alpine

You wouldn't say that if you'd seen Bjorn Waldegaard wiping the floor with the Escorts at Lydden Hill in the 1970s! And of course, with limited slip diffs, traction is not just available in a straight line.

911s are rear engined, so of course have better traction in icy conditions.

That's ignorable. Ask the AA! These aren't the old uncontrolled transfomer rectifier chargers. The voltage is closely controlled. Lexus has approved the Ctek chargers: http://www.ctek.com/gb/en/page/aboutus/oem Having got a bit anal about this, I also ended up buying their little traffic light lead, not really for the indicators but because it's got a fuse in the lead, which seems a useful safety thing since I've extended the lead so I can run it from the house to the car.

Yes, the MXS3.8. 3.8Amps is quite enough for a good trickle charge rate. Got it from Demon Tweeks just before they put their prices up! A lot of Ebay sellers still seem to have the old price. It comes with a connector with eyelets as well as one with clamps and I attached this to the battery terminals with a couple of M6 nuts.

It's probably just the cable spec they have in the parts bins! I was amused to note that the negative lead from the battery to the body, on this negative earth car, is clearly stamped with a + sign. The same lead they've used since the days of positive chassis cars...

Yes, I noticed. But unless they've changed the specs on newer ones ( mine was one of the first), the height of the Yuasa is wrong. I checked mine against that Panny spec, and it's definitely only 202mm. And on top of it is the little tray with the tyre pump etc. snugly fitting up to the top of the side compartment. It would appear at present you can only get it from Lexus, and I dread to think what their price would be! Hence why I decided to go for the Ctek charger...

That's what I thought too. Until I noticed, when checking the battery that it has the usual very thick 300 amp or so lead from the battery! They do seem to involve the battery in some high current starter like process, it looks bigger than would be needed for max 70 or 80 amps or so..

That's not the right one, the terminals appear to be the wrong way round, though the data sheet diagram has them the right way. This is the only reference I've found on the internet, from Panasonic Hongkong, which has the correct reference numbers and, most importantly is the right dimensions. Because of the battery carrier design, wrong height batteries won't fit:. That Yuasa is 227mm, while the Panny is 202mm. http://www.panasonic.hk/english/products/living/car-battery/caos-hybrid-maintenance-free-car-battery-(jis-for-hybrid-vehicle)/n-s46b24lr-hv-(49ah).aspx My own battery, on my IS300H which is used only intermittently, failed after 12 months from new and was replaced under warranty. At the time I bought one of those RAC portable batteries just in case. Yes, the car was covered by the Lexus assistance, but it's still a damn nuisance waiting for the AA man to come. The second one, now 2years old, started showing low volts symptoms this autumn in the first cold spell. Again the volts had dropped. This time I bought one of those CTEC intelligent chargers and the first time I put it on, it spent some time on its first 'desulphation' stage. After that it was OK and now zips through the first part of the programme. The battery seems to be much better and is holding its volts at 12.5/12.7 or so, even after a few days of non use in the cold. Having said that, I now leave the CTEC plugged in most of the time!

Since the weather has improved a little, I had a look in the boot a few minutes ago and found the battery tucked away in the left rear wing panel. Connections seem to be adequately tight, but of course one could get a bit more on the terminal clamps. But then one always can with pressed steel clamps. More intriguing were the two items sealed in yellow polythene in the tray above the battery. One appears to be get you home tyre foam. Curiously, this had water droplets on top of the polythene cover. Whether this means the car has a leak somewhere in that area I'm not sure. I couldn't see any associated corrosion in the vicinity of the battery.

When the weather gets a little more bearable, or I've got used to the vile British climate again, I will check the connections in the boot.. the key could do with a redesign really, so it has a fold out handle or something similar. Meanwhile, I will carry a mole wrench... Or does it have a tool kit with a pair of pliers like the GS had? I've never looked.

Thank you Colin, you're right. With a mole wrench on the end of the key, and seemingly in danger of breaking the key off in the lock, it's opened the lock so now I can attach the jumper battery... Edit: In fact the torque needed to turn the key until it clicked was such that the key did bend a little and needed a little unbending to get it to fit back in the fob!

I was away for about 3 weeks over Christmas and when I returned, I found the IS300H would not start. I had to call Lexus assistance who got the car going with the aid of one of those battery packs. They told me to run it for at least 30mins before stopping the engine. I stupidly ignored that advice and only ran it for about 15mins. Sure enough, it wouldn't start when I stopped it for about an hour, and I had to call roadside assistance again. I've just been away for 2 weeks until today, and yet again the car will not go. Even worse, this time there is insufficient power in the battery to allow the locks to operate. After my initial experience, I bought one of those RAC battery packs so I would have a solution if the problem recurred. Simple, just open the bonnet attach the pack and I would be away. Except the remote would not operate the door locks. No problem, detach the little mechanical key from the fob and open the car with that. But, neither of the keys within the 2 fobs will operate the mechanical lock. Clearly there is no point in calling Lexus Assistance since that service is simply rebadged AA recovery and they won't have some master key. So I'm stuck at home and will be calling my Lexus dealer tomorrow to try to get something sorted. This is my third new Lexus, but I'm now beginning to go off the marque....

