HASSELBLAD

Mike, be assured there is NO problem at all towing with the RX400h . Anyone who tells you differently has never driven such a rig! My Post above was absolutely true. I now have an RX 450h and it continues the Lexus tradition of quality, refinement and utter reliability. We have, thank God, just got rid of our Range Rover.......... three years of awful reliability and appalling mpg! Never again!

I bought my 450h from another dealership.....but Guildford has been excellent I also bought my IS250C from yet another dealership....and Guildford has been great. Colin Searle runs an honest outfit there and the General Manager, Wendy Preston, sets a first class example to the whole company.

I was quoted in excess of £1300 Do not go for a cheap alternative........there isn't one that does the job properly. The wiring is real problem with cables going right back to the computer in the front end. If you have a Lexus warranty, get a written statement that a non Lexus bar is covered.....I couldn't. Also, if you have air suspension, only one bar fits from third parties and that worked out to be nearly as expensive as the official Lexus one. If you do go for a Lexus fit, Guildford are excellent and have done this fit before...so they know what the problems are. Remember, when you sell the car, a bar will be a real negative on a luxury car and whatever you pay for it goes when the car goes. I calculated that a dedicated but older tow car would be a better bet and it gave the advantage of a second car. It is a problem area but Colin Searle will tell you the truth.

That sounds good, Mike. We got stuck in a serious accident last week. Stationary, crawling along, queuing for nearly an hour and yet over the 70 mile trip we averaged 37mpg. Don't know how to help on the ride question......I always set my pressures well down to book minimum and on air suspension find the ride is very acceptable and far better than an X5 we had. Maybe you should reduce them a bit each week until you are happy and then check mpg whilst keeping a monitor on tyre edge wear? On my 400h I didn't find that one or two psi affected mpg or wear at all. You might find that rear pressures are the more dominant factor.

It's all in the wheels and Tyres. Check for the lowest recommended pressures and set to no more than that. Always better on smallest wheels and highest sidewalls.

Hi Mike, good to hear that you are enjoying your new RX450h.A truly excellent choice, in my opinion. If you are exploring the mpg potential, perhaps a quick read of my posting 'Lies, damned lies.....' to another member (who used to live in Haselmere) will help in someway to get the best out of this beast. I would guess, however, that after five years with a 400h that you are more than capable already. Ours continues to be a dream! Absolutely no problems of any nature and is now going like a bat out of hell! Mind you, we don't get 55mpg when clogging it! I was going to have a Lexus towing system fitted to this new car (we had one on the 400h) but the price is prohibitive and the towbar vanishes with the car when we sell it! So, we bought a low mileage Honda CRV already fitted with a bar. Good little 4X4 but the difference when compared to the 450h is remarkable. We only get 30 mpg running solo and sub 20 pulling our trailer. The lack of performance is most marked and the refinement totally incomparable. And it is a much smaller car altogether. Mind you, compared with the Freelander that comes visiting us every week, it is a real dream! Our 'new' Range Rover is still a pig, with awful reliability, shocking mpg and frankly a bit of a waste of time. It will be going soon! I also bought a 'new' IS250C from Lexus and am surprised with that too. Very refined and in spite of running on low profile tyres it is realy very smooth and tranquil. Without a shadow of a doubt, it rides far better than my Bentley Continentals ever did and makes my son's new Aston feel as harsh as an old cart! However, there is no way that it can match the 450h for mpg. I don't think that Sussex breeds good reliability or mpg! We took the car to the Lake District for a week and its mpg up and down much bigger hills than we have in the South Downs Park, was astonishing. On the Motoway trip going up there, we only did 31mpg but once there, the average was 42mpg. Admittedly it was leisrely motoring but it all adds up. How is your insurance? I have a deal for a Multicar policy with Aviva and for the 450h, the Honda 4x4 and the IS250C I am paying just over £500. Given that the two Lexii (the Japanese insist that is the plural!) are very high group rated, that doesn't seem too bad. Keep enjoying that hybrid.

