Mike evans

Agree with you. If being left for a long time, trailer brakes can and do lock on. They are usually not designed well, and dont often see much use. Exactly the same occurs on cars when the parking brakeisnt used often. If leaving a car or trailer for a long time, also consider puttingit on axle stands to get the load off the tyres. For a car in everyday use, i reccomend using the parkng brake. Simply as good practice wether on a hill or not. Ive been working with autos, and auto gearbox design for years, and have never witnessed a failure in park. The parking pawl is designed for large loads, failure is unlikely, once it's locked in. You can make your own mind up about parking on the level, and whether or not to use the parking brake. My opinion is that its good practice, and a good habit to get into, and a good thing to teach anyone who has an auto. From experience, seizure due to lack of use happens more often than parking brake components wearing out.

Yup, same experience here. Went in to see if they had a rav4 or a rx400h wanted to see both (its a shared toyota/lexus dealership) had neither, but showed us around the workshops, and took us out for a spin in the ct200. Ended up with a second hand rx400h, but what a nice experience. The ct200. What can i say. Just a really nice quiet and comfortable car to drive. Very economical and decent handling, without being bone jarring. Very very nice. But need the rx for the dog!

Goo luck with it. Where are you taking it for its lpg? And what manufacturers kit ar they using? Andwhat are they charging? Do take carewhere you take it, and make sure they tun it correctly. The lexus engines are very sensitive to lpg, and you can run intoproblems witha badly set up kit. Mike.

The non hybrid RX's would probably be fairly easily tuned. Standard chip tuning could produce some increased power outputs, as would induction and exhaust improvements. Not sure how much pwer increase potential there is, but, i'm sure that the chip tuning companies would look at it ifthe havent already. The hybrids are another matter. Remember that the transmission is not a standard mechanical transmission. It has an ecvt, where the cvt function is created by clever control of a pair of motor generators. There is no direct path of torque transmission from the engine to the wheels. It all goes through the motor generators. Its not clear to me wether an increased output from the engine would proide a greater output at the wheels. Its likely that the max power troughput is limited electroncally ( some form of current protection) Any "chip" tuning would most likely have to include changes to the ecvt control to fully reap the tuning benefits. But i doubt wether the electric motor generators have much additional capacity to transmit torque. It would demand more iron in the cores, more copper in the windings. Etc... Additionally, the tuning is likely to reduce the fuel economy. The hybrid drive works closely with the normal torque curve. Change that curve, and all bets are off... Would be interested to know if anyone has done it. But with such good performance figures for the fuel economy, and such costly parts to replace if it goes wrong, why bother?

Just been investigating an odd rattle in the tailgate on my 57 plate 400h. Sort of a creak rather than a rattle. Turned out to be the little loadspace cover retaining mechanism. If you dont latch it down manually, then the bootlid presses on them ( there are plastic lugs in the bootlid that press on the mechanism ) to stop the loadspace cover retracting while underway. The mechanism creaked as the bootlid moved as you went over bumps. I manually latched them down, and the noise has gone. I will stick a small piece of felt on the boot lugs in time. Worth checking... Mike.

That does seem expensive. Marawise in Coventry charge £30 a wheel ( but only deal in rims without tyres) if you are near coventry, and can cope with taking all the tyres off, and having the car on stands for a week, i can reccomend these guys - have used them a lot. Mikris in Stroud charge £40 a wheel, and can cope with tyres on the rims. But watch the quality of their work - has been patchy for me in the past - and get a phone quote before you go there - the price changed when they saw a nice shiny car pull ip last time.

It's worth noting that several manufacturers do sell bi-fuel lpg/petrol variants.

Please do keep us informed.