I've not bothered getting mine updated so far. But I've been noting the overall sluggishness of the system as a whole compared to my old GS. Slow switching to the parking screen etc. I have reluctantly decided that the real problem Lexus have is that the processor that drives the screen, and presumably other parts of the system simply hasn't got the power to do its job properly and all the issues we see stem from this. Without changing out the hardware the issues will be impossible to solve...

Ah, he's a Real User, you see and not a motoring journalist!. It does go and handle very well. And I looked at its sharpish lines yesterday and thought, a couple of years and they'll all be copying it, just like Jaguar admitted they copied the GS.

My responses from Lexus have come as a result of my submission to them using the web site form I mentioned previously. This is my 3rd Lexus and I have every confidence they will fix the issues, though it's surprising that the firmware is immature at present. I suspect marketing people won out over the engineers. It's amusing to see Audi having to place tv ads for a car that isn't available until October next year to compete with the IS300h...And then there's the joke electric BMW...

The service menu entry does work on uk cars, but the menus are different from the US A and some items require the Lexus diagnostics device to be plugged in, quite sensibly!

Lexus have contacted me and told me that an update will be available in the UK in 2 to 3 weeks time.

   As far as I'm aware, these are the same systems as fitted to my previous GS and are internal tyre sensors fitted in the valve assembly. they don't depend on tyre diameter. As I mentioned in a previous post, my warning light came on at about 60miles and needed a reset. The tyes were all set to 34psi like yours. I haven't checked if Lexus increased them over this when they reset the system. I don't know whether the tyres are still originally filled with nitrogen as they were on the GS. It's supposed to vary the pressure less with temperature. I never had to touch the GS tyres in 5 years from new. The only thing I did do, and have done on the IS300h, is replace the alloy valve tops with plastic ones. The originals look the same as the GS, with very thin threaded stems, and GSs used to have issues with the caps seizing on to the stems because of salt corrosion. Attempts to remove the cap apparently failed and a new sensor was needed. Regular use of vaseline would work I suppose. Or you can do what I did, leave them in a drawer and use plastic ones, and then put the original shiny new alloy caps back on when you exchange it!

 

   The kind of bug that the systems currently demonstrate are not those of corrupted firmware (and I do have a lot of professional experience in this area). To take an example, the problem I mentioned above about the parking assist.screen set up: The menu system in general uses a style where there are boxes on the left of the screen to select an item. When highlighted, the joystick button switches the option on and off, and the legend on the right hand side changes to show this. But, on the 'Screen' setting of the parking assist screen, things do not work like this. There is an item for the screen, but it cannot be highlighted. On the right hand side of the screen, the legend reads 'DISPLAY OFF'. And, completely inconsistently with the rest of the system, that item CAN be highlighted!. Toggling the joystick button does NOT change the right hand side to read 'DISPLAY ON'. Instead it lights up a small green marker in the top corner of the 'DISPLAY OFF' legend. But the legend STILL reads 'DISPLAY OFF' even though it's been set to on!. Now you cannot deny that that is a mess, and sadly indicates that the current firmware is a rapidly cobbled together version, presumably because they are running behind with their development programme. One hopes they have an emergency team working on it.

   Exactly. And of course this is a Lexus, not a mere BMW, Audi or Merc. It's just not the sort of issue we expect.

I've been out in it again this morning, and discovered that the screen has once again ceased switching to display the parking sensors. I've tried switching the sensors on and off with the dash switch, going in to the 'park assist' section of the setup and toggling the silly little green flash on the 'screen off' setting, and cannot get them back. It saddens me to say it about a Lexus, but the current menu system is an amateurish mess, and they need to do something about it urgently. I've just filled in the complaints form on the Lexus web site... They seem to have spent far too long making pretty 3d animations of the hybrid system and failed to get the functional basics right.

   Yes, they had it for a couple of hours and resolved the immediate problem which was that the tyre pressure warning indicator had come on even though pressures were OK. They pointed me at a small recalibrate button if it happens again, it's apparently under the dash adjacent to the diagnostics socket. I gave them a list of the system glitches and bugs, and they are aware of some of them already, including the car competely resetting itself once while stationary at traffic lights. But there appears to be no update yet as far as I can tell.

   The hybrid IS isn't available in the US so far. The car is aimed there at the 'yoof' market and any greeenie yoofs would probably buy a Prius! Having said that, the firmware must be modular so I would think some updates will be global.

I have had two or three odd glitches on my car too. I've reported this to the Lexus centre and it will be going in next week to be checked.