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Regarding my original Contact (#38). The battery drain has now been solved and fixed. Armed with the information that the drain was in the circuit with a fuse of 'DC CUT' Lexus Milton Keynes were charged with finding the fault in no more that 2 hours. This they did and found a non-factory fitted box and wiring! At first it was thought to be an 'ELECTRONIC TRACKER' Fitted by the previous owner. However, this was far from the truth. It was an item manufactured by a company called Impact Secure and is usually used on lorries. Via radio the control box can disable the car, start the alarm, lock/unlock the doors and to the boot etc. The driver can have his own transmitter, or it can be done remotely!. To remove this item and all it's associated wiring took all day! Bless them Lexus MK only charged us the 2 hours. (How's that for Customer Service!). There were several fuses, two Ariel's, plugs and a whole heap of wiring. (See attachment enclosed). The drain has dropped from 1.5amps to about 0.29amps. Over Christmas, the car wasn't run for 8 days. When tried it fired up immediately. This problem has been with us for 51/2 years, so I suggest that if you bought your car second hand and you have a similar drain on that circuit, don't rule out the possibility of a non-Lexus addition. Regards Bil Levinson

Thanks for that. ... Makes sense but I am not satisfied that a car with a perfectly good battery should become unreliable after less than 2 months without having to charge the battery in some way. I often leave the country for weeks and when returning I expect the car to start if its been garaged indoors, at the airport, or with some car parking company and I wouldn't expect to have it started, I am surprised that members seem to accept this is 'normal'. It never was in the past and having security systems modern electronics etc it matters not the battery should be able to cope if it meets its spec. With that in mind I contacted Lexus. At first I had some response from a woman who admitted she wasn't technical but suggested my battery was at fault and I should take the car to a Lexus dealer. I wasn't happy with that and informed them that the battery was fine I have done charge tests and drain tests etc My battery is clean ( terminals and the casing) and I had heard from the lexus club web site that a number of people have this issue and in some cases have changed the battery for anew one to no avail. I also mentioned that if a car cant be left for about two months its not reliable and I believe this issue has been identified on the 430SC because so many of us use it infrequently.. I have just had an e-mail telling me the complaint has now gone to Lexus head office for customer service so I am hoping for something sensible back. They should at least know why we have to trickle charge a good battery after a few weeks. Bad design or whatever. This was a £60000 car from a company that built a rep on reliability and quality. Plugging in little solar panels whenever you go on holiday and hoping it will start when you get back is not acceptable. My car was only 6 years old when I first realised what was happening and had only done 50000 miles. Saying all that I haven't had the problem since last May when I was out the far east for 3 weeks it seems fine but I have used it at least once a week since. I want to know from Lexus why? They must know.... Hi, My wife has had trouble with her SC430 and Lexus has now replaced the battery twice!! I am a retired Radio/Computer engineer and have now checked the current drain across the battery with ignition off and all doors closed. The drain was just over 1.5AMPS!!!This means that after 10 hours the current drain is 15AMPS and after 100hours 4 days, the battery will be flat. I removed the fuses 1 at a time and found only two which made much difference. The Radio 1 fuse was about 0.4AMP and the D/C Cut was 1.0AMP. What I need now is a sevice sheet for the electrics to further troubleshhot our problem. Incidentally, we akso have an 400h which has a current drain of only 0.4. Both our Lexus cars are due for a service on October 23rd, and I will be armed with a spanner and current multimeter to discuss this issue with one of the Technicians. I think that nominally, the drain is about 0.5AMP If I get any joy, I will post it later Bil