Hi all,
Just wanted to post a quick review regarding Hybrid battery conditioning. I think it was off this site I learned of Hybrid Battery Solutions based in Northampton who I contacted after getting a diagnostic from Lexus.
The car lost it's initial surge of power from the battery and would always move off using petrol engine only. Battery indicator would drop to purple very quickly. MPG dropped from about 29/30 to 23-25mpg. I had a CHECK HYBRID SYSTEM message, but it was solid - not flashing check VSC etc as others have described. Lexus ran two separate diagnostics and said it was a smart battery ECU which needed replacing at a cost of £1250 + vat. They gave me a print out of the error code and when researching online it was more common that it was 'Battery pack seriously deteriorated'. I couldn't find much literature regarding the smart battery ECU other than a workbook note suggesting that this is replaced first then if this doesn't work, the battery pack should be replaced. Not knocking Lexus at all but I wasn't overly convinced or filled with confidence. My car is probably only worth £3000-4000 (ambitious?!) and has 150k miles so didn't want to pay for this smart battery unit and then a battery if it didn't work!
Using my logic I thought it was more likely than not to be the battery - after all, all batteries do degrade and this seemed to be much much more common when looking online. I contacted Richard at Hybrid Battery Solutions in Northampton who gave some advice and we had a chat about hybrids generally - in fact, we didn't even discuss him 'selling' me his service until I asked (always a good sign I think!).
Anyway, cutting to the chase I drove from Teesside to Northampton and averaged 26.2mpg. Left it with Richard for the week and I was astonished when I got it back. It felt like it had been remapped - it was better than before (probably cause I never had from brand new myself).
On the same journey back (about 190 miles) I averaged 38mpg. Even after almost a week of short journeys, spirited driving (and traffic light drag racing again ) I am still on 33.4.
I am almost gutted that I didn't go for the grid charger (which I think uses some kind of witchcraft to keep the battery cells in their best possible condition) but I might well need a bigger boot to fit a pushchair later on in the year so the car might go although with hindsight, this would have been a good selling point when selling the car. He can do this separate from conditioning I believe or both at same time.
It has given me confidence to go and buy another higher mileage hybrid. There is a solution which is significantly cheaper than Lexus and urge others who were in my situation to have a look at this.
Hopefully this isn't breaking any forum rules - it's just my experience of this company and that others find it informative.