Well, I have mine now. A genuine Lexus supplied wheel and tyre fully fitted into the well and covered with a polished aluminium fully customised boot floor plate (even has an IS250C logo ) and the whole lot overlaid with a quality fitted carpet, made to my own template. Really does look the part and true Lexus quality.

WELL,I DID and I DID!

Well, I hope I am not raising false hopes BUT exactly the same fault arose on my 2008 RX400h. Took it to Lexus Guildford who recognised the condition-----NOT as a Hybrid fault------but simply a standard 12 volt battery intermittency. Lexus had already issued a 'new' bigger capacity battery and that is what was fitted. Free of any charge. We kept the car for another three years and it never occured again! Over to you?

Hi Richard, You make some important comments and your reference to other makes of vehicle are very useful. I cannot get my 450 down to 24mpg and my 400 did better than that with a 1.5 ton trailer on. Nevertheless, I can imagine conditions ,as you describe, where such low figures do arise. I find comparisons very valid and the poor figures you mention for other 4X4s, so be it smaller and lighter, are a great guide. We have a new petrol Range Rover and it is into single figures during cold weather and on short stop start runs! Our almost new diesel Defender is better but not by that much! Our diesel Discoveries were disastrous and at motorway speeds real guzzlers. There is no doubt that a well driven hybrid is considerably better than a SIMILAR vehicle. I note that Mercedes has now followed Toyota/Lexus with a hybrid 300 car and estate. Sorry you are having some sort of difficulty with your local franchise. You are too far away to use Lexus Guildford but they are truly superb. Colin Searle is THE man and he doesn't give you any bull! Just first class service and straight from the shoulder advice. He is delightfull. Enjoy your motoring

Hi, To find a bit of help, do the following. 1. Go to the Home page for the RX300/RX400h/RX450h Forum. 2. Scroll to the bottom of page 1 and find page 5 (I think it is on page 5). 3. Go to the Heading....'Lies, damned lies etc' submitted by Allister. 4. Go to page two of the Replies and scroll to the first HASSELBLAD reply. 5. Read on from there to the end. That is about the RX450h but nearly all of it applies to the 400h too. My 400h was excellent and my 450h even better. With coarse, slow diesels I used to get 26mpg and with our much nicer Range Rover petrol we get 17mpg. The notes referred to are not exhaustive but hopefully they will help a little in showing how a hybrid genuinely can give very impressive mpg.

Hi, no it's not a myth at all. I can get anything between 28 and 55 mpg average on the same run of around 100 miles.I have a running average of 34mpg for cross country use over the last four months. Given that the car is in excllent condition and that the tyre pressures are correct, then it is all down to driving methods. The 450h does have a TOTALLY different engine to the 400h ( it is an Atkinson cycle engine as opposed to an Otto cycle unit) but we found that it was only 1/2 mpg better in most conditions. Having said that, I never got such very high mpg figures on long cross country runs as the 450h returns. Over the same terrain, our Range Rover does 17mpg and is not as quick. It also makes far too many trips to the dealership for repair work! Our 400h went 5 years without a single problem and the new 450h seems to be going the same way.

That is simply appalling and something is very wrong. I sold my 2008 RX400h last October and it had NEVER averaged under 31mpg in 5 years of ownership. On non Motorway 100 mile trips, it readily reached 39mpg and if I put my mind to it and used the hybrid system to best effect, 42 mpg was always there for the taking. I used to get 26mpg dragging a one ton Ifor williams trailer! Take it straight back to the seller=======lots of things could be wrong and maybe your hybrid energy retrieval system is just not functioning. If you need help ( and it sure sounds like you do) go to Lexus at Guildford and ask for Colin Searle. He's a man who knows what he's talking about. Assuming that you already know how to get the best out of a Hybrid, check engine condition,tyres, brakes, handbrake, exhaust recirculation system etc, as for any car. Check how far the car will run just on its fully charged high voltage battery. Watch the display to ensure the traction battery is being charged up and that the SAME level of charge is there the next morning. I assure you, far better consumption is achievable. Good luck and take a peep at my earlier exchanges(late 2012) on the RX450h.They might help. My one year old RX450h is averaging a genuine 32mpg at the moment and has logged (still on the display) a best 120 mile trip of 55.1mpg.