austin brown

hi all, I am the orig poster here. thought I would give an update. well after many many months of frustration, about 7 trips to the local lexus dealer, many weeks without a car, etc, etc... the service technicians decided to put a new OEM 12V battery in the car. This is after we had used several different off the shelf store bought batteries, which kept draining and dying as described above. And I am happy to say that after more than 1yr now, the problem has not recurred and its been all but forgotten. So the lesson learned here, is that perhaps one should spend the extra 30£ to buy an OEM battery rather than a cheaper one from a local car shop. thanks to everyone for your replies and views. safe driving.

yes, have tried 2 other generic garages and they said take it to a dedicated Lexus shop. We have not tried other lexus garages, as I would assume they all work on the same service protocols. thanks for the suggestion. sorry for my continued complaining... i cant believe that in the millions of RXs sold ours is the only one to see this sort of problem.

i can only speak to my personal experience that we are going through right now. 45k mile 2006 RX400h. battery is dead nearly everyday, 4th new battery in 6 months. major electrical fault somewhere along the way leading to overnight drain. lexus service has had the car for 8 weeks and cannot make diagnosis. only suggestion is to disconnect battery EVERY TIME WE USE THE CAR. which is obviously unacceptable. so the battery issue is a major major problem. if that doesnt turn you off... i can give you a great deal on a 2006 Rx 400h...

Hi all, to give you an update on this... no resolution. Lexus service has now had the car on and off for 8 weeks! the battery is intermittently dead every 2 or 3 days, and we are now on the 4th battery in 6 months. the lexus mechanics have never seen this problem in 20 years. they cannot find what is causing the drain, yet can record that it is happening. they tested it every day for 3 weeks. This is not some joe-blow auto shop, its the proper lexus dealer. Even the guys from Japan dont know what is wrong. the car was fine for 2 weeks (they didnt know why it suddenly went away) (jan 1-14), and the battery dying problem has now come back again. something is very wrong. the car has no accident or flood history and has been fully maintained. This is costing me a fortune... £130/hr work, and insurance wont cover it, AA warranty covers only 40£, its basically a chunk of steel. So i am out £20,000 on a car that wont drive, they cant find what's wrong, it cant be fixed, I cant sell, and cant scrap, and insurance wont cover. its basically scrap. PLEASE BE WARY OF THIS> the RX400H has major battery problems we all know about... but mine is an example that it can get MUCH WORSE. The car is totally useless. If you buy an RX 400 you risk losing every penny you have spent on it, with zero residual value. any other suggestions or advice before i sell for scrap? thanks,

thanks. So does it sound to you that its a short circuit somewhere that is leading to a slow battery discharge overnight? I have heard that the Sat Nav or instrument panel has had this problem a few times. thus far we have established its not the battery, dome lights, or alternator... so must be some fault elsewhere. thanks again.

Hi all, First post here. I have a 2006 rx400h purchased with 30k miles 18 months ago. We drive the car a few times a week and regularly on weekends. The 12V SLI battery was dead 6 months ago, I figured it was 5yrs old and time for a new one, so i replaced it, this worked for 6 months. One month ago the battery was again dead. I Had the car jump started and drove it for a day, the next day it was dead again... bought a trickle charger, took battery out and charged it in our house overnight, it then worked for a day.. and then was dead again. I took the battery (6 months old) into Kwik fit, they gave a free replacement. 3 days later the new battery is dead as well, repeat cycle of jumpstart, drive, trickle charge, etc... dead each morning. Took car under AA 5-star warranty to a local garage, they looked for 4 days, alternator fine, battery fine, they cant find a problem. Have now booked to take it to a lexus for them to look (of course its dead so will need to jump it to get it there). and now its not covered under warranty. A quick search shows a history of these electronics problems with some ghost draining the battery overnight... but why all of a sudden after 5 years of no problems and a new 12V battery? I cant believe that a 'luxury' can needs to be trickle charged with a solar charger each night... never seen a range rover or an X5 with this problem any help or advice would be appreciated. I'm getting tired of spending my nights unhooking the battery to bring it in for charge, then the mornings putting it back in so my wife can take the kids to school (parked on public street). HELP!!!! Austin