Have a good look at it. Take it to a LPG converter that has done a rx300 before for advice. Find out who fitted the LPG kit - talk to them, do they come across as knowledgable? Have a look at the car. Does the system look neat and tidy. Drive it, there should be no noticeable difference between LPG and petrol. (A very slight hesitation at initial changeover is normal). Drive it at full power on both petrol and Lpg, pull away from standstill to about 60mph at full throttle, letting the engine rev fully as commanded. There should be barely any difference.between LPG and petrol. If it hesitates at all doing this, then it needs some attention. Some LPG kits will automatically change back to petrol at full throttle. This is normal. But if it hesitates before changeover, then It's running lean and needs looking at. At idle, the engine will probably sound sweeter on log, but if it misfires, or sounds rougher in any way, then it needs looking at. Any LPG installer that says that it's straightforward and there are never any problems is not telling the truth. LPG kit isn't plug and play, it needs setting up correctly. Failure to do so can result in engine failure. As for one tank of petrol for every three of lpg and two cylinder head failures - there was definitely something wrong with the installation. Sounds like it was running too lean. This is common on some cheaper kits, where the kit specified has no headroom. Possibly, the kit was detecting a lean running condition and changing back to petrol. Would like to know more about that failure - who did the work, and what kit was fitted. (and what remedial work was done to the LPG system to put it right). Yes, I agree that LPG systems are not without their concerns, but if carried out properly, there are rarely any issues. Mike.

Not using the parking brake isn't a deal breaker for the transmission. Yes, it can leave constant load on the transmission components, but this is minor in comparison to the loads it sees in use. Long term parking on a hill would not do the transmission / power train mounts much good. But mechanically, there shouldnt be an issue. Problems have happened, with linkages breaking, and parking pawls not fully engaging. Rare, yes, but they have happened. I would recommend using the parking brake. It's good practice, and keeps the parking brake components from seizing. Parking brake seizing is common on auto vehicles simply due to lack of use. Annoying at mot time...

That's not a bad price. Toyota Type 4 is also called 3309 fluid. That fluid is commonly used on a lot of transmissions fitted to saabs, jags, Landrovers, vauxhalls etc,. Cheapest I found was from gm dealer at £7 a litre. Cheapest aftermarket was the same price. I know it sounds a lot, but its essential for the correct function of the transmission. Use something else at your peril.

Just wondering, what caused the cylinder head to go? What actually failed, and did you get to the root cause? Was it running lean? Did the LPG installer check the system for correct running? I've been using LPG in loads of eclectic high performance cars for years, and never had any problems, but then again, I've always used a converter that really knew what he was doing, and paid close attention to the running of the car. In fact, I'm training to become an installer myself. I've seen loads of bad LPG conversions in my time. With simple errors, like the evaporator connected to the wrong point on the manifold, injector pipes kinked and blocked. Incorrect size nozzles used. There are loads of people claiming to do a 1 day conversion for less than £1k - I find this worrying. I cant see how thisis really possible without cutting serious corners in the installation and setup. There is a good 6-8 hours installation time in any lpg kit. Plus the setting up. A good example is the cold start/ warmup check. This really needs to be done a couple of times to check the changeover is ok. Also, there should be a good test drive, up to temperature, with the diagnostics plugged in and continually monitored to check the mixture, and to tweak the calibration. No matter whatnthe kit manufacturer says about "auto calibration" only a fool would rely completely on this, and not check it manually. The manual checks would highlight any lean running. Also, many "kits" have a marginally specified evaporator. This would result in lean running and engine failure. There should always be adequate headroom in the kit specification, e.g. Using a 210 hp kit on a 200 hp car. You really need the 280hp kit to make sure you don't run into problems. In reality, a good LPG Kit costs about £1k for the parts, with a fitting cost of between £500 to £800. For a 6 cylinder. Yes, you get a poorer mpg, but only by about 10% if the system is installed and set up correctly. On my Saab 9-3 Viggen (235bhp 2.3 litre turbo) I average 30 mpg on LPG, 33 mpg on petrol. On a run, I get 45 on LPG, 47 on petrol. From experience, this is typical on modern cars with knock sensing. In some applications, like my tuned rover v8, the engine spec has been created to run specifically on LPG, with a high compression ratio. I have to run it very rich on petrol to stop detonation. Power is reduced on LPG, but if you really want the full power, you can tune the LPG system to revert to petrol at full throttle, thus restoring the 10% ish lost power - this is particularly useful on smaller engined cars. I'd be interested in finding out more about the 400h conversion - more details please. Mike.