Just had full service on my 08 450h, and they told me rear calipers seized (" salt on the road" or some such nonsense) and replacements would cost ~£650. Car < 4 years old with 47K on clock!
This is obviously a basic problem with this part. Luckily remembered my 12 months' warranty - got car in Feb '11, so Lexus paid for it. Could it be that regenerative braking means that rear brakes not applied often enough (if you drive with fuel economy in mind, which I usually do) which increases probability of caliper seizure? What do people think? I am going to try an emergency stop about once a month and hope that reduces risk of seizing.
My previous GS 300 Mk 2 did 237K miles and one rear caliper seized once, and it was refurbed by my local mechanic (NOT LEXUS!) for about £100. Incidentally, he often said that the Mk 2 was a "lovely car to work on - so well engineered" - I wonder what he'll say about my 450h?
By the by, want to replace the original orangey side light bulbs with white LEDs to match the white HID headlights - has anyone done it? Do you simply yank out the bulb from its holder - mine appear to be stuck in with superglue! I imagine the Lexus garage would charge about £200 for that job ("complimentary cappuchino" tho'!).
General 450h update
ACC is great - single best upgrade I've ever had. Doing > 25K per year on busy motorways, it really makes driving less tiring.
Skinny spare is horrible - I've just bought a full-sized original Lexus spare wheel on Ebay (the only one I've ever seen advertised) so I don't have to rush off and buy the first tyre I can find (and pay top-whack) in the event of a tyre-wrecking puncture (which they often are on modern heavy cars, in my experience) Unfortunately, it doesn't fit in the 450h's boot.
Do others find the 2008 version satnav a real pain in the a**e?
I've spent a long time with the manual (written in Sanskrit) , and have previously mastered computers, video recorders and mobile phones, but still find the satnav completely unintuitive - to the extent that I've given up using it.
All for now - look forward to other 450h owners' views.