.5K) ever since I have had the car I have been changing all the filters on every service and it has only been run on 0W20 oil, it has has 2 sets of denso plugs replaced and is now on its 3rd set. Its had its EGR cooler cleaned out. I bought a secondhand one and cleaned that out, then on a weekend I replaced my original with this one. What a nightmare of a job that was!! But one that I felt was required I have paperwork for 7 complete sets of tyres, although they were not all replaced at the same time and in my ownership I have suffered 2 punctures that rendered the tyre useless, one of them on a tyre the had only done 800 miles. The car has been run on either Continentals or Falken tyres and since i've had the car I've only ever run the tyres at 39psi and they wear pretty evenly. Ive never had to have the tracking or alignment done and the car still tracks true. Ive done 2 diff oil changes and one gearbox oil change, the engine antifreeze has been changed. currently I am considering changing the inverter fluid but I have heard horror stories about getting airlocks in the system and bleeding is supposed to be a it difficult. All of the suspension is original, there are no rattles or squeaks and the ride is still very comfortable, everyone who travels in the car is impressed with the ride quality. Brakes, this is one area where Toyota/Lexus always seem to suffer, and my IS is no exception, its on its 3rd set of front discs, 5 set of front brake pads, 2nd set of rear discs and 3rd set of rear pads. It currently has EBC grooved discs and EBC pads on the front and genuine discs and pads on the rear. in the last 5000 miles I have replaced both rear calipers as they were seized and the fronts have had new slider kits fitted. The interior is spotless, mine is the SE spec so only has the half leather, the seats are still supportive even after a 500 mile round trip to London, on the cold mornings I do miss heated seats though. I know the infotainment system gets a slating but its not that bad, I have the premium stereo with the mouse controller and it takes a bit of getting used to but ive now got the hang of it although the sat nav can be a bit hit and miss with its routing at time, and the stereo gives good sound quality. Mechanically its still brilliant, it uses very little oil between services, it has a very small weep on the crankshaft front oil seal and this is the reason for the oil use. I can still get over 55mpg on a run and 45 mpg around town. It still pulls like a train, especially in sport mode. The Hybrid battery appears to still be in good condition, I have recently acquired techstream and am interested in interrogated the battery to see how well the cells are holding up Air conditioning is ice cold, its never been recharged Niggles/issues: There are only a few niggles I have, one of them is there is a rattle from the passenger seat when there is no one sat in it, I have a feeling there is. wire looks in the seat. The front bumper is absolutely spattered with stone chips and needs a resprayed at the same time the leading edge of the bonnet would benefit from a bit of paint as well. that aside the overall paintwork is in really nice condition. The wheels are typical Toyota/Lexus quality, the paint is flaking and the wheels now need refurbishing. The front edge of the O/S chassis leg was found to be quite rusty, this has now been rectified by a bodyshop after Lexus decided they would not do it under their body warranty. So that's the first 150,000 miles, I reckon I will see 200,000 miles in about 13 months time. Would it recommend one? Yes, Would I have another one? Very possibly, but would prefer a GS300h next time as they have a slightly larger boot which would work better when doing airport/ferryport runs, but if I can't get on e at the right price/mileage then ill happily have another IS300h

If the battery is in the back then there's usually a jump start terminal in one of the engine bay fuseboxes EDIT: Look at this thread

Google it, its done through the bonnet.

That's not quite correct. As the driver/user of the car we never get to use 100% of the traction battery's capacity. I forget the actual figures but I think I'm right in saying that we get to use about 60% of it. To over-simplify it, think of it as a bar graph just like it's depicted in the car display - we are blocked from the bottom 20% and the top 20% and are only allowed to use the middle 60% (or whatever figure it may be). However, and this is crucial, the bar graph display in the car only refers to the 60% that we can use. It does not map the capacity that we can't use, so when you see all bars illuminated (as you will on long hill descents) then it's telling us that the portion of the battery we can access is fully charged, not necessarily the whole battery. Our 'partial use' (for want of a better phrase) of the whole battery increases the longevity of the battery by a very substantial amount. I can't remember the physics or engineering behind it but, as always, if you want to find out more then Google is your friend 🙂

The only caveat I would add to Howard's statement is how bad is the rust and where is it. The underside maybe in a very bad way and from the pics the doors look bad and the 400 is not a car you want to be trying to botch with body filler on the panels. My red line would be rust in more than three panels ,doors and excessive rust on the subframe at the rear.

I was told it never charges to 100% and never goes completely flat at 0%. So there is always an unfilled bar at the top.

WOW I'm speechless, over my years of going to see bands Eddy and the Hotrods is right up there and it's easy to see why. As I mentioned earlier nearly all of these 'pub rock bands' of that era were very good musicians and seeing them in smaller, hot venues just added to the experience. Fantastic, again the comment at the end is golden.

More Tommy Emmanuel.....his take on Classical Gas.

in these challenging days of lockdown I can see nothing better than to set oneself an almost impossible task ........... bit like a 25,000 piece jigsaw .......... you would eventually make it to the end ........ immense frustrations along the way but oh my, what satisfaction when completed a god thought there Thomas Malc

As you open the bonnet look at the gap between the air box and the rear of the headlight, you will see a small portion of the chassis leg, this was where mine has started to corrode. I have had a number of 1.8 Prius and they have an issue with the egr cooler blocking when they start getting to 100,000 plus miles, when they block they cause other issues and finally seem to culminate in them blowing their head gaskets. The 2.5 isn’t the same engine but there are similarities and so I decided that I would bite the bullet and put a secondhand one on that I had bought from eBay and cleaned up. Mine was completely blocked but certainly wasn’t able to flow as well as a cleaned one, I would guess another 20k Miles and it would have been clogged, so it was more preventative maintenance really. But god it’s a royal pain in the arse job to do, it makes the Prius one look like a doddle and that was always considered a bit of a challenge Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Perhaps I did over simplify the fitting of new wheel studs. It is required to remove or swing the brake calipers out of the way before the discs will slide off the studs. There is however large hole or gaps in areas of the back plates to pass even the longest studs through. Having done this recently to change a front bearing hub I know just how much room there is. John.

That didn't take long, will check voltage again tomorrow VID_20200428_185452.mp4

Really the only thing specific on the IS to look for is corrosion on the disc braking surfaces, especially on the rear, or a rough braking noise feel at less than 5 mph, which indicates a sticking calliper. Also that the footbrake is working correctly as some owners tend not to use it, allowing it to seize up.

Good to here @Vlady Mine has been on charge all afternoon now so this is a good reminder to go check it's status.

I've not looked at the links because I'm firmly of the opinion that you should use the correct Lexus stuff. I have no qualms about using non-Lexus parts when talking about batteries, wipers and suchlike, but fluids go into systems that have (mainly) rubber seals and other mission-critical stuff and the system and its fluid have been chemically matched. Yes, a substitute may be to all the required specs for the system to work, but if even just one chemical is a different strength or maybe 'an equivalent', then although it may do its job of cooling, it may also be either not protecting the system or possibly even attacking it. Maybe I'm just paranoid, I don't know, but I'd never substitute fluids.

Not rare like the preceding pictures but exciting nevertheless. DC10 refuelling and being docked for practice back just after my car was first sold. John

Although the chemistry in AGM ,and normal flooded lead acid batteries is basically the same the AGM has a slightly higher terminal voltage. The AGM voltage is 14.2 volts while the flooded battery is 13.8 volts. The old style transformer chargers will generally charge both types, but are not suitable for trickle charging "being permanently left connected" as they tend to overcharge the batteries. Chargers designed for flooded batteries tend not to fully charge AGM batteries because the output voltage is to low. They will however charge AGM batteries to a point where they can be used to start a car, but because the battery never reaches full charge there is a risk of some sulphasion. AGM battery chargers will charge both types of battery fully, but can slightly over charge lead acid batteries so that the battery may need topping up with distilled water. Most modern battery chargers are capable by switching or auto means of charging both type of battery. I do not now if this applies to the Ctek charger, but the Aldi/Lidl chargers are excellent chargers with a blue illuminated liquid crystal voltage display, charge type, and level. The only downside is that if the supply to the charger fails because of a power cut it does not restart automatically. The on off button has to be pressed to start charging. At circa £12 they are an excellent buy with a 3 year guarantee. John.

The Lexus hybrids possibly require the 12 volt battery to be charged more than it's non hybrid counterparts. In general it seems that Lexus tend to put smaller or lower amp hour capacity batteries in the hybrids. It is a constant problem in the pages of LOC. The Ctek charger is eminently suitable for charging your ES300H 12 volt battery. John.

The traction battery will be fine for many weeks. The 12v battery could be hooked up to a maintenance charger, if you have access to mains supply? I have used and would recommend the CTEK mxs 5. Just connect to the 12v battery and leave connected for the duration.

Many thanks to everyone who posted these useful hints and tips. I see that my experience is in line with those of others, so I'm content. I never believed those ridiculous peak consumption figures quoted (and even repeated in a recent road test video of a model identical to mine.) Without a doubt one has to get used to driving a hybrid, and I'm still learning. As it happens we're off to Scotland in early May, so I'll keep a note of the data and post it here in due course. Thanks again Anthony